Athens

After two days at sea we reached Athens. Our ship, the Norwegian Spirit, is one of the older ships in the NCL fleet but you wouldn’t know it. Everything is fresh and new looking after a recent refit. The food is great as we discovered right from the start when we celebrated Sue’s birthday on our first night aboard at Cagney’s Steakhouse, one of several fine dining restaurants on board. The staff bought in a birthday cake and sung Happy Birthday…all in all a great night.

We took a four hour tour of Athens on Wednesday morning which included city highlights and the Acropolis. Of course the Acropolis was the biggest highlight. Phil has wanted to see the Acropolis since he learned ancient Greek history in high school – too long ago to think about. The Parthenon –the temple to the Goddess Athena – is the central feature and is undergoing its ninth restoration in 200 years. It looks great in pictures but is truly magnificent to see.  Mind you, the ground is very uneven and consists largely of very smooth stones so we had to walk very carefully. We can’t afford twisted ankles with so much still to see.

While the Parthenon is the feature of the Acropolis you always hear about there are other classical structures on the site that are also fascinating, like the Erechtheion which is a small building containing ancient relics and the site of the very first olive tree which, according Greek Mythology, was planted by Athena. The south portico of the Erechtheion is supported by six pillars called the Caryatides which are sculptures of beautiful girls. Sadly, one is a plaster copy of the original which is in the British Museum and the Greek Government cannot get it back – or any of the many statues from the top of the Parthenon also taken by the British in the early 19^th century. How wrong is that!

We saw many other classical structures including the pillars of the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian’s Gate. We also saw the stadium built in 1894 for the first modern Olympics in 1896, but not the 2004 stadium which is way out of town.

The tour took four hours mainly due to the horrendous traffic. Talk about drive to survive!  How the bus drivers ever get those huge vehicles down the narrow streets and avoid collisions with the mass of cars driven by suicidal locals I’ll never know.

The entertainment and food on the boat is truly awesome.  We have been treated to wonderful evening shows, and have taken line dancing lessons (despite the fact that Phil has 2 left feet) to try to work off the over abundant food available 24/7.  We also played Bingo, and tried many of the cocktails readily available!!

Izmir

After a night crossing of the Aegean we reached Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city. Izmir is a real eye opener for us. We knew that Turkey is a modern democratic state but we did not realise the extent to which western culture has penetrated, at least in this part of Turkey. The street scapes and shopfronts look typically European for the most part, and window advertising shows familiar brands.

Our tour of Izmir was interesting not only because we visited the excavations of the Agora (i.e. market place) of ancient Smyrna which dates from the Roman era, but also because the rest of the tour seemed to bear little resemblance to the itinerary. The Agora was fascinating for Phil – his first sight of ancient Roman and Ottoman ruins. After that we were taken to a street of shops where Sue did some retail therapy (without going nuts – good one Susie!) and then to Konak Square and the beautiful Konak Mosque which is decorated in marvellous Islamic mosaic art. Unusually, Konak Mosque was actually on the itinerary! After that we returned to the bus and the guide collected our customer surveys which would have been pretty good as the tour had been interesting to that point. As time was getting on we expected to return to the ship but found ourselves being taken to a carpet factory where we were shown aspects of the making process then heavily pressured to buy carpets. Not happy Jan! No wonder the guide collected the surveys before that. We have no doubt he was getting kickbacks from these guys. The tour guide was a jerk – we ended up being shut in this room and shown Persian carpets that no-one was interested in, and fed apple tea.  The hard sell was a shocker – never just 1 person going at you, but several, and NO!!! didn’t register.  This was not part of the itinerary, and quite a few people were coming back to the boat to complain….I may even add my voice to the list of whingers as we were a real captive audience.  He was a shyster of the first degree!!! Still, for all that we had a pretty good morning. 

 

Well I have just spent 21 minutes trying to upload 1 photo (and at .72 a minute that is highway robbery, and it still wasn't downloaded!!!), so no more photos on the blog till after the cruise!!!

 

Jamie- Gary would be in his element - and a little more enthusiastic than moi!!!  Do not find new playing buddies - I will be back!!!

 

Lorraine W - Hope the carnival went well, and you were not too stressed!!!

 

Kay - hope you have a wonderful birthday!!!  Will try to email you, but connection can be dodgy. Love Poo XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

Love to all,

 

Sue and Phil xx