Celebrity Ascent - Italy, Greece & Croatia from Rome

Where this cruise calls, day by day

9 ports and 2 sea days over 10 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Rome (Civitavecchia)

   ItalyDepart

   Civitavecchia is a working port town on the Tyrrhenian coast, and it is not Rome - the city is about 80km southeast, roughly 80 minutes each way. Budget for that honestly: a Rome day is some four hours of transit bracketing whatever you actually see. The port has Fort Michelangelo on the quay and good fish-market lunches, a real option if you have done Rome before.

   • St Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums, with a timed entry booked well ahead
   • The Colosseum and the Roman Forum, a short walk apart on the Termini side
   • The Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain on a walking loop of the centro storico
   • Fort Michelangelo and the Terme Taurine Roman baths, for a day that stays in Civitavecchia

   Getting ashore

   Ships dock in Civitavecchia and a free shuttle runs to the port gate at Largo della Pace, from where it is a short walk to the station and a 70-80 minute train into Rome.

   Best months

   Apr-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug hot, and the Rome queues are brutal)

2. Day 2

   Messina

   ItalyPort

   Messina faces Calabria across the strait and was flattened by an earthquake in 1908, so the city is mostly rebuilt and low-slung rather than historic. Ships dock right on the seafront, but the call is really a doorway: Taormina is under an hour south and Etna a little further. If you stay put, the set-piece is the cathedral's astronomical clock.

   • The Duomo's astronomical clock, the largest of its kind, which performs at noon
   • Taormina and its Greek theatre, about 50 minutes down the coast
   • Etna's lower craters and lava fields, by jeep or the Rifugio Sapienza cable car
   • The Museo Regionale, which holds two Caravaggios

   Getting ashore

   Ships dock on the Messina waterfront a few minutes from Piazza Duomo, and coaches for Taormina and Etna load at the pier.

   Best months

   Apr-Jun and Sep-Oct (Etna can be cold and cloud-capped while the coast is warm)

3. Day 3 · At sea

4. Day 4

   Dubrovnik

   CroatiaPort

   Dubrovnik's walled Old Town is small, hard-surfaced and steep, and on a two-ship day it does not cope - which is why the city capped cruise arrivals. Ships berth at Gruz, about 3km round the headland, so you arrive by bus or taxi rather than stepping out at the gate. The wall circuit is what people come for and it earns the ticket, but it is a 2km loop with almost no shade.

   • The city walls circuit - roughly 2km, stepped, shadeless, and about EUR40
   • The Stradun, the Rector's Palace, and the Franciscan monastery pharmacy of 1317
   • The cable car up Mount Srd for the view down onto the Old Town and Lokrum
   • A boat across to Lokrum island, or sea kayaking beneath the walls

   Getting ashore

   Docked at Gruz, about 2.5km from the Pile Gate; ship shuttles run to the gate, local buses 1A and 1B take ten minutes, and the walk is 35 minutes along a busy road.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug means heat on the walls and the worst of the crowding)

5. Day 5

   Split

   CroatiaPort

   Split is built inside a Roman palace. Diocletian retired here in AD 305 and the town simply kept using the walls - shops, flats and bars are wedged into the emperor's substructures, so it reads as a lived-in neighbourhood rather than a ruin. Cruise ships berth on the harbour a short walk from the Riva, which makes it one of the easier Adriatic port days to do on your own.

   • Diocletian's Palace: the Peristyle, the cellars, and the Cathedral of St Domnius in his mausoleum
   • The Marjan hill paths above the town, for the view along the coast
   • Trogir, a walled Venetian island town about 30 minutes west
   • The waterfalls and boardwalks of Krka National Park, roughly an hour inland

   Getting ashore

   Docked in the city harbour basin beside the ferries. Small ships take Gat sv. Petra, five minutes from the palace's Silver Gate; large ships take the outer Gat sv. Duje, a flat but unshaded 10-20 minutes. A blue line painted on the ground leads you in.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug is hot and the palace lanes are shoulder to shoulder)

6. Day 6

   Bar

   MontenegroPort

   Bar is Montenegro's working port - ferries to Italy, container cranes, the rail line to Belgrade - and the town that grew up beside it is functional rather than scenic. What justifies the call sits inland: Stari Bar, the ruined Ottoman and Venetian hill town abandoned after a gunpowder explosion, about 4km up the slope. The coast's showpieces, Budva and Sveti Stefan, are a drive north.

   • Stari Bar - the ruined hill town, its aqueduct and the Ottoman clock tower
   • The Old Olive Tree at Mirovica, reckoned at 2,000 years and more
   • Budva's walled Old Town and the view down onto Sveti Stefan
   • Lake Skadar, the largest lake in the Balkans, on the rail line inland

   Getting ashore

   Docked inside the working container port, with no cruise terminal - expect a ten-minute bus through the freight yards to get out. Stari Bar is 4-5km inland by taxi or local bus, and Budva about 50 minutes north.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

7. Day 7

   Corfu

   GreecePort

   Corfu was Venetian for four centuries and then British for fifty, and the Old Town shows it - tall shuttered Italianate terraces, a cricket ground on the main square, and an arcaded promenade the French put up. The island is green and wooded in a way the Cyclades are not. The cruise terminal is a couple of kilometres from the Old Town, an unremarkable walk or a short shuttle ride.

   • The Old Fortress and the Liston arcade on the Spianada, the largest square in Greece
   • The Achilleion, the palace Empress Elisabeth of Austria built above Gastouri
   • Paleokastritsa - the monastery on the headland and the coves beneath it
   • Kanoni, with the Vlacherna monastery and Mouse Island offshore

   Getting ashore

   Docked at the cruise terminal about 2km from the Old Town; a shuttle runs to the port gate, and it is a 20-25 minute walk from there along the waterfront.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (Corfu gets far more rain than the Aegean islands, so shoulder season can be wet)

8. Day 8

   Katakolon (Olympia)

   GreecePort

   Katakolon is one street of tavernas and souvenir shops on a small Peloponnese headland, busy on cruise days and dormant otherwise. Nobody calls here for the town. Ancient Olympia is 35km inland, and the honest problem is arithmetic: the sanctuary deserves three or four hours, and a six-hour call with 90 minutes of driving does not leave you them.

   • Ancient Olympia: the Temple of Hera, the ruins of the Temple of Zeus, and the stadium entered through its vaulted tunnel
   • The Archaeological Museum of Olympia - the Hermes of Praxiteles, the Nike of Paionios, and the temple pediments
   • The seasonal tourist train that runs inland from the quay to Olympia
   • Plakes beach, a couple of hundred metres from the pier, if you skip the ruins

   Getting ashore

   Docked alongside at the Port of Katakolo, with the village a five-minute walk from the ship; Ancient Olympia is 35km inland, about 45 minutes each way.

   Best months

   Late Apr-Jun and Sep-Oct (Olympia is barely shaded, and in heatwaves Greek sites now shut from midday to late afternoon)

9. Day 9 · At sea

10. Day 10

    Naples

    ItalyPort

    Naples is one of the few big Italian calls where the ship parks in the middle of the city - the Stazione Marittima sits at Molo Angioino with Castel Nuovo directly across the road. That makes it a rare port you can genuinely walk out of, though most passengers spend the day at Pompeii or on Capri instead. The city is loud, sooty and unpolished.

    • Pompeii or Herculaneum, both on the Circumvesuviana line from Garibaldi station
    • The Museo Archeologico Nazionale, which holds the mosaics and bronzes lifted out of Pompeii
    • Spaccanapoli and the Cappella Sansevero, home of the Veiled Christ
    • A hydrofoil to Capri from Molo Beverello, a few minutes' walk from the ship

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth at the Stazione Marittima on Molo Angioino in the city centre, a ten-minute walk from Piazza del Plebiscito with the hydrofoil pier next door.

    Best months

    Apr-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug hot and crowded, and Pompeii has almost no shade)

11. Day 11

    Rome (Civitavecchia)

    ItalyArrive

    Civitavecchia is a working port town on the Tyrrhenian coast, and it is not Rome - the city is about 80km southeast, roughly 80 minutes each way. Budget for that honestly: a Rome day is some four hours of transit bracketing whatever you actually see. The port has Fort Michelangelo on the quay and good fish-market lunches, a real option if you have done Rome before.

    • St Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums, with a timed entry booked well ahead
    • The Colosseum and the Roman Forum, a short walk apart on the Termini side
    • The Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain on a walking loop of the centro storico
    • Fort Michelangelo and the Terme Taurine Roman baths, for a day that stays in Civitavecchia

    Getting ashore

    Ships dock in Civitavecchia and a free shuttle runs to the port gate at Largo della Pace, from where it is a short walk to the station and a 70-80 minute train into Rome.

    Best months

    Apr-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug hot, and the Rome queues are brutal)