Greek Pictures 1

A Few Laid Back Days in Greece

Gythion

 

It took a few days to recover from Israel and Egypt.  I confess two long days of sightseeing tired me more than it would have done several years ago.  The years pass, the body ages but I feel the same inside as I did 30 years ago. Thus it is always a surprise how tired I become.

 

As a result, I needed as well as enjoyed a sea day and a late arrival at Gythion, Greece.  Israel is on Eastern European "summer time" (daylight savings).  Egypt is on standard time in the same time zone.  We had advanced our clocks and watches an hour between the two countries.  Greece is on Eastern European summer time so we set the clocks and watches back again. All I know is that when the sun rises it is almost time to get up in the morning.

 

Gythion is a small resort town at the very south end of the Peloponnese peninsula.  We anchored a bit off shore of the local marina.  There are no facilities for cruise ships even one as small as then Silver Wind.  Gythion has a subtropical climate, which makes it an ideal winter vacation spot for Greeks.  In June, the temperature tops out in the 100's.  We were visiting off-season and it was predictably hot. 

 

Gythion is a very sleepy town with not much going on.  Michael and I took the first tender to the wharf for a walk around before the weather turned really hot.  We climbed a hill for the view, descended some steep steps and walked the causeway out to a tiny island rumored to have been the place to which Paris first fled with Helen when he stole her from Menelaus to start the Trojan War.  Now only a lonely lighthouse, a local museum that looks like a fort and a small taverna is there.

 

Having seen the sights at the south end of the town, we stopped at a waterfront taverna for some locally brewed liquid refreshment.  Michael discovered that the place had free Internet and caught up on his e-mail, made a blog post and a Facebook entry and sent pictures to friends and family.  I'm definitely getting i-Phone envy.  There well may be an i-Phone or an i-Pad in my future.

 

The day was definitely getting hotter.  We strolled north.  Michael bought some shaving cream; to support the local economy he said. We considered getting more Euros from a local ATM but it was out of order.  I followed the small map we had and found the other major sight: a small Roman Era amphitheater just sitting weed grown in a field next to a military outpost.  It had become too hot to do more so we went back to the ship for a delightful late lunch in the air-conditioned Panorama Lounge.  A swim in the Silver Wind's pool won out over another trip back to town.

 

I think the highlight of our Gythion visit was probably the Roman amphitheater.  Imagine, it has just been sitting there for two thousand years!  It is in remarkably good shape for an abandoned artifact.  No one carted off the stone to build something else. It's just there and that is wonderful.

 

 

Corfu

 

Corfu was a simple overnight sail from Gythion.  While Gythion is at the southern end of mainland Greece, Corfu is an island just off the northwest corner of the mainland.  The island extends past the Greek border and part of it lies off the west coast of Albania.  I can say that I've seen Albania although there is little chance that I will actually set foot there anytime soon.  Albania is the last Communist country in Europe.

 

Gythion is a sleepy Greek town; Corfu is a major international tourist attraction.  About the only thing they have in common is the Greek language and people. Wandering around old Corfu Town was pleasant but the most amazing part of the Corfu experience was standing on the ship's bridge while we sailed in to the harbor. 

 

We arrived at the pilot station at 10:00a.m.  The Greek pilot who came on board started chatting with the captain in fluent Italian.  They discussed procedures and checked the charts. I'm sure that I also heard a discussion of restaurant menus too.  About the only Italian I understand involves restaurant menus and I'm sure I heard manicotti and risotto mentioned.

 

The bridge operation ran like a well-oiled machine.  It was impressive how smoothly everything went with only the occasional command spoken by the captain in a normal tone of voice.  When he put his hands on the throttles and thrusters, he smiled broadly.  He REALLY likes driving the ship.  I tried to stay out of the way so did not take pictures.  The only one I took is of a dog on the wharf who was employed as an assistant line handler.  The pilot said they had not lost a line since the dog had been trained to chew on the end of the rope.

 

I took some pictures of things I found interesting in Corfu.  There is one of some boats moored in a moat between the town and an old fort.  The water is so clear that it looks like the boats are levitating. Corfu is tourist central and some of the people look outlandish.  We bought a honey and sesame treat that tasted something like a cross between baklava and a doughnut.  Michael and I visited a four hundred year old local synagogue.  As in Rhodes, most of the congregation had been killed by the Nazis during WWII.  Unlike Rhodes, more Jews have returned to Corfu Town in recent years.

 

I bought some saffron and some inexpensive jewelry. Michael found another free Internet hot spot, e-mailed, and posted while I sat in the shade.  The weather started to become windy, just as the captain had predicted earlier.  As we rode the shuttle bus to the pier, we could see waves with white caps even in the sheltered harbor.  We experienced a stiff wind as we re boarded the ship.

 

I found the visits to both Gythion and Corfu very low key and relaxing.  These two half day trips ashore followed by a sea day before arrival in Venice had me recharged and ready for another few extremely busy days.

Egypt - the Pharaohs still Endure

Egypt in the Summer of 2011

 

The experience of seeing the pyramids was incredible.  The rest of Egypt, and I'm sure most of the guests on the Silver Wind will agree, was a disappointment.  Tuesday June 21^st we docked very early at Port Said at the western mouth of the Suez Canal. As I dressed for the day, I watched a parade of immense container ships, oil tankers and bulk cargo ships sail past my cabin window.  There is a LOT of traffic on the canal.  Our tour guide to the pyramids later said that Egypt makes several million dollars a day in canal fees.  In fact it is about the only thing on which Egypt makes money..

 

We were all required to carry our passports, freshly stamped with a stamp in Arabic for the two days we were to spend in Egypt.  We had also been required to carry passports in Israel.  The Israelis, however, stamped a separate paper that they collected as we boarded the ship for the final time.  People have been known to have problems visiting Arab countries if their passports sport Israeli visas. Nowadays, if one wishes to collect an Israeli entry or exit stamp on one's passport, one must specifically ask for it.

 

As we exited the ship, three Egyptian Tourist Police inspected our passports and checked for the Egyptian entry stamp and perhaps a forbidden Israeli stamp.  This activity seemed designed  more to create jobs for the Egyptians than to satisfy any concern over illegal entry.  We boarded our tour buses, left the port then halted a few blocks away.  We were joined a few minutes later by a police car with at least three more tourist police aboard. They escorted our two tour buses through the city.

 

I heard an animal bray while we were waiting for our police escort.  I looked out the window and saw a donkey hauling a flat wooden cart amidst all the busy city traffic of cars, trucks and motorcycles.  This was the first real draft animal I had seen on this trip. In a number of locations, I had seen horse and buggy rides for tourists but not people using horses or donkeys for basic transportation.

 

Egypt was truly a land of contrasts.  Port Said was a modern, mostly prosperous looking city with apartment buildings of a distinctly Arab style.  Our tour guide, Mustafa, told us that Port Said and Alexandria are resort cities filled in the summertime with Egyptian vacationers desirous of escaping the heat of Cairo.  Port Said is also the administrative center of the Suez Canal and has a bustling business district.  Amidst the modernity, I saw a dead donkey in the street.  Cart drivers and motorists were just detouring around it.

 

As our buses left the center city, we began to see agriculture.  There is extensive irrigation from the Nile River and the region grows rice, beans, fruit and other vegetables.  Mustafa pointed out  "pigeon houses," cone shaped clay pigeon coops on the estates of prosperous landowners.  Until recently, pigeons were used as messengers. I gather they are still used for sport and raised for food.  Mustafa mentioned that the Egyptians consider them an aphrodisiac.   I don't know as I believe this.

 

Green fields continued a few miles inland.  At intervals along the highway, fruit and vegetable sellers had set up reed shelters, not much more than tents, from which they sold their wares.  There were many more carts and donkeys.  There seem to be two levels of prosperity in today's Egypt.  There are lots of cars and trucks driven by men in western dress.  Then there are men and women in traditional Moslem dress who ride donkeys and pull their few possessions on flat carts.  One assumes they are very poor and may even live in the grass shelters that can be seen along the roadside and in fields.

 

We passed through a check point/toll plaza about thirty or so miles from Port Said.  It's the first time I have seen toll booths guarded by young men sitting on tanks.  Our police escort was replaced with a pickup truck full of armed soldiers whom we followed all the way to Cairo.

 

Green fields gave way to sandy desert.  This was not the desert of movies.  This desert looked more like a landfill.  Plastic bottles and shredded plastic bags lay half buried in dirty sand.  This went on for miles and miles.  From time to time, military bases punctuated the desert.  These walled compounds extended for long distances and had little one-man guard towers every quarter mile or so. A bored looking young man with an automatic rifle occupied each tower.

 

Eventually we came to a new industrial area named 10^th of Ramadan City.  Now we passed miles of new industrial buildings and offices. It was cleaner and there were some trees and grass.  Next came the outskirts of Cairo.  All the major businessesand schools had walls and guard towers too. It appears that most Egyptian young men are employed by the army, the police or as private gun toting security guards.   They may be employed for the time being but they are not learning any useful skills.  Unemployment will surely rise when these do nothing jobs go away.  This does not bode well for political stability.

 

When we reached the outskirts of Cairo, our armed escort disappeared.  The bus driver left the main highway and took back streets to the ring road around Cairo and Giza. I had a good view of dirty canals filled with trash and streets with broken pavement. Our guide said we were taking back streets as a way to avoid traffic but I wondered if this was a security measure or if there was something the Egyptians did not want us to see.  I cannot imagine why I was so cynical about their motivations.  And this before I even met the souvenir sellers at the pyramids!

 

As best I can tell, the ring road, a four-lane highway, took us south away from Cairo.  We started to see apartment buildings of all sizes. The older ones were small two to four story affairs usually unfinished on the top floors.  The larger ones seemed more like major construction projects that had been halted.  Our guide said that the smaller ones were left unfinished on purpose to avoid property taxes. A building is not taxed until it is complete so no building is ever finished.  Additionally, real estate is a family's prime investment.  A family will buy a lot and put up a house.  They will live on the first floor; grown children will live in the second and third floors.  As a family expands, the house extends upward. 

 

Mustafa never mentioned the abandoned construction projects.  I suspect these large apartment complexes were financed by foreign investors.  I doubt the investors are willing to continue until the political situation stabilizes.

 

Eventually we crossed the Nile River. It looked much like crossing the Tennessee River on the highway between Huntsville and Birmingham Alabama but with pyramids in the distance.  We had to exit the highway, pass under it and reenter going in the opposite direction in order to access the exit for Giza and the pyramids.  This seems to be a very Egyptian way of doing things.  Most streets do not allow left turns.  One must proceed past then make a U-turn and come back to the street into which one wants to turn.

 

We went a number of miles along dirty irrigation canals filled with garbage and dead animals, past fields and small estates.  There were more donkeys and poor people too.  Eventually we reached a place where there were numbers of carpet weaving schools.  Mustafa said that this is usually a stop on the Cairo city tour.  We reached an entrance to a kind of park down a side road.  Suddenly there were sand dunes in front of us.  We had arrived at the step pyramid of Sakkara and the mortuary complex surrounding it.

 

This step pyramid is the oldest stone structure in the world. It, various "mastaba" tombs, and smaller pyramids formed a wonderfully interesting complex.  We were fortunate that we were the only tour group there.  We were able to enter a tomb and a small pyramid and view four thousand year old decorations and hieroglyphics that retained much of their vibrant color.  Our guide warned us not to take proffered camel rides, as the prices here were "30 times" higher than he could guarantee us at the traditional pyramids.  I wonder if he was getting a kickback.

 

Following an exhilarating hour or so at Sakkara, we went to lunch at a marvelously ornate hotel right by the Great Pyramid.  We spent several hours after lunch viewing the pyramids of Giza, walking among them (I even touched the Great Pyramid!) and viewing the Sphinx. A number of our party took the only $3.00 five minute camel rides recommended by Mustafa.

 

There were more tourists at this location but still far less than normal.  Many people have avoided Egypt since the Arab Spring.  This worked to our advantage.  We were able to get wonderfully close to the monuments and spend time there relatively undisturbed.  The constant harassment by souvenir vendors was the only negative.  I tried to be philosophical, as they have to try to make a living with far fewer customers.

 

Our day in Giza ended with the obligatory visit to the tour sanctioned gift shop.  In three floors of gifts, I saw nothing I wanted to buy.  We eventually boarded our tour bus for the three plus hour ride back to Port Said. 

 

The ride back past the same scenery was uneventful until we reached a check point/toll plaza about halfway back the 100-mile trip to the ship.  After paying the toll our bus was directed to stop at the side of the road.  The driver, our suit clad Tourism Board representative, our tour guide and his supervisor (more make work employment) all got out of the bus.  They had an animated discussion with two toll employees and a military type. The military guy was the armed one.  It's hard to tell how heated the discussion was.  All conversations in Arabic sound like arguments.  Eventually our tour escort from the Silver Wind went out to talk to them.  She reported that for reasons unknown we had to wait for the other Silver Wind tour bus that had taken a different tour to catch up with us before we could proceed.  I speculate that the pickup truck with the armed soldiers was supposed to escort both buses. 

 

Eventually the officials compromised with the tour people: we could proceed slowly until the other bus caught up.  It was initially 30 kilometers behind us (about twenty miles).  We drove for half an hour at about 30 mph instead of 55-60 mph until another bus from Cosmos Tours blew past us.  Our missing tour bus had caught up.

 

At our next checkpoint just outside the city limits of Port Said, we exchanged the army escort for a police car of the Tourist Police.  For some reason they didn't use their lights, just the siren.  They got little respect, hardly any traffic moved aside for our little convoy thus it was slow going back to the pier at Port Said.  We arrived after dark and observed the nightlife of the port city.  There were lots of bright lights and people walking in the streets.  It looked festive. It's so hot during the day that people come out to shop at night.

 

Michael and I returned to the Silver Wind, took a quick shower and went to dinner in the main dining room.  It was really nice to relax with a gourmet dinner accompanied by fine wine after a hot dusty day in the Egyptian desert.  What a way to travel!

 

Early next morning we docked at the port in Alexandria.  We were tired from the trek to the pyramids so chose to take the shuttle bus to the esplanade near the center of the city instead of a tour.  People were out everywhere.  Most of the men were in western dress.  All the women had headscarves and were clothed to wrists and ankles even in the 95 degree F early morning heat. Yesterday our tour guide had made a point that Egypt was a "free" country where women are not required to wear traditional Islamic dress.  None of the women I saw was choosing this religious freedom whatever their convictions.  I suspect prudence dictated conservative dress.  Michael mentioned that this was a big change from his previous visit to Egypt six or seven years ago. Then many women wore western dress.  I wonder if they still have access to education.

 

That and the garbage everywhere.  It looked as if the streets had not been cleaned since his Michael's last visit to Egypt.  Apparently, the Mubarak regime had been paying young men to put on uniforms and do nothing and no one was paid to clean the streets.  One could see that Alexandria was once a charming city of colonial era buildings and wide public spaces. Now it is run down and filthy.  We were so disappointed that we did not even get out of the bus but went back to the ship.  See Michael's blog at: http://cbu-med1106.blogspot.com for his comments on Egypt.

Israel

Two Days in Israel

 

Following our afternoon in Limassol, we arrived at dawn at the Haifa harbor.  This is the farthest east one can go in the Mediterranean Sea yet we were moving westward when I looked out the cabin window.  That is because the entrance to Haifa's harbor faces north and we turned right after entering the breakwater. 

 

Haifa is primarily a commercial port.  We were one of two passenger ships in the port that day.  The other ship, the Royal Iris, was even smaller than ours was.  It was apparently loading passengers and luggage to begin a voyage from Haifa.  Haifa has some tourist attractions but is not a major tourist destination.  The Silver Wind stopped here mostly to run tours into northern Israel and an expensive two-day overnight to Jerusalem.

 

I had signed up for an 8.5 hour all day trip to Jerusalem the following day, Monday, from Ashdod while Michael originally signed up for an all day trip from Ashdod to Masada.  Michael's trip had been cancelled and he had chosen a half-day trip to Tel Aviv as a replacement. We were both anticipating an all day 10+ hour trip to the pyramids in Egypt on Tuesday.  As a result, we passed on an all day tour to the Golan Heights with lunch at a Kibbutz on our Sunday in Haifa.  We opted instead to take the Silverseas provided shuttle bus to the top of Mt. Carmel, enjoy the view and visit a local neighborhood.  After lunch on the ship, we walked out of the port and explored the "German Colony" district on our own.

 

I am glad I visited a "normal" non-touristy area and got to see real Israelis going about their ordinary daily business.  It seemed all very familiar except for two things: every hotel and large business had an armed security guard at the entrance and all the signs were in Hebrew.   Some signs were in both Hebrew and Arabic but few were in English.  At least the security guards appeared bored and did not look as if they expected any trouble.

 

The German Colony was a street of nineteenth century buildings erected by a group of German Christians who established a colony in the "holy land" in the 1860's.  They were all expelled during and after WWII.  Most were relocated to Australia.  Today the buildings have historic designations and have been repurposed as restaurants, boutique hotels and small businesses.

 

I enjoyed a relatively relaxing day in Haifa.  Sunday was just another workday.  The Jewish Sabbath is Saturday so the weekend in Jewish neighborhoods is Friday and Saturday.  In the Arab Christian neighborhoods, on the other hand, businesses were mostly closed Sunday.

 

Please see Michael's blog: http://cbu-med1106.blogspot.com    for a description of his trip to Tel Aviv and his comments on the places we have both seen.

 

How do I describe Jerusalem?  Early Christians thought it was the center of the world. It is a place sacred to three major religions.  I'm not sure what I expected to see, yet everything about it was a surprise. 

 

The first thing I noticed as the bus drove through the Judean hills was terraces everywhere.  The hills rose in steps.  Some terraces were natural stone outcrops, others were made of stone or brick blocks.  Olive trees grew on some terraces; others seemed unused for agriculture at this time although they must have been farmed once.  I realized people have lived here for thousands of years, shaping and reshaping the landscape.

 

All the towns away from the coastal areas occupied hilltops. Our guide said this was historically both for defense and to preserve the lower slopes for agriculture.

 

Modern Jerusalem spreads over a number of hills.  Our tour guide took us through the park like areas of the major public buildings, through residential streets, past monuments and the train station to a lookout point on the south edge of the city.  We saw the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, the domes and spires of the Dome of the Rock and other structures on the Temple Mount. The surrounding hills and steep valleys steeped in history looked almost surreal.  Off to the east in the distance we could see the wall now separating the Israeli controlled area from the Palestinian villages.  We could also see the new apartment buildings of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory.

 

We drove a few blocks further west to a hill overlooking Bethlehem in the Occupied Territory.  It looked far less prosperous than the Israeli areas.  I had never given it much thought but I was continually surprised by how close together all these famous places are.

 

We stopped at an "approved" gift shop for a rest stop and shopping opportunity.  Everything was priced in American dollars.  Most merchandise seemed expensive, even with the tour guide's twenty percent discount.  I did by a commemorative tee shirt that was not too expensive.

 

Next, the bus took us on a route that completely circled the walls of the old city.  We learned that Suleiman the Magnificent constructed the walls in the fifteenth century.  

 

According to our tour guide, the population of Jerusalem did not expand beyond the walls until the early twentieth century.  Nowadays 400,000 people live in Jewish Jerusalem and about 200,000 live in the Arab part of the city.  The city has no industry and not much business activity.  Government offices, religious activities and tourism employ most residents.  Others commute to Tel Aviv for work.  I kept hearing repeatedly how it is impossible to find a parking place in Tel Aviv as over 1 million people commute to work there.

 

The bus passed and the guide pointed out scenic views of famous landmarks; the Mount of Olives, Gethsemane, the Jewish cemeteries, King David's City outside the walls where current archaeological excavations are taking place and important buildings in the distance.  We stopped at Mt. Zion to tour the Domition Church, where Mary is alleged to have been assumed into Heaven (the church was closed as a service was taking g place) and to enter the room supposed to be the site of the Last Supper.  Below that, we saw the tomb, not believed to be real, of King David.

 

One of the tour participants, a woman in her late sixties, was indignant that there was no table in the Last Supper room.  She also had a hard time accepting that Jesus was Jewish and the Last Supper was a Seder.

 

All of these sites, once relatively simple places, have had generations of temples, churches and mosques built over them.  It is impossible to imagine how they may have looked in biblical times. In addition, many hundreds of years passed from the supposed time of biblical events before the places became identified as THE place where this or that happened.  Nevertheless, they are holy for millions of people.

 

Our tour group stopped for a magnificent lunch at the Leonardo Hotel (formerly the Sheraton.)

Our guide had saved the walking tour of the Jerusalem Old City culminating with a visit to the Western Wall for the afternoon.  He told us that Mondays and Thursdays the Western Wall thronged with bar mitzvahs, usually for American boys.  By waiting until afternoon, the crowds at the wall would be less.  We had seen festive families arriving by the busload at Mt Zion earlier.  The ceremony completed, they bore party supplies to celebrate the occasion in an historic spot.

 

The walking tour of Jerusalem Old City took us downhill (thankfully) from the Jaffa Gate through interesting alleyways and narrow streets filled with tiny shops and tents.  All kinds of souvenirs were offered for sale.  Our first stop was at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher built in the Christian Quarter supposedly on the spot where Jesus was nailed to the cross, crucified, laid on the ground, prepared for interment and buried.  At least that is what the four Christian denominations who maintain the site claim and millions believe.  We had an extensive tour of this site with the exception of entering the Holy Sepulcher itself, as the line to pass through it is always very long.  We climbed a steep stairway to see the final Stations of the Cross.

Photos without flash were allowed so I have some good pictures.  We climbed down another steep stair to see the tomb and all the chapels occupying nearby niches.  The icons, the metalwork and the lamps were wonderful. The church has a magnificent panoply of Christian holy artifacts well worth seeing. 

 

As I mentioned before, I'm skeptical of the historical reality.  Most of these places, I've read, were identified by the Roman Emperor Constantine's mother Helena.  After her conversion to Christianity, she pilgrimaged throughout the eastern Mediterranean to find and identify biblical sites with the aid of her holy visions.  There is little physical proof of anything as the Middle East in general and Palestine in particular were conquered, destroyed and rebuilt many times over the past two to three thousand years.

 

The Western Wall of the Temple Mount where Herod built the second temple has archaeological provenance.  In the Jewish Quarter I saw recently unearthed wall remains that the Israelis have identified as from the era and probably part of the foundation of the first, or Solomon's temple.  There are also archaeological digs outside the walls that date from the age of King David's Jerusalem.

 

The Christian quarter of the Old City is dotted with churches built over the past 1500 years by one important personage or another.  The buildings reflect many eras and styles. As we entered the Jewish Quarter, the architecture changed dramatically.  The Israelis did not have control over the Old City until after the Six Day War in 1967.  Since that time, they have torn down many old buildings and built new apartment buildings in the area.  The new buildings are of the same tan sandstone as the older buildings.  It was while digging foundations for a new apartment building the remains of the first temple were discovered.  We came upon an open area, fenced in with placards explaining the significance of the traces of wall within.  I found it very exciting to see such ancient history.

 

The route from our first entry through the Jaffa Gate to the Western Wall of the temple mount was about a mile long, essentially all downhill.  The Western Wall is at the lowest point in the old walled city. The area in front of the wall had been cleared of buildings to accommodate the crowds of believers and tourists that come daily to visit this most important site of Judaism.  We had to go through a security checkpoint before we could enter the open area.  Men and women are required to approach the actual wall in separate areas.  I was very moved as I approached in the women's section.  There were several older women in very conservative dress praying from Hebrew prayer books.  Other women in more modern dress were praying silently or contemplating as they stood near or touched the wall.  Many put little pieces of paper containing prayers into the cracks between the stones of the wall.  I saw booksellers a few yards away selling pages from prayer books to people to put in the wall.  Our guide had told us that the papers are swept up daily, bagged and saved.  Once a year they are reverently buried outside the wall.

 

Thirty-five tired but exhilarated travelers reboarded our bus for the hour and a half drive back to the Silver Wind at Ashdod.  The trip to Jerusalem had been amazing.

Cyprus

The Cypriot Port of Limassol

 

I had always thought of Cyprus as very exotic.  It seemed so as we sailed past the southern coast of this farthest east Mediterranean island viewing the rugged cliffs as they met the sea.  The port city of Limassol looked attractive in the noontime sun as we docked for our half-day visit.

 

Michael and I had chosen not to sign up for any tours on Cyprus.  Pieces of several tours looked interesting but most appeared to feature tours of numerous Byzantine churches.  One can visit just so many churches in a day.  The Greek and Roman ruins seemed far apart from each other. We guessed that we could do the walking tour of Limassol on our own.  It was with that thought that Michael and I caught the first shuttle bus to the center of downtown Limassol.

 

The ride into town lasted about twenty minutes.  We saw dusty streets, lots of broken down cars and not much indication of general prosperity.  The bus let us and three or four other couples off at "the sponge factory," a sad looking gift shop that was the point from which the bus would return to the ship every forty minutes. 

 

We started walking.  The signs were all in Greek.  Michael and I can slowly sound out the Greek letters but the resulting words are still Greek.  Mainly, I could figure out the streets on the map from the sound of the Greek letters on the street signs.  An immediate problem was that most of the streets were torn up.  They were mostly unpaved pathways with trenches down the center. Old buildings were in various stages of restoration.  Lots of little restaurants and gift shops were trying to survive amidst the dust and noise.  We did find a church and, after following the map, came to a fort we had unknowingly passed earlier as it had been draped in canvas and was "under reconstruction." The historical society or tourism board was reconstructing an ancient olive oil press on the grounds of the fort. The remains of the olive oil press came from another town on the island.  Other signs with some English indicated that the "Old Town" was being rebuilt.  Economic stimulus?  Someday Limassol will have a brand new set of "ancient" attractions for the cruise ship passengers to spend money on.

 

We were ready to head back to the Silver Wind even before the forty minutes between shuttles passed. There were a few locals in the bars and cafés but hardly anyone was about.   The town lacked charm, was torn up and dusty and presented nothing worthwhile to do.  The highlight of the afternoon was watching a harbor tug tow the Rio, another small cruise ship, from the cargo pier to the middle of the harbor.  There was not room enough for the ship to maneuver on its own.  Limassol is a small container ship port with delusions of becoming a cruise ship destination.

 

The Silver Wind sailed at seven p.m.  Michael and I had dinner reservations for "dinner under the stars" on the pool deck at 8:00 p.m.  I spent between 7 and 7:30 looking for Michael.  We had agreed to meet either on the top deck at the front or on the deck behind the Panorama Lounge.  He was nowhere to be found.    Private parties were going on in both the Observation Lounge on the top deck and the Panorama on the pool deck below.  There were not many places to hide.

 

I finally found Michael by the pool.  He was just coming back from the bridge.  It would never have occurred to me to look for him there!  Visiting the bridge is by invitation only and usually involves an escort by security staff.  Michael had been on the top deck watching the bridge crew a level below as the ship prepared to sail.  The captain invited him to the bridge to watch the departure.  As Michael told me, it would not do to refuse the Captain even though it left me wondering for a while.  I could not be angry; we have both been invited to watch the sail into Venice on June 27^th.  Michael had been invited to the bridge, not just to watch the sail out, but to explain to the captain, first officer and navigator how he knew exactly where the Silver Wind had been (longitude and latitude) on the charter cruise a week before this trip.  The answer involves a web site where anyone can find any ship in real time. (www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ ).

 

In the end, we had dinner with the Cruise Director and the Cruise Consultant under the stars by the pool.  We had rib eye steaks grilled on "hot rocks." These were terrific.  The meat is presented on a 400 degree F. stone.  Each individual diner can remove his steak at the absolute amount of doneness desired.  Not a bad end to an unpromising start.

Rhodes

Apparently, there was a computer glitch just as I uploaded my first Athens post.  I'm composing these blog entries off-line.  When I'm done, I sign on to the ship's Internet at $.35 per minute to send the posts as quickly as I can as e-mail to my blogger account.  My guess is that the satellite connection went down briefly some time after I hit transmit but before the transaction was complete.  The result was that the blog post disappeared into cyber space.  This is why my entries are a bit odd.

My second post fared better.  The text and some of the pictures transmitted successfully.  Unfortunately, a few pictures - those from the antiquities museum - didn't transmit and some of those that did came as doubles.  This is in all probability operator error. I'll correct the blog post when I get some free Internet time.

Meanwhile, on to Rhodes.
 

I origionally wrote this post Saturday, June 18.  Since then I've had more computer problems and days of intensive sightseeing that have limited my time to write  Thursday Michael and I took our own walking tour of Rhodes Old City.  Our little ship docked by 8:00 a.m. and we were soon joined by a large Italian ship, the Costa Fortuna.   We headed for the city as soon as possible to avoid the inevitable crowds debarking from a very large ship.  The strategy worked well.  We had several hours to wander about the medieval streets and alleys before the crowds built to the point where moving about the city was unpleasant. We walked, somewhat at random, for a while until we found the main square.  It was starting to get busy so it was time to pursue Michael's mission.

 

Michael has a copy of a wood block print of a street scene in Rhodes from the sixteenth century.  He also has a photo of himself in the exact same spot taken twenty years ago.  He was on a mission to find the spot again and take updated photos of himself and of both of us on the same Street of the Knights.  A very friendly shop girl with a U.S. accent helped us with directions and sold me a leather handbag decorated with a cat face. The bag is very attractive even though a section came unglued less than 24 hours later.

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We found the street, paced off the location from the pictures on Michael's i-phone and took many photos.  A pleasant Italian couple took a picture of both of us in the right spot.  Our conversation with the Italians was entirely by gesture. We finished by saying "Grazi."

 

Michael suggested we stop for a cup of strong Greek coffee in a taverna on one of the back streets.  The place advertised free Internet but he couldn't connect the i-phone. Nevertheless we spent a pleasant half hour sipping coffee and watching the tourists.  Afterward we strolled through back alleys looking for real residential areas. It seems that most buildings have been converted to various kinds of gift shops.  According to Michael, the last time he was in Rhodes Old City there were far fewer shops.  Today they are everywhere, even in the back alleys. We did find some residential areas in the back alleys.  The little streets were all lined with motor scooters.

 

One shop, a leather store, had some very interesting arches.  As I started to take a picture of the architecture, the shop owner came running out shouting "No picture, no picture!  Everybody want picture but give no money!"  We kept walking. Other than that, everyone was friendly and pleasant. There were a few picturesque characters here and there.  However, most residents of Rhodes Old City look like anyone else in the developed Western world.  I think we saw just one old lady in a house dress and babushka.

 

We made our way back to the main square where there was free Wi-Fi.  Michael used his i-phone to check his e-mail and make a blog post while I watched a pair of parrots chasing pigeons from their perch and observed the local restaurants filling up with noontime patrons. 

 

We made a visit to the restored synagogue where we had a marvelous conversation with another young woman with a U.S. accent who seemed to be at the door in order to explain the history of the temple to visitors.  This is now the only synagogue in Rhodes.  During WWII almost 2000 Jews from Rhodes were  transported to Nazi death camps.  Now only about thirty, mostly women, remain. 

We stopped at a tiny gem of a Byzantine church on our search for a different way through the city wall.  Both the synagogue and the church had similar chandeliers. We returned to the Silver Wind in time for a late lunch.  Another large ship had docked next to us and the harbor now also held a large ferry and a freighter.  More thousands of people to tour the city and crowd the streets in the afternoon.

 

We went out again after lunch.  This time we took a long walk past the old city walls through part of the modern Rhodes Town to a nearby beach.  There were two pillars topped by statues of what looked like antelopes where the feet of the ancient Colossus of Rhodes once stood.  It was a different world from the ancient town we had visited in the morning. We passed crowds of people speaking Italian and German. The beach was filled for half a mile with bathers and people sunning themselves.Swimmers lounged on a diving platform that somehow looked out of place.

 

I really enjoyed my visit to Rhodes.  The antiquities were real and real people were living in them.

 

Athens and Kushadasi (repost from day before)

I have finally made time to write.  Our ship, the Silver Wind, is docked at Rhodes and Michael and I have spent the morning walking the medieval streets of the Old Town.  This is Friday; we left Boulder Monday.  Much has happened in between but somehow it feels as if I've lost a day.

We calculated that between getting up at 3:00 a.m. Monday, central time (GMT -6) and landing in Greece around  9:00 am Tuesday, Greek time (GMT +3) we had been awake more than 24 hours.  We both tried to sleep on the airplane but it wasn't particularly successful.  After we checked in to our hotel, showered and rested for half an hour we started our hectic day in Athens by climbing the Acropolis.  We put in a full day of sightseeing including a pleasant dinner in the Plaka before falling, exhausted into bed about 9:00 p.m.

Michael's description of our Athens experience in his blog:cbu-med1106.blogspot.com tells the story well. I'm glad that the demonstrations in Athens took place Wednesday.  We had a wonderful day.  I took a mere 199 pictures.  We managed to spend a relaxing day on the ship Wednesday while nothing much moved in the Piraeus harbor due to the "general strike."  We had hoped to see a total eclipse of the full moon that evening just after sunset but it was cloudy and drizzled off and on that evening.

Yesterday, Thursday, we spent at the Turkish port of Kushadasi.  I took a morning tour of Ephesus, a marvelous Greco Roman ruin.  Michael walked to the Ottoman era fort in Kushadasi.  We both walked about Kushadasi in the afternoon.  It would seem that the sole business of the town is to sell souvenirs to the tourists.  Our little ship added about 200 visitors to the town.  Three other cruise ships of 700, 2000 and 3500 passengers were also there.  There were thousands of people at the Ephesus site.  There were so many that I got separated from my small tour group of nine when a larger group of about a hundred pushed through us.  Fortunately, I found my group and/or they found me after about 20 minutes.  In the meantime, hundreds and hundreds of tourists swarmed past me.   The archeological site was great; the crowds were not.  On balance, Ephesus is a not to be missed sight.

Michael and I walked about half a mile inland from the port before we were able to see the "real" Kushadasi.  Shops and hawkers of every imaginable tourist gewgaw filled the streets. I especially liked the sign that said "Real Fake Watches."  Kushadasi was one vast bazaar until we finally got to streets inhabited by locals.  We found food shops, a printer and even a liquor store near a mosque far more interesting than the activity near the shore.  We concluded our day of adventure with a wonderful dinner followed by watching the almost full moon rise over the waves as we sailed toward our next port, Rhodes.

Pictures from Ephesus and Kushadasi

Here are a very few of the hundreds of pictures I took.  The site of Ephesus is a magnificent archeological dig and restoration project.  Some of the more beautiful and significant artifacts have been removed to the recently built Ephesus Archeological Museum.  My tour group of nine walked around the ruins for several hours and then toured the six rooms and courtyard of the museum.  The best pieces in the museum were the sculptured head of Eros and a statue of Artemis unearthed almost intact from the site.