Sunday Morning, 31 October 2010:  Disembarkation in Venice

This may be my last posting for a few days, as we leave the ship and I don't know what the computer facilities will be like our Venice hotel.  However, I will continue the narration of the trip when I return to the US and have access to electricity again.

Friday, 29 October, 2010:  Dubrovnik

We dock at the new port of Dubrovnik and do not have to use tenders to go ashore.  We have only tendered once, in Monte Carlo.  The bus takes us to a panorama high over the old city and harbor, surrounded by its miles of walls and four corners of fortifications.  Much of the city was unfortunately destroyed or damaged during the wars of 1991-1997--you can still see shrapnel marks on the sides of buildings.  However, through international aid, the entire city was rebuilt in just a few years and now looks exactly as it has for several centuries.  We explore the highlights of architecture and interior decoration, but most enjoy strolling the old streets and alleyways, some just long flights of stairs, that wind through the city.  The shops are filled with luxury goods---and the prices are the cheapest of all the places we have visited.  We stop in one shop that sells only locally produced goods and enjoy a conversation with the young owners about returning and spending a month in a rented villa or apartment.  Sounds like a good idea,

But we spend most of the morning sitting in a cafe watching the world go by.  We don't do the walk along the upper rims of the walls, because there are just too many stairs to get up to reach them (oh for the days of my youth).

Our ship leaves in the early evening as the sun is setting and we back up under the suspension bridge to make the turn out into the harbor and the Adriatic Sea, on our way to Venice.