Month: May 2022

Y’all. Today was incredible-and yet-very overwhelming. We woke up in Piraeus, Greece, the port city by Athens. We had our breakfast and met for our tour at 8:15. Please believe that when I booked these excursions, it was only because at the time with Covid restrictions, the only way off the ship was through a cruise purchased excursion. Two weeks before we left for the cruise (aka: already in Italy), they lifted those restrictions. If I had waited to purchase, the ones we wanted would have been sold out.. sooooo here we are on day 8 million of getting up way too early on vacation..

Our tour guide, Miriam, got on the bus and explained that our first stop would be at the acropolis.. from where we were, you could pretty much see the hill the acropolis was built on, which was the point back in ancient times-it was to be built on the highest point to be seen from anywhere in the city. Which-Athens now is HUGE!

Athens is surrounded by what Miriam called “9 Hills” for the 9 muses of artistry.. which is how the word museum came about, a display of the artist’s muses.. pretty neat. Miriam was full of facts like this-like how Agora means market, and back in the day the agora was a huge open air market bustling with tons of people-so agoraphobia is the fear of being in big open spaces (or outside in big crowds).

Anyway, the acropolis consisted of three buildings but the most famous is the Parthenon. Every city had one dedicated to some god or goddess, but Athen’s Parthenon takes the cake, because of its scale and that it’s mostly (ish) still standing. It was built to honor the Virgin Athena. There’s a Mathematical importance that architects at the time used to determine the length and width and the number of columns, Miriam explained this in detail, but I kinda zoned out.. sorry about that.

It was SO DANG CROWDED here today. Miriam led us in and up more than 200 stairs to the top of the acropolis. She’d stop here and there, tell us about the stuff we were seeing, the differences between theaters and Parthenons.. theaters had open air, the Parthenon has a roof. We’d huddle under some trees while she pointed and talked, then push our way back out into the chaos to try to attempt to follow her up up up.

At the top and at the actual entrance, we came through a ruins building so impressive that I thought surely it had significance, but Miriam said this was just the entrance hall. Off to the side of it was a temple built to honor the Goddess of Victory: Nike.. which of course Miriam says is where Nike athletics got their name. I kinda wanna Google that..

We saw several people fall, the marble we were walking on was so slick, and where there wasn’t slippery marble there was marble stone chunks sticking out of the ground like mini boulder fields. I can remember seeing at least 5 actual falls in front of me-actually, 6.. and thankfully none of those times were Mom or me. Once side the entrance hall, Miriam turned us loose to go get some pictures and get back down to the exit spot.

We did, it was so hot on top of that hill, and people were slap everywhere! It was exhausting. The line to get down was worse than coming up, and had to be single file at the slippery marble sloped path area.. which people couldn’t wrap their minds around and kept going ahead and shoving their way in.. it was like merging on 285 or in a construction zone-and im here to tell you we will both go off this mountain before I let you and your 17 friends walk up and cut in front of me.. it is absolutely mind boggling.

Down from the chaos, Mom and I got a slushy and kept walking with our group. We ended up at the acropolis museum.. which, from the top floor you can actually see the acropolis! The museum’s top floor was built to replicate the size and direction of the original. Pretty neat really. From the museum, she showed us mini replicas of the pediments of the Parthenon. The pediments had sculptures of many Gods and Goddesses being present for the birth of Athena.

The story behind Athena, per Miriam, goes like this: Zeus was the God of all of the land, where as Poseidon was the God of the sea, and Hades the God of the underworld. So, Zeus was married to Herra.. a goddess. But he had many mistresses. One mistress in particular irritated him so much, buzzing around and not letting anything go like women do-Zeus “ate” her.. where she then continued to buzz around inside his actual head-because she was pregnant.

One day, walking along the shoreline, Zeus had a raging headache that he couldn’t make stop.. he asked friends to help-until shockingly his head split open and out popped Athena-grown and with her shield and with huge blue eyes. Because she was born from Zeus’ head and had big eyes like an owl, she became the Goddess of Wisdom. Alrighty then..

Later, as the world and population of humans grew, Zeus gave other gods and goddesses the title of being protector over a city state in an area-like his overseers, as he was still the head honcho. So, he let the people choose their protector. The area of Athens had to choose between Athena or the god of war (I forget his name now), to prove their abilities, they had to do something the people could impressed by to vote for them.. I forget what the god did-which, sorry, I’m several glasses of wine in here.. but Athena planted the olive tree, symbolizing peace for the city, as in she would bring peace and wisdom if she were their protector-hence why giving an olive branch means a peace offering now-anyway, she was chosen and they renamed the city Athens after her.

From the museum, which was a pain to get out of because Miriam abandoned us lololol, we got back on the bus and we were taken to the “Plaka,” a little car free shopping district. We got to sit inside an air conditioned restaurant and have salads, bread, and gyros. Umm.. YUM. It was delicious! And just what we needed after the stress of the crowds the last several hours. Mom and I sat across from a couple from a small fishing village in England-and they were pretty dang entertaining. We sipped our free beers and laughed about the frustrations from the day but also about all the things we loved.. and everything in between. It was a good time for sure.

We got to walk through to the shopping area and had some free time to meander. Mom ended up finding all kinds of stuff she loved. She got a couple dresses and some earrings and before we knew it, we were rushing to get to the meeting spot for our bus pick up. Thankfully, we made it in time and Miriam was full of information on the semi short ride back to the port.

She told us about how since the Olympic Games were such a big deal, and only Greek men could compete, how there was a “sacred truth” for three months during the games. 1.5 months before and 1.5 months after the 5 days of the games to make sure people could travel from wherever they were by chariot or horseback or foot, crossing many “territorial lines” without being harmed, either to compete or to watch. While there were still bandits and murderers, they’d be considered inhumane and damned to hell if they hurt someone coming to or from the games.. and they wouldn’t just be damning themselves, but their entire family line.

Anywho-we made it back to the port, and when we realized we’d have to walk a very long way to get back to the shops and restaurants closest to port, we bailed and just got back on the ship. We got some pasta from the buffet place and sat out on the back patio and waited for sunset. This seems to be our favorite thing to do, it’s just such a great view.

After the sun set, we went to the theater and watched the band sing boy band songs.. I was hoping for NSYNC, prepared to be ok if it was more Backstreet Boys-or even 98 degrees.. but alas, it was oldies, like 50s-60s songs. I still enjoyed them! I wanted some “bye bye bye..” oh well. Lol we actually stayed until the end, then went to the room for me to change into my running clothes. I knocked out my 2 miles on the upper deck-the gym closes at 10pm, and it was already 10 by the time I started-and it’s just so much easier outside with the wind blowing and the ship moving.. I’ve really started to enjoy these runs.

Back in the room, I’ve showered and gotten ready for bed-tomorrow is our last cruise excursion, and I’m quite happy about that. We have to be ready to meet at 9:45 so we do get to sleep in just a bit. Thank goodness.

Today is our last cruise excursion day! I don’t know why I’m excited about that, because I have truly loved every single place I’ve gotten to experience. I guess it’s just the exhaustion speaking.

We woke up sometime around 8:30, got beach ready and went to breakfast. We met at the meeting spot at 9:45, and it was complete chaos. The lady I’ve seen every morning on this cruise wasnt here. Hmmm. Weird. And apparently we were docked outside of Zakynthos, Greece, but not cleared by customs yet-so we were all still waiting to be able to take a tender boat shore.

When the announcement was made that we had cleared customs-there was also an announcement saying that we did have several guests and crew positive for covid and that they were taking strict precautions for our safety. Uh oh, I wondered if the excursion lady was out with covid, then? And then, what does strict precautions mean? Were they going to test everyone today before we got off the ship? Before we get back on?

Around 10:30 we finally got to leave the ship, and even that was a bit chaotic, but no covid testing, so we weren’t complaining. Once we were on our bus with our tour guide, Catherine, it was mostly smooth going. We had an almost hour drive from where we got on our bus to where we got on the boat to take us to the shipwreck beach of Zakynthos.. a famous beach only accessible by boat because of its huge sandstone cliffs surrounding it. Along the way, we saw gorgeous views of the island and Catherine told us information about the shipwreck and her home island.

The shipwreck happened in 1980. The famous story is that some bandits had stolen a bunch of cigarettes, alcohol, and money on this ship and were trying to navigate home with their loot.. but a storm came and they got blown off course, ultimately hitting shallow waters getting their ship stuck. The bandits took what they could carry and abandoned the ship.. which then washed ashore to where it still sits today.

She also told us that the island of Zakynthos is only 26 miles from top to bottom and that it only has 33,000 permanent residents on the island-known mostly for tourism and agriculture. The people more inland farm olives, grape vines for raisins and wine, and have sheep, goats, horses and cows. During the summer, there is an influx of over 100 Thousand tourists at any given time on the island.

In 1953, the island suffered a major earthquake. Every single building on the entire island collapsed-except three-one of which was a church that’s still standing today. Whatever buildings didn’t immediately collapse during the 4 hour continuous earthquake, ended up collapsing within the next 10 days due to either aftershocks or fires that broke out. It was devastating to the population and took years to rebuild, and even now there are very strict building codes to follow, like nothing is allowed to be over 3 stories tall.

Catherine was full of information like this, which kept me entertained the entire hour drive to the bay we were going out from. She told us about their population of sea turtles, the largest in the Mediterranean Sea, and the environmental groups that work to preserve the turtle eggs on certain beaches. When we finally got to the drop off location, it was almost noon already!

We were able to use a restroom and buy a gyro to eat on the boat.. I was pretty excited about the gyro. We all got on a charter boat with good views from every spot. We then had an almost hour boat ride to get to shipwreck beach! It sure was a lot of riding around today. At least on this boat we had the wind in our hair and could be mesmerized by the sandstone jutting up out of the Crystal blue shimmery waters. It truly was gorgeous!

Once we docked at shipwreck beach and got off the boat, we were met with a huge white pebble beach-not sand-pebble.. hahaha, I can still hear mom now as I write this. Those pebbles HURT, and sandals wouldn’t stay on your feet because of the water causing your feet to immediately sink deep into the rocks with every step. We painstakingly eased our way up onto the beach, found a spot for our towels, and went back to get into the water.

I swam, mom stood there in pain because her feet hurt but the water was too cold to get in and relieve her feet. Then, right where she was standing, a boat decided to pull to up dock there.. so she had to move down the beach to get out of their way. This happened several times and before we knew it, we were a long way from our towels. She had left her sandals on our towels, so, I tried letting her wear my flip flops, that didn’t go well and I had to swim after them when a wave snatched them from her feet.

She got frustrated and told me to leave her be, so I walked back to our towels and grabbed her sandals and came back to where she was to help her in them. That wasn’t really very smooth either, since she kept sinking into the beach with every step.. eventually she managed to get onto the more compact pebbles and we got over to our towels. We weren’t laying out for maybe 20 minutes when our boat reappeared and our captain was yelling for us to come get on board.. time to go back! I thought mom was going to pop a blood vessel.

We got back on the boat and started the trek back to the bay. Our captain did stop in some of the blue caves, which was really neat. Overall though, I think mom and I would have enjoyed it more if we could have stayed on the beach for an hour or two at the least, to make up for all the riding and sitting and painful walking. We just wanted a little longer to actually enjoy the beauty of this place without being corralled away again. It was probably one of the prettiest places we’ve seen so far! Now I know what works if and when I ever get to come back.

So, after our boat ride back to the bay, we used the bathrooms again, mom got a pastry and I got another gyro, even though I wasn’t hungry. This is our last hour in Greece! I had to have just one more! As I’m carrying it to the bus, the driver stops me and says I can’t take it onboard, that I have to eat the whole thing now.. “we leave in 2 minutes.” Umm, excuse me? Couldn’t they have mentioned this before just about everyone getting on this bus purchased food? So as I’m making a shocked face, Catherine walks up behind me and whispers, “if you can’t eat it all, just wrap it up and stick it in your bag, he never mentioned this no food before, I’m sorry.” So that’s what I did..

Our hour long bus ride back to the ship was more fun this go around, since Catherine had already told us everything and now we were all awake and more lively. The couple sitting behind us are on their honeymoon and were so funny. We all chatted and laughed the whole way back to the ship. Once we were back, we realized again that the port was really far from the city, so we didn’t venture out to explore, even though we did have 2 hours to do so if we so pleased.

Instead, we went straight to the pool. Mom got us drinks, I ate my old gyro, life was good! We swam in the pool and laid in the sun until close to 6:30, then went to our favorite spot on the back deck. Wine and pasta and sunsets. Seriously, there’s nothing better. Around 10pm, I changed and went for my run on the upper deck. There were way more people out and about tonight, all commenting on how proud they were of me running while on “holiday.” To some I explained my run streak, to others I just said thanks.. either way I got 2.6 miles done before I called it quits and went to the room to shower.

When I got to the room, mom surprised me with room service desserts (and more wine for me)! I showered quickly so I could enjoy the goodies she got us: cheesecake and crème brûlée. So so good. We watched tv and talked until almost 1am. Sure, we could have gotten dressed again and gone to the “party” but from all the things I’ve seen so far, this isn’t really the crowd I want to drink and dance with.. plus-I’m tired! Lol party pooper? Maybe.. but I’m ok with that-as I lay in bed in my robe eating cheesecake.

Tomorrow is just a sea day and our last full day onboard. I think we’ll take it easy, lay at the pool, and get ready for our travel day to Rome! Thanks for following along y’all. Goodnight!

Yay for ending the cruise on an “at sea” day! I slept in until 11 something, and it was every bit of amazing as I needed it to be! We got our bathing suits on and headed to the pool deck to get a burger and fries since we slept in so late. At the counter we were informed that the burger place wasn’t open yet, because the time changed at sea and we went back an hour.. it was only 11:05! Talk about exciting 🙂 sleeping in AND getting an extra hour, too! I accept!

So, we hung around until 11:30 to get our burgers and fries.. ate, and then went to find lounge chairs to claim for the day. Clearly mom and I were late to the game, because all of the spots near the pool were taken. We went up to the upper deck (the one I run around) and got chairs up there. Mom wasn’t a fan, because we had to go up and down the stairs every time we wanted to go to the pool.. but I loved it-direct sun with no shadows, our “own” less crowded bar.. I was more than content.

We laid out, I read.. I had to pause on my “Get out of your head” book.. I feel like I need to pay better attention when reading it, to really get it, and there’s too much distraction on a cruise ship to let my mind wander away from the words I was trying to read.. unintentionally. So, when I started “The Paper Palace” I was sucked in immediately and quickly flew through several chapters. Hmmm, can we say brain self sabotage here? Lolol

We really didn’t do anything but lay, hop in the pool, swim around a bit, get a drink on the way back up to the lounge chairs, read, and repeat until close to 5pm. It was glorious! Nothing required to do, no where to be, no tour guides and small talk. A pretty good example of a perfect day to me!

Sometime after 5, we moseyed back to our sunset deck for a while. The sun wasn’t even close to setting yet, but the breeze was nice and we enjoyed it. At some point it started to rain, so we retreated to our room to shower and get ready for dinner. We knew that if we came to our room any earlier than necessary, we’d nap away this beautiful day.

Once clean and dressed, we went back to our sunset bar to find out that while it wasn’t raining, it was chilly now.. so we ate pasta (it’s like a build your own pasta bar that you pick the noodles, the sauce, the ingredients like mushrooms, chicken, spinach, zucchini, squash, bacon, ham.. and so much more, and they make it to order for you) and I drank wine at the little dinning room inside by the deck bar. We watched the cloudy sunset from there, then decided to go to the formal dining room for dessert.

Our friend sat us at a nice table again, and then seemed mortified that we just wanted dessert. Even when we left the hostess was concerned that we were leaving because we weren’t satisfied. We had to explain we only came for dessert after eating the pasta upstairs at the back deck lol
I will say, the staff and crew of this ship have all been incredible. They are kind and remember faces (or at least are really good at pretending). One of the wine bar guys, Ramesh, would call to me every time I passed him and would chat about the day as he poured my wine and pulled out a water or a Coke Zero for mom without even asking her.. I realize that their job includes making our stay a great one for reviews and whatnot, but they really do go above and beyond.

After dessert we went to the last show of the cruise, the variety show. It had 3 of the previous acts perform a 20 minute “mini show.” Mom lasted through 1 1/2 performances before saying she was going back to the room.. I lasted through the whole thing, and then went back. We had to pack everything and sit it outside of our room to be collected for departure tomorrow. So, once that was done, I made my way to the upper deck to run. I tried to go for 2 miles, but after all the food and wine today, I just couldn’t.. I got to 1.6 and called it quits. I’m also sad to announce this is the only day so far I haven’t gotten 10k steps because I forgot to look at it before I fell asleep. Sad story.

Anyway, my run streak is still solid, so the garmin points will just have to suffer lol. “Tomorrow” we get off the ship, take a shuttle bus to the Ravenna train station, take one train to bologna and then another on to Rome! (I’m writing this from one of those many trains). We’ll have an Airbnb in the heart of Rome, between the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain for 5 whole days! I am sooo ready for that!