Saturday on board

After last nights meal we stopped at the Schooner Lounge and were thoroughly entertained by an Australian piano player who had real knack for getting the crowd involved in a sing along.He was very funny.

We and about 200 others participated in a one mile walk with the captain to raise money for charity.

Today was a day at sea. The highlite for me was the passing close by to the Stromboli volcano. This volcano is continually active and as we passed by a plume of smoke shot up into the air.Cool.

We, (OK I mean Caro) managed to get all the purchases SHE made, into our suitcases.A small miracle indeed.

Crete

Our tour today was called "A taste of Crete "and it was  a wonderful surprise.The island is beautiful in the interior and our guide was very informative.

After a short walking tour of a small town called Vamos we went to a family run business that makes olive oil products and wine.

The real surprise of the day was the city of Chania (pronounced Hun ya)
This city had a beautiful old harbour from the Venetian days.Another OMG moment

Leaving Turkey

Turkey was a surprise for both of us. I am not sure what we expected but after spending the afternoon shopping and walking the malacon in magnificent weather (only about 31 today) we both felt much happier than yesterday in Athens. As we leave Turkey we are immediately back into the Greek islands and the Captain has said we will be passing somewhere near Santorini tonight.

Ephesus Turkey

Second attempt to complete todays blog.

Today was a hi lite day and the reason I wanted to take this cruise. We went to the ancient city of Ephesus. This city was , at one time ,  one of the most important cities in the ancient world.Anthony and Cleopatra were here and as well the Apostle Paul preached quite a bit here causing lots of grief for the people following the older religions.

Our bus driver also took us past the site of the Temple of Artemis which  was one of the ancient 7 wonders of the world however not much left now

As I am updating this blog Caro is shopping for leather goods and as I write this she has returned with bags full of something and a charred credit card!!!

We are doing this update from a restaurant in the port city of Kusadasi.

Another great day

Wednesday at Athens

We were already docked in at the port for Athens and after a 7 AM breakfast we connected with our tour for our trip to the Acropolis. Wow that was an interesting spot intimately shared with Caro and perhaps 4000 other visitors at the same time (:-[    .

I realized today that I mixed up the name Parthenon here in Athens with the Pantheon in Rome so my earlier post from Rome was incorrect.

We also stopped for a few minutes at the stadium site of the first modern Olympics. I convinced Caro to do a short run in front of the stadium where the marathon ends so she can brag to her running buddies about doing a section of the original marathon route.

Other than one or two interesting archaeological sites we saw from the bus window we didn't find Athens that interesting and we decided to spend our afternoon reading and snoozing on board near the Solarium pool (out of the sun; 34 degrees today)

We have just left the port (5:35 pm here; 9 hours earlier than home)

Tuesday at Sea

Today we spent the day at sea..We both read and spent some time at the pool.

We had supper with the English family  again.It was a good time.

Tonight we watched a Broadway show.

One of the photos below is just for Vanessa.She is not the only one who eats fries on a cruise

Taormina

We are on our tour from the boat and have stopped in Taormina.This village is extremely busy and is very famous for its beautiful streets.Both Caro and I were feeling ill so we stopped and had Sicilian pizza (looks like we wont have supper on the boat tonight!).This pizza is more like we get at home