A Love Affair With Small-Town Itailian Ports, Aboard the Casanova

Frequent cruisers are always looking for new waters to explore, so when Peter Deilmann Cruises announced last year that its new 94-passenger Casanova would sail on Italy’s Po River out of Venice, we signed up for a week last August.

Despite a heat wave that blanketed Italy, we had a wonderful time, especially in the colorful, canal-lined town of Chioggia, a sort of poor man’s Venice on the Adriatic Sea. The Casanova docked there for an afternoon and an overnight stay, and while most passengers took an afternoon bus excursion to Padua, we played hooky. Chioggia, bustling with locals on market day, was a surprise. The only other tourists we saw were fellow passengers from the Casanova, exploring the town on their return from the tour.

Some of the other small-town ports where we docked for visits to cities such as Bologna were less colorful, intended primarily as an embarkation point for the tour buses. When we chose to skip the shore tours, we enjoyed walks into town or around the countryside.

This summer the Casanova will sail every Saturday round trip from Venice with optional shore excursions to the historic cities of Padua, Bologna, Parma, Cremona, Verona, Mantua and Ferrara, plus a full day and overnight stay on board in Venice, which allows time to explore the city, take a gondola ride and visit nearby Murano, Burano and Torcello.

This new Peter Deilmann Cruises vessel was the most luxurious European river cruise we’ve experienced.

The passengers aboard our sailing included about two dozen Americans and Brits; the rest were Europeans, and most of them spoke German. There were separate English and German tours if there were enough passengers to fill two buses; otherwise the guide alternated explanations in both languages to one busload. The ship’s hotel director and most of the cooking and service staff are Austrian.

Public areas aboard the Casanova are forward on both decks, richly decorated with paintings from the collection of the company’s owner. There are upholstered chairs and sofas in the lounge with its granite-topped bar, gold-tasseled silk draperies at the windows and well-polished brass trim everywhere. The dining room, which is nonsmoking, is a bright, sunny room with assigned single-seating tables for four or six.

Breakfast and lunch service combine buffet and hot dishes ordered from a menu; dinner is served at the table. It usually began with an appetizer, such as smoked duck with cranberry mousse, followed by a hot or cold soup and a small fish course before a choice of main courses (which always included one vegetarian selection) and dessert.

Food and service were splendid. Fruits were always ripe and salads crisp; the cheese tray, with six or eight local selections, was always at the ideal temperature; and the wine list had a range of choices and prices.

Two dinners during the week are designated formal, and most passengers wear tuxedos, dinner jackets or dark suits. Although jackets (but not ties) are requested every night in the dining room, many men on our cruise settled for long-sleeved shirts in the hot weather. Daytime wear is casual, with shorts and T-shirts acceptable in the restaurant.

You’ll want to pack sturdy shoes for touring the Po River Valley towns, because many have cobblestone streets and stone steps, and skirts or long pants and tops with sleeves are required for visits to churches.

The Sun Deck atop the vessel is furnished with yellow-and-white striped chairs and loungers that reminded us of the old Giorgio in Beverly Hills. It offers full bar service as well as celebrations with sparkling wine, canapes and live music on some evenings. Everything on the top deck can be folded down when the boat goes under low bridges on the river; even the wheelhouse was flattened once or twice during our cruise.

A gift shop and beauty salon share a tiny space behind the reception desk. One of the many perks is the chance to take your luggage aboard the ship during the morning and leave it there safely while you explore Venice, even though check-in and boarding don’t take place until afternoon. This is especially handy for Americans arriving on early morning planes.

The Casanova has two types of cabins. All have large windows, but those on Deck 1 have French door-style windows that open; those on Deck 2, closer to the waterline, have fixed windows. Deck 2 rooms have a small desk/dresser under the window with additional drawer and counter-top space lacking in Deck 1 rooms. Beds are fixed, so you must request twins or a double bed when you book. Two junior suites (slightly larger than the standard cabins) are also available. Bathrooms are handsomely designed, with an excellent glassed-in shower.

Each cabin is stocked with a refrigerated mini-bar, and above it is a TV set that gets dozens of European channels plus CNN. Movies in German and English are also screened daily on an in-house channel.

Each night a pianist entertains with pop music and light classics before and after dinner in the lounge, and in some ports local entertainers come aboard--an opera singer, a quartet of Venetian musicians, a musical duo from Mantua who performed songs from “Hello, Dolly!” that seemed to have been learned phonetically from a record.

The line has also introduced the Frederic Chopin, a new ship that began seven- and 11-day round-trip cruises from Berlin into eastern Germany and Poland at the end of March. The season continues through mid-October.

A 12-day Casanova cruise/tour package includes a stay in London, a two-day rail journey to Venice with overnight accommodation in a cozy compartment on the Venice Simplon-Orient Express, an overnight stay in Venice and the seven-day cruise. Departures are June 25, July 9 and 23, Aug. 13 and 20, and Sept. 24. Prices start at $4,490 per person, double occupancy, plus air fare.

Cruise-only prices start at $1,555 per person, double occupancy. Air fare, gratuities and shore excursions, which begin at about $50 for a half-day city tour, are extra. Excursions may be booked in advance or aboard the vessel.

For more information, contact a travel agent or call the company at (800) 348-8287, www.deilmann-cruises.com.