Last evening on board the ms Noordam

Tuesday, May 6, 2014 – Naples, Italy

On our last evening on board the ms Noordam we were presented with a gala dinner in the main dining room.

Our favorite waiter, Putu Sudarsana, nicknamed Tunik, was our waiter again in the Vista Dining Room.  His assistant was Hadi Purnomo,  Jay was our wine steward.  Made Juniartha and his assistant Hendra Partama were in charge of adjacent tables, but always took the time to talk with us.  These four were outstanding!  We had a great time on our last evening on board ship.

Putu Sudarsana                                      Hadi Purnomo

Made Juniartha                                       Hendra Partama

Representatives from the staff, housekeeping, chefs, waiters, and assorted crew paraded through the dining room singing, “We Are Family.”  Then, the entire crew in the dining room sang their traditional Indonesian farewell song, “Gelang.”  Most of the passengers stood and clapped to show their appreciation.

“Gelang”

Gelang sepaku gelang
Gelang sirama rama
Gelang sepaku gelang
Gelang sirama rama
Mari pulang marilah pulang
Marilah pulang ber sama sama
Mari pulang marilah pulang
Marilah pulang ber sama sama

Meaning:
Goodbye, Goodbye
Let’s say goodbye together
Goodbye, Goodbye
‘Till we meet again
Let’s go home, Let’s go home
Let’s go home together
Let’s go home, Let’s go home
Let’s go home together

Some facts about our cruise:

From Civitavecchia, Italy to Venice, Italy, we sailed 1500 miles under the command of Captain Jeroen Van Donselaar.  From Venice, Italy to Civitavecchia, Italy we sailed 2420 miles under the command of Captain Bart Vaartjes.  Our cruise director on both cruises was Kieron Buffery.

Finding Herculaneum

Tuesday, May 6, 2014 – Naples, Italy

It was wonderful to finally have a sea day yesterday.  Not only did we have a relaxing day, we spent some time packing and getting organized to disembark the ship on Wednesday, May 7th when the ms Noordam returns to Civitavecchia, the port for Rome.  With very little in the way of souvenirs, we won’t have to worry about our luggage being overweight for the flight back to the United States.

This morning it was 70 degrees Fahrenheit on our balcony and a bit hazy.  The weather was predicted to be sunny as soon as the morning fog burned away.  Here are views from our balcony of our sail-in to Naples.

Our shore excursion to Ancient Herculaneum was scheduled for four hours between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm.  The Vista dining room opened at 7:30 am, so we had plenty of time to eat, get ready for our day on shore, and be in the Vista Lounge by 8:45 am.  We were given stickers for bus #29.  The ms Noordam docked a little after 7:30 am and all ashore was a 8:00 am with all aboard at 5:30 pm.

Vesuvius, Europe’s only active volcano, erupted at 1:00 pm in the afternoon of August 24 in the year 79 A. D.

Due to the direction of the wind, Herculaneum avoided the hot ash that collapsed rooftops and burned and destroyed much of Pompeii before it was sealed in volcanic material.  Instead, Herculaneum was hit by a pyroclastic flow with superheated gas followed by floods of hot mud that buried and sealed entire buildings effectively protecting them so that when the town was excavated, buildings with mosaic floors, wall paintings (frescos), and even wood (now carbonized) were revealed.  The difference between Herculaneum and Pompeii is that Herculaneum was buried deeper in 60 feet of hot volcanic material that cooled into solid rock and when serious excavations began in 1929, a city known as Ercolano was rapidly growing 60 feet above Herculaneum.  The depth of rock and the city above have been the two major reasons that excavations at Herculaneum have not progressed as much as the excavations at Pompeii.  Much of Herculaneum today is still buried under the city of Ercolano.

Our guide was Maria, a petite Asian woman who spoke relatively good English.  Each tour participant was given an audio receiver with earbuds so that we could hear our guide during our walking tour of Herculaneum.  We had a full bus for this tour that proved to be too many people to gather together and see what our guide was talking about inside some of the small interior rooms at Herculaneum.  This group size would have been fine at Pompeii which is a much a bigger outdoor site without small interior rooms.  After arriving at Herculaneum (Ercolano) we spent too much time outside the archaeological site in the bus parking lot and at the entrance trying to resolve issues with individual receivers and earbuds that were not working, getting admission tickets, and listening to our guide’s rather uninformative and much too long introduction to the archaeological site. This greatly diminished our advantage in being the first tour bus to arrive.  The crowds (mostly large school groups that were under chaperoned) that poured in ahead of us caused our guide to repeatedly say, “OMG, there are so many people.”  Even though we had earbuds connected to receivers for one way transmission of our guide’s voice, she was not good at keeping our group together.  She kept saying “over here,” which could mean left or right as she crisscrossed back and forth along narrow streets with high curbs where only single file was possible and crossing the street was difficult, causing our group to string out and away from her.  Maria also had trouble concisely summarizing information at some stops while flinging up her arm to dismiss many other structures as we soldiered along behind her.  As a result, we didn’t see as much of Herculaneum as we anticipated.  Where is George when we need him?

We did some homework before and after our trip so we were able to put together our photographs with accurate information.  On a second visit, it would be nice to go without a guide and have more time to see the ruins.  An audio guide can be rented at the entrance to Herculaneum.  Detailed maps of the archaeological site are also available to help with self-guided tours.

Here is some of what we were able to see on our first (hopefully not our last) visit to Herculaneum.

Visitors enter Herculaneum along what was once the former seaside beach of this popular resort town for Romans seeking a summer holiday or spending time at their second homes.  Along what was once the beach, are storage rooms built into the retaining wall at the base of the suburban baths.  Sometime referred to as “boathouses,” these rooms were used as warehouses or stored supplies for boats using the harbor.  Originally archaeologists believed that most of the people in Herculaneum escaped since so few bodies were found in the city.  Surprisingly, in 1981 and 1982 excavations along this beach area revealed that as many as 296 people were hiding in these storage rooms.

House of the Skeleton (Casa Dello Scheletro #5) is named because a skeleton was discovered on an upper floor of the house in 1831. Only a few human remains were found in Herculaneum as it was assumed that most people had escaped in time before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.  The entry hall or fauces (entrance or vestibule)  to the House of the Skeleton has a black and white mosaic floor that leads to an atrium that does not have a impluvium (a sunken pool).  A hall to the right of the atrium leads to a nymphaeum (a grotto area with running water dedicated to the nymphs) that has two rectangular basins with a decorative rear wall created with inlaid limestone  Above the numphaeum is a decorative frieze composed of seven mosaic panels.  The three in the middle are reproductions.

A large dining room (triclinium) is located at the rear of the atrium and to the right of the tablinum (home office).  On the north wall is a large vaulted semicircular alcove and the floor is paved in a geometric pattern known as opus sectile. Three banqueting couches would have been arranged around the walls as the Romans reclined while eating their meals.

A window in the triclinium looks out to the home’s small courtyard.  This is a where a well preserved mosaic lararium (shrine) is located. Members of the family would have performed daily rituals at the lararium to honor the household gods who protected the household.

The House with a Wood Partition (Casa del Tramezzo di Legno) is preserved to its third floor.  Its exterior features a cornice (ledge) over the door to prevent rainwater from coming down

       

From the front door, there is a short passageway that leads to a huge, square atrium decorated with wall paintings (frescos) consisting of vertical panels in rich colors of black, red, and yellow running from the floor to a horizontal area with a red background beginning above the doors and windows and reaching to the ceiling.  A wooden (now carbonized) partition with a series of doors would have been used to separate the tablinum from the atrium.  The tablinum is situated so that anyone standing in the atrium could look through the tablinum to the gardens usually surrounded by a peristyle or covered walkway.   The tablinum was a room where the family’s documents were kept and where the father might conduct business or meet with friends and clients during morning visits. Today, a tablinum is similar to a home office or study.  The atrium contains an impluvium or a sunken area creating a pool that caught rainwater that fell inside from the opening in the roof.  The impluvium in this home had a fountain and in situ at one end of the impluvium is an ornately decorated marble table (cartibulum) used as display table.  The table legs have claw feet and a lion’s head appears where the table top meets the table legs.

Atrium ceiling with opening in roof.

Wooden doors between the atrium and the tablinum.  Close-up of carbonized wood.

    
Two doors on each side of the partition were hinged on brass tracks and had bronze knobs to facilitate in opening and closing the doors.

Views of the wall paintings (frescos) on the atrium walls.

The impluvium under the open roof in the atrium.  Close-up of marble display table.
Note the floor drain for excess water.

Opening in the rear of the tablinum looking toward the gardens.  Close-up of floor mosiacs.

House of the Neptune Mosaic also known as the House of Neptune and Amphitrite (Neptune’s wife). The tablinum (home office) at the rear of the atrium overlooks a beautifully decorated garden court at the rear of the home that includes a nymphaeum and mosaic decorations on the wall.  Over the nymphaeum is the head of Silenus who according to Greek mythology was both a companion and a tutor to Dionysus, the god of wine, theatre and making merry.  Keeping with the theme, two marble theatrical masks are also found in this room.  Couches arranged on three sides made this a perfect place for summer dining.

 

 
Sea shells decorate the edge of this wall mosaic.

House of the Black Hall is one of Herculaneum’s more upscale mansions.  The black hall is open to the home’s peristyle.  The room has a vaulted ceiling decorated with geometric patterns on a black background.  The walls are decorated with black panels with red architectural details.  The floor is mosaic.

vaulted ceiling

House of Galba was named after a silver portrait bust of Emperor Servius Sulpicius Galba was found outside the building.  Much of the house lies under the residential area of Ercolano and has not been excavated.  The home has a pre-Roman peristyle.  One of the most impressive rooms excavated around the peristyle is an exedra (a recess set into the wall).

The Samnite House is one of the oldest buildings discovered so far in Herculaneum and dates from the 2nd century B. C.  Over the years, the house was modified and sub-divided.  The upper floor was rented with a separate entry and the property around the peristyle was sold so that a separate home was built on the site of the original peristyle garden.  This left the original house with a huge atrium and a few small rooms off the the sides of the atrium.

The entrance to the Samnite House has columns with Corinthian capitals on the outside and on the inside.

The atrium has a gallery lined with with Iconic columns.  The gallery is closed off on three sides and open on one side.  This allowed the upper level to be partitioned off from the rest of the house so that it could become a separate apartment.

House of the Beautiful Courtyard has an unusual layout that archaeologists believe has a medieval Italian influence.  The entrance opens directly from the footpath outside to a low ceiling room that is both a vestibule and an atrium.  This  leads directly (a step or two up) to an interior courtyard. A set of masonry stairs leads directly from the courtyard to four rooms on the second level that are connected by a wrap-around balcony.  To the right of the interior courtyard is main living room (oecus).  The walls of the living room are decorated with red panels featuring architectural themes and winged figures similar to the erots or putti we saw at Ephesus.  Unfortunately the wall paintings are deteriorating and painted plaster is crumbling onto the floors.  The only positive is that it did allow us to see how the the plaster was etched first so that the painters could follow the designs applied to the walls.

Stairs and second floor balcony wrapped around two walls

                                 Open roof in the courtyard above the stairs

Along the cobbled streets and footpaths,

we saw some evidence of fast food outlets.

We also saw evidence of Herculaneum’s elaborate plumbing system.  Water was brought from the mountain via aqueducts, filtered, stored in the town’s water tower, and then distributed to public fountains, baths, homes, and businesses.

The Women’s Baths (Central Thermae) allowed us to see amazing completely intact mosaic floors.

We also saw tubs and benches, barrel ceilings designed to allow steam condensation to run off instead of drip down on people’s heads, and shelving to store clothing and personal belongings.

Much too soon, it was time for our tour group to leave Herculaneum with our hopes to return one day.

Sparkling Santorini

Sunday, May 4, 2014 – Santorini, Greece

After traveling 158 nautical miles overnight from Rhodes to Santorini, we woke to partly cloudy skies and 64 degrees Fahrenheit on our balcony.  Breakfast in the dining room was from 7:30 am to 9:00 am.  Being first in the dining room, we had plenty of time to eat and walk to the Vista Lounge by 8:30 am for our 8:45 am shore excursion.  We picked up our yellow stickers for bus #13.  We wanted to be ready a little early for our tender boat trip from the ship to the new port of Athinios where we would transfer to our motor coach.  We would not be using the ms Noordam tenders as the Union Boatman of Santorini transfer all cruise passengers to both the new port and the old port and back to the cruise ships.

When the volcano on Santorini erupted in 1613 (plus or minus 7 years) BC, it was the largest eruption on Earth during the past 10,000 years.  Some refer to it as the Minoan eruption or the Late Bronze Age eruption.  Santorini lies on the South Aegean Volcanic Arc formed by the subduction of the African plate under the Eurasian plate. When the magma chamber within Santorini’s volcano collapsed, it created a large, deep crater or caldera.  Cruise ships do not dock at Santorini.  Ships actually position themselves where the sea has flooded into the caldera of the ancient volcano.   Passengers independently going on shore and who are not on shore excursions that require motorized transportation, are tendered ashore to the old port of Fira at Skala Pier where there are three ways to get to the top of the cliff, 853 feet above sea level – cable car, riding donkeys, or walking up 580 steep steps that zig-zag up the cliff face — a pathway also used by the donkeys going up with riders and returning back down either with riders or not.  Donkeys always have the right of way and they do not wear diapers!

 

 

There are six small cable cars ganged together (each holding a maximum of six persons).  It takes only a few minutes to travel either up or down.

During the Neolithic Period, the people who inhabited what today is known as Santorini, called the island Stronghyle or Strongili for its round shape.  The violent volcanic eruption over 3600 years ago caused the center of Stronghyle to sink, leaving a caldera with high cliffs on three sides.  It is one of the world’s most dramatic geological sights. Some believe that the lost city of Atlantis is Santorini.  The island of Santorini’s official name is Thira, also written as Thera.

We met up with our guide Dimetra and our driver Nick at the new port of Athinios for our 4-hour shore excursion — Discover Ancient Akrotiri.

Our motor coach navigated a steep, winding road with seven 180 degree turns from the new port of Athinios to the top of the cliffs in the early morning fog of damp sea mist.

We drove to Akrotiri, an archaeological site.

On the way we saw grapevines thriving in the rich, dry soil created from ancient volcanic ash.  The locals say that in Santorini there is more wine than water, and it may be true: Santorini produces more wine than any two of the other islands in the Cyclades. Thirty-six varieties of grape are grown on Santorini. Farmers twist the vines into a basket like shape, in which the grapes grow, protected from the wind.  This shape also allows the nightly sea mist (what we might call heavy morning dew) to condense on the grape leaves, providing necessary water for the plants.  The sea mist burns off later in the day when the air becomes hot and dry during the summer season – May to September.  One of the grapevines we saw is 350 years old according to our guide Dimetra.

Sea mist (left) covering the grapevines twisted into basket shapes.

With a large twisted base of vines, the grapevine above on the right is 350 years old.

Santorini is arid and like all the islands in the Cyclades it does not receive very much rainfall.  Drinking or potable water had to be delivered to Santorini via tanker from Crete until the early 1990’s when water became available from a desalination plant built on Santorini.  While the desalinated water is potable, it is still a little salty, so most visitors drink bottled water.

By 3,200 BC Santorini was an important and wealthy port. The island’s inhabitants enjoyed a high standard of living. They built two- and three-story buildings, tilled the earth, and were skilled artists who embraced the the use of color to express beauty.  They traded with other cultures and demonstrated an accurate knowledge of travel and a high level of  cosmopolitan awareness of the Mediterranean world around them. The Minoan influence is obvious especially at Akrotiri where excavations have uncovered interior wall decorations similar to  those found in the Minoan palace in Crete. From its ruins, archaeologists have described Akrotiri as a busy and prosperous village before the volcanic eruption.  One question that has yet to be answered by archaeologists is why there were no people living in the village at the time of the eruption. One theory is that a series of earthquakes over a period of years prior to the eruption enticed the residents toward a mass exodus.  This theory also explains why archaeologists have found very little in the way of valuables that could easily have been taken when the residents of Akrotiri decided to emigrate.

Akrotiri was first discovered in 1870.  The present systematic excavations began in 1967.  Today, it is estimated that only 1/30 of the original city has been uncovered.  Yet, from this small percentage, the most fantastically well preserved wall paintings (frescos) were found on the inner walls of the buildings.  Today the site is protected by a building with a special roof and interior walkways with railings have been installed so that visitors can see the work in progress without interfering with any ongoing archaeological work.

Dimetra gave our group a guided tour at the archaeological site at Akrotiri and later we visited the Santozeum in Fira where we were able to take non flash photographs of some of the replicas of the wall paintings.  Granby wanted to try to match some of the wall paintings to their original locations if possible.  Our Discover Ancient Akrotiri tour let us visit two sites on different areas of the island.  Akrotiri is located on the southwestern side of Santorini and Fira, the capital of Santorini, is located on the west side of the island.  After exploring the archaeological site at Akrotiri, our bus took us to Fira where we visited the Santozeum’s exhibit of Wall Paintings of Thera (http://santozeum.com/#/whats-on/exhibit.php).  The original wall paintings (frescos) were removed from Akrotiri between 1967 and 1974.  All of them were shipped to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (http://www.namuseum.gr/collections/prehistorical/thera-en.html).  Today, all but two are back in Santorini at the Prehistoric Museum of Thira (http://www.santorini.gr-santorini.com/museums/prehistoric_museum.htm).  Replicas were created so that the wall paintings could be studied and enjoyed.  The replicas are kept inside the Santozeum with controlled lighting and temperature to be viewed by today’s visitors as they were intended to be viewed in antiquity — hanging on the walls as interior embellishments.  If we had had more time, Granby and Henry would have gone to the Prehistoric Museum of Thira.  The Akrotiri archaeological site has been stripped of most of its artifacts and almost all of these treasures can be found on exhibit at the Prehistoric Museum of Thira.

Click here for a map of the Akrotiri archaeological site.

Dimetra began our tour with an in-depth explanation.  Below are six views of a few of the excavations in progress at Akrotiri and a few pieces of pottery left in situ.

 

 

 

Building Complex Delta is located near the center of the area that has been excavated.  It includes four buildings.  Click here to see where Building Complex Delta is on the Excavation Map. From the signage on site, “A staircase in contact with the south wall of the antechamber gave access to the upper storey of the east apartments.”  “At semi-basement level, room 16 had a a large window protected by a small shelter inserted in the holes of either side of the lintel, while clay waterspouts slightly higher up channelled rainwater from the flat roof to the street.  Both the size of the window and the finds inside the room indicate that room 16 functioned as a shop dealing in pottery and stone vessels.”

Below is a wall painting found in Building Complex Delta  known as the “Spring Fresco.”  It shows a rocky landscape decorated with swallows and flowering lilies.  It was found covering three walls in a room of the eastern building in Complex Delta along with a bed and multiple storage vessels.  The room had a window, a closet, and a door. Interestingly, the bed was discovered by pouring plaster into voids and holes that archaeologists thought might have once been organic matter that had decomposed.  One of the plaster casts exposed a bed frame bound with rope.

 

West House is a two-story detached building with six rooms located in the north-western corner of the excavation.  It is adjacent to a large triangular public area that might have been a public square.  Click here to see where West House is located on the Excavation Map. On the ground floor there are storerooms, workshops, a kitchen, and a mill.  The first floor had a room used for weaving, a storage room for clay vessels, a lavatory, and two rooms that were decorated with wall paintings.  Two wall paintings are of fishermen and another depicts a young priestess.

 

Xeste 3 to the left as one enters the archaeological site, is a three-story building with 14 rooms on the ground floor and 14 rooms on the first floor.  Click here to see where Xeste 3 is located on the Excavation Map.

Xeste 3 is where the wall paintings named “Altar” and “Saffron Gatherers” were found.  The “Saffron Gatherers” depict female figures offering blooming crocuses to a seated goddess who has a blue monkey and a griffin by her side.

                

In another room of Xeste 3, archaeologists found a Lustral Basin (a sunken rectangular room reached by an L-shaped stairway) which indicates a sacred area where it is thought that a ritual took place for purposes of purification.  On the wall of the Lustral Basin was a wall painting of the “Adorants” who look as if they are bringing offerings for some type of ritual and possibly asking for healing.  One woman holds out a necklace and the other is seated holding her head in one hand as if in pain and with the other hand holding her foot that shows a bleeding wound.  The large and grand layout of Xeste 3 and the subject matter of the wall paintings has suggested that this structure was perhaps used for religious and public functions.

Xeste 3 is the site where archaeologists found a purely decorative wall painting created in high relief that is unique to Akrotiri and demonstrates an advanced degree of skill and technical knowledge.  It was found in Room 9 on the second floor.  The Thera Foundation provides this decription, “Double undulating relief bands pass through painted rings, forming a network of lozenges (rhombuses), each enclosing four rosettes. This motif is one of the most beautiful and artistically unique non-figurative art forms found in Akrotiri.”

 

Building Beta located in the southern middle portion of the excavation is thought to be a private residence.  It is located on the east side of the main road (Telchines Road) that appears to run from the north to the harbor in the south.  Click here to see where Building Beta is located on the Excavation Map.  Due to water erosion, the entrance has been impossible to determine.

Wall paintings were found on the upper floors of Buildiing Beta.  “Boxing Boys” and “Antelopes” decorated the southern and northern walls.  “Monkeys” and “Cows” were found in a northwest corner of a room that was otherwise damaged by water erosion.  Monkeys, indigenous to Egypt, were possibly brought to Thera (Santorini) as gifts and pets.

     Authorities suggest that this boxing match probably depicts a coming of age ritual.

   
Blue monkeys in a rocky habitat.    Cows (and calves) were a domesticated animal.

 

After visiting Akrotiri and then the Santozeum in Fira, Granby and Henry investigated some of the souvenir shops before taking the cable car from the town of Fira to the old port of Fira and Skala Pier.  Before descending they had a lovely view from Fira of the ms Noordam waiting for them in the caldera.

Upon exiting the cable cars, Granby and Henry saw a sign for an outdoor cafe called Captain Nikolas on Skala Pier.  They decided to stop for refreshments and enjoy the view.  In addition to a cold Alfa draught beer they tried a Santorini favorite meze (appetizer) – tomato croquettes – that were very tasty.

All aboard and the last tender back to the ship was at 4:30 pm.  Granby and Henry took an earlier tender back to the ship.

There was a Wine and Cheese Sailaway Party on Lido Deck 9 Aft.

Granby and Henry were able to see the last views of the stunning cliffs of Santorini as the ms Noordam sailed out of the caldera toward the west coast of Italy and the city of Naples 681 nautical miles away.

The Many Shops of Rhodes

Saturday, May 3, 2014 – Rhodes, Greece

The temperature on our balcony this morning was 72 degrees Fahrenheit as the ms Noordam docked a little after 8:00 am near the gates to the Old Town.  It was an overnight journey of only 176 nautical miles from Mykonos.

Located 12 miles off the coast of Turkey in the Aegean Sea, Rhodes is the largest of Greece’s 12 Dodecanese islands. Old Town is the oldest inhabited medieval town in Europe.  Old Town Rhodes is not laid out in a grid and has roughly 200 streets or lanes that simply have no name.  The Old Town has a multitude of shops selling jewelry and gift items.  Bazaar stalls line the squares and lanes wherever space is available.  Any  souvenir item you can think of can probably be found including woven scarves, leather goods, pottery, lace tablecloths, sponges, t-shirts, and statues of the Colossus of Rhodes (one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and the Rhodian deer that stand atop the columns that protect Mandraki harbour’s entrance to the Old Town.  Smaller than most deer, the Rhodian deer or fallow deer that inhabit the forests on Rhodes are a symbol of Rhodes.

The Knights of the Order of St. John occupied the island for 214 years from 1309 until the Ottoman Turks defeated them in 1523.  The Knights of St. John were responsible for building the city’s impressive walls, eleven gates, many hospitals, and churches.  The most popular attraction in the Old Town today is the Palace of the Grand Masters, built in the 14th century by the Knights of St. John.  Unfortunately the original Palace was destroyed by an accidental explosion in 1856.  The current Palace was rebuilt in the 1930s on orders from Mussolini who wanted to create a summer residence for himself and King Victor Emmanuel III.  The exterior is an exact reproduction of the original, but the interior has been modified to accommodate those living in a more modern era.  The mosaics are neither originals to the Palace or reproductions.  They are Roman originals taken from the island of Kos, Greece (the third largest island in the Dodecanese) by the Italian military.

  

 

Rhodes is a remarkable example of a fully intact medieval structure with a series of magnificent gates and towers.  It is a UNESCO  World Heritage site.

It took only 10 minutes to walk from the ship through the security gate in the chain link fence and around the harbor to one of the gates to Rhodes Old Town – the Gate of the Virgin.

Inside Old Town looking up at the Towers for St. Catherine’s Gate or Sea Gate, the main  gate of the town.  Just inside St. Catherine’s Gate is Fountain Square or Ippokratous Square with the Castellania Fountain in its center leading to Socratous Street, the main shopping street.

Another interesting fountain is located in Sea Horse Square or the Square of the Jewish Martyrs (Plateia ton Martiron Eveon).  The fountain is topped with three bronze sea horses.  This part of Rhodes had a Jewish community dating back to the ancient Greeks.  The Square is dedicated to over 1500 Jews who were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz.  Today, there is little left of what was once a lively and thriving Jewish community.

We found an ATM at the National Bank of Greece.

The many shops and streets of Rhodes.

   

   

We decided to treat ourselves to a refreshing beverage at one of the many outdoor cafes.

Leaving Rhodes, we could see how close the ms Noordam was in the berth on the far right.  Along the way, we stopped to admire a statue of playful dolphins frolicking in the harbor.

 

We discovered that the security gate we used to leave the pier area was locked, so we backtracked and entered through another gate for another cruise ship and then climbed a small hill to access the pier where our ship was berthed.  We never did find out why the gate was locked.

All Aboard was at 5:30 pm.  We had dinner reservations with Marlon and Liz at the Pinnacle Grill, a specialty restaurant on board the ms Noordam for 6:00 pm.  The Pinnacle Grill describes itself as a Pacific Northwest-themed steak and seafood restaurant.  Even though it was a Smart Casual Night, Marlon and Henry looked nice in their jackets and ties.  We met at the Pinnacle Bar for pre-dinner drinks.  We enjoyed a lovely meal together.  Granby and Henry both ordered a shrimp cocktail with a brandy horseradish cocktail sauce and a caesar salad with heart of romaine lettuce, grated parmesan cheese, garlic croutons, anchovies and house-made dressing.  Granby ordered a 10 ounce Filet Mignon and Henry ordered an 18 ounce Bone-in Rib Eye Steak.  Marlon and Liz provided a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine for our dinner.  The wines were the perfect compliment for our special dinner together.

For dessert Granby and Liz both had the Pinnacle Crème Brûlée featuring three flavors – chocolate, coffee, and vanilla bean.

Henry ordered the Not-So-Classic Baked Alaska with Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream with Bing Cherries Jublee.

The desserts were especially delicious!

The evening’s entertainment was a comedy and visual show featuring mime Daniel Zafrani with performances at 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm  in the Vista Lounge.

Brilliantly White Mykonos

Friday, May 2, 2014 – Mykonos, Greece

We woke up this morning to sunny skies and 66 degrees Fahrenheit on our balcony.  It promised to become much warmer during the day.  After breakfast in the dining room, we made arrangements with Liz and Marlon to meet on shore so that we could go together to Mykonos Town.

The ms Noordam docked at 8:00 am at a pier some distance from Mykonos Town known as Chora which means “the town” in Greek.  Chora (sometimes spelled Hora) is used when the name of the main town is also the name of the island.

New Port is about 1.5 miles north of Mykonos Town center in Tourlos close to Agios Stefanos beach.  Walking from the ship into town was not recommended because it was not safe to walk on the winding roadway without sidewalks or footpaths.  Holland America Line advertized an all day shuttle bus pass for $10.00 per person that had a drop off point on the northern edge of Mykonos Town, about a half mile from the center of town.  Instead, we took the Seabus, a Delos Tours ferry, from the New Port at Tourlos to the ferry terminal area on the southern side of Mykonos Town’s harbor for 2 Euros per person each way.

Known for its sunshine (300 days a year), fantastic sunsets, old windmills, blindingly white buildings, radiantly blue waters, and brilliantly blue skies, Mykonos is one of roughly 220 islands in the South Aegean’s Cyclades. Mykonos Town has narrow, winding cobblestone streets that provide access to cube-shaped restaurants, residences, and boutiques that somehow seem all connected. The splashes of color — blue from doors and balconies and brightly colored flowers — stand out against the stark white walls.  The island of Mykonos is only 33 square miles with 10,000 year round residents.  Once a poor island dependent on fishing, Mykonos today is a tourism hotspot with a reputation for partying and popular with celebrities as well as tourists.  Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise own houses on Mykonos and like to vacation during the months when there are few tourists.

It took just a few minutes for us to travel by ferry to Mykonos Town.  Here are some of the views from the ferry sailing from New Port to Old Port.

We were welcomed to Mykonos Town by signage and a map.

We walked around and decided to use the ATM at Alpha Bank to exchange U.S. dollars for Euros, the currency in Greece.

Henry and Marlon on the harbor front of Old Port

Walking through the maze of narrow streets, we saw brightly painted doors and lots of flowers in bloom.  Narrow streets that twist and wind and sometimes dead-end were intended to confuse an enemy coming from the sea.  This is why the backs of houses face the seaport forming a protection for the entrances that face away from the sea.

   

  

   

We saw a few 3-wheel delivery vehicles trying to navigate the very narrow streets.  People had to jump out of the way to make room for them.  The side of this one looked like it had had more than one brush up against a stone wall.

By one count, there are approximately 600 churches on the island of Mykonos.  Some are very small, private, family churches located next to a family’s home.  Mykonos Town has nine churches.  Here are pictures of two.

Agia Kyriaki is situated in Agia Kyriaki Square away from the waterfront.

Agios Nikolakis (Saint Nicholas) sits on a stretch of cobblestone that juts out into the Old Port.   This small church with its dazzlingly blue dome is one of the most picturesque churches in Mykonos Town.  It is the fishermen’s chapel and has comfortable seating on blue benches outside the church.

There were many shops with a variety of merchandise from touristy souvenirs to very nice jewelry and everything in between.  Liz bought some beautiful scarves.

  
T-shirts                                             Jewelry

As we wandered through the streets of Mykonos, we saw many cats.  One place used a cat logo to advertize Wi-Fi.

We found our way to the western side of the island where there are a plethora of restaurants, cafes, and bars in buildings built right on the water’s edge where the views of sunsets are reported to be spectacular. This section of Mykonos Town is known as Little Venice and remains a legacy from the island’s occupation by the Venetians.  We stopped at Venezia, a seafood restaurant with inside and outside seating.  We sat outside to enjoy a beverage and the view at Little Venice.  It is on this side of the island where the iconic Windmills are located.  These windmills (16 in total) are the symbol of Mykonos also known as “the island of the winds.”

After some more walking, we chose to eat a late lunch at one of the many cafes with outdoor seating and shade from the sun.  TripAdvisor lists 290 restaurants on the island of Mykonos. 121 of these restaurants are located in the small area of Mykonos Town.

Cafes lined up side by side along the harbor of Old Port

 
Some of the restaurants tucked away on side streets

Madoupas Cafe Restaurant first opened in 1957 is located in the middle of Mykonos Town harbor right on the waterfront of Old Port.  Madoupas Cafe is known for a casual atmosphere that appeals to fishermen who stop by early in the morning for coffee and late in the afternoon for ouzo.  It offered authentic Greek cuisine. We ordered mezes from the menu.  Henry and Granby split a Greek salad and a Greek pizza.  Our drinks were Alfa, a Greek beer.

After lunch, we decided to take the ferry back to the ship.  All aboard was at 4:30 pm with a Sailaway Party on Lido Deck 9 Aft.

Sailing away from Mykonos

Tonight was a formal night. The evening’s entertainment featured Naomi, a concert pianist, who gave performances at 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm.  Dinner in the dining room was delicious.  Granby had Surf and Turf and Henry had Alaskan King Crab Legs.

Sailing and Belly Dancing Away from Kusadasi

Thursday, May 1, 2014 – Kusadasi, Turkey

Part III of III

Our Ephesus & Terrace Houses shore excursion with George ended back in the port town of Kusadasi at a Turkish carpet shop where guests were invited to listen to a sales pitch for various displayed carpets.  Disembarking the bus, we thanked George and said good-bye without entering the carpet shop.  It was just a couple of colorful and noisy blocks from the carpet shop to the cruise ship terminal.  By walking quickly, not stopping, and saying “no” to all the people standing outside various shops, we arrived back at the ship in just a few minutes. After lunch on board the ship, we ventured out to find free Internet access on shore.  We could have hired a tuk-tuk to take us 200 meters down the dock to the cruise ship terminal, but we chose to walk instead.

All aboard was at 5:30 pm and the ms Noordam set sail after the Norwegian Spirit left its berth.  A bright red pilot boat followed us out of the harbor to pick up the pilot on board and take him back to Kusadasi after the ms Noordam reached deep water.

From 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm, Lido Deck 9 midship was transformed into a Turkish Taraf with Market Stalls to allow passengers the experience of tasting traditional Turkish foods and drinks, listening to Turkish music, and seeing a traditonal belly dance performance by Belly Dancer Constantina.  There was even a bazaar with Turkish items for sale.  The drink of the day was a Zorbatini, a vodka martini that mixed vodka with ouzo (a Greek anisette liqueur) instead of vermouth and had a Greek olive for garnish.  Today on Location described the event as “an evening fit for a Sultan!”  The crew seemed to enjoy dressing up for the occasion.

Turkish Bazaar                                     Belly Dancer Constantina

After walking around Lido Deck midship and enjoying the Belly Dance performance, Granby and Henry went to the main dining room on Deck 2 to table #311 and our waiter, Putu.  Tonight two of the entrees were featured from recipes by Chef David Burke, owner of several restaurants in NYC, Chicago, and surprisingly Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.  Angry Striped Bass with Garlicky Clams and Boston Lager Striploin marinated in a mixture of honey, spices, and Samuel Adams Boston Lager, accompanied by red onion marmalade and creamed collard greens were among the entree choices for the evening.  Granby had the Boston Lager Striploin and Henry chose the Grilled French-Cut Pork Chop.

Pork Chop                                                  Striploin

Desserts on board the ship are delicious, but you can also order either a fruit plate or a cheese plate for dessert.  Granby ordered both and Putu wrapped the cheese plate for us to take back to put in our cabin refrigerator for a next day snack.

The Casino advertised A Turkish Casino Night and entertainment in the Vista Lounge included The Marriage Game at 8:00 pm followed by a Big Screen Movie Night featuring Saving Mr. Banks at 9:00 pm.  This is the towel animal we found on our bed.

By George, it’s Terrace Houses!

Thursday, May 1, 2014 – Kusadasi, Turkey

Part II of III.

Archaeological work at Ancient Ephesus began in 1869 under the auspices of the British Museum.  It is estimated that only ten percent of the ancient city of Ephesus has been unearthed to date.  It will be exciting to see what will be uncovered in the future.  Excavation of the Yamaçevler (Terrace Houses) started in 1960 and the restoration and protection of two of seven houses have been completed.  To date, a total of 78 rooms have been discovered and among those only eight have been restored.  The houses were first built in the first century B.C and more were added and modified as residences until the seventh century A.D.  The houses were inhabited by wealthy Ephesians.  Archeologists have discovered layers of wall paintings and in some rooms five layers of drawings have been found according to Dr. Sabine Ladstaetter, Ephesus excavation president.  Wall paintings are in the process of being painstakenly restored and protected.  Ladstaetter estimated that in 2013 it cost 40,000 Euros to restore and protect one room.

The Yamaçevler (Terrace Houses) are located on three terraces at the lower end of the slope of the Bulbul Mountain.  They are built so that the roof of a lower house was the basis for the terrace of the house above.  Most homes had two levels with interior stairs.  The houses had entrances from stepped side streets going uphill from Curetes Street and access from back alleyways.  The houses are located across Curetes Street from Hadrian’s Temple, up hill from the Celsus Library and the intersection of Curetes Street and the Marble Road.  See the covered areas in the picture below on the right.  Today, the Terrace Houses are protected from the heat and the sunlight by a milky white fiberglass roofing supported by steel scaffolding.  Inside there are glass and steel walkways and stairs with railings to allow those who pay extra for entry to have maximum views of the rooms currently on display and take non flash photographs and video without interfering with the ongoing restoration work or damaging the Terrace Houses.  George provided the tickets for our group to enter the Terrace Houses and he explained what we were seeing as we explored the various rooms.

 
Entrance to Terrace House 2                             Diagram of Terrace House 2

We had to watch our heads as some of the stairs went straight up!

Terrace House 2 contains seven luxurious peristyle houses on three artificial terraces.  Originally there were six houses, but Units 3 and 5 were split into separate houses in the second century A.D.  We first entered the peristyle courtyard of dwelling unit 6 that had eight columns and at least two floors.  Peri means “around” and style means “column” indicating a covered walkway surrounded an interior garden.  Think green grass, trees, flowers in bloom, fountains, and pools of water.  The floors and walls originally were faced with marble.  A basin is installed on the south side of the courtyard.  Restoration work is continuing as pieces are put back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

           The lower part of the walls have been restored with marble facing.

The roof of the open courtyard’s walkway was held up by columns.  The open courtyard allowed light into homes as well as the circulation of air as houses did not have windows.  The peristyle courtyard was the center of the home and its covered walkways provided shade and light to work or relax.  Rooms situated off the courtyard received light from the courtyard, but it was not a strong light making interior rooms dim. Since the peristyle courtyard was 2-stories tall, it allowed light into the ground floor rooms as well as the rooms upstairs.  Houses were heated by hot air flowing through clay pipes beneath the floors and behind the walls.  Indoor toilets, accommodating more than one person, were in a room furnished with benches along three walls; excrement was drained by a channel of running water.  Houses had both cold and hot water.

The dining room was located off the peristyle courtyard.  A niche in the wall held basins of water to wash hands before eating food.

Unit 6 demonstrates that Terrace Houses had baths located off the peristyle courtyard.  One entered the cooler Southern room with two basins in niches that served as a frigidarium and changing room.  The middle room without water was the caldarium or hot room used like today’s sauna is used to sweat and clean the pores of the skin.  The third room of the bath had rectangular and semicircular basins and functioned as a tepidarium or warm room to relax.  The floors, walls, and basins were faced with marble.   Archaeologists found a kitchen that was accessible from the peristyle courtyard.  The kitchen included an oven (arched hearth) and wall paintings of fish and birds.

Wall paintings or frescos in private homes in Ephesus represent the largest collection of wall paintings of the Roman Imperial Period in Asia Minor.  Paintings were commissioned by the owners to reflect their tastes and importance in the community.  Wall paintings in the Terrace Houses provide archaeologists and visitors today with a view as to what life was like in Ancient Ephesus for the wealthy.

The Room of Erots (room 18) is located in residential unit 5.  The walls are painted with red frames around backgrounds for playful little erots.  Erots or Putti, the winged gods of love, were used frequently in Ephesian art.  Each erot is holding something different that suggests that the erots in this room are bringing items for a wedding procession.  Archaeologists believe that this room was used as a bedroom for the home’s owner and his wife.

 

Wealthy Ephesians preferred marble and stone mosaic flooring.

Most of the furniture and items discovered in the Terrace Houses has been removed to several museums.  Works of art recovered from 1867 to 1905 are in the British Museum.  Art and artifacts recovered between 1905 and 1923 are in Vienna.    The Turkish Republic forbade taking antiques out of the country and founded the Ephesus Archaeological Museum in Selçuk near İzmir, Turkey.  We saw a few clay pots that remained in place.

With today’s protective roofing and the glass and steel walkways and stairs creating an onsite museum, the beautiful wall paintings and mosaic floors protected and left in place tell a wonderful and remarkable story of what life was like for wealthy Ephesian families who lived in these hillside homes between the first century B.C. and the seventh century A.D.

By George, it’s Ephesus!

Thursday, May 1, 2014 – Kusadasi, Turkey

Part I of III.

We woke up to a sunny day and the temperature on our balcony was 65 degrees with the promise of warming up during the day.  The ms Noordam was scheduled to be the only ship in port.  Later on, the Norwegian Spirit docked next to the ms Noordam.  The ship had run into some bad weather and had to make a change in its ports of call.

Since we are passengers on a cruise ship that is in transit, we do not need a visa for Turkey.  Had we traveled to Turkey for a land tour or flown in to a Turkish airport to transfer to a cruise ship to begin a cruise, we would have needed a visa to enter Turkey.

We took this picture of Turkey’s national flag from our balcony.  The color red was used by the Turks during the Ottoman Empire and it is also a traditional Islamic color.  The white crescent moon and five-point star are symbols of Islam although these symbols were used in Asia Minor before the advent of Islam.  This version of the Turkish flag with the crescent moon and star towards the left side of the flag was officially adopted on June 5, 1936.  The Turkish flag has a long history.  It was originally green until Sultan Selim III changed the background to red in 1793.  The flag had just the crescent moon symbol until the star was added in 1844.

It was just 191 nautical miles from Piraeus to Kusadasi (One nautical mile = 1.15 statute miles). This is the port terminal that we could see from the ship.  The terminal was very nice and it was a short walk from the ship through the terminal to what was once a small seaside fishing village on the Aegean Sea.  Now, Kusadasi is very commercialized.  During the summer when it is peak tourist season, the population increases from a little over 64,000 to half a million.

Today, we had booked an early shore excursion to Ephesus and the Terrace Houses beginning at 7:45 am, so we got ready and went to the Visa Lounge for our stickers at 7:30 am.  We were assigned to bus #5 and we were very lucky because our tour guide was George.  And, by George, George was wonderful!  He was very knowledgeable and he was excellent in “herding” our bus group all over Ephesus.  Our driver was Mehmet.  George taught us to say Good Morning in Turkist – günaydın – pronounced u-ni-din or like saying “united” really fast.  Listen to it online (http://www.forvo.com/word/g%C3%BCnayd%C4%B1n/).  Each of us received a set of earphones and a receiver to wear around our neck.  We could clearly hear George who had a microphone clipped to his shirt throughout our tour without having to get close to him and try to strain to listen to him over the  noise of other people and being outside. The headsets were of excellent quality.  Rather than raising his voice to try to be heard, George could talk normally and we could hear him just fine.  George had a good sense of humor and he was always saying, “George, why this or George, what that.”  Then, he would answer his own questions.  He had a yellow umbrella and following George was very easy.

George pronounced Kusadasi as Kush-a-da-ce.  George lives in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city which is a little over 61 miles from Kusadasi.  Istanbul is Turkey’s largest city and Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, is the second largest city in Turkey.  George said that Tourism is a 29 billion dollar business in Turkey.  He said that he was glad that our group arrived during spring when the weather was not as hot as peak tourist season in July and August when the temperatures hovered around 45 degrees C or 113 degrees F.  We did have a perfectly gorgeous day on the first of May – sunny and not too hot or too cool.

Kusadasi literally means bird island.  It is located on a bay with a breakwater on one side.  At the end of the breakwater is Pigeon Island.  It was originally named Bird Island because it was a favorite place for migratory birds, but the name was given to the town and the island’s name was changed to Pigeon Island.  It is not really an island as it is connected to the land by a mole or breakwater (massive wall) that protects the harbor from the full impact of waves.  The causeway to Pigeon Island is walkable and leads to lovely beaches.

It is only a little more than eleven miles from Kusadasi to Ephesus.

Ephesus was an important and wealthy port city during the Classical Greek period or Golden Age, a period of 200 years from the 5th century B.C. to the end of the 4th century B. C.  The city continued to flourish under Roman control and became the third largest city of Roman Asia Minor.  The city was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614 A. D. and it lost its importance as a commercial center as its harbor slowly silted up from the Cayster River. As the harbor silted, the land around Ephesus became like a marsh complete with mosquitoes.  It was not a desirable place to live. Today, you would not guess that Ephesus use to be a port city since the geography has changed so much over the years and Ephesus is now so far inland without marshes or mosquitoes.

After arriving at Ephesus, we laughed at this sign from one of the many souvenir shops.  At Ephesus and in Kusadasi, the “thousands” of sales persons from an equal number of shops do not want to take “no” for an answer to what they hope to sell.

There was an opportunity to have a comfort stop before entering Ephesus.  Cost to use the facilities was 0.50 Euro.

Just inside the gates, we had our admission tickets ready.  See a map of Ephesus at:  http://www.meandertravel.com/ephesustours/mapofephesus.htm

We were one of the first tour groups to enter Ephesus and we found it practically deserted except for the many cats in residence.

The temperature was nice.  Henry wore his fleece jacket, but Granby took off her jacket early in the day.  When Granby and Lisa went to Ephesus in July 2007 not only was the temperature in the 45 degree C range, it was very crowded and difficult to take any pictures without people in the way.  In 2011, 2,082,834 people visited the ancient city of Ephesus.  Henry and Granby, however, found very few people when our tour group arrived!

A view along the Basilica stoa used for commercial business, meetings of law courts, and stock exchange.

The marble road leading from the Terrace Houses and the Library toward the Great Theatre.

Looking toward the Theatre                    Looking back toward the Terrace Houses

Curetes Street is one of three main streets in Ephesus.  It runs from the Hercules Gate at the top of the hill to the Library of Celsus at the bottom on the hill.

 
Walking down through the Hercules Gate (picture on left above) and then looking back up at it (picture on right above). A professional photographer was taking pictures of tourists to sell at the end of the tour.

                             Reliefs on both lintels show images of Hercules.

A view looking down Curetes Street from the Hercules Gate toward the 2-story facade of the Library of Celsus.

May 1, 2014 – just our tour group             July 11, 2007 – hordes of people

We saw the relief of Nike, the winged angel of Victory.  It is thought that this triangular block was half of a towering monumental arch that led to the center of Ephesus.  Today, Nike is supported by a stone block on the ground in Domitian Square.

There is a relief of a snake and the caduceus, both symbols for medicine. During the Roman Empire, an important school of medicine was located in Ephesus.

On the side of the symbols for medicine is a relief of Hermes, the messenger god.  One of Hermes responsibilities is to carry souls of the dead to the after life in Hades.  Since Hermes is very swift, he is usually depicted with wings on his forehead or sandals.  In this relief, he has wings on his sandals.  The sleepy cat on top of the relief does not appear to be interested in having any wings.

The Fountain of Trajan was built to honor the emperor after his visit to Ephesus between 102 and 104 A. D.  A statue of Trajan stood in the middle under the arch.

As we experienced on the way into Ephesus, the public toilets charged a fee during ancient times.  The public toilets had a wooden roof and an open pool in the middle.  There was a drainage system of running water under the toilets.  George told us that you could send your slave to sit on the latrine to warm it up for you to use in the cold wintertime.  The rich who lived in the Terrace Houses had their own indoor toilets and baths, so. . . . we don’t know if George was making up a good story or not.

Walking a little further down Curetes Steet, the entrance to the Terrace Houses is on the left opposite the Temple Hadrian on the right.  Hadrian’s Temple was built to honor Emperor Hadrian who came to visit the city in 128 A.D.  The Temple was undergoing restoration during our visit.

Here are two views of the Temple without the scaffolding taken in July 2007.

The library of Celsus was built in 117 A. D. by Gaius Julius Aquila to honor his father Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus who was a popular politician serving as a Roman senator, consul, and governor of Asia. The library was built to be Celsus’ tomb and shrine. The scrolls of the manuscripts were kept in cupboards in the niches on the walls.  The library was insulated with double walls to help protect the manuscripts from extremes of temperature and humidity.  It is estimated that the library housed more than 12,000 scrolls and was the third largest library after the Library of Alexandria in Egypt (housing 700,000 scrolls) and the Library of Pergamum in Pergamum, Turkey.

 

The statues in the niches of the columns represent the virtues of Celsus –  wisdom (Sophia), knowledge (Episteme), intelligence (Ennoia) and valor (Arete).  The originals are in a museum and copies remain at Ephesus.  Above is the statue of valor.

                                 Lisa in front of the Library of Celsus 2007

The marble road intersects Curetes Street at a right angle and connects the Celsus Library with the Great Theatre.  Along the way is a carving in one of the stones that is believed to be one of the earliest advertisements. It is for the brothel.  There is a footprint on the stone, one finger showing the library, and another showing the brothel. The footprint shows that one should turn at that point; the woman’s head symbolizes the women waiting in the Brothel and the heart shows that the women are eager for love.

The Great Theatre was originally built  in the third century B. C, but during the Roman Period, it was enlarged to hold a capacity of 25,000 seats.  The theatre was used for concerts, plays, gladiator and animal fights, and discussions (religious, political, and philosophical).  Paul spoke to the Ephesians at the Great Theatre.  His views of one God were not accepted well by those who made and sold images of various gods to people who not only lived in Ephesus, but who were visiting Ephesus.

As we were leaving Ephesus, we saw a man dressed in a suit whose job it was to feed the the many cats and one dog at Ephesus.

The Corinth Canal – Four Miles of Amazing

Wednesday, April 30, 2014 – Piraeus, Greece

Piraeus (pronounced pee-ray-us or pie-ray-us), Greece is the port city for Athens, Greece.  Piraeus is located seven miles from the city center of Athens.  It is a busy port for passengers with 20 million arriving by sea each year.  It is also a major port for container shipping.

Today was a sunny day.  The temperature on our balcony this morning was 69 degrees F.  We docked in Piraeus right in the middle of the city.  Since we were not able to book the Corinth Canal Crossing tour from Nafpilion, Greece yesterday, we booked it for today from Piraeus.  Our 5-hour tour began when we went to the Vista Lounge to pick up our stickers at 7:50 am.  Our guide for the day was Helen and our driver was Michael.  Helen who lives in Athens pronounced Piraeus as Pier-os.  On our 75-minute drive from Piraeus to Corinth, Helen gave us lots of interesting information about the history of Piraeus, Athens, and Corinth.

Helen said that Aristotle Onassis’s island Skorpios was located in the Ionian Sea. off the west coast of Greece.  Helen had a funny sense of humor.  She said that when Jackie Kennedy married Onassis, he was already “50 gone.”  She mentioned the Greek island of Chios in the Aegean Sea off the east coast of Greece where the mastic tree grows.  The mastic is a small tree that is cultivated for its aromatic resin.  When chewed, the resin softens and becomes a bright white and opaque gum.  The mastic resin was popular during Roman times when children chewed it.  It was also prized as a breath freshener.  People in the Mediterranean region have used mastic to whiten teeth and alleviate upset stomachs for centuries.

Helen said that this area of Greece had no tides and no sharks.  The water was shallow along the coast and the beaches were safe and popular.  She said that the population of greater Athens and greater Piraeus was officially around four million, but the actual population was estimated to be closer to 5.5 million due to the large number of  illegal immigrants.  Migrants began flooding into Greece in the 1990s during the ethnic and civil wars when five countries were created from the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia with the largest number coming from Albania located on part of Greece’s northern border.  It is estimated that over 10 percent of the population in Greece today is made up of illegal immigrants and those seeking political asylum are not only from Europe, but also from Africa and Asia.  Illegal immigrants cross into Greece from countries on Greece’s northern and western borders: Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Turkey.  Immigrants also come by boats and there are multiple reports in the news of overcrowding and boats sinking, causing loss of life.  (Illegal immigrants trying to enter northwestern Australia from Indonesia are a problem we learned about when we visited Australia.)  Those caught as illegal immigrants in Greece are held in Greek prisons to await deportation.  Athens has built thirty new detention centers to hold illegal immigrants. Sometimes they linger in prisons for very long periods where conditions are not very humane.

Unfortunately, Greece is facing almost 50% unemployment among its many economic troubles.  Illegal immigrants are being accused for the increase in crime and for taking jobs that the majority of Greek citizens feel rightfully belong to Greeks.  Incidents of illegals being violently attacked are rising.  Many illegal immigrants are worse off in Greece than they were in their home countries because of the lack of employment in Greece.  Children born in Greece to illegal immigrants hope to become legal Greek citizens, but the majority of Greek citizens would like to deport all illegals.  Currently, with the immigration crisis, Greece has earned the distinction of being the most xenophobic country in the EU.  It was easy to draw parallels between the problem of illegal immigrants in Greece and illegal immigrants in the United States.  It must be sad to have to leave your home country because of the violence of war or a lack of a way to earn a living and have to take the route of being an illegal immigrant to try to find a better life and then end up not finding a better life.  More than 20 million people legally immigrated from Europe to the United States between 1892 and 1924 through New York and Ellis Island. The United States and Canada both have a long history of welcoming legal immigrants.

Crime is a problem in any large city where tourists are targets for purse snatching, pick pocketing, and mugging.  Cruise ship passengers are always warned to not wear jewelry off the ship, for men not to put their wallets in their back pockets, not carry a backpack with anything valuable, and for ladies not to carry a shoulder purse.  Some women wear their purses across their shoulders with the purse turned to the front of their bodies, but the safest way to carry money and documentation is to wear a money belt concealed under your clothes.  We did this when we were out on our own in Venice, especially since we had to carry our passports with us off the ship to comply with Italy’s security laws.  Unfortunately, Piraeus has earned a reputation of being unsafe for tourists.  One lady told us that while she was out walking on the streets in Piraeus with her husband and another couple, a man on a bicycle passed her, turned around, came back by her, and snatched her purse off her shoulder.  She said that she didn’t have much money in her purse, but she had to take the time to call to cancel her credit cards and will have to replace her driver’s license when she gets back home.  She was most upset that she dropped her camera when she was pulled off balance during the purse snatching.  The camera broke and she lost all her pictures.  We are always told to not look like a target so that you will not be a target and to be alert wherever you are.

We noticed an unusually large number of gasoline stations.  There is a gasoline war that is keeping prices lower according to Helen.  We saw Shell, BP, Jetoil, Aegean, Revoil, and several others.  Regular gas was 1.618 Euros per liter or about 6.47 Euros per gallon.  Currently, the Euro is worth 1.36 US dollars, so that means that a gallon of gas is $8.80.  We wondered what gasoline prices would be if there wasn’t a gasoline war.

Since gasoline is so expensive, Helen said that it was a very good thing that Athens hosted the 2004 Olympic Games because hosting the games created a better public transportation system.

It was not a very pretty drive from Piraeus to Corinth even though the road followed the coastline.  It was very commercial.  Mile after mile revealed businesses connected to shipping and the coast was filled with container ships, barges, and tankers. It did emphasize the magnitude of the shipping industry in this area of Greece. Finally we saw the turn off to Corinth (Korinthos).

Our bus stopped so that we could have morning coffee (and probably purchase souvenirs) at a small cafe surrounded by kiosks selling souvenirs just before the road went over the Corinth Canal.  There were pedestrian walkways on either side of the road with great views of the Corinth Canal.  We decided not to do the bungy jump from the pedestrian bridge.

 
Our stop for morning coffee

Pedestrian Bridge

View looking east to the Ionian Sea              View looking west to the Aegean Sea

Two large bridges – one for railway (in the photograph looking east above), and one for the National Road, both of them rebuilt after World War Two – now link Central Greece with the Peloponnese. In 1975 a second road bridge was built to ease the increased volume of traffic.

View of the Corinth Canal from the Saronic Gulf showing the three bridges over the canal.

We saw a sign advertising our boat tour of the Corinth Canal.

Our bus left the cafe and went to Isthmia on the west side of the Corinth Canal.  We left the bus and boarded the Canal Vista for our 45-minute transit from Isthmia traveling eastward to the Gulf of Corinth (toward the Aegean Sea) and then our return 45-minute transit through the canal traveling westward back toward Isthmia on the Saronic Gulf (toward the Ionian Sea).  The Canal Vista is a Greek Liberty type 2-decker wooden vessel built in 2000 that can accommodate about 200 passengers.  We were not crowded on the boat as it was just the people from our one tour bus and we had plenty of room on the top, open deck.

The present-day canal was built from 1881 to 1893.  The Corinth Canal is four-miles long and 70 feet wide. It has sloping sides that are 170 feet tall and it is 26 feet deep. The Corinth Canal connects the Aegean Sea with the Ionian Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the Peloponnese an island.  The canal provides a shorter route to the Greek port of Piraeus instead of a 700-mile trip around the Peloponnese peninsula.  During ancient times, this was a long and dangerous journey for small ships.  The Peloponnese looks like a 4-finger hand with the fingers extending toward the south into the Mediterranean Sea (http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/corinth.htm).

Today, about 11,000 ships use the Corinth Canal each year and most are small tourist ships.

The ms Noordam with a beam of 106 feet is too big to transverse the Cornith Canal with a width of 70 feet.  The ms Noordam can and does go through the Panama Canal with its locks 110 feet wide.  Currently under construction is a parallel set of locks that will allow larger ships to transit the Panama Canal.  Until the new, larger locks are completed, ships going through the Panama Canal have Panamax limits.  Panamax ships can not be wider than 106 feet, longer than 965 feet, have more than 39.5 feet of draft, and have more than 190 feet air draft to fit under the Bridge of the Americas.  Granby and Henry (with Aunt Ramona and Uncle Jimmy) went through the Gatun Locks in the Panama Canal in January 2012 on another Holland America ship, the ms Zuiderdam, that is the same size as the ms Noordam.  Here is a photograph taken from Lido Deck 9 Aft  on the ms Zuiderdam showing the width of the locks and the lock’s doors closing.  It was and is interesting to compare the Panama Canal with the Corinth Canal and think about the history of each canal.

 

At each end of the Corinth Canal there are submersible bridges for the seashore roads. These are lowered to the bottom of the canal to allow maritime traffic to pass.  We watched the bridge submerge and rise back up at both ends.  As the Canal Vista approached the eastern end at the Gulf of Corinth, the black and yellow bridge was lowered to allow us passage.  After we turned around and headed back toward the canal, we could see the cars backed up waiting for the bridge to rise back into place.

After the Canal Vista entered the canal to return to Isthmia, two sailboats followed and we could see the bridge rise back up.

The dream of having a canal at this narrow section of land between the Peloponnese and mainland Greece is an old one.  At the end of the 7th century B. C., the Greeks built a stone roadway called a Diolkos.  The stone paving began at the very edge of the sea.  Ships were unloaded and dragged onto the Diolkos.  It is believed that these small ships were then transferred to a special wheeled vehicle and dragged across the land.  In some cases it is believed that the cargo of larger ships was unloaded and transported overland using the Diolkos to where a ship was waiting on the other side to continue carrying the cargo.  Today, parts of the Diolkos can still be seen (http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/2/eh251.jsp?obj_id=803).

The Roman Emperor Nero made the first serious attempt to build a canal in 67 A. D.  According to legend, Nero dug the first piece of earth using a golden pick. Nero’s canal was never completed due to finances and Nero’s death a year after the planning of the project. Today, many believe that a plaque carved into the canal’s wall is a tribute to Nero.

Here are some views of the Corinth Canal from our two transits.

Our tour guide Helen with our bus driver Michael on board the Canal Vista’s lower deck.

After our Corinth Canal transits, our bus took us back to the Cruise ship terminal where we went through security before re-boarding the ms Noordam.

From our balcony, Granby took a picture of the Epirotiki Cruise line building.  In 1970, Granby took a 2-week Mediterranean cruise to the Greek Isles and the Holy Lands on one of Epirotiki Cruise line’s ships.  At that time, Epirotiki was the largest Greek cruise line company.  The ships were small and we did not have air conditioning.  We had a scoop for our porthole that funneled outside air into our cabin with bunk beds while the ship was cruising.  The dining room was on the bottom deck and set up like a college cafeteria with long tables and folding chairs.

Tonight was a Smart Casual night.  Cruising, including sleeping and dining are much more luxurious today than 44 years ago.

The sunset we saw out the rear windows of the dining room tonight was beautiful.

The evening entertainment in the Vista Lounge was “Rock Legends” featuring music of the Stones, Sting, Madonna, John Lennon, and Annie Lennox.

We found this towel animal on our bed tonight.

The Lovely Seaside town of Nafplion, Greece

Tuesday, April 29, 2014 – Nafplion, Greece

Happy Birthday, Lindsay!  Wow!  You are twelve today!  Henry and Granby wish you a very happy birthday!

Nafplion is an old port town located on the Aegean Sea on the Peloponnese Peninsula about a 2.5 hour drive southwest of Athens.  Originally, we wanted to book an excursion to the Cornith Canal for a boat crossing from Nafplion.  The tour does not operate on Tuesdays, so we had the day free on our own.  We are so glad that it turned out that we had a free day to spend in Nafplion.  The town is lovely.  It has a Venetian influence in its architecture.  Nafplion is described in tour books as one of the most beautiful towns in the area of Argolis (the eastern Peoloponnese) as well as one of the most romantic cities in Greece.  It is a honeymoon destination for many European couples.  Between 1823 and 1834, Nafplion was the first capital of the newly created Greek Republic.

Constitution Square (Syntagmatos Square) is lined with shops and cafes, but also includes important historic buildings and monuments.  There are two Turkish mosques although one of the buildings is now used as a cinema/theatre and the second was used by the first Greek Parliament.  Also in Syntagmatos Square is the Archaeological museum with important artifacts from the Prehistoric and Mycenaean Era.

 

Nafplion is a tender port for our cruise.  The ms Noordam arrived at 8:00 am.  The last tender back to the ship is at 3:30 pm.  Today is sunny and the temperature is much warmer.  It was 72°F on our balcony this morning, not 59°F.  Shorts and short sleeve shirts were the dress for the day.  After breakfast in the Vista Dining Room, we called Liz and Marlon to see what time they wanted to meet to go ashore.  We decided on 9:30 am.  We met them on deck 7 at the midship elevators.  After getting off our tender boat on shore we walked to the right along the palm tree lined harbor known as the Miaouli promenade after the street name, Akti Miaouli, to the old harbor car-park on Bouboulinas Street.

Looking out into the harbor from the promenade we saw the Boutzi fortress built by the Venetians in 1471 to protect the city from pirates.  When the Greeks regained it from the Turks in 1822, it continued to be used as a fortress until it was transformed into a residence for the executioners of condemned prisoners from Palamidi fortress.  It served as a hotel from 1930 to 1970, and today it is unoccupied except for the tourists who visit.

 

We found signs for the Nafplio City Tour by trolley train.  Nafplio, Nauplia, Nauplion, and Nafplion are some of the different spellings for the name of this Greek town.

 

The cost was 4 Euros each.  Headphones allowed us to listen to commentary in English.  On our tour, we saw the sleeping lion known as Leondari, the Bavarian Lion, dating from 1840-41.  In 1833, Nafplion suffered from a typhoid epidemic.  Many Bavarian soldiers stationed in Nafplion as King Otto’s retinue unfortunately died from typhoid.  King Otto was the first king of Greece and his father, Ludwig of Bavaria, commissioned an artist from Athens to re-create the sleeping lion from Lucerne, Switzerland in memory of the Bavarian soldiers who died of typhoid.

 

After the city tour, we waited for the red Hop On Hop Off open air bus that promised to take us on a tour that included going up the steep hillside to the Palamidi fortress for 5 Euros each.  The Palamidi fortress is an impressive fortress that played a large role in the Greek independence effort in 1822.  It stands high above Nafplion at 216m above sea level.  You can walk up to the fortress, but it is 857 steps carved into the rock.  Some tourist information states inaccurately that it is 999 steps perhaps because 999 sounds more impressive (http://www.polianaestate.gr/en/home/history/74-palamidi-mpourtzi.html) In a climb with his son, Avid Cruiser Ralph Grizzle shows the actual step count might be 919 (http://www.avidcruiser.com/2012/07/07/stairway-to-heaven-999-steps-to-the-fortress-of-palamidi-in-nafplion-greece/).  Palamidi was built by the Venetians between 1711 and 1714 to defend the city, but the Turks defeated the Venetians in 1715, just one year after the fortress was completed.  Our driver of the HOHO zipped up the back way to the Palamidi fortress and then down and around the town so fast that we had to hang on tight.  Actually it was fine to repeat the city part of the tour as we got to see more the second time around.  We found the city to be clean with lots of orange and lemon trees, Spanish sword cacti, and flowers, including beautiful bougainvillea.  The ubiquitous graffiti was minimal compared to other places in Italy and Greece.

Views of Palamidi fortress and from Palamidi fortress.

Zoom views on the camera from our balcony on the ship up to the Palamidi fortress

View up to Palamidi fortress from town                Entrance to Palamidi fortress

Views looking down from the Palamidi fortress

Spanish sword cacti growing on the hillside outside the Palamidi fortress

After our two tours, we walked to Syntagmatos Square where we used the ATM at the National Bank of Greece just off the Square. We had a recommendation for a restaurant called Kipos which is Greek for garden.  The Chef (Marlon) in our group had a look at the menu and decided that we needed to explore further.

We walked to  Syntagmatos Square where we found the perfect cafe.  It had both indoor and outdoor seating.  We chose outdoor as it was a beautiful day and the umbrellas provided plenty of shade.

 

The four of us had mezes (appetizers).  Henry and Granby ordered a plate of olives, tzatziki, bread, olive oil, and a Greek salad.  We also ordered two different Greek beers, Alfa and Mythos.  Everything was delicious!

After lunch we took a volta, what Greeks typically do on Sunday afternoons – take a leisurely walk often in their own urban environment.

 

     

Liz’s Cupcakes is a traditional British bakery with a local Greek twist.  Open for Breakfast, Brunch, and Takeout.  Customers enjoy coffee or espresso with their gourmet cupcakes.  Liz and Marlon have a catering company, so we had to take this picture.  What a wonderful day!   Nafplion is truly a lovely seaside town.  The four of us wished we could have stayed longer.  All of us hope to return one day.

On our way back to the ship, they had to close the top windows on our tender as the waves were making water splash inside the tender.

We watched sailaway from our balcony.  After a nice dinner in the Vista dining room, International violinist Craig Owen performed in the Vista Lounge.  Along with our two chocolate candies, we found this towel animal on our bed.