Day Six and Seven

—our travelers avoid donkeys and trudge a stairway to heaven

http://www.rhodesguide.com/travelguide/rhodes_monuments.php?ssp=8

  Day six brings the ship technically back to Greece, although the island of Rhodes is really just off the Turkish coast. Here, we visited still another fort at Lindos, built at the top of a huge hill overlooking the port where St. Paul was said to have visited. The tour took us through more wandering market streets and up a few million steps (even at Bodrum, I kept thinking about those poor knights walking up all those steps in clanking armor. In Lindos, the warriors were doing it in hundred degree heat.)  Or we could have taken donkeys—but we’re intrepid fools and walked. This was a fairly leisurely day, sampling the local ice cream, stopping in the

Byzantine church with the fantastic mosaics, avoiding the pretty sparklies in the shops…  

Day Seven—home at last, oh no, my mistake…

The beautiful Greek island of Mykonos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykonos )is very much like southern California, except with less water. The island is said to have some of the best beaches in the Mediterranean and the town caters to the wealthy and famous, so shops and restaurants are fabulous (we have so many

photos that I can't possibly include them all!). Because families are allowed to build small chapels in which to bury their dead, the island has over 500 bell towers. 
We toured the island and visited the monastery at Ano Mera, ending up back in town where we checked out the picturesque windmills and Venice section of town where pirate boats could pull up under balconies to offload. We ate at a seaside restaurant and strolled more byzantine labyrinths. Thankfully, the merchants in Greece are less likely to grab your arm and haul you inside. The window displays of jewelry and designer clothes and fabrics sell themselves.  I’m willing to stay but figure I can only afford it if I wash floors.

Day Five

—Pirate knights!

Keep note that we have as yet to visit the ship’s pool except to admire the lounge deck as we passed by on the way to food.  The ship has two upscale restaurants—one basically a steakhouse and the other with exquisite Mediterranean cuisine—in addition to the pool bar, the buffet café, a large indoor dining area, a coffee/tea/pastry café, and a martini bar.  We did not lack variety!

On this day, we visited Bodrum, Turkey, http://www.bodrumpages.com/English/history.html  another place I’d never heard of. Obviously, my ancient civilization lessons need polishing. Bodrum was where the Knights of St. John established a fortress after the sultan threw them out of the Holy Land for being particularly  obnoxious. History always has two sides—the knights thought they were protecting European travelers in a hostile country.  They ended up as little more than pirates charging fees for protection from what I can tell, but I suppose they served a noble purpose of sorts.  It was fascinating to explore the immense fortress containing coats of arms from every major noble house in England at the time.  Each country had its own tower, and the walls contained fountains and walkways as if it were its

own little town. (photo on right above from castle tower overlooking the port they protected; photo on left of amphorae as they would have been stored in the ships that sailed through this area. Awkward way to carry olive oil.)

After visiting the fortress we toured the seaside resort town and the marketplace. It’s best to note here that most of these seaside towns have byzantine labyrinths for roads to protect the inhabitants from invaders. Wander too far from sight of the sea and you may never see light again. The shops were filled with lovely sparkly things to catch the eye, but I gallantly resisted. Besides, the merchants were unpleasantly aggressive.

Instead of posting Buy This Now or Two for the Price of One signs, their idea of advertising is to grab every likely suspect passing by and drag them in to view their merchandise. American sales tactics annoy me enough. This method drove me insane. (photo on right of total strangers. Impossible to snap these streets without capturing a ton of people)

But I took note that housing costs only about $125 a square foot and the town is gorgeous, with tons of lovely seaside restaurants…

Day Three and Four

—fond farewell to Greece and greetings to decadent indulgence

(look ma, no hat! This is one of the fine dining restaurants.) Our time in Athens was limited. We had to check out of the hotel by noon on Sunday. The port is an hour’s drive away, an entertaining experience since there are apparently two docks and no one knows where the ship is docked without driving up and down, looking for it—while avoiding traffic that doesn’t slow down for street curbs, stoplights, or pedestrians.

But the driver patiently drove around, asked questions, and found our ship. The Azamara ( http://www.azamaraclubcruises.com/ ) crew made it remarkably easy to go through customs and boarding procedures. Since we were a little early, we checked our bags and sat in the 9th floor café (ten floors, on a ship! And this was only a medium-sized one), admiring the view and enjoying the benefits of a cruise—free food and drink from an enormous buffet. Our stateroom was ready early, so we retired to our private balcony to read and catch up on trip notes. Had we known what lay ahead, we would have put on our swim

gear and sat by the pool, but we’re not water people and the sun on the balcony was sufficient at the time.   (sunset photo taken from balcony)

Day Four—time travel to ancient brothels and early Christians

I believe if I have to pick a highlight of our journey, Ephesus, Greece was it. ( http://www.abrock.com/Greece-Turkey/ephesus.html --scroll down for ancient history and photos of ruins) I had no idea what it was before we signed up for the tour, Byzantine culture not being my area of expertise. But the Acropolis in Athens and the Colosseum in Rome were heaps of rock compared to Ephesus. (photo above right--hat back on--is an early forum called the The Odeon which held 2,000 . It was where town people, noblemen and curates met for discussions and was also used for theater and concerts) Ephesus is an entire city built around 7000 BC. We walked the streets that Antony and Cleopatra walked (the tour even included a mini-reenactment of entertainment from the time period), tried to imagine sitting side-by-side in the public urinals, read the “advertisements” for the local brothel—owned by a wealthy woman who bought up a block of the marketplace. We gawked at the remains of the immense library. (photo above on right, library is at foot of paved hill that Roman chariots would have traversed. Photo below it is of mini-reenactment. Photo on left is of the public urinals which would have held 50 people at once.) Since “books” were scrolls and not abundant, the outside of the library was far more grandiose than the inside, but just the fact that education and learning was so valued by this culture was apparent in everything we saw.

This was a thriving city visited by St. Paul, and Mary is said to have been buried on the other side of the mountain.  Christians and Jews lived here together for centuries. (above photo is me in front of the remains of the library)

From there we visited the caravanserai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravanserai )in Magnesia—where camel-traveling merchants stopped for the night, then on to Miletos and the Roman baths and colosseum where gladiators fought. By this time, I’d had quite enough old rocks and spent more time admiring the wild poppies and geraniums growing everywhere. Okay, I have an attention deficit.

There was the obligatory market tour before returning to the ship, but the linens and pashmina were too gorgeous to ignore, so I bought a few summery tops to go with the skirts I needed to visit the churches on our itinerary.

Day Two

—in which our intrepid explorers miss burning banks

The Athens Gate hotel (http://www.athensgate.gr/index-eng.htm ) is in a lovely old building directly across from the Temple of Zeus and at the bottom of the Acropolis hill. Right around the corner is the Plaka,

the market and restaurant area, where even the sidewalks are made of marble. (The city sits on a mountain of marble—one of the reasons the Acropolis and its surroundings have lasted so long.) A few blocks away is the government and high-end shopping area. The riots in front of Parliament took place on Thursday, the day before we arrived, and the burned out bank building was on the next block from the hotel. We ran into other guests from St Louis at the hotel (really, this kept happening everywhere we went—it’s a very very small world!) who said they watched the mob from the safety of the hotel’s rooftop garden. They never felt threatened, but people died that night. I’m quite happy we only suffered this adventure vicariously.  (photo on left is Temple of Zeus across from the hotel. Top right is street scene from Plaka area. Bottom right is photo of hotel from the Temple, showing the rooftop garden)

(photo above, intrepid traveler--note hat--in front of Acropolis Museum, the one still waiting for Lord Elgin's marbles) We had little difficulty communicating with anyone from our taxi driver to the merchants and restaurant personnel.  Everyone speaks some form of English. The tourist business is huge for Greece, so even a lot of signs were in English, although the Greeks have a lot to learn about marketing. They had no written tour pamphlets or gift shops with expensive books and souvenirs or even decent signage explaining what we were looking at.  I couldn’t get a travel guide in e-book format, so I hadn’t carted one with me.  (Weight restrictions on luggage are a PITA.) We solved the problem by hiring a local tour guide, then taking a City Tour from a double-decker bus with translated audio guides. 

Choosing to start in Greece was more serendipitous than good planning, but it allowed us to put the development of European civilization into perspective since we started with the oldest remains of the original inhabitants. The ruins in Athens reflect more of the epitome of ancient culture, but it was fascinating to see how the Roman architecture developed from the fabulous structures of Ephesus, which we visited later. (photo on left of Acropolis Hill showing lower wall built by Crusaders to protect the ancient temple/church and a grotto on the side of the hill)

Everything we ate was delicious, and even the wine—which I don’t normally enjoy—was wonderful and inexpensive. Or maybe it was the atmosphere of sitting in shaded cafes and watching the world go by that made it seem so.