Uniworld Venice & Gems of Northern Italy

[Deval]

Totally psyched! Crossed the pond last night, spent the day/night in Milan, and train in the morning to Venice for what will be a fantastic week on the canal and surrounding areas. Looking forward to our first trip with Uniworld. https://www.uniworld.com/eu/river-cruise/europe/italy/venice-and-the-gems-of-northern-italy/2018-venice-to-venice/

 

 

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[Ritabob]

Hopefully you will be able to keep us posted along the way.:)

RB

[Deval]

Left Miami and flew into Milan yesterday. Spent the day touring the city, we walked 8 miles! The highlight was seeing the Last Supper. Grabbing breakfast now and taking 11:30 train to Venice to board the ship. Will try to post thru the week.

 

 

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[awatt]

We did the Venice cruise two years ago. You will love it. Venice is magic and Uniworld was fabulous!

[eyeu]

taking this trip next month..! cant wait to read/see your posts...

Rick

[acwmom]

Have a great cruise! This was our first "river cruise" even though the Po was too low to sail. Uniworld made the trip sail on, getting us to all of our stops, and doing some bonus cruising in the Venetian lagoon

 

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[Deval]

Despite a “sauna” train ride from Milan (AC was barely working) we made it to Venice on time. A quick private shuttle to San Basilico and we were warmly welcomed onboard. After several spritz’s and the compulsory onboard drill, we had a great welcome dinner. Got to meet a number of guests which total less than 100 for this sailing. After dinner we aimlessly walked around the city and stumbled upon the Sinatra Centurion Palace hotel and had a great bottle of red while sitting overlooking the canal. An unbelievably perfect way to cap off the night. We have an early start of 8:30am for Dodge’s Palace and city walking tour. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. Ciao Bella!

 

 

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[gone2c]

Despite a “sauna” train ride from Milan (AC was barely working) we made it to Venice on time. A quick private shuttle to San Basilico and we were warmly welcomed onboard. After several spritz’s and the compulsory onboard drill, we had a great welcome dinner. Got to meet a number of guests which total less than 100 for this sailing. After dinner we aimlessly walked around the city and stumbled upon the Sinatra Centurion Palace hotel and had a great bottle of red while sitting overlooking the canal. An unbelievably perfect way to cap off the night. We have an early start of 8:30am for Dodge’s Palace and city walking tour. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. Ciao Bella!

 

 

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Doing the 9/14 Milan to Venice sailing. Really looking forward to reading about your trip.

[Deval]

It was a long hot day yesterday but we packed a lot in. The ship repositioned closer to St Marks Square (still about 3/4 miles away) where our guides met us at 8:30am and we made the walk to Doges Palace. Made it there by 9 and beat the crowds in. Susan was our guide for the day and she was absolutely fantastic. Uniworld, you did good finding her! She was so informative sharing details of all the rooms we visited, crossing the Bridge of Sighs, and into the jail sections of the building. We took a (hot) leisurely walk thru the backstreets back to the ship for lunch.

 

After lunch the ship took a 2 hour cruise around Venice, there was a guide on the to deck giving commentary and speaking to the sights we were seeing. Be sure to have your Vox headphones with you.

 

Then there was an early (buffet) dinner at 5:15 as we had to leave at 6:45 for the private after hours St Marks visit. We made it to dinner at 5:45 which was still plenty of time to eat. Who was even hungry than after just having lunch a few hours before??

 

There were private water taxis that transported us to St Marks Square where we again met Susan for our private behind the scenes tour. She didn’t disappoint! Another fantastic explanation of what we were seeing. We got to go behind the alter (where you WILL NOT be disappointed with what you see - I won’t spoil it) and down below the alter to see the crypt where St Mark’s remains were originally buried.

 

After we left the church we walked the area around the Square and made it over to Rialto Bridge. As usual LOTS of people milling around there. We grabbed a few glasses of wine and hung around the canal there before making our way back to the ship around 10.

 

All in all a great day. I’ll post more later about our day in Chioggia today. Time to get ready for a cocktail hour we’re invited to before dinner.

 

 

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[Deval]

After a 2 hour cruise yesterday we arrived in Chioggia. We chose to bike ride around the city and ended at the beach. Italy is in the middle of a heatwave and we felt every bit of the sun. A nice ride through the center of town, around the lagoon, and circled around to the beach. We had about 25 mins and a few people with their kids went in the water but we chose to cool down with some gelato. It was a 5 min bike ride to the marina and restaurant where we met up for lunch with the group that went mussel harvesting. It was anything but for them, they weren’t too happy. It was a boat ride to the area where they get the mussels but that was it. The only mussels they had were the ones served for lunch (which were very good).

 

Last night was the Captain’s welcome dinner which was very good. We went to the lounge afterwards for music and dancing. Mihail is the piano player and we had him playing music from rock to disco to salsa! Around 11:30pm one of the officers went over and spoke with him, and the next songs went way slower & quieter! I guess there was too much noise for cabin below and that was it for the night. The next day is Bologna and pasta making.

 

 

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[eyeu]

I think the third option was the tour of Padua...how did that excursion fare? Love your daily briefings...thanks...

[jpalbny]

Deval, I'm enjoying your posts and your voyage. Thanks for the updates! We'd like to revisit this area some day.

 

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[MareT]

So enjoying your posts Deval. This is one of the itineraries we were looking at for next year. Enjoy the rest of your voyage and thanks for sharing!!

[need2travel1]

Hi Deval,

 

We did this trip last July & it was awesome. Enjoying your review, thanks for bringing back some great memories for us!!

[Deval]

I’m back! We chose the full day in Bologna vs. a half day in Ferrara. We were in Bologna before (3 nights) but wanted to experience the pasta making. Wow it was a hot day, it got up to 98 but with the covered porticos we mostly walked in the shade. Another good tour guide with a short walking tour of the main areas, the food market, the leaning tower, and over to the university.

 

There was free time to walk around on our own (we found the building where we stayed) and then met up for lunch at a restaurant. It was quite large and easily accommodated the 40+ of us. There was a demonstration of pasta making and whoever wanted to try making the different pastas was able to. We then were seated at tables where we were served mortadella and a few types of salami, then tagliatelle bolognese and ravioli. Dessert was tiramisu and espresso or cappuccino if you wanted. Wine freely flowed during lunch.

 

It was an hour back to the ship and since we were so full from lunch we chose to have a salad and pizza on deck in the Osteria Siena. What a great option! Giuliano made some me pretty good pies, he will customize them to your wishes. We wanted a simple margarita, and he went to the kitchen and came back with a huge bunch of basil which we wanted.

 

The evenings entertainment was Maria Del Rovere in the Castillo Lounge. What a fantastic performer she is, she had just about EVERYONE on the dance floor the entire performance. She played a variety of genres and was awarded a standing ovation when she finished. If you go I only hope you get to experience her talent.

 

The next day is Thursday and we returned to Chioggia where it was market day. It was raining lightly but we didn’t mind walking around and getting a bit wet, it was a nice reprieve from the sun and heat. We walked backed to the ship and we set sail at 2 back to Venice. Another good meal in the dining room after which there was a movie under the stars on the sun deck - The Tourist. We instead chose to walk around town and live like a local for a few hours.

 

The next day Friday was The Magic Islands of Venice - Torcello, Mazzorbo, and Burano. They were much smaller and more intimate than Murano (Torcello only has 14 residents), we really enjoyed our the me there. The boat stopped at Murano on the way back to drop off anyone who wanted to get off and visit and make their way back to the ship on their own. We did and spent an hour or so walking around, watched a glass blowing demo, and bought a few pieces. It was easy getting a ticket on the 4.1 water bus back to the ship.

 

We had a late big lunch on Burano so chose to eat pizzas again on deck in the Osteria. After dinner Damiano the program director took a bunch of us into town to experience Friday night at one of the clubs. I thought music and dancing but the club was just a small bar with a few small tables and TV’s and music on the speakers. Prices were really reasonable for drinks and we had a few rounds. The highlight of the night was a pop-up Silent Party in the piazza. There were about 150+ people who for 10 Euros each got a set of headphones to wear. There were 3 DJ’s spinning music and there were 3 channels on the headset - blue, green, red. You’d see the different colors on everyone and all of a sudden all will switch to 1 color and everyone was dancing around and singing out loud. We stayed til midnight and made our way back to the ship. We had a blast and slept great from all the jumping around we did!

 

Saturday was our last day. We chose to do the Palazzo Fondaco dei Tedeschi tour. It was built in the early 1500’s but is now an enclosed high end shopping mall. The highlight was the rooftop deck where we got some incredible views of the city. Afterwards instead of taking the Uniworld private water taxi back to the ship we instead chose to explore the city on our own. We made our way over to explore the Jewish Ghetto where we had a light lunch. We took the 5.1 water bus back and it dropped us right next to the ship.

 

We had an outstanding farewell dinner. Some others wanted to go into the city after dinner Damiano took us out again. It was quiet for a Saturday night, we had a few drinks at a few places and returned to the ship about 11:30. We finally got to sleep around 1, we stayed up chatting and saying goodbyes to some great people we met during the week. The morning came early, we had to get up at 4:45am to finish packing and be ready for our 5:30am transfer to the airport for our 8am flight. Needless to say we were exhausted and slept about 3 hrs on our way back to Miami.

 

All in all we had a really great time. 5 days were spent in Venice which gave us plenty of time to immerse ourselves into the Venetian culture. We got to experience it as a local with the amount of time we had there. Damiano told us the water was too low for this weeks cruise and they wouldn’t be able to cruise up the river. It makes for longer bus rides to the city visits, so we felt fortunate we had enough water to make the trip last week.

 

 

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[eyeu]

thank you for such a great review...cant wait until next month when we take our trip.