Venice - Greece - Venice

Norwegian Jade

June 2011

We just got home from a 9 day Caribbean cruise when we started hearing about discount cruises in the Mediterranean.  Apparently the high cost of fuel has driven airfares up keeping people from traveling to European cruise ports.  A couple clicks on NCL's “Hot Deals” button made a believer out of us so we jumped at a 7 day cruise out of Venice Italy to four Greek ports.  Besides the lower price, we got an additional AARP discount AND $100 on board credit..... we were happy campers!

Did I mention that this was a last minute deal? Yep, we booked 2-1/2 weeks before departure!

We spent a couple days in Venice, before the cruise, walking our butts off so boarding the ship signaled the start of an opportunity to kick back and relax.... at least during the sea days.  Greece still involves a lot of walking and climbing but at least the duration was short because we had to get back to the ship.

There were six ships in port and we all headed out to sea around the same time.  The channel winds it's way thru Venice which made for some spectacular views of the city.  The city was on the port side going out so we ended up on deck with the masses. Our balcony cabin was on the prime starboard side for the return trip so we ordered room service and had breakfast on our balcony taking in the view as we ate. It was truly memorable!

There was a photo op at every corner and we ended up capturing over 2000 images.  Shown here are a few images selected to convey the flavor of what we saw as we walked around.  Be sure and click on any image for a larger view, some additional information about the image, some camera information and a satellite image of where the picture was taken.

The cruise took us to four ports in Greece. We didn't sign up for any ship sponsored excursions but simply went ashore and did our own thing.....

Corfu....

The ship tied up to a pier that was one heck of a long way to the security gate so there was a free shuttle to move people around on the pier. Once outside the security gate there were a number of taxis waiting to take people on tours or simply into town. Our objective was to tour one of the forts visible in the distance. A taxi took us to the base of the fort but getting to the top involved lots of climbing which we were able to handle. Once thru the fort we wandered into the historic part of town which was a series of narrow streets lined with shops. This was OK but wasn't what we envisioned Greece to be.

Santorini....

Now this is what we were expecting of Greece! The town itself is perched along the edge of a 200 foot high cliff and everything was white with some brightly colored roofs and window and door frames. This was a tendered port so once ashore there were three ways to get to town. 1) Walk up a winding trail that zigzagged its way to the top 2) Ride a donkey up the winding trail that zigzagged its way to the top. 3) Ride a cable car to the top. We opted for #3 and took the cable car to the top. 3-4 euros one way per person. Once up there, the view is absolutely breathtaking!! We spent 3-4 hours wandering around town capturing images. Getting down involved using one of the three assent options in reverse. We opted to walk the zigzag donkey trail down to the tender dock.

Mykonos....

This port is also decked out in the typical white washed buildings with splashes of color. We had heard about the windmills and made our way thru town to photograph them. The ship tied up to a pier which was some distance away but a free shuttle bus was provided. Other ships were in port but they anchored in the harbor and tendered everyone to shore. We found the windmills then spent several hours wandering the narrow streets all of which were filled with photo ops.

Katakolon....

Cruise Critic describes this port as “a one horse town with a big pier”.  The draw is the ruins of Olympia, home of the original Olympic games.  Olympia is 20-25 miles away and we were originally going to share a 240 euro (!!) taxi but we heard that the week before a train began operating at 7-8 euros pp, a much better deal.  On our way to the railroad station, we ran into someone running buses to Olympia for 10 euros pp so that's the option we chose.  Buses drop you off closer to Olympia. The bus option gave us 2 hours at the ruins which was enough.

A few words about the ship, NCL Jade. Jade is structured EXACTLY the same as Jewel so getting around wasn't a problem. Jade originally began service in Hawaii as “Pride of Hawaii” but for economic reasons was re-registered in the Bahamas and had a name change. Much of the Hawaiian decor remains. These ships carry about 2300 passengers and we were told that 1600 of them were non English speaking. All announcements were in five languages. Gary, the cruise director, was amazing in that he could speak eight languages!

For the photographers among you:  Joe's images were captured with a Nikon D300 DSLR and a Nikon Coolpix P7000 P&S.  Kathy had her Nikon D60 DSLR.  In addition, we also geotagged our images with a Sony GPS-CS3KA.

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