Adler Adriatic trip

Overnight we sailed to Dubrovnik, arriving around 8am. It was interesting to watch the ship turn around, back into the harbor and then move sideways to our mooring. Just after we arrived, a much larger MSC ship pulled in behind us. Our first stop was a walking tour of Dubrovnik. Our tour guide said that it was good to go early before it became so crowded that one could barely move through the main street. The population of the old city has gone from 4,500 to only 800 residents in the past few years as homes were turned into profitable rentals. It isn't very practical to live there as no cars are allowed, delivery vehicles are only allowed until 10am and most of the residences are up sets of very high, steep and narrow steps. Dubrovnik was an independent city state republic for 500 years, ending finally when it was captured by Napoleon in 1806. It managed to survive through this time despite the powerful Venetian Republic on one side and the Ottoman Empire on the other side by s...

As we were getting up this morning, the ship pulled into Zadar, Croatia. Croatia is the only country we are traveling to that doesn't use the Euro so we had to change Euros into Kuna, the local currency. Strangely, we were told that Kunas could not be converted back into Euros. It is so convenient being able to travel from country to country without using different currencies. When I traveled in 1974, I used French Francs, Austrian Shillings, German Marks, Dutch Guilders and Norwegian Kroner. Zadar is the 5th largest city of Croatia with a population of only 75,000 people. It was originally a Greek city, then Roman, then Venetian, then French (Napoleon), then Austrian, then Italian, then Yugoslavia and finally Croatian. There are no remains of the Greek era but the Roman influence is obvious with the straight main street and orthogonal side streets. It was the largest fortress city in the Venetian Empire. At the end of the cold-war, Croatia broke off from Yugoslavia in 1991. ...

The captain had suggested watching as we departed so at 11pm, we went up to the top deck as the ship pulled out. There were two tug boats in the front and another tug boat in the rear to help the ship make a sharp left turn. The ship traveled down the same outer canal that we had traveled several times with the vaporetto. A number of the churches had lights shining on them so it was a beautiful site as we passed, especially with the full moon overhead to the east. We were surprised that San Marco Plaza was not lit up but it made for a beautiful end to the evening overall. When we got up in the morning, the ship was just pulling into the dock in Koper, Koper was one of the important Adriatic cities of the Venetian empire and was rich and famous for the salt that was produced in the flats by the city. The city was actually on an island close to the shore and connected by a bridge. It was surprisingly high for a small island right next to the mainland and was later connected by fillin...

Our main plan for today was to visit the Correr Museum in San Marco Plaza and to do some shopping before collecting our luggage at the hotel and heading to the ship. The Correr Museum is in part of the complex of buildings around San Marco Plaza associated with the Doge palace and was originally built in the 12th century. In the 19th century it was used by the emperor and empress of the Austrian empire when they visited and conducted business in Venice. A number of the private and state rooms have been restored meticulously to the way they appeared when Empress Sissi was there. The museum includes a notable collection of famous sculptures and paintings. One of the most interesting is a complete collection of coins that were minted in Venice from the 800s to the 1800s. As we were walking around the plaza, we could see a section that was pulled up and the water level was only 12-18" below the surface. This was after the entire surface of the Plaza was pulled up in 2006, a laye...

We took the vaporetto down to San Marco - I couldn't resist taking a photo of the cutest little girl who smiled at me when I looked at her. She was with a couple who looked like they just gotten married. We exchanged our pre-paid vouchers for tickets to the Doge palace and 3 other museums. We paid for audio guides which were very helpful and informative. Venice was founded as a trading city in AD 421 and has been a republic led by a "Doge" from the 8th century until the late 18th century. When I asked one of the guards about a painting, he emphasized that Venice was a republic and was not led by a king - he seemed quite proud of that. There were various governing bodies ranging from the 1500 citizens who would have weekly "town" meetings to the "Council of 10" that made major decisions. There was a judicial body that made decisions in secret about the fate of people accused, often anonymously, of various crimes. Venice was for centuries one of the ri...

Another beautiful sunny morning in Venice. The weather forecast is for sunny and temperatures between 60 and 70 as far as the forecast is available. I wonder when it rains here. Murano is an island complex about 20 minutes by boat from the Venice train station. We are finally figuring out how to use the vaporetto boat system that is the main mode of transportation here. At the main station there is an electronic sign-board with indications of which landings to use for particular vaporetto lines. Murano has been the home of Italian glass-blowing for centuries. For many years it was very closed in order to protect the secrets of the craft. Even now they are sensitive to protecting the intellectual property with signs asking people not to take photos of the glasswork. Much of it is glass sculpture with many colors that is very detailed. They also make functional products like chandeliers and wine glasses - you wouldn't want to break the wine glasses that go for $50 and up! The isl...

Our flight to Venice was uneventful, a bit bumpy much of the way but not enough to be a problem. We had splurged on the "sleeper" seats which were helpful in getting more rest. Customs at the Marco Polo airport were exceptionally efficient. We just put our passport into a reader, then looked into a camera and then had our passport stamped. It only took a few minutes. From the airport there is a moving walkway to the harbor where we caught our pre-arranged boat ride to Venice. We thought it would be a larger shuttle but it was just a regular "taxi" packed full. The capacity is supposed to be 10 people but there were 11 on board. There was so much luggage stacked up by the driver, that people couldn't get out in case of an emergency. The driver had asked people what hotels they were going to so that he could stack the luggage in the order it would be taken. We were in one of the first hotels so we boarded last. We were quite surprised when he went right past...