Early.
The catamaran.
To Venice.
Venice.
Venice.
Gondola tour.
Gondelas.
The alarm goes off early, very early, at half past five, but it should have been half past four. We are startled, we brush our teeth and get dressed, we skip showering, we already did that last night.
At the reception we pick up the requested breakfast packages and then we get into the bus
that is already waiting.
We are taken to Poreč where we, with
passports, check in for the boat to Venice.
The boat is a large catamaran.
First the crew has to board, and then the passengers can go, and that takes a while.
The passengers are divided into two groups, English and Croatian speaking passengers have to
go to the upper deck, German and Polish speaking passengers, and the rest, to the lower deck.
The journey takes over three hours and during that time we get a lot of explanation.
But there is also a lot of sales talk, and we, like many others, go along with it.
For €100 we get a boat trip from the catamaran landing to San Marco square, a tour in a real
gondola, a lunch including wine, water and soft drinks and excluding beer and finally a boat
trip with a water taxi from San Marco square to the catamaran landing.
Everything to be paid directly in cash, and if you do not have cash then you can withdraw
money in Venice and pay at the start of the return trip.
Upon arrival in Venice we have to have our passports ready so that customs can see them, but
not check them.
Everything is nice, but it is so busy in Venice, so busy and so massively focused on
tourists, long, long lines everywhere.
And it is hot.
After the gondola ride we go to the restaurant for lunch, hidden in a maze of narrow
streets.
The lunch is a bit disappointing, a plate with three types of pasta in a, of course very
busy, restaurant, which seems to be run by exclusively Asian staff.
During lunch Pia sits next to a Ukrainian lady who likes a glass of wine, and together they
drink a bottle of white wine very quickly.
Tom limits himself to a bottle of beer (for only €5).
After lunch we go looking for an ATM to be able to pay the money for the boat trips and such.
That seems easy but it is not, we cannot find an ATM.
On the San Marco Square we ask for help from a policeman and he shows us the way, we can
withdraw money.
Then we look around a bit in the shopping streets around San Marco Square, lots of
souvenirs, but when we get a bit further away also clothes.
It is busy there but not as bad as on the square.
The boat trip back, with a water taxi is nice again.
We come through a part of the city where it is not busy and where you still see people
sitting on a small terrace along the water.
The boat trip back takes almost four hours and we spend that time with a few glasses of wine
and a few cans of beer.
At a quarter to eight we are back in Poreč.
The buses are waiting and at a quarter past eight we are back at the hotel.
We ask at the reception for the bag we forgot yesterday and luckily it is there.
With everything, including money, luckily still in it.
We eat something at the hotel's Lovor Real Grill, just before the kitchen closes at nine.
We are tired.
Written on: 2024-09-11
Disclaimer
We tell what we have done and experienced during a trip and we also tell what we think about it; no more and no less.
This is not a travel guide, nor is it advice to visit a place or not.
There are other sites for that.
Our opinion about places where we have eaten, drunk or slept is not intended as a (positive or negative) assessment,
there are other sites for that.
It is our view of the situation at a certain moment and that view is influenced by our mood,
the weather and many other factors.