Venice

Good heavens why haven’t I been to Venice before this? It was absolutely magnificent. It is everything I’ve seen in pictures… and more. There was only one drawback to the day; it was May 1st which is a holiday in Italy and most of Europe so Venice was packed with people and some museums, shops and things were closed. None of that affected our day other than we chose not to go to St. Mark’s Square which was wall-to-wall people.

Our small ship was able to go through the waterway to the cruise port so we were able to see much of the skyline and buildings early in the morning and again in the evening as we left the port. What a sight!

We boarded the shuttle boat at about 9:30 without any wait - the short ride was about 15 minutes and it dropped us off fairly near St. Mark’s Square. We started off in that direction, but as the crowds grew heavier and heavier I decided not to deal with them and we headed off in the opposite direction. For us it was the perfect choice. We wandered along the sidewalks and along the canals crossing the bridges and taking whatever turns we wanted. Every block brought new wonders; I couldn’t stop taking pictures. We saw houses, shops, cafes - all the parts of real life in Venice rather than the stalls selling stuff for tourists.

At about noon we happened upon a couple gondoliers who ask if we wanted a ride. Why not, it is something I wanted to do anyway. Even though they are only used for tourists these days I just had to do it. Not cheap… but worth it. We had about a 40 minute ride through the small canals. Our guide pointed out several buildings and told us about them; Casanova’s house, several Doges houses, Marco Polo’s house. Now whether or not they are all true I don’t know… but it was a great time.

At about 2:00 we came out from between the buildings and realized we were back at the sea. Except it didn’t seem quite right. After studying our little map for quite a while we realized we were all the way across the island. We headed back in the direction we needed to go and eventually reached the place to catch the shuttle back to the ship.

I have heard all the stories: Venice is sinking - it looked fine to me. It stinks… I didn’t smell anything bad at all. It wasn’t even musty smelling. The buildings are falling into ruin… it seems to me they are doing everything possible to restore and save them. Many are 600 years old. I can’t imagine how they have stood for this many years in the water without crumbling away.
I’m tired and sore but what a day it was. This is now my number one “have to go back to” city. I need several days here with no time constraints (and no holiday). It’s quite expensive, but I’ll figure a way to do it.

The picture below gives you an idea of how crowded San Marco was.

Athens, Greece

Note from Sue: Since I have visited this area before I asked Jim to write this one so you get his impressions.
Arriving in Piraeus, the port city near Athens, we were planning on meeting our friend, Joyce. However a few days ago, through e-mail, she said she had received an appointment at the embassy for the same day we were going to be there. To change the date of the appointment could be very difficult and it could take several hours. We all decided getting together at a later date , whether Greece or Colorado, would be the thing to do. Since we have been to most of the historic sites in Athens we decided to go to the Plaka, which is a shopping area but it is in the old part of the city, just below the Acropolis. Outside the port terminal it seems all of the taxi drivers speak English and all are competing for your business. The prices quoted were all the same so we picked one and we’re off to the Plaka.

The temperature is rising and the sky is clearing; it is turning into a beautiful day. Time for some real coffee. We find an outdoor café and have coffee which comes with two small sweet rolls, very good. Near this café are some ruins that we could not identify but are great for some photos. For the next couple of hours we just roam this area, very narrow streets - up stairs - at the base of the Acropolis - down stairs - dead ends - looking in some of the shops - and taking lots of pictures. There are many ancient ruins throughout this area just mixed in with the newer buildings. Sue finds a fur shop. This may take a while. I am offered a chair and she heads up to the second floor with a sales lady. The owner of the shop comes to sit with me. He speaks very good English and soon asks if I smoke. When he hears I do smoke he is very happy and we light up. He is very happy, saying no Americans smoke anymore and explaining that since he enjoys smoking, he enjoys being with people who smoke; he says we should have a drink. Out comes a plastic bottle of homemade Raki from his uncle. After about 20 minutes of chatting, smoking and drinking, Sue comes down with a coat so she has a drink too! A deal is made and after more hugs and air kisses we depart.

Heading away from the Acropolis soon we lose our bearings and are lost, but still taking lots of pictures, especially when we find the meat and fish market. After a bit see some taxis. None of the drivers speak any English and we do not speak any Greek and since we have gone through this before (barely getting to our destination) we decided to look for the Metro. Half a block away is a Metro station. Having used the Metro the last time we were in Athens and luckily not having to change trains, we made it back to the port easily and for much less cost than the taxi.

Istanbul

We had an interesting arrival in Istanbul. We were watching out our balcony door and on the TV (bow camera) as we entered the port. We were on the great side of the ship and could see the Blue Mosque, St. Sophia, Topkapi Palace and many other interesting buildings through the morning fog. As we got closer to the pier I thought it looked like we should be turning more to come up alongside the dock (but then what do I know??) Suddenly the Captain came over the speakers “All Personnel, BRACE, BRACE, BRACE”. He had the propellers in full reverse and the bow thruster going… the engines were really roaring and the ship was bouncing and shaking. He got it stopped with only feet to spare! A really great save. He came on the speaker again in a little while and said we had gotten caught in an unpredicted current. All’s well than ends well.

This is one of the ports we have been really looking forward to; we met our friend Kagan who was our guide for 4 days a year and half ago. I had told him we were looking forward to some Turkish coffee so that was our first stop. Then we met his whole family for brunch at a restaurant overlooking the water on the Asian side of the city where they live. We had met Lala, his wife, for only 5 minutes on our previous trip and it was really fun to finally meet his two daughters. We also met her sister- and brother-in-law (Lala’s sister). Sadly we didn’t know about this in advance so we had already eaten breakfast and couldn’t begin to even taste all the wonderful looking foods on the buffet.

After brunch we headed to a shopping mall; no, I haven’t suddenly become a shopper but I wanted to get a special lens for my new camera. But… we couldn’t find a store that carried Sony lenses. We drove through many of the modern neighborhoods - the Asian side is mostly residential. Very lovely homes. Then we headed back across the bridge to the Europe side. We visited a very small church that we hadn’t been to before and took many pictures. Then we wandered down the main shopping street on our way to visit the watch tower. I got my box of Turkish Delight and Jim got the little coffee pot for brewing Turkish coffee. These are all modern shops with very few touristy things, but they are in historic buildings and it is a pedestrian only area so it was a nice walk. At the watch tower the line for the entrance was quite long so I decided that I didn’t want to wait… we would put it on our list for the next visit.
This is a city that is very high on my come back list - maybe even number 1 on the list. It is just fascinating and I want to have a chance to wander around the streets of the old city with no time constraints.

As I think Kagan is the best guide I’ve ever had anywhere I am particularly happy to hear that his business in really doing well. He has expanded and now has a few guides that work for him and owns his own transportation vans of several sizes. This is probably the only city in Europe right now that isn’t impacted by the economy… the prices are still fairly low so it is getting all the business!

Ashdod, Israel

I had expected our tour here to Jerusalem and Bethlehem to be one of the highlights of the trip. When we left in January this port was still questionable with the attacks from Gaza but as things have settled down we were able to make the port.

This has to be the most miserable shore excursion I’ve ever been on…most people I talked to agreed. For the second time we were on the bus with the screaming toddler and to add to that the mother lost her at one of the churches. Our guide was extremely poor; we had radios and earpieces so we could hear his explanations without him having to shout. Mostly he forgot to raise his microphone to his mouth when he was talking so we didn’t hear much… except one time when he was shouting “we must find the baby, we must find the baby”. He wouldn’t hold our group sign in the air so we could find him; since he was fairly short this was a real problem as everywhere we went was absolutely packed wall-to-wall with people. Occasionally, we would hear things like “ok, we are moving on, follow me” Except no one could see him to follow him. I don’t think I got any useable photos the entire day with everything so filled with people. Ok, I’ve bitched, now a little about what we saw…. Or tried to see.

From the port we traveled about an hour through the countryside and mountains. It was quite beautiful, green with farmlands throughout. As we got closer to Jerusalem we began to see more and more houses; all fairly new and much like those you find in the U.S. The houses became much more dense and then it turned into a big city with everything you would expect - big apartment complexes, businesses, government buildings and schools and universities.
Our first stop was at the Mount of Olives overlook where we could see the Old City - this is where we were headed. Then we stopped at the Garden of Gethsemane. It was very small and had the ancient olive trees surrounded by flowers. Next to the garden was the Church of all Nations. Back to the bus for a short ride and then we were at the Western or Wailing Wall. Men and women had to enter the area in front of the wall via different portals. This is where you write your prayer on a slip of paper and put it into the wall. From here we entered the old city using the Jaffe gate; an arched tunnel. We then walked part of the Via Dolorosa passing three of the Stations of the Cross (V, VI, and VII). All along the way the sides of the walkway were lined with shops and vendors. It probably would have been fun to browse here a bit, but there was no time as we all had to continually make our way through the hoards of people. This walk was all up hill with many steps; at the top, most people were moving quite slowly. At the end of our walk was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which is believed to be the site of Christ’s crucifixion, entombment, and resurrection. This church is shared by many different religions and denominations. There were a number of very steep stone steps that were difficult for many of the people in the group. It was impossible to get anywhere near the actual holy sites, but our guide did allow 10 minutes for anyone wanting to pray. Then we retraced our steps through all the shops (downhill this time) back to the bus for the short ride to lunch.

Lunch was a buffet in a very nice 5star hotel (neither of us can remember the name). It was a bit rushed as they were feeding all 12 bus-loads of us. Luckily for us our bus was one of the first ones which gave us a good head start on the food and for the restrooms. The women’s room had three stalls… let’s see, each bus had about 38 people - probably at least half of them women; times 12 buses… it was still a very long line when we were leaving.

After that we headed to Bethlehem. At the Palestine border our guide had to get off the bus as he isn’t allowed across the border. We went through 2 checkpoints and then another guide boarded the bus for our tour of the Church of the Nativity. This part of the trip was actually quite nice; there weren’t nearly the numbers of people. There was a service going on as we entered the church which made it even more interesting and all the lights were on… I may have gotten a couple good shots here. We went down steps in an area under the alter; a silver star in marble marks the place where it is believed Christ was born. Although this is a very small area and there were quite a few people, we were able to see this.

Back on the bus… then a 40 minute stop at a typical tourist trap for shopping. Finally, people finished buying their stuff and we headed back to the border… through 2 checkpoints again and our original guide got back on and we returned to the port.

Port Said, Egypt

Many of the people on the ship went to Cairo to see the pyramids and sphinx; about 10 bus-loads. Their tour meeting time was 5:30 am. Since we have already visited them, we got to relax and have our regular room service breakfast. At about 10:30 we decided to head out and see a bit of the city.

We walked around for about an hour looking in shop windows and past a beautiful mosque before returning to the port. Back at the port we hired one of the horse and carriages for an hour tour - we should have done that to start. It really is just a city, but our driver, Muhammad, did a good job telling us about most of the major buildings… his English was broken, but we got most of it. The area I liked best was in the oldest part of the city where all the streets were a giant bazaar. It was just the type market that I love to visit, but no vehicles were allowed in that area and we decided not to take a taxi back from the port.

Here is a picture of the Star Clipper sailing ship that we followed through the Suez Canal.

Suez Canal

Our day in the Suez Canal actually started at about 1:00 in the morning when we were awakened by the sound of the anchor being dropped. We were at our place to wait for the morning transit. Jim got up about 5:00, but I went back to sleep - at 6 he called me and said we were starting to move toward the canal.

The southern entrance to the canal is the city of Suez. The city was really big - it seemed to stretch for several miles after we started through the canal. There were industrial areas, apartment buildings, houses, mosques… just about anything you could think of. The canal doesn’t have locks like the Panama Canal; it is just a canal that links the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. It was built in the early 1900’s. We were lucky to be on the port side of the ship as I thought there was much more interesting scenery on that side. Our side was green and had villages, farms and houses; the other side was desert.

All along the canal were guard posts with armed soldiers in towers and fortifications on the ground. We could see a highway not far from the canal that had the same guard posts. We must have passed at least 25 of these in the 100 (or so) miles of the canal. The soldiers were all friendly and waved and whistled at the ship as we passed. We followed one of the Star Clippers four-masted ships all the way… it’s too bad her sails were not up. It was fascinating seeing the way people actually live and the many little boats they were using for fishing or just local transportation in the canal. One of the unique things we have only seen in Egypt are the pigeon houses; they look like giant bee hives. They breed the pigeons to eat.

We arrived in Port Said about 4:30 in the afternoon and docked right behind Star Clipper. It was funny watching all the vendors scrambling to get their stalls set up as we were about an hour early. More about Port Said in the next segment!

Safaga, Egypt

Our tour started at 6:30 in the morning; it is a 3 ½ bus ride to Luxor.Not many options at this port… you either went on the 4 day overland or the 15 hour tour to Luxor or stayed on the ship. Since we have already been to the Pyramids and Cairo we didn’t do the overland.

Right after we went through the small city of Safaga, we were into the mountains; big, dry desert mountains with no vegetation and few signs of life - but the highway was good. We wound around through the mountains for about a two hours and then were into the valley. Slowly it turned from desert to the green Nile valley. Once the farmlands started, it was beautiful and extremely interesting. The farmers still use donkeys and work the fields by hand; great photos!
Luxor is a huge modern city and our first stop was at the ancient ruins of Karnak Temple. So much to see and only an hour to see it, but in the 102 degree heat 1 hour turned out to be just fine! Huge columns (134 of them) and statues… all the stuff I love. The ram-headed sphinxes were wonderful. After Karnak we had lunch at the Sonesta St. George. It was a very nice buffet lunch overlooking the hotel pool with the Nile in the distance. All along the Nile in this area were the huge Nile River cruise boats - wow, they look really nice, but there were so many of them I’m wondering if the river doesn’t look a bit like the freeway at rush hour.

After lunch we went to the Valley of the Kings. This is where the Pharaohs decided to be buried after the pyramids… people kept digging into the pyramids and stealing the treasures - just digging hidden tombs into the mountains seemed a better idea. It must have worked as they have only discovered 67 tombs so far. Our entrance ticket allowed us to visit any two tombs except for Tut’s tomb. Luckily they had a little tram that took you up the hill from the entrance. Our guide told us about 4 of the tombs and then we had our hour. We chose one easy one and one a bit more difficult. They only allow 10 minutes inside the tombs and they really keep the lines of people moving - aaack, no pictures allowed! The original paint colors are still brilliant - it was amazing. Apparently one guy (not on our tour) took a picture with his cellphone and they immediately took it away from him. As we exited the tomb, he was still there arguing with the guards to get it back.

Next we went to the Temple of Luxor. That was my favorite of all the stops on this trip. More columns and statues. There was a row of human headed sphinxes. More rooms many areas where the original paint colors could still be seen.

We also had quick photo stops at the Collosi of Memnon and Queen Hatshepsut’s Tomb and then it was time to start the long drive back to the ship. The Sonesta had provided boxed snacks for our dinner. It was 10:00 when we finally got back to the ship and probably close to 11 before we got through security and back to our cabin. We had a couple cocktails on the balcony and watched as we sailed away from port. Then I hit the bed and slept like the dead until 7:00 in the morning.

I would like to spend a week at Luxor sometime in the coolest month and really take some time to see the area… then do a Nile river cruise on one of the luxury cruise boats.