Patmos visit

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Hi everybody, this is Toni and I'm going to tell you about today's activities . . . . but first I want to share with you this morning's quote for the day, "A good traveler is one who does not know where is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from." (Lin Yutang)

This morning we arrived near the island of Patmos (we were not sailing) where we'll take a tender to the port city of Skala and a guided trip to the famous fortress monastery of St John, where in 95 AD, the Roman Emporer Domitian exiled St John the Divine (one of the 12 apostles). he made his home in a cave at the top of a mountain where he experienced an earthshaking revelation which has come down as the Book of the Apocalypse or Revelation . . . .. our guide Vera was excellent. Samos is about 90 miles from Kusadasi, where we'll travel to next and also about 40 miles south of Samos (where Aesop and Pythagaras lived 500 bc - but we won't be visiting there - darn) we learned so much about the founding of this monastery, so many Byzantine pieces of art, letters and artifacts. The monastery was built to withstand pirates. We visited the cave and since this is Sunday, there was a service taking place with the monks chanting and singing in a beautiful chorus. We were told we needed to be very respectful, women had to wear dresses and make sure our shoulders were covered and men had to wear long pants and uncover their heads when they went into the monastery and absolutely no photography allowed.

I had hoped to get up and take the morning excersise class which has normally been held at 7:30 but this morning it was moved up to 7:00 because of our early excursion, so I missed it, Craig did too. We had breakfast with Ken and Bobbi then took the tender to the island for our visit. Of course, we were on the English bus, only 10 of us for this excursion but it was incredible to experience the whitewashed buildings, narrow roadways, walk through history and learn about Byzantine religious art and history. The climb up through the walkways of the monastery was moving. Craig and I now have a new understanding about the schism between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christianity. It was hot so we managed to stay in the shade quite a bit but even so when we returned to the wharf after visiting several jewelry and clothing stores (Craig almost bought me the most beautiful bracelot but it was 380 euros and we didn't bring credit cards so that didn't happen but I love him for the thought; Craig and I left Ken and Bobbi for the wharf, we we hoped we could get back to the ship to swim in the sea but alas that wasn't going to happen so Craig jumped into the water off the wharf and reported that the dip was refreshing, you can see a photo of him in the collection. We returned to Sea Cloud and so it pulled anchor and headed off while we enjoyed lunch and the sunshine.

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