Guten Tag Sweet Friends!!

Ty and MomThis is the first post since my son Ty arrived for a visit on August 12!! We have been on a whirlwind tour of Greece, Turkey, and Italy and the wifi has been spotty most places so I’m just now posting. Also, I wanted to spend quality time with my son even if he didn’t want to spend it with me sometimes 🙂

I met him at Dusseldorf airport with a German lei, fake lieder-hosen t-shirt andGerman pig knuckle (2) a German beer garten hat. Well, what else?? After dumping the bags, we went to see Cologne’s main event – the Dom. It never fails to impress and after that he wanted an authentic German meal so we went to one of Cologne’s oldest beer houses – Bruhls – where he ordered the pig knuckle, sauerkraut and potatoes. Eeeeeyew!!! It was all the same color, but he enjoyed it.

After making the rounds and meeting a few friends of mine, we left very early Thursday morning (3:30 AM) to fly to Athens. We arrived to sunny, beautiful and warm Athens that morning and dropped our luggage at Athens tourHermes Hotel and hit the streets. We took a stroll to orient ourselves to the city. We had lunch at a local cafe and enjoyed Greek food and beer, well Ty enjoyed the beer. Then we took a free guided walking tour of the city with George. George was awesome! His English was perfect and he clearly loves the city and its rich Athens tour guide - georgehistory. He took us on a 3 hour tour for free – he works for tips. Look him up! Free Walking Tour of Athens and send him an email request or just show up. It’s free! that night we went to the top of the hotel and enjoyed a fabulous view of the Acropolis magically lit under the moon. It was magical!

The next morning, we walked to the Acropolis and purchased our tickets. Using info from our guided tour the day before, we walked around the Roman Agora, the Ancient Greek Agora and the Acropolis itself that includes the Parthenon, the Dionysis Theatre, and many other sites – 7 in all. One 12 Athens Acropolis (5)euro ticket covers all 7 sites. We had so much to see in a day and a half, but we covered most of it. The population of Athens is 4.5 million people; that’s half of the population in Greece! It’s huge so there is no way to see everything, but we did a great deal before having to board out ship at 3 PM.

We took a cab to the dock and I’m so happy we did! Piraeus port is huge! Taking the train is cheap, but it drops you off at one end of the port and you have to haul all your luggage around in the heat trying to find your ship. We talked to some people who walked for 45 minutes trying to get to the ship! Jeez! It was definitely worth the extra money.Cruise ship

Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth doesn’t disappoint! It’s a magnificent ship and we were welcomed with a bottle of champagne (fancy!) and a large stateroom (we got a free upgrade) with an ocean view. It was as large as some European hotels I’ve stayed in! Not that that is so very large! Cunard is very British and very formal with high tea served every afternoon and jackets required for evening meals in the dining room. Fancy! But by the pool, it was anything goes, so we hung out there a lot! The food was good and the people we met were wonderful. But the ports were the main event!

Bodrum turkey (2)First stop – Bodrum Turkey, which I had never been to. It’s a resort town on the coast with nice beaches, lots of hotels, and the mother load of knock-off’s! Yes kids, if you want a Louis Vuitton or Chanel bag, you can get it there for a fraction of the cost; and they are pretty good copies too. You can buy D&G sunglasses,  Louis Vuitton purses, Jimmy Choo shoes, everything you’ve always dreamed of right here in little old Bodrum. Oh, there’s a nice castle too. We toured the castle first then made our way to a beach side restaurant that offered free beach loungers (sun baths) with your lunch. So we copped a squat on a couple of chairs, took a swim and had lunch until time to reboard the ship.cruise first formal night

Next day was a sea day so we relaxed by the pool and enjoyed our first formal night. We got all cleaned up and had a portrait made. I told Ty it would likely be the last one until he got married, so I took full advantage of it! He cleans up real nice! That night there was a comedian in the Royal Court Theater so we went for the show. The guy called Ty up on stage and kept calling him back up there almost the whole show. Everyone thought Ty was a plant and part of the show! He was a celebrity after that. Everyone on the ship knew his name! It was great!

Santorini (6)The next port of call was Santorini Greece. We took a boat to the end of the island to the city of Oia that sits way up on top of the mountain. All the houses, churches, cafes, everything is bright white and the churches are topped with Aegean blue domes. It is picture postcard perfect my friends!  From afar, it looks like snow on the mountain, but it’s really all the small white houses and villages. It was amazing. We walked the small streets and took hundreds of pictures. We ate at a small cafe and had the best Greek food of the entire trip. OMG! It was wonderful and the view was gorgeous. I loved Santorini OiaSantorini so much! We transferred to the town of Fira, the capital city, by bus and we walked around Fira for about two hours. You can only reach the cities by bus, cable car, donkey or by walking about 550 steps up. Our tour included the boat ride and bus to Oia and bus to Fira, but we had to make our own way down. The line for the cable car was long, so we opted to walk down or rather run down. We had pushed our time to the limit so we had to literally run down the steps in order to catch the last tender to the ship. We were flying past donkeys and donkey poop along the way!! But we made it! It was me, Ty and the crew heading back to the ship!

The next day was Olympia Greece, home of the first and original Olympics. Although Olympia is now Olympiaonly ruins, you can see where the buildings and baths once stood and there are guides to give you information and visuals of what it looked like. The museum also offered many details on its history. After our tour, we had another great meal of bread, olives, oil, salad, hummus and grilled vegetables! I love Greek food!!

After Olympia, we enjoyed another sea day. Sea days are great cos you can just relax by the pool and do nothing but read, eat, sleep, read and eat some more. We also had our second formal night and I made Ty pose for another formal portrait. I know he hated it, but I cherish all the pix of us! Our table mates for dinner were Melissa and Alex from Great Britain. They were Ty’s age and very outgoing and fun. It was their one year anniversary cruise and they were the sweetest young couple. We really enjoyed talked with them every night. I had seen them on the ship the day we arrived. You can’t miss them because Melissa is blind and uses a cane or holds onto Alex. Alex has a degenerative eye disease and has lost most of his sight as well. He can see certain things but has no central vision. You would think they would remain on the ship and have a sea day every day, but no, they were the first one’s off the ship and booked tours in every port. Even though Melissa couldn’t see anything and Alex could only see bits, they enjoyed it maybe more than most people.  Some people might think that their money was wasted, it didn’t matter to them. They wanted to experience everything and so they did. They were absolutely delightful and their attitude towards life was uplifting and inspiring. I felt blessed to have them sitting beside me every night!

Our next stop was Naples and Pompei! We arrived without a real plan, but soon got instructions on how to get to Pompei via train. We found Melissa and Alex waiting for the tram to the train station and asked them to join us. They rode with us to the train station and we all boarded towards Pompei. They decided to get off at Herculean since they had already seen Pompei previously. They got off and I hoped they would be ok since they were not with a tour or guide. Ty and I went on to Pompei where we joined a walking tour to explore the site. It’s extraordinarily well preserved, down to the bodies of residents and even their dogs! The brothel with its “menu” of services painted on the walls for the customers who could not read and the phallic symbols literally pointing the way to its doors was amazing. Our guide explained the sewers, the Greek way of street cleaning, and how the “toilets” worked. We saw restaurants, wine shops, book stores, bakeries and many houses and villas. It was awesome! When we got back to Naples, we found a pizzeria and enjoyed a real Napoli pizza! Although the pizza are very plain compared to American pizza, it is much more flavorful in its simplicity. The crust is very thin and the ingredients are simple. Yummy!cruise first dinner

Our last night on the ship was spent saying goodbye to our table mates, enjoying some music from the house band and packing our suitcases. It was hard to believe that our 7-day cruise was already over. How could it have gone by so quickly? We just boarded like yesterday??

Athens was amazing but I think Santorini was my favorite port. I really loved it and will definitely go back to spend some time there. I would also like to return to Bodrum. I think Turkey has much to see and do, so I want to go back and see more of what it has to offer. Another trip is in order!

I have to devote an entire post to Rome since there was so much and we spent four days seeing everything we could pack in!! Look for my next post on Roma! Until then, ciao baby!

start of trip second formal night Santorini Oia Santorini (6) Santorini (4) Olympia Koln Dom Athens tour Athens Temple of Hephaistos (3) Athens square Athens lunch Athens Acropolis (6)

 

 

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