Anniversary cruise travelogue

To celebrate our 32^nd anniversary, Susie and I went on a Mediterranean cruise. This blog entry is my attempt to give a bit of a flavor for our trip. I apologize for how long it took me to write this entry, but it took some work to distill a week and almost 1,500 photos down to something anyone might be willing to read! I am trying to figure out the best place to put the photos (under 200 now) given that my preferred photo place (Kodak Gallery) is shutting down soon. 

We flew to Rome on Friday (May 11) and arrived on Saturday. As we had been to Rome before, our main goal was not to see anything in particular, but rather to try and stay awake until at least 9:00pm to get acclimated to the time zone (off by six hours). Our hotel (La Griffe) was in the middle of everything, so we spent much of the day walking to typical sights like the Trevi Fountain (which was mobbed and looked sort of like a mosh pit with some stone horses and water in the middle). We saw lots of churches and fountains as well as mobs of people including some dressed as Roman soldiers and others painted silver like statues. At the Coliseum we encountered a parade of communist protestors. They were doing lots of chanting and singing of slogans in Italian. It added a bit of festivity to our walk around the building.

On Sunday we attended an Episcopal church with services in English right near our hotel. The church, of course, was beautiful and was probably older than anything in our area. We then took a shuttle to our cruise ship. We managed to get on to the ship fairly uneventfully. I had hoped to get a table for two for dinner, but that did not happen. As I feared, we had to meet people. As I never would have guessed, we got along very well with the couple (Donna and Mark). We enjoyed spending dinner with them every night as well as doing a number of things on board the ship. As is often the case, I was wrong! They taught us a song to sing when that happens. The third couple (from Budapest) showed up one evening, but never again. I think they decided to not join our tight-knit foursome.

The first stop was on Monday in Messina, Sicily. I confess that my European geography is fairly weak. I did not realize that the distance from Sicily to Italy was only three miles. We took a tour that went to Mount Aetna, an active volcano. There was no molten lava to see, but as the bus went up the mountain, more and more of it was black from previous eruptions. The tour guide would say things like, “Over there is where the 2002 eruption happened and right up ahead is the end of the lava flow from 1998.” It was all rather surreal and hard to comprehend what it would be like to live in the shadow of a volcano. We also visited a beautiful sea coast town, Taormina. We walked down its main street, looked down or up the many quaint side streets, stepped into a number of churches, and enjoyed a bite to eat at an outdoor café while watching people walk by. It was a wonderful day.

We spent Tuesday at sea. That meant we read, Susie climbed the rock wall, we went shopping, and I played in a volleyball tournament. In the evening we dressed up for one of the formal dinners. It was a nice relaxing day that let us get some much needed rest.

On Wednesday we docked near Ephesus, Turkey. For me, I think that stop was the highlight of the trip. The ruins at Ephesus were amazing. Not amazing in the way that the Coliseum is. The Coliseum is imposing enough that you come away wondering how was it possible that people could build something that big almost 2,000 years ago. But, the Coliseum is in the middle of a large city and it is hard to picture what it must have been like in its day.  Instead, Ephesus consists only of ruins and has enough intact or restored buildings that you can get a general sense what it was like. We walked past the bazaar, strolled down the crowded main street, walked into the library, viewed what the tour guide described as the gentlemen’s club, and saw the 24,000-seat arena. As the picture shows, none of the buildings was intact, but it gave a real sense of what it would have been like when Paul was there. We also visited a place where Jesus’ mother Mary supposedly lived for a few years, the ruins of a church where the Apostle John is purported to be buried, and a demonstration of Turkish rug making. 

On Thursday, our 32^nd anniversary, we visited Athens, Greece. We had been there 28 years ago when Becky was two years old and Susie was pregnant with Nathan. One of my favorite memories of that visit was Becky sitting amongst small pieces of the stone from Parthenon saying, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!” Back in the present, we took a tour that went to the Acropolis and some other sites in the city. The Acropolis was the obvious highlight. The somewhat intact buildings there, including the Parthenon, make a real impact. The impressive structures were largely built around 2,500 years ago. Much of the site, however, is being worked on to try and restore it. Part of that means taking down earlier (incorrect) attempts to reconstruct the buildings. There is scaffolding on many of the buildings which detracts a bit. Regardless, the buildings are quite amazing. As we were visiting, the Olympic torch was there--about to begin its journey to London for the games later this summer. While leaving the Acropolis, we somehow lost our tour group. After a few anxious moments, we were able to find another tour group from our ship and finished up with them (and their much better tour guide). Back on the ship, we had a great dinner including an anniversary surprise arranged by our new friends. 

Friday we visited Chania, Crete. The tour we took in Crete visited a cemetery of the over 3,500 soldiers (largely British) that died attempting to repel the German invasion of the island during World War II. The cemetery was beautiful with rows of gravestones, beautiful flowers, and the harbor in the background. As is often the case, it made me appreciate yet again the sacrifices that so many have made. It was very humbling. We also visited a monastery run by five monks. It was not very old and was overrun by cats, supposedly 54 of them. It seemed that everywhere we went we would hear the mewling of kittens and find them hiding behind some flowers. The tour guide described to us the history of Crete from when its Minoan civilization was Europe’s first advanced one. From there, she went through all of the empires that ruled over Crete for at least 100 years. It was an impressive list of pretty much every major power in the Mediterranean over the last four millennia. The few years of German occupation didn’t make the list. We also visited the town of Chania and enjoyed walking through its market.

Saturday was another day at sea, a day to relax, play volleyball, read, and generally take it easy. I rode a stationary bike on the ship with my Garmin and recorded my favorite “ride.” Stationary indeed!  I averaged over 23 miles per hour as we passed by the island of Stromboli. 

Sunday, we flew home. Between the cruise and the flights, I was able to finish four books (1491, The Ascent of Money, Imagine, and Almost Amish). All in all, it was a wonderful trip. I have to admit, however, that I was pretty tired by the time we got home!