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Greece Chapter 7 - The Cruise Part III
23-July-2000, Sunday
We slept in this morning (i.e. 8:30) and woke up to find a medieval turret outside our window. We had arrived at Rhodes and were docked at the town of Lindos, right next to the 14th Century fortress of the Knights of Rhodes (formerly the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem). Who are apparently not related to the Knights Templar or the Knights who say "Ni" (for those familiar with Monty Python & the Holy Grail).
An entrance to the old walled city
After breakfast, we went ashore & spent the day wandering through the streets of the old town (within the Fortress walls). So many "photo ops", so little film! We restricted ourselves to only one of the many museums that we came across, the one in the Palace of the Grand Master. It was a display of ancient Rhodes, and was very interesting. Of great interest to both of us were the many mosaics (almost every room in the upper floor had at least one in the floor). We have decided that, when we own a house, we will have to lay a mosaic floor somewhere. J figures on doing the design and letting L do the fun part of actually laying the tiles. L is more than willing (insistent, in fact) to share the fun & even take on some of the burden of design.
Entrance to the Palace of the Grand Master, J wants
ceiling and floors
like these
Again, almost all the streets were cobbled with sea pebbles, with many interesting designs. There was the usual plethora of tourist shops and cafes cluttering up the landscape but they were reasonably tastefully done and they did help preserve the old buildings so one couldn't be too offended by them.
The Palace from a distance, even the street grates were made of marble
We stopped at one such cafe and had a couple of iced coffees and shared a salad and a pork gyro platter. As always, most delicious.
After lunch in a lovely cafe, a little pigeon chasing
to help digestion (L's or the pigeon's we're not sure)
After more hours of wandering side streets & back streets, our feet called it quits and took us back to the ship around 3 PM.
The streets of Rhodes
We sat on deck for a while and updated this diary, then we played two games of crib with the new "Ancient Lovers" deck of cards. L won both games, J however, is still up one game from Friday. We dressed up as good as we could for the formal "shake the captains hand" dinner. Complimentary wine/champagne/martinis and hors d'eouvers in the main lounge before the meal. We were back at our assigned table so caught up on everyone's adventures over the last couple of days. As if we hadn't had enough to drink, we broke into our bottle of ouzo for the night cap and final game of cribbage. J insists I mention he won by 33 points.
24-July-2000, Monday
HAPPY BIRTHDAY L!
The alarm went off at 6:30 AM. L grumbled something about "there should be a law against this sort of thing on birthdays" .... J ever tactful ignored L and got her down to breakfast and a cup of tea! We caught one of the tender boats to Patmos and wandered around for about 1 1/2 hours. We weren't really interested in the tour of the monastery of St John. In fact, we were originally planning to sleep in but since we were scheduled to leave at 10 AM, we were forced to get up early and see the island while we could.
Patmos from our boat
It's not a large island, only 13 sq. miles. The capital town, also called Patmos is quite small and unassuming. The houses have the basic Greek look but, according to our info sheet, they also have Byzantine features. As we were told by the ships' resident guide, each stop on our cruise has its own unique, look. We hope our pictures reflect these distinctions.
The country side, the town, and the Monastery of St. John
We returned to the ship early and apparently, everyone else was punctual because we left 5 minutes early. When you go off the boat, you have to take a small red tag with your passenger number on it. J's # is 59, and L's # is 232 (alpha. by last name). If you forget to put your tag back on the big board when you return, they start paging you. They call out your name, your room #, and your tag #. This tells everyone on board that you have forgotten to return your tag. This was actually the first stop where everyone returned their tags.
We met up with our fellow Canadian Tilley Hat people, in the Lido cafe. They joined us for a couple of games of cribbage. Both couples won very close games of less than 5 points each. It is 11:20 AM, L is taking a nap and J is catching up the diary and reading our tour book on Knossos. So far, we have tour books on Knossos, Santorini, Rhodes and Patmos. We hope to get one for each of our stops before we are done.
We went to the main dining room for lunch and sat with a French couple from Montreal. During lunch we arrived in Turkey at the port of Kusadasi. While the port authorities cleared us we got ready to visit Ephesus.
Wow! Incredible! Fascinating and large! The site was not built over by other towns, just covered by the millennia's and a few volcanic (dust) eruptions. It was a Roman city, the first (according to the guide) built on the grid pattern. They have about 10 % uncovered so far and it has only taken 100 years to do it!
The main North/South street, 2 views of the main East/West street
They think the city originally had over 200,000 inhabitants. It was a famous port and had several historical (type) visitors, Cleopatra VII and Mark Anthony. It seems John the Baptist was imprisoned there for a while (probably for preaching without a permit! says L).
The small Amphitheater, and the large Amphitheater
It was a magnificent site and a very interesting tour. (Large library here too, one of the 3 largest in historic times. Ephesus, Alexandra and ------- (just can't remember the third one).
The Library, another building, more mosaic flooring
It was also very warm, not quite as warm as the Valley of the Kings was but hot (mid to high 30's C)! Another connection with Egypt, a Bazaar at the beginning and end of the site including a gent selling "real fake watches!" with Egypt style sales tactics. Back to the boat for a shower and clean clothes, we went up to Lido deck for 1/2 price ouzo & snacks. It is Greek night on the boat.
The ouzo may have been a mistake for J because he was starting to flag. He went for a nap while L wandered around for a while before joining him. We woke up just before 9 PM and got gussied up for supper. L put on her best Tilley Silk and the jewelry that her friend Michele made for her. It was L's birthday dinner and she wanted to look her best.
The meal in the dining room was Greek, but it was formal Greek, not at all like the food we had grown used to in Ioannina. It was quite nice though. For desert, they brought around a variety of Greek pastries as well as a birthday cake for L. Our whole table (6 of us) sang Happy Birthday nice and loud (the complimentary ouzo with the meal helped us find our voices) and everyone applauded. L blew out the candle and the waiter served cake to everyone at our table. It was a very nice cake too, says L.
The Californian at our table asked L her age. She said "3 years older than J". Apparently he knew better than to ask J for his age because J was prepared to answer "3 years younger than L!"
As we left the dining room, there were two young girls at the door dressed in traditional folkdance costume. They posed with us for the ship's photographer. There have been many pictures taken during the cruise; when we first boarded the ship, when we shook hands with the captain on formal night, having cocktails on formal night, etc. The photos were then displayed the next day for purchase. So far, we haven't been interested in buying any, except for our boarding picture which was offered as a key chain which we bought for J's cousin Rene who collects key chains. Since this one was sort of a birthday picture, we may have to make an exception. (Besides, J says, the two girls were cute!)
Alright, so we bought the picture. We also got
someone
to take a picture of us with our own camera.
From there, we briefly checked out the music in the Main Lounge and then went back to our room to continue celebrating L's birthday in private. Say no more, say no more....