Month: October 2023

Kusadasi, Turkey

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Kusadasi was a blast! In many ways!!! Four big cruise ships ported here, being re-routed from Israel and Egypt, and/or being scheduled to port on the “bird island” = Kusadasi. It is beautiful here, rich in culture, lot of money floating around from millions of tourist and Turkish locals who own vacations homes along the coast.

Our tour is only half a day long, so we’d better hurry: two major tourists attractions are on the program. Our guide is hopeful that we’ll beat the crowd by going to the house of Virgin Mary first, but so did 249 other bus loads full of people! It is a zoo, feels light the cattle in the slaughterhouse, it is a holy place and everybody has it in their bucket list. Holy shit!The Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mom, apparently lived here the last 5 years of her life. And the Turkish locals make a lot of money of this special place.

The second destination is Ephesus, Efes, an archeological site that is only partially excavated. It is a big area with lots of private houses and public buildings, where artifacts were discovered, indicating medical clinics, libraries, all kinds of stores, etc. It is amazing to see the excavation in progress on one side of the street and the finished results on the other side.

Apparently this is the original backgammon game – as an avid player, that made my heart beat faster!

Other interesting areas included a public toilet with nice views to the market place. Here, important decision were made, negotiations were done, discussions held place. The very rich made their slaves sit here for a while to warm up the spot beforehand…

More interesting views, for example mosaic work with beautiful details… At the bottom, the amphitheater indicating that Efes was a town of 250,000 people!

Ρόδος / Rhodos / Rhodes

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25 years ago I visited Ρόδος for the first time. A cute oldtown, a castle, 5 hotels along the beach. My friend Lisa and I rented a scooter, we drove around the island, it was a quiet, relaxing vacation.

It looks very different now, not 5, but what seems to be 100 hotels, all the streets paved, cruise ships in the port, bus loads full of tourists shipped to all the beautiful destinations.

We signed up for a wine tasting + cooking class + 10-course meal and we loved every bit of it! Together with 6 other people from our cruise we headed out to a 45min drive to a winery where our host Jason waited for us and walked us through the vineyards where his small family winery grow 7 different varieties if wine. Some from France (Merlot, Chardonnay), some old varieties from Greece. The following winetasting was delicious, informative and prepared a relaxed mood to start the cooking class. Tzatziki, dolmas, and an eggplant dip was what we made.

The 10-course meal topped off everything in the best way possible; one dish after another, one better than the previous, wine and more wine was poured – we all were very happy!

Limassol, Cyprus

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Limassol (Lemesos) is the second biggest town in Cypress (after Nicosia in the center, which is divided between Turkey and Greece). Limassol is on the south part of the island, whereas Turkey owns the north part.

Cyprus Medieval Museum (Lemesos Castle)

I’ve been on many different islands in Greece and multiple times on the mainland, so it surprised me quite a bit, that the taxi driver we hired at the port entered the car on the right side and started driving on the left side of the road 🥶.

Later, on the way back to the ship, we learned the reason behind this: England used to occupy Cyprus for 50 years. They left and what they left what traffic on the left…..

We spend the day floating around the old town, visited the Limassol museum, the market, we are not Greek, but Cyprus salad, walked along the shore and enjoyed another warm sunny day at the Mediterranean. The war in Israel dimmed our mood and made me feel guilty of playing tourist, where – not far from us – people explode in hatred and kill each other…

Cathedral of Agia Napa

Port Said, Egypt

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We had booked a private tour with Ahmed to visit Cairo, Geza, the pyramids, the sphinx and Memphis. But our ship was late docking, and it took forever to get on land, so our tour started way late, which was a bummer! And then there was the Egyptian security protocol, which wanted all the guests who were scheduled for a tour to be loaded onto the buses and be escorted out of Port Said. 30 buses and 20 minibuses later we were finally allowed to leave the port 😖

And we finally made it, we left Port Said and drove south towards Cairo; with a police escort in a long convoy. 3.5 hours later, we picked up Ahmed, our guide for the day, and headed to Memphis to visit a museum.

That statue was discovered in the mud of the Nile River, face down, and they built a museum around it, because transporting this enormous 67 foot long statue was impossible due to its weight!

Then we finally drove to the pyramids of Geza. This was in all our bucket lists for a while and we were impressed! What magnificent views, on a hilltop on the west banks of the Nile River. West was always associated with death, East with life. And because pyramids are always burial buildings, they had to be built west. Therefore the town of Geza is on the east side.

As you can see, we had fun taking photos 😀 before we went inside 😖

Entering this colossal building was not so much fun for me. It was a hot day, the entrance is tiny and the walkway up that narrow ramp ~3 stories up, was very claustrophobic! People going up and down the same ramp, it was sticky, dim, and not enough air! 😟

Now I know why Ahmed didn’t go in with us…

The Sphinx was next before we had to rush back. An enormous sculpture that was buried in sand when discovered. Only the upper part of the head showed above the sand – and look at it now (IT, not HIM or HER)

On the way back to the port, another 3.5 hour escorted bus convoy, we heard the horrible news that Israel was attacked by the terrorist Hamas group. What a horrendous act of war towards civilians! It breaks my heart…

And slowly the big uncertainty sets into our minds, that we are supposed to port in Ashdod, Israel tomorrow morning with an excursion to Jerusalem. The more we read about the attacks, the more we hope that we are not even landing in Israel. Thank whatsup and my family in Germany, we get more details and really hope to just skip Israel…

Back on the ship we hear the “good” news: Israel is cancelled, we’ll have an extra day at sea. Hopefully we can enjoy it and not think too much of what’s going on so close to where we are….. But, of course, our vacation mood is disappearing with every detail we hear…

Cruise Ship Art

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Yes, there is such thing as cruise ship art! Like cruise ship music, that consists of poorly paid, uninspired, overworked, tired looking professionals, that can be heard in 5 different locations, cruise ship art is everywhere. It is right in your face and it is painful. They have artwork in every hallway, staircase, elevator. And they have an art gallery!

So this art gallery has a collection of very interesting / amusing paintings and sculptures, all of which fall under the category: “the Alps, the roaring elk, the sunset”! But it is modified towards the cruise ship art lovers, who happen to have left their taste at home. All those pieces are very bright (primary colors, mixing colors is overrated, right?), very interesting (caricature Mickey Mouse in front of a naturalistically painted romantic forest setting – wait a minute, wasn’t there gonna be a roaring elk?) and extremely ugly (abstract blizzard in orange, red and black).

What surprises the most is, that the so-called art gallery is busy. Very busy! People are standing in line to get rid of their money; I guess they have too much of it! And then – from day 1 on – there are “sold” stickers on a few of those art pieces! That makes the art lovers get their elbows out and try to skip the lines and purchase quickly! Of course it’s all one-of-a-kind – indeed and thank god there aren’t any more! Hush hush, quick quick! The so-called art experts give you professional advise and recommend paintings according to your decor at home. Yikes 😱

Zakynthos

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So I’d already been in Rome, Napoli and Sicily. Zakynthos, or Zaki as the locals call it, was the fist “new”. And it was a good one! A beautiful little island with lots of little farms growing mostly olive trees. The main summer income for the islanders is tourism, the main winter income is olive oil. No wonder that they sell all kinds of olive products everywhere: oil, lotions, along with honey, wine etc.

Our friends Yuki and Bill, Ted and I joined a day-long tour by bus & boat. Half of the day we drove around the island, first on the westside, where most of the 20,000 people live, then on the eastside with its high cliffs and gorgeous views.

The most famous view is down to the shipwreck beach. A group of cigarette smugglers had a problem with their ship and – instead of being caught by the coastguard – they just abandoned their vessel and ran off. The ship ended up on this beach and is falling apart ever since this happened (in the 1980s). Unfortunately the beach is closed and you are not allowed to go ashore because of falling rocks from the cliff surrounding the beach.

We had a few more stops with views to other beaches, one of which had sulfuric gases bubbling out of the water near the beach, making every public restroom small like a perfume store. But it is healthy apparently… On top of the cliff above the stinky beach is a little bar, where the people on the beach can order food and drinks, that then is transported down by an interesting gondola basket

The second part of the day we spent on a boat, moving along the coast and it’s many little beaches, coves and grottos. We drove inside a few of them, we swam in the Mediterranean we had a lot of fun!!! The crystal clear water has all shades of blue and turquoise – like heaven to me ❤️

Taormina

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Last year we fell in love with Sicily, when we visited the Aeolian Islands to do a one week long hike. But our hike organisation Macs Adventure had to change the itinerary, because the volcano Stromboli acted up and destroyed some of the hiking trails we were supposed to use. So we ended up with 2 nights in Taormina and we loved it! We wanted to come back and when we saw the itinerary of this current cruise, we didn’t hesitate to book it.

Unfortunately the day in Taormina was cut short and we were supposed to be back by 3pm. When we wanted to leave the ship by tender, this process took forever and we when we finally were on land we couldn’t find a taxi to bring us up to Taormina 🥴

It was around 11.30am when we finally arrived and we immediately rewarded ourselves with a delicious cannoli 🤩

Cannoli is a round baked philodough that is shaped into a Zylinder and filled with a ricotta cream and sprinkled with pistachios – delicious!
Limoncello Spritz for Edith, chocolate gelato for Ted

There is an image that you can find throughout Taormina: flower pots with an middle eastern looking male face. Legend has it that this handsome guy came to Taormina and fell in love with a local virgin. After making love with her, she discovered that he was a married man. So she chopped off his head and used it as a flower pot. And the herbs growing from this pot were thriving! Ever since the people in Taormina make flower pots with his image so that their herbs and flowers grow well!

Alex – honk – Alex – honk honk – Alexandria

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It is loud here in Alexandria! Very loud. And very dirty. And very smelly! I wish I had Ted’s nose; his sense of smell is almost non-existent and that is a big advantage sometimes.

Today is National Armed Forces Day, a national holiday and everything is closed.

Alexandria was on our itinerary, and my brain just jumped up and screened: Bibliotheca Alexandria, but this magnificent modern library, that I always wanted to visit, is also a victim of the National Armed Forces Day and therefore closed 😱

Ok then, let’s go to the national museum then. We met our friends on the way there, they just finished their visit, so we feel safe. We know it is open, small, interesting and it has a bathroom which makes Ted happy. We arrive and the guard at the entrance tells us that it is closed. No electricity.

Egypt is not really inviting today, we are already tired of walking around and we choose to sit in a cafe and drink a coke (Edith) and a water (Ted). And it turns out that they don’t have coke. I guess maybe it has something to do with National Armed Forces Day? Honk honk honk…

Capri

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This tiny little island, just one hour boat ride off the coast in Napoli, is called the lemon-island. And indeed: lemons everywhere! Not only on almost every tree, but every store sells lemon stuff, every decor is somewhat lemon something and the food and drinks you can order has some lemon flavor: lemon ravioli, limoncello spritz, pizza with prosciutto and lemon, etc.: delicious! If lemon wouldn’t already be my favorite taste, it would be now!

And then there is more than lemons: the charm! Capris and Anacapris tiny little streets, cute little stores, bars and restaurants, everything is small, narrow, tiny! Even the garbage trucks, delivery trucks, buses, everything is small scale… cute, except you LLP want to sit in one of those buses, which don’t have any legroom 😜

The highlight of every visit in Capri is definitely the blue grotto! Getting in and out of this needle hole of an entrance is somewhat adventurous: you have to lay flat inside a small fisher boat and the sailer is waiting for the water level to go down with every wave. He then pulls the boat inside by grabbing a chain and pulling hard. As I said, all the people in the boat lay flat, kind of on top of each other, nothing sticks out higher than the rim of the boat. And then you’re inside!

There is only one street in Capri (and many walkways / hiking trails) and that one street is narrow! As a tourist, you are not allowed to drive a car on this street, only a scooter, but I wouldn’t recommend that. With an inch between upcoming traffic on one side and the cliff on the other, only the local pros can maneuver that craziness!