KIMC, Week 2

Week two begins with us sailing out of Istanbul and making our way back through the Dardanelles (yep, we passed through twice, but the first time was at 4 in the morning...I was sleeping).  The weather continued to be GORGEOUS and it was kind of cool to see (from the ocean) many of the WWI places we've all heard so much about (Gallipoli, Suvla, etc). I have pictures of this, but since one bit of coastline looks much like another, I'll spare you those and just stick in a shot from the ship as we sailed away :-)

Valletta, Malta
Our next port of call was Valletta, Malta, which I fell in love with immediately (Irene was less enthusiastic...I think her heart was still back in Istanbul).  I think it was the wind that got me--reminded me so much of home, even though the buildings and plants were like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean.  The people were lovely, the streets winding and full of atmosphere, and the food...well, let's just say we skipped the two traditional meats, horse and rabbit, and headed for Maltese wine and sausage instead. Disclaimer: I forgot my camera on the ship, so all of the Malta shots are taken on Irene's camera, most by Irene.

Valletta's Port

Walking to the City Centre

Gardens looking out over the city

Moi, looking vaguely dazed...might have been the wind...or the steps

Our first stop upon arriving in the city centre was a phone booth, so that Irene could call home (we didn't have much contact with folks at home, as internet and phones on the ship were ridiculously expensive).  While she got the scoop on all the snow and news at home, I wandered around St. John's Co-Cathedral, headquarters of the Knights of Malta.  Words, and pictures, cannot do justice to the opulence, grandeur and amazingness of this place (especially since you can only take photos in the outer part of the co-cathedral, and not in the museum part, where I saw Caravaggio's "The Beheading of St. John the Baptist"), but I've included a few shots to try to give you all some indication:

St. John's Co-Cathedral

Altar

Chapel Ceiling (yep, every surface looks like this...walls...ceilings)

The floor consists of marble in-laid tomb markers

Chapel

Next we wandered, ducking into shops whenever there was a sudden torrential downpour.  We finally sought shelter in a lovely restaurant when a small thunderstorm started, and then headed back out into the sunshine for a last look around before heading back to the ship.

Back on the ship, looking out over the harbour

In training for a traditional boat race

Harbour View

Barcelona, Spain
Our ship stopped back into Barcelona to pick up new passengers, and drop off those souls who were finished travelling, so we hopped ashore and spent the day wandering Las Ramblas, enjoying the sun, eating in overpriced restaurants, and generally having a good time!  Not a lot to report from this particular trip to Barcelona (more at the end, when we spent a few days wandering), but here's a few pics!

Random tourist, being entertained by a street performer (she was a statue one--really good!)

View from where we ate lunch on Las Ramblas

Heading back to the port!

Casablanca, Morocco
Once again acting on advice from our absentee tour director, we booked a tour of Casablanca (and were glad we did!), but cheaped out a little and just went for the half-day version.  It was nice, actually.  It was another gloriously sunny day, and we visited the local market, Hassan II Mosque (it's HUGE), Casablanca's Imperial Residence, and a craft co-operative (where Irene loaded up on face cream and argon oil).  Our guide was really quite good, knowledgeable and friendly, and on the way we even passed a rally in support of the king.

Our guide, on the tour bus

The market

This little guy is determined NOT to be turtle soup

Hassan II Mosque (Capacity, 100 000 people!)

And so ends Week 2!  I actually had to consult both a calendar and my journal to figure that out :)

More coming your way in my third Cruise update, the excitingly named KIMC, Week 3!  Stay tuned for the rest of Morocco, Gran Canaria, Madeira (amazing), Malaga (also amazing) and post-cruise in Barcelona!

-K-

Missing in Action

Ok, so in reading over my last post, I noticed four things, which I decided to try to address before adding my post on Week 2.

First off, somehow I deleted the first half of the Athens portion of the post, which explains why there's no commentary on what we saw, and I appear to start mid-sentence.  Basically, the missing sentences talk about finding the train station in Piraeus (with a lovely Australian couple), the right train stop for the Acropolis (thanks to a couple from Portugal/France on their honeymoon), and our way to the Acropolis (all before the first tour buses from the ship-take that Norwegian Cruise Lines!).  We wandered the Acropolis, saw the Parthenon, the Agora, and so many amazing sites, then visited some of the street markets (where I actually bought a few things, in a strange break from tradition for me), before settling down for a meal. 

Secondly, I didn't add a photo of the Virgin Mary house at Ephesus at all.  Or any from the rug place!  Oops!

Thirdly, I also didn't add photos of Topkapi Palace.

And, finally, I forgot that we passed Stromboli, an active volcano, on Ash Wednesday as we headed towards Turkey.   So, I've stuck a nice pic of that in here too!  Enjoy!

Oh, and I'm writing my Week 2 post now, so it should be up soon!

-K-

House of the Virgin Mary

Removing silk from the cocoons

Topkapi Palace entrance

Topkapi from outside

Stromboli

And a little closer....

Kate and Irene's Mediterranean Cruise, Week 1

Catchy title, isn't it?  I came up with it all by myself, too!

Warning: This entry is turning out to be quite long...but  I'd rather go week by week, or I'll never manage to post about the trip.  Consider yourselves warned!  This is more like Take 50 than Take 5!

My adventure with Irene began in Dublin, where we met at the airport (she, lucky thing, got bumped up to first class for her flights across the US and the Atlantic...I, on the other hand, got the bus from Omagh).  After navigating terminals one and two, finding the taxi ranks and generally wandering all around Dublin Airport for two hours, we were en route to our airport hotel for a night of wild partying and...well ok, more like an early meal and some much-needed sleep.

The next morning we were up bright and early for our flight to Barcelona!  We took advantage of all that Dublin Airport had to offer (free makeover in the duty-free, free samples of Bushmills, a pint after our flight was delayed for two hours, sadly not free) and landed in Barcelona in fine form. 

Me, post-makeover...you will never see me wearing this much makeup again!

Upon arrival at our hotel (Hostal BCN Port, near the port area...excellent location), we learned that it was Carnivale and there was a parade going right by our door pretty much.  So we took to the streets, tracked down a nice restaurant, and watched the people and the parade go by!

The next morning we grabbed a cab (in the midst of a race that was taking place downtown...no mean feat) to the port and boarded our home for the next 3 weeks, the Norwegian Jade (sorry Jingles, we couldn't find any photos of you on-board).  I'll spare you all any lengthy descriptions of sea days and life on the ship (the sea days were remarkably similar, and involved reading, doing laps of the walking deck and attending jewellery seminars...one of the few fun things to do) and will focus instead on our AMAZING ports of call, and the adventures Irene and I had there.  Actually, all of our adventures were pretty good ones--we managed not to get lost, arrested, robbed or otherwise in trouble, and always made it back to the ship in plenty of time to avoid being left behind (apparently many of our fellow cruisers were not so lucky...or conscientious).

Our luxurious stateroom

So, here's the real fun part:  the places we visited! Port names are listed first, with the places we explored afterwards, if we didn't stay in the port.  As Irene would be the first to admit, she has no sense of direction whatsoever, so I was quickly appointed navigator for the trip (for everything from finding our way to our cabin or the theatre on the ship, to finding our way around the streets, subways and train stations of the places we visited).  I can proudly state that with the exception of walking for 5 minutes in the wrong direction on the right street in Agadir, Morocco, and crossing to the wrong side of the Dart station in Dublin, I successfully navigated us around the Mediterranean without a hitch.  You may now applaud or send money :)


Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy
We arrived in Civitavecchia on International Women's Day, and opted for a ridiculously expensive tour excursion from the ship, which basically provided us with a bus ride in and out of central Rome, as well as a map and a lovely guide who gave us advice on how to get around, and things we could see.  Given the traffic we experienced on the way there, though, and the fact that the trains apparently stopped running while we were in the city, it was probably money well spent.

We were dropped off in People's Square (I'm not going to attempt to spell the Italian name at the moment, although I do remember it), and made our way to the nearest underground station, where we successfully navigated both the Italian-only ticket machines and the subway system to arrive at the Colosseum station.  The line-ups for tickets were super long, but fortunately our guide had told us where to go where the lines were shorter (the ticket actually covers three different sites, and if you get it at one of the other sites, the lineups are short), so that's what we did!  And since it was International Women's Day (which is also a national holiday in Italy), we got our tickets for free!

The Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Forum were amazing, and pictures barely do them justice, but I'll try!

Irene in front of the Colosseum

Arch of Constantine

After wandering around in the glorious sunshine for a bit (well, maybe a bit longer than a bit...there was so much to see!), we headed back to the Metro and went in search of the Trevi Fountain, which we found with surprisingly little trouble, and did all the touristy things such as throwing a coin in the fountain and eating gelato (mine was lemon...yum).

After exploring the area around the fountain, we had just enough time to get the Metro back to our pick-up point...so, sadly, no we did not see the Vatican or St. Peter's (except from the outside), or the Sistine Chapel or the Pantheon (my biggest disappointment).  But, Rome certainly can't be seen in a day...I'll just have to convince someone to come back and visit it with me!

Piraeus (Athens), Greece
Agora and the Plaka.  We may also have started a tradition of feeding hungry cats at outdoor cafes.  We have sucker written all over us apparently.  I learned how to say thank-you in Greek (again, not going to attempt to write it, but I'll be happy to say it to you in person next time you see me), and had a lovely lunch of calamari, tzatziki and retsina.

Acropolis

View from the top

On the Plaka

View of the Acropolis behind me

Lunch

Our new friend

Izmir (Ephesus), Turkey
Our official guide source, Jana, suggested that we see Ephesus (former site of one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis) and the House of the Virgin Mary located nearby, so we sprang for another shore excursion from the cruise ship (surprisingly, barely more expensive than the bus to Rome).  We set off for Ephesus, and had a lovely (but too short) tour of the wonders of that ancient city, before heading for the House of the Virgin Mary (not the real one...a reconstruction based on oral tradition and archaeological evidence of where she apparently spent her last days).  We saw where the Temple of Artemis once stood, but sadly nothing remains.  Ephesus was just amazing--I've been reading Innocents Abroad (thanks for the suggestion Chip), and Twain talks about the archaeological work that is just about to begin when he was visiting--that work is only now 20% complete, and the results are incredible...including a reconstruction of the great library, which is the tall building at the bottom of the hill which you'll see below!

After the sightseeing, we had a lovely lunch at a resort, after which we were taken to a carpet making place, and chased around by salespeople for an hour or two, but only after they served us Raki, the local anise liqueur (tasty but very, very, very strong...and apparently we had the ridiculously watered down version).  We emerged with our pocketbooks unscathed (except for a cup of apple tea that Irene ordered), and returned to the ship tired but happy.


Istanbul, Turkey
We spent two glorious days in Istanbul, trying to see everything there was to see!  I finished The Historian just before I left Northern Ireland, and it featured a section on Istanbul, so I came equipped with a number of sites that I really wanted to see (plus, I wanted to see if I agreed with Mark Twain's take on the place...I didn't).  Fortunately, Irene was up for being dragged around to mosques, museums and marketplaces, and even more fortunately, she has a friend, Allie, who lives in Istanbul and who met up with us on the first day to show us around a bit, and get us used to the intricacies of the tram system we'd need to take to get to where we wanted to go from the port.  Thanks Allie!

That first day we say the Grand Bazaar (it truly is overwhelmingly large), the outsides of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, wandered around the port area, and had a lovely supper near the bridge to the Asian side of the city (literally, the side located in Asia, not the side peopled by Asians).

The Three Wanderers, out for supper

The next day Irene and I branched out on our own, and visited the insides of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern (built by Justinianus, I think, as an underground reservoir during times of siege), and Topkapi Palace.  Everything was within walking distance and amazing.  And once you got used to people constantly trying to sell you things, the place was pretty amazing.  Everyone was friendly, most people spoke English in the areas where we were (and French, and German and about a hundred other languages, it seemed), and we had a fantastic time.

Irene inside the Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia

Blue Mosque

Inside Hagia Sophia

Basilica Cistern

Oh, and your eyes are not deceiving you...those are blue skies in every picture!  In fact, every port we visited for the entire trip had blue skies and sunshine, with the exception of Malta...which had blue skies, sunshine, and the occasional torrential downpour that would pass off in minutes leaving more blue skies and sunshine.  But more on that next time!  For now, I leave you!  Oh, and I'm happy to answer any questions...just send me an email or leave a comment!  And there are many more great pics, if there's anything you really want to see (it's just so very slow to load them that I may have given up tonight).

-K-