Finally getting a chance to update:

Tuesday, June 7 was Allen's birthday. We spent the day on Rhodes exploring the ancient walled city and walking through the old moat outside the castle walls. We also visited the 3rd century Doric ruins of Kamiros. In the evening, we had a performance of chamber music by a string quartet made up of students from the Royal Academy of Music.

Wednesday was spent on Crete and included an excursion to an extensive Doric hillside ruin called Lato and the Minoan site of Pyrgos on the south side of the island, dating back to 2800 BC.

Thursday we spent another day at sea, with 5 more lectures, another workout in the ship's gym, then relaxing in the sauna and large hot tub on the 9th floor at the bow. One of the lecturers showed some archival film of the WWII siege of Malta in preparation for Friday's arrival in Valletta.

We also have a classical guitarist on board along with a lounge pianist, and a dance band from Hungary (you can't imagine hearing YMCA and Tom Jones' Sex Bomb with a Hungarian accent). Also, a lounge jazz band which is described as having a "rat-pack look". I don't know what that means, but the singer does a good job of imitating Sinatra. We also had a performance of the Ramayana by Indonesian crew members.

My last entry ended up costing me 5.56 euros, due to slow internet and questions about how to use the computers by some of the other, elderly travellers, so I will cut this off now. I'm not even going to try to download photos - I'll set up a photo site when we get home.

More later, but it's time to go out and get some sun and watch the coast of Sardegna approach.

Ciao.

Greetings from the Mediterranean!

After 25 hours of travel without any real sleep, we arrived in Istanbul (and so did all of our luggage). We got settled in and had a good dinner, but I was in "excited travel mode" and only slept about 5 hours. I went up on deck for a nice sunrise over Istanbul. We had a day full of tours, mainly of Byzantine Istanbul, led by local guides:

The basilica cistern, a huge underground reservoir, built by Justinian in 532 AD.

The Aghia Sophia, a huge church which became a mosque and is now a museum showcasing the unusual combination of both influences/beliefs/styles. Originally built around 500 AD, for almost 1,000 years it was the largest enclosed space in the world.

The mosque of Sultan Ahmet - the famous "Blue Mosque" with its 6 minarets, built between 1606 and 1617. In front of the mosque is a granite Egyptian obelisk, dating back to 1471 BC.

The ancient ruins of the sea and land walls surrounding the old city, built in 413 AD.

The smaller, Kariye Mosque (Chora), built around 500 AD, but also later converted to a mosque and now a museum.

The Hagios Georgios Greek Orthodox church, with beautiful iconography.


Today we spent the day at sea. Breakfast on the back deck of the ship, in the Dardanelles, between the locations of the Gallipoli Battle and the hill of Troy. Through the day we had 6 lectures on various aspects of the histories of the regions from several experts. And lots of delicious food, interesting people, and wonderful weather. The days have been packed - and this is only the start! More to come...