Treasures of the Aegean
May 2-,11 2024
Mike and Judy Henderson
We're nearing the end of this cruise - two more days and then we fly home.
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May 9, 2024 (Thursday) We've left the Greek islands and will land on the Peloponnese peninsula. It's just barely connected to the rest of Greece by the narrow Corinth isthmus. The place we'll land is called Monemvasia.
We'll arrive at the port later than usual and depart for our excursion about 1pm. Michael gave a presentation in the lounge on the history of Greece and Turkey before our arrival, sharing his extensive knowledge of the areas we're visiting.
We tendered into the port using one of the ship's tenders. Monemvasia is a large rock connected to the mainland by a tombolo, a narrow strip of land. This picture was taken as we approached the port. The small city of Monemvasia cannot be seen from this angle - it's just beyond the right edge of rock in this picture.
It was fortified in the sixth century, and a town was founded in the area shown in the next picture (picture from the web). The mainland town is Gefira.
There's a trail from the lower city to the top of the rock, and a few of the Tauck guests went up there.
Note the flat open area at the bottom of the town. We'll be there later.
At the port we boarded a bus which took us along the road at the base of the rock to reach the entrance to the city.
We walked through the town. The main street was full of tourist shops. We went to a small square where there was a bell tower of the Church of Christos Elkomenos. The church was built about 1697, and the bell tower in the 1800's.
Here's a better picture of the church and bell tower from a different angle - from the web.
And a view from the top of the mountain, taken by Charles Hood. The church is in the upper center of the picture, and is perhaps the largest building in the photo. While the church doesn't have a lot of frontage, it extends back quite a way.
A view up the rock from the lower city.
This view shows some of the upper fort.
Then we went to that large square I mentioned earlier.
A closer view of the Panagia Chrysafitissa church.
Neither Judy nor I were up to walking the path and steps to the top of the rock, but some of our group did walk up. Here's a picture of the Hagia Sophia Church (Holy Wisdom Church) on the top of the mountain, taken by Charles Hood.
We went back to the bus, which took us to the port and we tendered back to the ship.
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May 10, 2024 (Friday) Today is the last day of tours for this cruise. Tomorrow we'll leave the ship.
We gathered in the restaurant at 7:45 and then tendered in to the city of Nafplio (or Nauplion). We'll visit ancient Mycenae.
In Homer's Iliad, Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae and was married to Clytemnestra. His brother was Menelaus, king of Sparta, and was married to Helen (of Troy). Helen was kidnapped by Paris, which started the Trojan War. (Spoiler alert: Paris dies in the war and Helen is returned to Menelaus. Second spoiler: When Agamemnon returns home after the war, he is murdered by Clytemnestra.)
As we tendered in, we passed the Venetian castle of Bourtzi located in the middle of the harbor of Nafplio.
At the port, we boarded the bus and drove directly to the area of Mycenae - we did not do any real sightseeing in Nafplio at this time.
The weather was cool and windy, with scattered showers - not a great sightseeing day.
The first site we visited was the Treasury of Atreus, sometimes called the Tomb of Agamemnon because a funerary gold mask was found inside and originally believed to be the death mask of Agamemnon. Later research proved that the mask predated the mythical Trojan War by 300-400 years. It's a beehive tomb, so-called because of the interior shape of the tomb - it's shaped like an ancient skep beehive (also see here).
And, just to show that we were there:-)
A closer view of the entrance. It's interesting how they created an "arch" over the door to take the weight off the door lintel.
Here's a view of the interior. It's hard to tell from a picture, but the "dome" is huge.
Mycenae was just across the road, and we went there next. A view of the ruins as we approached it.
There's not much to see in the ruins, but they have a museum there with displays of things found at the site. I'll post a few pictures.
Reproduction of the golden Mask of Agamemnon. The original is in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
As we were leaving the museum, one of the local feral cats had parked herself on the carpet in the middle of the entrance, and was not moving, thank you. You tourists can walk around me.
We started to walk further into the ruins. This is the Lion Gate, entrance to the city of Mycenae.
I went into the area for a short distance and took a few pictures, but there wasn't anything really interesting, and it started raining harder. Here's one picture though.
With the rain, the pathway got really slippery. It was made of some smooth stones set into concrete. Your foot really slipped on those stones.
Most people went back to the bus. When the few brave souls that continued on in the rain returned to the bus, we headed back to Nafplio and the hilltop Fortress of Palamidi. Here's an aerial view of the fortress (from the web). I think the entrance is toward the top of the picture, at the end of the road you can see there.
We could look down on the city from the hilltop.
But there was still a light rain and the cobblestone pathway was slippery. Some of us walked on the dirt on the side of the paved path to get better traction. I think it would have been an interesting place to visit in better weather.
A view of the port area of the city, from the fortress.
After a short visit, the bus returned to the city of Nafplio. During the ride, I was able to get a good shot of the fortress.
I also took a picture of the Sleeping Lion of the Bavarians. Picture taken through the bus window.
The bus parked in a parking lot across the street from Philellion Square, and we walked into the city.
Just across the road from the parking lot was the Hotel Grande Bretagne, maybe not related to the one in Athens. Grande-Bretagne is French for "Great Britain".
As we walked into the city, we passed the Antica Gelateria gelato shop. Here's Michael talking with signore Marcello Raffo, the owner. Michael later gave each of us a coupon for a gelato at Antica Gelateria.
We continued to the 3Sixty Italian restaurant where we had an excellent Italian meal. I lost count of the courses - way too much food.
At the end of the meal Michael passed out gelato coupons for Antica Gelateria. But by then, we were stuffed. Judy decided she couldn't eat any more, but I wasn't going to let good gelato go to waste. I went to Antica Gelateria and got a gelato, and donated Judy's coupon to a young boy who was at the shop.
We then took the tender back to the ship.
We sailed away from Nafplio fairly early in the day, heading to Piraeus for our final port call. The wind was behind us so the ship's crew set the sails and we enjoyed a quiet couple of hours under natural wind power.
While I was on the top deck, I stopped by the bridge and talked with the Aline, the Staff Captain. The Staff Captain is the second-in-command.
That evening, Michael had arranged for reserved tables for the Tauck guests in the main restaurant and we all gathered there at 7pm. I forgot to take pictures.
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May 11, 2024 (Saturday) The tour is completed and we leave the ship today. Suitcases were out for pick-up at 6am this morning.
We gathered in the restaurant for the last time at 7:45 and Michael went over the disembarkation procedure.
As we walked towards the cruise terminal, I turned to take one last picture of our trusty ship. Notice how the exhaust pipes for the diesel engines are directed outward. I suspect this is to help direct the exhaust away from the sails. The exhaust would probably stain the sails.
We verified that our bags were present before they were put on the bus, then the bus took us to the Athens airport, where we checked in with Air Canada.
Then we were in for a surprise - the line for passport control was extremely long. It snaked back and forth several times.
But things moved along fairly quickly and we were finally through passport control and security, and to the lounge. The flight was delayed a bit, but we finally boarded - a Boeing 777-800 with nice seats.
It was a nine hour flight to Montreal, and we tried to sleep. The Air Canada staff did a good job.
In Montreal, we cleared US customs and then went to the lounge. We had a couple-hour wait - the flight was delayed. But eventually we boarded and arrived in Los Angeles about 11pm. That flight was on a Boeing 737-Max, the model that Boeing has had so many problems with.
The limo driver was waiting for us at baggage claim, our baggage arrived in good shape and the trip home easy at that time of night. Here's Judy with the driver.
We did a small amount of unpacking but went to bed quickly.
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May 12, 2024 (Saturday, Mother's Day) We slept well last night and woke up about 6am. We meet Greg and the girls at the Coffee Grove at 7:30am.
And there they were. They hadn't forgotten us and were wishing Judy a Happy Mother's Day.
Lizzie is getting a head scratch by Judy and Annie is trying to get to me.
That was the end of this trip. Next, we go to India with Tauck in the fall.
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