Our first port of call was Dubrovnik a coastal city in Croatia. Our ship docked early in the morning after leaving Venice at 5pm on 18 Sept. We rushed for our breakfast at the Windjammer and had difficulties looking for seats as there was already full of like-minded passengers.
Passengers for the different excursions were grouped in different halls and you had to wait for everyone in the group to come before they would give you your group bus number stickers. Then we marched out one by one after our sea pass had been swiped by the security machine.
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| The walled city at Dubrovnik |
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| The entrance to the city |
We had chosen our excursion called Panorama and the old city. At the dock we assembled for our respective buses. An immigration officer boarded the bus and we had to show a picture identification. You can show your IC or driver’s licence if you do not bring along a passport! That was a quick check for everyone and the officer got down after wishing us all a good trip.
Panoramic view from the tour bus
The bus took us uphill through winding roads. I noticed the roads were well maintained and looked new. There was a high overhead bridge straddling two peaks with a deep valley below it. The route was scenic, overlooking the natural habour where our ship had docked.
Throughout the journey, the lady tourist guide, speaking in good English, related to us the history, culture and politics of Croatia. It was once a part of Yugoslavia and now into self-rule like Bosnia Herzegovina. Dubrovnik’s population is less than the tourists’ numbers in summers and autumn when the cruise ships come to visit. The city’s main income is derived from tourism.
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| Inside a church in the walled city. Beautiful purple natural marble is used here. |
We were later brought to the walled city of Dubrovnik. Years ago the city was populated by rich merchants who walled up their city to protect from invading outsiders. The city is complete with facilities like water and sewerage system. There are many beautiful churches along with a synagogue and a Moslem “mosque” indicating the city’s history of tolerance to multiculturism.
Rows upon rows of houses of similar design lined the streets. Apparently these buildings were rebuilt following a great earthquake. The old houses used to have beautiful balconies. Now many of the first level are turned into shops selling all sorts of crafts mainly jewelleries and local theme gifts. I bought sweet plums and dried figs which was exceptionally tasty at the market square.
Inside the ancient walled city at Dubrovnik
We were given a wireless gadget to listen to our guide as she took us through the city, actually only a part of the city due to time constraint. We returned to the bus at the specified time and place and returned to the ship by 4pm. At the dock, there were some more stalls being erected for our last minute shopping... more T-shirts and fridge magnets!
We sailed at 6pm and our next port of call was Kusadasi in Turkey. We had one whole day at sea before calling at the port as it was the furthest point in the itinerary. There were many onboard activities to go to. One of them was the briefing on the next three destinations. We were briefed about what to buy and where to buy and the time to follow etcetera.
We arrived at Kusadasi early in the morning and after the usual procedures we then found ourselves in the designated bus for our selected excursion to the Ephesus, ancient Roman ruins. I noticed that the town of Kusadasi is a walking distance to the ship dock. This time there was no more immigration inspection as we were from an EU country to another.
Port of Kusadasi, Turkey
Our bus, I noticed was not as good as the one in Dubrovnik. The wireless gadgets were also not as sophisticated. And our guide was a Turkish man who also talked about the history, culture and politics of Turkey. He took pain to explain that Turkey is a secular country unlike other Islamic countries. He also mentioned that Turkey has the lowest crime rate among the EU countries.
Our bus journey, once again was uphill. The roads are winding and narrow. We went to visit an old house said to be visited by the Virgin Mary. There were many tourists there and we were told to walk along the route and in queues to the house and be silent once inside. We were met by a nun at the entrance of the house which looked like a small chapel. On the way out we queued again to get to the spring “holy water” said to have miraculously emerged when the Virgin came to the house.
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| Lining up to enter House of the Virgin Mary |
The bus then drove downhill for the visit to ancient Ephesus. The ruins were spectacular in its size. And at that time of the year the weather was hot. We walked for about an hour looking at the various ruined marbled architecture and listening to our guide who walked very fast ahead of us. There were other tour groups as well. As I walked, I wondered what kind of people who built these massive structures. There were houses with beautifully laid out decorative marbles. There are a library, a town hall and shops and temples as well as an open theatre which can seat about 20000 people. I felt a sense of sadness for a civilisation lost! Apparently it vanished following a powerful earthquake. Ephesus used to be by the sea hundreds of years ago but it is now located about three miles from the coast due to cartographical changes over the years.
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| The library building in ancient Ephesus |
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| One of the copies of marble carvings ( the real one in some museum) in Ephesus ruins. |
We left the ancient ruins after taking many pictures. There were many souvenir shops on the way out. We then left for our lunch at the hotel called Pine Bay. It is a 5-star hotel overlooking the sea. We had a lovely lunch with plenty of salad, fruits, fresh bread and succulent lamb kebabs. I love those olives, hard rolls, cheese and beetroot!
We returned to the town and visited a carpet shop. You should see how they rolled those carpets! The carpets have different designs according to the regions they come from. Most of them are exquisite. A lady demonstrated how a carpet was made. Some of the carpets took two years to complete. The quality and price depended on the number of knots per square inch, the more the expensive. As I had bought some carpets on my last trip to Istanbul some years ago, I just admired them this time. These people would ship the carpet door to door. That is why you need to buy carpets from shops recommended by the cruise ship in case your chosen carpet is the not the same as the one you receive at home!
Proprietor of Turkish crafts shop. Their leather goods are famous
We walked to our ship and along the way I bought boxes of Turkish Delights, Apple tea and halva made of pistachio. And of course more carpet key chains and fridge magnets of Ephesus .
As usual we went through security check up like that at the airport once we entered the ship. Oh yes, going through the port complex, I was stopped by the Turkish custom officer asking me for the necessary documents from the shop I bought the leather jacket supposedly tax-free.
Our next port of call was Santorini and according to the man who briefed us earlier that this was the highlight of our tour in terms of beautiful views. The passengers were transported to the island by boats as there are no docking facilities as the place is located right on top of a steep mount. We arrived at 5am and we were told to be early as other ships would also be in the area and imagine hundreds of people going up the same place.
Once at the pier, we hopped on our bus and started on a most winding and frightening route that I have ever been! The lady guide told us to close our eyes if we felt uneasy! The bus took us to a beautiful village called Oia and along the way we witnessed spectacular views of the island and the surrounding seas. The island was created by the volcanic activities some thousand years ago. The houses were made of concrete painted white with bell-shaped roof to protect them from the wind. There are houses built at the mountainside facing the blue sea and apparently many famous people have bought them including a recent purchase by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt!
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| Looking down to the habour in Santorini.. Our ship on the right |
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| Mainly White Houses with flat and dome-shaped roofs |
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| View from Santorini Pier |
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| Santorini Wine tasting.....can take as many glasses! |
We went to a winery for wine and cheese tasting. There was red and white and the sweet “orange” usually drunk by priests. The grapes in Santorini are grown on the ground like strawberry unlike in other places because of the frequent wind lashing the island would have ruined the propped-vines.
Later the bus dropped us at the main town called Viera. The whole of this place is full of quaint buildings including churches. There is a long row of small shops selling all sorts of crafts and souvenirs. Santorini is by the way famous for exquisite jewelleries mostly Greek designs. The preferred currency is the Euro. We walked and shopped and then had our lunch at one of the small restaurants and had as our company two old men playing a board game oblivious of the lunchtime crowd. I had Greek salad of olive, tomatoes,cheese and toasted bread bathed generously with olive oil and balsam vinegar... real tasty.
Greek pottery
The island has poor toilet facilities ( in term of number available) as the population is small. There are more tourists than local people during holiday season when many cruise ships would come. So to ensure that you do not have to suffer the long queues, you go to one of these restaurants, have something to eat then use their rest room facilities. Usually it is situated above the restaurant away from public view.
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| At Santorini Pier |
We continued walking before going down to the pier to catch our boat to the waiting cruise ship. There are only two ways of going down to the pier from the town. One is by the cable car and the other is by walking a 588-step route or riding on the donkey along the same route. Imagine walking along with the train of donkeys! Donkeys are important to the island people to transport supplies up the settlement.
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| My donkey souvenir from Santorini |
Some of my friends and many passengers returned to the ship much earlier as they were caught up at the cable car station. Others opted to walk down and some rode the donkeys. During the briefing, not many people attended, we were told to catch the cable car after 3pm as by 3pm a big Italian cruise ship would be leaving and before that they would be hundreds of Italian tourists trying to get down to the pier as not to miss their ship. Our ship would only leave at 5pm. Without that information, many of our ship’s passengers panic when they saw swarm of people trying to go on the six-cable car ,each can seat six people ,so they jostled for the cars and some of them decided to walk the donkey-route which is about 30 minutes to the pier. A couple of my friends did just that and had to spend a long time in the shower with plenty of soap! As a result also they returned much earlier and lost the opportunity to enjoy Santorini town. Everyone is scared being left by the cruise ship because the ship would leave with or without you at 5pm.
The two of us, my husband and I were sauntering happily along the specialty shops and we only went to the cable car after 3.30pm and there were hardly anyone there and we caught the cable car without any hassles. It was about five minutes to get to the pier! We identified our boat by the colour of the uniform worn by the ship’s staff who offered us drinks before we boarded. My regret is I did not continue shopping at the pier as apparently similar goods are much cheaper there than up the mountain!....an incorrigible shopper as always.
Phew! That was some visit. We went to the lounge and had specialty coffee ( you have to pay for this unlike the usual ship restaurant and dining hall!) and I showed what I bought, one of them a tiny donkey to a friend as we waited for our ship to start sailing and more photos were taken as we sailed away from lovely Santorini.
The donkey trail down to the pier, view from our departing boat.
Our final port of call the following afternoon was Corfu, another Greek Island. We did not have to look for seats at the Windjammer as people took their sweet time to have breakfast as we were supposed to arrive at Corfu at 1pm. We woke up early though to catch the sunrise at 7.20 am.
Corfu sea view
The hilly narrow winding road
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| Ubiquitous olive trees |
The ship docked at the port and off we went again by bus. I noticed the place was the least vibrant among the four that we visited. There were a number of abandoned buildings along the route. In fact I saw one big hotel was left deserted. The bus took us to scenic spots in the island. The elderly lady guide talked about Corfu and its cuisines and the health benefits of everything olive. According to her there are 4 million olive trees on the island. As we travelled, there were olive trees everywhere and how do they harvest the fruit? They lay down black nets onto which the fruit would fall and they will be collected by the farmers.
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| Vantage point views |
Corfu Souvenir stall lady owner
The souvenir stalls were not as good as those in Dubrovnik, Kusadasi and Santorini. Low quality and cheap looking stuff were on display. I went for olive-related products such as soap , fridge magnets, mugs with olive designs. Rather disappointing, I wish I had bought those lovely Grecian vases in Santorini I was wrongly told that they were cheaper in Corfu. We hardly stopped to shop. The excursion focussed on scenic views. We even travelled to the middle of the island, among the hills just to see what Corfu landscape looked like! Then we went to the old town previously colonised by the Venetian and you would notice that a lot of the buildings were architecturally beautiful with venetian windows. Many are deteriorating though due to lack of maintenance. But you get the sense that the city was once beautiful with well-kept narrow alleys. We saw the old palace where Greek royalty used to reside. In fact Prince Phillip, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, was born in that palace.
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| Buildings with venetian windows in Corfu old town |
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| Corfu Old Italian Quarters |
The ship was due to leave by 8pm before sunset. We were already going back by 6pm and was told whoever wanted to go to Corfu town would have to take the shuttle bus back to the ship and there would be no guide from that point. Some of our friends decided to visit the town but the rest of us were quite scared that we might miss the ship should we lose our way in town.... how unadventurous! So we timidly followed the bus back to the ship and as per my impression of the place, there were no gift stalls at all near the ship for our last minute shopping like those three other vibrant ports of calls.
I supposed Corfu focussed so much on its bays and beaches and sea recreation activities that their crafts are not that well developed. It is a shame as crafts for souvenirs would also generate income for their people. Whenever I look at my Corfu mug I wonder why they did not really promote it as I found it different in appearance from the ordinary mugs I bought elsewhere, its creamy, dark brown and deep green colour scheme with picture of olives is really exquisite. And I found the people, the guide, the shopkeepers and the bus drivers were also a bit laid back, there was a certain element of slow indifference? Anyway ,Corfu was not really that exciting in terms of shopping but the beach and bay views were breathtaking.
Well, Corfu was our last port of call. The next day was at sea, just cruising and having fun on the ship till we arrived back at Venice 24 hours later at 8am. We had to get all our bags packed up and put them outside our state room the night before. We also had a second formal dinner and another interesting showtime on our last evening. We arrived back in Venice , Italy at 8am on the last day of our cruise. Our bags were waiting for us. We stored them at the left luggage facility and took a boat to the city of Venice.
Views from the gondola ride
Venice, the sinking city, was a joy to visit, albeit for an extremely short spell. We managed to go on a gondola ride. I was fascinated to see those poker-faced men were able to steer the gondolas without touching other boats around the area. We went through what must have been an alley once and now filled with water. You could see water filling up the steps to those buildings.
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| Spaghetti Nero...anyone? |
Back from the ride, wee had a quick lunch of spaghetti nero (black spaghetti made from squids) and it was delicious despite its appearance. The restaurant was quaint with stylish decorations and also featuring small live plants with colourful flowers.
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| Decorated seafood restaurant window |
I managed to buy some leather goods, Italian designs and the famous Murrano glass jewelleries. The Italians are great at making quality fashionable jewellery pieces. The bracelets are just lovely. It was easy to shop as the shopping outlets were near to each other. There were many stalls selling souvenirs and the place was just hip. We were sorry when we had to leave so soon to pick up our luggage at the port and take a bus to the airport for our long flight home.
By the time we got to our boat, the water had come up to the city landing and concrete planks were put up for people to walk on. The tide had risen! It was rather scary come to think of it....but
I would still like to come back to spend more time in Venice, the city of romance!
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