Oceania Allura - Mediterranean Melange: Trieste to Athens

Where this cruise calls, day by day

8 ports over 7 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Trieste

   ItalyDepart

   Trieste is Italy's most Austrian city - a Habsburg port on the Slovenian border with a vast sea-facing square, Viennese coffee houses and very little of the usual Italian tourist crush. Ships tie up at Molo Bersaglieri, effectively on the corner of Piazza Unita d'Italia, making this one of the easiest walk-off calls anywhere. Several lines moved Venice turnarounds here after 2021.

   • Piazza Unita d'Italia, the largest sea-facing square in Europe
   • Miramare Castle and its gardens on the promontory north of the city
   • The old coffee houses - Caffe San Marco and Caffe degli Specchi
   • The Risiera di San Sabba, the only Nazi camp with a crematorium on Italian soil

   Getting ashore

   Ships berth at Molo Bersaglieri directly beside Piazza Unita d'Italia, so no shuttle is needed.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (the bora wind can be fierce in winter)

2. Day 2

   Ravenna

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   The berth is Porto Corsini, a canal terminal on the Adriatic about 12km from Ravenna itself, so a shuttle is unavoidable. What waits at the other end is a set of fifth- and sixth-century Byzantine mosaics that survive nowhere else in Europe at this quality - gold ground, deep blue, still in the buildings they were made for. Ravenna also absorbed cruise traffic that once went to Venice.

   • The Basilica di San Vitale and the adjoining Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
   • Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, and Sant'Apollinare in Classe out of town
   • Dante's tomb, beside the Basilica di San Francesco
   • The Neonian Baptistery, oldest of the mosaic monuments

   Getting ashore

   Ships dock at Porto Corsini on the Candiano canal and a shuttle covers the 12km into Ravenna, after which the mosaic sites are all within walking distance of each other.

   Best months

   Apr-Jun and Sep-Oct

3. Day 3

   Rijeka

   CroatiaPort

   Rijeka is a working cargo port and Croatia's third city, and it makes no attempt to present itself as a tourist town - Habsburg-era offices, a shipyard skyline and the Korzo promenade rather than a walled old quarter. That makes it an honest gateway port. Most passengers spend the day at Opatija's belle-epoque seafront; the Plitvice lakes are also sold from here, but at two and a half hours each way they consume the entire call.

   • The Petar Kruzic stairway climbing to Trsat Castle, 138m above the city
   • The Korzo promenade, the City Tower, and the Art Nouveau market halls
   • The Cathedral of St Vitus, a baroque rotunda and a rarity in Croatia
   • Opatija: Habsburg villas and the Lungomare shore path, 15km west

   Getting ashore

   Docked in the city itself, on the Molo Longo breakwater or Adamicev gat; the Korzo is about 800m away, a flat 10-minute walk, and no shuttle is needed.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (the Kvarner coast is wet in winter and the bora blows hard)

4. Day 4

   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)

5. Day 5

   Brindisi

   ItalyPort

   Brindisi is a ferry port on Italy's Adriatic heel and was historically the terminus of the Appian Way; one of the two Roman columns marking the road's end still stands above the harbour steps. The town is modest and quickly seen. The reason to call is Puglia behind it - whitewashed Ostuni, the trulli of Alberobello, and baroque Lecce forty minutes down the line.

   • The Roman column at the head of the Scalinata Virgilio, marking the end of the Appian Way
   • Lecce's baroque centre and the Basilica di Santa Croce, about 40 minutes by train
   • Alberobello's trulli, the conical drystone houses of the Itria valley
   • Ostuni, the white hill town, and a Puglian lunch of orecchiette

   Getting ashore

   Ships use either the inner harbour beside the old town or the outer Costa Morena terminal, which needs a shuttle - check which berth your ship has been given.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

6. Day 6

   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)

7. Day 7

   Gythion

   GreecePort

   Gytheio was Sparta's port and is now a quiet Laconian town of pastel neoclassical houses stacked above a fishing quay. Nothing berths here, so ships anchor out in the gulf and run tenders to the quay. The town is pleasant and small and takes about an hour; the reason to come is what lies behind it - the ruined Byzantine city of Mystras and the tower villages of the Mani.

   • Mystras - the ruined Byzantine city on a spur of Taygetos, though parts stay under restoration
   • The Diros Caves, toured by small boat through flooded passages in the Mani
   • Marathonisi islet, ancient Cranae, a 15-minute walk over the causeway to the Tzanetakis tower
   • Sparta and its archaeological museum, about 40km northwest

   Getting ashore

   Depends on the ship: the large ones anchor off and tender, while smaller vessels berth at the working town quay. There is no cruise terminal. Mystras is roughly 45km inland, Sparta about 40km.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

8. Day 8

   Athens (Piraeus)

   GreeceArrive
   Athens (Piraeus) port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore