10, 11, 12/2024 Cruises and Christmas Markets!
We’re blaming Sue for this trip. She finds cruises that look interesting, tells us about them and we end up signing up! This cruise was on Windstar, starting in Athens and making its way around the Mediterranean to some smaller ports. One of the stops was Dubrovnik which has been on our list to visit so we said “yes”!
We really liked Windstar for its size – only 235 passengers. It can dock much closer to cities because it is so small. The stops were good. In Catania we’d planned to take the city bus to Siracusa (we’d been there) to visit a few places but rain put an end to that! It bucketed down for about 24 hours and the officials closed the roads due to flooding.
Mark and I flew to Athens (Start of the cruise) a few days early to do some exploring. The last time we were in Athens was in May and the temps hit 100F+ EVERY day! October is MUCH nicer!
The cruise started in Athens on the morning after the U.S. election, headed to Gyphia, Corfu, Crotone, around Italy to Catania, Naples, Civitavecchia, Naples again, Messina, Dubrovnik, Zadar, and ended in Venice. No great stories for this trip but we did love Cindy, the coffee queen, on the Windstar ship. She knew exactly the kind of coffee we wanted every morning!
In Dubrovnik, we hired Marko, ToursByLocals tour guide to give five of us a 4 hour tour of the city. We met him on time by the fountain and while he was giving us the intro, a guy walked up and said “Marko” so Marko thought he was with us. Then two women came up looking for Marko, their tour guide. He checked their reservation – Nope, not him! Then we told him we are a group of 5, not 6, so the lone guy needed to find some other Marko. On the way to enter the walls, two guys came running up “Marko?”. Nope! Marko told us that “Marko” is one of the most popular names in Croatia and, obviously, for tour guides! He hid his name tag in his coat after that!
Marko did a great tour – fountain, graffiti, told us some things about “Game of Thrones” filming in Dubrovnik. One lady was offered by the producers 500E per window in her building (9 total) per day to keep her shades closed. She accepted! They paid the restaurant Marko worked in 10000E per day to stay shut and them hired them to do the catering for the movie.
We highly recommend November as a time of year to visit Dubrovnik. Unlike the summer when it’s overrun by visitors, we had the city to ourselves. Hardly any visitors, except our ship, and a few small tour groups.
The ship stopped twice in Naples – once at the end of a 7 day cruise and again at the beginning of a 7 day cruise. 1/3 of the passengers were only doing 1 week; the other 2/3 did both weeks. Naples has a bad reputation but it’s an interesting city to wander around. There’s even one street lined with shops that only sell items for your Nativity set – pizza ovens, veggies, loaves of bread and the baker. Even the church Nativity sets are elaborate with entire villages set up. And we watched some truck driver back into an alley – maybe it’s a street”?? The entire neighborhood watched the process!
Venice was the last port – one whole day to visit before disembarking in the morning. One highlight of the cruise was sailing into the Venice lagoon about 6 AM that can dock right in Venice. We wandered around all day and managed not to get too lost on the way to St. Mark’s. Again, November is definitely less crowded than summer, especially in the out-of-the-way neighborhoods,
Entering the Venice lagoon
This is where Part One of the trip ended. Off to Vienna next!
