Venice

Friday the ship arrived in Fusina, the commercial port on the mainland. We walked off the ship, and collected our large bag, and joined the line for a taxi. We probably waited an hour for a taxi. Our taxi driver was Richard, with four sons. He was a devout catholic, who had a skull ring, as a “memento mori,” remembering death, a catholic tradition.

We were dropped off in the Piazza Roma. Our challenge turned out to be to get a water bus pass, a vaporetto pass, for the boats that are the local buses. The machine did not work, and I waited a long time for a ticket, only to be scolded and told that I was in the wrong place. The tourist office sold us the pass. We rode the number 1 boat, and got off at Ca'di Oro stop. We followed the instructions, and arrived at our Airbnb, where we were met by Christiano, who walked us through the apartment. It is a nice and large apartment, with a tiny balcony overlooking the canal. The canal does not have a lot of traffic, mostly workboats. We ate lunch at a restaurant next to the Strada Nova, a major thoroughfare in this part of Venice. We shopped at the local COOP grocery, and then went out to find the nearby church of miracles, one of many impressive churches in Venice.

Saturday we headed for Murano and Burano, two islands in the Venitian lagoon. We stopped at the Jesuit church of the assumption, another amazing church. The spiral marble columns left us gawking, how could they have made such a thing without computer controlled machines? We walked to the water bus stop, and rode the #12 water bus to Murano, an island known for glass work. We had signed up for a tour, where they demonstrated glass blowing, including making a horse in one heat, rather amazing. After the tour Sandi shopped for glass earrings as gifts for family and business associates. The person helping us was Christian, the son of the founder, Gino Mazzaccoto, who had recently passed away. We then caught another water bus to Burano, famous for lace work. The weather had turned cold and windy, we wanted to be inside. We visited the Lace Museum, where we saw amazing lace pieces. We stopped at a local bar for hot chocolate and sweets; Sandi bought some lace as a gift. We then caught the water bus back to Venice. A brief stop at the COOP supermarket, the cheese market, and the corner vegetable market stocked our pantry for dinner at the apartment.

Sunday we walked to St. Mark's Basilica for mass at 10 AM. The church seemed full. The choir was impressive, to say the least. The building itself is astounding, in a city full of amazing churches. When we left we saw the finish line for the Venice Marathon, lots of people and noise in the square. We ate lunch at Noemi restaurant; the pasta was fabulous. We picked up a map at the tourist office, and found that there was a temporary Marathon bridge blocking our vaporetto route. We walked to another stop, and were able to get a vaporetto ride to the Salute Basilica and the Guggenheim museum.

The Salute church has a black Madonna.  The Guggenheim museum was her house, mostly art from the mid-1900s, including Calder, Pollock, and Earnst. We had hot chocolate and cookies in the museum bistro. We stopped by the rail station to buy tickets to Rome, and then headed for home. On the ride home, in a happy surprise, we sat next to an 87 year old Austrian woman who was coming to Venice to write fairy tales and make a film. We enjoyed talking to her and her younger companion.

Note the black slaves
holding up the tomb.

On Mondays most of the museums are closed. We decided to head for the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frei, or the Frari church. On the way, we visited the San Rocco church. The Frari church is huge, with the tombs of the artists Titian and Canova. The Titian painting of the assumption of Mary is spectacular, restored to its original bright colors. The tomb of the Doge was supported by four Africans, believed to be referring to fighting with the Ottoman empire; slavery occurred on both sides of these battles. The tomb was shocking in its racism. We thought about heading for Murano, but the restaurant we wanted to visit was about to close. We headed home; later we headed for Murano to eat at the Osteria al Duomo, which was packed because it was the only restaurant in Murano that was open on Monday. We had a very good meal, and then walked back to the vaporetto stop. This was our first time on this trip walking extensively in the dark, but it was not really a problem. Richard's phone reported that we had walked 14,000 steps; Sandi's phone said 12,000 steps. 6 miles, a lot of walking.

Tuesday Sandi was not feeling great, so I headed out for the St. Marks visit alone. Having spent an hour there for mass, I did not feel that I saw a lot more, even though I bought the audio tour. I liked the experience at mass better. Then I headed for the Venice Bienial, an art event held every two years, on a country basis. In most cases one or two artists put in an installation, or a video, or both. My favorite was the Israeli installation, which was a black pool of water with overhead pipes putting drops into the pool. The Ukranians brought a metal horse that they had saved from the Russians, pointing out that they had given up nuclear weapons for a broken promise of security protection. There were a lot of countries represented; I was tired after visiting most of them. Some of them were in the Arsenal area, some in a separate area for the Biennial, where various countries had pavilions. It took me a long time to get back, because the vaporettos were packed; 3 left before I could get on. I should have walked. We leave Wednesday, so tonight we pack.

Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia

On Monday our arrival to Kotor Montenegro involved passing through a narrow strait at dawn, into the Bay of Kotor. The city of Kotor is a UNESCO world heritage walled city, with very narrow streets. We were lucky enough to be able to tie up at the dock; the Celebrity Constellation ship was anchored in the bay, and had to use tenders to get to town. We entered through the sea gate, into the square of arms. Our first stop was at the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon, where we viewed the treasury, with silverwork and paintings. We had pizza in the square near the Cathedral. We continued to St. Nicholas's church, where two singers chanted beautifully to advertise their CDs, fundraising to support their choir. The orthodox church was decorated with four huge paintings of the four evangelists, sent as a gift from Moscow.

We then visited the Maritime museum, which helped us get a sense of the history of Kotor. We thought of visiting the cat museum, but satisfied ourselves with buying a T-shirt and earrings from a cat themed store. The town is known for cats, and we saw quite a few. As a world heritage site, it was full of tourists. Richard considered hiking up the side of the mountain on the old fortification, but thought better of it. Dinner was with our OLLI group from Fort Collins.

Alex and his unique instrument, 
on the streets of Kotor

Tuesday we were in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik suffered extensive damage during the Yugoslav “Homeland War”. We saw some shell holes and a map of the city marked with damage. From the ship, we took a shuttle bus to the Pile gate of the old city. We started with the Franciscan monastery, which included perhaps the oldest pharmacy in Europe. Compared to Kotor or Corfu, the streets seemed wide, although there were a lot of people. We visited the market, where we were told to have lunch at the Arsenal restaurant, which had clean restrooms and a toilet seat.. We had a corner table overlooking the square, so the people watching was good. We visited the St. Blasius church, which had an impressive collection of silver reliquaries. St. Blasius (St. Blaise) is the patron saint of the city. Then we headed back to the bus stop, and back to the ship. Another day, another UNESCO world heritage site. ;-)

Street scene in Dubrovnik

Sandi at Dubrovnik gate

St Donatus church and Cathedral tower in Zadar

Wednesday morning it was raining and blowing. We were wondering if we even wanted to go ashore in Zadar. But the rain let up by 10 am, when we docked in old town. There was a stiff wind blowing us away from the dock; there was a tug pushing our ship towards the dock. Due to the wind, there were many large hawsers (rope) tying the boat to the dock. The dock was near a lovely promenade next to the sea. The sea organ there uses the force of the waves to play tones; we and others enjoyed sitting and listening. We visited the cathedral dedicated to St. Anastasia. They sent us down the street to a religious articles store, where Sandi bought a small medal for her bracelet. Sandi had some challenges communicating with the clerk there, a reminder that away from tourist spots, English may not be widely spoken. Sandi stepped into a clothing store, where she was accosted by two women who were good salespersons; she bought a couple of tops for 50 euros. The square called the Forum had some ruins and columns. We had lunch at La Bruchetta restaurant. By the time lunch was over the weather was fairly nice. The town was a pleasant surprise, beautiful and not too many people. We got back to the ship around 2:30, and hung out at the restaurant near the pool deck, watching the boats go by.

Thursday we arrived in Koper Slovenia. The city is light on historical monuments, and is not a UNESCO world heritage site, ;-) We enjoyed our visit. The cruise port is right next to the old town, with a working container port across the water from our ship. Koper is the only commercial port in Slovenia. The cathedral is large and impressive; we found some temporary decorations, including angels with first names on them. We visited the history museum, where we learned how Koper was under Roman Rule, Venitian Rule, Austrian Rule, Napoleonic Rule, and some that we forgot. The local language is Slovenian, but Italian and English are widely spoken. In the tourist office, the young man said that Slovenia has only 2 million people, so they have to learn English. We had a pizza-salad at Capra restaurant in the Grand Hotel. The town has many narrow streets, but only a tiny remnant of a city wall. Sandi bought a bracelet at a rock shop in town. It started to rain about 2 PM, so we headed back to the ship.

Zakynthos and Corfu, Greece

Greece Saturday we arrived in Zakynthos around 2 Pm, after a somewhat rough night of rocking and rolling in the waves. We found it a little hard to walk with the motion of the ship. We waited for the tender, and then strolled around the St. Mark's square area. Sandi bought some T-shirts and bracelets.

Sandi suggested that we stroll along the harbor, and we eventually arrived at the St. Dionysios church. In the gift shop, we learned that St Dionysios was known for forgiving his brother's murderer, even hiding him, as he was so repentant. He is the saint of forgiveness, and the patron saint of the town. A steady stream of people came to kiss the tomb of the saint; there was a lot of piety and faith shown. The mass started, with two priests, one inside the inner altar, and one outside. We lit some candles. This stop was the highlight of the day. We took the tender back to the ship around dark, and had dinner in the cafeteria style restaurant. 

 Sunday the ship came to the Corfu pier. We took one bus to the port entrance, and then another to the park near the fortress. We continue to collect world heritage sites. We went searching for a Catholic mass. We found an orthodox mass, and noted that there is a screen separating the inner altar from the church. We then walked to the small Catholic Cathedral, where the sign said that the mass would honor the outgoing bishop. The churches do not have spires or tall bell towers, and look similar to other buildings. We waited in a cafe for the mass to start. The mass and the church felt like Catholic masses anywhere, but with more languages. The choir was small and their sound resonated through the church.. The church was packed, but we found a seat. After mass we had lunch overlooking the water, including a view of Albania. 

The Byzantine museum was an old private church converted to a museum, including silverwork, vestments, Icons, and paintings. After the museum we went shopping for charms for Sandi's bracelet. We finished with gelato from Papagiorgis pastry and gelato shop, a family business in the third generation. We walked back to the bus stop, and took the two buses back to our ship. The ship left early; apparently everyone was on board early.

Herculeum, Sicily, and Malta

On Wednesday we went to the Insignia Lounge at 8 AM for our tour of the ruins of Herculeum, which was destroyed by Vesuvius at the same time as Pompei. We took a tender to the port, then a small bus out of the port area, and finally a larger bus to Herculeum. Our tour guide was Fran, or Franchesca. The drive through the streets of Sorento was very narrow, twisty, and time-consuming. The ruins were mostly villas of noblemen, with designs on mosaic floors, and some murals. I really liked the mosaic floors. There were the charred remains of a boat in one museum, and impressive artifacts in the main museum. In Pompei the dead often left casts of their bodies in the volcanic ash; in Herculeum, they left bones. When we came back to Sorento we visited a marquetry store; Sorento is known for marquetry. The blue sea with the high cliffs were beautiful. To get back to the port from the city at the end of the day, we took an elevator down to the dock area. The wind had come up, and the tender ride back to the ship was very rocky. There was a reception where the ship's officers were introduced. We had dinner with Paula and Tom.

It says, "I am black but 
I am beautiful.

Thursday we went to the Insignia lounge at 8:35 am to get off in Messina and join our bus tour to Tindare, to see the basilica, and the archeological zone. The basilica of the Madonna of Tindare was built in the 1970s, as an earlier church was destroyed by an earthquake. The 1908 earthquake destroyed the town of Messina, The weather was beautiful, we had constant views of blue sky and blue water. When we got back to Messina, we had lunch at Mari and Meduchi restaurant, where we talked history with the young man there. The Cathedral was closed. We stopped by a gelato shop and the pharmacy, and walked back to the ship. There was a reception for our group, and then we had dinner with Paula and Tom and Deb.

Friday we had a short day in Malta, with an on board time of 2:30 PM. We had signed up through Trip Advisor for a walking tour. Dominic taught us a lot of history, much of which had to do with the Knights of Malta, he referred to them as the Knights of St. John. Malta has periodically changed ownership from one country to another. In WWII Malta was relentlessly bombarded by the Axis powers from nearby Sicily. The tour started at 10 AM. we left the tour at 1 PM, keeping in mind the ship's schedule, and our need to buy stamps at the post office. We took a taxi to the ship, as we were tired of walking. They offered to take us for 20 euros, which I thought was crazy high, but then they offered 15 euros as we walked away. Back on the ship we heard them paging someone who had not made the 2:30 time; we later heard the front desk talking on the phone at 2:45, and learned that the couple had ultimately gotten on the ship, albeit late. I managed to do a load of laundry, although the soap dispenser in the machine was apparently not working. Sandi spent the afternoon reading, which she found quite civilized. Sandi suggested the the key word for this cruise was civilized, especially compared to our recent trip on Princess.

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Rome

 We got up early on Saturday the 10^th to catch the bus to the airport. We were early so we relaxed in the Delta club. Sandi had changed our flights due to a hurricane, so we flew through Minneapolis. We had a long layover, so we spent hours in the new club in Minneapolis. We did not have the best seats on the plane, but our companions were delightful. We spoke to a lady with four boys, whose husband was a doctor with St. Jude's Hospital, working in oncology. The gentleman on the other side was an engineer who went to Catholic schools in Omaha, so Sandi and he had some things to talk about.

When we landed on Sunday, we found that the new EES system was easy to use. We were in line for more than one hour to get a taxi, it seemed crazy. The driver took us to our hotel, Villa San Lorenzo, where we met Alex, the hotel desk clerk. We immediately took a nap. We were hungry at 5 PM, but Alex said that Italians do not eat that early; The grocery store around the corner provided a good picnic. After we ate, we walked to the nearby square, where we admired a mural that was a mosaic of glass, ceramic pieces, and handmade ceramic pieces, mostly with words on them saying things like patience and courage in Italian. We went to the church, where mass was underway, so we attended mass. We were tired, so we went back to the room to sleep. Alex showed us a photo of the bird that has the same name as Sandi. 

Monday we took a taxi to the Pantheon, where we had tickets for 11AM. We arrived early, so we stopped at a cafe for coffee and a croissant as well as people watching. The pantheon is most famous for its unreinforced concrete dome, with an occulus (hole) in the dome that lets in light, and the fact that it has survived almost 2000 years. The Romans had better concrete than we do today. The marble inside was impressive, as was the engineering. We walked towards the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore. Richard stopped at a window showing caps. We went into the Bazooka Menswear shop and Richard bought a cap from Clement. Clement sent us to the nearby Ristorante al Viminale, where we had a good lunch. We spoke to a couple from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, an architect and a civil engineer. We continued to the Basilica, where we saw the very simple tomb of Pope Francis, and the icon of the black madonna. Sandi wrote out a mass card for a blessing for her nephew's wedding.

Simple tomb of Pope Francis

We continued to the Lateran Basilica, considered the Pope's church. The statues of the apostles were impressive. We were a bit tired, but still had another kilometer to walk to our hotel, during rush hour.. The drivers were aggressive, but stopped for pedestrians. We were surprised to see a yarn store on our walk back to the hotel; Sandi bought some Italian yarn. We were happy to be back to our hotel, after walking 6.2 miles, or 10 kilometers. We again went to the corner grocery to buy our dinner from the deli, eating it in the courtyard of the hotel.

Tuesday we ate breakfast at the hotel, and then took a taxi to the train station, the Termni station. We arrived about an hour early, so we bought our ticket from the machine, and had a chocolate croissant, a “Cornetto” in Italian. We watched the status board until they showed our platform number, and then walked to the train and found our car. The car was mostly empty. Our seats were at one end of the car, so we could keep an eye on our luggage. We got off at Civitavecchia, and found the van that would take us to our ship. The formalities in the cruise terminal were minimal, and we were on the ship quickly. We were some of the first folks on the ship. Our rooms were not ready, so we had lunch and explored the ship a bit. Our room is relatively large and nice, with a window. There was a reception at 5:30pm, where we chatted with other folks from Fort Collins. We then went with the folks at our table to the dining room, where we had a nice meal and swapped stories. We went back to our room at 9 pm.

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Finishing the Green River

Friday Roger came to my house, and we started the drive to Utah.  This is the last leg of my quest to paddle the entire length of the Green River.  We had lunch in Steamboat Springs at McDonalds, and dinner at the brewery in Vernal. We both got lost trying to find the correct road to campground at Pelican lake. The correct route north of lake, county road 5500. We arrived just before sunset. The weather was nice, a little rain on the drive. Campground was only $10. We were alone until several RVs arrived at dusk.

In the morning we drove to the fish hatchery, part of the Ouray Wildlife refuge. Left a car at the fish hatchery.  We then drove to Horseshoe bend. The last section was in terrible condition. At one point we stopped to put stones in a gully we had to cross. It was 5 hours of steady paddling; with 1.5mph current, we were averaging 3.3 mph. Lots of shallows, we ran aground some. Everything was slippery mud. We took a different road back. We ate dinner at McDonalds in Vernal, since the shuttle took us to town. We were tired when we got back to camp.

Sunday, we planned an easier day. We left my car at the oil tanks near the bridge at Ouray, the take out for the day. We got on the water about 10:30, and got off the water a little after three. So a shorter day of paddling. The river was about the same, but we did see a couple of elk crossing the river, which was impressive. We kept seeing and hearing Sandhill cranes. The shuttle from Ouray to the fish hatchery boat ramp was relatively short, which helped us get on the water earlier and generally made it a more relaxing day.

Monday, we had a long shuttle. We thought it would be two hours one way, including some, not too bad dirt road. We stopped briefly in Roosevelt, which appears to be an oil town. I got to the sand wash at about 11, but Roger got lost and arrived about noon. I enjoyed talking to Michelle, from Moab who is the volunteer ranger at sand wash. I made a wrong turn on the way out, which added more time. We stopped to eat at the subway in Roosevelt, and decided it was too late in the day to start paddling. We got back to the campsite around 4 pm. It was a wet day and rained on and off all night.

Tuesday we packed up and drove to the Ouray bridge. (Ouray UT). We got on the water at 9:50 am, using my boat.  We paddled pretty steadily, making an average of 3.5 mph. As we went south the landscape changed from ranchland to canyons. There was a power boat that came by; they were scientists doing research on Pikeminmows. We played leapfrog with them for a while. Around 3 o’clock we started thinking about looking for a campsite, but agreed to continue paddling to 4 o’clock, but we were getting tired; in fact, we were so tired that we got turned around, and paddled upstream for a while, before we figured it out. We were puzzled as to why we weren’t making progress. The available campsites did not look good. They tended to have high vertical dirt walls with no easy way to go through them. There were also Tamarisk bushes to fight our way through. To cap it all, the edge of the water was slippery mud. Finally, we saw a large sandbar. There was still mud, but there were no Tamarisks, and no earthen cliff to surmount. We had no shade, but we were happy to stop; we had paddled 6 hours and 22 miles.

Wednesday we continued paddling to Sand Wash, about 13 miles.  It was a little anticlimactic, but I was pleased to have paddled the entire length of the Green River, 700 miles, from Green River Lakes Wyoming, to the confluence with the Colorado in Canyonlands.  We packed up and loaded the car.  We rode the Sand Wash road out to pavement; the rain had noticeably damaged the road from the day before. We drove to the Microtel hotel in Vernal, took showers, and then went to Vernal Brewing for dinner.

Thursday was the drive home, with lunch at McDonalds in Steamboat Springs.    

 

Thanks to Roger for his help and his photos.