Seven Seas Grandeur - Adriatic Piazzas to the Amalfi Coast

Where this cruise calls, day by day

7 ports and 1 sea day 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

   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)

3. Day 3

   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)

4. Day 4

   Kotor

   MontenegroPort

   The approach is half the day here: ships work 28km up the Bay of Kotor and through the Verige strait, only 340m wide at its tightest, past Perast and near-vertical limestone before tying up. Kotor is a compact Venetian walled town at the head of the bay, and the berth is a hundred metres from the gate - which also means a very small town absorbing everything a large ship unloads.

   • The walls climb to St John's Fortress - 1,350 steps and 365m up, ticketed, with no shade
   • St Tryphon's Cathedral, consecrated in the 11th century, and the Old Town lanes
   • A boat to Our Lady of the Rocks, the man-made islet off Perast
   • The switchback road up to Lovcen and Njegos's mausoleum, or Budva and Sveti Stefan

   Getting ashore

   There is only one usable cruise pier, a two-minute walk from the Sea Gate. The first ship in takes it; everything arriving after that anchors in the bay and tenders.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug is hot and the fortress climb is punishing)

5. Day 5

   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)

6. Day 6 · At sea

7. Day 7

   Sorrento

   ItalyPort

   Sorrento sits on a tufa cliff above the Bay of Naples, and ships anchor off and tender into Marina Piccola at the bottom of it. Getting up to the town means a paid lift, a shuttle bus or a long zigzag walk - worth knowing before you plan a tight day. This is also a tender port that cancels: an onshore swell scrubs the call fairly regularly.

   • Piazza Tasso and the lanes off Via San Cesareo, for lemon everything
   • The hydrofoil to Capri, about 25 minutes from Marina Piccola
   • Pompeii, half an hour away on the Circumvesuviana line
   • The Amalfi Coast road to Positano - spectacular, slow, and best avoided in August

   Getting ashore

   Ships anchor in the bay and tender to Marina Piccola, from where a paid lift or a shuttle bus takes you up the cliff into town.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug the coast road barely moves)

8. Day 8

   Rome (Civitavecchia)

   ItalyArrive
   Rome (Civitavecchia) port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore