So we saved up our thoughts for the end of our trip and this way can post links to all the pictures we took. Don't you just hate it when people make you look at their vacation pictures! This way you can read this, and not have to slug through all of the pictures if you don't want to, and we will never know! (Make it even easier, we will post links after we get back).
We did manage to catch the train from Rome, but not without almost missing it. We had scoped out the station a couple of days prior, to familiarize ourselves with how to read the board telling you which “bin” your train would leave from. Of course on Sunday our train was listed on the board but not the bin number. The train to Civitavecchia leaves from one of two bins, #21 or #27. As time was ticking away, we made the decision to head for #27 since that was where it left from the previous day (a walk of almost a ½ mile pulling luggage). Of course we guessed wrong. We retreated to find #21, which entailed going downstairs, walking quickly about ¼ mile and then lugging our luggage back upstairs to bin #21. We made it with about 5 minutes to spare. The ride was pleasant and we found ourselves with about 50 others heading for the ship when we reached Citivvichia.
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| Promanade - deck 5 of 14 |
The cruise was fun and the ship was pretty amazing, much like a floating Las Vegas hotel with all the bars, glitz, neon, shopping and things to do. The ship has almost 3,500 guests on board and boasts three swimming pools, four hot tubs, a rock climbing wall, basketball courts, and ice skating rink, in-line skating, and miniature golf along with a theater with movies, live theater, library and computer room. Our room was nice with a veranda on the port side. We selected this side in hopes of being able to see the towns when we in each harbor. We were pretty lucky, all but two locations we were facing the cities.
One of the things we discovered as we toured each town was that most of their history goes back as far as the 5th century B.C., and there are ruins you can explore from that time. Also, throughout time, most every city and island we visited has been dominated by others like, Romans, Greeks, Turks, and Arabs before finally settling as they are today. Each country that conquered the other had a tendency to destroy the temples which had been built and rebuilt a temple more to their liking. We have seen enough ruins and old rocks to have quenched our thirst for seeing and touching history and because of the areas we toured, most of what we saw had Biblical references. That said, it is amazing is to think of our history in the United States and realize it is no more than a blink of the eye in comparison to the history here.
Our first stop was Messina, Sicily where we took at tour of Messina and Taormina. Messina was almost completely destroyed in 1809 by an earthquake that toppled everything including old churches and most all of the antiquities like statues and roman or Greek buildings. The town has been rebuilt and and is fairly modern.
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| City of Messina, Sicily |
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| Theater from the top, Mt. Etna in backgournd |
Taormina is an old town dating back to the first century BC with a Greek Theater that all though more than half of it has been destroyed, the city still uses it for summer concerts and plays. It has the most incredible view of Mt. Etna from the seats and one can only imaging sitting there on a summer day listening to music or watching plays,with Mt. Etna at 13,000 ft as a backdrop. Within this theater, you can see where the Greeks had built it first and when the Romans took control, tore it down and rebuilt it in their style on top of the greek base.
After a day at sea, we arrived in Athens Greece on day 4. We both thoroughly enjoyed Greece, and our trip took us to two islands, and three cities, all very different from each other. Starting in Athens, the capital of Greece, you find a very large city with one quarter of Greece's entire population living there.
What is so profound about this city is its 5,000 years of history and how the city got its name. According to legend, after the city was discovered by a Phonetician, two gods Poseidon and Athena had a dispute and the council of gods determined one of them needed to produce a most useful gift to have the town named after them. Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and a steed sprang forth, a symbol of manly qualities. Athena produced an olive tree, and this symbol of peace and prosperity assured the town would be called after her, Athens.
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| Parthenon |
Most of the statues are missing from the temples in the Acropolis due to either being destroyed by Christians, destroyed in battles between warring countries or, believe it or not, stolen for personal gain. A great many of the statues from the Acropolis can be found in the British Museum in London. In the early 1800's while Athens was under Turkish rule, Lord Elgin excavated many of them to beautify his palace in England. The Greeks would like them back, and for years were told by England they felt the Greeks did not have a proper place to display them and would not return them. Well, the Greeks have spent $130 million on a new museum and are again lobbying for the return of their antiquities.
The tour also included an authentic Greek lunch at a 5 star hotel. It was a wonderful buffet, with more food and desserts than you could possibly consume.... but we tried! Best of all, there was a free bottle of wine sitting on each table along with a large bottle of water. I drank the wine, Deane the water!
The next day we arrived in Turkey. Couple of things we learned above what we saw on our tours is that St. Nickolas (Santa Claus) was actually born in Turkey. He was a philanthropist who gave gifts to young women for their dowerys. And secondly, being in Turkey put us on a different continent. We were officially in Asia, actually Asia Minor. But the eastern side of Turkey is considered on the Asian Continent.
One of the biggest differences we found between Greece and Turkey was in the markets. In Turkey, we were constantly barraged by each vendor to come into their shops. Once in the shop the pressure to buy was great. We felt like we were in Mexico! Greece is more refined. They are a graceful people who appreciate your business or that you just entered their shop to look.
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| House of the Virgin Mary |
Our day in Turkey proved to be the best tour we had on the cruise so far. Our tour guide Vulkan was funny, personable and very knowledgeable. We were taken to the House of the Virgin Mary where the Blessed Virgin is reputed to have spent the last years of her life. The story goes that a nun in Germany who had never visited this area, had a vision of the house and surrounding area and told others. An archeological team made a trip to the area and found exactly what the nun and seen in her vision. Through what they discovered, and what has been written, the Catholic church declared it is the house of the Virgin Mary and it is now under Vatican control.
Our next stop was also incredible and one of Deane's favorites, the city of Ephesus. In its day, it was the 4th largest city and what is remarkable is how much of this entire city is still there, albeit in ruins. There is a road in the city called the Marble Road, it passes the library of Celsius and the Grand Theater where the Apostle St. Paul attempted to preach. The theater was one of the largest theaters in antiquity with a capacity of 24,000 seats. In more recent times, Celine Dion, Elton John and others have performed here. But the marble road we walked on within the city, has a history of being part of the silk road from Asia to Europe and was also where Cleopatra and Mark Anthony walked when they visited on their honeymoon.
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| Toilets in Ephesus |
This picture is of the communal toilets in Ephesus, where it is reputed that slaves would warm the marble before their owners would sit. As you can see, no privacy, and our guide said he did not know if they were used by both men and women at the same time. But there was a very impressive water system under them, about 10ft down that would take the 'deposits' through their sewer systems.
From here we were treated to another incredible lunch, this time authentic Turkish! Again, wine on the table!Deane and I ate so much we actually missed dinner this night.
The end of our tour was to a carpet store where we watched a woman weaving a silk rug. Did you know that only women weave the silk rugs and you can tell if the woman who wove the rug was a virgin or married by the tassels on the rug. If the authentic Turkish rug you have has tassels that hang free, it was woven by a married woman. If the tassels are braided, they were woven by a virgin, an unmarried woman.
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| Wading in the South Aegean Sea |
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| Boot of beer |
Before we returned to the ship we had a chance to walk and shop in the old city of Rhodes. The original wall built around Rhodes is still standing and is now a market where people shop and drink beer from a boot. We could not find any reason for the custom, except possibly from WWII when the Germans did not have anything to drink from except their boots. So it is mostly just something you do when in Rhodes.
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| Restaurant in Georgiopolis |
Lets see, I think the next day was Saturday and we found ourselves on our last Greek Island of Crete in the port of Chania (pronounced haun-ya). It is a beautiful island with only 600,000 people, and 45 million olive trees. Our tour today was called the Best of Crete and was mostly a driving tour to see the beauty of this island. We stopped in one little town called Georgiopolis, where we had time to have a cappaccino and a wonderful piece of baklava. We chuckled at how old the town was, with their little town square, fountain and old buildings, and our waitress was using a wireless pad to place our orders.
Interesting factoids about Crete: They only became part of Greece in the 1920's. They do not celebrate birthdays, they celebrate name days. Names are passed on through generations and each name has a specific day that is honored. And, when a girl become engaged, she wears her ring on her right hand until the wedding day when it is moved to the left.
Interesting factoids about Crete: They only became part of Greece in the 1920's. They do not celebrate birthdays, they celebrate name days. Names are passed on through generations and each name has a specific day that is honored. And, when a girl become engaged, she wears her ring on her right hand until the wedding day when it is moved to the left.
Before we headed back to the ship we had a chance to shop in Crete at their market place. An incredible market where the locals shop in the middle of town. You could find everything from pig heads, hanging chickens, spices, souviners, taste samples of Raki, which is made from the left overs after crushing grapes. In turkey they make it with Anise and its called ouzo. In Crete, they add honey to it and it is quiet sweet, easy to go down, warms your tummy and then you ask for more!!!! At 45% alcohol, it does not take long to get a buzz.
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| Amalfi Coast overlooking Sorrento |
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| Selections in the bordello |
After lunch we headed to Pompeii. After all of the ruin we have seen, Pompeii had the greatest affect on us. So much of this city is still here, not only the buildings, streets, water fountains, earthenware, but they were able to get molds of people buried by the eruption. But more amazing, you can still see the colors used on the walls and frescos. These colors have been lost in the other ruins we visited due to the elements. There were four colors used, white came from limestone, yellow from............. red was from iron oxcide and the blue was from the stone Lapis. Lapis was the most expensive, and the more you had of it the greater your wealth appeared. One of the more remarkable buildings we saw was the bordello. The story is, men would enter and from a selection of pictures on the walls, (kind of like McDonalds's) they would choose the entertainment they wanted. We saw the rooms with the stone beds and were told women would have a thin mattress on top of the rocks so not to make their clients too comfortable and have them fall asleep.
Our weather finally cleared as we were leaving and we had a good view of Mt. Vesuvius. Hard to imagine seeing it now that it did such devistation. The middle of the mountain was blown out loosing 2/3's of its height, going from 9000ft to 3000ft today.
We had some funny things happen on the trip, and as Deane said many times on this trip, It is not one world! One of them was in our hotel in Rome, our room key also controlled the lights. We got into the room and could not turn any lights on. A bit embarassed to have someone come and show us where to insert the room card so the TV would work!
Another It is not one world tidbit, is the way people drive, especially in Italy. When in Naples, our guide admited people in Napoli are different. Road signs are considered a 'suggestion'. When driving the amalfi coast which is about 1 1/2 cars wide, you see signs that indicate no parking and that cars will be towed away. Just a suggestion, as cars were parked all along the side of the road. We are still amazed at how our driver maneuvered the small road with cars parked along side and others coming towards us. Even though we passed them with barely a 1/4 inch to spare, there were no bumps or scratches.
It is Tuesday and we are finally off the ship and in a hotel room by the Rome Airport (and we know how to turn the lights on). Since our room was not ready when we got to the hotel, we did a trial run on the shuttle to find out where we go tomorrow. Good thing we did! We are booked on Air Alitalia but the flight is being run by Delta. The terminal with Delta and other American airlines is no where close to the main terminal and would have cost us precious time had we not checked it out.
We have a 17 hours of flying tomorrow.... home around 9:30pm! Will post more pictures when we are home.
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| After lunch on the Almfi Coast |