Greek Island Cruise - May 2005

Our Greek island cruise on the ship Aegean I started in the port of Piraeus on Monday, May 16.  Rita and I joined our daughter, Rachel, and Deana Merrell, who were visiting us from Durham, North Carolina.  We woke early to catch a taxi from our house to the port of Piraeus to board our ship in time for a 10:30 am departure but because another cruise ship’s line was tangled over our ship’s line, we didn’t get away until 11:00 am.  But we made up for the time and arrived at the island of Mykonos on time at 6:00 pm. 



We took the provided bus into the pretty town of Mykonos Town, or Chora, with its whitewashed houses and maze of narrow alleys which were designed to confuse pirate raids in the past.  After a while we had dinner at a nice restaurant with outdoor tables.  Rachel and I had yvetsi, a dish of beef in pasta baked in the oven with a hint of cinnamon.  After dinner we walked to the windmills on the waterfront for a nice view of the sunset.  We returned to the ship at 9:30 pm and had our dessert onboard as we sailed away about 10:00 pm.  All meals were included in the cruise but occasionally we wanted to eat at a restaurant on shore.  Food on the ship was okay but more geared towards quantity instead of quality.



We slept well as we had smooth seas on most of the cruise except the final leg going home.  The next morning, Tuesday, we arrived at Kusadasi, Turkey at 7:00 am so we had to set our alarm to get up in time to eat breakfast.  We did not sign up for the optional excursion tour to ancient Ephesus, the Greek city where St. Paul preached and St. John lived out his final days.  Rita and I, with the girls, had visited Ephesus in 1975.  Instead of signing up for the excursion we hired a taxi on the docks that took us to Ephesus and waited for us to return for half the price of the excursion.  And in Ephesus we were able to walk alongside the English-language tours to get all the information we needed at no extra cost.  I suppose it is safe to say that Ephesus, which is thousands of years old, didn’t change much since we visited in 1975.



After Ephesus our taxi drive dropped us off at the Grand Bazaar of Kusadasi which is mostly glass evil eyes, pottery, furs, carpets, and various other trinkets.  The hawkers are a constant bother but after a while become a show to watch.  We bought very little but walked the narrow alleys of the bazaar learning different ways to tell the hawkers we were from Canada or wherever and that we didn’t want to have a tea in their shop.  We boarded about 11:00 am and sailed soon after.



Rita and I had a beer on the Belvedere deck while we read our books in the sunshine.  At lunch we were seated at a table of Spanish tourists so we didn’t have any lively conversations. 



We arrived at the island of Patmos about 3:30 pm and we did sign up for an optional excursion here.  We took the Patmos scenic tour which visited the Grotto of the Apocalypse or Grotto of Revelations as it is also called.  This is where St. John supposedly received the words that comprise the book of Revelations in the New Testament.  Then the tour drove around the island to the towns of Grikos and Kampos where we stopped at a coffee house and had a beer.  We had good views of the fortress-like monastery of St. John founded in 1088 by the monk Christodoulos.  We walked around the little port town of Skala and boarded our ship for our early dinner seating of 7:30 pm.  We had a lively table discussion with two couples from New Zealand and our ship sailed about 8:30 pm while we were eating.



Wednesday morning we arrived in Rhodes but since we didn’t sign up for any optional excursions (we had visited the village of Lindos back in the early 80s) we slept in late and had a late breakfast.  The four of us went ashore about 9:30 and entered the Old Town through the grand Marine Gate sometimes called the Virgin’s Gate because of the statue of the Virgin Mary.  A city was first built here in about 408 BC but the current medieval town goes back to about 1309 when the Knights of St. John arrived after the crusades.  We saw the medieval fountain in Plateia Ippokratous square, walked down Sokratous Street and back alleys to Mustafa Mosque and the Turkish baths (hammam), and visited the Ottoman library and Suleiman Mosque.  We toured the Palace of the Grand Masters with its impressive courtyard and mosaic floors relocated from the island of Kos.  Next we walked down the famous Street of the Knights to the ancient hospital which is a museum today.



We had lunch at a sidewalk café and decided to part ways.  Rachel and Deana wanted to do a bit of shopping while Rita and I continued on our own.  We walked to the site of the ancient Temple of Aphrodite near the Liberty Gate and outside the city walls to the Mandraki Harbor where the Colossus of Rhodes formerly stood as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  The ramparts were closed (only open Tuesdays and Saturdays for some weird reason) so we walked around to the Amboise Gate and re-entered the Old Town.  We walked to the Jewish section and found the Kahal Shalom synagogue which was built in 1577 by Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.  A nice old man invited us in and struck up a conversation.  It turned out he was a concentration camp survivor who went in at the age of 13 but was liberated at 14 years of age.  He showed us the tattoo on his arm and said he lost all his family in the concentration camp.  The Italians controlled Rhodes during World War II and they sent most of the Jews on the island to Germany’s concentration camps.



We all returned to the ship where we had dinner and set sail about 8:30 pm.  After dinner, Rita and I attended the nightly floor show for the first time which consisted of various crew members doing foreign dances, singers and one magician.  We were late to bed.



Thursday morning we arrived early in Heriklion (or Irakleio), Crete.  The modern city doesn’t have much of note except some city walls dating back to the 13^th century when the Venetians controlled the city.  Once more we opted out of the organized excursion and hired our own taxi and driver, Demetrius, to visit the Palace of Knossos that was the center of Minoan civilization.  It was destroyed by earthquake in about 1700 BC and completely rebuilt by the Minoans.  It is the place where Theseus slew the Minotaur in the labyrinth.  After we toured the palace we headed to the Archaeological Museum to see all the treasures found at the Palace of Knossos.  Next we headed back to the ship where we sailed about 11:00 am.  We had lunch on the Lido deck watching Crete fade away as we sailed on to Santorini. 



Santorini really is unlike the other islands we visited in that it has steep multi-colored cliffs that were created when the volcano erupted thousands of years ago.  Some people suggest that Santorini is the location of the lost city of Atlantis.  Anyway, we took an excursion here and were met by a bus which took us to the village of Oia on the far north end of the island.  This is a village on the cliffs of the cauldron with whitewashed houses clinging to the sides of the mountain.  This is where most of the scenic postcard photos of Santorini are taken.  We had an hour here but didn’t really get those scenic photos since this was the first place we had cloudy skies that were about to break out into rain.  After Oia the bus took us back to the village of Fira where we took the funicular down to the tender which took us back to the ship.



We had dinner about 8:30 on the ship then had to pack our bags to leave outside our room.  We also had the roughest part of our voyage with waves crashing into the ship making loud booms which kept us awake for a while.  We finally made it to sleep but woke early Friday morning as we docked about 6:30 am in Piraeus once more.  We collected our bags and caught a taxi home.  I had time to make it to work while Rita, Rachel and Deana unpacked and went shopping for groceries so we could have some dinner at home. 



I enjoyed the trip but decided I’m not really a cruise type of person.  The only other time I was on a ship for that long a period was back in 1977 when we sailed on the QEII from Southampton to New York.  I think that spoiled us for ship cruises or maybe we just thought it was so good since we had been camping for three months throughout Europe before we boarded the QEII.  The Aegean I needed some cleaning up, the food was only so-so, and I became tired of the waiters having to carry my plate to my table after I went through the buffet line.  I can carry my own plate!  It was a good way to see a lot in a short amount of time but we felt as if we didn’t really get to relax that much.  We were constantly on the go, getting up early most days.  I would prefer to take a ferry to an island for two to three days instead of having two to three hours and worrying about missing the ship if we didn’t hurry back on time.  I’ve been to Ephesus twice now, Rita has been there three times, and we don’t see a need to return there again.  We’ve also seen Rhodes pretty well.  Crete is very large and a week may not be enough to see all that it has to offer so I’m sure we will try to return there.  And we like Mykonos and Santorini enough to want to make long weekend visits back to those islands.  We saw about all there is to see in Patmos and don’t feel a need to return there.  But if one is limited in time this is a good way to see several good islands in a short amount of time but don’t expect it to be relaxing.