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VACATION IN GREECE

Monday, 28th May 2001

Up smartly at 7 am and down for breakfast; we said our farewells to various people, finished packing the last things into our bags, and got them down to the lobby. At 8.55 am our transport arrived -- a taxi to take us out to the port at Piraeus. The morning trafic wasn't too bad, as most of it was coming into the city at that hour. We were dropped at an embarkation centre, where I found the correct office and got our cabin number for the bag tags. We were then taken by bus to the side of the ship.

Our cabin is reasonably sized, with a double bed and small en-suite. The 'window' turned out to be a larger port-hole, but at least we have one. We filled in registration forms, unpacked, and then went to the main lounge for an orientation talk. We also worked out what shore excursions we wanted to pay for, and decided on Ephasus, Rhodes, Knossos and Santorini. It seems that everything on board which is not a meal is charged to your cabin number, and you settle at the end of the cruise. They also work in American dollars; our shore trips will total $US 320 -- about $NZ 762 for the two of us. Plus what we spend on shore, of course.

We had lunch in the dining room: tasty pea soup, spaghetti bolognese for me, and Mykonos packets for Joan (smoked chicken and cole slaw in a wrap). All beautifully cooked and served, as you would expect. Also Joan managed to get a passable cup of tea, which pleased her after three weeks of indifferent coffee.

We arrived at Mykonos at 6 pm; because of port congestion, we were moored away from the wharf and had to be conveyed to shore by boat. Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding Joan and I got separated, and I ended up going ashore with the landing documents while she was still on the ship. (Ooops! - At least it beats the heck out of getting separated in the Warehouse! - Don ) I returned in due course, and it was by now too late to catch the bus into the town anyway. So we poured a Harvey's Bristol creme sherry and read until dinner at 7.30 pm. Another delicious meal spent with some interesting American tourists. (See-see...Americans can be interesting - D) I'll finish this off and try and catch the cellphone before we go out of range.

A short nap for me, then we went up to the upper deck and sat in the breeze for a while until it got cool and we came down to the main lounge for a while. Lots of pale bodies trying to fry themselves on loungers, but no-one in the adjacent pool while we were there. The ship has very little motion; there is a light chop from the wind which causes a roll and pitch every now and then, but the sun is shining brightly and the fine weather should hold up. I must say that it is not as luxurious as it ws made out to be -- I suspect these cruise ships are not the top of the market. (Please note - Rotorua,NZ - High 12degC., Low 1deg.C)

Tuesday, 29th May 2001
Out of bed at 5.45 am, breakfast at 6.15 am and off the ship at 7.15. They didn't tell us that cruise ships punish you like that <grin>. We were in Kusadasi on the Turkish mainland, and we were heading for Ephesus. The bus rise took about 30 minutes, over a low range of hills and onto a flat plain, which the guide told us was once sea bed in Biblical times.

We came to Ephesus from the rear, as that enabled us to walk downhill. Wall-to-wall people and tour buses -- even at that hour of the morning -- and we were among the ruins. Like most of these places, it is estimated that only 30% has so far been excavated, and I wonder what will emerge in the future. Extensive work is being carried out by the Belgians; with the proviso that all finds stay in Turkey.

At its height, Ephesus was reputed to have 250,000 inhabitants either in or around it. It was one of the most important cities of he Roman Empire and into the Christian era. It was a strategic gateway into the Eastern world, a Christian shrine, and one of he seven wonders of the ancient world. St Paul came here for converts. The silting of the harbour was a big factor in its decline; the resulting swamps harboured mosquitos, and the resuling malaria caused huge epidemics.

What is visible now is the remains of the civic centre and numerous temples. What took our breath away was the Library of Celsus. This has been almost fully restored by archaeologists -- I can't wait to get some photos up for readers (not till we get home). Across the road from the library was the brothel, dedicated to goddess Aphrodite. There is a secret passage from the library; one can envisage a Roman saying "I'm just going into the library to return a book", and then slipping through the passage for certain purposes.

There is also a very efficient public toilet, with rows of stone benches with a strategic hole over a deep ditch which would have had a stream running through it. An ampitheatre seating 24.000 with perfect acoustics was also an eye-opener. By now, the sun was well up in the sky, and I appreciated why we had been subjected to an early start -- it must be unbearable in the valley about noon.

We walked out of the site down the marble paved road which originally lead to the harbour. This site was recommended to us with good reason; I just hope the photos I took will do it justice.

Back into the bus for the ride back to Kusadasi. We were shepherded into a Turkish rug emporium for a perfunctory demonstration of rug-making, plus the unrolling of many carpets on the floor with great flourish. The prices were in US dollars, and made even the Americans blink. After getting out of the place, we walked back to our ship for lunch.

The boat sailed for Patmos; there was a very small port on the island but we didn't take a tour. I had a quiet afternoon reading, while Joan wandered round the few shops and came back with some bananas. The evening dinner was Greek -- a reprise of what we had been eating for the last couple of weeks, but enjoyable. It was dress-up night, so I had to dig out my collar shirt and put on a tie and jacket. We were in bed at 9.30 pm, absolutely stonked.

Wednesday, 30th May 2001
Up again at 5.45 am and ready to go at 7.15 am, after having docked at Rhodes. We had paid for a bus tour of Philerimos and the Old City, and were taken through the suburbs and up a long hill to a church and monastery of the St John knights. This had been restored during the Italian occupation which had endedin 1943; the theme was pseudo-gothic, but well executed.

Down into the Old Town where we were taken to the fortress of the St John Knights -- again restored and added to by the Italians. They had visited another island in the group calles Cos, and looted a great number of mosaics dating from Roman and very early Christian times. These had been carefully reassembled into the castle floors with some skill. There were a number of wooden items of furniture as well as remnants of old carved choir stalls; the guide wryly commented that the British had taken much of the antique furniture away with them when they left in 1948.

We were bused back to the ship in time for lunch at 1.15 pm; most welcome as we had been on the go since 7.30 am. Another quiet afternoon recovering in air-conditioned comfort, before the ship sailing at 6 pm and us getting ready for dinner at 7.
I'm sending this before we're out of range of a cell.

Thursday, 31st May 2001
Up at 5.45 am to look out the porthole and see the coast of Crete again. We moored in Heraklion, breakfasted, and were on the coach at 7.30 am to go to Knossos. This is the headquarters of the Minoan civilisation, the palace where King Minas lived. It was about 20 minutes drive from downtown Heraklion and was situated on a hilltop looking down a valley to where the sea would have been.

The site was excavated by a Brit in the early 1900s, and he spent a considerable sum of his own money in restoring some of the buildings. There was apparently a bit of criticism from archaeological colleagues, because he put reinforced concrete pillars under the roofs, but these are painted in a brilliant dark red with black and gold accents, and you couldn't mistake them for originals.

The site was jammed with people from tour buses, to the extent that we forewent a look into the king's chamber because they were only allowing 20 at a time in, and the queue was l-o-n-g. We managed to see all the rest; much of the palace was underground for coolness. At its peak, there were 1200 rooms -- and this building and its cellars were the actual original Labyrinth. You really would have needed Ariadne's thread to get out of it! At the shop on the way out, I found a little bull's head cast in bronze with gold horns -- after all, I have Taurus rising in my horoscope, so got to have the little bull <grin>.

The bus dropped us down town; the others disappeared into the shopping area, but we elected to go into an adjacent park and have a quiet 45 minutes sitting on a park bench under a tree. Back to the ship, and made a start on packing up the cases -- they have to be outside our door before 2 am, so they can be transferred to the unloading bays. We have to be up, fed, and off the ship by 7 am tomorrow.

We arrived at Santorini for our last excursion, and transferred via a tender (small boat) to the shore. There was the usual row of buses waiting for us, then we trundled up about 300 metres on a narrow road with a series of hairpin turns to reach the top.

Santorini is the remnant of a large volcanic caldera which had its wall breached in antiquity by earthquakes to let the sea in and create a wonderful natural harbour. The walls rise sheer from the sea to the rim, and the white-painted houses on the top look like frosting on a cake. We were taken to the northern tip of the island, where there was a small village in the traditional architecture (although it had been largely rebuilt after the last earthquake post-war). We wandered around for an hour, looking for photos -- especially of the characteristic churches. These have whitewashed walls and a bright blue dome with white cross on top.

The houses feature a sort of concrete version of the old Quonset huts, a legacy of the houses that were built by excavation into the soft volcanic rock. This is a very sensible idea, as the underground rooms keep a lower temperature in the hot summer. I suppose the concrete tunnel of today gives them something of the same. Incidentally, the air temperature was well over 30 degC -- and the tour guide happily told us that this was really the first day approaching summer heat they had had. But we were cooked to a turn.

The bus took us back to Fira, the main town, where we were to catch a cable-car down the cliff to the wharf. As the time for departure was rapidly approaching, we hastened to the cable-car only to find an enormous queue of people waiting to board. This tailed back about 100 metres, and it took an hour to go through into the cable-car landing and so down the hill. This whole shambles was the result of five cruise ships in port at the same time -- why they don't get their schedules better synchronised we'll never know. The local shopkeepers must be mad, as there was no time to shop.

Another wait to get a tender back to the ship -- and by now it was 8.30 pm and we had missed our sitting for dinner. Just as well, as we went straight up to the poolside buffet and had an ample meal in a fraction of the time. Back to our cabin to do the final pack and get our bags outside the door before going to bed.

Friday, 1st June 2001
Joan was out at 5.15 am, having been wakened by some sort of noisy shipboard activity. We had a wash-up and hasty breakfast before leaving the ship at 7 am and busing to the departure hall. We retrieved our big bags after a certain amount of hassle trying to find where to get them, and went out the front to await our taxi. He arrived about 10 minutes late (this was a much larger and more comfortable car than the one that took us to the ship), and we left for the airport.

The run took an hour, mostly along the coast from Piraeus and avoiding going through the Athens morning traffic which would have added another half-hour. At the airport, I confirmed our flight and found we would have to wait until 1.15 pm before we could check the big bags. The only available seats to be had were in the "Special assistance" area. We sat down; eventually a couple of airport people informed us that it really applied to people who required wheelchairs. I pleaded my swollen ankles, and they reluctantly allowed us to stay. We duly managed to check in, and were able to go to the almost empty transit lounge.

The British Airways flight was good -- only two and a half hours with the assistance of a tail wind. We perambulated through the wilds of Gatwick airport, took a monorail to another terminal, then caught the fast train to Victoria station. We found a cab quickly, and arrived at Powis Gardens at 7 30 pm.

After settling in, we walked round to the sausage and mash place for a delicious meal. When we returned, Madeleine was home from work; we chattered until 11 pm then collapsed into bed.

Saturday, 2 June 2001
We had a 'recovery day' today; Joan went out for food, Ross and I fiddled with his new CD burner which he had bought for his Mac G4 laptop. I dug out my two compact flash chips and transferred the files to CDRom. Ross has just got an ADSL connection, so I was able to check some of my various email accounts.

Into bed at 10 and slept soundly all night -- so nice to have dead silence; no aircon or engine noise in the background all the time.

Sunday, 3rd June 2001
Joan and I were up and out at 8 am, and went for a walk along the Grand Union Canal to Kensal, then back down to Portobello Road. We picked up criossants for breakfast and returned to find Ross and Madz awake.

We had an early lunch and bused over to Kensington High Street for Madz and Joan to look for shoes. From there, we went down the street to Holland Park and walked to the kiosk to buy ice creams. Then back to a plant nursery for Ross and Madz to look for a rhododendron or two.

Unfortunately, they were out of stock, so we ended up taking a cab back to Powis Gardens. Madz went out to an appointment with her hairdresser, and we blobbed out until food time. TV took up the rest of the evening.