Venice Lagoon and Po River Cruises

ABOVE: CroisiEurope's Michelangelo offers 4- to 6-day cruises of the Venetian Lagoon and the Po River Valley.

By Durant Imboden

Until a few years ago, a number of companies operated Po River cruises from Venice. Today, there are two:

• CroisiEurope, a French company that offers 4- to 6-day cruises of the Venetian Lagoon and the Po aboard Michelangelo (see photo above).

• Uniworld is a U.S.-based luxury river-cruising line that caters to English-speaking travelers. It offers an 8-day, 7-night roundtrip cruise from Venice aboard the ss La Venezia  (formerly the River Countess).

Things to know:

• River cruises normally depart from Venice's San Basilio pier and may spend part of their time moored along the Riva dei Sette Martiri, a waterfront promenade above the Piazza San Marco facing St. Mark's Basin. The latter is a delightful place to spend the night on a ship, especially if your cabin is on the water side: You can open your window or balcony door in the morning, stick your heads out, and look into the eyes of vaporetto passengers as water buses arrive and depart from the Giardini vaporetto platform.

• Venetian Lagoon and Po River cruises are more about land excursions than cruising: Much of your time will be spent on buses or land tours, with the cruise vessel serving as a floating hotel.

Also see:

Venice Barge Cruises
European Waterways Ltd. offers six-night cruises from Mantua to Venice/Venice to Mantua aboard La Bella Vita, a 20-passenger hotel barge. (The luxury barge is also available for private charter.) See our illustrated La Bella Vita cruise review at Europe for Cruisers.

About the author:

Durant Imboden has written about Venice, Italy since 1996. He covered Venice and European travel at About.com for 4-1/2 years before launching Europe for Visitors (including Venice for Visitors) with Cheryl Imboden in 2001.

PC Magazine has called this "the premier visitors' site for Venice, Italy." Over the years, it has helped more than 30 million travelers. For more information, see About our site, our Europe for Visitors press clippings, and our reader testimonials.