Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

May 30, 2019

This was our first visit to Santorini and wow, did we love it. Here is our approach this morning.

The buses going up the hills look like little caterpillars!

We have enjoyed every port in Greece on this cruise and in the past.  This is a tender port and because we knew that the cable car can have long lines, and walking up the donkey paths is slippery (you know why!), we decided to do a planned tour.  Our guide was Amadeus.  What a character he was!

Santorini was formed from one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in history which occurred around 1600 BC.  The beautiful villages on top of steep cliffs offer some of the most stunning scenery in Greece.  It is an island in the southern Aegean Sea about 120 miles southeast of the Greek mainland. The population is about 16000 and about 5000 donkeys.  Amadeus made a point of telling us how stubborn and stupid donkeys are!

He also talked a lot about Greece’s financial problems.  They have a lot of tourism to Santorini which also has its down side as the towns can be quite crowded. He was quite funny but also sad as he described the financial conditions here.  Norm said it was like a Greek tragedy.

One of the surprising things he told us is that marble is prevalent here but there is no market for it anymore, so people pave their driveways with marble because it is cheaper than cement!

Another thing he pointed out and that we noticed is that all of the grapevines are small and close to the ground because of the fierce winds. The tree below shows how fierce it can be.

We first traveled to the highest peak for a photo stop to capture the fabulous scenery.

We went on to the village of Oia which is built on a dramatically steep slope of a caldera that formed after the volcanic eruption.  Many of the dwellings are nestled in niches hewn out of the volcanic rock. There are caves here used for wine, too.

The beautiful landscapes of blue and white buildings are just stunning to look at and I couldn’t stop taking photos.  There are many small chapels that families build for the surrounding neighbors.

We had free time here to wander around the town and go into the shops and galleries.  Many unique items were on display here.

We went on to Fira, the island’s other village.  Here we had as long as we wanted to spend. Great shops.. The last tender back to the ship was at 5:30 but the crowds for the cable car are long, so we walked all through the town and had a lunch overlooking the sea.  Very wonderful and relaxing. Then we took the cable car down to the tender port and went back to the ship.  Wonderful day!

The cable car.

We love Greece – we will be back with more time to spend.  Tomorrow on to Athens.

May 29, 2019

Today our tour was initially scheduled for the morning, but due to a few cruise ships scheduled to arrive the same time as ours, the tour was rescheduled for the afternoon.

Here is the view of city on our arrival.

So, we got off the ship on our own and wandered through the city of Rhodes. We love it here.  The city is surrounded by medieval walls with seven gates and the cruise ship docks very close to the St. Catherine’s Gate.

The medieval city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988 and is very well preserved.  The walls were built by the Knights of St. John.

We walked through the narrow streets and as always, were just charmed by the sights.  Here are some of them.

We eventually reached the magnificent Palace of the Grand Master.  This was originally a Byzantine fortress in the 7th century AD and later held the administrative center of the Order of Knights.  It was destroyed by an explosion in 1856 and later, in the 1930’s, was rebuilt by the Italians to be used as the home of the Italian Commander (during the Italian occupation.) Today it houses two large exhibits on the City of Rhodes. In one of them, no pictures were allowed but we could take them outside in the courtyard and in the second exhibit. The mosaics in the floors and the lighting fixtures were particularly impressive.

We did some shopping – and there are many shops and restaurants here – and then enjoyed lunch back on the ship before going on our tour to Ancient Lindos.

Our tour guide was Anna Maria.

The trip to Lindos took about an hour and we learned a lot about Rhodes.  This island is one of thousands – only about 120 are inhabited. They get 300 days of sun a year so it is a really beautiful place to visit almost all year, although between April and November is prime tourist season. Only 15 of 5000 hotels are open in the winter. The temperature rarely goes below 50 degrees. Turkey is only 12 nautical miles away and there are ferries that go between  Greece and Turkey.

On our way, we stopped at a pottery showroom and watched demonstrations of pottery making and the painting of the finished products.

Along the way, we saw lots of olive trees and also oleander, which Anna Maria told us is a poisonous tree.

There were some markets in Lindos and also the donkeys which you can choose to ride up to the Acropolis which means “highest city”. Only 700 people live in this city.

May 28, 2019

This is our third time in Cyprus – so today we took a tour to the center of the island – to Nicosia – which has been the capital of Cyprus for over 1000 years.

The port of Limassol is the second largest city and has a population of 200,000.

Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world after the fall of the Berlin wall. The northern side has been occupied by Turkey since July 1974 and the southern side by Greece. The division is called the Green Line.  Nicosia is the largest city in Cyprus and is still encircled by the old city walls.

Our guide today was Angela and as with most guides we have had, she was a wealth of information.

Cyprus was a British colony until 1960.  It is the third  largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean  with 850,000 people.

Tourism is their largest source of income, mostly British and Russian visitors previously but now many are coming from Hong Kong and Japan. They are very worried about the effect Brexit will have on their country.

They export potatoes, citrus fruits, olive oil, carob, halloumi cheese and wine as well.

In 2013, their largest bank collapsed and caused a devastating effect on the economy.  Prior to that, they realized the problems in Greek economy but it had never affected them.  Their unemployment rate before that was a low 3.5 % but it soared after the bank collapse to 18% and has never really recovered.

Angela talked a lot about how it affected her own family.  She has two sons who were unemployed for a long time and now one has work but makes very little money. We really unaware of the extent of the problems here.

Here are some pictures from the trip to Nicosia.  It was about a 60 minute trip.

The last picture is from an excavation site. The one above that shows the water tanks that seem to be on top of every structure.

Our first visit in Nicosia was to the Cyprus Archeological Museum where the most significant collection of Cypriot antiquities is housed.  There are artifacts dating back to the Neolithic Age (7000 BC), Mycenaean relics and also early Byzantine.  There are ceramics, tomb monuments, bronze statues and coins that span 5000 years of the island’s history.  The most famous exhibit is the statue or Aphrodite from Soli, now the symbol of Cyprus. It is amazing what has been recovered from the excavations. Most of the statues are made from limestone which is prevalent here.

The last one is the Aphrodite.

Here are some of the views of the old city walls.

We then visited the Cathedral of St. John, built in 1662 by the Archbishop Nikiforos.  No pictures are allowed inside but every inch of the walls is covered by 18th century frescoes that depict biblical scenes.  Angela told us that people of that time could not read, so this is how the stories were told.  It is just beautiful. The outside just looks like an ordinary building, you wouldn’t know that it is a cathedral.  Due to the religious persecution of the time, people wanted a place to pray but wanted to disguise it.

Here are some shots of the outside, the bell tower, the Archbishop’s Palace and the courtyard.  You can see bullet holes on the outside of the nearby Archbishop’s Palace from the 1974 Turkish invasion.

After this visit, we went to the area of the Green Line checkpoint but are not allowed over into the Turkish side. We had free time at Ledra street in the Laki Yitsonia area where the narrow streets are lined with shops, restaurants and galleries. Great gelato here, and also some fun signs.

Great day – tomorrow we will be in Greece.