May 14- Athens Acroplois and Ouzo

We pulled into a very large port or collection of ports I guess filled with hundreds of ships large and small. ferries, tugs, oil tankers cruise ships of many sizes. yachts and power boats. the City itself from the ship looked like a concrete  jungle, not the fancy stonework we had come to expect. Not the colours of Italy on the coast. rather drab really. But the jacaranda were in bloom and they were lovely!

We had our breakfast and went to the galaxy of the stars to get our excursion number. 4 again. onto the waiting buses after the obligatory lineup and check out. our tour guide was a lovely lady who told us the entire history of greece and gave us lessons on the origins of words. She really went on and on. At first it was interesting but after a while it was 'Oh my God could you just use coles notes or something. We are never going to remember all this. 'but she just went on and on. we learned about gymnasium which means to be healthy and naked. so working out naked to be healthy is a gym.

Athens is a very large city. We were doing the Acropolis at leisure tour and were on the most popular tour that day again. Our first stop was at the olympic stadium where our tour guide told us we could use the washrooms and wander around for 20 minutes. Very interesting. I could just imagine all the runners coming in. We could not actually go into the stadium it was all roped and fenced off.

over to one side of the stadium was a young man and women in costume so we went over there to see what was going on. for a donation they would pose with us as spartans and we could take photos. Fun! so we did. and when we gave them a donation they gave us a little charm or pendant of a greek coin. lovely.

Back on the bus and off to the Acropolis. our history and etymology lesson continued. Once we got to the Acropolis site we were given instructions to meet at a certain road and not to be late, then we proceeded up the side of the hill.

There were many steps but it was not unmanageable. The temperature was increasing but we stopped often enough that we were not over stressed. As you walk up the hill you cannot see the Acropolis. there are lots of little trees along the path up.,and cats. I like cats so that is fine.

When you get to the top there is a long line of people to get in and so you amuse yourself by looking at the temples at the bottom of the hill. Our tour guide called us all together at one place and gave us instructions again about when to meet at the bottom of the hill.

the area that she got us together at the top just before going in was really not very large and there was no hand rail to keep one from falling off the marble step and there were lots of people going past us so I really did not feel safe stopping there but she seemed comfortable enough. we then proceeded through the large entry into the Acropolis. It was marvellous. It was impressive.

Our tour guide then called us together again and proceeded to warn us about the marble which can be very slippery especially when wet. the history lesson continued but Margie and I slipped out the back of the group and proceeded to wander around and actually see the parthenon and the other temples and exhibits that were there. the tour guide talked a lot, too much really. the entire history of Greece  it seemed.

It was grand! We saw temples to old gods that I had never even heard of. pathways between the temples or where they had been and all that was left was the stone outlines on the ground. We ran into a few others from our tour who also slipped away from our chatterbox tour guide because they, like us, wanted to see the acropolis not just hear about it.

We wandered around for about 30 minutes taking lots of pictures of the view from the top of the hill, of the stacks of pieces of columns and statues and of each other. We were in Greece at the Parthenon!

We then wound our way back to the path down the hill and strolled down which was very much easier than walking up. We gathered at the bottom of the hill where our guide had instructed us to wait. there were several others from our group already there and we waited. and waited. and finally our guide came and said we were in the wrong place????? she said we should have gone to the bus as they were all waiting for us!! WHAT? we were exactly where she told us to be! We went down and got onto the bus and had to wait for one couple who were not there. they finally showed up and the lady had hurt her leg so then there was 20 minutes of first aid to bandage her scratched leg.

When we finally left the acropolis our free time had been decreased by about 30 minutes which we thought would still leave us lots of time to have lunch and shop at the place, the old area of Athens. we drove around the acropolis through crazy traffic and then found out that where they wanted to drop us off was not available so we would have to be dropped off about 6 blocks from there and then walk in. OK, the trails and tribulations of excursions in Athens. but what the hey, we were in Athens!

iI was an interesting walk. Our guide telling us all about the architecture of the area, the old and the new. By the time we got to the restaurant for our leisurely lunch we only had 45 minutes to eat and shop.
The food was very good, a greek salad and Ouzo to drink. yummy. the family sitting next to us wanted to go shoe shopping and they were going to try to accomplish this in 30 minutes. No pressure there. we went into two shops and bought souvenirs like crazy. So much for the leisure part of the tour. We did manage to find some fun things.

 Back up the street and onto the bus and back to the boat.
for a leisurely evening.
We sprinkled Mom and Dad in the bay in Athens and watched the sunset. All in all, it was a lovely day.

very exciting.

13 may 2016 - our second day at Sea

Today as it was an unexpected and unscheduled Day at Sea we were entertained by the crew and cast of the different shows all day. Before Breakfast we hot tubbed and pooled it again and then had a leisurely breakfast.

After lunch we went to a show on chocolate. put on by the baking staff onboard we all got the same their wares. yummy

After that we explored the ship a little. there is a spot in the front where ;you can go down some stairs and be sort of in the bridge. it is walled off with glass and you can see the bridge crew doing their thing driving the ship. interesting.

learned to speak greek and dance the greek dances from the greek magician performing the evening shows.

We went to the show that evening and it was good but then they are always good. we were sailing with  Homer and Ulysses, Agamemnon and spartans I don't think It can get better than that

it was a lovely day at sea. not eventful but quite enjoyable.

Tomorrow Athens.

May 12 - at Sea

I woke up early and went to explore the ship in the wee hours. there were a few crew about cleaning and preparing for the morning. I took photos of each floor of the ship hoping that would help me to be abel to find my way around better. We kept getting confused and walking the wrong way until we found the maps and realized that we were walking the wrong way.

I ended up back in the room and Margie was up and getting ready for the day. We went to the hot tubs. The sun was already up and the hot tub was hot and lovely. We luxuriated in our decadence of cruising and then more people started to show up. still lovely but not so private. we went into the pool for a swim and then into the hot tub again.
Breakfast in the big aft restaurant "Windows".

Today was a spa day and we had appointments for the morning seaweed wrap and aroma massage. Mine was earlier than Margie's.  I showed up on time and was shown into my room.  Quiet music played and a young  lady came in and we began with a massage and then the wrap which she said would become hot. Well, seaweed stuff and saran wrap, I guess hot would be something that would happen. A shower to get rid of the seaweed stuff and then the sales pitch. I ended up leaving with about 150 dollars worth of stuff.


 A relaxing lunch from the outside restaurant  and suddenly an announcement about our day at sea. A fisherman has spotted a refuge ship floating in the Mediterrean. the Finnish coast guard has been called in but as we were the closest ship, the law of the sea said that we had to go and stand to until the coast guard got there. What?

The Finnish Coast Guard? OK so it seems they all take turns taking care of the refugees situation in Europe. there are a lot of Refugees from Africa.
It felt weird being on a cruise ship with lots to eat and drink and being safe while 300 people were crammed onto a tiny boat trying to get to Italy. Eventually the Coast guard did come and assess the situation. some folks who were in bad shape or ready to give birth were brought on board but they were quarantined from the the rest of us and so we never actually saw anyone. A helicopter came and got them to bring them back to Italy. and then we continued onto our now rearranged journey. We would not be going to Mykonos but would instead proceed onto Athens and have an extra day at Sea. we were sad but we certainly understood that taking care of the refugees at sea was a much more important endeavour.
Margie and I went to the art auction and Margie ended up bidding on and getting a set of paintings that were very pretty in the impressionist style. We will arrange to get them mailed home so we do not have to carry them on our journeys after we leave the ship. It was a relaxing but eventful day life change=ing for the refuges and fulfilling for us.

11 May - Naples, Capri and Pompeii

Naples..... old Napoli  the home of Pizza- Pompeii buried by Vesuvius - Sorrento and Capri - our destinations for today. How exciting.
 We were getting to know the routine now. A lovely breakfast of eggs, roast tomatoes, beans and toast at the buffet as we watched the ship pull into port.  A wander down to our room for a pitstop and to get a bottle of water.  Off to the theater to get assigned to our tour.  We again picked the most popular tour.

Number 4 today.  A slightly rainy day and a gentleman tour guide with a lovely Italian voice. We drove through Naples to a cameo store and watched a cameo maker make a beautiful cameo from a shell. Cameos are made from shells. finely crafted layers of shell filed away with a drumel. Very pretty. I, of course had to go to the washroom and so by the time I got back I did not have a lot of time to shop. Margie got a nice necklace earring set and I got a nice little brown cameo pendant. Then we rushed back to the bus.

The tour guide told us all about Naples as we were driving throuh it on our way to Pompeii. Through the misty rain we saw Mount Vesuvius in the distance. It was missing the top of the mountain and the guide told us that it had come off during the eruption that buried Pompeii in 40 feet of ash.

When we arrived at Pompei Margie bought an umbrella as our misty rain had turned into something a little more substantial.
we climbed a small hill and entered the ruins of Pompeii. They have placed large pieces of art throughout the ruins kind of like in Versailles but outdoors.  Interesting.

Our tour guide gave us lots of details including some that are not in wikipedia,  like the fact that the ruts on either side of the laneways were caused by the wheels of chariots being driven up the lanes.  Wikipedia and our tour guide does say "Pompeii was an ancient Roman town-city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, in the territory of the commune of Pompei. Pompeii, along with Herculaeum and many villas in the surrounding area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the  eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

Researchers believe that the town was founded in the seventh or sixth century BC by the Osci or Oscans. It came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, and was conquered and became a Roman colony in 80 BC after it joined an unsuccessful rebellion against the Roman Republic. By the time of its destruction, 160 years later, its population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an Amphitheatre, (We learned that the greeks had theatres  and the romans put them together to creat amphitheaters.) a gymnasium, and a port.

The eruption destroyed the city, killing its inhabitants and burying it under tons of ash. Evidence for the destruction originally came from a surviving letter by Pliny the Younger, who saw the eruption from a distance and described the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder, an admiral of the Roman fleet, who tried to rescue citizens. The site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748.

One has to really watch where one is walking as the lanes are all cobbled and very uneven. There are stones in the middle of the lanes raised up and we found out that those are for people to walk across the lane but they are low enough for the chariots to go over them.

Also there were grooves in the stones in front of some of the "shops" along the lanes. These were for the sliding doors..... they had sliding doors way back then. Amazing!

The objects that lay beneath the city have been preserved for centuries because of the lack of air and moisture. These artifacts provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city during the Pax Romana . Things like the  penis 's carved into the roads to point the way to the whorehouse and the frescoes in the whore house showing what positions were available for the visiting clients. this was our first house of ill repute and probably our last. 

During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies. This allowed one to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died. 

There were three of these casts on display, one of a dog, one of a man and one of a child. Very sad.

Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years. Today it has UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year.

After Pompeii we drove to Sorrentto through the beautiful Itlian countryside and a few tunnels thrown in for good measure. There are five towns that are along the coast that we passed through to get to Sorrento. We passed many small lemon  and olive groves, flower and vegetable gardens  and of course cars and bikes on the road.Sorrento is on a cliff and is lovely.

Wikipedia says " Sorrento is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. A popular tourist destination, it can be reached easily from Naples and Pompeii as it is at the south-eastern end of the Circumvesuviana rail line. The Sorrentine Peninsula  has views of Naples, Vesuvius and the Isle of Capri. The Amalfi Drive, connecting Sorrento and Amalfi, is a narrow road that threads along the high cliffs above the Tyrrhenian Sea.  The roads are narrow and they arena cliffs big above the sea.

Sorrento is a lovely town and the sun had come out and so  it was bright, fresh and clean. We stopped in Sorrento at a wood carving place where Margie and I spent a little bit too much time buying souvenirs but the tour group waited for us patiently and then we walked through town to a lovely little restaurant decorated with burrows. ceramic ones and very colourful pottery. I had pasta for lunch which was very good.  a lovely lunch which was included in the price of our excursion.

After lunch we walked through town a little bit more to some stairs going down to a road that lead to the bay. there were a lot of stairs and I sprinkled Mom and Dad in some bushes about two thirds of the way down. 
Ferries and hydrofoils connect the town to Naples, Amalfi, Positano, Capri and Ischia. Sorrento's sea cliffs are lined with luxury hotels looking out over the bay.

We waited for about 20 minutes at the pier in a lovely little park with Sorrento high up on the cliffs behind us. Then onto the hydrofoil, my first,  a lovely  30 min trip and we were in  Capri,  Goat Island to the Romans. The water under the boats was the most amazing blue. Who needs the blue grotto.

Capri has a Funicular railway that goes from the marina up to the town of Capri. our tour guide gave us our tickets , you need two one to go up and one to go down, and we were loaded onto the Funicular. a train an tracks where the seats are all horizontal and the car is angled to fit the rails. so we all stood on one side of the car which unladed its downward bound passengers on the opposite side . then after their doors closed our doors opened and we got in you ride backwards or stand  and it is actually quit a nice ride up.

At the top of the funicular is more stairs to the town square where our tour guide told us to meet back there in 90 minutes and do not be late as we had to catch a boat back to naples and our cruise ship.the sun had come out and it was hot. the square had a great view of the bay and we stopped there to take some photos.

We decided not to hike up to the point and just to wander a bit. We wandered around the maze of little streets looking at shops and restaurants. Very expensive shops.  Then we decided it was time to look for a washroom.
We found a little park with statues of cats and more little streets, lanes really, there are no cars in Capri only little carts. We thought we saw a sign for a washroom and followed the lane but were confused by the ending of it.

We found a lot of little lanes and some of them had little shrines. We found shops that had skirts and little dresses for 1000 dollars, bathing suits for 200 euros. yes you had to have money to shop here.

We thought we were probably lost  but eventually we found a laneway with shops and a restaurant called the Aurora.  It was a sign. My granddaughters name is Aurora so we stopped to have a drink and use the facilities.

We ordered a Limoncello each and relaxed. they also brought us little appetizers which were very tasty. Margie did not like her limoncello but I did. so I drank hers too.
Limoncello is a digestive made from lemon rinds, alcohol, water and sugar which is produced in Sorrento. 

When it was time to go I realized that my little bag of souvenirs from the wood carving shop was not there. My first inside reaction was SHIT*#<^#* but then I thought 'I am not going to ruin this lovely day on the isle of Capri. I would just look for my souvenirs and see what we would see. I had it on the funicular so that is where we would go'. of course the fact that I had the limoncello helped too and I laughed at the predictability of losing the souvenirs even after our tour guide had told us repeatedly not to leave anything behind.
We wound our way back to the funicular and asked the ticket man if someone had turned in the bag. He said to check down below. so I found our tour guide and told him that I was going down to the lost and found and would meet him down by the bay.

We took the funicular down and asked at the bottom if someone had turned in a bag of souvenirs. he said to go to the lost and found just outside the entry. we went just outside the entry there was no sign for the lost and found. there was a restaurant , there were a few shops which i went into. finally I stopped a police man and asked if he could tell me where the lost and found was. he pointed to a tent across the way and low and behold it was. I asked there and they asked me what time it was and what colour the bag was. did they have that many bags turned in? I could not remember the colour of the bag it was either blue or maroon and it had my name in it as the tax paper work was inside. he called somewhere and then said NO it was not turned in. Out loud I said thank you, inwardly I said **!!#^><* dam. I was sad but now I had to get back to meet everyone  to get onto the next boat.
I picked up a few postcards at a little kiosk and then we got onto the boat with the beautiful blue water underneath it and a after a 45 minute ride we were back on the pier in Naples.  A short walk to a bus which took us to our ship.
So it was a very full day with lots of highs and lows. We had a lovely dinner and watched the show. tomorrow would be a day at sea and our spa treatments. things to look forward to.