Greek Islands

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Rhodes by Michelle

I woke up in the port of Rhodes and looked out the porthole to get my bearings. WOW – there’s a castle outside the window!

After breakfast we walked into the old fortified town of Rhodes and had an explore. Our first observation of the shopkeepers is whilst (like the Turkish one) they still say “yes please, yes please, come on in please”, they aren’t as pushy. A simple no thankyou or just browsing is acceptable which meant we were actually able to browse. Mike and Jacob had been dying to get a new chess set and the lure of a Greek mythology set made out of alabasta was too hard to pass up (despite the continuing issues we have with increasing luggage weight). Wanting a cold drink and a snack we made our way over to one of the restaurant / bar quarters. They have an unusual way of enticing customers! Many restaurants have large, colourful, tame parrots on stands outside. They call you over, pop birds on you for photo ops then whilst bird ridden ask if you want to come in, yes please, yes please! So parrots pics and drinks later we’re back strolling. Thankfully I didn’t order a beer, my lemonade was in a one litre glass and Mike’s beer was in a one litre glass boot! Left the old city and walked through the new city until we reached the Colossus of Rhodes. Special moment as one of the sites of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and on Mike’s bucket list to visit. Late lunch in a Greek tapas restaurant then back to the boat for a casual dinner tonight .

Michelle’s postscript

I won’t be featuring in the next two days worth of tales. Was it the Tapa’s bar in Rhodes, the parrots in Rhodes or the buffet on the boat? Not sure but I woke 2am the next morning and spent the next 5 ½ hours violently spewing and … well actually you can fill in the gaps but not a pretty picture. Bad case of GI and a very unwell Michelle L (actually I’m at day 6 now and I’m still not ok, still have bad stomach cramps L). Did the right thing and notified the medical office at 9:30 that morning and promptly was put into 24 hours isolation. Too sick to leave bed anyway but it meant A) I missed Mykonos and B) Missed the Athens trip the next day as I’d hadn’t been ‘released’ from isolation until after that trip had left. What’s our mantra again? That’s right – it’s all an adventure!

Mykanos by Mike

A bit of an empty day with Michelle in bed. She insisted that we see some of the island and so reluctantly Jake and I went on shore around lunchtime. A short bus trip to the township and we walked along the shoreline to the town itself.

Rumour has it that the town was designed so that marauders would be confused by the narrow winding streets all painted in white and blue. Well if that was the theory it worked! Jacob and I were guessing at every turn. We joked how raiders would be charging from the beach, rooooaaar…..ugh where do we go now? Or Rooooaaar! And run into your mate 10 meters later.

Lovely shops, good food. The windy reputation lived up to with 25mph winds. We walked up to some windmills and looked back at the ship. A quick visit (shortened due to the absence of our Retail Cleopatra) and after a bite we went back to the ship to catch up on Michelle’s health.

The photos hopefully will show how beautiful these blue trim white buildings are. We were lucky enough to have a backdrop of a cloudless sky and you can see the inspiration took from the blue of the sky and the white caps of the waves on the sea. Their country and their flag reflecting their love and veneration of both.

Athens by Jacob

Unfortunately Mother is sick today so you won’t hear about her because she couldn’t experience the wonders with us. As we first wake up we are forced out of bed so we can go on the shore excursion. As we scramble our stuff together my father and I eventually trek out into Athens.

As we arrive in the beautiful city that’s just buzzing even at 8 in the morning, our tour guide decides its best if we immediately make our way to the Acropolis. As the bus pulls up the foot of the mountain we gaze up to see the ruins of ancient architecture. We have to travel up the countless stars to reach the entrance.

The entrance consists of a grand archway that is in the center with two smaller temples to either side. The reconstruction of the entrance seemed to be mostly completed with minor errors being corrected. As you pass through the entrance you are met with the sight of the Parthenon. The 20 something pillars standing upright. As you look past the grand marble pillars you see the inner building consisting of a large empty room waiting to be filled. The tops of the sides of the Parthenon had many statues reconstructed and original decorating and patterning the vast canvas of marble.

As you move on you see the small temple dedicated to Poseidon god of the seas unlike the Parthenon which is dedicated to Athena goddess of wisdom (Athens is named after Athena). It is unlike most other temples purely because of its structure and architecture. Everything about it is abnormal from the positioning of the entrance to the fact that it isn’t completely surrounded by pillars. The temple is also said to be the point where Poseidon once created a pool of salt water with his trident and where the first olive tree was born from the spear of Athena.

Fun Facts and Mythology with Jacob Time! (FFMJT for short)
Zeus king of the gods wasn’t exactly a loyal husband to his wife Hera, he had countless affairs with goddesses’ and humans creating demi-gods like Hercules and gods like Athena. Athena was created when Zeus had an affair with a human, as the human was pregnant Zeus god told a prophecy that he would be over-thrown by a child of his own. In fear Zeus turned this woman into a fly and swallowed her. After a while he began to get painful headaches so he asked Prometheus god of fire to crack open his head with an axe. As his head was opened with a swing Athena was born fully armed from Zeus’ head. That is how Athena was born. Technically speaking that was the first brain surgery.

Last legend for today is about when Athens was being named. All gods in Greece are assigned areas to protect and Poseidon and Athena were fighting over the area of Athens (unnamed at the time). The people of Greece were always democratic and asked for them both to give a gift and then they would vote to who deserve the land. Poseidon threw his trident into the ground and could unfortunately only produce a pool of salty water (which they couldn’t use for anything). Athena then through her spear into the ground and created the first olive tree and as you can tell the people chose Athena.

After the story telling and time at the Acropolis we went out to the outskirts of Athens to visit the temple of Poseidon that is located on a cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea. We had to get off the bus and climb the big hill to get a sight of this splendid work of art! It looked very similar to all the other temples but what made it amazing was the backstory to the temple that I can obviously remember and since I can remember it I am not telling you. Anyways the Athens experience was amazing.

Ps. I think this is my longest post

Pps. This is being typed mostly on the plane from Istanbul to Dubai and now in transit waiting for the delayed flight.

Ppps. Athens is really old but note to self; Botox won’t work on these broken faces.

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