I remember being really impressed by how the agency took care of us. As soon as we arrived in Athens we were greeted with one of those signs that you always wish were for you. We were taken to our hotel in downtown Athens and we spent the evening strolling around Plaka. Plaka is the old town and weaves around with all sorts of restaurants and tourist shops.
We spent the next day on a guided tour around the city. It was pretty lame but helped us orient ourselves. The sites not to miss are the National Gardens and the Acropolis. I personally thought the changing of the guards in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a neat ceremony. That evening we went up to the top of one of the seven hills in Athens on a cogwheel train and the view of the sunset and the city was beautiful. On the top of the hill was a little Greek Orthodox church and we ducked in to see the evening mass starting Holy Week. We were excited to leave Athens. It’s dirty and the streets are sketchy. We kept reminding each other how things aren’t like that in Switzerland.
Monday was the beginning of our cruise on the Sea Diamond. Ironically the first thing we did on the ship was an emergency drill. Our first stop was later that afternoon in Mykonos. It was not what I expected. I had imagined a hustle-bustle party town. It felt like walking through a painting. We got lost among the labyrinth of whitewashed houses with brilliantly colored trims. We found ourselves along a beach that was covered with wildflowers and had a little church nestled on the edge. SO pretty. I’m glad it was the off-season. For a while we were the only ones strolling around.
Tuesday we arrived early in Kusadasi, Turkey. We had a guided tour to Ephesus. It was really fun to imagine that Paul walked those same streets and taught the people there. The countryside itself was worth seeing even if there weren’t old buildings.
Then we roamed around the markets in Kusadasi. We came really close to buying a Turkish rug. The stupid salesman kept talking at such a rate that Elisa and I couldn’t even converse about whether we wanted it. I think we would have bought it if he had just shut up for two minutes. All the salesmen were SO pushy and in-your-face. They kept saying, “What have you bought your beautiful wife?†or, “What a lovely couple.†or, “Do you want to make your wife happy?†We could not hold a conversation! 😡
That evening we went to Patmos, the island where John the Beloved was exiled. We went to a monastery that was built in his honor. A fun story about the monastery: The island of Patmos was often raided by pirates. So the people of Patmos built their homes right up to the walls of the monastery. So when the pirates came, the monks of the monastery would throw down ropes over the walls and the people would climb up on their roofs and use the ropes to enter the monastery for safety.
Then we went to the Cave of the Apocalypse. We were especially excited to see the cave where John received Revelations. It is said that a crack in the ceiling formed as the Lord spoke to John. The cave felt sacred. There were notches in the wall where John might have rested his head or his hands. You could imagine that the Lord really spoke to John there just because of the way it felt. I made sure to feel the crack in the ceiling and imagine that sacred moment.
When we got back on the ship, we had “Greek Night.†There was a show with traditional music and dance from the Greek culture. It was a lot of fun. And Chad and I even got to join in at the last dance. We kind of learned the Dancing Zorba. We had no time to do anything on board. Each day we got a little more tired. We docked early each morning in places and were always busy at night until late. I had one big complaint with the cruise ship, and that was that we were given a room with two single beds! Who wants to go on a honeymoon with separate beds? I tried not to cry. We didn’t leave the staff a tip because of that. Plus, they yelled at us when we sent back a nasty milkshake—or at least what they thought was a milkshake.
The next day was Rhodes. If you ever go to Greece, go to Rhodes. First of all, the sea was beautiful. We went on a tour that stopped at a pottery shop. A guy made a vase on a wheel right in front of us, and then he destroyed it, all in the space of about two minutes. They were showing off. It was fun to see all the detail and symbolism that they pack into one little thing. I also really liked that it was a trade that is passed along within families.
We walked up to the Lindos Acropolis. There were 245 steps to the top, as the guides reminded us umpteen times. The town was really small and it had a lot of fun character. One of the most beautiful things about it was that it was all pedestrian. And all the paths were hand-paved with these beautiful designs like a mosaic. They used white and black stones from the beaches. There was a little church that we went in to and we took some time admiring the ceilings which had frescos with Biblical themes. Adam and Eve were created and cast out of the garden. A soul was being judged and there was a scale. On the side of the devil and his demons were a stack of weights and more demons were bringing more weights. On the other side the scale was empty and yet weighed more than the other, (as an angel was spearing a demon that was trying to pull down the scale). We couldn’t take any pictures.
The Old Town in Rhodes is the most medieval city I’ve ever seen. It has huge walls with a double moat. The guides also told us umpteen times that the moats were never filled with water because they were above sea level, showing that sometimes guides just start to run out of material. Elisa and I liked souvenir shopping here. We got good pictures in the castle-looking museum. There was a cool Muslim cemetery. It looked really old and had the neatest looking tombstones. We sat on the beach and relaxed. It was a nice day.
Thursday morning we left early for an excursion in Crete. By the time we got to Crete we were pretty weary of tours. You can only take so much archeology. You can only take so much education. 🙂 Plus, it is nice to be able to see things at your own pace and without a billion other people. So, we went to the ancient city of Knossos. By the time the Greek civilization was flourishing, Knossos had been deserted by the Minoans for 1,000 years. We visited the palace that once had over 1,500 rooms. It was decorated with double axes and engravings of double axes. It had the nickname Labyrinth, which meant “house of the double axes.†The palace wasn’t organized very well, so it was hard to find your way through it. Ever since then the word labyrinth has meant a maze. It’s also decorated with bull horns, which makes it the place where the myth around King Minos and the Minotaur were derived.