After doing a lovely land trip of France and Italy the year before we seriously considered canceling this cruise, but thought logistically, it would just be too hard to cover the territory by land. We were right !

We flew Vancouver to London on Air Canada non stop which was lovely and even better was we were upgraded to business class. We very easily navigated our way with luggage on the Heathrow Express to the Hilton at Paddington Station. Great hotel to stay in and quite reasonable. 109 Pounds per night which included buffet breakfast and a dinner. Only issue was the bed was hard as cement. Other than that we loved the Hilton's location - right across from the tube station. Our two days in London were spent traveling around Hyde Park, Knightsbridge (hubby had never seen the Food Hall at Harrods), Big Ben, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus before a couple of hours of retail therapy and beer on Oxford Street.

Next Stop: Venice! We we're flying from Gatwick to Venice on British Airways. Getting to Gatwick was easy, we flagged a taxi outside out hotel and for less than 10 pounds we were at Victoria Station to take the Gatwick Express to the airport. All very easy and quite manageable. The flight was excellent, we had upgraded on line for about 100 pounds and drank our share of free champagne on the flight. Arriving in Venice, we opted for the Alligunia water taxi, cheap, convenient, but man it takes a long time to get to St. Marks. Nice cheap tour of Venice though! Upon arrival at St. Marks we walked to our hotel, The Westin. Again, very easy to navigate as we'd stayed there before and knew exactly where it was. The Westin was fabulous. We had booked on points and were given a lovely room (I called it our Wing) overlooking the Grand Canal. We immediately dropped our bags and started touring. First stop, Gelato! Second stop, liquid both for the room and for the ship. We headed over the Accademia bridge and kept walking until you hit the water on the other side and then head right. There's a decent grocery store there. We bought beer, wine, mix, etc. and headed back to the hotel. Read more