Pearls of the Aegean

The No Shoe Blues

2006-06-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

After the Formal Night's dining experience, we went down into one of the cocktail lounges with a couple of ladies from our table. The Entertainment team put on a quiz game (I was even asked to participate but I didn't want to show myself up on stage). This went on a bit long, and we were relieved when it finished and one of the on board groups "Juice" started playing a set.

The lead singer was a little blonde girl named Ellie from Scotland, and she certainly had a good voice. She was accompanied by a black guy from New York called "J" who played keyboards and sang, a bass player from Holland named Tommy Lee, and a guy from Yorkshire on the drums (can't remember his name).

They started playing a load of blues music, and Pin was really into this. I sat back down at this point, watching Pin jumping around doing this funky dance. She was really jumping up and down and on high heels too. One of the Thomson reps was at our table talking to Faye, she leaned over to me and said, "how much has she had to drink?", I said, "too many to count! I'm a bit worried about those shoes though".

And no sooner did I say that that I looked up and Pin was standing on the dance floor holding one of her black sandles in one hand, and the heel that had just broken off and skidded across the dancefloor in the other. I just completely lost it then in the advanced stages of cracked up laugher. I was rolling around on the sofa in tears of laughter for over 10 minutes. Pin finally sat back down and joined me.

"J" the singer noticed that she had stopped dancing and encouraged her to come back on the dance floor. Pin sat there and held her shoes up to show him what had happened to them. He said "Why are you not dancing, you love the Blues!". Pin said, "yes I love the blues, but I've got no shoes!!". She then asked, "is there a cobbler on board?". The black singer said "I could say something to that but I won't".

So then the singer started up an improptu song, "The No-Shoes Blues", made up on the spot just for Pin, about the lady in the black dress who loved the blues but had no shoes. It was sooooooo funny.

Going....
Going.....
Gone!

Undeterred, Pin shrugged them off and carried on dancing!

On the way back to our cabin we bumped into Dimitrius one of our playful Greek waiters in the corridor, we were both really drunk at this point and still laughing our assess off about the shoe incident. Pin showed him what happened, and he suggested taking the shoes to Reception and asking if the Ship's Carpenter would fix them for her. So that's what she did. When we finally got back to the cabin and got into bed, we still couldn't sleep, we were laying there in the dark still giggling about what happened for what seemed like an hour afterwards.For the rest of the holiday I couldn't top that. Half of the cruise ship had seen what went on that evening. The very next morning at breakfast, the guy on the next table asked Pin "Where do you get all your energy from?".

Marmaris Beach

2006-06-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Although Marmaris Harbour was spectacular, the actual beach itself left a lot to be desired. The water was pleasantly warm, but there were lots of stones in the water.

The beach consisted over very dark sand, it was as if you were running around in really dry earth it just made everything it stuck to black.

There were some children playing on the beach in front of where we were sitting, they were flinging wet sand at one another and generally getting very dirty. I mean, just look at the colour of my toes.

In the end it got too hot so after stopping at a small kiosk on the edge of the beach for more water, where I jokingly asked the guy in the kiosk if he would rent out his beer cooler - for about a minute I was actually standing in his fridge trying to cool down, Pin and I were off in search of some much needed air-con and lunch.

We found a small internet cafe (with air-con heaven!) and I posted this entry on my stitching blog. It's quite funny really because of the dodgy turkish keyboards all the I's were coming out really strange.

As we were walking along the road in the heat of the mid-day sun we walked past yet another mermaid statue.

This is the view from a little cafe where we had lunch. It was really nice as there were grape vines growing out of the roof.

As we were sitting and eating lunch, we wondered why we were still so hot, we were in the shade after all but we were still sweating buckets. It wasn't until we returned to the ship after doing a little bit more shopping that we were told that the temperature in Marmaris was a cool 42 degrees in the shade. No wonder we were sweating!!

Over the next few days I ended up getting a heat rash, and it probably originated on this day.

Josh?

2006-06-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

One of the strangest things we saw on holiday was this sign hanging off the back of a boat docked in Marmaris Harbour:

Now we know a guy called Josh, he owns the pub that we drink in - so god knows what this sign was all about! lol

Our Josh was waiting for us when we got back to Penzance and the Gallowan festival.

Exploring Marmaris

2006-06-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

To get into town, we had to walk through Marmaris Harbour and the surrounding seafront, we saw some fish in the clean waters as we were walking past:

I took this picture of Pin standing under this beautiful rhododenron bush:

And I took a picture of this Mermaid Statue as we passed all the boats:

Just like Kusadasi, there are plenty of Turkish people trying to sell you things by being "in your face". We were accosted many times as we walked along the seafront by captains trying to get us to go for a ride on their boats, they shut up though when we told them that we had just got off the big one and pointed behind us.

We stopped at a small cafe and had an ice cream which practically melted before we could eat them and also bought ourselves some refreshing drinks, to take with us to sit on the beach.

Day Five - Marmaris (Turkey)

2006-06-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

We woke up the following morning to be greeted by the sight of picturesque Marmaris Harbour.

And it's surrounding natural inlet.

We went down for breakfast and prepared to leave the ship and explore Marmaris on our own rather than taking one of the organised excursions.

Goodbye Santorini

2006-06-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

Leaving Fira on the Emerald

Going:

Going:

Gone!

And it faded into distance and memory as though it never existed.

Tomorrow's stop: Katakolon, Greece.

Cascading Asses

2006-06-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

After lunch, and following a little bit more shopping and sightseeing, octopii anyone?

The only thing that remained to do was to make our way back down to the ship's tenders to return to the cruise ship. The queues at the cable car station kind of put us of waiting there although they had diminished considerably since this morning. So we decided to walk back down the steps and take in the view. But as we started down we passed a Ass Herder, and following the visit to the vineyard and free tastings this morning, a further glass of wine and a beer at lunchtime, Pin was a little bit more open to riding a mule than she had been earlier.

I got on one too and we literally cascaded down the hill, clippery cloppody all the way down, holding on for dear life so as not to be shaken out of our saddles as the mules pitched their way down the steps. We had to hold on to the back of the saddles so as not to pitch too far forward and fall off but it was a lot of fun.

There were some girls on the mules behind us and they started laughing, so we joined them. We must have been laughing 2/3rds of the way down those steps during the descent, it was a hoot!

Fira Town

2006-06-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Arriving at the top of the cliff and smelling ever so slightly of Ass, I started exploring the ancient town of Fira. It was your typical tourist trap, just like St Ives and there were certainly enough tourists, most of them clustering around the cable car station now trying to get back down and causing complete and utter chaos. I walked around the town for a little bit, browsed in a couple of shops and then took this picture of interesting building detail at the top of an alleyway.

I was standing in the main street buying a tea towel set (of all things) as a souvenier when I bumped into Pin. She had returned from her Oia Village trip and like me was now exploring the town of Fira. We decided to have lunch together at a local cafe that had spectacular views of the whole caldera.

I don't think I can emphasize enough how spectacular this view is, it has got to be one of the most magnificent views in the entire world. I just sat there throughout the entire meal just eating in the view.

Here's another picture I took of our almighty cruise ship - looking like a dinky toy as it was dwarfed by the huge cliffs.

Here was some more of Fira Town, just barely clinging to the top of the cliffs.

I hope no one suffers from vertigo reading this, this was the view down to the harbour from where we were eating lunch:

This is Pin at the cafe. As you can tell from her hair, it was blowing quite a gale up there as the cliffs are 300 metres high, but it is a nice wind, a cooling wind, a bit like being here in Cornwall, with just enough cooling air to stop you from totally cooking.

After the 42 degree plus temperatures we had experienced in Marmaris the day before, this cooling breeze was a welcome relief. It was probably the only time during the heat of the day that I actually felt comfortable throughout that entire cruise.

Anyone for a beer?

Looking back now it's hard to believe that we were really there!

Ascension Problem

2006-06-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

On returning with the Pirate ship to the port of Fira everyone was faced with a problem with three choices:

How do we get up to Fira Town?

Walk - 30 minutes up a 1:1 (the green path) hill guaranteeing you a heart attack when you get to the top.
Cable Car - outlined in Pink on the diagram - yes those little dots are the cars, it just goes to show you the scale of this place.
Donkey ride up the zig zag path (outlined in green).

As there was an hour's queue for the cable cars (there were two cruise ships that had recently docked and everyone from these boats was trying to crowd on the cars), it was hobson's choice: yep ride an Ass.

My ass, not the Donkey that I was snapped standing next to (thank god, my fat ass wouldn't have done that little fella much good) - he was actually the one with the orange cloth on his back.

The Ass started off on his own as soon as I got on his back. There were some tourists coming down the steps as my Ass careered off up it, I said, "get out of the way, I'm not steering this thing". But after the first bend the Ass stopped and waiting for his handler to catch up with some other tourists. It was a pleasant if lurching ride up the hill and it certainly let me take in the scenery of this amazing place as I mounted the sheer cliffs.

The Hot Springs of Palia Kameni

2006-06-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

Our Pirate ship left Nea Kameni and went to the nearby island of Palia Kameni to let it's passengers off to swim in the hot springs just off the shore that are supposed to have therapeutic properties.

I didn't join them, because you had to jump off the boat and straight into the water and swim about 30 metres to the springs. Maybe if I had had a rubber ring or armbands I would have risked it, but I'm not comfortable getting into water where I'm out of my depth, so I stayed on board. The returning swimmers said that the water was about 28 degrees C - not as hot as promised, but still refreshing.

The swimmers in this pictures are going past yet another church - one of the many that are dotted all over the islands.

On the other side of the natural harbour from the church was this weird looking shack. It has been built into the side of the larva. This fisherman lives there like a hermit six months of the year. It seemed like a pretty lonely existence until I saw him coming out to chat on his mobile phone. Modern technology reaches everywhere.

Oia Village Interlude

2006-06-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

While I was volcano hiking, my friend Pin went on a tour of a winery and visited Oia Village. These are some of the photos that she took. Oia Village looked as though it was very pretty.

This is where I was while Pin was here.

One of the traditional blue-domed churches of Oia Village.

And another:

More traditional blue paintwork.

This hotel complex looks lovely, would love to stay there if ever I make it back here again.

Donkey attack! Pin was just taking some photos when this donkey came clattering down the steps and nearly knocked her flying. This was not going to be her closest encounter with an Ass today!

There's always one.....

2006-06-26T09:35:00.001-07:00

I don't know how many times we were warned by the guides about wearing suitable footwear over on the volcano. They made it clear that we were going hiking and we should wear appropriate footwear, and that it would be quite a strenuous walk. This is why Pin went over to Oia Village instead of coming with me, because she was worried that the hike up the volcano would set off an asthma attack.

I wore my hiking boots that I'd used to hike around the St Ives Coastline earlier in the year.

This silly woman wore satin slippers.... I guess they were suitably ruined.

Craters and Sulphur Plumes

2006-06-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Crater No. 1

Crater No. 2

Crater No. 3

Sulphur Deposits on Crater Rim. In the distance you can see our cruise ship has cranked up it's engines and is expelling smoke from it's chimneys.

The Hot Hole.

There is a fissure in the crater rim here it goes down quite deep and the heat from the magma chamber under the island is welling up through this gap. If you put your hand down this hole you can feel the heat rising up.

Sulphur Clouds

This stank of rotten eggs. Phew.

Top of the World

2006-06-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

The view from the top of Nea Kameni was quite spectacular, after the harsh heat of Marmaris the day before, the cooling winds were very welcome, and it was blowing a real gale at the top of the island.

In the distance I could see not only the Emerald, Fira, but the other villages on the island ring all sparkling and gripping on for dear life at the top of the surrounding caldera. The first picture below shows the ancient city of Akrotiri where ancient relics are currently being excavated.

This was the island of Thirasia and the port of Manolas. Our guide said that they didn't have electricity on this island until the 1980s.

This picture below pics out the nearby island of Palia Kameni where we were scheduled to stop at the hot springs that are another sign of the continued volcanic activity in the island chain after we had got back on the pirate ship.

Here was a monitoring station box to keep track of any increase in volcanic activity on the island.

Looking back towards Fira, there's a large cruise ship now docked near the harbour.

And finally, here is another shot of the end of Thirasia island with the Town of Oia Village clinging to the top of the Caldera on the opposite shore. The funny thing was, whilst I was volcano hiking and taking this shot of Oia Village, Pin was in this village standing back and taking pictures of Nea Kameni at the same time. Shame she didn't have a massive zoom and captured me on there.

Pirate Ship to a Volcano

2006-06-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

As we left the Tender, the Pirate ship that was going to take us over to Nea Kameni was already waiting at the dock.

The journey over to the volcanic island seemed to go relatively quickly.

It didn't take long to dock in the little harbour over there before we proceeded up the first volcanic hill to the first crater.

Tender to Shore

2006-06-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

Because the cruise ships have to dock on bouys in the Harbour, a Tender service is provided to take the passengers over to the shore. Like the day before, Pin and I had decided to do separate excursions today. She got on one tender to get on a coach and go and visit the wineries and Oia Village, while I was going to get on another boat and go over and visit the volcanic landmass of Nea Kameni.

To get to the Tenders, we had to go down through the bowls of the ship through the crew quarters and finally out the side door of the boat down at the water level. As we left the ship, I took some pictures of the Emerald as we passed it.

Finally we approached the port of Fira.

Final Approach

2006-06-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Even though I'd missed the first glimpse at Santorini by 6:00, it still took a further hour an a half's maneouvering before the Emerald could actually tie up at the port of Fira.

Santorini's villages and towns all cling to the top of the caldera. The buildings and houses look like ice frosting on the top of a cake. It is a very usual place. On the other side of the sheer cliffs, the land drops back down into the sea in a seas of rolling hills, much more gentler than the sheer drop caused by the remnant of it's explosive past.
The lagoon harbour is quite deep (there were about 4 cruise ships due to dock there that day and the Emerald was one of the smaller ones), but it was still too big to tie up at the quayside, so there are several docking bouys a few hundred yards out from the dock.

After we'd tied up we went in to the Bistro to get breakfast. We sat out on the deck eating it and enjoying our spectacular surroundings.

Sunrise at Santorini

2006-06-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

I had requested a 6:00 am alarm call so that I could get up on deck to watch the Emerald approaching Santorini's island ring, but we were awakened earlier than this by the ship's maneouvering engines as it was already approaching the caldera.

By the time I'd grabbed a cup of coffee and made my way up to the front of deck 9, we were already well inside the caldera, and passing the new volcanic island of Nea Kamini (map above) to the port (left) of the ship and rapidly approaching the port of Fira. The sun was rising above the tall cliffs as I took this shot.

Day Six: Santorini

2006-06-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

Santorini was the real gem of all the locations we visited during this cruise.

The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the last several thousand years when it erupted cataclysmically about 3,500 years ago, in the Thera Eruption which nearly caused the extinction of early civilisation by generating a nuclear winter effect in the earth's atmosphere. The eruption left a large caldera (crater ring) surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of feet deep, generated tsunami which legend tells it washed over the top of the caldera cliffs (300 metres high) and its effects may have indirectly led to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, 110 km (70 mi) to the south, probably by the tsunami.

One popular theory holds that the Thera eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis, where Plato speculated that Atlantis was built on an "island within an island", and this also explains why no trace of it has ever been found.

A giant central lagoon, more or less rectangular and measuring about 12 km by 7 km (8 mi by 4 mi), is surrounded by 300 m (984 ft) high sheer cliffs on three sides. The island slopes downward from the cliffs to the surrounding Mediterranean sea. On the fourth side, the lagoon is separated from the Mediterranean by another much smaller island called Therasia, also with cliffs. The lagoon is joined to the sea in two places, in the northwest and southwest. The water in the centre of the lagoon is nearly 400 m (1,300 ft) deep, so it is an ideal safe harbour for even the biggest ships. The island's ports are all in the lagoon and there are no ports on the outside of the island. The towns of Santorini cling to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon, in the distance they look like icing frosting on the top of a cake.

In the centre of the lagoon is a relatively new island which has been generated by volcanic activity over the last five hundred years. The last eruption to occur on this new island happened in 1950. The inhabitants of Santorini number no more than 13,000, but there are over 600 churches on the island ring, their congregations praying that the cataclismic eruptions will never happened again, but the scientist in me knows that this is only wishful thinking, there is a major volcanic fault under this island it's going to blow again. It may not happen today, tomorrow, next year, next decade, but it will happen again it is only a matter of time. I think that was part of the visiting this place, knowing that you are standing on a potential boiling cauldron.

Tropicana Deck Party

2006-06-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Leaving Kusadasi, the ship travelled around the coast towards the port of Marmaris, that night the entertainment crew put on a Tropicana Deck Party show on the Lido Deck. All the entertainment staff and waiters too were all wearing the same matching t-shirts, and they decorated the deck with flags, however the wind got up and the flags just did not want to behave themselves, so I took this picture of one of the staff trying to shove the flags along the ropes with a fishing pole.
The on-board band "Juice" played their first set,

Which was followed by the Emerald Entertainment team signing as well.

The Entertainment Director got the crowd going, but check out that extremely loud shirt he was wearing!

They started doing a little competition then, men vs women, at one point the men scored points for getting 10 men up on the dance floor dancing, they only just managed it with the help of the entertainment staff!

The women had no problems in dancing and I think there was about 40 or 50 up there when it was our turn.

Theatre of Herod Atticus

2006-06-26T10:47:00.001-07:00

Just outside the main site of the Acropolis, underneath it in fact is the Temple of Herod Atticus. This theatre has been recently rebuilt and now accommodates ballets and concerts. The guide said that it seats about 4,000 people.

They were just setting up for a new show the day that we were there. I went outside the Acropolis grounds to get a better look and take this extra photos of the theatre.

The woman at the gate didn't want to let me back in until I managed to find my sweat-soaked Acropolis ticket in the pocket of my shorts. You know when you accidentally wash paper in your jeans pocket and it gets all mangled up? Well my ticket looked like that, but I got let back in on it anyway. Just as well because Pin thought that she had lost me by this time.

The Cats of Pigeon Island

2006-06-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

I came across a little tabby kitten on my way down the hill. He was so cute, only about 10 weeks old. I tried taking a picture of him, but he moved, and then another ginger cat appeared, and he started playing with his tail. I petted him too, until I discoverd that he had ticks! Yuk, then a little tortoisehell kitten was there too. Ahhhh. Trust me to make friends with some cats on holiday. I did it last year with Snowy.

This American family were walking down the hill too and they stopped and petted the cats as well. I got talking to them, they were passengers from the big honking Galaxy. We chatted as we walked back to the port together, they said that they had just come from Istanbul on the boat.

Next I dared to go into the bazaar for some souveniers, but I quickly got pissed off by the high pressure salesmen, who wouldn't let you look at anything before trying to convince you to buy it. One guy was standing outside his shop and smiled at me as I stumbled on an uneven piece of road as I entered the bazaar. After I gave up with the hassle and started walking back to the boat, I passed this guy again. I had drunk my water by then and was sick of carrying it around, this same guy tried to get me to go into his shop, but I stopped only long enough to say "is there a bin around here mate?", he obilgingly took the empty bottle out of my hand, and I walked off, leaving him standing there holding it. Oh well, you can't win them all!

The Galaxy left the port a few minutes before we did, so we started the custom that we followed every evening when the ship left port, we went up on the top deck to watch the boat leave port. When the Galaxy reversed out of the dock, all the people on the ship waved at everyone on our ship (waving down for the most part, as we waved back up at them) not that we knew anyone on there, but I think that I may have spotted the American family at one point.

Views from Pigeon Island

2006-06-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

The Emerald docked at the Port of Kusadasi.

Pigeon Island's Causeway

Kusadasi Town

Jade Resort and Pigeon Islands

2006-06-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

I had to leave the coast for a bit and walk back to the port along the road. I stopped into a shop and bought a bottle of water and asked in the shop if there was a coastal path, but I think the road that I was on was the closest to it because everything along the seafront seemed to be all apartment complexes. I don't quite know what had happened to the pavements on this stretch of road, in some places they were all crumbled and broken, as if there had been an earthquake. I think I heard that there had been riots in some parts of Turkey, perhaps all these broken pavements were the result?

As I walked back to the port, I had my ipod on, walking along the road singing to Madonna. I got some very strange looks, but no one knew me there, so who cares and it avoided having to talk to randy Turkish men too!

Jade Island Resort

Anyway, the road veered back to the seafront and I took some pictures of the Jade Resort and of Pigeon Island as I approached it.

The clear Aegeon waters

Pigeon Island at Kusadasi

Pigeon Island reminds me a lot of St Michael's Mount, a fort on an island joined to the land by a causeway, but in Pigeon Island's case, the causeway is a permanent concrete dock and not subject to the whim of the Atlantic's tides.

I went over onto the Island and walked around the fort. I took some pictures of the harbour and the town, used the toilet and then started back down the hill.

Ladies Beach

2006-06-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

After laughing my head off at the guy on the bike with the rugs we approached the port. I was quite worried for a minute because I couldn't see the Emerald. I thought "Oh no, it's been and gone without me!", but the ship hadn't left at all, it was just hidden behind this great big honking American Celebrity Cruiseship Galaxy. It was so big that it made the Emerald look like the Scillonian sitting next to it.

The massive "wall" of the Galaxy Cruise Ship Docked Next to the Emerald

As the driver dropped the others off at the port, I asked if he would drive me further up the coast, because I wanted to see Pigeon Island. In the end he dropped me off all the way up at Ladies Beach which was about 2 km up the coast - I paid him a couple of Lira tip because this was way out of his way.

The Promenade at Ladies Beach

Ladies Beach was really pretty, if I ever go back to Kusadasi I would like to find a hotel in this general area. I walked along the promenade to near to the top of the beach, then got down on the sand and walked back along it.