Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Greece & Turkey: Day Seven

March 30, 2012
Today we disembark from our ship. I loved cruising - it was fabulous!  I didn't get seasick at all so will definitely cruise again!
We got up around 5:00 a.m., got ready for the day, and then headed to breakfast at 5:45 a.m.  After finishing breakfast, we went back to our cabin to get our carry-on luggage.  The stewards had already come in and cleaned most of our room - wow!  We met our group in the Metropolitan Lounge and waited for Bianca to come lead us off the ship, through customs, and out to our bus. 



Nani was our tour guide once again for the remainder of the trip.  She was nice but a little gruff and in most people's opinion, gave way too much information!! 
The Corinth Canal is a canal that connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth.  Many ancient rulers dreamed of building this canal with the first being in the 7th Century B.C.  But the projects were always abandoned.   Construction finally got underway in 1881 but was hampered by geological and financial problems that bankrupted the original builders. It was completed in 1893, but due to the canal's narrowness, navigational problems and periodic closures to repair landslips from its steep walls, it failed to attract the level of traffic anticipated by its operators.  It is 4.0 mi in length and only 70 ft wide at its base, making it unpassable for most modern ships. It now has little economic importance.  It is now used mainly for tourist traffic. (Wikipedia) 




The Harbour of Kenchreai - In the 1st Century, a thriving Christian community existed here.  St. Paul mentions the "church at Kenchreai" in his epistle to the Romans.  In the Spring of A.D. 53, Paul and others departed for Ephesus on a boat that set sail from the harbour.  These are the remains of the church.  There was some beautiful sealife in the rocks off shore.







We visited the Archaeological Museum of Ancient Corinth.  It was quite fascinating to see such old artifacts!

Roman statues had no heads permanently attached.  A likeness of whoever was ruling at the time was made and put atop the statue.  Interesting...





Funeral bed from the 4th Century B.C.








After going through the museum, we walked around Ancient Corinth.  Pottery suggests that the site of Corinth was occupied from at least as early as 6500 B.C.  Corinth is mentioned many times in the New Testament, largely in connection with Paul the apostle's mission there. Under the Romans, Corinth was rebuilt as a major city in Southern Greece. It had a large mixed population of Romans, Greeks, and Jews. Paul resided here for eighteen months (Acts 18:1-18).  Paul wrote two of his epistles to the Christian community at Corinth, I Corinthians and II Corinthians. (Wikipedia)
It was very cool walking on the very stone streets that Paul walked and preached!!  

Temple of Apollo




Shops




Paul spent 18 months in the city before the Jews of the city charged him with breaking the law and brought him before Gallio at the city's place of judgment (bema). Standing on this platform, Gallio dismissed the charges against Paul as a dispute of Jewish law and not of a criminal nature. (Bibleplaces.com)





Views from Ancient Corinth:



View from the bus as we traveled to our next stop:



 Kolizeras Restaurant- this is where we stopped for lunch.  It was a very nice restaurant.  Many notable people from around the world have eaten here.  They have a gallery of pictures showing those people.  The food was fabulous!!






The Treasury of Atreus or Tomb of Agamemnon is an impressive "tholos" tomb on the Panagitsa Hill at Mycenae, constructed during the Bronze Age around 1250 B.C.  The lintel stone above the doorway weighs 120 tons, the largest in the world.  (Wikipedia)

looking up at the top inside



You can see how big these stones were....  Here is Brenda.



Greece was gorgeous!!!  Loved the snow on the mountains!




Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km southwest of Athens.  In the second millennium B.C., Mycenae was one of the major centers of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. 
Lion's Gate:

View from the Acropolis




Remember all the cats I talked about seeing?  Well, there were dogs as well and usually they were just lying around sleeping - it was quite a sight!

View of the Mycenae Acropolis from below




This was a cool statue in Athens.  I know it has to do with Greek Mythology but I googled it and could not find anything about it...



City of Athens:






We got back to our hotel in Athens around 5:30 p.m. (we are staying at the Radisson Park Hotel once again).  There was really nothing to do (the hotel is not in the best area to go walking around) so since we have a very early start tomorrow, we decided to use this time to shower and clean up a bit.  I also took this time to check and see if Tracy had sent me an email - yep, he sent a really LONG one!!!  I also wrote a few postcards.

Then it was time to head to dinner.  We went a few minutes early so I could stop and mail the postcards I had written.  Dinner was at 7:30 p.m. and we sat with two other couples.  Dinner was once again a huge affair:  first course- crepes with cheese and ham, second course- beef and rice with fresh tomato sauce, dessert- chocolate mousse pie.  It was all quite delicious!

A few couples in our group had suites at the hotel this time and you could see the Parthenon from their balconies.  So we went and took pictures of the Parthenon all lit up!  Very cool!  After we took pictures, we walked across the street to a newstand to get some bottled water for tomorrow.  Then it was back to our room for some much needed sleep.


Monday, July 16, 2012

Greece & Turkey: Day Six

March 29, 2012
The wake up call today was at 6:15 a.m. We had planned on being up at 6:00 a.m. but Brenda's alarm did not go off for some reason.  We got ready and went to breakfast.  Brother David and his wife Linda joined us.  Our group assembled in the Metropolitan Lounge at 7:35 a.m. for disembarkation for our excursion to the Palace of Knossos.  The ship was docked at the Heraklion Port on the Island of Crete



Snow on the mountains near Heraklion



Venetian Heraklion: (13th-15th Centuries)



Red Buds on Crete


Beautiful Greek fruit




Knossos refers to the main Bronze Age archaeological site at Heraklion.  The palace was built over a Neolithic town. During the Bronze Age, the town surrounded the hill on which the palace was built.  It was the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan Civilization and culture. It appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and storerooms close to a central square.  The palace was abandoned at some unknown time at the end of the Late Bronze Age, 1380 – 1100 B.C.












Peacocks at the Palace:


Our local guide gave us the tour of the Palace of Knossos- but the tour took over an hour and she did not talk loud enough and talked way too fast.  She was very difficult to follow.  We had about 20 minutes after the tour to look in shops and then get back to the bus by 10:30 a.m. Brother David was getting a bit nervous because "all aboard" was at 11:30 a.m.  We were back in plenty of time.

Heraklion, Crete





We had a meeting with the cruise director at 11:30 a.m.- she gave us instructions for the next port of call and also disembarkation instructions for tomorrow when our cruise ends.  After that, Brenda and I had lunch on the pool deck.  We had a yummy vegetable stir fry. 



After lunch, we went up to the Star Lounge to relax for awhile.  We are due to arrive at the Island of Santorini around 4:30 p.m. (maybe a little earlier)



At 3:00 p.m., they actually had enough people for line dancing.  I joined right in.  A couple of the waitresses also danced a bit.  First, we learned "Achy Breaky Heart" and danced to it.  Then she taught us another one and we started to dance to it, but had to stop right in the middle.  We were approaching Santorini and the cruise director highly recommended being on deck to see the island as we approached.






Brenda and I went back to our room to gather our stuff for the afternoon excursion.  Then we went up to deck 5 and watched our approach to the Island of Santorini.  It is a gorgeous island with whitewashed homes clinging to the cliffs.




Brenda looked really short at this particular spot on the deck - LOL!!!


The ship could not dock at the small port so we took tenders over to the island.


There were only three ways to get to the top of the island: you could ride a donkey (uh, no way...), walk where the donkeys walked (ewwwww) or take a tram car.  In this picture, you can see the zig zag walkway going up to the top - that is how the donkeys get up there.  We took the tram which is to the left of the trail.

 



Santorini is essentially what remains after an enormous volcanic explosion that destroyed the earliest settlements on a formerly single island, and created the current geological caldera. A giant central, rectangular lagoon, which measures about 7.5 by 4.3 mi, is surrounded by 980 ft high, steep cliffs on three sides.  The capital, Fira, clings to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon. The island is the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history: the Minoan eruption, which occurred some 3600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of feet deep and may have led indirectly to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, 68 mi to the south, through a gigantic tsunami. Another popular theory holds that the Minoan eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis. (Wikipedia)

The views from the top of the island were spectacular!!!



We walked around town for a while and bought some souvenirs.






Cave homes


Santorini was by far my favorite island - it was gorgeous!!!
We took the tram car back down around 7:00 p.m. and took a tender back to the ship.  We dropped our stuff off in our room and went back out on deck to watch the sunset.


Then we went to dinner.  We ate alone this evening.  After dinner, we stood in line to get our passports back (the ship holds onto them during the cruise).  The it was back to our room to pack up.  We had to leave our luggage outside our room by midnight.  Finally it was time to crash for the night.