Reading the Blog for the First Time

If you are reading the blog for the first time, please note that the blog itself is in reverse chronological order.  For better enjoyment, read the oldest posts first.  You can access these via the blog archive list located on the right side of the home page.

The Final Entry

The ship wanted us out of our room by 8 AM.  Our new room stewardess rang the doorbell and then walked right in.  I think she thought she was being efficient, but I thought she was being rather pushy. I will get out when I am ready, thank you!   As much as I want to get off the ship and go home, this has been my room for the past four months.

We had a final breakfast with Lillian, Adrian, Duncan and Melinda and said our goodbyes. It was time to pick up our luggage and repack the stuff we used overnight.  A short taxi ride to the airport and here we are, early for our flight to Frankfort.  We were so early that we couldn't check our bags for 2 hours.  This is not a user friendly airport and trying to find a decent place to sit comfortably was not easy.  Wi-Fi is not free either.  We did run into several people from the ship. 

The trip home was fairly straightforward. There were a few delays, but nothing serious.  The flight from Venice to Frankfurt was running late but the pilot made up the time so we arrived on schedule. Unfortunately, we had to sit out on the tarmac while we waited for a gate, making our tight connection to our next flight even tighter.  Racing through the Frankfurt airport from one concourse to another on a good day would've been tough enough especially when pulling carry-on bags.  It's a little bit tougher when you have aching knees, but I was very glad for the moving sidewalks which did help.  

After a 10 1/2 hour flight that was packed, we finally arrived in San Francisco. We went through customs and immigration rapidly using our GOES Pass, which is worth it's weight in gold.  No waiting in lines!   We retrieved our bags and then had to recheck them, and then headed to another part of the San Francisco airport in order to get our flight to Palm Springs.   It was a very long walk, which I actually took in a wheelchair because by this time the knees were really unhappy.   After a brief flight to Palm Springs, we arrived around midnight, got our rental car and headed home.   The evening was balmy and the temperatures quite delightful.  

We got to the house and we were expecting it to be cool and comfortable. What we got was a hot house with a broken air conditioner that supposedly had been fixed the previous week.   No sleep for 24 hours, hot, and hungry makes for a very unhappy girl.  After taking stock of four months worth of mail, the disruption caused by renting our house for the four-month absence, and trying to find things that are not where they're supposed to be, I have to admit I was a bit agitated.   But thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, we were able to get a few hours sleep before having to face the broken air conditioner, unpacking suitcases, and putting our home back in order. 

Upon arising at 7 AM, Michael and I had different agendas for the day.   His was to get the air conditioner fixed and I was to get my nails fixed and see the doctor about my knee.   The doctor gave me an injection and said he would inject the other part of my knee in two weeks. However, he looked at me with those big brown eyes and told me, "you have arthritis."   So my options are to continue with injections or to face having to get a new knee.   Since I don't have the time or the desire to be out of commission for any length of time this summer, I am going to opt for the injections.  Keep your fingers crossed that they will buy me some quality time.

In regard to the air-conditioner, the patient has been diagnosed as terminal.  Due to a series of foul-ups, the air-conditioner that was supposed to have been completely replaced and fixed by last week before we got home, never got done.  Since this was Friday, you know that nothing will happen over the weekend and with temperatures over one hundred plus degrees, it is been a very uncomfortable and long weekend.   Instead of taking care of business at home, we have been going to the movies and out to dinner and any place that has air-conditioning.   Thankfully, the evenings have seen the temperatures in a more comfortable range for sleeping.

WELCOME HOME!

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Well folks, our time on board the Sojourn is coming to an end. This is our last real stop before Venice where we disembark the ship and head to the airport for home.  So here goes my next to final entry in Beverly's Blog for the World Cruise 2014.

On approaching Dubrovnik, the captain gets on the PA system and announced that we would not be anchoring in front of the old city due to high winds and heavy seas.  So we went around the corner to the harbor where there is a large pier.  We finally tied up around 10:30 AM and it was pouring.  It is no fun to walk the old city in the rain.  

    This is from last year. Could not anchor here due to weather.

We took advantage of the terrible weather and stayed in to start packing, a most unsavory chore.  Once again, as this happens every time we go somewhere, Michael is always moaning that I have taken too many things and we cannot fit it all in our suitcases.  Yeh, he says this every time, but somehow we manage to fit everything in.  

After lunch, the rain stopped but there were dark heavy clouds above.  We boarded the shuttle that would take us to the old city and saw the suburbs of Dubrovnik.  The streets are narrow and many of them are one-way, and you cannot go in a straight-line anywhere.  There were many old brick and stone buildings and many newer buildings as well.  

We drove along the outside of the wall.  The beauty of this walled city and the immensity of it can hardly be described in words so let me present pictures of some of the things that we saw.  

All the homes had red tile roofs, many of which are new due to the war in the 1990s when much of the city was damaged by bombs.  Many of the neighborhoods are built upon hillsides, and this is a very clean and lovely town.

    The hillside as seen from the ship

    The bay we were docked in as seen from the ship

The one thing we did not do when we were here last year was walk the wall.  Walking the wall that surrounds the old city, it is about three miles in length and takes about two hours to walk if you are in good shape.  I figured I'm not in great shape to do this, but if I could just get up to the top and walk just for a little bit, then I can say I have walked on the wall.  Take a look at the picture below and guess who came to her senses.

    The girl is not crazy

    This was taken last year; you can get an idea of the size of the walled city

So we walked down the main street and then some of the side streets, running into people that we knew from the ship.  Just like last year, walking in this old town was very trying for me.  This charming medieval walled city has now become a tourist trap, where one shop after another sells the same items that happens to be very expensive.  It is especially crowded when there are several cruise ships in at the same time.  We are in Croatia, but there is a plethora of pizza parlors throughout the city, evidence of the city's Italian heritage. 

    The main street

    A side street that is nothing but stairs

    Another side street that we walk down

We returned to the ship without getting rained on!  It was now time to rest up because we were attending a renewal of wedding vows ceremony with one of our bridge couples, Duncan and Melinda, who we now count as friends.   Up on the 10th deck aft in the spa patio, the captain officiated with a priest and rabbi in attendance.  It was a lovely occasion, and how could you not feel married with all the officials in attendance!  

The wedding party adjourned to the Observation Deck for celebratory drinks and then dinner. 

    Going on 47 years for us!

Corfu, Greece

The eastern shore of this northern most Ionian Island faces Albania and mainland Greece.  It is dotted with curved bays and secluded beaches, while the western coast is more dramatic with high cliffs and long stretches of sand.  This is a town where time has stood still, yet the modern world invades.  It is a contrast in the old, traditional ways and values with the intrusion of progress.  About 110,000 people live on this idyllic isle; many of them have never travelled beyond its shores.  Instead, the world has come to them in ever increasing numbers from cruise ships who release large numbers of passengers from all over the world. Our neighboring ship in the port disgorged over 2,300 people!  Despite this, Corfu retains a fresh open simplicity, and their friendliness is legendary. 

The town of Corfu is very old.  Over 500 years of Italian, French and British occupation have left their mark on the city. So like all old cities, the interior streets are little narrow warrens winding this way and that.  Shops displayed their wares of jewelry, olive oil, bath items and religious doodads in a very pleasing manner.  

Our goal for the day was to take a train ride around the city, which we didn't get to do it last year.  This is an open train, more like one you would find in kiddie land.  Our hopes for doing this were dashed because we had rain, our first real day of heavy gray overcast skies.  Today was the first day in four months that I wore tennis shoes, and I must say my little piggies were not happy about that.  Carrying umbrellas, we boarded a shuttle from the ship to the terminal where we had to get off of the shuttle and go through the terminal in order to pick up the next shuttle that would take us to the Esplanade.  There was a band welcoming the guests.  There was a Holland America ship docked on the same pier, so we had to contend with the crowds.   

The shuttle took us up and around the old city wall.   Traffic was ridiculously tied up because the streets are so very narrow and people parked on both sides of the street in order to go to the farmers market that is held in what used to be the moat. 

We didn't let a little rain stop us from enjoying the city, but it kept the train from operating.  We wandered through the narrow streets, just browsing.   We didn't stay very long because we didn't want to shop (prices were very high) and we had a ship-wide event for later in the afternoon.  I needed to save my energy and knees for later.  And we had to deal with packing.  Yep, it is that time in the trip when the ugly task must start. 

We returned to the ship for lunch and packing.  I will be glad when this trip is over so I don't have to deal with the damn bus steps -- they are killers, especially the last one from the bus to the street. 

The afternoon ship-wide event was to Mon Repos Palace.  It is situated on top of Analipsis hill in the area of Kanoni. The remains of the ancient town of Corfu, which have been found opposite to the palace, make archaeologists believe that Mon Repos was built right on the site where the ancient city of Corfu used to be. The palace is surrounded by magnificent park. It was built in 1826 by the British Commissioner Frederic Adams as a gift to his Corfiot wife, Nina Palatianou. It is a small but very beautiful palace with colonial architectural elements.  Nowadays this house is used by the Municipality of Corfu as a museum where a tourist can see many Ionian treasures. The park is also a big attraction and is visited by hundreds of tourists every year offering a delightful walk in the cool shade of arcades created by old giant trees. 

    This is a stock photo from the website

Ok, that's the description given by the website. Here's the description given by Beverly:  what a colossal bore and a rundown dump with an overgrown garden that had no flowers.

From the ship we boarded a shuttle to the terminal, had to get off the shuttle to walk through the terminal, then get back on the same bus that we just got off.  Everyone was scratching their head wondering why.  Supposedly, it was for security; however, there was no security in what we did other than to make people with handicaps get up and down steep bus steps for no good reason that I could see.   We did have a nice tour of the outskirts of Corfu, but we could not go through the old city because vehicles would not fit.  Upon arrival at the palace, we were dropped off at the bottom of the driveway because the bus was not able to go up and turn around.  What they didn't tell us was that it was a half mile hike uphill to get to the palace.  I later found out that they had a van that was supposed to drive up and down the driveway transporting people with disabilities or bad knees, but it never showed up when we were there.  So I wound up trudging up the driveway on a pair of aching knees (we had no idea how far it was to the top until we started walking and actually arrived at the top).

Of course, it did not look like this when we arrived. There were tents set up on the front driveway with tables laden with Greek style hors d'oeuvres and wine.  There was a heavy overcast and threat of rain in the air, but the rain itself held off until after the event was over.  There was a tour through the house, but there was not a whole lot in there that was interesting.  We headed back down the driveway for another half mile walk to the bus, and came back to the ship where I promptly took a pain pill and iced my knees down.  

It was a good night to stay in and have room service and watch a movie.

Kusadasi and Ephesus, Turkey

It was a glorious day in Kusadasi.  There was a bright blue sky, with a stiff breeze off the water that kept the temperature just right, around 72°.  My conundrum today was do I go shopping or do I rest the knees and save myself for the evening outing.  The urge to shop in the bazaar was strong, but self preservation won out.  Besides, I have bought all the gifts I was planning to and I don't need anymore stuff.  

Michael, on the other hand, needed to go ashore so he could do more watch shopping.  I got set-up on deck 7 aft where I had a great view of the city and harbor.  Just me and my iPad knocking out the previous day's blog.  But the itch to go and shop was still there, damn!   While I was pondering what to do, Michael shows up saying he felt so guilty going to shore without me.  Ah, isn't that sweet?!   I assured him that he was free to go guilt-free.  And he went back out and I stayed onboard.  Ah, aren't I sweet?!

Kusadasi is a lovely resort and vacation town on the Aegean Sea.  The population is 65,000 people rising to over half a million during the summer when the large resort fills with tourists, mostly from Turkey itself, and Europe and the Balkans.  70% of the local population works in tourism.  The harbor area has a beautiful promenade with many cafés, restaurants, and hotels.  Once outside the city, there are fertile agricultural areas filled with acres and acres of rolling hills covered with olive trees and other fruit producing trees.   

Tonight, the ship served an early buffet dinner because we were going to a concert at Ephesus.   Ephesus was founded some 3,000 years ago at the mouth of the Cayster River, on the sea.  By the third century AD, the harbor had silted up and the city went into decline.  Its ruins now lay some ten miles inland.  At its height, it was home to 200,000 people, and what a history it had.  Greek gods came in from the west.  Anthony and Cleopatra rode along the Arcadian Way.  The Virgin Mary died in a house just outside the city.  The tomb of St. John the Divine is here and St. Paul preached in the great theater, which holds 25,000 people.  This site is believed to have only been 10 to 15% excavated, with many more decades of work to reveal the rest of the ruins.

The world cruisers went to explore the ruins earlier in the afternoon, and then had a lovely dinner in front of the library building.  We were not invited even though we are on the world cruise.  Below is a picture of the library that we took last year (it was dusk when we arrived this year).  The library, which in its day was the third largest library in the world, has been 65% restored.  

The concert was held in front of the coliseum.  Ephesus is a site quite unlike any other.  It has been painstakingly restored to some of its original splendor.  The coliseum, where the Romans really did feed slaves to the lions, is in incredible shape and still holds almost 25,000 people.  They hold a number of events here every week, but loud rock music has been banned because the last concert they had did damage to the site.  So now only classical music is allowed. 

As you can see from the picture above, cloth covered tables with lighted flower centerpieces filled the courtyard.  Wine and soft drinks were served and there were some local nuts and olives on the table.  As the sun set and it got darker, the temperature started to drop.  This is the first time on this entire cruise that we were actually wearing sweaters and jackets, and even felt a bit chilly.  The program tonight was classical music performed by a Chamber Orchestra, including a flautist.  A beautifully printed program with gold bossing and a shiny black ribbon was our souvenir.  What was extraordinary about the evening, besides listening to fantastic music, was sitting in centuries old ruins in Turkey.  Wow!  

Rhodes, Greece

The Mediterranean Sea was calm and not very interesting until.... The captain gets on the ships intercom and said we were going to slow down and change course because he saw something orange floating in the water that he wanted to investigate. Well, you can imagine that everyone rushed to the side of the ship to see what it was.  This captain had done something like this before and found a fishing boat that had been adrift for two weeks with crew onboard that were still alive -- barely.  So of course, we wondered what it was. Much to our disappointment, it was not a pirate or a refugee boat or a fishing boat or the missing Malaysian airplane -- it was a FLOATING COW!  Yes, the poor thing was dead but unfortunately, we will never know how it got there. 

It was a rough and short night for me. I could not sleep and had crazy dreams.  Between the knee problem, and other concerns, I am so looking forward to home.  I have mentally shifted to packing mode and thinking about all the things we have to do when we get home.  First up, is a visit to the Ortho doc who did my knee surgery.  Next, appointments with my hair dresser and manicurist.  My nails are a mess and are held together with glue. And my hair -- OMG -- it is awful. They have people onboard who do these jobs, but I don't trust them to do a good job, just look at my nails. 

Anyway, we arrived at Rhodes at 7 am. The "alarm clock" went off an hour before we docked.  So we were off to an early start, or so we thought. While waiting for Lillian and Adrian, the assistant cruise director wanted us to unbox a 10-year supply of bridge supplies that resided somewhere in the bottom of the ship since 2010, and then throw all the stuff we are currently using away in the trash.  We had enough of the same consumables already to last for another year; it was the same stuff we just received.  After that task was finished, we all left the ship to do some sightseeing. 

After some negotiations, and convincing my husband to take a taxi instead of a tour bus, we selected a driver with a very nice and roomy Mercedes.  The cost was 40€ for a private tour versus 40€ for a tour bus with lots of steps.  Duh, no contest. 

Today was another beautiful day, with bright blue skies and a stiff breeze off the Mediterranean Sea. The temperature was in the high 70s.  SWEET!  Rhodes Island is the fourth largest island in the Dodecanese archipelago (Greece has over 200 islands that are inhabited, and too many others to count), and is dry, rocky and barren on the west side and agricultural on the east side. There are beautiful beaches everywhere, but the ones on the west are very windy with wild waves in the sea while the ones on the east are calm. Half the population of Rhodes lives in Rhodes Town and 70% of the population works in the tourism industry. This is a tourist destination and resort town, and the season runs from May thru November.   In season, the population swells by 65,000 to 75,000 tourists daily.  Everyone on the island speaks English. There are olive trees everywhere (they export a lot and eat a lot).

We drove through the "new" city, which is only about 500 years old. We stopped to take pictures of the harbor. 

And then drove to the top of Mt. Filermos that afforded us a wonderful view of Rhodes Town.  From here we could look across the Mediterranean Sea over to Turkey. 

    That's Turkey in the background

  

    Ruins dedicated to the God Apollo

We continued our tour of the suburbs of Rhodes.  It is a very beautiful city, with plenty of greenery and lush parks.  Our guide wanted to take us to Lindos, about 40 minutes away, but Mr. I Rather Take a Bus said no, he wanted to go and explore the old city.  Our driver dropped us off in the old city; you cannot drive inside here.  The roads were very narrow and paved with oval stones about 3-4 inches long, in white, brown and black, to create patterns and designs.  The old city is surrounded by a magnificent sandstone wall built in the 1400s by the Knights of St. Johns. The old city is home to 6,000 people but mostly has shopping, restaurants, foreign consulates and museums.  

    Oval stones laid on their side to form designs in the road or floor

    A gate in the backside of the wall

    Inside the old city

     The main street is nothing but tourist shops

     Local color

We were not interested in shopping.  It was getting near lunch time and we hadn't eaten for a few hours, so we needed to eat again (sarcasm goes here).  We ran into the rabbi and his wife and decided to join them at a nice little outdoor cafe.  Michael ordered a beer, and this is what he got:

It took two hands to hold it, and this was the small size!  Here is Lillian with hers:

After all that beer, we needed food. What better than some Greek food.  We each ordered a platter of gyros and should have only gotten one order. This is why:

Fully satiated (read that as stuffed), we decided to explore a little bit more.  The synagogue was just down a nearby alley that was paved with small oval stones. 

The synagogue was absolutely gorgeous.  The Kahal Shalom is the oldest Jewish synagogue in Greece, and the sole remaining synagogue on the Island of Rhodes used for services. There were once six synagogues and prayer halls in the Jewish Quarter (called "La Juderia"). The Kahal Shalom is  believed to have been built in the year 1577. The full name of the building is "Kahal Kadosh Shalom" (Holy Congregation of Peace). It is used for prayer services when visitors or former residents and their families visit the Island for Friday night prayer services, High Holiday services and for special occasions.

In addition to being a functioning synagogue, they have a wonderful museum about the history of the Jews on Rhodes.  It was well done and one could spend several hours here looking at and reading the exhibits.  Knowing how much I love museums, and I was little concerned about my knee, we did a quick tour; Lillian chose to stay behind.

    The synagogue 

    The museum (note the stone floors)

We came, we saw. It was now time to head back to the ship for some R and R.  This was the gate that we took to get back to the road that would take us to the ship. 

All and all, it was a lovely day and I'm glad that I went out on this excursion.