Eurotrip 2011: A sunny morning in Crete

The stint of our time on the boat was now coming to a close and due to our distance from our returning port in Italy, Civitavecchia, we'd be setting off to sea pretty early. This meant that the excursions for today were all short enough to end by 1pm or so. What we decided on was a beach day in Crete, consisting of a round-trip bus transfer to a small beach west of our port in Chania (Souda). This trip would allow us not only to relax for once on this journey, but also take a first time dip in the Mediterranean Sea. This beach cove was named after a church atop a small mountain along the coast called Agioi Apostoloi; please don't ask me to pronounce it.

We woke to another lovely July morning, breakfast and got on the bus. We wound our way through Chania, and visually comparing this part of Crete to Athens (both Greek) was quite hard to do. The alphabet and signs were similar, but the buildings were rarely over four stories high. The orange trees didn't make an appearance on this part of the island, but other vegetation was very familiar. There were plenty of odd sights, including a Lamborghini repair shop and cafe combo which I didn't get a great shot of. The houses were small but all had driveways with medium to small cars in them. Further in from port, it began looking like most other beach towns; high-rise hotels and smaller niche motels for foreigners looking to spend their holiday at on the shores in Crete. It all makes sense why Europeans we met during the trip knew two or more languages, even if it was just basic understanding, because if you want to 'get away' you're just a short jump flight or drive from another country. Want to enjoy summer on the Mediterranean, but Monaco is too expensive for you? There are literally thousands of other countries with real estate equally as beautiful for any budget.

We pulled up beside a small park which looked like the playground of an elementary school in Anytown, USA, and were let out. Through the trees we could see blue water in the background, blond sand and chairs and umbrellas. There was a small snack bar on the right with a small sprinkling of customers already there. It was about 9:30am when we arrived and it was a pleasantly empty canvas. We grabbed a chair and we were greeted by the guy who managed the rentals; ten euros for the both of us. They were worth the price of admission as it was just about impossible to walk barefoot not more than an hour later.

After an hour of laying around with our kindle and car magazines, Beth made her way to the water. I started wandering to see what I could get from this location. I walked around barefoot, which wasn't the smartest, but there were plenty of odd nooks around this cove which were pretty cool to see. There was even a decent view of the city we left behind to get there.

After I was done here, I burned my feet getting back to my camera bag, then joined Beth in the sea. I tried to touch the bottom from about eight feet without much success. The sea water was cool and extremely salty, but it made staying afloat that much easier to do; you just need to make sure you keep your eyes shut while submerged. After some pruning we got back to the chairs to lay back a bit more before leaving. There was no special service being provided by our transfer bus, if we missed it we'd have to try wrangling some transport to make the departure cutoff. Strangely enough, even though it was mid July, this part of Crete had little to no taxi's at all.

Once back on the ship we washed up and hit the buffet-zone for lunch. I mentioned that the ships buffet hall was a madhouse in my last post; I'll elaborate now. The buffet hall was designed much like every buffet you've been to in Vegas. One long wall with every variety of food you can think of, drink stations, toothpicks that are too big to get between your teeth and be useful and way too many people wandering aimlessly like deer on a dark winter highway. I mean, this was afternoon traffic in Rome, but with people instead of cars. Much like when I drive in real life, I was purposeful, direct, and had no wasted movements while weaving through the ragtag gathering of Mediterranean cruise participants. There were parentless children that I side stepped, seniors I dodged with spin moves and after about a minute and change of effort, I was back at the seats Beth and I had locked down upon entering the building. Soon afterwards, Beth returned with her trayed bounty, thankfully unscathed by the melee. We ate quick and got the hell out of there.

This was an impressive vessel.

Land ho! One of the many islands we passed on our westward path to Italy.

I made my way onto the deck to get a nap in under the sun later that afternoon and enjoyed a pretty hot sunset as the ship made its way west. The next 35 hours or so would be nothing but travelling on the boat. We'd have to find some daytime entertainment tomorrow.

Eurotrip 2011: Mary's house

Sunrise in Kusadasi

 After leaving Greece we headed west towards the Aegean Sea for Turkey. We looked forward to our next destination, but it came at a price called sleep. With our next move came a one hour forward change in time, which shortened the nights sleep even further when we were getting up at 7am anyways. The excursion for today was Highlights of Ephesus (Kusadasi), and would take us through the Turkish countryside to see the ruins of Greek empires past and a very special biblical location I wasn't aware of until reading the excursion detail the evening prior. Awakening to another lovely morning in blue European seas, we had our go-to breakfast delivered to the room then went to the meeting area.

We were greeted outside of our numbered bus by our tour guide then received our rations, consisting of a map, water bottle, clay corked jug and other reading materials. Seeing the flag of Turkey waiving in port reminded me why I was glad Beth pushed for a cruise on this trip. Seeing other countries and cultures, first hand, is a great way to not only round your views of the world outside of your home and work life, but also to become well travelled as an individual. This was the farthest east either of us have ever been and out of everywhere we'd been so far, Turkey was by far the most scenic. We were on windy roads showcasing sprawling lush hills and handsome modern homes; we even passed by an amusement park not too far from port in Kusadasi. I didn't expect Turkey to be so western in appearance and this is precisely why getting out of the house is always a good idea.

The first stop on the docket was the House of the Virgin Mary. The concept of this home slightly blew my mind to be honest. I learned a good bit concerning the history of Christianity through Sunday school and the Catholic H.S. I attended as a teen, but what never came up in curriculum was where the Virgin Mary lived the remainder of her life after raising such a famous son. I was also quite fascinated by the fact that unlike what the current national flag of Turkey suggests (unless you are familiar with the Ottoman Empire), it is a historically secular nation albeit with Muslims being the religious majority. That said, antiquity and historical sites representative of Christian, Judaic and Muslim culture are all protected by the Turkish government. We arrived in a heavily wooded area for our first stop in Kusadasi, the House of the Virgin Mary, and were greeted by armed Turkish guards at the entrance.



The line to the shrine.

 Our guide gave us a basic gameplan on what we'd be doing next, as there were several hundred tourists gathering to walk through the restored two room house of religious legend. Our guide then gave insight on the key-hole like opening in the ground in front of us, as this was where the Virgin Mary was buried after her passing. The Virgin Mary's home is sacred and we were told in advance that no bare shoulders or legs were not allowed, nor was photography; this was much like our trip to Saint Peter's Basilica. Being that this was the middle of July, however, most people at least had shorts on. There were a handful of nuns on site that provided black shawls so those wearing tanktops could be respectful. Although the house was restored and seemed slightly updated (coat hooks, etc.), walking through the house was awe inspiring. The house was maintained over the years to be as true as possible to how it was when St. Peter and the Virgin Mary resided in the home almost 2k years ago. Several visits by previous Popes over the years have added to its lore, and the turnout today proved it. It's hard to describe what it felt like inside this house, but it was undeniably special. While a relatively large space in terms relative to the time it was built, there wasn't much to see; exposed brick and stone made up the walls and there was an open floorplan with two adjacent rooms. St. Peter cared for Mary in her final days and presumably used the second room for himself. There was a couch in the main room with a window above it, opening to those morning sun rays successful enough to work their way through the dense trees.

Upon exit there were multiple candle cases setup where people could light candles and offer prayers. There was a nun who came in to dump the lit candles out periodically, sometimes right after someone put a fresh one in the sand, because there was no way to fit them all in at one time. The Virgin Mary's house is a conveyor belt for visitors of all walks of life that runs all day long. There were flowers and lush foliage all around, growing wildly but seemingly 'arranged' at the same time. After exiting the house and passing the candle cases there was a walkway straight ahead that put you on the path back to the entrance where the guards resided. This returning path was lower than the pathway in by about 11ft, and immediately on your right resided a small collection of 'water fountains' all drawing water from the well on this historic site. Tens of people lined up for each fountain with empty plastic bottles and the clay jars we got on the bus...we were told the clay jars weren't quite watertight by our guide and boy was she right ha. Beth's jar leaked immediately so she ended up using her plastic water bottle to hold it until we returned to the ship. The rituals of all the international religious visitors at the fountains was much like snowflakes; no one quite had the same technique or method. Once Beth had her full container, primarily to bring back to her very Catholic grandmother Joan, we marked it to avoid mix-ups later and got back on our way.


Still not sure what these are.



Just past the holy water collection area was the vast prayer wall. It's a ~15 yard long stone wall with a hanging panel where you can pin your written prayers on whatever scrap of fabric or paper you can get your hands on. It makes you wonder how often they clear the wall off, because there's only a prayer-note collage outline of what's holding them all up.

Eurotrip 2011: If the boat's a rockin'...it's moving.

When we last left off we just finished a local wandering day in Sicily, returning to the ship with some forbidden fruit. After dinner and a couple nightcaps, we returned to our room to see a bat hanging from a clothes hanger! I took this opportunity to sleep for a long time. Turns out I didn't have the ability to sleep as long as I wanted to though; since getting to Europe I'd been waking up much earlier than normal. A night owl at home, I get up at noon on a good day, but our here I'd been waking up no later than about 9am without an alarm clock. I'm sure my internal clock was screwed up, being ahead six hours for the past five days. On this day I woke up around 10:30am which was ok, but I had went to bed around 2am so it wasn't the rejuvenating magic I expected. I was much fresher though and I went about getting some things done after morning rituals were complete.

The boat had internet access so I wanted to get on and check some balances (dollar/euro conversions sneak up on ya), check email and pay a couple bills. Maybe even upload a picture or two if I had the time. The computers in the 'internet cafe' were horribly slow as expected and after 4 minutes of getting the pages to load and 6 minutes of trying to get two emails out, I had spent $14 bucks. The fleecing I felt while on the ship was a tangible fog that was all around me, much like a storybook conceived Halloween night, with a harvest moon and scarecrows. Everywhere I looked my wallet was being a la carted and it was quite annoying. There was login credential option to use your own computer with the ships 'good enough for the open sea' internet bandwidth and I would use my own laptop going forward.

For lunch we headed to the no-frills cafe downstairs for some glorified snacks. Got a few small sandwiches and took advantage of the Italian produce from yesterday; the pears were awesome. While eating I noticed something pretty interesting with my U.S. only networked cellphone; I was roaming while on international waters. I started getting back-logged text messages and missed calls. I would've used the opportunity to text with friends, but I was worried what kind of bill was going to arrive when I got home (no fees appeared on the next bill btw).



I never got tired of shooting off the balcony.

Later that afternoon we picked out our excursion of Athens. We picked a reasonably priced trip called 'Taste of Athens'. It included a trip to the Acropolis, the Parthenon and Plaka. The rest of this day was pretty laid back as a vacation should be; wandering around the ship, and getting a little bit of sun on the deck near the pool; hanging out on our balcony, which got easier to do as the constant motion visual became more normal to see. We had a nice dinner and got to sleep. We had to be up at 7:30 the following morning.

Eurotrip 2011: So I walk into a Grocery Store in Sicily...

Parking in Messina is about the same as Rome.

After leaving Piazza del Duomo we made a b-line for the shopping district referred to us by our excursion specialist - in Taormina. Even though Messina and Taormina are separate cities, we were close to the boarder so walking distance was only a couple miles. Going off the map (which I wish I still had to show you), we were walking in the right direction...if the top of the map was actually north. During this walk down the wrong road we saw a church. I took pictures of the church without knowing exactly what it was, but thanks to my memory assisted by the wonders of google maps, I can show you where it was here.

If you look around the lower center on the map window you'll see Chiesa Cattolica Parrocchiale S. Maria Della Lettera, or Catholic Church of St. Mary's Letter. Once we looked around, the map we had showed an icon of a church dome which looked a lot like the one on top of this large church. Given false clues and the wrong representation of North, we ended up going down Via Maggio much further. After Beth twisted my arm we spoke to a local who gave us some directions which completely contradicted the map we had...or the way I was holding it. The fact that small street names didn't appear on this clown map didn't help either, but we ended up understanding the discrepancy at the next major intersection. The church on the map wasn't the same as what we saw, and we were two streets over from where we were supposed to be. Once that was figured out we began walking towards the shopping district.

Passed the University of Messina while wandering.

If you're still following along on google maps (it's completely unnecessary but if you are, awesome), we cut down Via Nicola Fabrizi and took a right into Piazza Cairoli. After walking a bit we found the Canoli place we were told about, Irrera 1910. Since we needed to go further to get to the Coin department store, we took note and kept on going. Arriving at Coin I noticed there was a grocery store nearby. I needed a couple things - a neosporin equivalent, some fruit and juice. So I walk into this grocery store and start eyeballing the fruit section. They had plenty of unique varieties of the same things we have, nectarines, pears, etc., and I had been eating so much starch and meat I bagged up a couple of everything. After making my way to the soda Isle to see if I could find some bottled water I saw their beer selection and other items. Once again, no face cloths or cut ointment, but they had some non-refrigerated juices which would be great in the morning. I started my checkout process, then the senior woman behind the counter started an uproar ha. I didn't quite understand everything she was yelling, but I figured out the prices were missing from my individually bagged fruit. I left the line and a nice old Sicilian man showed me how to apply the prices using a scale that wasn't in my view originally. After those were labelled I thanked him and checked out. While waiting on Beth to wrap up, I snapped a little bit in the street.

Loses a little bit in translation...or lack there of.

Sicily has some interesting traffic signals.

We headed back towards the ship and walked into the pasticceria (pastry shop) Irrera 1910 in Piazza Cairoli. Wow. There were delectables as far as the eye could see and any coffee, cappuccino or espresso variety you wanted local to the region. Through some rough translation, I ordered a double scoop of gelati (strawberry and lemon) and beth requested a canoli that they made fresh, upon order, behind the counter. We had a seat towards the back of the store and rested our legs. Soon afterwards we dug in. I'll tell you what, I don't really seek sweets out. I don't buy canolis when they're available at restaurants. If every canoli was as good as this one, I'd get them with every meal out. The ricotta was so silky smooth, the sweetness was pronounced without being overwhelming; truly outstanding. And the gelati was more flavorful than it appeared. I think that's why I enjoyed most about Italy's cuisine, the fact that real ingredients and their flavors jumped off the dish. The strawberry was STRAWBERRY and the lemon was LEMON; it's like someone figured out how to turn the volume up without annoying the neighbors. If I end up in Sicily again, I'll make it a point to go back. No doubt about it.

Completely redundant, but you need to see the freshly chopped peanuts and chocolate chips. Mhm.

We left with smiles then walked back towards the boat. Upon the check-in/frisking/metal detecting/security-ing, I was told I couldn't bring fruit on board. Sigh. I think my expression twisted my security officers arm (think the movie cover of Platoon with less arm dramatics), and she let me do it 'just this once'. I thanked her and we returned to our room. The view from the balcony was even better on departure, the sun was much friendlier. We relaxed in our room as the boat set off to Athens, Greece. Another nice day checked off, it was time to get ready for dinner.

'That's a huge ship.'

Heading back out to sea.

Eurotrip 2011: Caio Messina

We woke up on this day to one of the most beautiful views of the entire trip. We were in the port of Messina, the weather was absolutely spectacular and the boat was in the process of circling around so that our direction for departing was from the way we came. The port was busy with activity as work on the water gets started well before sunrise. We got our things together and headed downstairs.

I didn't get into this last time around, but we had asked around about where to go in Messina the night before. Beth had heard of some medieval clock that's in Messina, and the biggest question was how close was it to the boat. Taking a taxi had been expensive so far, and we were looking to break out of that cycle if possible. We heard a few rumors, but were instructed to talk to the excursion pro that will be in the theater area on the boat, where all the excursions gather before leaving in the morning. We got down there a little before 10am and asked her what the deal was. She let us know everything was within very short walking distance and that there was a shopping district that would should make sure to check out, as there was a gelataria there with the best canolis in town. Even though it seems (from an American perspective) that canolis are an Italian dessert, it's really a uniquely Sicilian dessert which explained that we never saw one canoli in any of the thousand gelaterias we saw in Rome. In addition to this widely known dessert shop there was a place called Coin to get some ladies clothing and accessories. She graciously drew her instructions on a 'map' of Messina, that the ships excursion crew had provided one of the tours earlier, and we were off.

We get off the ship and there's a small sidewalk that lets us cross the major road (Via Vittorio Emanuele II) parallel to the peer. It was lined with locals selling their wares and I began to understand the business of cruises and destination countries a bit better. We found our way across the street and worked our way through the city on the way to Piazza del Duomo and the timepiece that Beth had heard so much about; the Orologio Astronomico or Astrological Clock. This clock/bell tower and adjacent church make up one of the biggest attractions in Messina for many reasons, but the main one is that the clock is a mechanical marvel that produces quite the show at mid-day. When this clock strikes twelve noon, everyday rain or shine, the medieval built machine sets off a series of events much like dominoes falling; a rooster crows, a lion roars and waves a flag, Jesus and his disciples are orbited by birds and for the grand finale a group of statues rotate to an instrumental playing of 'Ave Maria', projected through what seemed like a WWII era intercom/broadcast system (modern update I assume). The whole event is about 15 minutes long and if you're in town it's a must see.

While in Piazza del Duomo (center of map) there are sweeping flocks of locals trying to sell hats. Once you get in the habit of saying 'no thank you' and/or ignoring street peddlers it can make it hard to get valuable information from locals actually trying to share tradition and information with you. There are some interesting historical items here, including this fountain. What you see here is called the Fountain of Orion, and it was built by one of Michelangelo's subordinates (Giovanni Angelo) around 1550AD. This water feature celebrated the first aqueduct in Messina, in the 16th century. While we were Rome Beth and I drank some water from the a fountain across from the Pantheon, and I wasn't inclined to take a sip from this one.

Piazza del Duomo and the tourist buses arriving for the astrological clock show.

To be honest, I didn't know what I was shooting while I was there, we were wandering around hungry in the late morning ha. That brings us to the most important thing, the lunch we had before noon. As they say in the real estate biz, location location location, and the sole restaurant in Piazza del Duomo was Dolce Vita (which doesn't show up on google maps accurately). Dolce Vita was a complete restaurant with a great shaded seating outside and a tasty menu. We found ourselves eating a ton of traditional antipasti throughout our travels in Italy; this day would be no different. We also got ourselves a local pizza variety that escapes my mind currently; it had bacon, ham, potato, mozzarella and red sauce. Another lovely touch was the olive oil and balsamic vinegar condiment packets. A little olive oil, pepper and salt with the fresh baked rolls was a good way to get the party started. Calling the meal delicious would've been an understatement and it was a reminder why authentic is always better than imitation, no matter how flattering it may be. We paid our bill then joined the major crowd that had formed for the show.