GREECE AND TURKEY

PIRAEUS, ATHENS & THE ACROPOLIS Our tour to the Acropolis was in the morning of Saturday. Once we got there, the crowds were tremendous but not as many people as the Vatican. Anyway, a short climb to a magnificent location. I do believe that I managed to get a few pretty good photos. I thought that I might be getting a little blasé about ancient buildings but not these. It was a great adventure. We drove around Piraeus where the ship is docked. This place, too, was bombed during the war so Piraeus is mostly new and we really didn’t see much of Athens. Except for the Acropolis, this was not our best tour. Today we took what we thought was a little tour of Izmir (Smyrna in Biblical times), Turkey. Our guide spoke the best English of all. We visited the ruins from the Roman times. The city was founded 8500 years ago according to the archeological evidence but as of now they don’t know exactly who those people were. Those ruins were still being excavated and it just seemed to me to be more “approachable” and interesting. Water is still running thru the terracotta pipes. Next we stopped in a square and visited in the narrow streets. It was Sunday and only a few (still a lot) of the shops were open. We stopped for Turkish coffee and a sweet in a very authentic little coffee shop. One of the customers spoke English so he took our orders. After returning to the bus, we were taken to a Turkish rug finishing and distributing shop. We were shown the wool that is used and told how they send the wool out to the different small villages where the women weave the rugs. The government will pay for the girls to learn to weave if they are not taught at home. They give them a salary too during this time. Child labor is not used in Turkey although to us 16 seems young. Anyway it was so interesting to see a young woman working on double knotting a carpet. She was doing about 200 knots per inch but some of the silk rugs are 500 knots per inch. Of course they showed up many, many rugs and gave us good price. Really. The salesman we got has been to Seattle. His wife is Greek from Shoreline and she is beautiful. He has two daughters one of which is going to be working in TV in New York. She was trained by Joyce Taylor from - is it KIRO or one of those stations. Joe and MicK bought a rug and he did give them a very good price.. Lots of other stuff --- but now we are one the ship, resting and reading and writing. Tomorrow we are in Istanbul, Turkey.

At Sea and Katakolon, Greece

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY Thursday at sea. Great day. No pressure. Sunny on deck. Pete and I walked three times around the deck for a walk of a little over a mile. Pete’s cold or allergy or whatever used up at least a box of Kleenex, then landed in his chest. But he seemed to feel okay. We had a very nice dinner at Teppanyaki, a Japanese restaurant, with the chef juggling eggs and slicing and dicing and entertaining us while he cooked our meal right in front of us. After dinner we played shuffleboard - first Joe and Michelle beat us - and then Helen and Doug beat us. Well, they had been playing all week and this was our first game. Friday, Greece. - Katakolon - We decided not to book an excursion. Near this town, is Olympia where the first games were held, but instead we ate a leisurely breakfast and walked ashore on our own. The town is so close to the port and to the ship. It is very small, like maybe Ketchikan, and when the cruise ships come in they are there to sell souveniers and coffee and lunch and whatever. Lovely people. We also visited an Museum of Ancient Greek Technology. Bought a postcard and stamp and sent it out to Christi. After our walk into and around town, we came aboard, ate lunch, walked around the ship. Tomorrow we visit Athens.

PALERMO AND NAPLES AND POMPEI

PALERMO AND NAPLES We had a very nice day in Palermo. The city was quiet because it was Monday after Easter and many people were out of town for vacation. The city is surrounded by the Mountains Pelegrino.. There are about 700,000 people in the city. The patron saint is St. Rosalie. She didn’t want to marry the man her father chose for her, she wanted to be a nun. So she ran away to the mountains and found a grotto where she lived her life praying. She died and at some point another girl found her bones and a hunter took them into Palermo where they were having a plague. The plague was stopped by the bones of St. Rosalie. So there you have it. We passed by a monument to the victims of the Maffioso ???? Are there still Mafia? Don’t know. They killed a priest in the 1990’s so who knows. We went into the cathedral and saw a couple of other churches. BUT the best part of the tour was being able to go inside a palazzo and have a noble man, Conte Federico, and his wife give us a tour of this house which is 800 years old and built on the walls of the old town. There is a tower which is the only one left in the city. A lot of the city of Palermo is newer because, if you remember, this is the place that General Patton wanted to get to before Montgomery. The palace has been lived in continuously by this family. A branch of King Federico that lived because they were not legitimate. The house was beautifully preserved and our hosts were very gracious. We had a glass of wine with them. The city was not as clean as the northern cities but that may have been because of the holidays. It became quite warm but nice. NAPLES AND POMPEI Today was a little overcast in Naples. We notice that this city is a lot dirtier and trashy and there are shack areas with mounds of trash around. We gather from this that there are hard times and a lot of unemployed poor people. Pompei is awesome to say the least. I guess I never expected it to be soooo large. 75% of the city has been excavated but the last 25% remains because people built on top of the ruins. Enough is there to show the way of life, the roads which have the grooves in the stones from the wagons so many years ago. We saw the bakery, the red light district where the men choose what they wanted by pointing to frescos on the walls. The frescos are still there and leave very little to the imagination. There are theaters where the gladiators practiced and a smaller one which had water running beneath the marble floor creating excellent acoustics for concerts. Market places, and of course, the casts of the dead showing how they tried to cover their faces from the gases. There are what seems like thousands of household items and large vessels. You just have to see it. It’s way old. Tomorrow back to Rome to disembark a group and then continue on to Greece and Turkey.

Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy on Easter Sunday

Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy on Easter Sunday Last night we had a delicious steak dinner. Yes, we paid extra to go to the steak restaurant. This cruise has various places to eat. The “free” ones are very large and serve many meals so it is quite noisy. There are several other small restaurants that require reservations and a “cover” charge. Other than the cover charge, the meals are provided except for the wine. Food in these restaurants seems to be a notch above - well, it should be - right. Anyway, we all splurged and had a good time. After, we stopped by the star lounge for the end of an excellent show. Then Pete and I went to another lounge where there is a dance floor. We had to dance one dance just to report that we did indeed dance. There were only two other couples dancing and they must have been taking lessons at home. They were quite good and just watching gave me a work out. This morning we left the ship for a short tour of Cagliari. Cagliari is a very small city but5 has a very active port. The history here is also hectic: It was settled millenia ago a couple of times. Then in 800 BC it was settled by the Phoenicians. In 500 BC the Carthaginians occupied Cagliari, they were defeated by the Romans in 238 BC. Then there were the Goths and Vandals, Bizentines. Then the Muslims in about 533 AD until the beginning of the 11th century. In 1016 the Muslims were defeated by the the Bizentines, 1198 a change, 1323 another, then in 1707 it was ruled by Spain. In 1720 the Pope gave it to the Duke of Savoy who became king. 1770 it became a part of Italy under one of the Savoy Kings. 1946 it was made a republic by Italy. You have to believe all of this or look it up for yourself. I’m not certain of all of the dates. Our guide today was absolutely amazing with all of the information and dates and species of birds and plants and history of all of the area and buildings. It was hard to keep up with him. There are lots of Flamingos here now. In 1997 or so they stopped migrating from here and stayed for some reason. At that time there were about 7000 now there are about 40,000. The island makes salt from the sea, there used to be silver mines, they farm in the sea, oysters, mussels and clams. The buildings are, of course, very beautiful. The modern ones, they were shelled during the 2nd world war, are not so beautiful. The island is very green with lots of palm trees and jacaranda trees and many pines. Tomorrow is Palarmo. I think tonight I will go to the casino, Ciao!!!

Unimaginative Post

My posts have been few and far between. Internet costs more than I expected and I am soooo busy. Everywhere we have been has been very clean - amazingly clean with all of the people. We have visited Livorno, Italy, Monte Carlo, Monaco, Toulon, France, Barcelona, Spain and Valencia, Spain. Each city has been crowded with tourists. We just returned from Valencia which was not as crowded. Valencia is a city that I think I would like to stay in for longer. It doesn’t have the Gaudi Church or other international monuments but it is smaller and just seems easier. The fact that they speak Spanish helps too. I wasn’t very good in Italian. There is a beautiful Opera House here in Valencia. I hope I am able to add a photo to this post of something. The weather everywhere has been perfect. Couldn’t be better. A nice breeze in mid day in Barcelona which was the warmest tour so far. Of course, we have visited many churches and cathedral’s and learned lots of history of each of the areas. These are old places (duh) and it is interesting to see the remains of the Romans and before. Just imagining life in the cities before electricity, water, sewer etc and everyone living in large buildings boggles the mind. Well, my mind anyway. We have had very good service on the ship, good food and entertainment. I don’t think it is fair to compare it to our smaller river cruises though so I won’t. Tomorrow we were supposed to visit Tunis but the Tunisians have said that Israel Nationals can’t go ashore so we will visit Palma, Mallorca. I think we will go ashore on our own if possible to see what we can see. Friday. We did not sign up for a tour but walked and took a hop on hop off bus all around the city. The population is about 350,000 so it isn’t huge but it is a large port. Three cruise ships and a yacht transport were here at this pier and there are others. There is a beautiful marina with many sail boats and yachts. There is a light breeze today and many sail boats are out. The water is a beautiful blue. The town was settled by the Romans in 153 BC. (Just relating a few facts that I could hear over the noise.) There is a cathedral whose interior was one of Gaudi’s projects. Juan Miro lived here and I think died here. The author Gabriel Garcia Marquez rewrote his last book here in Mallorca. He just died yesterday and the newspapers here are full of his life and accomplishments. Many famous people lived and worked here and I can see why. The atmosphere is relaxing and easy. The air is clear and clean. So my question is ----- if all of these cities can keep there streets clean --- why can’t Seattle do it too. This morning we went into town early - before 10 - the streets and alleys were absolutely clean. Looked like they had been washed and picked up during the night. In Valencia, we were touring early also and saw probably 20 people in one section of a park cleaning up after the big big soccer celebration. The rest of the city had already been cleared. Also there is very little graffiti. I did see some but not much at all.

ON THE SHIP

On the ship now. Yesterday we saw the Pantheon and St. Mary’s on Minerva where Galileo was sentenced to death. They didn’t kill him and he lived to be 77. He wasn’t supposed to spread the word about the world being round. The amazing thing about all of Rome is, as I have said before, that there is so much left from almost 2000 years ago. The people are beautiful and there are a lot of them. Also many, many tourists just like us. We stopped for lunch at a nice little street trattoria and made our way back to the hotel. For dinner we were recommended a restaurant “Taverena Flauvia”. It was quite a walk and a bit pricey but we enjoyed great service and excellent food. This morning (Sat.) we had a 1 and ½ hour drive to the port. Beautiful countryside scenery. Which reminds me of another incident, something happened to Pete’s camera and we don’t think we are going to bother trying to fix it and rely for now on my small camera. We are in our very large stateroom, because we were mistakenly assigned a handicapped room. Norwegian called twice we told them we didn’t need it just change us but they couldn’t seem to do that and finally we ended up with this large room. Our luggage hasn’t arrived yet. Hope that doesn’t go wrong. Nope here it is. Tomorrow we visit Livorno. I’ll give you a report. Livorno - it must be Sunday! We took a trip to Frattoria (farm) in Tuscany. The bus ride through the countryside was very nice. The scenery is worthwhile coming back to see again. At the farm, we met the winemaker farmer whose family has lived on the land and in the house for many many years. The house was built in the 1600’s (I could be wrong but that’s what I remember). He shared with us 5 wines that he makes. One white, 3 reds and 1 sweet. They were all very good. They also make olive oil so I bought a sample. Pete bought two bottles of wine which we took back to the ship and Norwegean charged a corking fee of 15 Euros EACH! This drove Joe up the wall but we drank one of his bottles with dinner. Yes, they charge for a lot of stuff that used to be a lot more affordable. Internet connection is 15 cents per MINUTE and sometimes you can’t really get on. Such is life. Monte Carlo - Monday. Had to tender in today. Our tour only touched the surface of Monte Carlo and Monaco I guess because they really don’t want tourists to actually see anything except the outside of buildings. Learned a lot about how the very rich live here. We were allowed in the cathedral. The casino wouldn’t let us in until 2 and all of the tours were over by then. This place is very clean and police presence is everywhere. Throw a piece of paper on the street and get caught - you pay 30 E right then. The police are all from France and are meant to be very strict. Only walk in crosswalks. Of course, you take your life in your hands walking on streets that are race tracks even before the stands are all set up. We did enjoy our day and came back to lunch on the ship in the sun.

CRUISE 2014

I have had some problems with the blog but that seems to be solved now. Yes, we got to Rome, very very jet lagged. There were various little incidents getting here and everyone seemed to have at least one "incident". Rome is breathtaking at first sight. The hugeness of the ruins. I love the trees. We arrived on a Tuesday and of course I slept after checking into the hotel. Had a nice dinner closeby and went to sleep again. Wednesday as you probably know the Pope waves from the Vatican. First we bought some tickets to various places and the Metro. We got on the open air bus to have a city orientation, made a complete circuit and then we made our way to the Red Line to go to the Vatican (along with about 200,000 others). Pete was pickpocketed by young girl getting on the Metro. The girl and her compatriots then hopped off just as the doors closed. Gone was the wallet. Oh, well. We made it to the Vatican anyway and witnessed the HUGE throng. Not being THAT interested we found our comfort in food and a place to sit along with the other masses. Happy masses. The weather is perfect, cool in the morning and just right in the afternoon. Thursday was the big day - after breakfast here at the hotel - we walked to the Colliseum. What an awesome building and a lot of it still left after 2000 years. And the viaduct in Seattle is 50 years and crumbling. Had a wonderful tour of the Colliseum and the Forum. So much information, I'll not relate here, you'll just have to come yourself or read your Geographics. Still awe inspiring and amazing. We did a lot of walking and were all hungry. We started at about 9:30 and it was 2:30 when we climbed out of the Forum. Took a taxi back to hotel and ate at a small restaurant outside our hotel. I rested and rested until this morning. Unbelieveable but I was out. No dinner and not caring . Much better today expecting to go to the Bogessese Museum and Spanish steps with everyone but Doug and Pete. They will do their own thing. Tomorrow we make our way to the Port and get on the Norwegean Jade to begin our cruise.