Lesvos
This cruise is just about an island a day… of course some
like Istanbul are not islands, but it pretty much a port a day… This cruise has
what is called an “Port Intensive Itinerary”…This means little free time… at each port we feel the need
to go ashore and explore… to see the things we are supposed to see in
each… Of course at each our time is
limited… so decisions must be made… usually in favor of the must do activities
at expense of simply wandering about.
At Lesvos, alternately Mythine, (the city where we are
docked) there is nothing that must be done…, but if you are going to do
something, the thing to do is explore the castle…
Tina and I walked off the ship, then headed up hill towards
the castle… about half way up we found the local archeology museum… It had a very good collection of mosaic
floors, salvaged from digs near the ancient Greek theater.
We continued uphill… the castle looming above, but the
entrance not obvious… eventually we followed a driveway, find a map, follow a
hidden stairway, and find the entrance to the castle.
The Castle, said to be the largest in the Mediteratan, was
originally Venetian, enlarged by the Ottomans, had once housed most of the
city… now mostly the walls and the keep remain, with a few buildings inside
reconstructed. We explored… then I explored while Tina relaxed on a bench
in the shade.
From the castle we made our way downhill, through town, to a
café along the shore where we had a snack and a beer before heading back to the
ship.
Kusadasi - Back in
Turkey.
Kusadasi is the port nearest Ephesus, one of the great
cities of the ancient world. Here Toby
had arraigned a private all day tour to Ephesus and Mary’s House. The 10
of us met on the dock at 8:00.
We met our guide Gonca (from Osman Turizm,
www.osmanturizm.com) ….. Boarded the mini bus and headed off… we were racing
the crowd from the ship…
We went to Mary’s
house first. Mary’s house is a shrine… said
to be the house of Mary, Christ’s mother in her later years. Today it is the site of a small church, on
the site of her house, with a place outside for candles, sacred water, and a
wall where you could leave a wish, which it was said would be granted in the
coming year. We are not believers, but
this was clearly a sacred place… We had
arrived before the crowds… I suspect it wouldn’t seem as sacred if mobbed… Busses were arriving as we left…
From Mary’s house we dropped down the hill to Ephesus. The town, now ruin, rises from its onetime
seaport at the bottom of the hill, upward through a narrow valley to the
Acropolis in a saddle at the top of the hill.
We started at the top, then worked our way downward through. Only 15% of the site is exposed… only half of
that is open to the public. Starting at
the Acropolis, home of the priests and the government, we moved downward though
several markets, past the badly restored Memmius Monument… (so badly
reconstructed that the official interpretive panel says “at present there is no reconstruction at the site, but instead a
cubist modern architectural collage” ) to the public latrine (possibly the
post photographed space) to the library (the signature building) to the port
(now silted up, now far inland and useless. )
Eventually a couple of nasty earthquakes, loss of trade due to the lack
of a port, a malaria, spread by mosquitoes living in the swamp which was once a
port doomed the city…
Having seen the old, we went to a government sponsored
rug school, where young women learned how to make Turkish carpets… 5 women were at work…
Once trained, the women make the rugs at home, while
keeping house and watching children, selling them through the school. They assume the women work on the rugs 4
house a day. We bought two rugs… Toby
bought one, Carolyn bought one, and Tanya bought one… 5 rugs purchased by our group of 10… We had lunch at the factory, then off to see
the ruins of the Temple of Dianna, (once one of the largest in the ancient
world, now only a single column stands) and St John’s Basilica. There was time for a stop at a pottery
factory where we didn’t buy much… being “shopped out” at the carpet workshop…
then back to the ship, or at least to the dock nearby where there were a couple
of cafes and a Starbucks, all with free wifi which unlike the ship’s worked…
Mykonos
One of the archetype Greek Islands, little white houses with
blue doors and windows (red, yellow and occasionally green doors and windows
are also found, but always white houses) wapped along the edge of a small
harbor, climbing the hill behind. The
town Mykonos has the wind mills… a line
of 7 or so round windmills with conical thatch roofs, along a ridge at the edge of town.
It is a town of small crooked narrow streets, too small for
cars… so it is a town of scooters…
It is also the town nearest the island of Delos… In Greek
mythology, the birthplace of Apollo and his sister Artimus. As such it was one of the most sacred places
in the ancient world, as well as being a trading center of some significance.
Today it is a small hot dry island with some of the most
significant ruins in the Aegean. The
“ships tour” description was almost funny in its description of the trip,
mentioning the lack of shade and water… If your only information was the
description in the brochure you would wonder why anyone would have bothered to
offer the excursion… In the end three of our group got up early and made the
trek to Delos. Yes, it is a small hot
dry island… But the ruins are
spectacular…
Much of this trip is about ruins, ruins of “Classical”
ancient cultures. For us, Delos is our 3rd
or 4th significant ruin. As
you tour each new ruin (or move properly “ancent site”), you call on your experience
from the previous ruins, and each has more meaning… Each means more.
Returning to town, Sig boarded the tender back to the ship,
while Tina and I found others from our
party in a cafe (with internet) including Toby, Sig’s wife… Tina pulled Sig off
the tender and all were reunited. Tina and I had something to eat while checking the internet
and posting to facebook. Tina returned
to the ship while I went off to wander through town, spending some time at the
windmills taking photos…
Crete and a story
about how we cruise
The trip is getting a bit predictable… up early… go up for
coffee, a roll and some juice… try to log on to the internet… fail… write a
little then as the rest of the clan gathers with their coffee and juice and
such… Eventually we meet for the day’s
trip… Sometimes it is everyone…
sometimes only a few of us gather while others stay aboard or join a ship’s
excursion.
Generally we gather at 8:00 on the dock… I am an early
riser, but when on vacation, early is not always good, and for some,
particularly T, early is torture… but
early is important on the cruise… We generally are there for a limited time… so
the early risers have more time ashore… but more importantly when you are
visiting ruins and other sites you get a jump on the crowds… the sites get crowded early… really
crowded. We have been getting to the
sites early, before the ships tour busses with the crowds with each guest
wearing a colored oval sticker with the Hal logo and a number desgnatin their
tour group, lead by a guide carrying a sign, a flag or an umbrella… We are occasionally part of those groups… we
took the ships tour on Delos, but more commonly we make our own way ashore.
Today 8 of us gathered at 8:00 on the dock… then walked to
the local bus station… it was about a half mile away. We purchased round trip tickets, then boarded
bus No 2… (Municipal bus No 2, not ship's tour bus No 2... this is important)
Bus No 2 is a local city bus, that ends it run in Kornos,
site of the city of Kornos and its palace… The labyrinth and the Mintar in
myth. We were riding with people who
were going to work. We arrived on site
about 9:00… before the tourist buses, bought our tickets and went the site was
excavated and restored by an Englishman Arthur Evans. Arthur Evans had a vision of what he thought
the place looked like, with is not shared by today’s archeologists… The names and uses assigned to each area
within the site seem romantic and less than accurate… the restoration does not
reflect how the site looked in ancient times…
The site is chaotic… between the work of Arthur Evans, and likely
because this is an early site, organized differently than those we visited
before, I don’t think I understood the flow of the ruins, or the organization
of the community.
But this is THE place… a place significant in Myth, and even
if presented in a romantic and somewhat fictionalized way, it THE place… Sig noted the smell of the pine trees…
something he didn’t expect when reading about the place… It was worth the visit.
As we explored, the tour busses arrived… with their crowds…
really over crowded… It was time for us to leave… back to the street outside to
the local bus stop. The return bus along
the same route was the No 12… The
streets were much more crowded and the bus ride back was slower. About half way back a voice exclaimed
“American English”…. She was an expat, a school teacher who moved to Crete 20
years before… We made her day and she
ours… We talked about the economy (bad)
about the place (wonderful at first, but she misses New York…)
We got off the bus at the edge of the downtown, as it
crossed the old city wall, to visit the local Archeology Museum. Again we were ahead of the tourist buses… As we were leaving ehty mobbed
the place, making it difficult to move about or see the objects. Our group broke up at the museum… some headed
back to the ship, we had lunch in a local café… did a bit of shopping (Tina got
a silver necklace) before making out way back.
Back in Athens
So, on this second (or third) day in Athens we had less we
had to see, more freedom to explore. We got off early, having learned how quickly
tourist sites fill. There were 6 of us,
Sig and Toby, Karen and Tanya, T and I… the others were doing the “hop on, hop
off” bus… we were not… we shared a couple of taxis from the ship to the metro…
then took the Metro from the port of Piraeus to downtown Athens. The others changed lines at Monastiraki….
while we stayed on to Victoria station (it has a Greek name as well which I
will not attempt to spell or otherwise abuse said name)… for we were in search
of the National Archeological Museum.
I was not excited about the museum… It was the 5th
or 6th archeological museum in the last week, and I was tiring of
broken statues… I was wrong. First of
all, it was free… It didn’t need to be free, we would have happily paid but it
was free, and when you expect to pay free is good. Our guide books suggested that it would cost
us 7 euros… but it was free and we were happy… (note: apparently it was free
day for museums across Athens… It was Cultural Heritage day )
Beyond it being free, it was spectacular… Yes, it had broken
statues and mosaic tile and worn marbles and fragments of artwork, but they had
the best pieces, beautifully displayed.
Another surprise was the occasional new art work intermixed into the
display spaces. The new work made the
old more interesting… we loved the place
and would include it on a “must see in Athens” list…
We finished with the museum as the bus loads of cruise tours
descended… Our early start was paying
off… then went walking towards the Acropolis… we walked through the city
center, the down Athens street, stopping to visit the central market. I had been there a week before, early when
they were setting up… but now the market was filled with shoppers… very
different. We explored for a bit then
walked down to Monastiraki Square. I was
in search of the Melssinos, the poet sandal maker… His shop was 2 short blocks
away… John Lennon and the rest of the
Beatles shopped there… so did Sophia Loren… and bunches of others… I bought a pair.
Walked through the flea market, had lunch then back on the
metro, this time walking from the Metro station to the ship. Our cost for the day, 5 euros for the taxi, 3
euros each for the Metro… about $20.00
for the two of us… plus lunch and the sandals…
The ship’s tours started at $74.00 each per person.
Now about 4:30… we have showered… we have attended the 2nd
mandatory life boat drill… we are now sitting in the Crow’s Nest (a bar, deck
12, forward.) They are dropping the
mooring lines, a tug is standing by… it is time to sail away for the second
half of our adventure…
A note on my internet
adventures…
The ship’s internet connection has gotten worse, not better…
I had finally had enough and complained
to the purser’s office last Thursday… asking for a meeting with someone in
authority… Friday there was no word from the office… Saturday before leaving to
explore Athens I stopped by the purser’s office again… asking when I could
expect a meeting… I finally met with someone that afternoon after we had
sailed… Sunday the interned didn’t work… again or still. Eventually, Sunday, the purser’s office
called offering me either a refund or extra minutes… I chose the refund, extra
minutes being of no value if you can’t use them
(and Sunday morning the wireless was still not working at 10:00 when the
purser called…). By now I have 5 days of
blog posts pending. It is not clear if
the last post “On Blogging” ever went through.
Generally I use the internet to keep at least marginally connected
to home and the world beyond the ship… here that isn’t happening… Instead I will find internet cafes along the way for the rest of the
trip. With a bit of luck and the aid of
beers in shore side cafes I will blog a bit more regularly.
Randy
