Silver Ray: 7-Night Mediterranean from Venice

Venice is one of the world's most famous cruise destinations and a major embarkation port for Eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic itineraries. But cruising to Venice has changed significantly since 2021, when Italy banned large cruise ships (over 25,000 gross tonnage) from transiting the Giudecca Canal and St. Mark's basin due to environmental and structural concerns.

Trieste sits at the northeastern corner of Italy, pressed against the Slovenian border at the head of the Adriatic Sea. The city has about 200,000 residents and a distinctly Central European character that sets it apart from other Italian cruise ports.

Ravenna is a mid-sized city of about 160,000 people in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, sitting on the Adriatic coast south of Venice. The city served as the capital of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and the Byzantine Exarchate, leaving it with the finest collection of early Christian and Byzantine mosaics anywhere outside Istanbul.

Split cruise port is the main gateway to central Dalmatia and one of the most remarkable cities in Croatia. The city is built around and inside Diocletian's Palace, a 1,700-year-old Roman fortress that the emperor built as his retirement residence around 300 AD.