Welcome to the final part, Part Four, of our detailed Eastern Mediterranean itinerary! If you yet haven’t read Part One, Part Two, or Part Three, discover the first two weeks of this amazing trip, spent in Italy, Malta, Greece, and Croatia.
In this blog post, we’ll share our day-by-day itinerary, complete with our favorite activities, meals, excursions, and tips. Picking up where we left off … let’s dive into our final 4 days, spent in Slovenia, then Venice, Italy before heading back home!
DAY 14 – Port day in Koper, Slovenia
On our ninth port stop, we visited the unsuspecting town of Koper, Slovenia, with a port day lasting from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM. To be honest, we went into this day with minimal plans – though we attempted to research the port, it was tricky to find recommendations! So, we decided to explore the city without a plan, hoping to uncover some hidden gems. The ship docked right outside of the city center, so it was a very quick walk to reach shopping and restaurants! We first decided to stroll a few of the city streets, then made our way over to the waterfront area, which is home to a large park as well as a beach volleyball complex – Austin so badly wanted to get a game in, but couldn’t locate any competitors!
After our stroll, we stopped at a cafe called Kavarna Triglav to grab a shakerato on this warm morning, then continued our exploration of the city. We passed by a soccer stadium, and eventually made our way over to the mall area. It was at this point that we did something we don’t normally do … we stopped at McDonald’s! Though we never eat McDonald’s in the states, we do like to see how it compares in other countries and what the menu looks like! So, our lunch this day consisted of a greasy fast food meal, as we trialed a few items new to us. After our quick lunch, we sauntered back through the town and into port, just as the rain began to fall.
While we didn’t exactly experience Slovenian culture on this port day, we did truly enjoy Koper as a town. It honestly felt very similar to a small city in the states, being home to a university and not having the typical “tourist” feel as did many of the other ports. In our opinion, this lead to us not finding too much to experience in the town itself, however, we agreed that it is a lovely city, and if we were to ever move over to Europe, we would consider Koper as a place to reside! If we were to return to Koper or any of the surrounding Slovenian cities, we would definitely book an excursion to Lake Bled, as we have continuously heard amazing things about it!
Once back on the ship, we took some time to relax in the Observation Lounge, packed up our bags, then ate our very last meal at one of the two main dining rooms onboard the Viva, called The Commodore Room. During our meal here, we experienced great service, but typical of any main dining room on a mainline ship, just subpar food quality, in our opinion. We made our way back to the cabins, preparing for our debarkation the next morning.
Listen to our full review of Koper HERE!
DAY 15 – Debarkation in Trieste, Italy
After a long and adventurous itinerary aboard the NCL Viva, it was finally time to disembark the ship! However – we were thrown for a bit of a loop on this one … let us explain: when booking our itinerary, the debarkation port was advertised as Venice (Trieste). Due to the amount of research we completed to plan the trip leading up to this point, something that slipped through the cracks was our research of how long it takes to get from Trieste to Venice. (Spoiler Alert: it takes about 2 hours!) The day prior to debarkation, we received a notice in our cabin regarding the need to provide NCL with proof of transfer from the debarkation port, because Trieste is a shipping port. We had originally planned to disembark the ship and hail a cab, but after realizing this was not a possibility, we ended up booking a bus transfer via NCL.
This bus transfer took us directly from the cruise port to the airport, where we then stood in the taxi line to grab a cab and complete our journey to the city of Venice. Note to all of you – you do not necessarily need to book a transfer through NCL, as there is a nearby train station in Trieste, however, it is important that you pre-book your transfer, whether that be a cab to the train station or a private transfer into the city, as you do need to provide that proof of transfer! Once we arrived to the city of Venice, we were dropped off at Piazzale Roma, which is the closest you can get into Venice by car, as the city is full of canals, and offers only transportation via boat around the city! We decided to book another AirBNB for one night in Venice, and after a quick map search of where it was located, we decided to walk ~10 minutes to reach it instead of taking a water taxi. One note for walking with luggage – most of the bridges in Venice are accessible with a ramp, however, they are not ALL accessible. If you are traveling with suitcases, or use a wheelchair, it is important to acknowledge which bridges you will be crossing before beginning your journey.
Once we arrived to our AirBNB, we dropped our luggage, then took off to explore the city! Unfortunately, it was another rainy day, but that did not stop us – we used the next few hours to walk through most of the Venetian streets, admiring beautiful architecture and views like St Mark’s Square & Doge’s Palace, the Rialto Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, and the many glass-making shops in the city. During our walk, we all caught a whiff of something AMAZING, and our noses lead us to an authentic German pretzel shop named La Casa del Brezel. When I say these were the best pretzels we have ever tasted, I mean it! Also notable stops on our tour of the city included a takeaway pasta from We Love Italy and a slice of pizza from Pizzeria Sansovino. Something we did not experience on this go-around due to a massive line was Suso Gelato, but if you find yourself in Venice, we hear this is a must!
After a few hours of exploration, we made our way back to the AirBNB to change our clothes before heading out to meet up with some friends, who were coincidentally in Venice at the same time as us on their honeymoon! Per our AirBNB host’s recommendation, we ate at a contemporary Italian restaurant named Impronta, and shared some absolutely delicious pasta. During our meal, something very unique happened … the restaurant began to flood due to the rain and all of the overflowing canals in the city! While we were seated in the back of the restaurant and fortunately did not experience any of this flooding, the locals sitting at the front of the restaurant were not fazed, and instead rolled up their pant legs and took off their shoes, which we thought was hilarious! After dinner, we ended our evening by galavanting through the rain, stopping in a few different bars to spend more time catching up with our friends.
DAY 16 – Venice, Italy
On our final full day in Italy, we woke up early to go explore Venice one last time, as the weather had cleared up and left us with a gorgeous, sunny morning! We grabbed a quick takeaway cappuccino, then continued to walk through the streets of Venice, stopping once more to take in St Mark’s Square, the Rialto Bridge, and also Campo della Pescaria, a market where we purchased some pasta and spices to gift to our family and keep for ourselves. During our walk, we couldn’t help ourselves, and stopped back by La Casa del Brezel not once … but twice! (Seriously, it’s THAT good!) The final activity we decided to complete was an iconic gondola ride through the canals of the city. Our AirBNB host connected us with a gondolier friend of his, and we messaged him to locate his best pick-up spot. Though a gondola ride is pricey (100 euros for 30 minutes), we felt that it was worth it to be able to see the city by the water and check this traditional Venetian activity off of our bucket list!
Due to some very early morning flights for our family the next day, we decided to relocate ourselves closer to the airport to a hotel named Venice Resort, which offered an airport shuttle in the morning. We used the remainder of our day to catch up on some content, hang out at the pool, re-pack, and relax! For dinner, we kept it easy with pizza and salad from a nearby restaurant, then went to bed early, exhausted as our trip was finally coming to an end.
Listen to our final review of Venice HERE!
DAY 17 – Travel Back Home
As stated, our hotel offered a shuttle service to the airport, and we arrived at the airport around 8:00 AM. We booked these flights from Venice to Charlotte through Air Canada, which included a short layover in Munich. Just as we did for our flights to Rome, we used credit card points to cover the fares, leaving us with just the taxes and fees to pay. Our favorite way to find good point deals is with the website point.me, which searches the web in real-time to find the very best credit card and airline loyalty point and mile solutions. It truly takes the hard work out of the process of using points to book flights, so if you’re looking for some help in this area, we truly can’t recommend point.me enough!
After our last leg landed in Charlotte around 4:00 PM, we of course went through customs (shoutout to Global Entry for letting us by-pass the long line) and grabbed our bags before making the drive back home! As our body time was completely off after 17 days abroad, we fell into bed around 7:30 PM. Overall, we had an absolutely amazing experience exploring so many different parts of Europe! We truly believe that a Mediterranean cruise is an unmatched experience, giving you the ability to see so many places in such a short amount of time, all with the home base of the ship. By taking this Mediterranean cruise, we were able to acknowledge which locations we absolutely loved and want to return to in the future for longer stays!
We hope you enjoyed reading all about our Eastern Mediterranean itinerary, and that it gave you some insight into your own trip, or inspired you to plan one! If you need any help planning your own Mediterranean adventure, we have a no-cost travel concierge who would love to walk you through the planning process and make your dreams a reality! As always – travel often & just book it!
Interested in listening to our ranking of all 14 cities we visited during this trip? Watch our video breaking them down HERE!
