We moved everything we could wheel or easily carry ourselves. Maria, our new cabin steward, is a dear and had our new cabin on Deck 4 ready to go and rearranged the way we like (word has gotten around) by 7:30am, so I began to wheel things to the new cabin. Since this move involved a change of decks, it required some time simply to repeatedly get an elevator on disembarkation morning, but it was nearly all done by 8am. Our original steward, Ionut (now a supervisor!) showed up with a cart and we placed all our hanging clothes on it and got them moved (twice as hard on the Pacific Princess because of those darn closet doors that must be closed to open the cabin door which must be closed to open the closet doors). The morning remained very foggy, and we took our time unpacking and getting settled until the Club Restaurant opened for lunch at noon.
Our new cabin is a connecting ocean view cabin and has an upholstered chair instead of a loveseat. However, we already know that our next cabin, the same type on the same deck but not a connecting cabin, also has a chair. I really can't explain the difference but can only advise that you not assume that you will have one or the other on the Pacific Princess. We use both of them only as a place to lay things so it's not a loss to us either way.
Lunch was soup and that delicious salmon, and an orange soufflé for dessert. We next needed to walk all that food off, and were happy to see a little sun come out around 1:30pm. We walked off the ship (we had the coveted Berth 108 today, saving us nearly 10 minutes of walking to get out of the port). Once in Piazzale Roma we simply explored Venice by foot today. People say you can't get lost in Venice and in one sense that's right- it is an island, after all- but, darn, it's certainly easy to take the longest way possible to get anywhere. Our original intention was to walk across all four bridges over the Grand Canal, and it was easy to reach the first two, at Piazzale Roma and the train station at Ferrovia. We wandered through the train station and I was amazed at all the great stores located in the terminal. There's a Sephora and a MAC store, to name just two I noticed. And we had to take photos of all the pastries and gelatos in the shops outside the station. So decadent and colorful!
In Italy, these sorts of religious shrines are everywhere along public streets.
Not sure that's a good thing...but they're there.
The Piazzale Roma vaporetto area from the Piazzale Roma bridge
(There is a great grocery store about 3/4 of the way down in the line of buildings in the left).
Crossing the Piazzale Roma bridge
Near the Ferrovia train station, gelato and doughnuts
How do Venetians stay so slim in the midst of all of these temptations?
They walk everywhere and climb lots of stairs over bridges.
We soon realized that we were spending way too much time looking and would not be able to cross all four bridges today. We decided to check out the canals and alleys on the east side of the Grand Canal and, for the first time, we began to see Venice as its residents do, and not just the tourist areas. We loved seeing all the small squares between a block of buildings that held wells dating back hundreds of years. It wasn't hard to imagine people living in close quarters and getting their water and doing laundry in the squares.
We were seeing some beautiful fall colors!
Following maps when some 'streets' are narrow tunnels under buildings is not easy!
My favorite store was a mask store we passed. The masks were beautifully detailed. We had just watched a Rudy Maxa Smart Travels in Venice this morning while we were settling in our new cabin and he had talked about the frightening, long-beaked masks that doctors wore when treating patients with the plague in the Middle Ages. The intention of the mask was to protect the doctor but even moreso to frighten away the evil spirits believed to cause the illness. Sure enough, this shop had those kinds of masks too.
Finally it was getting close to sunset (if the sun had lasted this afternoon, which it didn't) and we knew we had to find our way back to Piazzale Roma before dark. We ended up just following the flow of people; we figured they were heading either to the Piazzale Roma or the train station. Finally things started to look familiar, and we managed to reboard the ship just as it got dark.
After a quick clean up, we had dinner in the Club Restaurant (it was open seating tonight) and made it to the 6:15pm performance of the Venetian Chamber Orchestra. We sat where we had a full on view of the cellists. One of them had kept us highly entertained last cruise with his expressive movements and his 7" long hair. He'd shake his head so vigorously as he played that he looked like a wild child. Well, guess who got a very short haircut? He's still expressive, but he no longer looks like Albert Einstein at the end of each piece of music.
The soprano was a hoot, and could be comically funny while singing beautifully.
The typewriter song
The alarm clock song
We left the Cabaret Lounge and walked right into the Pacific Princess showband pianist and bass player performing jazz in the Casino Lounge. It was like having professional musicians entertaining us in our own living room. We settled into comfortable chairs, listening to them until they finished and then returned to the Cabaret Lounge for the second performance of the Venetian Chamber Orchestra. Yes, we enjoyed them that much.
But we were tired then, and walked down just one deck and right to our new cabin in about 30 seconds. Our cabin certainly is conveniently located! We are overnighting in Venice and have until 3:30pm tomorrow to walk across those two remaining bridges and check out a couple of churches along the way. It's hard to think it's our last day in Venice this season but something tells me we'll be returning in the future.
And that makes life very good! :-)
