The floating city of Venice sits on millions of wooden piles and more than 400 bridges cross 150 canals. No other city possesses such an abundance of stunningly beautiful churches, monasteries, palaces, and artistic treasures, and nowhere else has plaster that crumbles so elegantly. Venice is a unique work of art and, with its lagoon, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The gateway to the city is probably the most magical of any in the world. Slowly and majestically you glide past the proud palaces along the Grand Canal and the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, giving you a long look at the fairytale setting of St Mark's Square with the Doge's Palace and Campanile.

Spend the day sunbathing, enjoy the fresh wind breeze, and relax into the day!

As if on display, the Croatian city of Zadar stretches its beautiful old town towards visitors: The historical quarter is separated from the new town on a peninsula in the blue of the Adriatic Sea. As soon as you step through one of the Venetian gates, you walk right through the 3,000-year history of the old fortified city. Passing the Square of the Five Fountains and the Roman Forum, you will reach the landmark of Zadar, the Donatus Church with its pre-Romanesque and Byzantine elements. At sunset, locals and guests meet in a very modern way - at the sea organ and the installation Greetings to the Sun".

The charming principal town of the small Central Dalmatian island of Hvar is picturesquely situated in a sheltered bay. Today, in the same spot where the Venetian fleet used to spend the winter and the proud republic of the Doges bequeathed its influence, yachts from all over the world bob about and transform this hotspot into the "St Tropez of Croatia". From the sea you can see the elegant harbor esplanade, the cathedrals with their distinctive bell towers, the old defensive walls and, towering above everything else, the medieval Spanjola fortress. The winding streets of the old town, with its many cafés, bars, and restaurants around the lively main square trodden to a shine, have become a picturesque backdrop for today's sophisticated lifestyle.

Dalmatia is the southernmost region of Croatia, and Split is its most beautiful cultural center and secret capital. Gothic, Romanesque, Venetian, Roman and Baroque – a stroll through the old city of Split is like a journey through time. Diocletian's Palace, once the Emperor's retirement retreat, is at the heart of the beautiful old city, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A vast palace complex of around 30,000 square meterss (322,917 square foot) was erected in just 10 years at the end of the 3rd century AD. A city within a city.

When Venice still ruled the Adriatic, Dubrovnik was an important maritime republic and the floating city's chief rival. Dubrovnik proudly calls itself the "Pearl of the Adriatic" and its fortress is one of the best preserved in Europe. As you walk around the imposing walls of the old town, you can look out across two seas – the deep blue Adriatic and a sea of red roof shingles. The old town, with its beautiful squares, magnificent boulevards and narrow winding alleyways, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Gulf of Kotor is the perfect place to just drift – and that goes for our windjammer as well as for her guests. As she cruises through the winding Adriatic Bay, the scenery taken in from the deckchair is breathtaking: High above, the sails billow against a blue sky; and to port and starboard the picturesque coast of Montenegro passes by. The Bay of Kotor cuts through the landscape like a majestic fjord. Between rugged mountainsides and gently wooded slopes, the roofs of charming old villages appear again and again as little specks in terracotta colors, while slender church spires greet from the shore.

When fresh, colorful laundry flutters above narrow cobblestone streets and grandmothers shape pasta dough into little orecchiette outside their front doors, you are likely to find yourself in a medieval film set – or in Bari. As modern as the important port and university city may be today, its heart truly beats in the historic old town – as it did centuries ago – to the leisurely pace of the Apulian joie de vivre. The picturesque quarter directly on the Adriatic Sea and its sights can be easily explored on foot, visiting for instance the massive Castello normanno-svevo or the equally fortress-like pilgrimage church of San Nicola, which boasts an interior splendidly decorated with gold.