Final post!

All 400 pictures are now on flickr. You can see them at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cycler48

I did not put a description on each one. I did put them in 'sets', so when you get to the site, look on the right hand side of the page. Any set ending in 2012 is from the cruise. Over time I will try to add descriptions, but it won't happen overnight.

Thanks again for following along. Next big stop will be Alaska. Can't wait.

Oh, by the way. Did you hear the news that Royal Caribbean is adding a third Oasis class ship?? Yea!!

Wrap-up

Saturday, the next to last day. This is a text only version for two reasons: I’m out of computer time and I need to do a summary of the land and sea tours.

First, I want to list a few of the restaurants we went to. An earlier post included some restaurants we visited. I hope I’m not repeating any, but I might be, so I apologize up front.

Lucca – Trattoria Pizzeria Bar da Gherardo – In the amphitheater plaza.

Rome – Ristochicco – Near Castel Sant’Angelo

Rome – Osteria dell’Anima – Ask to be seated upstairs.

Use Google or Trip Advisor to find them on maps.

Our hotels were:

Venice – San Clemente Palace – Closing November 1^st we were told, but if somebody else opens it, I highly recommend it. Especially if they keep the free shuttle to San Marco.

Florence – Cerretani  Hotel – Perfect location.

Rome – Hotel Palatino – Perfect location.

Cruisetour summary:

I would always do this tour BEFORE the cruise and I would always arrive in the first city at least one day early if you are traveling from the US. The six hour time difference will take one day to get used to. When you arrive in the morning (most flights are overnight), don’t stop. Spend the day normally and immediately get into a regular sleep pattern. After the first day, no problems.

Christina was a very good tour director. She explained everything the first night we all got together and she was always available. The majority of our local guides were good. Giovanni in Rome was exceptional. Tip the guides and bus drivers when possible. A euro or two is typical; give more to the exceptional guides.

Get lost in Venice. Walk around until you have no idea where you are. Then keep walking. Watch for signs high on the sides of buildings at the intersections to find either San Marco or Rialto. Go to Murano. Ride the vaporetto completely around the island. Go to St. Mark’s square at night. Ride a gondola at least once in your life and don’t complain about the cost. Just do it.

Don’t leave Florence without going inside the Santa Croce church. See David (the real one, inside). Listen to the local guide when they are explaining the art and sculptures, even if you aren’t into art and sculpture. Walk over the Ponte Vecchio. Order the bistecca fiorentino, medium.

No matter how many days you are in Rome, it won’t be enough. We’ve been there twice for maybe 3 total days and haven’t seen half of it. Bring a map if you are with Samantha (kidding!). Walk to the top of one of the seven hills to look around. Do the Sistine Chapel every single time you are in Rome, but watch the little incline down at the end while you are looking straight up. Go inside the coliseum and walk up to the upper levels. Be sure to go on a day when there is a 5500 cyclist tour going on. Eat pasta.

You will need a one week cruise to unwind from the cruisetour. But you have a lot of free time on the tour. In fact, we were slightly disappointed that we didn’t do more in Venice. It was just a morning tour of the Doges’ Palace and St. Marks. We wanted more. The other cities were about right.

The cruise:

We liked every stop. In Sicily, go to Mt. Etna and Taormina. DO NOT miss Ephesus. Highlight of the cruise. Crete was surprisingly interesting. Remember to catch the bus where they drop you off. Athens is all about the Acropolis.

Today we are doing the charity Walk for Wishes with the captain. Then we eat. Then we have a backstage tour of the theater (Patty is laughing so loud I can hear her). Then we eat. Then we work on our sunburns (well, mine anyway. Di is Italian and doesn’t burn). Then we eat and hit the casino.

When we get home I will be posting a link to a flickr.com account where you can see all of the several hundred photos I took.

Thank you all for following along. You can email me directly at cycler48@yahoo.com with questions, comments, etc.

Sunday we get to hold puppies. Yea!

Ciao.

From Erie to Athens

The highlight of today’s tour was sitting on the bus with two people from Erie, Pa. Not just Erie, but Millcreek, the suburb where I grew up. Oh, we saw the Acropolis, too. And since I had my Pirates hat on, we talked to a couple from Mt. Lebanon.

If you love Pittsburgh and San Francisco, you’ll love Athens. It is hilly bordering on mountainous. The walk up to the Acropolis is steep and rocky. It was 70 and sunny today so weather was not a factor. Being old was a factor. But most anybody can do it if you take your time.

The Parthenon is constantly being restored and cranes blocked the view in certain spots. It must have been a magnificent temple with all the colors they used. It’s from the 5^th century BC and you can see where they have inserted new marble to fill in what is missing from the original.

The entrance to the Acropolis has some of the best columns we’ve seen so far. Since these structures were so far in advance of the Romans, no arches were used. Everything was square, unlike the Coliseum, for instance. Besides the Parthenon, there are other temples on the Acropolis and bases of huge statues, especially of Athena.

The views were unbelievable of the surrounding area. You can easily see all of Athens, and the port city of Piraeus. We could see our ship.

The terrain is treacherous once you are on top. Jagged rocks stick up everywhere. Except for the steps leading up and down, you will never be on flat ground the entire time. But nobody fell and you just have to watch. The summers are extremely hot here and I couldn’t imagine doing that excursion in bad heat. The tour did provide lots of water, even today. But be prepared.

Tomorrow is at sea. I may or may not have photos.

Here is Athens and the Acropolis. Almost forgot; we also drove through Athens and stopped at the Panathenaic Stadium. It was where the first Olympics were held in 1896. Very cool.

 

The Parthenon from the base of the Acropolis. A long climb was ahead.

 

Temple of Athena Nike

 

From the Acropolis with Athens in the background.

 

The Parthenon from between the entrance columns.

 

The Parthenon

 

Looking back at the entrance from the Parthenon.

 

An idea of the terrain. In the center is the base of the largest statute of Athena.

 

A close-up of the base.

 

The Erechtheion

 

The ‘back’ of the Parthenon.

 

Di was here.

 

The stadium where the first Olympics were held in 1896.

 

Inside the stadium. It's the only stadium in the world made entirely of white marble.

 

Crete

Thursday was Chania, Crete after a swap with our Athens stop. Athens is now Friday.

Right at the dock you can buy city bus tickets. It is 3 euro per person for round trip. Nice buses.

To our surprise, it was very, very hot in Chania. We just figured we were done with the heat. Guess not. We looked for shade whenever possible, but you will tell from the pictures that it was plentiful. The port we’re in is Souda and Chania is a fifteen minute bus ride away. Crete is a mountainous island and the water is crystal clear. You can easily see the bottom, just like in many Caribbean islands.

Some of the restaurants along the shoreline are a little ‘pushy’ trying to get you inside, but overall it’s not bad. The shop owners are just like back home. The Navigator is the only big ship in port so it was not crowded and we did not have to wait for the bus, although we spent half an hour wandering before finding out you catch the bus back where they dropped you off. Duh.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Turkey is considered Asia so we can check that continent off our list.

Today, you get every picture I took. Not many.

 

The Firka Fortress. Built in the late 1530s.

 

The Venetian Lighthouse. 1500s with renovations in the early 1800s.

 

Local fishermen.

 

The anchor and propeller are from the Crete Maritime Museum.

 

The Kioutsouk Hassan Mosque. Built in the late 1600s.

 

I just HAD to take it.

 

Typical street. Typical graffiti.

 

A ‘bigger’ street.

Ephesus, Turkey

If you do a cruise of the eastern Mediterranean and Ephesus is a stop, do it. There are many options to choose from. At the very least, tour the ruins but if your budget allows you to include the Terrace Houses, be sure to do that. For those of you reading in Columbus, the Terrace Houses is the New Albany of Ephesus. Today the temperature was in the mid-80s and sunny. So we went from rainy to freezing on Mt. Etna to baking in Ephesus. I might have to take a week off from work because of a cold! (Just kidding, guys)

I took 97 pictures. You don’t get them all. However, after the cruise I will post every picture from both weeks on flickr.com. I will post the address on the last day.

I love ruins, probably way more than Di. I love walking where the Apostles John and Paul, the Virgin Mary, Antony and Cleopatra walked. This was a neat stop.

Only 10% of Ephesus has been excavated. It once held 250,000 people. They found a brothel so I’m thinking there was more than one brothel. I love history.

Oh, almost forgot. They changed our itinerary. They didn’t cancel Athens, Greece like I thought. They swapped it with Crete. So Thursday is Crete and Friday is Athens. We are now 7 hours ahead of you.

Pictures begin now:

 

The entrance to Ephesus. You start at the top and walk downhill. In the background is a small amphitheater. A much bigger one is at the end of the tour.

 

Cats were everywhere. Very friendly.

 

The small amphitheater.

 

Original marble road.

 

Artwork.

 

Looking down the main street towards the two-story library. There were five cruise ships in port that we knew of, including the Queen Elizabeth.

 

They put holes in the marble so the chariots would not slip when it was wet.

 

Typical marble artwork.

 

Tile floor.

 

A temple. In the background, top center, is a carving of Medusa.

 

In one of the terrace houses, you see a horizontal pipe on the left and a vertical one to the right. They had running water, drainage, and central heating systems.

 

One of the largest terrace houses. This is just a couple of rooms.

 

A room in a terrace house.

 

The library. It held 2000 scrolls at one time.

 

Inside the large amphitheater.

 

The amphitheater. It was massive.

 

Antony and Cleopatra, or so it was alleged. I expected her to look older.

 

We take this picture on every cruise. The Navigator is on the right.

Navigator of the Seas

Tuesday was at sea, on our way to Ephesus, Turkey. It’s the one stop on the cruise we are most looking forward to. The captain made an announcement this morning that there is a general strike in Athens and we will not be going there. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The Acropolis is all we wanted to see and now they will send us to a new port and we are hoping very much it is Santorini. But we’ll find out.

We had to move our clocks up one hour last night so a lot of people slept in. Breakfast was not crowded. We tried the Windjammer this time (the buffet). Same as other ships, except in the Mediterranean they must not have heard of grits. Couldn’t get them like I do in the Caribbean, or at Dot’s.

Then I took pictures, but mostly inside. The moment I stepped from the air conditioning into the very misty and humid outdoors, the lenses fogged up. But I got the highlights of the public areas of the ship. The dining rooms were closed so I could not get in there.

Wednesday is Ephesus.

 

Solarium Pool

 

The gym. I made one visit. To take this picture. Cycling season is over.

 

The Royal Promenade

 

Looking up from the Royal Promenade to where I took the last photo. Elevators on either side.

 

One of the pubs.

 

Champagne Bar

 

Artwork.

 

Entrance to one of the dining rooms.

 

Promenade Café. Free snacks 24 hours a day and the Starbucks-like coffee shop has good variety. Not free.

 

Typical balcony stateroom. It just happens to be ours.

Sicily

(Tuesday AM update: I never got to post this last night so any reference to ‘today’ means Monday, and ‘tomorrow’ means Tuesday.)

Monday was our tour of Mt. Etna and Taormina. We left the dock at 10:15 because we didn’t even get into the port of Messina until 10 AM. It was a fairly long bus ride to Mt. Etna, and even when you reach the ‘base’ of it, the narrow, twisty road to get up to it took quite a while. I love cycling and if any of you watch the Tour de France, think Alp d’Huez. We saw a fox on the way up. I’ve never been on a volcano, let alone an active one, so it was neat for me. At the last stop it was EXTREMELY windy and very much colder. Winter jackets were everywhere. We were at about 5500 feet.

We stopped for free cannoli (which originated in Sicily, I think) and 70% alcohol liqueur.  A sip, anyway.

Another stop on the way down took us to the rim of a new crater. They encourage you to take samples of lava so we got some with various colors in it, depending on the chemical mixture when it was made. Red, pink, black, etc.

Another short trip and we were in Taormina. It is on the Mediterranean, but up on the side of a cliff. It was great. We ate lunch and walked down the single street of the ‘old city.’ It is definitely worth including in any excursion you do. Get off the main street and eat in a local restaurant.

Here’s the latest on my pictures strategy, because it is taking too long to load them into the blog. I will include the cream of the crop at each stop and at the end of the cruise I will put up a link to my flickr.com account where you can see every picture I took, sorted by city.

Tomorrow is a cruising day, or ‘at sea’ as they call it. Isn’t every day on a cruise ‘at sea?’ Well, I’ll use that free time to get plenty of pictures of the Navigator of the Seas.

Here are today’s highlights:

 

Sicily on the left. The ‘big toe’ of Italy on the right. There is only 2 miles between them as we enter the port of Messina.

 

Mt. Etna in the center with clouds already forming at the peak.

 

People beginning the climb up to a crater on Mt. Etna. Notice the winter coats. Di ruled this out immediately.

 

Mt. Etna

 

That’s me freezing on Mt. Etna. Yes I had shorts on because we were going to sea level Taormina. But I had a CBJ jacket on so I was kind of prepared for hockey weather.

 

A lava flow. If you look close, you see changes in color. We saw other places where it was much more dramatic than here. I need molten lava about here to warm up.

 

People walking the crater. Do you see them outlined against the sky?

 

Here’s a shot of the colors. People were picking up samples of lava. We got a few.

 

Look at this road on Mt. Etna. I’d give anything to cycle it…down. Hey, Patty and Jamie. Want to join me?

 

Entering the old city of Taormina. Di is leading the way. The memorial above the arch is from 1440, I believe.

 

A typical downhill ‘side street’ in Taormina. We ate in one of these locations.

 

The view from Taormina square. Wow.

Tomorrow: at sea. Pictures of the ship. From the inside, at least. You know what I mean. By the way, for those of you who are Diamond members and use the lounge for the pre-dinner reception, it is in the Cloud Nine bar (deck 14) and is very nice. Not crowded at all.