From April 15th to the 24th we cruised the Adriatic with my family, visiting: Trieste, Ancona (Italy), Kotor (Montenegro), Bari (Italy), Corfu (Greece), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Trieste, and Venice (Italy).

April 15-16 we spent in Trieste, a nice town in the North of Italy. Instead of at the hotel, we had breakfast at the Illy Café by the Canal Grande. Beautiful location, delicious croissant (I chose pistachio cream, but they had many). After a little walk around town, we went stright to the port to board the MSC Fantasia for a week-long cruise along the Adriatic Sea. The boarding process was a ridiculous ordeal, because they could not find our reservation, then said they could not find the payment, then they said they had to check the insurance, then they had to call the headquarters and it was a holiday… good thing we were traveling with our travel agent! Terrible service on the part of MSC. But eventually everything was straightened out, and we were able to board two hours later.

Some photos here.

Our first port of call was Ancona. It’s not a particularly interesting town, but there’s always a palace, a church, a view from the top of the hill…

Some photos here.

The next day we visited Kotor, a wonderful small town in Montenegro. With its Venetian fortifications, its winding alleys, street cats, restaurants and cafes, Kotor is always a very picturesque delight to visit. Before tendering back to the ship we stopped at the market by the city wall and bought some pomegranate wine and some mushroom cheese; and, of course, we had lunch at our favourite restaurant, on the water: Galion.

Some photos here.

Kotor is a hard act to follow, but Bari ended up being sufficiently interesting. We visited the mosaics at the Catedrale di San Sabino, had pizza at Piccini 28, and excellent gelato at Pasticceria Mercantile.

Some photos here.

Corfu was our only Greek stop this time, and we enjoyed it even though it rained for a few minutes. We rented a car and drove to Palaiokastritsa beach and Pelekas beach before enjoying a delicious Greek lunch with beautiful views at Ayra (Avra) Taverna, and going back to the ship.

Some photos here.

Dubrovnik is always too manicured, too well preserved, too crowded… but definitely worth visiting. Lunch at Poklisar was definitely worth it. Great views and beautiful building by the old city wall, and by far best black risotto I’ve ever had. Too bad I had to spend an hour on a business conference call, while everyone enjoyed their meal.

Some photos here.

After a day at sea (here are a few photos), we finally disembarked in Trieste on April 23rd. Since we were staying at the gorgeous grande dame of hotels in Trieste, the Savoia Excelsior Palace, we just crossed the street from the ship straight into the hotel.

Lunch at Da Angelina was so good, that we repeated. Dinner at Puro was also quite good, and definitely “the place to be” on a weekend night. Eataly was another place completely worth visiting, ¡particularly since we were traveling with some serious foodies!

Some photos here and here.

Even though we had just spent almost a month in Venice, one can never get tired of that city, so we returned with the family by train. In a few hours we visited some of the highlights: Scuola Grande Di San Rocco, Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, piazza San Marco… We also had Venetian cicchetti at bar Dogale, to escape the rain, and pizza at Di Napoli - Maestri Pizzaioli as a goodbye to Italy… for now.

Some photos here.