Turnaround Day in Venice

After a week of sailing, we were back in Venice for a turnaround day. Ines and Jonny will leave us to continue on their honeymoon in other places in Europe while we stay on for another week of cruising on the Gem. 

Venice is such an amazing port to sailing in and out of. It was very quiet at 6am. We went down to the Blue Lagoon for breakfast and watched the ship pulling into Venice. By 7:30 it was docked. 

 We were able to just walk off. We took a long, hard walk to the train station and bought the tickets for next week. JLP and Ines went to check out the luggage storage at the train station, but the line was long and the charge was expensive. They decided to tag along their luggage while we explore Venice. Now, that’s not an easy task because there are so many bridges with steps there, it’s really difficult to navigate even with rolling bags. 

Sailing into Venice early in the morning.

Inside the Venice train station.

Right outside of the train station.

We began our tour of Venice.

On the bridge near the train station. Train station on the right.

Poor Jonny with the luggage!

The guys took turns helping with the bags.

The wet market.

Finally arriving Rialto Bridge.

View on the bridge.

San Marcos Square

We were tired and steaming hot.

ChC found some pastries to try.

We found the water bus for JLP and Ines to take back to the train station and we said our “goodbyes”. They had to catch the train around 1pm to go to Florence. 

We then walked around some more but decided that we were just too hot and tired to continue. St. Mark’s Square was just too crowded. We bought tickets to take the special water bus (Alilaguna) back to the port. It was disorganized and chaotic, not cheap either. It costs 6.5 Euros per person one way. 

CaC found some fresh fruits on this hot day.

It was so nice to be back on the ship, our home for the two weeks. Again, we went to the Grand Pacific and had a nice lunch. We all felt that the lunch today was especially good. The halibut was done just right, the Key West Salad that MOR and Jon ordered was delicious. Even the cobblers that we had were better than last week. I wonder why?

Ready for another sailaway. This time we stayed at the back of the ship.

Leaving port.

We only touched the mere surface of Venice. We just need to go back one of these days to spend more time there, that is, if the city still welcomes visitors.

We did not have to participate at the muster drill this time around.

Dinner was at the specialty sushi restaurant tonight. We took advantage of the 2 for 1 special for back-to-back guests and it was wonderful!

So much food!

Ready for another week of cruising.