This morning, we took a trip to the Po River Delta for a wildlife-spotting cruise (lots of birds).

We drove back to Chioggia and boarded the S. S. La Venezia for our final sailing through the Venetian Lagoon and to the port of San Basilio, where we’d begun our trip Sunday afternoon. Louisa, our cruise director, gave us a talk about the lagoon, the rising seas, the tides in Venice, and how they’re trying to keep the water from overwhelming the city (progress has been made, but it is by no means certain that Venice will be saved). I kept getting distracted by the views outside.

The clouds returned late in the day, and the weather forecast is sufficiently uncertain that they cancelled the “Row Venice” excursion that we’d planned on taking tomorrow. We’ll have to walk instead!

This afternoon, we took an excursion out into the countryside to visit Tenuta Ca’Zen in the Po River Delta for a tasting of “local products” (cured meats, cheeses, breads, and wines from the estate). Our trip took us on foot through Chioggia (which looked quite different without the weekly market on the main street), on Bragozzi Ulisse across the lagoon, and on country roads to the estate, where we met the owner and heard the story of Lord Byron and his last great love, Teresa Gamba. She even shared his poem to Teresa, Stanzas to the Po.

After we returned to the ship, we had an hour to rest up before the progressive dinner, which took us “backstage” (or maybe I should say “below decks”) and let us see parts of the ship usually off-limits to the passengers, including the galley, the engine room, the laundry, the crew’s area, and the bridge. It’s impressive to see how the work gets done!