Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 12 - Venice

2011 Med Cruise – Day 12 – Disembarkation and A Day In Venice

Bad news: it was time to leave the wondefulness of being on board ship and being pampered like royalty. Good news: We had a day in Venice ahead of us to soften the blow and hold off ugly reality one more day.

We had opted for the disembarkation time of 8:45 a.m.; this meant we didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn, but gave us plenty of time in Venice. We had packed our big suitcases the night before and they had been picked up some time in the middle of the night.

Disembarkation was very easy – we went down to the gangplank when our group was called and had our key cards scanned One More Time. Sigh.

Found our luggage immediately and before we knew it, we were lurching around the towards the ticket counter to buy our waterbus tickets to Piazza San Marco. Fortunately, the ticket counter and the waterbus loading dock were not far.

For the first time on this trip, the weather was not blazing hot – it was actually a bit chilly, cloudy and we felt rain drops! So odd.

Twenty minutes later, we watched as Piazza San Marco came into view. It’s a glorious sight every single time. Never gets boring. And then there we were, dealing with the reality of how to deal with our luggage in Venice.

The main problem is that we only had a small clue as to where our hotel was. I knew it was right behind the Doge’s palace in the Piazza, but that’s about it. I had printed off Google walking directions the day before, but the maps were not clear and I was pretty convinced the directions would not help. Plus, no matter where the hotel was, there was a 99.99% chance that somewhere between where we were and where the hotel was there would be a bridge with steps.

After mulling over the options, we decided the best thing to do would be to hire a porter with a huge hand truck. This required euro cash. Andy went off to find an ATM to withdraw the cash. Once he was back, the porter was hired for 25 euro. He gave an impressive performance pushing his loaded hand cart up the steps of the little bridge (yep, of course there was one). And then a right turn, left turn, and there we were. All of 5 minutes, but well worth every cent of the 25 euros. Any other scheme would have taken us forever.

We waited about a half hour for our room to be ready, so we were able to drop off our luggage and find the map of Venice that I had bought before we left. Maps are only moderately helpful in Venice, but at least it would tell us if we were going in the general correct direction.

First we had to memorize how to get back to the hotel from the Piazza San Marco, so we could get back later.

With that done, we headed in the general direction of the old Jewish quarter. The path was basically a counter clockwise circle around the city.

One of the standard souvenirs in Venice are the Carnival masks. Most of the stores have the same variation on a theme. However two weeks ago, we had seen a store than had animal faces for the masks. As I’ve mentioned before, I collect elephants; the hunt was now on to find an elephant mask. Back two weeks ago, we only had enough time to visit one store that of course had just sold its last elephant mask. The clerk at that store had given us a brochure that showed the other stores in the chain that might still have a mask for me. Our goal was to find all the other stores listed in the brochure to see if we could find the elusive elephant mask. So, our general path towards the Jewish quarter included all 4 stores.

We visited 2 of 4 stores pretty quickly – Andy did a marvelous job of navigating the streets of Venice. Neither store had an elephant. We continued on our way.

We stopped to visit a museum called “Ca’Doro” – 3 floors of Byzantine artwork mixed in with the work of a modern artist. The Byzantine stuff was very good; the modern stuff – not so much.

We stopped to have lunch along this big (for Venice) street called Nova Strada. It reminded us of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. We were pretty sure we had not found this street the last time we were in Venice in 1999. It was fun to watch the people go by, and there were shops everywhere. We had sandwiches for lunch and they were actually pretty good. Our experience with food in Italy has not been so great in the past.

After lunch, we continued on our hunt for the elephant mask. At the 4^th and final store in the chain – VOILA! There it was! It’s just perfect – I will post a photo of it when I do the “Stuff we bought” blog. Of course it’s fragile, and getting it home is going to be a challenge.

We wandered again in the general direction of the Jewish quarter. Along the way we stopped to have our now traditional gelato and sit on a bench in the middle of a random campo.

Like many other times, we managed to stumble across it by seeing street signs (in Hebrew, a subtle hint).

We realized a bit late that today was Tisha B’Av, a day of commemorating a long list of horrible things that have happened to the Jewish people in the last 3000 years, including the destruction of both Temples, the banishment from Spain in 1492, and the beginning of the Holocaust. We were not sure what shops might be open, though Tisha B’av is not a “day of rest” and has no restrictions on what you can or cannot do - other than not eat. Tisha B’Av is a full fast day. Obviously, Andy I and I don’t observe it.

Once we arrived in the Jewish quarter (Campo di Gheto Nuovo – “New Ghetto Square”), we saw that some food places were closed an others (even kosher ones were open). All the shops were open though, which was great for us. We spent a chunk of change in the Gheto Nuovo – we bought 2 more Venetian glass Kiddush cups (we think it was the same shop we visited in 1999) and a signed lithograph from a local artist, among other things.

After bought a drink at the café in the campo, watching the people go by. We visited the two Holocaust memorials in the campo. We thought about taking the tour of the synagogue, but we would have had to wait another half hour, and we could see there were endless steps. Never mind.

So now we were on our way back. The idea was to follow the signs pointing towards the Rialto bridge and along the way find a restaurant to have dinner.

Dinner took a couple of hours; after all, we are in Italy and meal time runs on Italian time. Eventually we were back on the trek to Piazza San Marco by following the street signs. We wandered through some pretty narrow streets for a bit, but we did find and cross the Rialto Bridge and a short time later popped out into the Piazza San Marco – once again, from some random spot that we’ve never popped out of before.

So now we’re back at the hotel and utilizing the FREE wifi internet access, though it requires us to sit in the lobby of the hotel. I checked into our flight (USAir messed with our seat assignments again, good grief)

Tomorrow we’ll be getting up at 6:30 to begin the long schlep home. But, before we go to bed tonight we have to figure out How To Pack All This Stuff And Not Pay Overweight Bag Fees.

Probably won’t be back online till Thursday night, when I get home from work. Yikes! What a thought!

2011 Med Cruise – Day 11 – Day at Sea on the way back to Venice

Andy did his long run this morning and I slept in. There was a 5k walk at 9:00 a.m. for “On Deck For the Cure”, which we’ve done the last two years. But this year the time was just too early; I was not going to rush on this last day at sea.

After breakfast we attended the mandatory disembarkation seminar. Fortunately we’ve done this a couple of times already, and the procedures haven’t changed.

Then we went up to the Internet Café, where I used one of the ship computers to print off maps of where our Venice hotel is located. Hopefully these maps will be useful, but I doubt it. Maps in Venice are pretty much a waste of time.

At lunch we chatted with two ladies about the cruises they’ve been on – they said that their favorite cruise was the Baltic Sea – Oslo, Stockholm, St. Petersburg. This was the 4^th or 5^th time someone has mentioned the Baltic Sea cruise as their favorite. Since Holland America has special deals for booking your next cruise while still on board ship, we decided to take a look at the choices and put down a deposit.

And so it is done – we’ve already booked our cruise for July 31, 2012. Ten days on the Baltic Sea starting from Stockholm and ending in Amsterdam.

Tonight we will need to pack up to leave the ship. The good news is that we don’t have to be to precise with what we’re doing, since we’re not boarding a plane. That will be tomorrow night’s issue.

All in all, I think this year’s cruise was better than last year’s. There was no one port or excursion that was a total bust (like Tuscany last year). All of the tour guides were at least competent, though some were more exciting than others. We also had no problems at the beginning of the cruise with dinner service – probably because we had learned from last year to get to dinner no later than 6:30 rather than wait till 7:00. We’ve met many many really nice people, even if we can’t remember their names! We’ll have to figure out how to do that better next year.

So sad to be disembarking, but at least we have one more day in Venice to soften the blow and hold off reality one more day.

Tomorrow: Return To Venice!

Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 10 - Katakolon

2011 Med Cruise – Day 10 – Katakolon

We got to sleep in a little later, since the ship wasn’t docking till 9:00 and our excursion was scheduled for close to 9:30. All the excursions for this port started with a tour of ancient Olympia – the site of the original Olympic games of ancient Greece, which were held for 1200 years. The excursions differed by the second stop – visiting a village or watching Greek folk dancing. We opted for the Greek folk dancing.

I had long since given up on trying to figure out how to pronounce the names of the tour guides. Today’s guide was a big guy with a thick accent. At least this bus was a bit more comfortable (my feet touched the floor and the climb into the bus didn’t require mountain climbing gear), and I was able to grab the seats in the first row.

Unfortunately, today was the day that my knee decided to be a real pain. Literally. No idea why, except maybe it is protesting a week's worth of stair climbing. At least on this bus the steps were not as steep or high as yesterday's bus. Still, I knew the day was going to be a challenge.

We had a 40-minute drive from Katakolon to Olympia; not much to look at along the way, though the guide pointed out these tiny “churches” or shrines that people erect along the side of the road where they were involved in a car accident and survived. The shrines looked like teensy Greek Orthodox churches, some of them very colorful. I never was able to snap a photo of any that we saw. An alarming number of them, too.

It was very crowded at the Olympia site. Our tour guide tended to not hold his “lollipop” – the flag with the bus number on it – high enough for anybody to see it at a distance. Even though he was a big guy, it wasn’t always easy to see him.

He talked about the history of the Olympic games: they were held every 4 years for 1200 years until Emperor Constantine banned them in the 4^th century CE as a part of the Christian Byzantine movement to eliminate anything resembling paganism. The original Olympics had only a few sports – javelin, discus, running, etc. – those that reflected skills needed in battle. All wars stopped during the Olympics. Only the first place winner was awarded an olive branch crown – there were no “silver” and “bronze” medals. The real rewards came from the athletes’ home cities, who showered their winners with gifts and perks.

As we walked through the site, the guide mentioned that Roman ruins from 400 CE were on the left, and Greek ruins from 400 BCE on the right. He never did explain why the ruins were lined up that way, or what they were for – not for lack of asking. We saw various temples to Zeus, Hera and other Greek gods. Athletes who were caught getting paid for taking a dive were required to pay for a statue to Zeus that would stand at the entrance to the games. There were remnants of 13 statues - 13 times that athletes were caught cheating in 1200 years of the games.

The space for the running events was a wide open field with seats only for the judges. The guide said the space could hold 24,000 people. His explanation went on for a good 10 to 15 minutes - all the while we were standing in the blazing sun. He'd been pretty good about keeping us in the shade up until now. And there was no place to hide within earshot. Eventually he noticed we were all puddles on the ground and moved us along.

Shortly after that we walked back to the parking area, where we were able to buy a drink - it was once again a hot day – and then got on the bus on the way to the restaurant where we would have a snack and watch the Greek folk dancing.

The restaurant was huge – really wondered what kind of business it did in the off-season. The some of the food was ok – goat cheese and a flaky pastry of some kind. But there was this one thing that we couldn’t figure out what it was - it was white and squishy; we thought it might have been some other kind of cheese - until we realized there were little suckers on each piece. Ah hah, then it was squid or octopus. No thank you!

The dancers were great fun. At first they did a few dances for us – very reminiscent of my folk dancing days in college. Then they started pulling people from the audience to join them; these dances were just circle dances like the hora. We felt like we were at a Jewish wedding with no food. But, everybody had a great time with it.

After that, it was just a half hour drive back to Katakolon, and that was the end of the excursion. We decided to have a real lunch at a fast food place, but the gyros were not very good. We’ve noticed that our concept of what a gyro is (basically a wrap sandwich in pita) was not the same as what we were seeing in Greece – an open face pita sandwich. At any rate, the food was not very good, and we didn’t have enough time to search around for any place else.

We wandered the main street of Katakolon and looked at the shops. Didn’t buy anything, though.

Tomorrow – last day at sea. Time to start figuring out how to get to our hotel in Venice.

Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 9 - Santorini

2011 Med Cruise Day 9 – Santorini, Greece

For all other tender ports, everybody going to shore still showed up in the same meeting place and left from the same gangplank and boarded tenders all together, regardless of whether you were on an excursion or going ashore on your own. For Santorini, this was not true – if you were on an excursion, we went ashore to a spot where buses could park. Independent travelers went ashore on a different spot on the island.

Boarding a tender is always a challenge, since the boat is always bobbing up and down – timing is everything, when you make the big step off the ship and onto the tender. Fortunately the crew helps you, to make sure you make it ok. For Santorini, we had to use Santorini’s tenders, as opposed to Holland America’s tenders. These tenders seemed even more awkward to board than the ones we were used to – they were way bigger and held more people and the boat was almost full when we boarded. This meant squeezing in between people trying not to fall on them while the boat bobbed up and down.

When we boarded our bus, we ended up all the way in the back. Our tour guide had a very whispy voice, and we could not really hear her. After she cranked the volume it was better, but the tonal quality of her voice was so soothing, it was hard to stay awake and focus on what she was saying.

Our first stop was Oia (pronounced EEE-yah), which is the place with the white buildings with blue shutters, and the churches with the blue domes – the post card for Greece. We were given vague instructions how to get to THE SPOT where we could see THE CHURCH that is depicted in all the poster ads for Greece, but it wasn’t even clear whether or not we would be able to get close enough to take a photo; there was a vague reference that THE CHURCH was in someone’s backyard? Or at least behind a private residence. But then she pointed to some direction and said that there was a path to a spot where we could get a glimpse.

Since Santorini is basically a giant rock, walking everywhere was through tiny streets that wind up and down – endless stair steps in all directions. We wandered to the highest spot in Oia and saw the beautiful view of the town and all of Santorini. We saw several beautiful blue domed churches, but it wasn’t clear if any of them were THE CHURCH. We gave up on that concept.

Oia has many art galleries and jewelry stores. On our way back to the bus I did buy two elephants in two different shops. One was hand carved lava rock.

Our time running short, we made our way back to the bus. Our next stop was at a winery for wine tasting – and a bathroom break. The views from the winery were glorious, which was becoming a repeating theme.

After wine tasting, we drove to the oldest Byzantine church on the island – Panagia Episkopi Church (I have no idea how to pronounce that – the tour guide said it way way quickly), which dates to the 11^th century. It has survived earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters. The church interior was so tiny, the 30+ people in our group could barely fit inside it.

On the way down to lunch, we drove through the coastal town of Kamari, known for it’s black sand beaches. And indeed, the sand is black. We couldn’t imagine how anybody would be able to actually walk on that sand – the sun was incredibly strong, and even by the water the air temperature felt like it was in the 90s.

We next drove down to the town of Pyrgos to have lunch. We were the first ones there, because our tour guide rearranged our itinerary a little to beat out the other buses. The food was ok, but the only meat was pork, which was a little annoying. But there was enough other food to compensate.

We climbed back into the bus – which was becoming increasingly uncomfortable for me: sitting all the way back in the seat, my feet didn’t touch the floor, therefore I had to slump or sit forward on the seat. In addition, there was a handle of some kind right on the side of the seat, which dug into my leg when I sat forward. So then I had to sit at a weird angle with one leg sticking out into the aisle, to avoid the handle. Add to that poor air flow/air conditioning and the huge steps to climb on and off. As beautiful as the scenery was, I was looking forward to the end of the tour.

The bus climbed up more steep and tight switchbacks to the highest point on Santorini – a spectacular view of the entire island.

On our way back down the mountain, we stopped briefly in Kamari – a village with a beach with black sand. Considering how hot the air temperature felt, we could only imagine how hot the sand was – especially black sand, which must absorb the heat of the sun even more efficiently than white sand.

Our next stop was at the oldest church on the island – a very tiny Greek orthodox church that has withstood earthquakes and other natural disasters for hundreds of years.

On our way to the last stop in Fira, the capital of Santorini, the tour guide babbled in her whispery voice. I have no idea what she said – between the whispery-ness of her voice and the warmth on the bus, I kept falling asleep.

She did talk about our options for getting back to the ship. It had been explained before, but it was confusing until you could see what they were talking about – we were picked up in the morning by the bus on the side of the island that has a road leading to other parts of the island. But we were dropped off in Fira, where there is no road leading down to the port. There were three options for the descent: (1) Walk down 650 steps – but you would have to share the path with the (2) donkey riders. We had heard repeatedly that the donkey ride up was ok, but on the way down the donkeys are in a big hurry to get their reward (food). We heard repeatedly that accidents are a little to frequent – we were strongly encouraged to take option (3) the cable car.

We were dropped off in front of the huge Greek Orthodox church in Fira, the capital of Santorini. We wandered around for a bit, but it was very hot and everywhere we went involved climbing stairs, so we aimed for the direction of the cable car as we made our way through the main part of Fira. Even though we were warned there might be a huge wait for the cable cars, there wasn’t one. Our ship was the only cruise ship in port that day, so we weren’t competing with ships. The ride down on the cable car was fun, with great views of that whole side of the island.

Tomorrow: Katakolon

Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 8 - Kusedasi and Ephesus

2011 Med Cruise Day 8: Kusedasi and Ephesus

When we got up this morning, we still had not heard from the guy with whom we had arranged to be a part of our “group” for today’s excursion – even after several phone messages. On our way to breakfast, Andy had left a written note at the door of the room that the guy had emailed me two weeks previously - but when he went to check on the note, it was still there, untouched. This was worrisome.

At breakfast we ran through the various options. The first thing after breakfast, we went down to the main desk and asked if they could locate the guy by his name. I also gave the desk clerk the room number that I had. She confirmed that the name and the room number matched my information. She dialed the number for me, and the guy was in fact in his room, so she put me on the phone.

Turns out somewhere along the line there had been a disconnect. Not sure exactly what happened, but there had been an exchange of emails – I had sent to him the details of what to do (i.e. buy the tickets through Holland America). He replied back that he would. I replied back that I had bought our tickets. He replied that he had also bought tickets. I replied asking him to send me his room number, so I could contact him once we were on board ship. He replied with his room number, and that’s the last communication I had from him.

He said that he had never heard back from me about the details, so he went ahead and made other arrangements! I had no idea what he was talking about, since I clearly remembered all the emails back and forth and the fact that he sent me his room number. Obviously either I misunderstood all the information that he’d been sending me, or one or more emails failed to show up.

Either way, it didn’t matter - he said he hadn’t signed up for the same excursion. So now what?

We went to the meeting point for all shore excursions and explained the situation to the coordinator. We were worried that we wouldn’t be allowed to go on the excursion, since we were only a party of 2, and the instructions had made it clear we had to be at least a party of 4. Since it really wasn’t clear if the guy had in fact ever bought the tickets, we also didn’t know if he had bought then canceled. In any case, it turned out to be a non-issue: the coordinator said she had two mini-vans and neither was full, so she’d just put us with one of them.

In the end, it all worked the way we had wanted it to from the beginning - just sign up as the two of us and have Holland America lump us with some other group.

The whole concept of the mini-van worked extremely well. There were two groups of four and us in the van, as opposed to 34 people. The air conditioning worked a LOT better in the van than on the bus. It was also a lot easier to stick with and keep track of 10 people instead of 34.

On the way to Ephesus, the tour guide talked about the history of the site – how it used to be a major center of power and trade for the Roman empire 2,000 years ago. Ephesus at one point was a major port. Over the years the harbor was filled in (as in land fill) and eventually it could no longer function as a port. The port is now in Kusedasi, which is some distance away (about a 20 minute drive).

Once at Ephesus, we walked through the main street of the ancient town. There were remains of shops and temples to various Roman emperors. Even though it was early morning, the temperature skyrocketed as we continued through the ruins. We walked past a special exhibit – the excavation of terraced houses, which apparently was not scheduled for our tour. One guy in our group was very upset that it was not included, and insisted that we take the time to be allowed to go if we wanted to. The tour guide did a good job of figuring out what to do – she allocated 20 minutes for going through the exhibit for those people who wanted to go. The catch was – we had to pay for the entrance ourselves. Fortunately, we could pay by credit card, since we didn’t have any Turkish currency, and they wouldn’t take euros or dollars.

The excavation of the terraced houses was stunning – there were multi-room and multi-level homes, some with original mosaic floors and original painted stucco on the walls. The entire excavation site was covered, which meant we were out of the blazing direct sun. The site was built into the hillside, so we climbed and climbed endless flights of stairs. We walked on plexi-glass floors; you could look down and see what was beneath your feet. It was well worth the extra 7 euros ($12) per person and all the climbing.

We met up with the group at the library – a huge multi-story structure that showed that Ephesus had been a center of learning in its time. After the library we walked over to the theater, that has a seating capacity of 25,000. We were given some free time to explore; Andy went up to the top while I waited in the shade.

We met the group back at the van, and we started on our way to our next stop, a little village called Sirence (shee-REN-jeh). There are all of 500 people living in this village, but they still have a market. The town is known for making fruit wines.

While Andy went to check out the remains of a Greek Orthodox church at the top of the hill, I was able to find a couple of bargains – the prices at this market were much lower than at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, plus the items for sale were a lot more interesting.

When Andy came back, we wandered some more and found even more cool stuff to buy at very low prices.

We had lunch at a restaurant even further up the mountain. We could hear the Muslim call to prayer from the local mosque as we ate. Under the shade of the trees (and an umbrella that the tour guide asked the restaurant manager to put up), it was really very nice, and nobody really wanted to move. However, it was time to go back to Kusedasi.

On the way to Kusedasi, the tour guide told us that yes, we were on our way to yet one more carpet demonstration, and she asked our patience and indulgence to sit through it one last time.

So we did. And once again, we escaped without getting one!

We wandered Kusedasi’s “Grand Bazaar” for a little while, but it was very hot and we were tired, so we headed back to the ship. Which we could see from where we were standing. But we couldn’t figure out how to get there.

We started walking towards the ship, only to hit a dead end. So we would turn and go in some other direction, until we could turn again towards the ship. And hit another dead end. Turning, walking, hitting a dead end. Turning, walking, hitting a dead end – all the while, passing endless rows of shops.

Finally, we found an entrance of some kind that seemed to lead to all the cruise ships that lead to the customs building – that even more shops.

Back at the ship relatively early for a change, we had time before dinner to relax a bit.

We had dinner with two ladies from Tampa, Florida and a couple from Australia. The ladies from Florida told us harrowing stories from previous cruises, which made us wonder if we should even be sitting at the same table with them!

After dinner, we listened to the ship’s guitar guy. We’d managed not to hear him up until now, because his usual time slot conflicted with something else we usually attend.

Tomorrow is back to Greece – Santorini. This island has gotten nothing but rave reviews from everybody we know who’s ever been there, so it has to live up to very high expectations. We’ll see.

Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 7 - Mykonos

2011 Med Cruise Day 7 – Mykonos

We spent the morning catching up on stuff. I also tried to contact the guy who I had been corresponding with about our excursion to Ephesus on Thursday. The excursion we wanted had indicated that we had to be a group of at least 4 – and Andy and I are only 2. Holland America said we had to sign up at least 4 together, so I had gone out to the Holland America facebook page and queried the group for people who would like to join us, and this one guy did respond. We had gone back and forth with email, and it sounded like a done deal – he had purchased his tickets, and we had purchased ours, and he sent me his room number to contact him once we came on board. So here I was, trying to contact him, but could only leave a voice mail. Hmmmmm…

When we went to lunch, we hadn’t bothered to read the daily program. We just showed up at our usual dining room, to discover some kind of special brunch. It was very confusing, but we figured out that attending required a special invitation, which we did not have. We told the servers that we didn’t belong, but they didn’t care. They told us to go on in anyway. It turns out it was a special brunch for people who come from “commonwealth” countries – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. So all the food was familiar to them – cucumber sandwiches, etc. It was just really awkward, so we ate quickly and left.

For the afternoon’s excursions, Andy and I were headed in different directions – he was going to the beach and I was going to Delos, the island where Greek mythology says Apollo was born. However, we wanted to meet up afterwards and go to dinner in Mykonos, and we couldn’t figure out from the material we were given what to do or how to do it. We decided to visit with Tom The Travel Guy. While we were waiting for him to show up, we also got back our passports (the whole passport thing is very mysterious – no one will give us an explanation as to why they need to be collected in the first place, or why they are suddenly returned in the middle of the cruise).

We chatted with Tom for about 10 minutes – he had been on the Homelines Oceanic 30 years ago, the same time frame we were. Anyway, he told us that everything on Mykonos is very close together, so it would be easy enough for me to just wait at the tender port for Andy to show up.

My excursion left first. As soon as I stepped off the tender onto Mykonos, the tour guide gathered us up and escorted us to the ferry boat that would take us to Delos. The ferry ride gave us a great view of Mykonos and nearby islands – all barren and brown.

There were 4 tour groups from Holland America that afternoon. No crowds and everything was wide open. For once, it was super easy to follow the guide, since I could always see her no matter where she was.

One interesting thing we learned is that there is no “D” sound in Greek – what we call the “delta” is actually “thelta”. And the name of the island is Thelos (pronounced THEE-los”) and not “DEE-los”.

The second thing the guide mentioned is that the wind blows all year round, which is a good thing, because without the wind, the heat would be scorching. It was particularly windy that day. The guide said that it was a humid wind, because it was raining in northern Greece. I didn’t notice the humidity at all.

Delos was the center of commerce for the Roman/Greek empire for almost 1000 years – from 400 BCE to 300 CE. It was a trade center – things were bought and sold, not manufactured. Only wealthy merchants lived on the island. All the houses we saw were in an upscale neighborhood in ancient Greek times.

The tour guide told us the myth of Apollo’s birth like this:

Zeus, even though married, liked to chase after girls. One girl kept changing shape to escape him, eventually changing into a rock in the middle of the Aegean sea. Zeus created 4 diamond pillars to hold the rock stationery in the sea. Then Zeus chased after the girl’s sister, Litho. They had an affair and Litho became pregnant. Hera, Zeus’ wife, had decreed that any land that helped Litho would be destroyed. Litho, in desperation, went to the rock in the middle of the sea and begged her sister to help her, so she did. When Litho went into labor, it was cloudy and raining out, and the midwives to the gods did not hear her cry out. She clung to a palm tree on the rock for 9 days and 9 nights, till the weather cleared, the midwife came and delivered her twins Artemis (the hunter) and Apollo (sunlight and civilization). Apollo’s birth instantly triggered brilliant green growth all over the rock, and therefore the name of the rock became “Delos”, which means – “obvious island”. Ever since then, people who lived on Delos built temples to Artemis and Apollo.

One side of the island had upscale houses (two or more stories with inner courtyards) and several open air markets (“agora”). The other side of the island had temples to Artemis, Apollo and Zeus. Apparently only 7% of the island has been excavated – the Greek government has run out of money. However, there are still French and Greek archeologists on the island studying what has already been restored.

The most famous ruin was the “sacred lake” – the place where tradition holds that Apollo was born. The French archeologists drained the lake 50 years ago to eliminate malaria mosquitoes. In that spot is a grove of trees (the only one on Delos). In the middle of the trees is a palm tree to represent the palm tree that Litho clung to while she was in labor. Guarding the sacred lake were 16 lions – there are only 6 left; the originals are in the museum (which we didn’t get to see because it was closed after 3:00 p.m.).

The sacred lake was the last stop on our tour. We had the opportunity to take a break at the one and only café on the island before heading back to the ferry. The ferry ride back was even rockier than the one out, but the scenery was still beautiful.

When I got back to Mykonos, I waited about 15 minutes before finally asking a Holland America person about Andy’s excursion. She said it would arrive at about 5:45, so I started wandering around and of course, found the public bathroom. Any town that provides public bathrooms gets a gold star in my book – and it was free! Andy didn’t return till 6:00; while I waited, I sat in the shade and had some lemonade from the Holland America “welcome” crew at the tender port.

Once we were back together, we went to a restaurant for dinner. Then we wandered the winding streets of Mykonos – and finally found some interesting shopping. We did buy a few things, including an original watercolor from an artist. Eventually we just pooped out and headed back to the ship. We had to fight gale force head winds just to get back to the tender.

By the time we got back, it was too late to see the “show”. We did go to the Lido deck to hear Rachel and HALcats, since it had been advertised as a “pool party” with special desserts. Well, there were no “special desserts”, so we gave up by about 10:00 and went to bed – we had an early start the next morning.

Still hadn’t heard back from that guy for the Ephesus excursion. I called again – no answer, left another message. Andy went up to the cabin and left a note on the door. We sure hoped this arrangement was going to work.

Tomorrow – Kusedasi and Ephesus!

2011 Excellent Adventure Day 6 - Istanbul Part 2

2011 Med Cruise Day 6 – Istanbul

We boarded our bus for the day around 8:30 a.m. Our guide for the day was Celal (pronounced Jeh-LAL). His English was excellent. As we once again plunged into the hideous city traffic, he told us about the history of Istanbul. He handed out headsets, so he could speak at a normal tone of voice, and we would be able to still hear him through the ear buds.

Our first stop was supposed to be the Blue Mosque – called that by foreigners (us) for all the blue tiles that line the walls. Once there, we saw that all the excursions from all 4 cruise ships in harbor we all in line in front of us to go in. While we were waiting, I once again go to experience a Turkish bathroom. My goal was to minimize the number of times I’d have to do this during the course of the day.

Since I still had my headset on, I could hear Celal say that he was going to reorganize our itinerary for the day, because the lines were ridiculously long and it would be impossibly crowded inside the mosque. Hearing this, I hurried myself up and out of the bathroom to find the group before he started walking away. The whole day it didn’t seem like he was walking all that quickly, but he always managed to get way ahead of me.

All the places we were to visit that day were all within walking distance from each other, except for the Grand Bazaar. We piled back on the bus to take us there. Before we were given free time in the Bazaar, we had to sit through a carpet demonstration. This time we were determined not to buy a carpet like we did last year in Tunisia. The sales guy was from Scotland. He and his crew rolled out carpet after carpet. However, none of them was as nice as the one we bought last year. I noticed that when he went on and on about how wonderful his carpets were in comparison to carpets from Iran or other places in Europe, he didn’t mention the Berber carpets from Tunisia.

After 15 minutes or so, we were able to escape – but it wasn’t easy, since the elevator down stopped on every floor, and each floor had different merchandise.

Once inside the Grand Bazaar, we were determined not to get lost this time. We made note of every turn we made and landmarks to steer us back to Gate 1. That early in the morning, the bazaar was not crowded. We wandered around for a bit, not really seeing anything that was grabbing our interest. We did like the ceramic tiles, but last year we bought a big ceramic tile thing that was awkward to carry and bring back home. We finally hit on the idea of getting a single tile, instead of 4 or 6 or 8 that fitted together into a pattern. That made it easier to decide on something. We haggled with a vendor for a tile with a peacock design, plus a ceramic elephant.

We were proud of ourselves for not getting lost on the way back to the bus. However, the bus moved only a few feet down the street when it got stuck – there was a low hanging tree on the left, and a car double parked on the right, making it impossible for the bus to pass. So Celal recruited several men from the bus and pushed the car out of the way! Good thing, too – there was a terrible back up behind us.

Finally free, we drove back to the vicinity where we started earlier that morning, but we did not go back to the mosque. We went to the Topkapi Palace, where the sultans of the Ottoman Empire lived for hundreds of years. It was enormous and stunningly beautiful – we walked through the harem quarters, including the Queen Mother’s apartments. After walking for 90 minutes, we had 45 minutes of free time. There was the opportunity to stand on a very long line to see the “crown jewels”, but we opted for going on the bathroom hunt instead.

This time, the bathroom was located near the restaurant, which of course was located down a very long flight of stairs. The bathroom itself, of course, was down more stairs, up more stairs, around the corner and yes, up more stairs. The line for the ladies’ room was very long. The bathroom attendant started pulling women in the men’s room when there were no men in there. So when she pulled me into the men’s room, I kinda assumed that she would keep men out until all the women were out. The good news? It was a normal flush toilet. The bad news? There were two men at the urinals when I came out of the stall! I was so startled, that I opted not to wash my hands before dashing out of there. I even forgot to tip the attendant, which I had fully intended to do. After retracing my steps (down, up , down, up) I used one of the hand wipes I had cleverly thought to bring along.

Back at the meeting spot, we were missing two people. They resurfaced eventually - they had gone in to see the crown jewels.

It was now almost 2:00 and we hadn’t had lunch yet - but that’s where we were headed. It was a 10 minute walk from where we were. There was a great breeze at the restaurant. We shared our table with a family from London.

After lunch, we walked back to the Blue Mosque. Now all the crowds were gone, and it was very easy to go in. We had to take off our shoes and hold them in a bag. The mosque is immense, with beautiful tiling all over the walls. We basically stood in the middle of this huge room and looked around. We were there no more than 30 minutes. To do this in the morning would have taken 90 minutes, and we would have been crammed in like sardines.

Our last stop was the Hagia Sofia – long ago it was a huge church, then a mosque, but a museum since 1924, when Turkey became a republic. Another immense open space, it was interesting to see the combination of Christian and Muslim decorations in the same area.

By the time we were all back on the bus (with our shoes on), it was already 4:00, and all-aboard time was 4:30, with the ship leaving port at 5:00. Fortunately, since we were on an excursion booked through Holland America, we knew that they would hold the ship, if need be. We were back on board ship shortly after 4:30.

Andy went out on deck to watch as we pulled away from the dock.

It was formal night, so we got all dressed up. We had dinner with a couple from Wales on their first cruise and Elisa, a woman we had dinner with a few nights ago. We’ve had a couple of other repeats on this cruise, which has not happened before.

Wednesday’s show was this couple – not sure exactly what it was they were supposed to do (magic? Dance? Mime?), but all of it was awful. This is the only really disappointment with Holland America – they don’t seem to be able to provide really entertaining shows.

Afterwards, we went to listen to Rachel and the HALcats. “HALcats” is the name of the band on board ship – HAL is “Holland America Lines”; all the bands on HAL ships are called the “HALcats”. The lead singer, Rachel, has an amazing voice. A 180 degree improvement over the show we had suffered through.

Istanbul was great. Tomorrow – Mykonos!

Excellent Adventure Day 5 - Istanbul Part 1

2011 Med Cruise – Day 5: Cruising the Dardanelles and first night in Istanbul

We weren’t due to dock in Istanbul until 4:00 p.m., so most of the day was free as we sailed through the Straights of Dardanelle from the Mediterranean/Aegean sea into the Sea of Marmara. Tom The Travel Guy gave a talk about the Dardanelles at 7:00 a.m. – we missed it.

The day was pretty uneventful. We had lunch with a mom and her two teenage sons. Apparently she’d been taking her sons on cruises to see the world since the younger one was two. They live in Santa Fe, and it didn’t sound like they liked it much.

Around 2:30 we started to make our way to the best position to watch as we approached Istanbul. There was a lot of confusion as to whether or not the bow would be opened up and on which deck, so we went up and down to different decks, getting different info from each crew member we asked. Finally we ended up where we started on Deck 5.

Istanbul is one of those cities that have a very recognizable skyline – the classic view of what was the “old city” of Constantinople, with all the huge mosques and other large buildings. It was a way more impressive arrival than to Piraeus, which was pretty ugly.

Once we were close enough to the dock to watch people eating at a restaurant, we realized we could watch the final docking procedures from the veranda in our room. We were able to see the dockhands grab the huge bungee cords flung from the ship and tie the ship securely to the dock.

Our excursion for the afternoon was Istanbul Deluxe Part I. The brochure said it was supposed to be about 3 to 3 ½ hours. Once we were on the bus, our tour guide, Gulgen, said it would be more like 4 to 4 ½. Since it was already 4:30, we weren’t sure how dinner was supposed to fit into all this.

Off we went – and immediately hit traffic. Istanbul has about 15 million people, with narrow streets and not a whole lot of public transportation. Plus the bridges connecting the Asian and European parts of Istanbul were too small to accommodate the traffic. Our first stop was the Egyptian or Spice Market, and though it wasn’t far distance-wise, it seemed to take forever to get there.

The Spice Market was very crowded. Gulgen walked us into the first shop to explain how it all works. We asked how to say “Hello” and “Thank you” in Turkish and she wrote it on my hand: “Merhaba!” for “hello” and “Tehshekkur Ederim” for “thank you”. The shopkeeper gave us samples of “Turkish delight”, a candy made from honey, nuts and fruits. Gulgen told us it was very easy to find out way back to the meeting spot, and we had about 45 minutes to ourselves.

We wandered around the market, making the mistake of not really paying attention to where we were going. Everything looked the same – jewelry store, spice shop, jewelry store, spice shop – over and over again. We ended up in a store where the shopkeeper’s English was very good (he had lived in California for several years). He kept plying us with samples of different Turkish Delight, and we decided to get some. There was endless confusion about the currency – Turkey still uses its own currency, the lira, but we had euros and dollars. So when he added up the cost of 2 boxes of Turkish delight, a half kilo of pistachio nuts, and a half kilo of apple tea (it’s reaallllly good), we a bit of sticker shock. Oh well, we’re helping out the Turkish economy.

At that point we had to get back to the bus. The problem was, we were now totally disoriented. We started walking - even though everything sorta looks the same, it still didn’t look right, so we turned around and walked the other way. Suddenly we remembered we had passed by a shop with Christian items – the only one we had seen, plus a store with huge hookah pipes on the wall. After that we were able to navigate back to the meeting spot – just as Gulgen was walking away! We raced to catch up with her to get back on the bus.

Turns out we were not the only ones who didn’t find the market so easy to navigate – we were missing two people. Gulgen tried to find them, but was unsuccessful, so we left them behind as we continued onto the ancient underground cisterns. Gulgen was on the phone constantly, arranging for someone else to pick up the two lost people.

Before we descended into the cisterns, I asked Gulgen what the story was with bathroom breaks. She said that the only one would be on the boat for our river cruise. We had been touring for a while already already, and it would be at least another hour before we would arrive at the tour boat. She gathered from my expression that this would not work, and she said she would show us where the “wash rooms” were when we came up from the cisterns.

The cisterns are very old and dark. We were able to see fish living in the water. The cisterns aren’t used any more, since fresh water is now piped into the city. At the far end of the cisterns are two columns, where the ancient builders used random pieces of rock to hold up the columns. The random pieces were Medusa heads that were hundreds of years older than the cisterns and a rare archeological find unto themselves.

At some point, our lost passengers popped up. They had been picked up by another tour company employee, who somehow utilized an ambulance to get them back to our group – sirens blaring, it was the only way to get through the traffic in a reasonable time frame! The lost ladies said that they were waiting at what they thought was the correct spot, but nobody was there.

Before we got back on the bus, Gulgen pointed out the public bathrooms. Which of course required payment of 1 lira (which I didn’t have) or 50 euro cents (which fortunately I did). I had totally forgotten about the concept of “Turkish toilets” (a hole in the floor) – but there they were! Not a whole lot of choice here, and when you gotta go, you gotta go. The last time I saw a Turkish toilet was in Paris in 1977. The knees aren’t so cooperative any more. There was another woman from my tour group in the bathroom, and she kept asking me how it all worked – how do you flush, what was the bucket for, etc. I told her I’d let her know once I figured it out. Which I did of course. And there were no paper towels to dry your hands. Drip dry!

Ok, so now I knew what I would have to deal with for the next day or so.

Once back on the bus, we inched our way along the city streets till we arrived at the ferry dock to pick up our tour boat to cruise the Bosporus Straights. The steps up to the sitting area were very narrow and steep – going up was ok, but I knew going down would be entertaining. Gulgen had told us that the left side of the boat had a better view, so we made sure to secure spots in the right place. We were provided with one free soft drink, but I wasn’t in a hurry to drink a lot of fluids!

The cruise was beautiful – we saw palaces and mosques, the two bridges, many interesting houses and restaurants, including one that was on its own island in the middle of the river. It looked like it had a little floating doghouse attached to it, but we didn’t see the dog.

By the time the cruise was over, it was after 8:00. It was now after dark, and the traffic had improved dramatically. Gulgen had explained that since it was now the month of Ramadan, in the evenings people are at home right at sundown to eat for the first time that day, therefore, the traffic cleared up. It was still close to 30 minutes back to the ship.

It was 9:00 by the time we got back to our room to drop off the items we bought and change to nicer clothes for dinner. Fortunately, the dining room is open till 9:30. We had dinner with two couples from England; they were delightful and we didn’t leave the table till after 10:30.

A great start to our visit to Istanbul, with much more to come!

Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 4 - Athens

2011 Med Cruise – Day 4 – Athens

I didn’t post anything for yesterday (July 31) because we were at sea and didn’t do much of anything. How bizarre is that? This almost never happens. Andy ran his 13 miles (marathon training), but otherwise, we sat out on Deck 3 on deck chairs and read our books. We stopped for lunch, of course. Last night was also the first “Formal” night, so we were all dressed up. After dinner we visited the piano bar – it was “Rat Pack Name That Tune”. We teamed up with a couple from Las Vegas (though originally from NY/NJ) and we won! It was pretty weird that we did better than the "Beatles Name That Tune".

This morning we were up and ready to board the buses for our all day excursion, “The Best Of Athens” by 8:20. The ship actually ports in Pireaus, which is about a half hour from Athens.

Our tour guide’s name was Rula – her English was very good, and she knew her stuff. We drove directly to the Acropolis. One thing we learned first thing is that the word "acropolis" means "high city", and that there are lots of acropolises (acropolii?) all over Greece. The description of the climb up to the Parthenon stressed that it would be “strenuous” (a big "YOU MUST BE PHYSICALLY FIT FOR THIS EXCURSION" printed on the ticket), so I was anticipating a steep and difficult climb up to the top of the hill. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as many of the climbs we did last year in Sicily and France. There were lots of steps – and they were slippery marble – but otherwise the steps were not high or steep, so it was quite doable.

First thing that became obvious – every cruise ship in Athens had busloads of excursions at the Acropolis today. There was serious competition for what little shade there was. Rula delivered her detailed explanation of the various different ruined edifices – it was tough remembering them all and keeping them straight. We did pick up a free map at the entrance, plus we bought a small “Greece” book on board the bus. I did my best to label the photos with the correct names. I hope I got it all correct.

The ruins were amazing - all in various states of restoration. During our free time, we wandered all over and took lots of photos. Rula had warned us that coming down would take longer than going up, simply due to the volume of people. And she was right – once we started walking down, we felt like we were on the D-train at rush hour. There was no movement for minutes at a time, and the temperature was sky rocketing. However, we still made it back in time with no problem.

By 10:30 a.m., the temperatures were well into the 90’s The humidity didn’t seem too bad, but it was still hot, and the sun incredibly strong. I now have an amazingly stupid patchy sunburn on my legs, despite all efforts to constantly slob on sunscreen. For Athens, I was determined to not let the situation any worse - I'm using the higher SPF sunscreen, and re-applying more often.

After the Acropolis, we got back on the bus and noted that the air conditioning doesn't work all that well. The drive to the next stop wasn't long enough to really let it kick in.

We stopped for a few minutes in front of the stadium that was built for the first of the modern Olympics in 1896. It’s still used today, with a holding capacity of 65,000 people. It's a beautiful stadium - especially considering it's over 100 years old.

Next came lunch, which was better than we’ve usually experienced on these all day excursions – beef on orzo with spinach “pies” and cheese “pies” (they looked like finger food), followed by fresh watermelon and honey dew. I just wish they had kep the water flowing a bit more freely than the wine – the restaurant was not air conditioned, and we were all still recuperating from the morning’s walk up and down the Acropolis.

After lunch, we walked into the Plaka, which is a shopping area in the oldest part of Athens. We had about an hour to ourselves to roam about. We bought a refrigerator magnet for our friend Shirley (she had asked me to get her one before we left) and the first elephant purchase of the trip – a tiny wall hanging with elephants dangling at the bottom.

The Plaka was more interesting than what we saw in Split, but we didn’t have enough time to roam through the whole thing. Plus it was even hotter. We made our way to the meeting spot and sat on a bench – and was immediately approached by a beggar (all we had was an American dollar – no Euro change on us), and ladies trying to sell us tablecloths. We noticed that across from us on another bench was a woman who seemed to be really struggling with the heat. Andy went and got her a cup of cold water and a bag of ice from the restaurant in the plaza. She was with Holland America group – but not ours – and soon the tour guide came over to figure out how to help her.

At 2:30 we walked back to the bus, and drove over to the National Archeological Museum. Rula walked us through at an accelerated pace, picking out the highlights including the Mask of Agamemnon and the Zeus/Poseiden (nobody is 100% sure which one it is).

After the museum, it was time to get back to the boat. The air conditioning in the museum was also kinda weak –by then we couldn’t wait to get back on board ship to real air conditioning.

So now it’s after dinner, and we’re killing time till 9:00 for the piano guy to start. His name is Jimmy, and he’s a lot of fun.

We enter the straights of Dardanelle at about 5:00 a.m. tomorrow. Tom the Tour Guide will be narrating as of 7:00 a.m. Not sure either one of us will be listening…

Tomorrow afternoon – Istanbul!

Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 2 - Split, Croatia

2011 Med cruise – Day 2 – Croatia

We had enough time this morning to have breakfast in the main dining hall, instead of the buffet restaurant. Since the ship is named “Nieuw Amsterdam” after New York’s original name, there are New York themed things all over the place. The main dining room – named the Vista Dining room on our previous cruises – is called “Manhattan”. The room on Deck 2 is called “Lower Manhattan” and the room on Deck 3 is – yep – “Upper Manhattan”.

A guy from Ireland named Jarette joined us. Apparently his luggage had not yet caught up with him and might not until Athens – which is Monday. Yikes. Anyway, he was very chatty. Andy happened to comment about what a nice camera he had. This triggered off a 30 minute monologue about how he was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age, but he still prefers “fill-um” (film). And all the details about fill-um and how it works much better to capture true colors. For 30 minutes. Good thing this was only a breakfast conversation.

Our excursion for today was a walking tour through Split. Split is one of the ports where the ship does not dock; it just drops anchor in the middle of the harbor, and we take a ferry boat called a “tender” to shore.

Once on shore, we met up with our tour guide, who’s name escapes me completely, but it was hard to miss that he was well over 6 ft tall. We all received audio transceivers, so when the talked into his microphone we could all hear him clearly. When the transceiver wasn’t clicking and dropping the signal. The guide told us that Split is in Dalmatia and everybody in Dalmatia is very tall. Looking around you could see that it was true – a whole city filled with ridiculously tall people.

We toured the remains of the Diocletian palace, built almost 2000 years ago for one of the last Roman emperors – the only one to survive and retire from office. Only the basement level is left. There are houses with people living in them at the street level. Most of the reconstruction work has been accomplished in the last 50 years. The problem is that the underground level is filled with two millennia worth of trash. As it is removed, there is the danger of weakening the support of the houses above.

We walked through various parts of the palace, including one spot that showed what the original pile of trash looked like, and how the structures on the upper level are barely supported by wood beams.

The tour continued above ground. In an atrium with marvelous acoustics, we listened to a group of men sing two traditional Dalmatian folk songs. And we could buy their CD too!

We then toured the ancient church, which looked pretty much like all the other ancient European churches we’ve seen. In front of the church were two guys dressed like Roman soldiers, posing for photos (for a fee).

After walking us around the area outside the palace walls and through the main square, the tour was over - only 90 minutes after we started. Our impression was that it was supposed to last 2 hours.

It was only 10:30 and the last tender was scheduled for 3:30, so after dealing with the Hunt For The Bathroom (Split gets kudos for having public bathroom), we just started wandering around, hoping to find some interesting shops. There were lots of stores, but we didn’t see anything that was interesting – all the stores were standard chain stores found all over the world. And tons of shoe stores. Shoe stores EVERYWHERE, seriously rivaling Rome for the sheer density of shoe stores per street.

At some point we found ourselves back at the entrance to the church, where we sat down in the shade. After a few minutes, a woman told us we would have to move because the PROCESSION was coming. What procession? You’ll see, she said.

Ok, so we moved to the side of the square, and I climbed up three steps so I would be able to see. Suddenly the “Roman soldiers” disappeared, and reappeared with drums, and began to drum a steady beat. Then a man and a woman dressed in togas stepped out overlooking the crowd. The “Ceasar” babbled on for a bit in Latin, and then said, “in other words, Welcome!” “Ceasar” then tried to get the crowd to greet him by saying “AVE!” (whatever that means), but after the third try, he feigned disappointment and left. The whole thing was no more than 10 minutes. No clue how often they do this, but it was entertaining.

We stumbled across the fish market, the produce market (that one smelled a LOT better), and then finally through a clothing market, which of course included SHOES.

Eventually it was lunchtime, and so began the Hunt For A Restaurant. Many of the outdoor cafes we passed served only desserts and drinks; block after block we continued to trudge down the street until we found a restaurant that actually served food. So we sat down.

The waiter dashes by and hands us very thick menus – page after page of drink options and even more pages of food options in 4 languages. Before we could figure out what we wanted, the waiter appeared again and said, “Would you be interested in something from the grille – a nice white fish?” Nah, we said, that’s more than we want right now. “Ok, then how about a nice piece of ham with cheese and some calamari on the side, you share it, and it’s perfect!” Nah, we said, we don’t eat ham or calamari.

I said, “Can just have a salad?” The waiter said, “No, I’m sorry you can’t buy a salad separately from a meal.” Ok, then. We asked about a couple of other items on the menu, but they were not available. Ok, so what IS available, besides ham and calamari? We ended up with grilled vegetables, a cheese plate and a basket of bread – “Vegetarian, no meat, no problem!” It was interesting that no-ham/no-calamari means vegetarian, but whatever, it was fine.

As we were waiting for our food, we witnessed the same routine repeated at least 3 or 4 more times – “What about the pasta?” – “Sorry, we only have spaghetti.” Or “What about ?”, “Sorry, no, how about a nice ham with cheese and calamari? Both of you share, it’s PERFECT!”.

During one of our endless waits, another "procession" started down the street - people dressed in various costumes. My assumption is the costumes represented various periods in Croatian history, which included the middle ages - there were people dressed in chain mail. That HAD to be uncomfortably hot. Following at the rear was a bagpiper. Rather sour sounding bagpipe, even more so than usual. Once again, all done in about 10 minutes and no clue what that was about. At the very least, we were distracted from our wait.

The next challenge was figuring out how to pay. The prices in the menu were in the local currency (Kuna), so the numbers were ridiculously inflated – 110,000 “kn” (OMG) is more like $25. Still kinda high for lunch, but at least you don’t need to take out a mortgage to pay for it.

Getting the check was the final challenge – to discover that we had to pay in cash. No, we don’t have any Kuna, but fortunately, they would take Euros. Would we like the change in Kuna? No, really, that’s just fine; we’ll leave the tip on the table….

We were able to scoot onto the 2:00 p.m. tender back to the boat. We’d had enough of Split for the day.

We spent the rest of the afternoon napping and sitting out on the veranda until it was time to go to dinner.

At our table tonight was one repeat – Dan, The Catholic Priest. There were two Australian couples (Ian and Robin/Peter and Ann), who were both delightful. So much so, we talked so long, we realized we were going to miss the 8:00 show. In typical geek fashion, we decided to do our Internet stuff first (buying more minutes already - and we’ve only been on board 2 nights!) and go to the 10:00 show instead.

So the evening isn’t quite over yet – as I type this, we’re two nerds sitting up in the “Exploration Café” where the Internet connection is strongest, sitting together at a NY Times crossword puzzle table. We have a photo of this. Like anybody would doubt it

Tomorrow: Day at Sea. Andy will do a Long Run, and Amy Will Not.

Excellent Adventure 2011 - Day 1 - I ♥ VENEZIA!

Today was a very pleasant day in Venice today. We had booked a walking tour called “Treasures of Venice”. We walked for two hours, mostly through sections of Venice that tourists don’t usually visit. It was great just to wander narrow streets. Our tour guide, Barbara, a Venice native, was also great – very lively and knowledgeable with very clear English.

Venice trivia:

• 1. Everywhere else in Italy, a plaza or square is called a “piazza”. In Venice, there’s only one piazza – Piazza San Marco. Everything else is called a “campo”. There are over 400 campos in Venice.
• 2. Due to the fact that Venice is sinking, some of the bell towers are leaning. Barbara showed us the first one, and we noticed at least two others as the ship was leaving port.
• 3. Before the underground water system was installed to pipe in water from the mainland, water was collected in cisterns. There used to be a cistern in every campo. Not any more.

When we were in Venice in 1999, there were a zillion cats all over the city – to keep the rat population down. We did not see a single cat today. Several dogs, no cats.

After the tour, we stayed behind in Piazza San Marco to have lunch. The piazza is always crowded, but today half the space was taken up with preparations for a Sting concert.

We randomly wandered the streets, sorta shopping for places that displayed Kiddush cups. We had bought 2 in 1999; we did not see any today that we liked. We did see several spectacular hand-blown chandeliers – the most expensive was a mere $10K. I wasn’t even sure it would fit in the dining room anyway.

We decided to ride in a gondola. The gondolas leaving from the Rialto Bridge neighborhood were less expensive than the gondolas by San Marco. We made a deal with a gondolier; apparently, another guy who was not on the scene blocked his gondola – we had to climb through the other guy’s gondola to get to the one we hired. This did not work well – I rather ungracefully got stuck trying to step from one gondola to the other. I will have a lovely bruise to show for that. The gondola ride itself only lasted 20 minutes, but we did have a great view of the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal.

About 2:30 it was time to head back to the ship. We took a public water bus back to the dock and made note of where it let us off, so we could to the reverse and take it to Piazza San Marco the day we leave the ship to spend our last day of vacation in Venice.

We had our “safety drill” a few minutes after returning to the ship. After walking all day and climbing up and down steps on every bridge, it was not attractive to have to walk down three flights of stairs to our “mobilization station”. Afterwards, we ended up climbing back up the three flights of stairs, because all the elevators were clogged.

Before we went to dinner, we went out on the veranda to watch Venice go by as the ship left port. It was an amazing view - we noticed at least two more towers that were leaning, and we could see the crowd jammed into Piazza San Marco.

We had dinner with a woman named Elisa, who was traveling by herself. She didn’t say why she was single, just that she’d been traveling alone for the last eight years.

The big entertainment of the evening was 4 guys who called themselves “Cantare” (Italian for “sing”). Definitely better than last year’s “harmonica guy”. After the show, we visited the piano bar; the piano guy (Jimmy) held a Beatles “Name That Tune” that we did not do nearly as well as we thought. But we had a great time. Tomorrow is “Elvis Name That Tune”. Yeah, nevermind.

Tomorrow: Split, Croatia.

2011 Excellent Adventure - Day 1: The Struggle To Stay Awake

Ok, so I managed to once again lose money in the rent-a-cart machine at PHL. Seriously, I think it's a money maker for the airport, since there's never a sign on it that it's malfunctioning and the airport people around it don't care. Of course not! They are red caps, and they want me to pay THEM to haul my luggage 10 feet. Yeah, um, no.

I did manage to toddle the three items (2 thunkers and a garment bag) inside the terminal while I waited for Andy to park the car.

Other than a strangely long wait on a relatively short line for security screening, it was an easy flight. The guy who had the window seat never showed up, so Andy was able to grab it and thereby once again save the world by guarding the wing. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, go to You Tube and search for "Nightmare at 20,000 feet" - an ancient Twilight Zone with William Shatner.

The connection with Holland America worked very smoothly, and we were in our state room before noon. Off we went to have our first meal on board (which was awesome, as expected), then a nap and a shower.

Really not exciting stuff. We contemplated going into Venice. Nah, not enough energy for that.

After a great dinner with great people, we walked around the Promenade Deck. We were able to watch the ginormous screen on deck of the Star Princess in the other dock. What an amazingly clear picture!

Then we explored the ship's library, thinking we could hold out till 9:30 to listen to the piano bar guy for a while. Not happening.

Most likely, we'll both be out cold within the hour.

Tomorrow - walking tour of Venice called "The Treasures of Venice". Which amazingly enough will manage to cover places we did not see in 1999.

ANNNNND we're off and running!