Our first port of call was Opatija, Croatia.
Opatija is a resort town in the northwest of Croatia and is home to around 11,000 people.
As Opatija is a very small town it does not have port facilities big enough to handle the Azamara Pursuit. Time for tendering. Thankfully Azamara Pursuit is a not a large ship so getting a tender does not take much time and effort.
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First up an extra spicy Bloody Maria, tequila instead of vodka, from the pool bar. The first significant improvement this cruise is that I did not have any issues with my drinks packages, it was nice to be able to sit back and relax after the “fun” associated with our transfer from Venice.
After the sail away from Chioggia, it was to time continue our checking of the bar tending skills of the crew… This time in the Living Room, a dry Gin Martini followed by Espresso Martinis.
So far so good! -:) I think I will survive the trip.
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Who knew that the biggest saga to board the Azamara Pursuit would be getting to the ship from Venice.. We needed to get to Chioggia to board the ship, a distance of around 45kms by road.
The original plan was for us to take a water taxi, would have cost us Eur350 if the taxi boat skipper had said yes, and taken about 1 hour. Unfortunately our taxi boat skipper did not accept the fare to Chioggia, as he would have lost an hour of fares due to the time it would take to get back to Venice. We think he was a bit shocked when we agreed to his Eur350 price tag. The reason we wanted to do the by water as it would have been a great way to start the cruise. Thankfully we didn’t as the walk from the taxi drop off point to the cruise terminal was probably around 1 to 1.5kms and it was HOT!
A lesson for new players is to make sure that you get dropped off at the correct side of the canal. On one side of the canal is the train station and the land taxis are on the other side. To get to the land based taxis from the train station you need to cross this bridge which has 284 steps.
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A wander around Venice at 7am-ish in the morning is a very different experience. No tourists, just the locals getting ready for the day. It was definitely my favourite wander of the trip.
Venice is a quiet place first thing in the morning.
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