Sunday 4 November 2012

The Island of Rhodes, Antalya, Turkey and Cyprus


We’ve had very smooth seas since the beginning of this cruise and our next Port of call was Rhodes, a Greek island not far from the Turkish mainland.


Our excursion was a complete mix up. The guide had us doing a simple run around the Island and then spending time visiting the Palace of the Grand Master when in fact we were to end up with a culinary cooking show and lunch.

After a lot of soul searching and some irate Americans, we ended up doing what was supposed to be. The Palace was okay and everything else including lunch was good.


That night was our first night at the steak and seafood restaurant which was excellent and we enjoyed the Company of a Korean Neurosurgeon and his wife. There are about 40 doctors etc on this cruise doing a tax evasion type conference.

Yesterday we arrived in Antalya, the largest Turkish Port where we took an excursion that included a visit to a museum which really isn’t our forte, although it was quite good.




Antalya is a very nice City with some nice pebble stone beaches and a large bazaar of different rhougish Turks, who are always a lot of fun trying to outsmart them.

Today we arrived in Limassol, Cyprus, we had spent a time share week here years ago and our trip today took us to Nicosia, the Capital where we were again put to the test with a different museum and a very nice Greek Orthodox church.


We then went to the dividing line between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots which now appears to have been watered down since we were here last. Then the guards had plenty of machine guns and there was barbed wire everywhere, but all this has disappeared. Cyprus seems to have grown with lots of modern buildings now, but like everywhere littered with empty shops.

We are enjoying our ship which is similar in many ways to her sister ship Mariner, when we circumnavigated South America.

Our cabin is larger than before and we have a sep. shower and a bath. The restaurants are almost identical although the main deck seems smaller, but the pool is bigger.


We have found there is some vibration when the Captain revs her up a bit and it is certainly more noisy than Mariner even though we are a deck higher. Still we can accept the lovely seas we are experiencing and today is quite hot. 28 degrees but not much humidity.

Most people on this cruise are just doing short segments and we haven’t met too many people, although there are 41 Aussies on board who must seem extremely well behaved which is quite unusual. We have not met many yet.

Tomorrow we will be in Haifa,Israel where we have to personally front the Security people as they are very concerned about who gets into the Country. Guess we’ll pass!

1 comment:

  1. Hi, had trouble commenting, wrote a long paragraph but it did not publish. Rhodes must be nice, I remember Grandma Cook loved it. We have settled back in, lovely trip, will email you with some bits and pieces later on. Enjoy the ship, how many passengers? L

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