La Bella Vita Barge Cruise Photos

From: La Bella Vita Barge Cruise Review

Day 7: Disembarkation

On Saturday--the final morning of our cruise--we had a leisurely breakfast and finished packing. (There was no need to put our bags out during the night, as we'd have done on a large cruise ship: We simply brought our suitcases into the hall when we were ready to go ashore.)

We were driven by van to the NH Laguna Palace Hotel in Mestre, which was about a 90-minute ride from La Bella Vita's berth near Mantua.

Officially, there was only one drop-off point--in Mestre--but La Bella Vita's crew were kind enough to deliver passengers to three locations: the Venezia Mestre train station, the NH Laguna Palace, and Venice's Piazzale Roma (shown here), where we left the van.

We said farewell to Paola, our driver, and headed across the Calatrava Bridge toward our rented apartment near the Campo Santa Maria Nova.

The fondamenta by the Venezia Santa Lucia Railroad Station was crammed with tourists (many of whom stood in a long line to buy expensive tickets for water buses--which wouldn't have been necessary if they'd heeded our No. 1 Venice hotel warning).

Fortunately, we'd traveled light enough to walk 30 or 40 minutes to our apartment, and we were soon at our destination in Venice.

• Trivia note: We ran into Paola, our tour leader, a few days later near the Miracoli Church. (Venice is a small city, so we were pleased but not surprised.)