Friday, September 18, 2009

ISLANDS OF CRETE & SANTORINI

Thursday, November 8th, 2007 Last day of the tour…..

Jim decided to purchase the tour to see the Knossas Palace on the Island of Crete for this morning after we enter the port of Heraklion in Crete. So, yes, it was another early morning. I could have slept in but since I was awake I went to breakfast with him. We joined a priest from Wisconsin and a gentleman from Little Rock Arkansas for a lively meal starting with the traditional meal prayer by the priest. He is 76 years old and full of stories. We tarried longer than usual at the table as he regaled us with interesting tales.

I’ve been enjoying my time with journals and photos while Jim is out in the rain while visiting the magnificent archaeological site of the Palace of Knossos. I sent my camera along just in case there are some great Kodak moments. Yes, another wet morning. Crete is the largest island in the Greek Isles. We will definitely not be coming back here as it’s quite a ways south of the other Islands.

This afternoon we set sail for our last stop in Santorini. There we are going to tour this one together by ourselves. This particular island was formed by the rim of an ancient drowned volcano that exploded in about 1628 BC; many believe that this may have been the lost continent of Atlantis. We plan to ride the tram to the top for the spectacular view.

Jim returned in time for lunch; he’d had a good tour and had also taken several photos for me with my camera. We enjoyed lunch as we set sail for Santorini; and then headed for the room for some down time. Jim fell asleep and I went upstairs to get our tender tickets for this afternoon. When I return Jim was awake and very upset; he’d gone to sleep with his glasses on as he watched the television. Somehow he managed to break his glasses and for someone who never moves without putting his glasses on, this is very critical. Because they are rimless there is no way to tape them together. We’re hoping to find an Optical Shop in Athens tomorrow that can be creative…maybe with hot glue…and temporarily repair his glasses. Traveling light we didn’t bring any extra glasses.

By 3 pm it was raining very hard outside. The sun had come out by 10 am this morning and we’d had a beautiful sky when we sailed from Crete. Everyone kept positive thoughts and sure enough by the time we pulled into the huge bay of Santorini the sun was shining again. We had to board tender boats for the short ride into the port and then took the cable car up rather than walk or ride a donkey. The sunset was magnificent and we all spent the first half hour taking volumes of photos of this spectacular event. Then we walked around town before heading back down the cable car at dusk for our boat ride out to our ship that was sitting in the harbor. Jim was not comfortable without his glasses but he was a trooper and didn’t complain.

Dinner was served at 7 pm with open seating. We joined two California woman from north of Santa Barbara and had another very enjoyable meal in the dining room. After dinner we all went to the conference rooms to pick up our passports and then headed for the room to pack. Our taxi will be waiting for us at 7:15 am so it’s another early morning.

We’re cruising along at a fairly rapid pace and will arrive in Athens early in the morning. We’ve been told that we can depart the ship anytime after 6 am. We have one night at the President Hotel in Athens and then our next adventure will began: Our trip to the island of Paros where our Julie has arranged for us to rent a private home for a week.

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