July 26 - Paris

Not sure what the temperature was today, but there was a lot of RAIN. For the most part it wasn’t cold…maybe 14 degrees.

It’s Tour de France day, the last day of the Tour through the streets of Paris and very close to our hotel. Although we were up at 8:30, it was far too easy to turn over and get about 4 more hours.

We knew the riders wouldn’t be in town until about 5, but also knew there would be the Tour caravan (a whole bunch of advertising ‘floats’) a couple of hours before the riders and plenty of people mulling around the Champs Elysées.

We wandered around a bit up the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe and found a spot for a late lunch - fresh cheese, strawberries and balsamic vinegar. The rain came and went, but by the time we were ready to sit for lunch it was pouring. We were able to sit outside even though it was pouring under an awning and heat lamps.

winner in yellow

lunch - remembered to take a pic after the first bite

Seeing the riders was at the same time exciting and a bit of a let-down. By the time they finally made it, they were there and gone in about 10 seconds. 

July 24/25 - Calgary to Paris

20 degrees (some people are wearing down jackets - we are NOT) when we arrive around 9PM.

The frenzy that is London’s Heathrow airport amazes me every time I’m here – and I’m not comparing that to Calgary’s sleepy airport. We’ve been to plenty of ‘big’ airports, and this is something else! However busy it is…we are off the plane, onto a bus, through passport control, then security and are sitting in a very busy (and messy) lounge with a drink in hand in less than 20 minutes. 

blogging in an Irish pub

The flight was unremarkable, but it was nice to skip getting to Vancouver for the flight to London. When using travel points it seems like you take what you get and typically we get a flight from Vancouver…this year Calgary. The downside of leaving from Calgary is no 747 and no business class upstairs – we survived.

for my dinner viewing pleasure

beet, Gorgonzola and walnut salad to start - fancy!

Something else that I never tire of is showering in an airport. Initially I was told the wait was 90 minutes, but ‘come get a pager in 30’... 40 minutes later I was squeaky clean!

After a 2 hour layover we were back in the air on our way to Paris where we will spend the next 5 days.

The first of many pizzas and wine are on the menu for dinner after a bit of a getting-to-know-you in the neighborhood.

The internet is about a million dollars in our hotel, so we found wifi at our 'local' next door. Can't say I've heard French spoken here since we've sat down.

As per usual when we settle in to a hotel or ship room we 'blew the fuse' in our hotel room. Apparently the electricity in the room isn't prepared to handle a power bar! It doesn't happen every time we are in a new room, but often enough that you'd think we'd expect it - we weren't totally 'shocked'.

Summer 2015

For the next 3 weeks Chris and I will head to France and England. This year we are bookending a river cruise on the Bordeaux river in France with 5 days in Paris and 5 days in Bristol, England.

river cruise

Athens to Calgary - August 8

Today is all about getting from here to there, there being home. The last month has been a wonderful adventure of new (some old) sights, tastes and places, but there’s no place like home.

The 4:45 alarm came very early this morning – although we really weren't sleeping very soundly thinking about not missing the alarm…Is it really going to ring? Did I set it for PM not AM? Not a recipe for catching a lot of ZZZZZZs. We are ready to get off the ship by 5:45, but can’t get to the port customs before 6:15. Customs is non-existent as we expected, to we likely could have been out sooner. We have a car booked to pick us up for 6, so that we can get to the airport for an 8:15 flight. As it turns out we have plenty of time – not lots, but plenty. We knew we were going to be cutting it pretty close, but the 8:15 flight from Athens to Calgary was all we could get for today. It dawned on me today that the 2 or 3 hour window prior to flights that passengers are requested to be at the airport is a shopping scam. Of course I know security or check in lines could be long, but we arrived at the airport an hour and 15 min before the flight and had time for a coffee and a muffin. I also know Athens airport is (seems) small and that this wouldn't work at Heathrow for example...but…

popcorn sundae

Another thing I know is that it’s easy for me to say all of that now sitting here in the Heathrow airport after just taking a shower (still a thrill), sipping wine and eating lunch with 8 to hours to kill between flights. I wasn’t so comfortable this morning waiting to get off the boat, or yesterday thinking that we might be late into Athens as we were the last time we arrived due to port traffic.

Anyway…it’s been another great vacation. I so look forward to my own bed tonight (or is it tomorrow), getting coffee from the same ol’ place once I wake up and my own things where they belong – can’t say I’m looking forward to the heat and thunderstorms though. BTW…I haven’t posted any casino updates recently for sadly obvious reasons. I’ll take most (not all) of the blame for that one – I’m a pretty bad gambler. This trip and the last time we were in Vegas, what does it say that we just booked our hotel for Vegas at Thanksgiving???

A huge thanks to those of you who followed this adventure along with us – see you all soon!

Oh...I've been meaning to post a photo of the popcorn sundae I had a few days back. This is something I have never been offered before. It is out-of-this-world! All I want in a dessert...salty and sweet. 

Ott - looked for umbrellas in Rhodes...not a one, and we wished you were here (there) too

Patmos, Greece - August 7, 2014

Patmos island

Monastery

monastery fresco

Today is the last port for this cruise. We are back in Greece on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. This is a small island sprinkled with tiny chapels which are neat to see from the ship and as we drive around the island. Today’s tour is a nice change from the ruins. The ruins are great, but too much of a good thing…

Patmos’ main attraction is the fact that St. John the evangelist lived here. Although we board buses once again, the ride is very short.

We first visit the Cave of St. John – the Cave of the Apocalypse. This relatively small cave, now also has a small chapel. This cave is NOTHING like the stalactite filled, touristy one we visited a few days ago. This is where St. John is said to have received and wrote the Book of Revelation from a vision of Jesus.

Next we visit Chora village and the Monastery of St. John. The small chapel here is covered with frescoes – there are also frescoes at the entrance to the chapel typical of other Eastern Orthodox churches we’ve seen. We also visit the monastery’s treasury. A small, but interesting museum. Some of the interesting items are many manuscripts, some manuscripts from the 11^th century. There are also chunks of the frescoes that fell off during a earthquake – very cool, the chunks of frescoes, not the earthquake.

one of many tiny chapels

Chris hotel

After the monastery, we took a walk through the winding streets of Chora village. There are houses here from the 16th century. We stop at a 300 year-old house which a 90 year old woman still lives in.

Lastly we stop at a taverna, where we have some Greek mezes while we watch some Greek folk dancing. Thankfully we were able to avoid being part of the ‘show’. Some people LOVE audience participation and they really looked to be enjoying themselves – we are NOT those people.

Chora village

outside monastery

The tour description outlines this tour as moderate to strenuous with 15 minutes of walking up hill. Although I often find the descriptions to be a bit inaccurate, this one was bang on – wow. I can’t say I saw any fat Greeks on these streets.

After the tour we wandered around Skala, (we find the Chris hotel) the port town a bit before returning to the ship to pack. I think anticipating the end of a vacation is worse than the actual end. Of course we’ve had a wonderful time, but I’ll be happy to be home. I guess being home isn’t so bad when I don’t have to go to work on Monday.

It is an EARLY night considering we have the alarm set for 4:45 AM!!!

at sea...August 6

Well, happily we have very little to report from today. Today was a day at sea...we slept late, napped, sunned, and relaxed. We couldn't ask for a more relaxing day!

Limassol, Cyprus - August 5, 2014

Well...we've had our fill, we are ourselves in ruins - OK, so maybe that's a bit dramatic. We are just fine, but we have seen just about enough ruins for a while. We've decided one more day is not necessary. I realize this makes us pretty lucky people.

Our original plan is to sleep in and take the shuttle into town late morning, poke around a bit, maybe have lunch and a beer. After a couple of champagnes at the pool, we decide it’s a good idea to stay at the pool for the day.

this is as close as we got to Limassol

crab eating tools

It was a good choice...a perfect relaxing day. It is a delight to be on the boat when most people are not. Not that I don’t want to be around people J, but sometimes I need some space - the laundry was open, the pool had more chairs than I could want, the bar tender begged to pour me a champagne, I think I did the person at the coffee bar a favour by asking for a coffee. Ok, so maybe the bar tender and coffee person did me favours! The point is…we had plenty of luxurious space.

Dinner tonight was at the ship’s steak house – Chris had crab. Although they come split, he has to do a bit of shelling.

After dinner we watched a one-man show by a guy who sang, told jokes and stores and played the guitar. Sounds a bit cheesy, but it was pretty good!

Alanya, Turkey - August 4

Side monument

Dalmatas cave

Alanya is another of the ports substituted for Jerusalem. One thing about Alanya is the humidity. Until about noon it was hot, but not too humid. Well, around lunch the clouds rolled in and the humidity sky-rocketed! There was no breeze and parts of me I didn’t know could sweat were drenched.

one last beer

The first thing that strikes me today is how touristy Alanya and Side are. Our first stop today is Side – this is about an hour’s drive from Alanya. We are here to see…you guessed it…ruins. In addition to the ruins here is a museum of statues, monuments, sarcophaguses etc. It’s interesting when we are here at the Turkish ruins that the temples are dedicated to what I consider Greek gods and goddesses – today’s are to Dionysus, Apollo and Artemis. In addition to these ruins are many night clubs, resorts and water parks – not unlike Cancun.

LUUUUUNCH!!!

After Side we head back to Alanya and the Damlatas caves. These are the caves that are described as needing athletic shoes. I bought athletic shoes for this tour and surprise…they were not needed AT ALL. I’m not sad about buying them as I’ll surely use them at home, but WOW, what a misrepresentation in description. These caves were a HUGE disappointment. They are neat as they are deep and have tons of stalactites and stalagmites, but are very commercial and beyond walking down and up again (a 10 min exercise) there’s nothing much to them. Apparently they have healing properties for respiratory problems.

We decide to have lunch in Alanya rather than on the ship. Alanya is very easy to get to from the boat – a 2 minute walk and we are on the beach walk. There are mostly fast food type places on the go at this time of day so I am thrilled to have a donair and a beer. 

Alanya seascape

Antalya, Turkey - August 3

Aspendos

Aspendos

Antalya is a port that was a substitute for Jerusalem. While I am quite disappointed about missing Jerusalem, I’m not sad to miss the 10 hour days that Jerusalem would have meant for us.

Aspendos

Aspendos

The tour we’ve chosen today visits 2 archeological ruins. The first is Aspendos which are ruins amongst the Taurus Mountains. This is a very short (15min) stop and all we see is the theatre. I say ‘only’ but it is very impressive. Apparently the Roman theatre (2nd century AD - during the reign of Marcus Aurelius) here is the best preserved of any on the Mediterranean coast.  Performances here today are done without microphones because acoustics are so perfect. We climb up to about midway of the seating. So far I’m thoroughly pleased that the heat is not oppressive – the facilities aren’t so bad either.

Perge

Our second site visit is Perge – these ruins are from about 1000 BC. Although Perge was not a very large city, its theatre held nearly 14,000 people. This is where the heat is turned WAY up. According to the guide the heat at least means that there are few tourists here.

The Turks really know what they’re doing ruin-wise. These ruins are something else compared to what we’ve seen in Greece. Of course there are spectacular ruins in Greece, but the Turkish ones in my experience are a whole lot more interestingly presented.

Perge

After the formal part of the tour we spend a bit of time on our own in the old part of Antalya. We are a bit disappointed as there isn’t much for tourists here. We finally find a spot that offers beer (not always easy in Turkey.) It seems like this place is in an inner courtyard, but when we commit, we are ushered to an upper floor that overlooks the street – pretty cool and cool.

Perge

Antalya port

mountains - gorgeous

Rhodes, Greece - August 2

breakfast?

King's gate

Rhodes is another port on this year’s itinerary we have visited before. Although on the one hand it seems to us that we may be wasting a visit by being someplace we’ve seen before, this gives us the opportunity to see less visited sights or take a bit of a slower pace at cruising.

This morning we were still on the boat when the crew had their safety drill. They take this 

very seriously which I’m very glad about – they know what they’re doing.

Clean laundry has become my mission. Although we did laundry 2 days ago, why not do it again?? So, when the closest laundry room is full I don’t return to my cabin defeated, I carry on to the next closest, and so on until I find an open machine. Finally…jackpot!!!

Next was a couple of hours of pool time followed by shopping and lunch.

Rhodes old town is a charming touristy town with all you would expect – shops, restaurants, cafes etc. We find lunch at a place with a second floor so that we can see the square below. This place also (like most others) has wifi. We have all the wifi we can want on the boat, but the boat blocks updates. I have 37b updates, so we bring our iPads to get updated. Lunch is a surprise of Greek salad, calamari, wine and beer.

cheers!

Tonight we experienced the excellent service we remember from past cruises – not that we’ve experienced anything but great service so far, well there was that one night in the French restaurant when dinner took 2.5 hours and the waiter made us feel like we were inconveniencing him by being there. Tonight I asked for a particular wine in the lounge that they didn’t happen to have at the moment. I said ‘no problem’ and asked for another. The response was ‘no, no, just give me a moment to get you that one from downstairs’ – OK, I’m in no rush. The waiter apologized profusely and promised that when we come back tomorrow that we won’t have to wait!

second floor lunch spot

My biggest complaint today for was that the orange juice in my mimosa was too pulpy – that’ll teach me for bastardizing perfectly good champagne. 

refreshment stop

tea time

Mykonos, Greece - August 1

lion statues

 Well, it’s hard to believe July has come and gone and I am writing August 1. It does seem like we’ve been away for a while. Chris and I were discussing today that we feel that we are just getting into the grove of vacation – we are lucky to have a week more.

Today is one of 3 ports that were not part of the original itinerary we booked. With Israel out, Mykonos is one of the substitute ports. It obviously can't be compared, but it's not a 

disappointment.

fertility symbol - duh?

This is our second time to Mykonos. We decided to visit the island of Delos. This is significant in Ancient Greek mythology. Apollo and Artemis were born here when their mother Leto had to find a place to give birth after Hera (not unusually) was angry at her for hooking up with Zeus (Apollo and Artemis’s father) and ordered lands to refuse Leto a place to give birth. Leto finally found a place to give birth on Delos.

The ruins here weren’t ever covered and as we see them today were basically how they were in classical times – give or take the grass growing around the columns and things fallen over.

In order to get to Delos we had to take a tender from the ship to the port and then get on a ferry from the port to the island of Delos. The ride on the ferry was something else in terms of heat and humidity at 9 AM. We knew the island was going to be hot with little shade, but the ferry ride – WOW!!!

mosaic floor

ruins

M|ykonos town

Once off the ferry there was a bit of a breeze on the island. The ferry back to Mykonos was much breezier and cooler. After a 2 hour tour of the island we were back to Mykanos. We decided on lunch in town of souvlaki, meatballs, wine and beer – not cheap, but tasty.

lunch

The rest of the day was filled with napping, dinner and the ship’s ‘block party’. This is when at a designated time everyone meets in the hallway outside their cabins to meet their neighbors. Wine and cheese are served while we chat with those we share the hall with. As far as block parties go, this one was pretty lame, but we met a couple of interesting people along with a glass of wine or 2.

Tonight we also met with a guy who works in the bar who we knew from our cruise in 2011. When I saw him tonight I was pretty sure I recognized him, but of course wasn’t sure. We chatted with him a bit and discovered that sure enough it was him.