Tuesday 25 June 2013 Aegean Sea

Hello everyone,

It has been a busy few days since we last wrote.

We have had beautiful weather over the last few days, lovely clear skies but not too hot.

Our next port after Israel was Athens.  The city itself was a very lovely place, it looked prosperous and well looked after, you hear lots of adverse comments about the city such as it being dirty and chaotic, we did not see any evidence of this.  The city has been hard hit by their financial problems and lots of shops have closed their doors, unemployment is high, but there was an underlying level of prosperity evident.  We visited the Acropolis, an amazing place to visit. The main feature is the Parthenon which was built in just nine years and completed in 436BC.  The architecture and engineering in this building are fantastic.  The building is undergoing a long term renovation program with extensive scaffolding. We went there fairly early in the morning which meant we beat the heat and the crowds.  We then did a tour of the city and saw such features as the stadium that hosted the first of the modern Olympic Games, and other ruins from ancient times.

 The next day we visited Mytilene which is the main town on the beautiful Greek island of Lesbos.  We went to a beach and stayed there for a couple of hours, and we both went for a swim in the beautiful water.  After that we walked around the harbour and had lunch at a restaurant on the water’s edge, and gradually made our way back to the point where we boarded the tender to take us back to the ship anchored off-shore.

Next day we arrived in Istanbul, a very beautiful and bustling city.  The harbour is a very busy place with lots of ferries criss crossing, particularly at peak times, it made Sydney Harbour look quiet. The city has a population of around 20 million, and covers a large area.  Most people live in apartments but the area of the city is still huge and is partly in Europe and Asia.  Again the city looked very prosperous and friendly.  We saw no sign of the recent unrest or any demonstrations, I assume that it was in a relatively small area of the city away from the touristy parts.

We did a tour of the city including driving on to the Asia side of the city over one of the two modern bridges over the Bosphorus Strait, then returned to the Old City to see the sights such as the Blue Mosque.  All the numerous mosques in the city are beautiful and many of them are massive, such as the Blue Mosque.  We also visited the Hagia Sofia which is a huge church built by Constantine the Great in 325 which has the fourth largest dome in the world, after St Peter’s in Rome, St Paul’s in London and another one being the only larger ones, but at over 1600 years old it is far older.  After the taking of the city by Islam in 1453 the church was converted into a mosque, and in 1936 it became a museum.  We also visited the Hippodrome which was originally the site of a Roman Circus where they held things like chariot races.  A visit to the Grand Bazaar was very interesting, it has over 4000 stores under its roof, we did not venture too far off the straight and narrow as it would have been easy to lose your bearings.  Sabine bought some genuine Turkish Delight in the bazaar.

This morning we anchored close to Anzac Cove at Gallipolli, but we all stayed on the ship. The Captain held a memorial service which was beautiful and moving, and Sabine was part of the choir who sang The Prayer by David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager, they had practiced this song over several days and it was magnificent.

We are now heading towards our next stop which is Naples, we have a rest day today and tomorrow which will will need as all this touring is very tiring.

Love Sabine and Sam xxx