Day 21 Istanbul- The First Day

This morning we awoke docked at the super modern Istanbul Cruise Ship Terminal. Most of this structure is underground and going ashore you feel like you are in some giant futuristic space station. It all functions very smoothly though.

We were off early on a bus across the Galata Bridge, a giant suspension bridge over the Bosphorus to the Asian side of Turkey to visit the Sultan’s Summer Palace. Known as the Dolmabahce Palace, it was constructed in 1875 and reflects strong European design influences.

Getting into the building involved quite a long walk from the buspark and unfortunately just as we started walking, the heavens opened up and it really bucketed down. It was a very wet bedraggled group that finally staggered into the palace’s entrance foyer.

Unfortunately photography inside the building is strictly prohibited so no interior pictures. I can tell you the Sultan that built this was really into warships as there are paintings of at least two of them on the ceiling of nearly every room. The other thing that struck me was just how uncomfortable it would be to live in a palace

Back to the ship we had a quiet afternoon as we had booked on a dinner cruise on the Bosphorus which went until 11:30pm. We did, however, get in one of Cunard’s famous afternoon teas in the Queen’s Room.

After a bit of a false start which saw us walking a couple of Ks to the wrong dock then retracing our steps plus another K before we found our evening cruise boat. Still it was worth it.

We had a fantastic evening floating around the Bosphorus, watching the lights, enjoying great food and excellent entertainment which included my favourite – a whirling dervish.

I won’t mention the Belly Dancer who, after completing a very energetic performance, went around to every table encouraging the male persons there seated to show their appreciation of her performance by inserting paper currency into her less than voluminous costume.

Now you don’t need an MBA to see the flaw in this particular marketing strategy when the male person’s better half is seated across the table fixing you with a death stare. Sad to say, some less experienced husbands did not read their table very well and our dancer was soon plastered with notes. Whether these husbands will live to make it to the end of the cruise remains to be seen but the odds are not good.

Day 20 At Sea en route to Istanbul

A nice sunny fine day with a few people hanging around the pool.

Lots of shipping about including some unusual sights such as these two tugs towing a rig.

And this floating electricity generating station.

We had to take on a pilot prior to passing through the very narrow Dardanelles Straits. This was right under our balcony.

A solemn time remembering the ANZACs as we passed through with the ship playing the Last Post.

Day 19 Kusadasi Turkey

Early off the boat this morning as we have a long day on the bus.

Our first stop was at the remnants of a Roman town called Magnesia. It was famous in Roman times for its shrine to the Goddess Artemis.

Not much left and the overall effect was further dampened by someone building a huge corrugated iron lean-to along what remained of the city wall. The mood was even more dampened when it started to rain so we quickly retreated to the bus.

The next stop at Miletus was a huge improvement on the first. Miletus was a Roman city with a population of around 100,000. There was a very interesting little museum surrounded by a Bunnings like assortment of Roman plinths and pieces in all shapes and sizes.

But the piece de resistance was a little way down the road where there was the ruin of the Miletus Roman theatre which could seat 10,000 people.

Unrestored but still largely intact, it was a fascinating structure where you could still walk down the tunnels under the stands that the patrons would use to access their seats.

The seats and the stairs were made of white marble and the seats had legs carved in an elaborate style. The acoustics of the theatre’s design were amazing and still functioned perfectly.

Walking from the site I was taken by the vast amount of Roman building remnants, some beautifully carved, just lying in the grass in the surrounding field.

We then got back on the bus and headed off to a rather magnificent lunch in a giant beachfront resort, the Pine Bay Hotel.

Then it was on to the true highlight of the day, a place that should be on everyone’s bucket list, the amazing Roman city of Ephesus. In Roman times, the administrative centre for Rome’s possessions in Asia Minor, it boasted a population of 250,000 people.

The city was, over the centuries, ravaged by earthquakes and buried in silt washed down from the surrounding hills. This paradoxically helped save a large portion of it from being taken for recycling in other buildings so today you can see one of the most extensive Roman ruins.

You can walk down the main Roman street paved in marble.

See the shrines erected to deified emperors Trajan and Hadrian.

Pass the high end shopping mall with its mosaic tiled floor.

And come to the third biggest library of the ancient world which pioneered the use of vellum to replace papyrus.

Then turn down thru the Agora where the common people shopped. You can look and see where St Paul was put in prision for a fortnight before being thrown out of town.

Then you come to the 25,000 seat theatre.

This is where Ephesus today currently finishes but if you look further on, work is in hand on restoring the town’s mammoth Roman stadium.

Finally back to the ship after a very long and memorable day.

Day 18 The Island of Rhodes

This island has had a truly amazing history. In ancient times it was a powerful independent kingdom then came under Greek control, then Roman, then Byzantine control and around 1300 was passed to the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (Knights Hospitallers) who built a massive fortress and a powerful fleet for the protection of Southern Mediterranean sea routes from the Turks.

The Knights of Rhodes as they came to be known, lost their fortress to a Turkish siege in 1523 and moved to Malta where they became known as the Knights of Malta before Napoleon tossed them out.

The locals tell a story of how the Knights lost their fortress in Rhodes. Apparently, a disgruntled knight who had lost the election for Grand Master of the Order, secretly stole all the fortress’s supplies, including large stocks of gunpowder, and hid these in a secret chamber under the Chapel which, along with the Grand Master’s residence, stood on the top of a hill in the middle of the fortress.

The Knights, finally realising they were almost out of supplies, arranged a surrender and left the island. The Turks took over and converted the Chapel to a Mosque by demolishing the Chapel’s spire and erecting a minaret which, as was traditional, was topped with a metal crescent. A few years into the Turkish rule the minaret was struck by lightning which ignited the forgotten gunpowder store resulting in a large explosion which levelled the Mosque and the Grand Master’s palace.

Over the next four hundred years the island gradually declined as the result of pestilence, emigration, and harsh Turkish administration. In 1912, the Italians, feeling they should have an Empire like other European powers, took Rhodes from the now enfeebled Ottoman Empire.

The amount of money the Italians spent on buildings here is truly amazing. On the top of the highest point on the Island, where the Greeks had built their temples and the Byzantines had built a Monastery, the Italians did archeological digs, preserved the Greek temple’s remnants and rebuilt the Byzantian Church and Monastery.

Up here they also created a long path with outdoor Stations of the Cross leading to the highest point where they built a giant cross. The Italians themselves had to blow this cross up in the early stages of WW2 as it served as a perfect aiming mark for RAF bombers attacking the Italian airfield in the valley below.

The most amazing example of the Italian building spree here was the reconstruction of the Grand Master’s Palace (which you will remember got totally destroyed four paragraphs back). The Italians had the original plans for the exterior of the building but nothing of its interior.

So they set to work. It was designed to be a palace for the King of Italy when he deigned to visit his Rhodian possession. The Palace was finished in 1940. The place is huge, the workmanship is stunning and the King never got there.

The feature that impressed me most was the floors, many of which where transplanted mosaic tile floors from ancient Roman buildings.

Walking down to the Old City from the Palace, you go down the Laneway of Knights. The Knights of Rhodes drew their members from all the countries of Christendom and each group lived with their fellow countrymen. So along this Lane was a house for the English Knights, the Spanish Knights, the German Knights etc. The French being the French still own their one.

The French house has unique gargoyles. This arose from an incident of a ship sailing from Egypt to Rome which called in at Rhodes. This ship amongst other things had a baby crocodile on board which was a gift for the Pope and it managed to escape. Over time the crocodile grew in size and terrified the locals who were convinced it was a dragon. Finally a French knight went out and slew it much to the delight of all concerned, excepting of course the crocodile. The gargoyles record this event.

We wandered around the Old Town which is mostly a pretty frenetic shopping district. We found a lovely spot for a long lunch and then made our way slowly back to the ship.

Just in case you are wondering about the current status of Rhodes, under the Allied peace treaty with Italy in 1947, the island was awarded to Greece.

Day 17 Still at Sea

Another sea day, only very little happened. Weather is fine and the sea is smooth, the passengers are sunning themselves by the pool and sampling the local Ales.

Day 16 At Sea en route to Rhodes

We are currently on passage to the Island of Rhodes which will take two sea days.

First bit of excitement came around midday as we sailed near Mt Stromboli. This has been an active volcano for the past two thousand years and has minor eruptions every 20 to 30 minutes. Not the place you would think you would want to live but there is a town there. Unfortunately cloud hid all the fireworks on our passing.

The next noteworthy event occurred at 3pm as we transited the Straits of Messina which separate Italy from Sicily.

This is a surprisingly narrow passage and the ship had to take a pilot on for the transit. There are proposals to link Italy with Sicily with a suspension bridge here.

Evening was a gala night so I was in my penguin suit while Jeanette wore a ravishing red outfit with Noelle’s gold wrap.

Day 15 Civitavecchia

Today we have docked in Civitavecchia which is the port that has serviced Rome for over two thousand years. Rome is about a two hour bus ride away and since we have been there a few times and didn’t fancy spending 4 hours of our day in a bus, we decided to spend our day exploring this town.

Amongst the city’s highlights mentioned in the guides was the Museum of Antiquities which surprisingly was not shown anywhere on the tourist map but, after much searching, we finally found it from Apple maps. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed.

Next on the guide’s must-see list was the Michelangelo Fort, so named because he is claimed to have designed the fort’s tower. Built in the 16th Century to protect against the pirate menace, the place is huge and hard to miss but unfortunately it also was closed.

As you walk along the waterfront you can see parts of the original Roman defences amongst a large array improvements and extensions that have been added on over time up to the 17th century.

The places where modern roads have been cut through the city walls gives you a chance to understand how massive these fortifications were.

Jeanette got her daily fix of church visiting as we explored the town’s beautiful cathedral.

We wandered around the streets and came across the town’s market in full swing. We then found the Piazza Fratti where had a lovely coffee and watched the world go by for a bit.

After more walking about we found our selves up on a plaza along the top of part of the city walls and we stopped for a long lunch there in the beautiful warm Italian sunshine.

Day 14 All at Sea Again

This Sunday finds us winding our way towards Italy.

Jeanette attended the Sunday Service where the Captain officiated. She reckons he would make an outstanding vicar.

Today being Mothers Day in Australia and the US, they had put out a lovely cake and floral display . This caused some confusion amongst the bulk of the passengers who come from the UK who celebrate the day in March.

Day 13 Mallorca

Around 8am our ship docked in the town of Palma, the capital city of the island of Mallorca. We were off the boat soon after and boarded a bus for the town of Soller.

Soller is a very pretty town in the heart of what was once a large citrus growing area.

Our arrival coincided with their annual celebration of the town’s victory over a major pirate attack in the 17th century and a lot of the buildings were covered in flags.

One of its claims to fame was that it is the smallest town in Europe to have an operating tram service.

We were sitting in the town square having a coffee when one of these trams went rumbling through.

We caught the train from Soller back to Palma. This railway was built in 1911. The country between these towns is so mountainous that before the line was opened it was easier for Soller’s inhabitants to catch a boat to France rather than cross the mountains. The line has 12 tunnels, one of which took 15 minutes to go through.

The capital, Palma, is quite a large city. It boasts a truly massive cathedral with a lake along one side.

This was in use for a solar powered model boat race.

We explored the streets and had a lovely Tappas lunch. Unfortunately it started raining and we retreated to the ship.

Day 12 At Sea Again

Today was another sea day as we make our stately passage to the Spanish Island of Palma de Mallorca.

The sun is shining, the sea is smooth

And the pool deck is full

As is the Winter Garden.

The Commodore Club was about half full

But there was only one lonely soul in the Yacht Club