Our Venice Cruise Chapter 1: The start of our adventure

Authors note: We took this trip in Oct./Nov. of 2019. I took a gazillion photos. It takes me a long time to sort and edit my photos. My plan was to write most of the posts about this trip before I started to post them. I am not the fastest writer by any means. It’s surprising how long it takes to write 500 or so words when you choose your words carefully. So I knew from the beginning that it was going to take me a while to start posting about this trip. Anyway, I’m ready to start posting and BAMM!! We find our self in the middle of a global pandemic! Cruise ships are stranded at sea and people are dying onboard! That sort of took the wind out of my sails. I didn’t think this was an appropriate time to start posting about a wonderful cruise. So I shelved my cruise posts. Time flies when you’re not having fun. It’s now been a year since we departed on our trip. What a year it’s been! I’m not sure what the future holds for the travel industry. I was hoping to be traveling again in the spring of 2021. Now it may be longer and even longer yet for the cruise industry. For now I hope that you will enjoy reading about our Italian, Aegean Sea cruise.

The adventure begins

My wife Robbie and I booked another cruise! This was our first European cruise. We sailed out of Venice, Italy making stops on several Greek islands, Israel and Croatia. Friends of ours, Sandy and Jerry found a great deal on this cruise and invited us and several other friends to join them. Sandy, Jerry and a few of the others started a week earlier. They took a short tour of Italy before joining us and some of the others in Venice. Sandy is a master at finding great travel deals and found insanely cheap flights to Venice with TAP Air (Air Portugal). They offer flights where you are able to layover several days in Lisbon if you like. Hey, come spend money in Lisbon! I’m sure that’s the plan but Lisbon is great! I wish we could have staid longer. Sandy and Jerry’s group stayed over a few days in Lisbon on the way over. We unfortunately could not be away from home for as many days. We did, however, spend the night in Lisbon on the way home.

Our inexpensive flights did start in Miami though. Our “home” airport is Orlando. Yes they were inexpensive enough to justify a night in Miami and a rental car to and from. Luckily we decided to leave a day early and spend the night in Miami; we had a horrible snafu with the rental car company and ended up leaving home several hours late! If we hadn’t gone the day before we would have missed our flight for sure. After finally getting our rental car sorted out, Robbie and I picked up our traveling companions, Barb and Jeneen here in Titusville. The trip to Miami went well and the next day we were excited to be starting our journey from Miami to Venice. Although we don’t look too excited in the photos, we really were! I think we were suffering from airport anxiety.

We flew from Miami to Lisbon and then from Lisbon to Venice. During our flights we saw the sun set over Bermuda and the sunrise just after takeoff in Lisbon. We had a bit of a thrill in the Lisbon airport. We had a 2hr layover in Lisbon, that sounded like enough time but, the flight from Miami was very full. We were not at the main terminal. We were way out on the tarmac. We used the old fashion roll away staircase to deplane. Then we were all loaded onto several buses and taken to the main terminal. At the terminal we needed to go through customs and then security. We were at the end of a very long line. We made it through customs but time was growing short to make our connecting flight. We spoke to airport officials who took us to the head of the security line and then escorted us at a trot to the gate. Just in the nick of time we boarded another bus to our connecting flight to Venice. Way out on the tarmac again!

We arrived in Venice on time. We visited Venice for a few days before our cruise. Robbie and I stayed in a Venetian B&B. The rest of our traveling group stayed on the mainland in Mestre. Barb and Jeneen grabbed a taxi to their hotel in Mestre. Robbie and I took the airport ATVO bus to Piazzale Roma, the transportation hub for Venice. From Piazzale Roma there was a short walk to our B&B. We did take a wrong turn and ended up needing to drag our luggage over one extra bridge. After checking into our B&B we were exhausted and jet lagged from our trip. We took a 2hr nap and then ventured out. We took a short walk to the Prix Discount Super Market for some supplies. Prix was awesome, they had great prices on wine, cheese, bread, and water. We got our first glimpse of Venice.