Venice: cruise time


Today we boarded the Viking Star to begin our cruise.

After a leisurely morning, we travelled from our hotel to the cruise port in Fusina.  Part of the greater Venice region, Fusina is a working port on the mainland southwest of Venice proper.  We had the same driver who had picked us up at the airport take us to the port, driving past lots of semis, stacks of containers, and all the other shipping implements found at port docks.


Ours was the only cruise ship in port.


Immediately adjacent to our ship were rows of Ford trucks (cabs and chassis)  - a quick Google search indicated that Ford now has a distribution center for commercial trucks in Italy:  https://www.fordtrucksbelux.be/news/continues-its-expansion-in-western-europe


Not your typical tourist attraction, but we found it interesting.

Since we’d been able to fill out all the embarkation paperwork online ahead of time, getting checked in was quick and easy.  After having lunch at the buffet, we settled into our stateroom.

We were told that we could take a shuttle boat into Venice this afternoon.  John wasn’t interested, but I decided to go.  We had a dinner reservation at 7:30, so I’d need to be back for that, but a boat ride through the lagoon sounded interesting - and it was.





The ride to Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) took about 45 minutes.  It occurred to me that if I spent any time there at the Piazza, I might be cutting it close for making it to our dinner reservation, and besides that I’d be returning here tomorrow for a walking tour, so I got right back on the shuttle and headed back to the ship.  Anyone watching might have considered me crazy, but I was more interested in the boat ride through the lagoon, so it worked for me.

Here’s a map showing the greater Venice area - our cruise ship is docked in the lower left corner of the map, south of Porto Marghera.  Piazza San Marco is below the letter I in “Venice.”


Returning immediately turned out to be a good idea because John and I were able to attend a very interesting lecture on the history of Venice (a much abbreviated version - Venice’s history is long and complicated) before going to dinner.

Dinner was good.  We followed up with a walk around several decks to get oriented, and by then it was time to call it a night.

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