Highlights-End of Cruise, Venice Day 1
My throat was really sore this morning so I started popping “emergency lozenges.” Today was “we hope you enjoyed the cruise but we have new passengers to board so please get off the ship” day. The departure instructions were a bit vague, “Vacate your room. Go to the Atrium. More to follow.” The Viking Representative was communicating with pier transportation about which color group should debark. Blue, orange, and pahr-pull (purple). After carrying off his carry on bag, this Independent traveler almost left his bag at the cruise terminal. I thought the person in the terminal said to put my bag with the other orange1 bags left by the shirtless people (think Melville’s fish story) outside their rooms the night before. I put my bag with the others and went outside to the water taxi. The woman who met me at the door asked, “Where’s your bag?” Oops. We met Samantha, our coordinator guide, at the hotel. Due to Italian tourism regulations, she could only set things up for the group, deal with complaints (there are always complaints), and narrate en route to destinations, not at them. She kindly offered to help returning visitors recreate photos from their previous trip. The person whom I was with on that visit only took window pictures so recreating them made no sense (I looked away when she asked). Samantha had an endearing way of emphasizing things. “This is very super important.” No ambiguity there. Supper was “on your own” so I chose a two course meal with bland bread (more on this later). The evening Grand Canal Tour by boat was excellent. Venice has 400 bridges, all different. I’ll bet some are “similar.” I couldn’t get the hotel room wall heater to stop blowing cold air no matter how I set the fan control and temperature dial. I declared climate control bankruptcy and turned it off (second time on this trip), sleeping in a long sleeve wool shirt.