I won't review everything, but here's a few things we really enjoyed on our trip:
First, we spent a week on Uniworld's river ship, La Venezia. It's a beautiful ship. Our room was tiny but comfortable. The food was outstanding. The wines (different every night) were all from the Veneto region, and pretty good to very good.
We cruised around the lagoon and had some exceptional (and some less-than-exceptional) excursions.
The best were an exclusive nighttime visit to St. Mark's, a private visit to the Doge's palace, and a guided visit to Torcello. We also visited the Scrovegni Chapel on our own.
Then we spent 5 more nights. One of the highlights was visiting the Museum of the Horses (Loggia dei Cavalli) during the 11:00 Sunday Mass. What a treat for the eyes and ears!
Another was visiting Aquileia, an ancient Roman town with an early Christian basilica. It was fascinating--Roman ruins everywhere, and a church that dates back to the fourth century. Amazing mosaics! Just be aware of transportation issues. We took the regional train to the Cervignano-Aquileia-Grado train station, then a bus to Aquileia. No problem--until we needed to return to the train station. The buses did not seem to have schedule. A nearby hotel told us there was no taxi service. We finally got a number for a taxi and persuaded some students to call the taxi for us. This was Not Fun. My advice--arrange a driver from the railroad station beforehand to pick you up in Aquileia and return you to the train station.
Anothe winner: the wine tasting at Venissa on Mazzorba island. The history is fascinating--the D'orona grape was officially extinct after the 1966 floods. And the wine is so different from anything we'd ever tasted. It turned out that we had a private, 2 hour wine tasting and tour of the vineyard.
So many thanks to all who offered suggestions to make this a memorable trip.