Touring Europe by Ship:
Silver Whisper Mediterranean Cruise
Continued
from page 1
ABOVE: Dubrovnik Old Town and
harbor.
Athens-Rome Cruise Itinerary
Our cruise vacation began in Athens, Greece, where a night at
the Atheneum Inter-Continental Hotel was included in Silversea's cruise-air
package. We took the hotel shuttle that evening to the Plaka, the oldest and most
atmospheric section of modern Athens, and visited the Acropolis and the National
Archaeological Museum of Athens the next morning. Silversea provided bus
transportation from the hotel to Piraeus, the cruise and ferry port for Athens,
where we boarded the Silver Whisper in mid-afternoon and sailed at 11 p.m.
Over the next twelve days, we visited:
Monemvasia (Monemvassia),
nicknamed "the Gibraltar of Greece" because the fortified old town is built on a
massive rock. From Monemvasia, Silversea offered a shore excursion to Mistras
(a.k.a. Mistra or Mystra),
the most important and best-preserved Byzantine ruins in Greece.
Katakolon, the port closest to the ruins of Olympia, site of the Olympic
Games from 766 B.C. through the 5th Century B.C. Itea,
which was just a short drive through Greece's most extensive olive orchards to
the hillside ruins of Delphi. Then we relaxed with a day at sea before spending
two days in: Venice, where we could walk to the Piazzale
Roma from the cruise terminal or take Silversea's free shuttle boat to San
Marco. (See our Venice for Visitors
site for more than 1,000 pages of Venice travel information and photos.) After that,
we spent a day cruising along the Dalmatian Coast to the Croatian port of:
Dubrovnik (see photo above), where the walled Old Town has been almost
completely restored with US$25 million in UNESCO aid following its bombardment
by Serbian artillery in 1991. Corfu, "the green island,"
located in the Ionian Sea off the western coast of the Greek mainland.
Taormina, an attractive resort village perched on a mountainside along
Sicily's eastern coast, within easy reach of Mt. Etna National Park.
Sorrento, on the Bay of Naples, where Silversea offered shore excursions
to Capri, Pompeii, and the Amalfi Coast. (We ended up landing in Naples instead
when high seas off Sorrento made it unsafe to go ashore by launch.)
The cruise ended in Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, where we took a
Silversea bus to Fiumicino Airport. (Some passengers headed to Rome for
independent travel or Silversea's optional post-cruise hotel program.)
Note: Every Silversea cruise itinerary is different, with some cruises
being short (7 to 9 days) and a few lasting two weeks or longer. Study the
calendar on the Silversea Cruises Web
site to find a cruise length and port itinerary that appeal to you. In the
Mediterranean region alone, you'll find dozens of tempting ports on a typical
year's cruise calendar--from large cities such as Barcelona, Marseille, and
Istanbul to small ports like Valletta (Malta), Alghero (Sardinia), and St.
Tropez (France).
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The Silver Whisper
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