Driving and living

It is raining today in Lesvos, not a heavy rain, more like the rains in Seattle. Early in the morning we drove to the small point of land called the Cape of Agios Focus at the end of the Vatera beach. The ancient harbor here was paved with smooth stones to keep the pirates and raiders from anchoring their boats. Above the harbor is the ancient temple of Dionysus, the well of Achilles and a small, modern Greek Orthodox church. The road to this place is semi paved with rough concrete and the last portion of narrow, rutted road goes up a steep hill but ends abruptly with a fence. There is no place to turn around so we had a bit of fun backing down the narrow, rutted steep road. While this was a relatively safe maneuver, there was an opportunity to go over the cliff, roll the car and end up in the Aegean Sea. Fortunately, with a little skillful driving, some loss of traction and a 90 degree turn, we safely made it down the hill backwards.

With no other lunch plans we drove to Polichnitos to the taverna with free internet. Polichnitos is a village with narrow, steep streets, many one way only, the problem is figuring out which is the right way as you wind uphill watching for traffic and squeezing between other cars, with no exact idea of where you are going or how to escape. As we came around a tight corner all I saw was a flash of yellow, and as my life passed before my eyes, the small yellow car was able to stop within inches of my door. Who says this is a dull, boring village?

While we were sitting in the taverna, the folks we met earlier in the week stopped to invite us to their home. They spotted the burnt orange Panda and knew we were there; apparently this is the only burnt orange panda in the entire island so we are easy to spot.

“The foreigners with the burnt orange Panda”.

Later we stopped by their house in Vrissa. The folks have an interesting past having met in Paris as college students. Panu is from the Congo, while Mary is from New York. They married and settled in Athens, had three children who now live in NY and Maryland. Their house is very unusual, built on a street corner on a narrow street. They have been working on this house for years; it took more that four years just to purchase the property since it was owned by several family members who did not speak to each other. Only a couple of the original walls are still in existence, everything else is new. Nice workmanship but apparently it was quite a challenge to obtain materials, engage good workers and keep the construction according to the plans. They have since purchased two adjacent properties, have almost finished one and will soon start to renovate the second. These are old, buildings, in poor condition that require lost of work. The one house had an earth floor where they kept olive oil in large clay pots, and the goats and sheep stayed in the first floor while the family lived in upper floors.

Not sure I would have the patience to take on a major project considering all the obstacles.

Sand and water

We are all settled in in Vatera, internet access has been a challenge but thanks to our gracious hotelier, we have unlimited access to the hotel internet, we just have to go to the open air restaurant area to use it. So, I am publishing three posts from the previous days. Very quiet here nothing but the waves on the beach for sound. I am also going to try and add slide shows with more photos.

Today was a catch up day after all the hectic travel. We had been searching for a self laundry close to Vatera but according to the locals we would have to travel the 50 km to Mytillini. Mytillini is the main city on the island and has just about everything one would need in the way of clothing stores, hardware stores and grocery stores. After some looking and asking we found the laundry which was not self service but a laundry and dry cleaners, we left our two weeks of laundry and returned several hours later to pick it up. The harbor is busy with ferry and other shipping traffic; it is possible to catch a ferry to Athens, the island of Chios and also Turkey. The ferry to Athens takes about 12 hours but it is less expensive than flying which takes about 40 minutes.

We are getting pretty good at navigating the mountain roads which are fairly good but not always well protected in the way of guard rails. We encountered sheep and goats on the road plus a military convey so the going was a bit slow at times. There are several villages we pass through, lots of stone houses, some very old and a few just constructed. Roads through the villages are narrow and in some areas just enough room for two small cars to pass. From the looks of the locals, they have had a hard life, either raising sheep and goats or working in the olive groves. Lesvos is reputed to have the best producing olive trees in the Mediterranean, and with 11 million trees on the island there is a lot of work to be done. Olives were first grown 3500 years ago on the island so they probably have a few generations of experience working in the groves.

Tomorrow we go in search of the healing hot mineral baths in Polichnitos, these baths have been well known for thousands of years and promise to cure a wide range of ailments, everything from arthritis to illness of the womb. The weather was very nice today sunny and about 68 degrees, the wildflowers are in full bloom but I suspect the ocean is still a little on the cool side.

We did fuel the car today, a cute little Fiat Panda, at one of the local stations. This car is a typical small European vehicle designed to get good mileage, colored a burnt orange, somehow it does not fit the name Panda. The cheapest unleaded fuel was 1.679 Euros per liter which translates into $8.944 per gallon, so if you want to complain about high fuel prices in the US………..

From 19 million people to almost no one

We left the metropolis of Cairo where 19+ million live and arrived at the small airport of Mytillini on the Island of Lesvos, sometimes called Lesbos. Lesvos is the third largest island in Greece, but the winter population is probably about 90,000 for the entire island, most of the population is centered in the city of Mytillini and a few other larger cities, in-between there is a lot of space with few inhabitants.

Yiannis Hahathakis (pronounced Hahadakis) met us at the airport with our rental car, Yiannis and his brother and family operate a travel agency on the island, and have several hotels scattered around. We had been corresponding with Yiannis for the last six months looking at options, we settled on the Aphrodite Hotel located in Vatera which is on the south side of the island, reported to have the best beach in all of Greece. The only problem is there are no people in Vatera until the last week of April when the tourists start to arrive. So we are the only guests in this rather nice hotel for the next 30 days, anyone remember the movie ‘The Shining’ with Jack Nicholson?

We followed Yiannis in our rental car the 50 km from Mytillini to Vatera, which took about one hour over the mountains, through olive groves, peaceful valleys, small sheep and goat ranches to Vatera. The only major town on the way is Polichitos, sort of the county seat of the Vatera area which is about 10 km from Vatera. This town at one time had some sort of industry but now is full of narrow streets, small stores and tavernas.

Upon our arrival in Vatera we drove along the deserted waterfront, past shuttered hotels and restaurants that may be open on the weekends until the tourists return in late April. The hotel is very nice, it is a family affair, the mother cooks, and the rest of the family runs the hotel. On Friday nights the family entertains the guests with music as they are all talented musicians.

We got into our room which had been freshly painted for us, Yiannis’ mother made us some coffee cake, and we settled in for the night. In the morning we discovered a coffee maker, tea pot and some bread on the doorstep, Barb had asked about a coffeemaker so Yiannis went out and bought one, in the meantime I have been learning to make Greek coffee, I had bought a Turkish coffee pot in Istanbul which is the same as a Greek coffee maker. The method is simple, add a scoop of very finely ground coffee, a small cup of water and then boil on the stove until it froths, actually there is a bit of a process to make it just right so there is sludge in the bottom of the cup.

This morning we drove to Polichitos to find a Laundromat since we have pretty much exhausted our supply of clean clothes, we found a small grocery store, several small clothing and shoe stores but no Laundromat, we were told the closest one is in Mytillini so tomorrow we will drive back to Mytillini to take care of that business, buy a few more groceries and then back to Vatera. Two of the tavernas offered free internet so we went into one but were told, no the ’free’ internet costs 2 Euro, so much for free. We left and wandered around the town trying to find an ATM which took a bit of looking but after asking around we located one; we do need to learn Greek since not many of the villagers speak English. Barb was taking a picture of a house when this older lady started talking and we were not sure if she wanted money for taking a photo of her home, then she gestured to take more photos of the house, and we finally figured out she wanted to invite us in for coffee. The language barrier was significant!

We did go to a taverna where there was truly free internet, it was an older tavern with a limited menu, but for lunch and the internet we only paid 13 Euros, We met a couple in the taverna who have a house on Mytillini but live in Athens, they are retired and we learned they met in the university in Paris, then decided to marry and live in Athens. There are a lot of Athenians that have homes in the islands for summer living, plus operate hotel and summer resorts for tourists.

After our return to the hotel, Yiannis brought us a bowl of beans from his mother and also gave us access to the hotel internet so we will be able to keep up with the rest of the world. We walked on the beach today, the spring flowers are in full bloom and the sea was a bit rough, later it rained a little. Weather for the next two days is partly cloudy with a little rain.

Departing Egypt

Leaving Cairo was bittersweet, we thoroughly enjoyed the people, and all of the wonderful places to see, but the traffic and constant noise was hard to take. Even on the 26^th floor of the hotel, the car horns were extremely loud.

We made arrangements to leave early on Monday morning since the traffic is so congested, our taxi driver spoke some English and he skillfully maneuvered through the bumper to bumper traffic on the way to the airport. Or route took us through the city and the last 2 km were on a sort of freeway, it took about an hour to make the 13 mile journey. As I mentioned earlier, the roads and streets are designed for a certain number of lanes which are ignored, so if there are three marked lanes the traffic will squeeze together to make 5 lanes, all bumper to bumper and within inches of each other, somehow the traffic flows with a lot of honking, drivers constantly honk as other drivers to let them know are too close or passing or tell them not to crowd in. Our driver came within a half inch of a collision, smiled and said, ‘see, no collision’. He was very nice and pointed out all the sights along the way, Mubarak’s compound including the military base to protect him, his private house, the Olympic facilities, Air Force base, etc. all the time whizzing along between, around, and last minute crossing to the opposite side of the road to make the exit. I guess if you live there you would get used to the traffic, for us tourists, it was no fun.

We bought a lot of souvenirs’ in Rhodes, Istanbul and Cairo, but this created a problem since the airlines are very strict about weight limits and the number of bags allowed as carry-on luggage. During our side trips we left our large suitcases in the storage facility at Athens airport, and then travelled with one backpack each, and a duffel; we checked the duffel and then just took our backpacks on the plane which worked very well. The problem was we bought so many souvenirs that we were over our weight limit to fly on Aegean to Mytillini. The airline allowed a total of 20 kilos or about 44 lbs for each of us, when we got back to Athens we redistributed some of the souvenirs to the suitcases which then increased the weight to about 23 kilos each, plus we had the duffel stuffed.

It is possible to increase the weight but the cost per kilo is 2 Euros, so with the extra weight and the duffel it would have been somewhat expensive. I decided to leave the duffel with Barb who was waiting away from the ticket counter, I then took both our bags and walked to the ticket counter, the counter was not busy and three agents were waiting, so I tried to determine which one would be the most sympathetic, I decided one young lady in particular might help since she smiled at me, so I explained we had bought too many souvenirs and our bags were overweight, she said not too worry they can be a little heavy with no problems and voila! no problem, she checked the bags without excess fees.

We then took the duffel and our backpacks through security where they took everything out of the duffel looking for a small nail file that I had forgotten to put in the checked baggage. I lost my longer file in Amsterdam; in the US the file is not a problem. Did I mention that Barb got her file through both Amsterdam and Athens? So they are dumping everything out and in the process find the insect repellent that I also forgot to take out, so that was gone and they finally found the file, determined it was 2 cm to long but apparently felt pity on me and let it go. As we left security, Barb reminded me she still had her longer file; can you imagine how tempting it was to turn her in at that point? But I licked my wounds, accepted the loss and we took off for the gate.

The flight to Mytillini was only 40 minutes in a Avro RJ100, this four engine RJ seems to be a bit of overkill but it is the smallest plane in the Aegean fleet. Olympic operates numerous DeHavilland Q400’s’ and larger equipment such as 737, A320, A330, and 747’s. We did notice several Olympic mothballed aircraft at the airport, everything from A330 to a 737-200 that said training on the side. Aegean and Olympic are trying to merge but the government so far has not allowed due to anti-competitiveness. Aegean is a good airline but lost a lot of money last year, we had five flights on Aegean and every one was a good experience.

The Egyptian Museum

Reputed to be one of the great museums of the world, my first impression was it did not compare to the Louvre, or the Field Museum in Chicago since it was solely dedicated to Egyptian artifacts. But, there is no comparison to the amount or quality, of artifacts on display which is a few paltry thousand or so of the total collection of over 165,000 items.

But, from tiny burial statuettes to enormous statues over 30 feet high, dozens of sarcophagi, royal mummy displays, hundreds of fragments of hieroglyphics, jewelry, daily household goods and of course the treasures of Tutankhamen, there simply is no equal in the world.

The Tutankhamen display covers about 30% of the second floor and in itself is unbelievable. Considering the “Boy King” was a minor figure and ruled for just a few years, the amount of items and treasure found in his tomb were small in comparison compared to the pharaohs who ruled for decades and had a greater impact on their people. Unfortunately, their tombs were raided in antiquity so we have no idea of the wealth they took to the grave. What is amazing in the Tut exhibits is not only the artifacts of gold, precious stones and silver, but the everyday items found in the tomb. Clothing made of fine cloth, chariots, hundreds of amulets and funerary statuettes, hunting bows, arrows, knives, thrones, model boats, beds, games, and the list goes on. There are so many objects it is hard to take it all in.

Next to the museum is a burned out hulk of a building from the revolution, but the people protected the museum and kept Mubarak’s thugs from stealing the treasures. It was interesting talking to people who were so proud of their actions forcing Mubarak and his cronies out of the country, and their hopes for a democratic society. One of our waiters described how they cleaned up Tahrir Square, repainted and tried to return everything to normal.

Egypt is gradually returning to normal, but still has a long way to go, but there is so much hope for the future. Most of the people we talked to were very interested in how the outside world saw their actions and judged them. I think they have been so beaten down and kept in a frightened state; they are like little children looking for acceptance.

Lifetime Dream

When I was a young lad, we lived in Denver not far from the City Park, this park has a lot of memories for me, and my brother, Leonard. A rather large park, it had not only the large expanses of green lawn, but an excellent zoo, several lakes and a great museum; The Denver Museum of Natural History. With close proximity to the Colorado - Utah border where thousands of dinosaur bones had been found, the museum had one of the best collections of dinosaurs, but it also had excellent collections of everything from minerals, insects, eggs and a nice little Egyptian section complete with mummies. We spent many a day in the museum since it was free at that time and from the time of my first visit, I wanted to visit Egypt and the pyramids. Today I fulfilled that dream.

Egypt is a mixture of the very old and the new, on the outskirts of Cairo sit the Giza pyramids, a testament to man's ability to engineer and construct remarkable structures still standing after more than 3500 years. The pyramids are now surrounded by ordinary buildings, apartments, stores, and a cacophony of traffic, everything from large tour buses to donkey carts and pedestrians all sharing the precious land close to the life giving Nile river.

The noise of the traffic is overwhelming, everyone drives with their horn; there is no road rage as thousands of cars merge, weave, change lanes, and pedestrians simply walk into this maze of vehicles. Drivers use their horns to let other cars know they are near, not out of anger or frustration. Somehow the cars manage to get where they are going, the pedestrians cross the busy streets all with minimal signs and traffic signals.

We started our day with breakfast in the hotel which has several nice themed restaurants, everything from Egyptian, Iranian, and a British pub, unfortunately, because of the lack of tourists, only one of the restaurants is open. The terrace cafe serves a breakfast buffet, lunch and dinner, nice selections but nothing really fancy. We met our tour guide and driver then took off for the pyramids which is about a 30 minute drive under 'normal' conditions, the drive took us across the bridge where only two months ago tanks and soldiers were trying to put down a revolution. The people here are very proud of what they have done, they feel like they have taken their country back! We drove through residential areas, bridges, highways and roads with minimal paving. In the midst of the traffic, small donkey carts with fresh watermelons, huge piles of garlic, carrots, oranges are either in the middle of the road going somewhere, or on the side selling the fruits of their labor.

Upon arrival at the pyramids we paid 100 Egyptian pounds (about $16.48) for the opportunity to go inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops. During normal tourist season the lines are long and almost impossible to get into the pyramid, but with the recent revolution, just a few tourists have started to travel to Egypt, so we pretty much had the pyramid to ourselves. The pyramid is entered through a shaft cut cut into the pyramids around 500 AD, which then connects to the original tunnel that ascends to the main burial chamber. The shaft is about one meter square and ascends at a steep angle until it reaches the grand gallery. There are cleats set in a walkway with railing to make it easier, but the climb still requires a bit of effort and climbing in a stooped over position.

We were not allowed to take our cameras into the pyramid, but we did get a few photos with our iPhones that are decent. The weather was excellent, about 68 degrees, I can only imagine what it must be like in the summer heat, climbing up into the confines of the small passageways with many tourists. We were able to go experience this with only a dozen or so other people.

Next we drove around the opposite side of the pyramids to the "government' camel area, these camels and drivers are regulated and considered safer than the camels clustering around the front of the pyramids. We heard tales of people being given a price for the ride only to be taken out in the desert where the price changed. The drivers work in rotation so they all have a fair chance to make money. Our tour guide negotiated a price of 350 Egyptian pounds including tips
($58.70) for a nice trip into the desert behind the pyramids. The driver was very nice, spoke excellent English as opposed to our Arabic speaking ability, we got on the camels and off we went at a rather jaunty pace, one quickly realizes that riding camels across the desert is best left to Bedouins, not American tourists. But the ride was nice we had a great conversation with the driver and got some excellent views of all 9 pyramids on the plateau. The guide took our picture at several locations, and then we wandered back to the main area. He told us they had not worked for two months waiting for the tourists to return, gradually things are improving. We gave the driver a nice tip, we continue to be impressed by the friendliness and good will of the people here.

Our next stop was the solar boat museum, which is on the side of the great pyramid. A pit was discovered some years ago that contained the disassembled pieces of a large boat, the boat was placed near the pyramid so the pharaoh could use it for the journey to the next world. The boat was in excellent condition and was eventually reassembled and placed in a building built over the pit where it was discovered. Apparently there is a second pit that has yet to be opened at some time in the future.

I was able to go down into one of the queens pyramids to see the burial chamber, Barb was reluctant, but I felt adventuresome and descended into the tomb, the local tomb guide took several pictures and asked me to lay in the sarcophagus but I declined and instead climbed up to the top of the crypt in a very precarious position, had I fallen, the sarcophagus was waiting for me. Our final stop was to view the sphinx, according to legend the pharaoh Kephren did not like the large block of stone that hindered the view of his pyramid so he had the workers carve the sphinx. Still impressive with traces of the red paint that covered the sphinx are still visible. All in all a pretty eventful day.

After our return to Cairo we walked down the Nile and then over to Tahrir square where there was a minor demonstration going on. There was some chanting, pushing, shoving, the police waded in with truncheons and then everyone smiled, laughed and went back to the business of demonstrating. We walked by the Egyptian Museum and walked through the traffic back to the hotel. On Sunday we are going to spend the day at the Museum, with over 165,000 artifacts, there is a lot to see including gold, silver, mummies, statues, and a bunch of other really old stuff.

We would recommend travel to Egypt for everyone, the experience is wonderful and perfectly safe, probably much safer than most major cities in the US. On Monday we are back to Athens, then later in the day to Mytillini for a month.

Once in Mytillini we will put together a slide show when we have more time.

Chio!

Cairo, Egypt

Today is Greek Independence Day, but we are now in Cairo. The two hour flight to Cairo from Athens on Egypt Air was in a fairly new Boeing 737-800, the first class cabin contained 6 rows of seats, the economy class cabin started at row 20, seat pitch was ok and the food was good.

We cleared customs and found a limo (small Toyota) taxi to take us to the hotel, the cost for the 30 minute ride was $16.82 US. After the traffic in Istanbul, Rome, Paris, and Beijing, we thought we were ready for Cairo, nope, hard to describe the traffic and the driving. There are 19 million+ people in Cairo and I believe at least half of them were on the road we were traveling. The roads are in good condition, well signed and marked with traffic lanes. The road we started on was marked with four lanes, but somehow the cars made five and in some places six lanes, the driver told us not to worry which right away means you should be worried. The seats belts were non-existent and the driver drove very fast weaving in and out of the traffic, some cars actually drove with two wheels on the curb, lots of honking helped the drivers navigate (maybe echo location?) pedestrians walked out in the midst of this traffic, street sweepers swept the streets working within inches of the cars whizzing by. We only saw two accidents on the way to the hotel so the drivers must have good reflexes.

When we arrived at the Hilton Ramses which is located on the Nile, across the road from the Egyptian Museum, and two blocks from Tahrir Square, the hotel guards inspected the car, looked us over and had their dog sniff the car before we were allowed to enter the hotel driveway. Our luggage was x-rayed and we had to walk through a magnetometer. The hotel is 36 floors and upon arrival our room had fresh fruit and pastries to welcome us. The gifts shops are full of wonderful things and at a 10% discount since there are fewer tourists than normal.

Tomorrow we have hired a private driver to take us to the pyramids, and the sphinx, later we will take a Nile cruise. The lights and sounds at night are quite spectacular, it is said that Cairo is a city that never sleeps, even with the current midnight curfew!

East meets West

On Wednesday, the sun appeared! Since we are going to Egypt tomorrow (Friday) The Egyptian sun god RA must be looking out for us. Our Turkey itinerary included a boat trip on the Bosphorus Strait and we were watching the weather for the best day hoping for sun. Having scouted the various options for a boat trip we decided to take the tram to the harbor for a short cruise. Upon our arrival at the dock we discovered the trip we wanted to take only runs on Sunday, but fortunately for us there were several other options and we quickly grabbed an opportunity on a small boat that was leaving immediately. Cruises are very popular and there are a number of large ferry and tourist boats that regularly take passengers to several ports along the straits. The ferry charges 1.75 Turkish Lira which is about $1.10 US, this is the same fare as the tram, so you can travel all over Istanbul for a couple of dollars.

The boat we decided to take holds about 20 people and there were 10 passengers including Ginger, the professor, plus the captain and a mate. The larger boats can handle several hundred passengers so you can see this was a bit smaller than what we had originally expected. The trip took about 3 hours to travel toward the Black Sea, then turn around and make one stop on the Asia Minor continent. So in the same day within a few hours we were on two continents, Europe and Asia Minor. The water was a little rough especially when we passed in the wake of one of the aforementioned large ships. I noticed the life preservers and life vests were fastened to the roof of the boat with nylon zip ties, these zip ties will resist normal human efforts to release the ties since they are rather strong. So without saying anything to Barb about the potential for disaster(she still does not know the danger we were in) should we have to go for a swim in the rather chilly waters, I made sure my knife was available to cut the ties should the need arise. Fortunately the captain was experienced, we made the three hour tour without incident and returned to a different location on the dock which just happened to be close to his brothers restaurant where they were cooking fresh fish.

Istanbul has for millenia been the crossroads between the East and West, the Silk Road ended in Istanbul, spices from the East were sent to markets all over the Mediterranean, goods from Europe traveled East. The Bosphorus strait is lined with castles, palaces, luxury homes from the past and present. Last night we saw over 50 large ships waiting in the Sea Of Marmara to transit to the Black Sea, as our waiter explained, the car traffic and the ship traffic is very congested and the ships have to wait their turn to travel up the Bosphorus.

There is some archeological evidence in the far distant past the Black Sea was not connected to the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea. A land bridge existed separating these bodies of water, but at some time, possibly with the help of an earthquake the land bridge collapsed sending a catastrophic flood of water along the narrow valley. Some scholars believe this is the origin of the Biblical story of Noah.

Turkey has been an amazing experience, the people are friendly, helpful, and everywhere we went there was a lot of very old stuff. I can imagine that anywhere you put a shovel in the earth artifacts would be revealed since this are is considered the cradle of civilization. I am looking forward to return next month for a car trip along the Aegean to Ephesus, Bodrum, Heriaopolis, and Pamukkule.

We are returning to Athens this afternoon to overnight before departing on Egyptair to Cairo.

The Blue Mosque & Hagia Sophia

The weather in Istanbul continues to be cool and windy, today the high was 7 degrees Celsius (44.6 Fahrenheit) with the wind a breezy 32 kmh (20 mph), I finally had to buy a hat! Tomorrow is supposed to be bit warmer so we are planning a cruise on the Bosphorus in the afternoon.

In spite of the cool weather we walked first to visit the Blue Mosque, built in 1609 using some of the stonemasons who built the Taj Majal, this Mosque is considered one of the most famous religious buildings in the world. The interior is decorated with Iznik tiles and mesmeric designs employing flowing arabesques, and delicate stained glass. We were able to enter the mosque by removing our shoes, when prayers are not being offered. The Muslims pray five times each day and the call to prayer is heard all over the city from the minarets and loudspeakers. This is truly a beautiful structure.

Not far from the Blue Mosque is Hagia Sophia, the church of holy wisdom, built by the Roman emperor Justinian in 537. Considered to be one of the world's greatest architectural achievements, the central dome is 184' high. In the 15th century, the Ottomans converted the church to a Mosque which was later returned to use as a museum. The interior was once covered with religious mosaics, a few which still survive after more than 1400 years. The imposing size of the structure is hard to comprehend, especially considering the engineering required to build this massive structure in 537 AD.

Situated close to these buildings is Topkapi palace the home to the sultans for 470 years. Abandoned in 1853 the site was opened to the public as a museum in 1924. Fabulous collections of ceramics, glass, jewelery, manuscripts, and the archeological museum with artifacts from all of Mesopotamia dating back thousands of years are housed in numerous buildings.

Braving the wind we walked to the main port to arrange our cruise in the Bosphorus tomorrow, then took the long way back to the hotel. The tram service is excellent, but the walking is good for us. Today there were more people in the tourist sites, mainly group tours, I can only imagine what it must be like in high season with thousands of tourist and large tours. Being here for a few days, we are impressed with the people, we have not seen one person with a cardboard sign, no beggers, only people on the street selling things, everything from small packages of facial tissues to knock-off watches, purses, hats, gloves, toys and food. Lots of small food vendors sell roasted chestnuts, corn and bread from pushcarts, larger kiosks sell hot food, and along every street are storefront cafes selling hot sandwiches. Many stores sell high end clothing and other goods. Although we have learned a few words of Turkish, English is widely spoken, the people are very friendly and helpful. We have been surprised at the high cost of food and other goods, lunch today was $41 USD for a plate of various vegetables a diet coke and coffee. The food is excellent, colorful and tasty, just expensive. Our breakfast is covered as part of the hotel so considering we buy only one meal per day, the overall cost is not to much.

Two more days in Turkey, then on to Egypt! Only 1044 miles from Tripoli! If we poke our head above the clouds we can almost see Gaddfi.

Istanbul

The weather is Istanbul was on the cool side with a light rain, the wind was a bit stiff so we had to button up our coats as we headed for the Grand Bazaar which has been in operations since 1453. The bazaar is a huge collection of small shops offering goods of every imaginable type. The shop owners are friendly yet aggressive to sell you something. We did look at one of the rug stalls where the owner has traveled in the US selling his carpets, we were offered tea and shown a number of carpets even though we told him we were not interested in buying. These people could sell refrigerators to the Eskimoes! The carpets are beautiful, made of silk or wool from different parts of the Arab world, the cost for a 3' x 5' silk carpet is $3500, ancient carpets are even more expensive.

We did buy a few small items, including our magnets, and then started looking at a Turkish coffee maker, these are small metal cups where the coffee and water is boiled over heat to make the coffee, it is quite a process to make the coffee just right. The owner was very friendly, we learned he started in the business when he was 15 working with his family, then went into the military, later worked for Carnival Cruise lines and finally came back to the business in the Bazaar. His family has three stalls in the bazaar. We were offered Turkish coffee and invited into the small shop where he showed us more of the coffee makers and some of the other goods. We ended up purchasing a coffee maker, two cups and saucers made in the traditional blue ceramic colors, and small hand decorated boxes made from camel bones, and a ceramic Aladdin's lamp. The workmanship of these items is excellent. He also had hand inlaid cases for Backgammon or chess that were beautiful. Very nice man and reasonable prices, overall a pleasant experience.

Later we walked to the Suleymaniye Mosque, a beautiful mosque built in 1550 for Suleyman the Mgnificent (the same guy that conquered the Knights of St. John). The mosque is being renovated but we were able to enter the main part of the mosque since it was between prayer times. Included in the mosque complex was a hospital, soup kitchen, schools, and bath house that provided a welfare system feeding over 1000 of the city's poor.

Our last stop for the day was an underground cistern built in 532 by the Roman emperor Justinian. This huge cistern supplied water to the roman palace, it contains 336 columns 26' high, holding up the roof. The cistern was rediscovered in the 19th century when people were found to be collecting water and even fish through holes in their basements.

The traffic here is very heavy, the drivers crazy and pedestrians have no rights. While the tram system is excellent, I am not sure how anyone can get anywhere driving a car, the roads are clogged and almost at a standstill. We learned to cross the streets in a crowd hoping there is some safety in numbers, the cars do not stop and will drive right through the intersection. With that said, the wind blew Barb's hat into the street in front of a bus, she said to let it go and forget it, but being the ever gallant husband, I dashed into the street in front of a bus to retrieve the hat. Actually, gallant means I made sure the traffic was stopped before running out in front of the bus, and the bus driver did not move until I was back on the curb. I am surprised Barb did not want me to stop so she could take a photo.

Tomorrow we plan to visit Topkapi Place, Hagia Sofia, and the Blue Mosque. On Wednesday we will take a cruise up the Bosporus.

Turkey!

Sunday afternoon and we are in Istanbul, Turkey. The flight from Athens was only one hour, yet we had a nice dinner on Aegean Air since it was an international flight. We took the train and tram from the airport to the front door of the Hotel for about $3.00 USD, very easy and no one picked our pockets. Since Monday is supposed to be cool with some rain we are going to the Grand Bazaar which has been in existence for since 1453. There are thousands of shops in a labyrinth of streets, with goods spilling out and relentless shopkeepers. Hopefully we won't get lost or spend all our money! The hotel is conveniently located in the old town within walking distance of all the great attractions.

Rhodes, Greece

I think we are finally starting our adjustment to the nine hour time difference, this morning I was awake at 3:oo AM performing emergency surgery on the mouse, unfortunately, the surgery was not a success. I continued my search for a replacement in the old town of Rhodes but apparently computer mice are not considered tourist souvenirs. Either that, or the 10,000 feral cats living here have eliminated the mice population. More of the stores were open today since a small cruise ship was in port. Most of the vendors are busy fixing up the stores for the expected arrival of tourists when the season starts in late April. At times there are six or seven big cruise ships in port with thousands of passengers, so now is a really good time to be here. We bought a couple of items today and received discounts due to the season and lack of tourists, the restaurants are not busy and have touts calling out to the passers by to entice them.

Yesterday we toured the Street of Knights, Palace of the Masters and the Knights of St. John which is now a museum housing old Greek stuff, some thousands of years old. Rhodes is an island with 6000 years history of occupation, conquest, exploitation, and now tourism. It has one of the best preserved walled medieval cities in Europe, the walls are approximately 2 miles in diameter and were built by the Knights of St. John in the 1300's. The knights protected the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and pilgrims to the Holy Land, they were eventually defeated by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1522 After this defeat they ended up on the island of Malta; today they are still a recognized religious order of the Catholic church.

Our hotel is located about 100 meters from the Palace of the Masters and was constructed in 2007 inside one of the old stone buildings. The palace of Masters was rebuilt by the Italians in 1920 for Mussolini, it is a grand palace and has many ancient works of art plus mosaic floors from the Island of Kos dating back several thousand years. Attached is a link for more information http://www.greeka.com/dodecanese/rhodes/rhodes-history/rhodes-palace-grand-masters.htm

Rhodes is also known as the site of the Colossus of Rhodes (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world) a 130' tall statue built in 293 BC, it was destroyed by an earthquake in 227 BC. According to some legends, the statue was at the entrance to the harbor, today the harbor is known for the stag and dear statues located on either side of the harbor entrance.

One more day in Rhodes, then we are back to Athens and then to Istanbul.

In Athens!

Delta flight 232 departed Seattle at 2:15 PM, slightly late, banked to the North and headed out over Canada for the ten hour flight to Amsterdam. The flight was completely full, mostly crying babies and screaming young children with a few sickly folks hacking and coughing just to make sure no one got any sleep. Although the flight was scheduled for ten hours, it must have taken at least twenty hours which required mid-air refueling. Fortunately I was able to sleep for at least nine minutes so we arrived in Amsterdam fully refreshed and ready to catch our next flight to Athens on KLM.

The KLM plane is a Boeing 737-800 which is configured for a single class, although the front cabin has the same six abreast seating for the entire airplane, the First Class class divider is easily moved to make the FC section as many seats as necessary, they simply fold down a tray in the middle seat so only two of the seats are occupied. This provides some flexibility to configure First Class with virtually any number of seats. I was just watching the flight attendant chatting with the first office, something you generally do not see in the US since there are some rules about not leaving the flight deck door open. The captain was in the biffy so I assume the plane was ion autopilot.

Amsterdam Schiopol airport is reputed to be “the most beautiful airport in the world”, I think mainly because it has endless shopping opportunities, so I am guessing whoever wrote the review of the airport is probably a person who likes to shop. Fortunately we only had a little over one hour between flights so not much time for shopping, the down side is on our return trip we have a three hour layover to buy whatever time we missed during our vacation.

My little computer mouse decided to quit working on the SEA AMS leg of the trip so I am struggling with the touch pad on the computer. For some reason, my fat hands do not work with the touchpad and if I am not careful, all of the words I have just typed are jumbled and I have to start over. If only I was able to take advantage of the shopping at AMS, then I could have replaced my mouse, I am hopeful I will be able to find a mouse somewhere in Greece, Turkey, or Egypt. With any luck I can find a mouse faster than a café moulin (coffee grinder) in Nice.

We wandered the airport last night since it is across the street from our hotel, The airport is new and very nice with lots of shopping. There are a couple of nice museum displays showing artifacts found during the construction of the airport, it is my guess anywhere you put a shovel in the ground, artifacts will be found. We had dinner in the airport in a small restaurant. There is a food court with the usual Sbarro's, Dominoes Pizza, Asian Cuisine, some authentic Greek food and of course the McDonalds. McDonalds offers a shrimp sandwich, fried shrimp, shrimp salad and spring rolls, all nicely fried. Even the 'healthy' salad had fried something in it.

I did find a replacement mouse for 25 euros ($35.44) since this price seemed a bit steep, I will continue looking and keep correcting my mistakes as I type. At this moment it is 10:10 PM in Athens, 1:10 PM in Seattle; with a nine hour time difference our bodies are somewhat confused, and we are struggling with trying to sleep.

Tomorrow, at 0500, we board an Aegean Airlines plane for Rhodes where we will stay in the medieval city founded by the Knights of St. John, one of the last of the crusading knight’s organizations founded in 1107, more history on that later.

Rhodes http://www.rhodestravels.com/

Tempus Fugit!

Less than 7 days left before we depart. Where has the time gone? Unfortunately the time we are in Greece will fly by even faster! I am returning from Newark this evening, trying to finish up my projects before we depart. Barbara has been busy taking care of last minute details to make our departure free of problems.

Egypt is frustrating, Libya is close to civil war, and the rest of the area is still in a state of turmoil. And, Greece is experiencing a wicked late winter storm with icicles dangling from the eaves! But, looking back in history, nothing has changed, only the names! Be it the Macedonians, the Selcuks, Spartans, Alexander the Great; the names have changed, but the turmoil continues!

With over a month in Lesvos, we are exploring the possibility of another side trip to Turkey, the ferry ride is only 1 1/2 hours and since we already have a car rented we could simply take the ferry and drive in the dangerous countryside of Turkey to Ephesus, Pamkkule, and Heliopolis. We have downloaded all the Turkish road signs, the only problems is translating the signs from Turkish to English or Greek. I have mastered four Greek words so I could at least have a few signs translated. The one I like best is "May God protect you". I think the locals say this as they close their eyes and blast through the round-about. There are a number of hot springs in the Turkish countryside, renowned for their medicinal healing properties; the ancient Greeks and Romans nursed their war wounds in these therapeutic spas, perhaps we can nurse our wounds from driving in the Turkish country.........