Venice, Italy to Barcelona, Spain

Venice to Barcelona - 2016

Linda and I embarked on a 15 day trek from Venice to Barcelona. This trip started on July 8 with flights from Columbus to Venice via Atlanta. It ended in Barcelona on July 22 with a return flight to Columbus. As it turns out, my checked bag made an additional stop in Casablanca and New York City before arriving 3 days later.

This was one awesome trip. I made 4774 images on my main camera. The following is an attempt at creating a set of images that captures the people, places, and things we saw.

We spent the first 2 days in Venice. We connected up with the Azamara ship Jouney the afternoon of July 10. The first stop was in Dubrovnik, Croatia. This was a repeat port from last year. This time we were there overnight which brought some interesting evening activities. From there we sailed to Argostoli on the Island of Kefalonia, Greece. Between there and Naples, Italy we had one day at sea where we passed by Sicily and other interesting places including the active volcano named Stromboli. However, for most of that day we did not see land (and I made very few images). On day 7 the plan was to stop at Sorrento and shuttle via tender to shore. However, the weather did not cooperate so the captain docked us in Naples where we were able keep our plan to visit Pompeii in the morning. After a nice lunch we wandered around Naples. From there the ship sailed to Civitavecchia, the port for Rome. When in Rome - we visited the Colosseum and The Roman Forum. We had a nice lunch and wandered around seeing many other sites. But clearly we only scratched the surface of this fascinating city. That evening we sailed to the port city of Livorn. From here we toured Florence and Pisa. Following that we visited Monte Carlo and Cassis France. We ended up in Barcelona as planned on the 20th of July where we spent one day on the ship and another night in Hotel Avenida Palace before heading home on July 22.

We arrived in Venice after our 9 plus hour flight from Atlanta. It took nearly as much time to travel to Venice this year as it did to Athens in 2015. Note that when you fly from Atlanta to Europe you are an hour or more away from most east coast departure airports (like Philadelphia). When you fly from Columbus to Atlanta you go south. When you go from Columbus to Philadelphia you go east and cut off an hour or more of your total travel time. Flights were pretty much on time and pleasant.

From the airport we took a private water taxi to our hotel. Or shall we say to the closest taxi stand to our hotel. It was still another 10 minute walk lugging our bags to get to our hotel. Luckily no bridges to cross. We stayed at the Concordia hotel located on St. Marks Plaza next to the clock. It was a convenient location to central Venice. Their breakfast buffet was a great way to start each day.

We wandered around Venice proper on the first day enjoying a nice lunch and dinner and a bus ride on the Grand Canal. The second day we ventured over to Burrano to visit the brightly colored houses. We had a simple street lunch there before heading back to our hotel. I found this little book store crammed with books that I had only briefly seen the last time. It had the typical smell of damp books. It was impressive. We had another nice dinner and then wandered on another evening stroll.

Sunday I ventured out on my own for some early photography and to scout out the bus and route to the cruise ship. We left about noon for our bus ride to the ship.

This was my second time to Venice and I liked it even more. Every place we went deserves a return visit. Sometimes more time is needed to explore historic places. Sometimes it's simply a place to kick back and relax. And yet other places you want to come back to are because of the art-filled streets and buildings.

Our ship was able to dock at all locations except Cassis. This allowed us to walk on and off the ship whenever we wanted. At Cassis, we were reliant on the shuttles which ran about every 20 minutes. We walked many miles in our 15 days of travel.

All in all a very nice trip. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I enjoyed creating them.