Chen-Martin Travel Network: Star Princess: 12-day Greek Isles Venice to Rome

In August 2011 Sharon and I visited Venice for 3 days prior to embarking on a 12-night Greek Island cruise aboard the Star Princess. Highlights of the pre-cruise stay are summarized in an earlier posting on this site.

This cruise featured a very port-intensive itinerary with only one full day at sea. It was an excellent itinerary which will be repeated several times in 2012 on the Crown Princess. This itinerary provides a nice sampling of ports in 4 different countries. Our brief stops in Croatia and Turkey make me anxious for return land-based visits.

Star Princess at Santorini

Venice “sail away”: we boarded the ship on a Monday afternoon and the ship stayed in port for that evening and into the next day. We could have purchased passes for unlimited transfers to and from St. Marks Square. But after 3 full days in Venice we were ready to relax and enjoy the ship. On Tuesday at 1PM the ship departed passing St. Marks on its way to Croatia. We watched the sail away from the top deck; it was nice to see the sights from the perspective of being 15 stories up.

passing St. Mark's Square during 'Sail Away'

Dubrovnik, Croatia: A highlight of a visit to Dubrovnik is a walk around the ancient city walls that encircle the old town. We arrived on a very hot day. We left the ship as early as we could so that we could complete the wall walk before the hottest part of the day. The ship docks at a location which is a long walk from the old town; to preserve time and energy we spent $15 on a taxi ride to town.

There is an admission charge to walk the walls, about $14 in local currency only, but credit cards are accepted. The walk involves lots of steps but can easily be done by anyone who is moderately fit. There are great views from the various outlooks. A complete circumnavigation took about 2 ½ hours to complete. An audio device can be rented for about $7; it was moderately informative.

Dubrovnik Wall Walk

One regret of our visit is that we weren’t dressed properly to participate in one of the kayak tours offered near old town; perhaps next time.

Kayakers explore lagoon below the old town

Corfu, Greece: Corfu is a large island, about 40 miles long, located in the Ionian Sea. It is a very green island covered in lush foliage. For this stop I booked a Princess shore excursion, the Paleokastritsa, Monastery and Kinopiastes Village tour. Paleokastritsa is a village perched above 6 coves on a rocky shoreline. The monastery was very picturesque and it had great views of the shoreline below. We were taken to a village tavern for snacks and a folkloric show. The folkloric show consisted of two musicians and two dancers performing 3 dance routines in different local costumes. The show concluded with the classic ‘dancer picks up a table with his teeth’ routine. It turned out that the ‘snack’ was actually a very tasty light lunch and it was served with unlimited local wine. It’s really nice when a tour operator under-promises and over-delivers.

Katakolon, Greece: this is the port city that is used for visits to the ancient site of Olympia. Many passengers traveled to Olympia via shore excursion or independently but I decided that a beach day was in order. There is a small pebbly beach called Renata that is a short walk from the cruise dock. The beach is quite pleasant but rocky into the water so water shoes are quite useful. When we arrived at 9AM we had a good selection of loungers to rent but the beach pretty much filled up by 10:30. There was a small bar/café above the beach. Overall it was a quite pleasant location. The local village of Katakolon is supposed to have some nice tavernas but we didn’t venture into town.

Renata Beach at mid-day

Athens: There was some concern about the Athens stop due to the civil unrest and strikes related to the government's austerity measures. I had been following the new stories but fortunately things had settled down by the time of our visit.

Athens lies about 12 miles from its port city of Piraeus. I had planned an independent trip to visit the Acropolis and other nearby sites by using the local subway. However the day before our arrival the ship announced that the subway was closed for maintenance and that taxis would be at a premium. We discussed our plans with our dining companions and decided that we would leave the ship early in the morning and share a taxi to the Acropolis.

When attempting to hire a taxi in Athens you are subjected to a major sales pitch for a private taxi tour. We turned down the first offer of one for 200 euro, about $290. We ended up agreeing to another one for 160 euro, about $230. In retrospect this worked out reasonably well. But towards the end of the tour the driver became somewhat surly when we turned down his proposal to drive us down to see the Corinth canal for an additional 100 euro. We had another minor incident at the end when we declined his offer to leave us in a waterfront restaurant in Piraeus. My takeaway from this experience is that it is crucial to determine exactly where you are going and how long will be allocated for each of the stops. At one stop he gave us 45 minutes total to visit the Roman agora (mostly useless), the Greek agora (a huge site) and Hadrian’s Library (didn’t make it—ran out of time). I was unable to insert one of my major desires, a visit to the new archeology museum adjacent to the Acropolis. This shortcoming is covered by my philosophy “it’s always good to leave something for your next visit.”

The Parthenon is always covered with scaffolding

Theatre of Dionysus, aka "Yanni's Theatre"

Mykonos, Greece: we arrived at Mykonos, everyone’s favorite party island, at about 1AM on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. The ship allowed passengers to go into town to experience the late-night revelry. We waited until morning. We awoke to a very windy day. The ship docks about a mile from town with no sidewalks on the narrow road. For safety considerations the ship strongly recommended using the overpriced local shuttle to get to town. We planned a beach day at Paradise Beach, reached by bus from town. We eventually found the bus station and arrived at Paradise about 15 minutes later. It was less windy there. The beach was pleasant and the water was reasonably warm. This beach has a reputation for wild late-night parties but during the day everything is calm.

After many hours at the beach we returned to explore the town. Even though we aren’t shoppers we spent some time visiting the high end jewelry stores and admiring the unique pieces created from gold and gemstones.

Mykonos town with cruise ships in the background

Sharon with a resident pet pelican

Paradise Beach

Kusadasi, Turkey: Kusadasi is the port used to access Ephesus, an ancient Greek city later occupied by the Romans. Only a small portion of the ancient city has been excavated but the excavation and restoration was performed exceedingly well. I have read that the ruins of Ephesus provide the best visit for ruins of any site in the greater Mediterranean region; they are certainly impressive.

Reviews on cruisecritic.com led me to Ephesus Shuttle, a tour operator based in Kusadasi (http://www.ephesusshuttle.com/). They offer a variety of tour options and I selected the basic Ephesus tour plus the Terrace Houses. The cost for the tour for four passengers with a driver and guide in a very comfortable van was only $56/person. Our guide was college educated, extremely articulate and he provided an outstanding guiding experience. The walk through the Terrace Houses provides some insight into how the wealthy residents of Ephesus lived.

Celsus Library

Terrace Houses were adorned with frescos

Every tour in Turkey seems to include a visit to a carpet factory. We were promised that this visit would be brief, informative and without sales pressure. During the demonstration of carpet making, Sharon had an opportunity to learn how to tie a few knots. After the demo, we were shown a variety of carpets in different sizes and qualities but we politely declined to purchase any. On our return to the port we were dropped off at a port-side restaurant which had very good food at reasonable prices.

Sharon learns the skill of carpet knot tying

Rhodes, Greece: Rhodes is a very popular beach destination for Europeans. Many cruise passengers opt for a shore excursion to visit the acropolis at Lindos or explore the medieval walled city of the city of Rhodes. We began with a walk to the nearby beach district of Elli, about a mile walk from the cruiseport. The beach had decent sand, warm water, and moderately priced loungers for rent. After several hours of enjoying the beach and the Aegean water, we wandered through the old town.

Medieval walled city of Rhodes

Santorini, Greece: The current topography of Santorini is what is left after a huge volcanic eruption over 5000 years ago blew up much of the island. Here is a satellite image of Santorini today:

Ships "dock" in the central caldera and transport passengers to a tender dock on the edge of the caldera. From here, you have a three choices to reach the main city of Fira at the top of the cliff: a walk up the donkey path, a donkey ride up the path, or a cable car ride. In this picture you can see the tender dock at the bottom, Fira at the top and the zig-zag pedestrian/donkey path connecting them. The cable car is barely visible on the left:

Santorini is incredibly popular and our visit was somewhat hampered by the presence of seven other cruise ships in port. I had planned some independent exploration but the huge number of visitors made me nervous about the availability of local buses and taxis. I selected a Princess shore excursion that included a visit to a winery and a visit to the picturesque village of Oia. We also visited a small museum containing many artifacts from the pre-explosion island.

the village of Oia features wonderful sunsets

Naples, Italy: Naples has a bit of a bad reputation for crowding and petty crime so I wanted to do an excursion. One of the Cruise Critic members organized a private shore excursion for 12 passengers visiting Pompeii and the Amalfi coast (http://www.aptours.it/). Our tourguide did a great job of showing us around Pompeii, the Roman town buried in ash by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD. Our two-hour tour of Pompeii was followed by a bus ride to the towns of Positano and Sorrento. An excellent pizza lunch highlighted our afternoon.

Pompeii with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

view along Amalfi coast

pizza at il Leone Rosso in Sorrento

Rome, Italy: The cruise ended at Rome's port city of Civitavecchia. Last year we spent five days in Rome at the conclusion of a Crown Princess transatlantic voyage. For this voyage we proceded directly to the Rome airport. Disembarkation and the Princess bus transfer to the airport were both very well organized and efficient.

The ship: The Star Princess is one of Princess' larger ships at 109,000 tons and 2,600 passengers. It was refurbished in 2008 to add Movies Under the Stars, the Sanctuary and the Piazza. Our category BB cabin had a double-sized balcony, half covered, half open.