My Royal Caribbean Cruise Highlights- The journey to Venice

I have always wanted to go on a cruise. Work commitments had prevented me from doing so for many years. In fact my family went on the cruise to Barcelona, Athens, Rome and Florence three years ago without me. They came back with wonderful stories of their visits to all those lovely places, meeting people of many nations and savouring the international  cuisines.

I am more free these couple of years so I promise myself that I would not miss another opportunity of travelling and relaxing  at sea with "style". Don't we all need to pamper ourselves some times!

Dubai airport

It was a late travel arrangement so instead of going direct to Venice where the cruise ship "Splendour of the Seas" was berthed, we had first to go to Dubai and from there to Milan, a bus ride to Verona and onwards to Venice. The flight with Emirates took nearly 12 hours and the stop in Dubai at about 3 am local time was quite an experience. The airport apparently never sleeps. It is so vast that one would lose direction without the help of those signs!

We had to board a bus to go to the plane taking us to Milan, Italy. It was a journey of more than 10 Km and to make matters worse, it was delayed by more than an hour. We arrived in Milan quite late and stayed overnight at Windsor Hotel. We had a lovely dinner of pasta and baked sea bass and managed to do a late evening shopping.... Milan, the city of style and fashion. Just as well our plane was late otherwise our bags would not have enough space due to longer shopping.

    
                                                                                      Milan Tram

We left Milan after a hearty breakfast the following morning by bus to Verona. Yes the city of Verona where the story of Romeo and Juliet originates from. We had a walk through the city looking at the Roman ruins scattered around it attracting a great many tourists. It has the oldest known Roman amphitheater which is still used today! There were many stalls erected in the city selling all sorts of souvenirs but unfortunately we were not really able to do any shopping here as we were late as the bus driver took us to a tourist shop along the way earlier much to the chagrin of Maria, our Verona's tour guide. Maria was furious with the driver (obviously he had been given commission by the tourist shop!) as she had been waiting for nearly an hour for us without any news.

                                                                    

   

Oldest Roman amphitheatre still in use today in Verona

                                         Old Roman city ruins underneath modern Verona

We had an Italian lunch of pasta, salad, bread, fruits and ice cream. Then we were off for a two and a half hour journey to the port of Venice. We had to be there before 5pm for the necessary documentations before boarding the ship. If we were late we would not be permitted to board so everybody was rushing as the cruise was our main purpose of travel. Be late and the ship would leave without you and no refund would be made.

There were so many interesting sites and historical buildings and structures to see in Verona, yet we have to hurry to make the date with the ship at Venice port.

The balcony where Juliet waited for her Romeo (Verona)

We were praying that our bus would reach the port well before the ship's departure!

The bus driver was speeding a bit and luckily the road was not congested and we arrived well before time.

                                      Our cruise ship "Splendour of the Seas" on the right