November 16 - Symi, Greece

We’re anchored off the little Greek island of Symi today.  This is a small island in the Dodecanese island chain. The closest land is the Asian coast of Turkey.  Symi is less than 25 sq. miles in area and it’s mountainous. In Greek mythology Symi was thought to be the birthplace of the Charites who were the goddesses of charm, beauty, goodwill and creativity.  The name supposedly comes from the Nymph Syme.  In The Iliad the King of the island, King Nireus, is mentioned as being the handsomest man in the Athenian forces after Achilles.  At one time Symi was primarily known for shipbuilding and sponges. As with all the islands around here this one has been held by Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and Crusader Knights during the various Crusades in the 11th through 13th centuries.  In the 20th century after WW I it was ceded to the Italians and when WW II began it was occupied by the Nazis.  After their defeat it was occupied by the British for several years until it finally became part of Greece. It’s a popular vacation place for Italians and British and in fact, there are about 50 British ex-pats who live here permanently.

We tendered ashore around 10:30 and arrived at the lower town.  The place is essentially a fishing village and there were a lot of small fishing boats tied up with piles of nets on the quayside.  The buildings are painted in a variety of different colors but not as brightly as some of the places I’ve seen around the Mediterranean.  I have to say it didn’t look all that prosperous to me. It’s past tourist season so some shops were closed, but there were nowhere near as many as I saw yesterday in Bodrum. There is an upper village where there is supposed to be a pretty and old Byzantine church.  We asked how to get there without climbing the path which has about 500 steps (!!!) and found  there is a bus service which we could take supposedly.  We walked to the bus stop and a very rickety bus came a few minutes later and we boarded. A round trip was 8 euros for the two of us.  We took off on a road that was not for the fainthearted.  We did hairpin turns with our wheels at times right on the edge of the drop-off.  The road was for two-way traffic but barely one lane wide, so when a car came from the other direction we did a lot of backing up and squeezing by.  It was a local bus and one of the other passengers was a Brit who came to live on the island 20 years ago.  We asked what he does here and he said he works at a bar occasionally and just sort of hangs out.  Okay, not my thing but different strokes for different folks. 

Fishing boats and nets. If you look you can see some Turkish carpets covering some of the nets.

You can see from the photos that this place could use a little TLC.  The last one of tthe boat that's seen better days is kind of emblematic of the rest  of Symi.

The bus driver spoke no English and we never did figure out where to get off to see the church.  We did gather that if we got off to look around and take some photos of the beautiful views we would have to wait close to an hour for the bus to come back to take us to the harbor. None of the stops looked like somewhere we’d like to hang out for an hour, so we and the few other cruisers on the bus all decided to just do a round trip. As I said, it was not a prosperous looking place.  There were some crumbling buildings and derelict cars around.  There were a few rough looking boats halfway up the hillside and I wondered why they were there. I couldn’t get pictures of the scenes because the windows had some kind of coating on them.  Anyway, I guess I’m just not Bohemian enough to appreciate the place.  I told my friend that I couldn’t even really see coming here for a short vacation. There are too many other really pretty Greek islands.

Trivia isn’t getting better.  I think the Cruise Director and his assistant have scoured the net for the most obscure questions they could find.  The team has some very nice people on it, but as with anything if you’ve got several people we all come up with what we think is right on these off-the-wall questions and whoever is more assertive winds up persuading the others. I guess I just need to put my foot down a little harder.  Really though, it’s not worth it. Today’s prize was a coffee mug.

After trivia we had one of Seabourn’s signature events, a classical music and caviar sailaway party.  As the sun had gone down and the wind had picked up, it was a little chilly on deck.  I didn’t stay until the end because I was getting goosebumps and I needed to get cleaned up and changed for dinner and dancing later on.  The captain did come on and say we’ve had another itinerary change.  Tomorrow we’ll be in Santorini and the weather should be good.  The last day of the cruise for those disembarking in Athens on Sunday has been changed.  There’s a big storm around the island of Syros  so instead on Saturday we’re going to Nafplio on the Peloponnese peninsula. That’s okay with me because I’ve been to neither and will get to see something new either way.

November 15 - Bodrum, Turkey

Before I write about today I have to tell about last night. After dinner at a table hosted by the head of security I went first to the show (a pretty good singer) and then to the Club in the hope of finding some dancers. Hooray!  The music was great and there was a contingent of Belgians drinking gallons of champagne with lots of ladies who liked to dance while the men with them sat and drank.  We had a great time and stayed ‘til the place closed down. We also had a beautiful sunset so I’m posting a picture because I’m a sucker for sunsets.

It’s a gorgeous day in Bodrum. This place was originally settled by Greeks, and its name was originally Halicarnassus.  Later it came to be under the rule of the Persians when they began their conquest of most of Asia Minor and then much of Greece following the battle at Thermopylae until they were finally stopped at the battle of Salamis. (There’s a wonderful novel called Gates of Fire about that period which I read a while back.)  Back to the subject at hand.  One of the Persians who ruled this part of the empire was a man named Mausolus.  When he died in 353 BC, Artemisia, who was his wife and also his sister (interesting relationships these folks had) commissioned a monument and tomb to be built for him.  It became known as the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  And that’s the origin of our word mausoleum.  When I was here last year I visited the ruins of the edifice.  There is a scale model of the structure which was pretty impressive.  I’m always amazed what these ancient people could build given they didn’t have any modern instruments.

This is what the Mausoleum looked like. I think it's incredible they could build such structures so long ago.

Since I’d been here before I decided to just do some wandering on my own. Seabourn provided a shuttle to the city center.  It’s clear that this place is mainly a holiday resort. You can see the vacation villas and apartments climbing up the hillside around the harbor.  We were dropped off next to a marina with some very impressive boats, both sail and power.  I think a lot of them could be chartered but since I can’t read Turkish I’m not sure.  That reminds me of an interesting thing I’ve noticed.  Despite the places we’ve been the last few days being big tourist destinations, there’s very little signage in anything but Turkish. In many places that are tourist spots they’ll often have signs with two languages, but not here.  

In the castle overlooking the harbor is a museum of  underwater archaeological artifacts which I was thinking I might visit.  The tourist office person at the shuttle stop told me there are lots of old stone steps with no handrails in the museum, so I gave up on that idea.  I walked along the marina and took some photos and then walked through the little open air bazaar.  This bazaar had lots of jewelry, perfume and leather shops and if you removed the Turkish flags and the occasional glimpse of a minaret you could have been in St. Thomas or Gibraltar or any number of tourist spots.  I wandered for a while and then headed back to the shuttle stop. 

The castle at the center of town as seen from my veranda

A street in the bazaar

For any catlovers here's a bazaar cat. There are always lots of them wandering around and they all look quite healthy.

Another view in the bazaar with a minaret towering over. If you look up high you can see two speakers from which they broadcast the call to prayers.

The marina with boats as far as the eye could see in the distance

Back on the ship I went up to the Patio Grill by the pool to have a salad and sat at a table with two ladies from the US who are half Italian and half German, like me, and then a German couple joined us. They were from Mainz which is very close to where I was born. We had a nice conversation about traveling. The German man had spent 6 weeks going to a training course for his company in Waynesboro, VA.  The five of us found we had lots of common things to talk about.  I’m back from trivia now and I won’t even discuss our performance; it was that bad.  The answer to yesterday’s question was Poland. Its currency is the zloty.

It's very late (1:45 AM) and I just got back to my cabin but I wanted to get this blog post up.  After dinner there was a dance party around the pool and when that was over I went down to the club. A group of people invited me to sit with them and we talked until long after the band stopped.  They are Californians of Indian (as in South Asia) descent and we had a great time talking about all sorts of things.  A couple of them are physicians and there was at least one who's an accountant and they were as nice as they could be.  They asked me to join them after I had gotten up to dance to a song I really liked because the ladies in their group said they wouldn't have the courage to do that by themselves.  I told them it doesn't take courage; it just takes deciding that  in all likelihood you'll never see most of the other people again so if you enjoy it, do it.  A couple of them got up with me later and danced too and we had a ball. I should feel bad about being up so late, but we turn the clock back an hour tonight so I can catch another hour of sleep. And that was my long but very enjoyable day doing not much of anything except meeting lots of new people. Tomorrow, or rather today, we're at a tiny island with not much to see or do so I'll have a day of rest.  Ciao for now. 

November 14 - Çesme, Turkey

When I awoke this morning we were already docked here in Çesme, Turkey. (Just a little aside here.  I’ve been on the ship two nights and we’ve had to change our clocks both nights. The first night we dropped back an hour and last night we moved forward an hour.  I think most of us aren’t really sure what time it is. I guess it only matters if one had a tour to get ready to meet.)

My home away from home 

First I’ll tell you a little about this place. Çesme is on the Asian side of Turkey and is at its westernmost point.  The name comes from a Persian word meaning spring or fountain. Today it’s a popular holiday resort, but in the middle ages it was an important stop on the trade route from the east.   To that end next to the castle that commands the harbor there is an old caravanserai which was where caravans coming from the east with spices and silks would stop and unload and then take on goods coming from Italy and other places around the Mediterranean to transport to the east.  The caravanserai is today a boutique hotel built around a courtyard where the animals would be fed and watered.  Çesme had a trade relationship with the Republic of Genoa which along with the Republic of Venice was one of the largest trading states of the time.  (We’ve all heard of one of the most famous of the Italian traders – Marco Polo from Venice.)

The courtyard of the caravanserai

One other little tidbit of historic information that I found interesting is that until the early 1920s the majority of the population here was actually Greek. Following WWI  and the Greco-Turkish war after WWI at the time that modern Turkey was founded, an agreement was made and there was a forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey.  The compulsory expulsion was based not on ethnicity or language, but rather on religion.  So, all Orthodox Christians in Turkey and all Muslims living in Greece were forcibly removed and sent to live in the other country.  Needless to say, that made for many unhappy people who were uprooted and moved to someplace they’d never been before.  The decision was made by politicians from both sides with no one representing the average Turk or Greek.  It seems politics and government never really change.

I met Hilary and we went on a “little” walkabout. It is a lovely day with whatever the Turkish version of a Carolina blue sky is and it’s warm.  It actually got rather hot after we’d been walking for a while.  The little walk turned out to be more than 5 miles and about 11,000 steps. We walked along the promenade by the harbor.  Eventually we came to the castle built by an Ottoman sultan to keep away pirates.  We didn’t go up in the castle because there are lots of steps, and, as with many places in this part of the world, handrails are not very often prevalent.  I like to have a railing to hold on to when I go up or down steps.  Just past the castle we turned and began walking through the old town.  The streets are narrow with lots of little shops selling what my husband always called “tourist trash and trinkets.”  There were a few little more local shops selling toiletries and eyeglasses but not much else. Along the way there were a number of tiny cafés with a few tables where people were having a morning coffee. It was clear as we walked along that tourist season was over because a number of shops were closed.

The castle wall with a statue of the Sultan who built it and his pet lion

The top one is the little street in the old town and then there's my friend Hilary

We walked until we came to what looked like the more commercial part of town and then headed back.  Along the way we stopped at one of the little cafés and sat outside having something to drink accompanied by a couple of delicious cookies.  They hit the spot and we could people watch as we sat.  On the ship there was a serious warning to watch out ashore and be extra mindful of your surroundings.  Our Australian friends were put off by that and decided not to go ashore.  Hilary and I found that everyone we encountered would smile and say what I guess was hello and we didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.  Eventually we made it back to the ship.  Why is it that the walk back always seems so much longer?

Once back on the ship, Hilary went off to change into her swimsuit and go bask by the pool.  (The British are fanatics about sunbathing and I’ve sometimes seen them lying there until they looked like lobsters.)  I’m no longer a sun lover so I’m here with my feet up writing this and marking time until I can go and be trounced at trivia again.  It's later and I was right; we lost again, but our score did go up.  I'll say then that we're warming up.  The answer to yesterday's question about whether it's true or false that a sloth takes 5 days to digest its food is False.  If you can believe it a sloth can take up to 30 days to digest one leaf.

Here's a question for today - what country's currency is called a zloty? (I knew the answer but my team didn't believe me. That's the way it goes with a team.)

November 13 - Myrina, Lemnos, Greece

Today we are off the little island of Lemnos, a Greek island in the north Aegean Sea.  The little town we’re near is Myrina and to go ashore we have to tender.  It’s been drizzling all morning so I think most of us have stayed onboard.  I was here last year and there really is not much to see.  On top of that, the season for the Greek islands is over so many things are closed anyway.  If it clears up later I may go ashore just to say I did but I don’t feel any great compulsion to do so.  Here are a couple of pictures I took late in the afternoon.  Except for the little town of Myrina there's not a lot there.

I wrote about it last time I was here but it’s an interesting story so I’ll tell it again.  In Greek mythology Lemnos is the island where Hephaestus, the god of metallurgy, fell to Earth when Zeus cast him from Olympus. As the myth goes Hephaestus built his forge here and occasionally fire would blaze forth from one of the mountains.  The island no longer has any volcanic activity but it makes for a nice story.  Archaeologists have found ruins of the oldest human settlement in the Aegean here dating back as far as the 12th millennium BC.  That makes our 400-year history in Virginia barely a blink of the eye.

This morning I went to Seabourn Square, the central place on the ship where there’s a coffee bar that rivals anything Starbucks does with the intention of checking e-mails.  I ran into two ladies I met on my cruise around the UK and we spent an hour or so chatting.  I think both of them are going to be on a portion of my next cruise.  At breakfast I ran into several staff members I have sailed with before.  I’m always so impressed that they remember names so well, especially because they see so many people from cruise to cruise. I wish I had that ability; sadly, I can remember faces but not names.

It's later and I never did go ashore.  Hilary and I had lunch in the sushi restaurant.  It was absolutely wonderful.  At lunchtime they serve several kinds of Bento boxes.  I picked the chicken teriyaki one.  I attempted to use the chopsticks but I had to break down and get a fork.  We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside, drinking Aperol spritzes and talking with a very nice Australian couple. At four the Aussies and I went down to play trivia.  We joined three people from the UK so we should have done well, but we didn’t.  It wasn’t our day.  Here’s a question for you to think about.  True or false a sloth takes five days to digest his food.  I’ll let you know the answer on another day

My Teriyaki Chicken Bento Box

It's very late but I wanted to get this posted so I didn't wind up being behind.  It was a formal night and everyone looked quite nice but times have changed.  I saw very few men wearing tuxes and not many women wearing real formal wear. I think most people just don't want to pack as many things as they used to.  We did get notified that our stops in Aqaba, Jordan and Sharm el Sheikh have been canceled.  I know there are some disappointed people because Aqaba is the port from which you can visit Petra (of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade fame).  Those places are pretty close to where the fighting is so I'm sure Seabourn didn't want to chance being that near.  Instead we're stopping at Muscat, the capital of Oman, and another one of the UAE emirates.  It was a lazy but very nice day.   

November 12 - Farewell Istanbul, Hello Greece tomorrow

After a lazy morning, I headed for the Seabourn Encore which I boarded about 1 PM.  It was a long walk from where the car dropped me off to the actual gangway.  I was beginning to think I was on a walking tour.  All is well though and as I stepped off the gangway I met the Hotel Manager and Guest Services manager, both of whom I’ve sailed with before.  It’s nice to see old friends. My cabin was ready and I dropped off my bag and went to have lunch.  By the time I’d finished my suitcases were in my room and I unpacked and settled in.  

We sailed at 5PM and I was out on one of the upper decks to watch the sailaway.  Istanbul is one of the more spectacular ports to leave from and today didn’t disappoint.  I’m probably attaching too many photos but the sight is just breathtaking and as it was sunset, it was even more beautiful.

A view of Topkapi Palace

Another view

The Blue Mosque on the left and the Hagia Sophia on the right

The Blue Mosque with the setting sun behind it

The skyline as we sailed away from the busy harbor.

I’ve told a little about Istanbul in previous blog posts from other cruises so I’ll only give a little recap.  Artifacts dating back to at least 8,000 years ago have been found here indicating there was some kind of settlement. The Greeks founded the city in the 7th century BC and called it Byzantium.  In 330 AD the Roman emperor Constantine made it his capital originally calling it New Rome, but eventually renaming it Constantinople after himself. For nearly the next 1600 years Constantinople was the capital  of  various empires.  The Ottomans conquered the city in 1455 and it became the major city of their empire.  People in other parts of the Ottoman lands began referring to it as  “istanpolin” which means “to the city” in Turkish. After the Ottomans were defeated in WWI, Ataturk, the  founder of modern Turkey, called it Istanbul.  He wanted the country to be a secular state unlike President Erdogan who wants it to be an Islamic republic.  I can’t help but wonder what modern Turkish women think  about that.

After getting cleaned up I went up to the Observation Bar and met my friend Hilary. We last met when she came down to Liverpool to meet me in the spring and we had a lot of catching up to do. Eventually we made it to the main restaurant and a very nice dinner.  There was a dance party in the club but we couldn’t get a seat so we went to the piano bar instead.  After a nightcap we decided it was time to say goodnight. It’s supposed to be rainy tomorrow so we may just have a relaxing day. Hasta mañana.

November 11 - Istanbul

Here I am in my hotel overlooking the Bosporus Strait.  I had a very nice flight on Turkish Airlines.  We had something I’d never seen before on a plane.  We had a chef complete with white outfit and chef’s toque.  He came around to take our dinner order. The food was better than average airplane food, but still not great.  

We arrived in Istanbul around 5:30 PM on the 10th and I didn’t check into my hotel until nearly 8 PM. Traffic was horrendous!  For anyone who might come to Istanbul I have a good tip.  The airport is the largest one in the world, or at least it will be once construction is finished.  It’s huge already.  I had arranged for transportation through my hotel from the airport to the hotel and they had several different kinds of arrangements.  I opted for the one that was the “VIP pickup” and was it ever worth it.  A young woman was waiting for me with a golf cart when I came up the jetway.  We drove to a special border control place with no line and then we had a porter with a cart waiting on the other side. I had to walk through the baggage claim area and to the car park where my driver was waiting and even that was about 2 miles.  The cart ride was close to ten minutes long so I’m not sure how long my walk would have been without that.

Anyway, I got here and went to the casual restaurant called the Roof for something to eat. I ordered a gin and tonic to chill out a little and I’m including a picture which doesn’t really do justice to the size of this drink they brought me.  It was easily the size of 4 brandy snifters and half full of gin. With it came a small bottle of tonic.  I actually had to let the ice melt some before I could drink it because it was essentially straight gin. After a light meal I went to my room and crashed. One of these days I’m going to have to figure out how to sleep on a plane.

                             You may not be able to tell, but trust me, it's a huge glass

    

After a good night’s sleep I awoke to a partly cloudy day.  Evidently the storm isn’t supposed to get here until later this afternoon.  I had read about a museum of mosaic tile art in the old city so after breakfast I asked the concierge about how to get there and also asked if it was safe to go alone.  I was a little concerned because they have been having big demonstrations here.  She assured me it was fine.  I got a taxi and off we went to the old city.  Along the way we passed the port and I saw my ship docked waiting for me to board tomorrow.  Traffic in Istanbul is awful, but then it has a population in excess of 20 million.  The taxi dropped me off at a park below the Topkapi Palace and pointed in a direction which I assumed was where I needed to go. (He spoke no English.) So I set out through a very nice park with lots of signs in Turkish none of which looked like the name of the museum I was looking for.  It was pleasant with a lot of trees and benches and two colorful sculptures, one of which spelled out Istanbul and the other spelling something for which I haven’t a clue. I tried asking a couple of people for directions to the museum but had no luck.  After walking a couple of miles I gave up and since I was near an exit to the park I went out to a street where there were lots of taxis.  

                                      A street vendor selling roast corn and chestnuts

And that’s where my day took one of those serendipitous turns.  I hailed a taxi and got in with my new friend Metin.   As usual I got in the front seat with him and he spoke pretty good English.  At first I was going to go back to the hotel, but I asked him how far to the Grand Bazaar.  He said it was close so off we went.  He parked in a car park near the bazaar and we walked to it. Actually we strolled arm in arm.  We talked about our families and it was very pleasant. I’ve written in the past about the Grand Bazaar but just a little recap.  Construction of the bazaar began in 1455 AD and it now encompasses 60 streets with more than 4,000 shops.  It covers an area close to 350,000 sq. ft.  In other words, it’s huge!  I’ve only ever walked through a small part of it  and it is almost overwhelming.  I wasn’t looking for anything; I just wanted to experience it again.  Metin and I found a coffee shop with little tables and stopped for a coffee.  If you’ve never had Turkish coffee, let me tell you it is strong!  It’s not filtered so it has texture, it’s very strong and in the bottom of the cup there’s coffee sludge.  Regardless, it’s very tasty, kind of super-charged espresso.  We watched people go by and then me being me, I had to diplomatically ask Metin about what the average Turkish man thinks about what’s going on in Israel. His perspective was interesting and not at all like the people protesting in our cities.  He had a much more measured opinion.  I can’t help myself; I have to try to understand the feelings and thinking of people in other countries.  To be perfectly honest, if I have to make a choice between seeing a church or a museum or getting to meet ordinary people, I will always choose the latter.

                                     Entrance to the Bazaar

After we sat and talked for a while we walked back to the car and Metin drove me back to my hotel.  He gave me his contact information so if I come here again I can call him to pick me up.  I think I got back just in time because as I sit here now the wind has picked up and we’ve had two squalls.  It’s been a very nice day even though I never did get to see the mosaics.  I made a new friend and that’s, as they say, priceless. 

November 9 - The Journey Begins

I’m on my way!  Here I sit in Richmond International with a very long day in front of me.  In a couple of hours I’ll land in Newark and after a very long layover (I literally fly out at Zero Dark Thirty) I’ll head east to Istanbul.  Since my last flights in the spring, I reached what I was told was the magic age of 75 when supposedly one doesn’t have to take off shoes or go through a more detailed patdown.  Not so if you have any kind of joint or hip replacements.  I got the full deal; in fact I thought the TSA officer was giving me a massage for a moment.  It’s okay though because I’d rather be safe than the alternative.  

My flight from Newark is on Turkish Airlines which should be interesting.  I’ve read and heard very good things about them so I’m looking forward to the experience.  I just wish somebody like Elon Musk would work on a “Beam me up Scotty” system so I could avoid flying at all. Wouldn’t that be nice?

You can probably tell that I haven’t got anything to write about so I’m killing time.  If you look at the map of my itinerary at the top right of the page, it still shows that I’m going to Israel.  For obvious reasons we’re not but Seabourn never updated its map.  To be honest I’ll be kind of surprised if we make it to all the other ports in the middle eastern part of the voyage.  Several other cruise lines have canceled port calls in Egypt and a couple of other countries around the Red Sea.  Since I enjoy being on a ship, I won’t mind a lot although it would be nice to see some of the places again.  As they say, qué sera, sera. 

It's later now and I’m sitting in the SAS lounge in a very dingy Terminal B in Newark. You can tell which airline is predominant here because the terminal my United flight from Richmond landed in was bright and shiny unlike this one. I guess all the stepchildren  airlines are relegated here.

I’ve indicated in the past that I like to talk to everyone and I've met some of the most interesting people as a result. My time in Richmond was no exception.  A young man and I were sitting near our gate when we eavesdropped on a conversation between our pilot and the gate agent.  The pilot was concerned about having "too many bags onboard," not something you normally hear when waiting to get on one of these little commuter planes.  The young man and I looked at each other with a little alarm because it sounded like if there were too many, some bags might get taken off and be sent on later.  I said to him I hoped mine made it because I was going away for a month.  He told me he was going away for seven!  We struck up a conversation and I asked where he was going and he told me Iraq!  Not exactly on the top ten list of places to go right now.  Of course I asked what he would be doing there because he really didn’t look like a military guy.  Well, it turns out he’s a drone operator for the US government.  He just finished college in May and he spent a couple of months in southern Europe learning drone operations and now,  after a little time home, he’s off to sunny Iraq.  I thought I was going into an unsettled part of the world.  This guy had me beat by a long shot. The next time I read about drone strikes somewhere in that area I shall think of that young man.

Not much more to say tonight and I know this is a very boring entry, but that’s how air travel is nowadays.  Everything is “hurry up and wait.”  Next time I write, unless something incredibly exciting happens in the next several hours, I’ll be in Istanbul, AKA Constantinople, AKA Byzantium.  Iyi geceler (Google tells me that’s good night). 

Oops, I just looked at a forum for my cruise and someone already on the ship said that the Encore is making a sprint to get to Istanbul a day early because of a big storm in the eastern Med.  The weather is calling for 50 knot winds and she's trying to get safely in port before then.  It may be an interesting day on Saturday.