Well, time for more cruising news. I left off at Valletta where we heard a lot about the Knights of Malta. Actually the Knights were in the history of almost all the areas covered by this cruise. This is from Wikipedia: "commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1291, on the island of Rhodes from 1310 until 1522, in Malta from 1530 until 1798 and at Saint Petersburg from 1799 until 1801." Long story short: there were early Christians all over this area. Gee whiz!
Anyway, our next stop was the town of Heraklion. I must admit to never having heard of Heraklion on the island of Crete but like everywhere else history goes way back here including the Knights. We visited a museum with all kinds of ancient things on display.
This was a mockup of what the city was supposed to have looked like. There were lots of pieces of pottery and such.
We didn't realize it but there had been a rare winter snowstorm while we had been at sea. From here on we would be seeing snow at least in the hills and our guides had to point it out!
Our next stop was Rhodes and it is one of the cities we did look forward to seeing. As usual the ship came into port in the early morning and we were up to enjoy the views.
This was the center of the old city after bombing in the early part of WWII.
We took a tour that walked us through the old city. It was certainly amazing.
The second day we took a bus tour that took us to some of the resorts on the eastern side of the island. Tourism is clearly a big draw for Rhodes. We even found some snow on the side of the road! LOL
We also got to stop at a beach bar for a lovely Ouzo Mezes - a shot of ouzo and some snacks. Now that was fun! As you can see from my dress it wasn't exactly wonderful weather but not nasty either. And, yes, we did wear our masks all the time when on tour.
Our next stop was called Ephesus, Turkey however what it should have been called is Kusadasi, Turkey. You could take a tour out to the ruins of Ephesus but they were closed because of the pandemic. We did have a nice time.
Kusadasi is apparently quite the tourist town in the summer.
Our last island stop was Santorini. It is one of a number of islands forming a circular archipelago that is the remains of a caldera. It was kind of cool being on the ship in the middle with islands all around.
We took a tour of the island. They are famous for having donkeys to ride up the cliffs to the main part of the island: we just took a bus that zigzaged back and forth around hairpin turns. Aside from that, the island is lovely and we enjoyed seeing it and one of the towns.
Tourism is the only real employer on the island. Most everything is brought in from elsewhere; they even have to import their drinking water. These houses are not for local folk; they are all rentals for visitors.
We did get one last day in Athens. We moored up looking right at the city.
Of course, we found a museum to tour! There were lots of statues and things in the museum.
My wife did find one thing to zoom in on! LOL
Yep, we could see the Acropolis from a distance but that was about it! If you wanted to see it upclose you needed to be on a different tour.
And then we got to get up for another early flight! The time we met in the bar area about 04:30 and went to the airport with a dozen or so other people. Some of the people on the ship had gotten up to leave for the airport at 02:30! It was flight to London where we had a LONG layover then on to a flight to Las Vegas.
It was about 7 pm when we landed in Vegas and shortly after 8 by the time we got home. All in all a great trip considering all the stuff going on in this world. And that brings us home on the 2nd of February 2022. OMG. How did it get to be 2022? Will there be more? Oh yes! Hang in there.
Thanks for stopping by. Keep washing those hands!
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