Athens Wednesday 6th September 2017

Leaving day. Ugh. No fun for us then.

After a late wake up and a leisurely breakfast, we walked the 200 m to the Acropolis Museum. What a deal: 5 euros to get in! Architecturally a wonderful building.

They do not like you using a camera inside, so if you are interested in what it looks like, this is the link to the official site:

http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en
 

The stuff inside, well one Minotaur starts to look like another. How it is presented is superb.  We enjoyed the audiovisual stuff and the odd small recreation of the pediment sculptures.

A nice cup of coffee in the cafeteria, which would have been worth five euros cover charge by itself.

One of the best parts was the top floor, which showed most of the frieze in position.

It was like having a view from a scaffold, high up.

Cannot believe the amount of work that was put into the carvings and friezes.  Very beautiful.  Takes a few days to start getting into the way of things here. A huge amount of work put into the museums to bring back some idea of the history of Greece.

Going to the airport, we were originally going on the metro, for the sum of eighteen euros.  The taxi was a fixed price of 38 euros, so for twenty euros extra we got a taxi.

Athens, Tuesday 5 September

We tried unsuccessfully to keep this low key and relaxed as we were getting a bit frazzled with the heat.

Two tasks: One, check out the National Archeological Museum. Two, take the tram to the beach for a swim.

Sometimes, it just pays to ask your hotel receptionist how to get somewhere.  By the time Bill had misread the subway map, which admittedly was a bit non specific, and you pop up out of the underground expecting the Museum to be at least close, only to find it is a 1k walk away....

National Archeological Museum

Quite an impressive museum, if you like pots.  Rose started at one end and was minutely examining every thing she could find, which was LOTS. Of pots. Busts of this and that, and so on. One of us took time to point out if we check everything, we might be here for weeks.

One amazing item was a mechanical zodiac indicator with actual bronze gears. A CAD animated exploded view, coupled with  an actual reconstruction to show what a feat this was.

Tram trip to the beach

Neat tram, good trip. The beach was nice, but the water not really clear enough for snorkelling.
Trip back not so nice as we had to stand most of the way.

 

Athens, Monday 4 September 2017

If you are ever in Piraeus, the port of Athens, do not, repeat NOT get on the x80 port bus. Just a big bunfight trying to get your bags on, then even more people get on the next stop squashing everyone in a hot bus for half an hour. Getting out at the Acropolis was another frantic rush to get out around too many people.

Guess we have had it good so far, so why expect perfection?

Cruising is great in theory, but it can feel like you are on a merry go round, each day a new port and you do not know what it will be like.

Probably good for finding a nice island, for instance Rhodes we liked very much.

A more relaxed holiday might be, go to Rhodes, find some hotel in a remote village and stay for 7 days.  Needless to say, it would have to have really clear water for snorkelling.

Sunday we did the Roman Agora, which you can see most of from the outside. So why did we buy tickets for 6 Euros? Dunno.

Nothing truly astounding.

Here it is, with the temple of the winds:

 

Forging ahead to the Ancient Agora, made it to the ticket box, but Rose pulled the plug, which made Bill quite happy, as he was near empty.

Sat in a cafe, Rose had coke, Bill had an Ouzo.

Monday, set off again for the Ancient Agora, tried to buy two iced teas, then realised I had left my wallet behind.  The waiter said no worries, and gave it to us anyway.

So a 1k walk back to the hotel and then returned to buy our tickets.  Rose thought it was nicer than the Acropolis, but I thought it appeared to be the foundations of what was once there, just like the forum in Rome. Having said that, we did find both of the buildings, one of them reconstructed, to be as impressive as the Acropolis.

Pics of the Ancient Agora:

 

Back to our usual cafe, where we balanced the budget with the waiter.

The area seems to have lots of homeless cats, and we noticed a young woman busy feeding them.  She has treated lots of them for blindness.  We tried to give her 5 euro but she flagged it away. 

Here she is with the cats:

Now zoned out under air conditioning. 

So what do we feel about the Greek people? Four days is not enough to give a really informed opinion, but the ones we have come into contact with seem to be friendly, competent and helpful.

Thursday 31 August 2017

Oops! It appears 5 days have vanished! We left Athens and back up to Kotor, so not much new there, wandered round town looking for a shop that was selling a particular bag as a present. Just as we were about to give up there it was.

This is the view from the lighter used to transport us to the shore - the ship is in the background:

This is part of the wall around Kotor:

Again we tried to get to Mykonos, but again, too windy. So days at sea spent reading and relaxing.

A few gym sessions, in which motivation was noticeable by it's absence.

Food is a problem.  Just too many choices and all yummy. Evening meal is a 5 course feast.  Some of us are buckling at the knees for some reason.

I actually missed out the shrimp cocktail!  Talking now with Mike and Chris at the cafe sokrates.

Rhodes:

We found this to be the nicest of all the stops.  A short walk off the boat and into the old town which had quite a lot of character.

The old castle was due a look, which had been turned into a museum.
Reasonably interesting to look around, but you have to bear in mind most of what you see is mostly recent renovations, but nicely done.

Stopped in at a very nice garden cafe for a drink.  Cafe Socrates if you are ever there. Here it is:

 Chios:

Not as nice as Rhodes - just more shops as usual:

Athens day 2

Caught the bus into town and did the Acropolis/Parthenon. 

A lot of repairs are being done to the Acropolis, new stairs in the theatre and they look fabulous.

Parthenon felt smaller than expected.  Quite a trek up in the heat. If not hot, would have been a lot easier.  Crowds made it more wearing. Went through Hadrian's Gate.

Three lines to describe a whole day? Quite a lot of it spent sitting in a bus!

Some time eating nice cherry ice cream. Some spent in the street near our Athens hotel to be, sitting at a cafe slurping back a beer. Some time spent walking in a park heading for Syntagma Square. Athens is a large city and we have only looked at a very small part.

Some wonderfully presented sandwich and ice cream shops.

Athens

Missed out Mykonos due to high winds, so an extra day to be had in Athens.

Easy enough to catch a bus into town from Piraeus. We decided to check out our hotel which we will stay in next week when we finish the cruise. Finding it was easy, it is in a very nice area called Plaka.

Which looks like this:

After a beer, back to Syntagma Square to look at the guards. 

All this needed walking up and down hot streets. The impression is of a bigger than expected city, with only minimal indications of an economic disaster having happened.

We had dinner in Sabatinis, which is a pay more,  for more, restaurant on the ship, due to a voucher supplied by Cruise About. Thanks Nigel!

Truly a memorable dinner, started off with breads and olives with olive oil and balsamic dip. Next came shrimp cocktail, then spaghetti scallops and other shell fish in a tomato sauce.

For main course, lobster tail with risotto. For desert, coffee creme brûlée.

We are just starting to get a map in our heads of the ship. Our excuse is that the pointy end looks just like the blunt end from the inside.  Just noticed tiny signs on the wall indicating sharp end.

Chania, Crete

Not a good day for Rose. It started out promisingly enough, when we were faced with the usual "shall we walk to town from the ship, or get a bus?"

Fortunately, we took a bus, because it seemed about 8km!

Off the bus, into what appeared a large modern town.  Straight into a market area.

After that up and down pedestrian friendly streets.

Rose felt it was lacking old stuff and anything of character. After trudging up and down for an hour or so, a glass of beer was necessary.

We could have searched harder, but ran out of gas in the heat, probably about 38 degrees.

Corfu

Walked from port terminal into what was supposed to be the old town.

Ended up in the suburbs of the new town. Hot. Wound our way back to the old town and ran out of energy, so had to walk back. The usual beer, pizza,coffee, ice cream.

Rose bought a pair of sandals made in Corfu.

Dinner, had bay scallops,shrimps etc, and lobster tail. Yum!

This is the walk from the town to the ship - the big one in the distance. Very tiring!

 

Kotor

Walked around old town, usual ice creams and beers.  Lovely medieval alleys and buildings.

Bill went for a swim, no towel, but still ok.

Dinner at the crab shack.  Appetiser: battered prawns and some puffy things called hush puppies, the the main course of king crab and at least 20 prawns.  They give you an apron to wear!

At sea, from Messina to Kotor

Most of the day spent reading, watching a movie. Went for our first gym visit.  Rose did well considering.  Maybe do a bit more tomorrow. Had a Piña collada on deck five.

Has been a bit stormy, so not so nice outside and Bill a bit queasy.

Did the laundry after much tramping up and down stairs.  This chomped through at least an hour and a half.

Just finished reading Felicia Day's book You are never weird on the internet.

Vaguely interesting.

Rose got cabin fever as Bill trotted around the ship doing the laundry.

Here is a sample of the entertainment on board:

 

Messina

This all started as usual with brave ideas of walking at least three hours around the town. As hot as Rome, if not hotter.

Nice buildings, but nothing startling. After one hour back to the ship.

It is amazing how just having lunch, doing a bit of reading, a swim, and exploring the ship can chew through the time. 

I am writing this sitting on our balcony, and the ship should have cast off ten minutes ago.

Rome: The fourth day

Today started with the best of intentions as usual. The plan was to walk from our hotel to the Trevi fountain, then to the villa Borghese,and the Borghese Gardens.

We thought we would be cheap chops, and not fork out the $25nz for the dubious privilege of being stuffed into metro subway trains like yesterday.

Our first stop, the Trevi fountain was quite memorable, much better than the Spanish Steps. Which we visited again because they were on our way. 

Here is the Trevi Fountain:

 

Just before the Spanish Steps, we stopped in a little cafe for a gelato. Molto delisiosa!

The cafe was beautifully presented, full of character.

Now comes Bill, the map reading dunce....ending up at Flaminio, getting close to the gardens though. Once in the gardens the villa Borghesi proved elusive. We found a tunnel that went under the ground and ended up in the  metro station called Spagna. 

The map I bought for 5 euros proved suspect, for instance there was a tunnel not even on the map.

At this point we were concerned that we might not have enough energy to get home so heading for home became a priority. Going back past the cafe we went in again for a sandwich. Walking home was like watching a petrol gauge reading empty.

After much resting an investigation of a nearby park was called for. 

 Not very park-like as all the grass was dead.  Nearby was the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Entry was free, so it was necessary to have a look. It really is a magnificent piece of craftsmanship.

 Back home for our last dinner at the restaurant we have been frequenting for the last few days.

Rome, the third day.

Above: The queue at the Vatican

The plan was to visit the Vatican to see bits of it. Because it was a long way from our hotel, we decided Metro was the answer. So we got on the train at Cavor, which is right next door to our hotel. This took us to Rome termini on the B line. Coming out of the Metro up onto the surface we headed for the ticket office to buy a ticket to Civitavecchio, which is the port for Rome, where we get on the cruise ship.

Here a con man tried to let him buy our ticket for us from the ticket machine.

Nice try. Rose was not quite convinced of Bill's skill with the ticket machine. So a human ticket operator was required. To get to one of those you had to get a number from a young lady and then wait. After half an hour waiting, Rose said okay let's use the ticket machine. Seem to work out okay but we still had some woman trying to horn in on the action and pressing a buttons for us, so she was told to go away.

Back onto The Metro, and looking at the train stations, decided that Lepanto was the best fit as it said Vatican beside it.  Actually no. Had to walk about 3km to reach the Vatican.  Once there it became blindingly obvious a wrought was going down.  Every five minutes you would be approached by a man who offered to enable us to skip the queue which was at least 300 m long. The only trouble with this idea was that the price was about NZ$160. The other people out in the hot sun queueing up to get in for their $22 New Zealand decided that they weren't going to pay the $160 either. At this point we decided, blow the Vatican, then walked a k up to Ottaviano station, then home.  Not a lot of fun on the metro because of the crowds there were no seats. At every station there would be two soldiers with large guns, presumably for anti-terrorist duty.

A short rest, then back on the Metro heading for Spagna, with the idea of having a look at the Spanish Steps. Luckily just a short walk in the heat after getting off the train. The Spanish Steps were a bit underwhelming but it was a nice fountain.

Here are the steps:

This is the fountain:

We should have a copy of this in Pukekohe. People were using the outlet of the water to cool off. So did I.

Back home in a crowded metro to have yet another rest from the rather high temperatures of 35°.

Feeling guilty at not having seen enough we headed for a look at the Forum. Turns out they did not accept cash, they needed a credit card, which was back at the hotel.

So nuts to that as well.

What is Rome like?

It depends where you are coming from , and when. Last time we were here, we came in on the airport train around dusk, and everything looked tired and dirty.

 The hotel last time was a large distance from the centre, and the area it was in was not very tidy.

This time seems much better, with the Colloseum only 15 minutes walk away.

The when: not a clever plan to come in mid August, as the temperature yesterday was 35 degrees. Which is enough to turn you around and head for home. Then jet lag takes over, and you sleep all afternoon, and wake up at 3am.

Food: a meal is a bit of chicken cooked in tomato sauce?  Fairly tasty, but maybe the idea is you have to have at least two courses?  Clever Romans?

Ancient stuff: to get to these, you must walk down streets that are bounded with buildings around six stories high, good because it shades you from the sun.

A sample of what you walk past:

This is the Venetian Palace:

 

Walked to the Pantheon in the morning when it was cooler. The outside is ordinary, but the inside is beautiful.
Here it is:

 Five minutes walk from there to the Piazza Navona which is mostly empty space, with a beautiful fountain in the middle.

Here it is:

It feels like nobody lives in the buildings, but my brother says in the hot season all smart romans leave the city.

This is a typical Rome street near the Pantheon.

Flooding in Pukekohe

Living next to a pond has it's moments!

...Or is it a lake?

...It does not have a name, so I christened it Misty Lakes, after our cat.

Garden Stuff

I am not a natural gardener.  Just might be a lazy fat person.
Dunno why we now have 2 garden beds, but here they are: