Oct 29 – Mytilini (Lesbos), Greece

back in Greece

Weather – 15º, some rain, but mostly

Taxiarchis monestery

when we were on the bus

Steps – 7,438

Mytilene (pop. 60,000) is the capital and main port of the Greek island of Lesbos (pop. 84,000). We first visited in 2008 when we toured an ouzo factory.

The ship didn’t arrive until 11, so we thought we’d have a morning to laze…nope. We were invited to a breakfast for frequent Regent passengers. It was nice, but nothing is better than lazing in bed, then taking the few steps to the balcony for a morning of blogging and reading.

chocolate fountain for breakfast

After breakfast we booked a cruise for Christmas 2027. This will be on Regent’s newest ship which will be exciting. As usual, we booked the lowest category of room – there are rooms much bigger and that come with a butler, but about half of the rooms are more or less the same size (about 350 sq feet) but have different locations on the ship, which is what impacts category and cost.

Taxiarchis monestery

We don’t care one bit about location...much, we don’t want to be under any public area…no restaurant, no bar, no pool…only other rooms, public spaces tend to be loud. The ship location that impacts room category is proximity to the

Taxiarchis monestery

centre of the ship on a higher floor, so as rooms are
closer to the middle of the ship and to the top decks the category and cost increases. An increase in category means more $$$. The room we
chose is at the back on the lowers floor. However…location on the ship can sometimes affect balcony size, the room we chose is a G category, which is second from the bottom category, but it seems to have a GIANT balcony! Like 4 times the size of balconies we are used to on the older Regent ships and double or triple what we have now.

Greek granny polishing St. Michael glass

We feel like this will be figured out and will eventually be categorized higher, but we are locked in. We experienced this phenomenon before on Regent…a large balcony off the back of the ship (bliss) that was a basic room but was eventually categorized to a penthouse.

so many cats

Mitilini is a tender port – when the ship anchors in the harbour and small boats ‘tender’ us to shore. This is always a pain – it was charming and exciting the first few times we did it and can be when you aren’t with a group trying to get to an excursion. Today we were trying to get to an excursion. Tendering is a whole lot of sit around and wait in the theatre (the usual excursion meeting point) until there is an available tender.

Loukoumades 

This is where I think Regent fails a bit. We were supposed to anchor at 11, and tours were supposed to start going out at 1120. Obviously, they know how long it takes to start the tender operations, but people who were supposed to leaving the ship at 1120, didn’t until closer to noon. We were supposed to meet at 1155 and didn’t leave until about 1230.

St Raphael monestery

This doesn’t affect the excursion at all, a Regent excursion that is. Independent excursions are another matter, but we never do those. No Regent (or other cruise line for that matter) excursion will ever, ever not get you back to the ship and if something happens like a bus breaks down (been there!) the ship will never leave without you.

St Raphael monestery

We visited 2 monasteries and one taverna today. Travelling between all three took us all over the island of Lesbos. It was a perfect mix of seeing cultural sites, tasting local flavours, seeing the landscape, and how people live.

Of course we were with a guide, Mimi today, who told us many things at the sites and on the bus. I occasionally hear people moan about how much talking the guide did, or how the guide should have said less…PARDON ME!?! How else are you going to learn about where you are you ding-dong?!? I have never once thought a guide should have said less – sheesh!

St Raphael alter with hanging lights

Our first visit was to the fortress-like monastery of Taxiarchis (Greek for archangel or commander), dating back to

where 12 yr old saint Irene died

the 10^th century. St Michael the Archangel and St Gabriel are the patrons. It was interesting to hear Mimi tell us about the offerings people make of sliver items that have been used to cover a life size (of bigger) image of St Michael. Apparently in the Orthodox religion images aren’t to be 3D, so none of the iconography are sculptures. Exceptions can be made of course, like the one of St. Michael here, which is mostly flat – a relief image.

The church walls and ceiling was completely covered with images of saints. No photos were allowed in the church, but they have a great web site if you want to check it out. https://www.taxiarhismantamadou.gr/

St Michael and St Gabriel must also be the patrons saints of cats…they rule this place!

Lesbos landscape

We had time for a snack of Loukoumades - Tim-Bit sized, deep-fried dough balls that are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and soaked in hot honey syrup. These can be with or without chocolate drizzle…we had with. A plate of 8 were €4.

Then we drove about 30 minutes through narrow winding roads, along the coast, through tiny towns, past cow and sheep pastures. Cows and sheep aren’t roaming freely as they typically do here as there has been an outbreak of foot and mouth disease on Lesbos since March, the first occurrence in 25 years, so animals are kept with the same herds.

St Raphael monestery

We also saw the Lesbos refugee camp. Mimi didn’t give much information on the camp, but a quick google search doesn’t have much good to say. Not that any refugee camp is great, but this one seems particularly no-so-good.

The Saint Raphael monastery (12^th century) where we visited next, is a working monastery in so far as it has nuns living there. St Michael/ St Gabriel monastery was operational for celebrations, but not a day to day working monastery.

meze and ouzo

Did you know (I didn’t) the difference between a convent and a monastery? According to the interwebs…”a monastery is a secluded place where people live apart from the world for quiet prayer, while a convent is a home for religious workers who go out into the local community to serve’.

There are many relics at the St Raphaeli monastery including 2 pieces of St Raphael’s skull, which is one of the reasons it is a pilgrimage site. I always find relics a bit creepy, but if that’s what worshipers like…good for them.

Sappho 

Lastly, we found ourselves at a taverna for meze and ouzo. The Meze was a meat ball, a deep-fried feta/chic pea ball, tomatoes, and a couple of unidentifiable dips. Everything was OK, I missed olives and cheese. Most of the people around us ate and drank very little. In fact, the woman across from us didn’t even touch her ouzo, so we helped her out.

Mitilini waterfront

3 busses arriving back to the ship at a dock would be an ordeal, but 3 getting back onto a tender would be a zoo! We figured for our sanity we had to find someplace for a beer.

We wandered the town a bit and stopped for a Kea beer (€5 for a pint). The waterfront area is lined with bars and restaurants which at 5pm on a late October mid-week evening wasn’t exactly hopping, but I could see how it would later in the day and especially in summer. The captain was out for a walk at one point and stopped by for a chat.

We sat right by the Sappho (c. 620–550 BCE) sculpture. Mimi told us about her – she was a teacher of aristocratic women. She wrote poetry about the beauty of

beer and Sappho

women which let to her being the symbol of lesbian history and culture.

Mitilini by night

By the time we got back to the tender it was dark (one aspect of tendering that hasn’t lost its shine for me is tendering in the dark) and it wasn’t at all full – maybe 10 people including staff – so no ordeal at all. You know tendering operations are almost over when the shoreside supplies are on with you. The tender ride from Mitilini to the shore is about 10 minutes long, this is short, some places it can take up to half an hour.

the ship lit up. tendering back

ship's door open and ready for us

The rest of the evening was, predinner cocktail, dinner, Chris went to the casino, I went to the room. I read for about 30 seconds and passed out hard. These no nap days are killing me!

Oct 28 – Istanbul, Turkey

Weather – 15º, cloudy with some misty

urbanization of Istanbul

rain

Steps – 13,447

I am thrilled to be in Istanbul today! Istanbul is definitely the highlight of this cruise. Overnights are rare on cruises and initially, we were to over night here. It would have been fantastic, to be out and about in Istanbul at night, but tomorrow is a Republic Day in Turkey, so not a great day to be a tourist. I completely get it, but I find it odd that Regent couldn’t have known this when the itinerary was set years ago. By the time we had booked the cruise, the itinerary was already changed, so we weren’t disappointed.

yogurt snack with sugar pack

It was exciting and a bit emotional as we sailed in past Turkish flags, mosques, the Blue Mosque, Dolmabahçe Palace, Galata Tower – all this was just from the sail in! 

Blue Mosque during sail in

Old Neighborhoods of Istanbul is the title of the tour we selected for today. Having been in Istanbul a few times before, we’ve visited the main sights – today is a chance to venture off the beaten path a bit.

The tour is one of Regent’s additional cost tours, today we were with a group of 6 other people, and this is enough of a reason to feel the extra cost is worth it. The extra cost excursion in Dubrovnik was normal size, so we didn’t think the extra cost there was worth it – it was just regular quality and size.

Dolmabahçe Palace

Being such a small group, we were on a small van – capacity 14.

börek 

On the way to the Asian side of Istanbul, where all of the tour took place, Irem told us info about Turkey and Istanbul. One interesting bit is that the official population of Istanbul according to the interwebs is 15 million, but she puts it at closer to 30 mil. The Turkish government no longer conducts a census. The entire country of Turkey is about 86 million, so about a third lives in Istanbul.

All of the 3 stops on the tour were on the Asian side of Istanbul. Each time we stopped we followed our guide, Irem, as she led us along narrow streets that were both residential and commercial.

We also were able to sample Turkish foods ‘Midye Dolma’ – a mussel shell stuffed with the mussel and rice, drizzled with lemon juice, about $1CAD each.

sail in

This was very, very tasty! We got the sample from a street vendor/fast-food spot where Irem happened to stop, I’m not sure it was on her official itinerary, but I’m glad she stopped!

mosque

Another thing we tasted was Turkish coffee (or tea was an option). Tea in Turkey seems much more ubiquitous, but I wanted to try the coffee. I’ve had Turkish coffee in Calgary and here is the same…small cup of unfiltered, sludge-y coffee, you drink down to the sludge. The sludge can be used to tell fortunes.

old Istanbul houses

The coffee/tea accompanied börek – a pastry made from think flaky dough like filo. We had 3 types – one with feta cheese and walnuts, one with ground beef and another with just cheese – all very delicious.

The last neighborhood we visited was called Kanlica – here we sampled its famous yogurt – delicious, but basically plain yogurt that Turkish people
mix with powdered sugar.

Each time we stopped we saw a slice of life on the Asian side of Istanbul – shopping (we saw a market with the biggest cabbages, at least 2x the size we are used to, and leeks, well over a meter long, in the history of the world!) going to school, working, and basically with few tourists. There were tourists for sure, but we were no where near the big sights of Istanbul.

Midye Dolma stuffed mussel

HUGE cabbages

Very much like Montenegro, there were cats everywhere. As Irem told us, there used to be leather factories that were shut down, in these factories were cats to control mice and rats. When the factories were shut down the cats were sent to the streets. Now Istanbul residents and business owner/staff feed these cats.

After the tour we walked to the Beşiktaş soccer stadium, about a 1.5km from the port. We visited the stadium on a previous visit and wanted to do some shopping – we both got a t-shirt.

Beşiktaş soccer stadium

On the way back we stumbled upon some street art – 2 faces of a building covered with empty window frames. These window frames represented the urbanization of Istanbul – not sure the Uber Eats bike belonged, but it seemed appropriate.

mosque

We stopped for a beer ($12CAD) in the port area, not exactly cheap, but in the new port, on the water, right near the cruise ship’s gonna cost ya! The port area is incredible! When we first visited Istanbul for a cruise in 2008, the cruise terminal was a

Turkish flags everywhere for tomorrow 

warehouse. Now the Galata Port terminal is very high tech, maybe the most advanced cruise ship terminal in the world. It is the world's first underground cruise terminal, which uses a hatch system to keep customs and security zones separated while the waterfront can be accessed by non-cruise passengers. Ther terminal has many bars, restaurants, and shops. The busses and vans pick up and drop passengers off underground. It is something!

beer, the ship, and the port

There was security just to get into the mall – not ship or port security, but mall security – the usual, metal detector, bag x-ray situation. The 250 shops (many we were familiar with) and restaurants were thronging with people – local people. I suppose in a city of 30 million enough residents will want to hang out at the port.

Oct 27 – AT SEA, Cruising the Aegean Sea

lovely place to blog

Weather – 13º, windy, blustry

Steps – 5,396

lots of action in the sea today

We set the clocks forward again last night. Greece and Turkey are on different time zones, and we are going back and forth – good grief. So far, we’ve only gone forward, we are in Turkey tomorrow and then back to Greece the next day, so I assume we’ll gain the hour back, but it is all a bit confusing. Setting our devices to set the time zone automatically, doesn’t necessarily work…

I left the room around 9 to get fresh pressed juices. Julie and her room attendant partner were just hanging in the hall – this is very unusual, typically they are working furiously to get all the rooms done. They said everyone still had their ‘do no disturb signs on’ – I guess that’s what happens with a lost hour.

cheese souffle

By about 10 we left the room looking for somewhere to hunker down until lunch. We settled at the pool, not actually the pool as even in the somewhat sheltered spots, it was cold. There is one corner of the pool level, completely covered and

7 Seas party

enclosed on 3 sides (on of these sides is all windows), and open on one side where the pool starts. No matter the weather, this is a good spot – couches and armchairs warmed by overhead heaters, plus it is close to the self-serve coffee/cookie station. It was very quiet, so we had our pick of the spots. Eventually, it filled in, but people were definitely taking a slow morning.

There were plenty of activities going on around the ship, if you wanted to be busy – we kept busy reading and blogging.

Greek was the lunch theme. The indoor buffet was packed, so we picked a spot outside, but covered – exactly same situation as the couch area, covered with walls on 3 sides, the fourth open to the pool and heaters. I attempted to get some of my food from the pool area of the buffet and WOWZA, it was a hurricane…I took what didn’t look like it’d fly and ordered the special of the day “Greek gyro’ to be brought to the table.

French menu

Tonight was Regent’s Seven Seas Society gathering of frequent sailors. We learned that there is one woman on this cruise who has over 2,700 nights sailed on Regent! We mostly go for the caviar.

foie gras

Dinner tonight was at the ship’s French restaurant, Chartreuse. Historically, this hasn’t been one of our favourites, but the menu has changed slightly, so we decided to go through with our reservation. Tonight there was a miso glazed cod on the main dining room menu which I really like, but we stuck with French, I was glad we did. I had tenderloin

which was cooked perfectly for me. The meal was very rich and not one we will likely repeat on the next cruise, but I’m glad we went.

What I wasn’t glad we went to was the show. The performer’s name is Ollie Mulkeen, he’s a trumpeter/showman. He’s a youngish guy, but hasn’t yet received the memo, that Regent is finally moving into the modern era. We’ve seen him before and his show was almost exactly the same – we even remembered one of the stories he told.

after dinner petit fours

Given the audience’s reaction people liked it, I’m not sure people actually like Elvis, or Bobby Darin, or if they just like his energy which he had plenty of. We will give his next show a pass.

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Oct 26 – Katakolon, Greece

Weather – 19º, mostly sunny

Steps – 5,942

oil testing

One step forward, then one step back – or should I say ‘hour’. It was horrifying to find the ‘clocks go forward’ notice in the room last night. Between changing the clocks and time zones, things are ‘in flux’. What I wouldn’t give to be going nowhere but west, gaining an hour each night was amazing when we crossed the Pacific to Japan.

I’ve heard of some cruise lines changing clocks during the day on a sea day. That’s an interesting idea - everyone is awake (mostly), no one loses sleep, an announcement can be made, and everyone knows. Of course, I love gaining the hour of sleep. I would love to do an ocean

olive harvesting tool

crossing again, but only if we head
west, none of this losing an hour each night BS travelling east!

Our ETA to Katakolon today 1PM, so the hour lost was as painless as it could be.

trees thick with olives

This afternoon arrival also gave us a morning to be lazy…reading, blogging, and room service – an omelet, cappuccino, and kiwi that looked surprisingly like berries. The ship is out of kiwi apparently – odd. When I asked for kiwi, the guy told me they were out and suggested melon…MELON! There is so much melon on this ship (and all other ships in my experience)! No sir, I will pass on the melon, but do you have berries? Why yes, madam we do! There is no day when I’ll take melon over pretty much any fruit – I won’t not eat it, but I sure won’t ask for it or pick it when there are

dips, salad, feta, chick peas, wine

alternatives!

It is always interesting to watch the docking procedure. We are on the starboard side of the ship, and that’s the side that is along the dock this time, not all times. Pretty much all ports (that I’ve witnessed at least) do the same thing…someone

1000 year old olive tree

from the ship throws a ball attached to a small rope to workers on the dock, that rope is attached to the big ropes that affix the ship to the dock…that’s it. There’s a lot of yelling, heaving, and hurrying, but the world around…that’s how it goes. That said…it never gets old.

We didn’t bother with lunch as the afternoon’s excursion included lunch. We set off for the Magna Grecia olive grove about 40 minutes from the port.

Once we arrived at farm/oil press and were greeted with delicious olive bread and a glass of white wine – the wine is also produced on the farm. This was a lovely way to start. Then we were shown how the olives

pomegranates like Christmas balls 

are harvested, pressed, and what products are made. This was in a building – pretty typical for this kind of demo, but it would have been nice to see

old olive press

the harvesting where it was happening. Harvest has just started. This is different for us, as we have only ever been in olive producing areas in the summer.

After the demo we samples the different oils including herb and fruit infusions.

Next, was lunch – Greek salad, chick peas, chicken, potatoes, feta cheese, hummus, another dip made with feta and pomegranates, baklava, and fruit salad. This was served with bread (not pita I might add) and washed down with the farm’s red wine.

After lunch it was time for shopping. Throughout the demo, it was made clear

beer while Athena protects us

that all of the oils and many other things were for sale...very clear. Good for them – I bet nearly everyone bought something, including us – some oil and olive oil body cream.

We decided to stay in town for a wander and a beer, before heading back to the ship and support the local economy.

us on the way back to the ship

Katakolon’s dock is completely for cruise ships and other tourist boats – no industrial port here. That meant that it was an easy walk back to the ship and there was a water side strip of bars, restaurants, and shops. It wasn’t very busy at all, and settled on a place where we were enticed by one of the staff to come in. It happened to be owned by a young guy from Massachusetts who opened the place last year. Many of these places weren’t even here when we were here in 2009. We learned from the Mass guy that the dock and water side strip has been

we are here

extended.

Although it wasn’t technically happy hour, the Massachusetts guy said he’d give it to us anyway – 2 for 1. He is clearly from America, where 2for1 means 2 for 1…

fantastic show!

EACH! We told him we appreciated the offer of an additional beer for free, but we would pass on the additional pint! Each beer was 7€, so an additional one would have made it a bit more economical, but sheesh…I didn’t need another beer!

The evening show was by the ship’s entertainment team – Ignite the Night. A show of song and dance that is probably the best show we’ve ever seen on Regent – high energy, great dancing, and current music! PRAISE THE LORD!

Comments re the cats...I KNOW! 

I know a couple of kids who would have been in their glory!

another cat shot

How about a  motorcycle riding cat?

the horrors!