A canal and a gondola
See more photos of our time in Venice on Flickr!
Wednesday, June 18: This is freakin surreal! Finally we’ve made it to Venice, going into our third day of travel with very little sleep, and worried all along if we’d get here with a boat still waiting for us. Throughout our in-route ordeal, I made several calls to Oceania’s emergency hotline to update them on our whereabouts and ETA. Even though they tried to be reassuring and said not to worry, it was little consolation. It’s funny though. The port authority security agent already knew our names before we gave him our passports, so I’ve got to give the cruise line kudos for watching out for us. However, I can’t say the same for Continental Airlines. Our bags did not arrive at the Marco Polo airport, there is no tracking information available yet, and now there is another airline, KLM, involved. I suppose we should be happy to have made it to Venice.
Yes, it’s a relief to be here, yet a disappointment that we’ve missed a whole day of experience especially considering how incredibly gorgeous it is here. I swear I feel like I have been transported into a postcard or a movie. Arriving to the ship roughly around 1:00 pm gave us enough time to run around for just a few hours before departing for Croatia at 5:00.
The Insignia is very nice, very casual-elegant. It’s kind of like a scaled-down version of the Queen Mary, especially when you factor in the more “mature” clientele. I like its quaintness and boutique size, less than 500 total passengers. In other words, this is not your mega-sized Royal Caribbean or Carnival Cruise Line floating frat party cruise.
The Insignia, docked at San Basilio
We have a lovely suite on Deck 7 with a terrace that faces off the rear of the ship. There is even a personal butler assigned to us, a young Russian guy named Pavel. He is tall and thin with dirty blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and a bit of an austere, stiff demeanor. When I answered his first knock at the door, I was a little frightened (but not too much), as he immediately reminded me of like, a young “Lurch” from the Addam’s Family. I wanted him to say, “You raaaaang?” Eventually, he did crack a smile and began assisting us with settling in to our suite in the most cordial way possible. We like Pavel.
Pavel the butler
My feet are swollen, blistered, and probably sprained and permanently deformed from the 4 inch wedges they have molted into these past 3 days. The first order of business while in Venice was finding a shoe store to get some FLAT, airy sandals. And I didn’t even care if they were ugly. Oh yea, but not before stopping at one of the many cafes lining the sidewalks. We were starving, and so anxious to get our first tastes of authentic Italian food.
The cafe, not far from San Basilio where the ship was docked, wasn’t just great for its food. It symbolized our very first moments of true relaxation. It was situated right out on the wide and busy Canale Della Giudecca, a main passage for all boat and ship traffic. The views were picturesque, the weather was in the perfect mid to upper 70’s range. Not too hot, not too cool. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and the gentle breeze was soothing and caressing to our exhausted, aching bodies.
Lots of tourists made their way up and down the sidewalks, cameras clicking and heads rolling all around among their shoulders as they gazed at lovely old Venetian architecture. Watching the boats and ships going down the canal was like watching an aquatic version of a freeway – everything passing by from row boats and gondolas to huge Greek ferries and cruise ships. There was a buzzing water taxi station just next door that shuttled commuters like a busy bus stop in a major metropolis. But despite all the action, it was actually quiet quiet and peaceful, as if the water surrounding this charming little city absorbed any otherwise stressfully offensive noise pollution and recycled it into a unique, relaxing ambiance. My husband and I sat in silence for some time, probably in part conscious meditation and part exhaustion. We spoke only to order from the waiter, and to point out periodic observations.
Watching a Greek ferry pass by in the Canale Della Giudecca
I was very happy to get a real, Italian meal after 2 and half days of shifty airline and airport provisions and scavenging snacks with any hint of nutritional value. I had one bite of a “breakfast” aboard the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Venice this morning and immediately spit it into my napkin. The funkified aftertaste still lingers somewhere around my palette. I was too tired to be picky, and when I looked at the menu it may have well been a three Michelin star rated venue. I could barely conjure up energy to be impressed with the heading of one menu page, “Crudite – Raw Menu”. I smiled and read down the page, not being surprised that it had nothing to do with the American raw food diet, and, to be expected, it was a collection of salads, ceviches, and carpaccios.
Zucchini flower salad at Venice cafe.
After lunch, we went to the water taxi station next door to the cafe, and tried to figure out how we’d best spend our two whole hours remaining in Venice. St. Mark’s Square was the natural choice as tourists knowing little else about Venice, plus our original plans to see the Jewish ghetto or head over to the neighboring islands of Murano and Burano were nixed. San Marino is the neighborhood of St. Mark’s Square, and where the water taxi drops you off, AND it is tourist central, like something I rarely see outside of high season at Disney World. Crowds and crowds and crowds of tourists (and as many pigeons), most seemingly American. By the time we got there, I cared less about seeing St. Mark’s and more about getting some flat sandals and some disposable cameras, since the Nikon battery died taking the last few shots of boats from the cafe.
Yes, crowds and crowds and crowds of tourists in St. Mark's Square.
Well, I did eventually find a pair of sandals – not Gucci, but not hideously ugly. And we’re packing two disposable cameras – a little sickening to rely on being in such a lovely, photogenic area. We did our fast pass through some alley ways, saw some gondolas, breezed through the famous Hotel Danieli, shoveled our way through crowds making their way to St. Mark’s Basilica, snapped some quick photos, and had just enough time to sprint back to the water taxi and return to the cruise ship.
My husband is taking a shower. I am laying on the bed, a pretty comfortable one, existing on some alternate source of energy that is unexplainable. Pavel, sympathetic to our luggage-less, travel fiasco, suggested that we relax and order dinner into our cabin this evening from any of the ship’s fine dining restaurants. That sure sounds good to me. I think I’m going to sleep very well tonight. And I can’t wait to check out Dubrovnik tomorrow.
<3, JMK
