Adriatic & Mediterranean
Cruise
Eleven days
Onboard temptations will abound, some more beguiling than others. Library and swimming pool and scrumptious entree pictures here are color corrected and cropped from corporate ads.... We shall discover their truth anon.
except for Split and La Spezia, these ports are new to us. Taking in sights and smells and tastes, plus the pleasures of a new-to-us cruise line, carries the hazard of oversaturation, as we adapt to new places and distractions. We shall toil bravely to manage.
This elegant watercraft will be home and transport and restaurant array for a good week and a half, from Ravenna to Croatia to Sicily to the Cinque Terre, and back to Rome. And a note:
Our Constellation ship departs Ravenna about 5 pm
We. Will. Eat.
Old Zadar's ninth century St Donatus church rises adjacent to a thoroughly excavated Roman forum, which hopefully there will be time to explore. A tour will take us out of town, however, where there are breathtaking views to wonder at—and of course to photograph and take videos of.
Continuing along the sailing routes of 13th-14th c. Venetian merchants, then, to Dubrovnik
Zadar
Here is the Dubrovnik that we want to see and remember, with a vast length of protective wall that survives from the 14th century—recaling when this was the site of a Venetian garrison along the Adriatic sea (one wants to protect incoming trade items borne by one's fleet, and one wants to assure a marketplace for buyers of that stuff).
This scene is embarrassing, I stoutly insist, suggesting tens of thousands of cruisers about to descend daily for a token hour or so, before
Dubrovnik
retreating to their vanilla-flavored stateroom, to return home some days later brandishing a purchased trinket for little Sally. Maybe some of the actual culture will rub off, too. But too often it suggests walking past a local gourmet feast and tasting a little sauce from one of the insanely flavorful cultural entrees and side dishes on the way back to the ship... and supposing they really have experienced that repast. Oh, please.
Split
Scenes from Split as we knew it in 2006. I would like to revisit this farmer's market just for the joy of watching the dozens of always earnest and sometimes cheerful stocky Croat women in black dresses, bustling around as only sturdy farmers' wives can do. Maybe find some dried Adriatic figs to smuggle back aboard?
And surely we'll revisit the palace of Emperor Diocletian, that consistently efficient slaughterer of Christians. He retired to this stone super-mansion in a.d. 303, the only Roman emperor, I believe, to live beyond his tenure. At the last when he lay dying, he commanded that his regal self should be placed in a stone sarcophagus and placed in one of the stately alcoves, just yonder—and there his remains stayed for some centuries until they were displaced by the relics of a local saint whose body was meant to add authority to a major Christian church being put up exactly there. Although pieces of his fine sarcophagus have been spotted, scattered among subsequent structures, Diocletian's actual bones are lost to posterity.
Don't you just
love karma, sometimes?
that we first enjoyed perhaps at that very table, alongside an aged steak of Argentine-beef. Best flavor ever.
Klappa singers in Diocletian's Palace
Listen again!
Kotor, eh?
Seafood salad
Kotor
Old and quaint Kotor... It offers huge charm to explorers (and cruisers), with structures dating back to the time of Emperor Justinian. 800 years afterwards the industrious Venetians established protections here for their profitable merchandise trade routes .
An entire extra day plying the Adriatic, then, brings us around Italy's stylish boot to its adjacent misshapen-football island: Sicily.
Messina
Remains of Greek presence abound in Sicily. I hope these will be readily available to view, to explore, to ponder—after we give due attention to the old harbor panorama with its grand structures (a mere 600 years old).
Whether these heavy old columns managed to remain upright, as intended at first, or supine as centuries of rain and sun (and foolishness of humans) have decreed, we will gape at their impressive beauty out on windswept hillsides.
And on to Salerno, beautiful on the mainland.
Salerno
It was going to be Naples where Constellation would tie up next after Sicily. But somehow wise corporate suits determined that they'd offer this one happy substitute as a pause on our leisurely cruise from Ravenna to Rome....
So Salerno it became, vibrant and less complicated than the larger and denser city to the northwest (home to the world's most exquisite pizza), still bustling but homier with smaller streets and fewer (!) obnoxious tourists.
The Amalfi Coast runs along here, with some of the bluest water and most picturesque villages that Italy has to offer.
La Spezia
Although La Spezia has beauty of its own, its commercialized-city size renders it less comely for tourists, than the Cinque Terre park's five little towns. So as soon as possible after leaving the ship that Saturday morning, we will rush directly to the ferry terminal (see looping video just below) for the boat-ride part of several hours of happiness exploring the Cinque Terre's tiny communities. Pictured above is an especially photogenic (less urbane) neighborhood of La Spezia. It's some miles down the coast, south of the specific "five lands"—cliffside communities which we'll begin to pass along the coastline, after the aforementioned ferry boat winds its way around Portovenere and continues more or less in the direction of Genoa on its way to what will be our farthest stop, Vernazza. Between boat and train in the map video are shown two footpaths that we will savor, every step we take.
On the way from La Spezia to the border of France, One major rail stop beyond the Cinque Terre towns, Levanto has charm of its own—a place to vacation in Liguria if you aren't quite a U.S. tourist. It strikes me as a family place.—where you bring your kids to the park and visit with friends while little Cristina and Alex work off some of that boundless energy in climbing and running, and playing one of the endless soccer games. A much-beloved gelato emporium is right across the road from that very park.
Numero quattro of the actual Cinque, Vernazza is arguably the most photogenic and walkable (and most crowded with guidebook-reading tourists) of these handsome little towns.
