Home from Empires of the Mediterranean 18/3/16

[pukekolive]

We are home from our cruise 18/3 to 27/03/16 Empires of the Med on Viking Star.

 

We arranged independent stays in both Venice (4 days prior) and Istanbul (3 days post) and were amazed at how well theses sections turned out (although I was thorough in my planning).

 

Our hotels could not have been better for service, comfort and locatio:

 

Venice - Hotel Violino d'Oro - literally less than 5 mins walk from St Mark's Square, Alilaguna and ACTV vaporetto stops.

 

We walked everywhere in Venice and saw most of the museums, main churches, Doge's Palace, an evening of opera with Musica a Palazzo, a show at Teatro San Gallo, visited La Fenice Opera House and the Naval Museum.

 

It was an easy walk from our Hotel to the Alilaguna stop at St Marco Giardinetti for a 10 minute trip to the Cruise Terminal, cost Euro 8 each.

 

Istanbul - Blue House Hotel - again 2 minutes stroll to Sultanahment Square and views from our room (suite) of the Blue Mosque and Sea of Marmara

 

The cruise itself was great, Viking service is second to none, the food was wonderful in all venues and the ship relaxing but with just enough entertainment when you wanted it.

 

We only did a couple of Viking Tours:

 

Pula - A Walk through Rovinj which we really enjoyed - optional excursion

Dubrovnik - Included Walking Tour- we did this in the afternoon after walking the walls in the morning with 3 other couples - please not that the walls close at 3pm in the off season

 

We arranged independent tours in some other ports and these all went without a hitch, in some ports we joined other couples on these tours, the maximum we had was 3 couples in Athens.

 

Kotor - private 5 hour tour, just the 2 of us with Tours By Milo - fantastic!

 

Santorini - hire car from Tony's Rentals for the day Euro 40

 

Athens - Half day tour with PK Travel and guide for 2 hours at the Acropolis - they were aware that streets would be closed at 9:30am for a parade and organised accordingly. Apparently some of the Viking Tours were disrupted by this parade and spent quite a long time waiting on the buses instead of touring.

 

Kusadasi/ Ephesus - 7 hour tour with 1 other couple with MeliTours - we spent over 2 hours at Ephesus, visited a rug training establishment, leather works and had a 3 course leisurely lunch at a private farmlet. This was a great tour with a wonderful guide!

 

Canakkale (Troy/ Gallipoli) - Our only regret before our cruise was that we could not organise to go to Troy and Gallipoli so the sudden change to the itinerary by Viking due to the Brussels bombing made this a reality.

 

Istanbul - there were no Viking tours here so we had 2 1/2 days here ourselves and felt safe all the time:

 

Day One: Casual walk and lunch at Sultanahmet Square,afternoon Bosphorus Cruise and Pierre Loti Hill, evening Dinner Cruise on Bosphorus.

Day Two Walking Tour Guide from Ephesus Shuttle for 7 hours, very tiring but we covered Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace with Harem (extra) and The Grand Bazaar.

Day 3 We walked to the Spice Bazaar ourselves

 

We would advise everyon not to be too concerned about issues with independent tours or self-organised pre and post, these are easy to organise with a bit of planning and you will be happy that you did it!