Last post from the road (or the sea)

A quick note... I tried to post this from the Airport in Athens... and assumed it had made it up... today I checked the blog and found it hadn't made it... so here it is, slightly out of sequence... it should be before the photo post, but that is the way of the internet when traveling....

Kusadasi - Back in Turkey, again

We were in Kusadasi a little over a week ago.  Kusadasi is the port from which one visits Ephesus, but we visited Ephesus a week ago, and had no need to visit Ephesus again (as least so soon after the first visit) so we had no tourist responsibilities…. We could browse and explore.   The was a fort nearby… Tina and I walked over, finding it closed, undergoing restoration… Nearby we found Erik and Mia who had also seen the fort and came to explore, but they too found it closed… 

We headed off into town, through the leather shops, tee shirt shops, souvenir shops and such.  We turned back after passing beyond the tourist zone... Eventually we found a café, we each had a beer, Tina had stuffed “vine leaves” and we signed on to the internet and checked email.

We wandered about a bit, went aboard ship, then back off to a different café, with more beer and more email…

Rhodes… 

Now the next morning…  we are at dock in Rhodes town.  This is the last port call on this cruise (beyond Athens where we will leave the ship)  I am at breakfast, the sisters and brothers and Mia and Toby… Tina is still in bed…  We will go ashore in a few minutes… eventually I will find a café and post this… 

Off a bit later than usual… 9:00. The entire group marched off in search of whatever one is supposed to see in Rhodes Town.  As we left the ship, we were confronted with the town’s wall, so worked our way along a few hundred yards until we found a gate, and entered the town… We found a small square, once a Christian Basilica, later bisected by a road. The road now closed, and a plaza in its place... without a road through the middle the site looks much like any other ruined building in  a part of the world with a surplus of ruined buildings...

Our small group quickly broke up as some forged forward, others headed for the former Jewish quarter, while others browsed shops…  We headed uphill up a side street… mostly headed which ever way the tourists were not… The walled city is not a big place, and there were a lot of tourist, so that stratagy didn’t work out well.  With or without tourist the town is wonderful… its architecture speaking of a time when it was the bastion of the Knights of St John.   It streets medieval... tiny, crooked, unmarked...  

Eventually we made it to the castle, then worked our way down hill, Avoiding leather shops and other shopping opportunities... stopping for lunch, beer and wine in a café with wifi, posting the previous post, trying to post some pictures (about half made it up (late note… now checking afterward, most didn’t make it…) then headed back to the ship… for the last time.

Now back aboard… we are trying to pack… we need to pack but we don’t want to…
We are sitting in the Crow’s nest… I am using the wifi from the Regent ship docked nearby… its signal being stronger than Ryndam’s, and as both ships use the same service, so I keep getting their log in instead of ours…  (I am only trying to read the New York Times… I have given up on using the ship’s internet for email or blogging a week ago) Tina is trying to finish a book before the deadline to return it to the library.

Now at sea, headed for Piraeus and Athens… It’s windy… a bit rough… (not very rough, just a bit rough) the ship is listing, blown sideways by the wind.  The Captain has just announced they are re-ballasting the ship to compensate…  The passengers, unused to any seas look to be drunk while wandering about… but it is not the wine, it is Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas having his way with us… we have probably visited too many temples to Athena or Zuse, and not enough dedicated to him.

We will eat our final supper aboard soon… I am packed… Tina isn’t yet… We are trading items… “can you pack the tiles, I can pack your suit in my case…”  The weight limit for checked bags is 50 lbs…  We are fine, but still trade back and forth making sure.  I stashed some chocolate in my backpack… emergency rations seem like a good thing as we contemplate leaving the ship and its abundant food.

Now, Late Saturday morning, Athens Airport

Early this morning Tina and I walked off the ship as soon as it cleared customs… We took early disembarkation… requiring we haul our own luggage off… it was a good decision…

We walked off, passing the lines of suitcases neatly disorganized by the color of their luggage tags, out of the terminal, then tried to get a taxi… this was an issue since we wanted a taxi to the nearby Metro station, not the far away airport, and the drivers lined up didn’t want the short haul… (the same thing happens at SFO... the SF taxi drivers want a fare to San Francisco, not San Mateo...) eventually we found one and we and another couple piled in and reached the metro a few minutes later… we purchased tickets, boarded and were at the airport in less than an hour for 21 Euros for the two of us… (By way of comparison, the Ship’s transfer would have been $54.00 each, a taxi directly to the airport about 50 Euros for both of us… and we beat the ship’s buses… )

We have survived the airline’s passport check, checking luggage, the official passport check, the security check, a second airline security check and having been vetted and inspected are sitting at the gate awaiting our call to board.  They have decent free wifi here, but I have used my free 60 minutes and my regular trick of clearing cookies hasn’t worked, so posting this may have to wait…  

Until home…