A series of articles about our first visit to Lake Garda in northern Italy. Staying at Riva del Garda, we would travel around the lake to various towns, visit both Venice and Verona, ride ferries down the lake, a tram in Renon and cable cars in the Dolomite mountains.
Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to each of the articles. A link on each page will bring you back here.
We've nipped in and out of Venice a few times either whilst staying at nearby Lake Garda, or on cruises up the Adriatic Sea.
So as part of the series featuring ships, boats and any other watercraft (not enough photos of rafts yet - sorry!) this article will take a pictorial look at Venice's unique form of transport: the gondola.
They can be found at boarding stations around the main island, but the most famous one is probably this one that sits facing the lagoon just close to St Marks Square.
I'm not sure of the current cost, but the cost is normally for the gondola and gondolier, rather than per passenger. They seat six people, so going as a group works out cheaper, though less romantically perhaps, than for a couple.
From here you can take a number of routes. Although they are a slender and somewhat fragile-looking craft, they do venture out into the lagoon.
But first we'll head up the side of the Doge's Palace and sail under the famous Bridge of Sighs.
This is looking over the stern of the gondola. The gondolier stands on a platform, usually with a bit of carpet to protect the craft. There are lots of different types of wood involved in the making of a gondola and they cost a significant amount of money. This was during our first trip to Venice and our fellow travellers, Kell and his wife Denise, were from New Zealand.
Alternatively, from this same station you can head out into the swell of the Venetian lagoon.
I suspect this is reserved for relatively calm days. I'm not sure I'd like to be tossed about in one of these things, with some quite large boats, water buses, and (at that time) cruise ships whizzing up and down, creating ridges of waves from their bows.
And so, whilst this looks impressive, in reality we have turned to head for the Bridge of Sighs and what you see in the background is one of the other islands opposite St Marks Square!
And so into the canals of Venice. Narrow, crowded sometimes, with some low bridges most of which are themselves crowded with people watching your every move...
Every now and then you come across a pile of gondolas, heading to their designated boarding points to drop off one set of passengers and take on another.
Not all gondoliers can speak English - I say this only because we met up with some fellow travellers who were most indignant that their gondolier could not speak with them. Needless to say these same passengers were not feeling in the slightest bit guilty because they couldn't speak Italian...
Most gondolas have quite a bit of artwork from wooden raised fretwork on the boat's panels to miniature paintings like this one.
It follows that gondoliers are quite proud and protective of their craft. We were on this one during our second visit and a young girl put her feet up on the exquisitely embroidered seat cushion, bringing a sharp rebuke from the gondolier. I couldn't blame him - well maybe for the glare he gave me because he thought I was her father, but she was travelling with her mother alone...
A gondola about to disappear under one of the many bridges. Some of these are a bit strange - you expect a bridge to lead from a street on one side of a canal to a continuation of the street on the other side, but some just go into the entrance of a shop and you have to turn back!
As you can tell from this one, space on the canals is at a premium and not all canal users are in a craft as narrow as a gondola!
Traffic jams can be common and it is amazing how easily the gondoliers steer their long craft around and between each other with just a single long oar.
The other tool in their trade is to scoot against the wall of the canal with a spare foot. By which I mean the one they are not resting their weight on... they don't literally have a spare foot.
Whilst on the canals there are some lovely little architectural features to look out for. Iron grill work on windows, doorways and private moorings, bridges and all sorts of things.
"Duck!!!" How they manage to avoid banging their heads day in and day out is a mystery. Don't look backwards when approaching a bridge is a good maxim!
Whoops! Traffic jam! You do get them. It's not only gondolas or motor boats using the canals, all manner of goods have to be delivered this way as well so there are the occasional large barges and sometimes it can take several minutes to get around the next corner.
Coming around one corner, the canal joins a wider thoroughfare and we have reached the Grand Canal.
Ahead we can see the Rialto Bridge. This is the second most popular tourist spot after St Marks Square and the narrow streets between the two are furnished with plenty of direction signs pointing one way to Rialto and the other to San Marco.
There is another large gondola station here where you can pick up a ride in the shadow of the bridge.
In between trips the gondoliers can chat to friends and grab a coffee from one of the many cafes along the stretch of the canal.
The view from the Rialto Bridge looking further up the Grand Canal.
The fourth in a series of articles looking at ships we have seen either at home or whilst on holiday.
MSC Musica, photographed in 2009 from one of Venice's water buses. We were low down on the water and she is towering above us! Built in 2006 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France, she had capacity to carry over 2,500 passengers with a crew of just over 1,000. She was the first of her class - the Musica Class - to be followed by Magnifica, Orchestra and Poesia. Refurbished in November 2019, she has 13 decks and can cruise at an average of 23 knots.
The MS Regatta, was also built at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire in 1998 as an R-class cruise ship for Renaissance Cruises. The second of her class she was imaginatively named R-Two. Renaissance Cruises were an American-owned company and finances affected by the Gulf War were finally disastrously run down after the 911 terrorist attack and the company went bankrupt, the ship being sold to Cruiseinvest and sailing as Insignia after a full year of being laid up. In 2003 she transferred to Oceania Cruises and was renamed as Regatta under which name and owner she still sails. A relatively small ship, for these days, she carries upto 824 passengers with 386 crew.
The ro-ro car and passenger ferry Metamauco, built in 1998 by the family-owned Cantiere Navale Visentini shipyard in Italy and operating in the Venetian Lagoon by Actv. This firm, the Company of the Venetian Transport Consortium runs all forms of public transport around the Venetian Lagoon and islands, including ferries, waterbuses, wheeled buses and trams.
Actv waterbus (vaporetto) Actv 87 on the main southern route from Venice towards the cruise port.
Two Blue Star ferries seen in Rhodes in 2010. Blue Star 1 on the left was built in the Netherlands in 2000 and carried upto 1600 passengers and 640 vehicles. In 2007 she had 15 new cabins added on an extension to deck 9. From 2021 she completed a two-year charter with Irish Ferries sailing between Pembroke and Rosslare. She kept her name throughout this charter and in 2023 returned to Blue Star and currently sails between Piraeus and Chania.
On the right is Blue Star's Diagoras, built in 1990 as the New Tosa in Japan for the Osaka-Kōchi route. She was bought after nine years on that route by Greek company, Dodekanisos Seaways, who shortly afterwards sold her on to DANE Sea line who renamed her Lindos. After some conversion work, she sailed between islands in the Dodecanese group in 2001 and was renamed again as Diagoras. DANE Sea line went bankrupt in 2004 and she spent the next two years laid up in Piraeus before Blue Star bought her in 2006. She operated on a variety of routes mainly in the Dodecanese group until being sold to a Moroccan company, Africa Morocco Link, in 2016, operating between Spain and Morocco. She was bought back by Blue Star in 2018 for whom she still sails.
Also in Rhodes in 2010 we came across the Delphin Voyager. Now this is a ship of many names. Built in Tokyo, Japan as Orient Venus for Japan Cruise Line in 1990, she spent fifteen years sailing in the Japanese cruise marketplace. In 2005 she was sold to First Cruise Line in 2005 and became Cruise One (how do they think of these names?) Chartered in 2007 to German company Delphin Kreuzfahrten as Delphin Voyager as seen above. The company became insolvent just six months after we saw her and she was taken to Perama a few miles from Piraeus in Greece until she was chartered for a five-month period in early 2011 to Hainan Cruises in China. She became the Hainan Express for that period to May 2011.
Then followed a charter to Quail/Happy Cruises under the name Happy Dolphin. She wasn't happy for long as Quail/Happy Cruises quickly went bankrupt in the same year. Another charter in 2012 took her to Turkey for the summer season crusing from Izmir under the name Aegean Paradise. In 2016 she was sold to a company and spent some time as a floating casino off Indonesia. She is apprarently still cruising as Aegean Paradise and 16 minutes ago as I now write, she was heading for Penang in Malaysia.
Costa Victoria pictured in Piraeus, Greece, in April 2010 with what appears to be a very determined Miss Franny walking along in her "danger flag" pants, keeping an eye on the workmen standing on a floating pontoon or raft doing something important to the side of the ship. I think the circles with the cross in them are safe targets for tugboats rather than "drill here" markings, but who knows... She was built in 1995 at Bremen in Germany, the first of two Victoria-class ships. The second was earmarked to become Costa Olympia but instead was sold to Norwegian Cruise Line, becoming Norwegian Sky. Meanwhile Costa Victoria started cruising with Costa Cruises in 1996, Costa's last new ship before the firm was taken over by Carnival Corporation in 1997.
Refits were undertaken in 2004 and 2013 to add balconies and remodel staterooms and public rooms to look "more Italian". In March 2020 a woman who had disembarked in Crete was found to be COVID positive and 726 passengers were subjected to quarantine. Her last scheduled stop of that cruise in Venice was cancelled and passengers eventually left the ship in Civitavechhia, Italy, after their quarantine period. She never carried passengers again. Three months later in June 2020 she was sold to an Italian firm for possible conversion to worker accomodation for shipyard workers in Genoa, but this never came to pass either. She was transferred to a subsidiary company and sent to Piombino from where she was towed to Aliağa, Turkey, for shipbreaking which took place in 2021.
A row of four ferries seen in Piraeus, Greece in 2010, belonging to the firm G.A. Ferries. On the left and laid up at the time is the Marina or to give it its full name,: Anthi Marina. She had been built as one of three ships for Townsend Thorensen and was originally the Spirit of Free Enterprise. One of her sister ships was the ill-fated Herald of Free Enterprise that capsized in the English Channel off Zeebrugge in 1987. Following this P&O bought out the company and all three ships were renamed, with Spirit... becoming Pride of Kent. In 1991 she was cut in half and an extension of 102 feet (31 metres) fitted into the centre of the ship.
In 1998 she became P&OSL Kent with the merger of P&O and Stena Line. This was shortened to P O Kent following the buyout of Stena Line's shares. She was sold to G.A. Ferries in 2003 and named Anthi Marina for whom she operated until being laid up in 2009 and was eventually scrapped in 2012.
Second in line is the Romilda with a similar background. Built in 1974 as Free Enterprise VIII and renamed in 1987 as Pride of Canterbury, she was transferred to G.A. Ferries in 1993, the second of their ferries to be named Romilda. She was sold to be scrapped in Turkey in 2011.
Third in line is the Rodanthi, built in 1974 in Japan for the Shin Higashi Nippon Ferry. She was bought by G.A. Ferries in 1989, chartered to CoTuNav (Tunisia Ferries) in 1995 then returned to Greece later the same year being laid up in Piraeus in 2009 and eventually scrapped in 2012
Finally, nearest the camera, we have Daliana another ship built for the Japanese domestic market as Ferry Pearl in 1970. She was bought by G.A. Ferries in 1988 and laid up with the others in 2009 - there were financial problems behind the laying up of ships. She was sold for scrapping in 2011.
A series of articles describing our cruise on the Ocean Village Two. The itinerary for this cruise was Heraklion, Crete > Day at Sea > Dubrovnik, Croatia > Venice, Italy > Korčula, Croatia > Corfu, Greece > Zakinthos, Greece > Heraklion, Crete.
Join us in our adventures, trials and mishaps. Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.
