Rome
We left Sacramento by air around 8AM Pacific Time on Monday the 24th of February and landed in Rome the next morning around 8:30 Central European Time.
As part of our cruise package we began our trip to Rome with a few days in the Westin Excelsior Hotel. We were so tired when we arrived Tuesday morning, we slept nearly all day.
Ready or not, Wednesday was our first full vertical day in Rome. By the end of the day, however, I was exhausted again. I was so exhausted I would begin a sentence saying something coherently, and before the end of the sentence I would literally be speaking jibberish.
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| Piazza della Republica |
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| On the Piazza della Republica |
The first building we explored was the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs, across from the Piazza della Republica and near the National Museum of Rome.
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I was so impressed I almost became a Catholic.
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The National Museum of Rome holds the world's largest collection of ancient Roman sculpture.
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| Caesar Augustus |
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| Marcus Aurelius |
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| Typical Roman street scene |
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| More commuter parking |
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| Random second floor planter box |
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| The Spanish Steps |
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| Via del Corso |
Via del Corso is the Rodeo Drive, 5th Avenue, and Champs-Élysees of Rome. You will find every high-end brand here with its own brick-and-mortar shop: Prada, Gucci, Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Tag Huer, Hermès, Breitling, Zara, Dolce & Gabana, Bulgari, Fendi, Dior, Chanel, United Colors of Benneton, Jimmy Choo, Mont Blanc, Tiffany, etc., etc., etc. Other known brands with shops on Via del Corso or adjacent streets: Nike, Sephora, New Balance, Gap, Skechers, The North Face, and Calvin Klein.
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| Fabriano shop on Via del Barbuino |
Fabriano is an old (1264 C.E.), high-end paper maker. Stores like this sell loose paper, notebooks, journals, and fountain pens.
And for the record, on any given street we walked in Rome, I saw more fountain pen shops than there are in all 23,000 square miles of northern California.
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| At Trevi Fountain |
It was winter and off-season, and yet every attraction was crowded in Rome. The outside of the Colosseum was so crowded we couldn't get close enough to get a decent photo without walking down a steep ramp that would've required an equally steep and ultimately unacceptable return trip uphill. Here are the best photos we could get from a far distance.
The only pizza I ate away from the ship was in Rome and I didn't like it. It was a four-cheese pizza at Tempio di Bacco, and at least one of the cheeses tasted a lot like backyard dirt. Nevertheless, I did eat it all.
I have three levels of edibility. First, food I like and so I eat it. Second, food I don't like but I eat it anyway because someone else cooked it and I can see/smell that I can eat it without vomiting. Third, food I can't eat. The Roman pizza was a category 2.
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| Cappuccino and Maritozzo. One day I had both items for breakfast and lunch. |
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I have a serious recommendation for anyone booking a cruise that will begin in Rome and not travel north to Milan, Florence, or Venice. If you need or expect or wish to buy any clothing or shoes or accessories on your trip, buy them in Rome. If you don't, you'll regret it.
Rome has shops everywhere. Start on Via del Corso, then branch out in concentric circles, if necessary. You will find something you want to buy, I guarantee it. On the other hand, if you leave Rome thinking you will find an article of clothing in one city or another that won't make you look like you're blind or that you don't own a mirror, pray you come to your senses, find the ship's captain, and tell him to turn the ship around, you need one more day in Rome. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is to find a decent shop of any kind in Naples.
Viking Star
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| Selfie while awaiting the ship's elevator |
We've watched TV commercials for Viking since 2013, ever since we began watching British detective shows on PBS Masterpiece Mystery. I decided back then that if we ever became old enough to go on a cruise, it would have to be a Viking cruise.
We were so well taken care of by everyone who worked on the ship, I have no interest in checking out any other cruise lines.
As Mecca remembers it, I was involved in every decision on every detail.
I did initially co-decide to undertake a Mediterranean voyage and to travel with Viking. Many cruise lines go to the Mediterranean. But there's only one Viking.
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| Sunrise on the way to Naples |
Naples
The best thing about Naples was the sunrise on the way there.
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| Port of Naples |
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| Castel Nuovo, a medieval castle, now home to the Neapolitan Society of Homeland History |
We walked into the city from the ship. I had researched fountain pen shops that were located there and the closest one to the ship was The Beauty of Paperwork, 1 mile away. I had an address and I had Google Maps on my phone. And when we arrived in the vicinity of the address, we couldn't find the pen shop, couldn't find the address on any storefront. We looked and looked and looked again. We went into hundred-year-old buildings, up old-fashioned elevators that looked like cages where I had to open and close the elevator doors by hand. One side of the street and then the other. The Google Maps marker seemed at one point to indicate the pen shop was inside a produce market. It was a wild goose chase. We spent 3 hours on it. We never found the store.
Sicily
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| The road our bus climbed to get to the start of our Sicily excursion |
On the island of Sicily, high in the hills above Messina, Francis Ford Coppola found the rustic village of Savoca and planted Hollywood's flag there. He used Savoca to film all the Sicily scenes in The Godfather, The Godfather II, and The Godfather III.
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Bar Vitelli is where Michael Corleone asks Appolonia's father for her hand in marriage. It is also the place where I ate the best gelato I had on the trip.
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| Chiesa di San Nicola, the church where Michael and Appolonia get married |
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Malta
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| Nighttime view |
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With a colorful parade of floats, Malta celebrated Carnival while we were there.
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| Typical street scene in Valletta |
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| Mediterranean Sea |
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| The reading material I brought on the trip |
Corfu
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| Port of Corfu |
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| Ionian Sea on the west side of Corfu |
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| Fellow devotees of afternoon cappuccino |
Mecca's Fall
We had taken a tour bus from the ship on the east coast of Corfu to Paleokatristsa Monestery on the west coast. After that, the tour guide took us on a walk through modern Corfu. At the end of the walking tour we were invited to walk around on our own and take a shuttle bus back to the ship. So we walked around on our own and took a shuttle bus back to the ship.
When we arrived at the shuttle bus we boarded through the front door. The center aisle was dark because the sun was behind clouds and darker still toward the rear of the bus because the side-rear door was not open to let in what little ambient light there was. As we made our way toward the rear, passing the steps of the rear-side door, Mecca inadvertently put her left foot on the edge of the top step that she couldn't quite see and she fell down into the black hole that comprised the dark steps and the closed door. She was down there in pain and absolutely stuck because she had no way to get her feet under her and so no way to extricate herself. I wanted to call MacGyver but he was fictional. Eventually it was decided to open the door she was leaning against and have a handful of strongbacks catch her when she fell out. That was how it was done.
Unfortunately, for the rest of the trip she was in constant pain, and every day the pain was worse than the day before. Fortunately, she broke no bones, didn't tear any muscles or tendons or ligaments, didn't suffer a concussion.
Olympia
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Olympic pageantry and ceremony are traditions that go back nearly 3,000 years. As the athletes walked to the stadium they paraded through a colonnade and paid tribute to Nike as they passed her statue on their left. Nike is the Greek goddess of victory.
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| The statue of Nike stood atop this column |
After walking through the colonnade, the athletes, coaches, and judges would enter the Olympic stadium through this arch.
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The ancient Greeks conducted their Olympics nearly 300 times―right here, every 4 years without fail, from 776 B.C.E to 393 C.E.
Kálamata
This is where the famous Kálamata olives come from. We didn't see any. We didn't even look. It never occurred to us to look because we didn't know about the olives until we heard someone mention them on a cooking show, after we got home from the trip.
We visited two castles in Kálamata, Greece. The first was Pylos Castle.
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| The pink object in the lower right quadrant is Mecca, waiting for me to leave the upper level. The combined effect of her multiple sclerosis and that fall on the bus made the steep steps here impossible to attempt. |
The second castle was Methini Castle. Mecca went to this one. I didn't. I stayed in town and hung out with the cats.
Free-Roaming Cats and Dogs
We encountered free-roaming cats and dogs everywhere we went in the Mediterranean. They might technically have been feral. But I've interacted with feral cats. And the interaction goes like this: I look at them, they run away.
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These animals were not just friendly but openly friendly. I was at one site, sitting on a pile of flat rocks as if on a chair, and I felt this push from behind on my upper back near my left shoulder. I thought, aw, that feels just like a cat rubbing its whiskers against me, and instantly I wished it really were a cat. It was.
Crete
The Hammurabi Code is the oldest codified law in the world. Roughly 3,500 years ago, King Hammurabi of Babylonia received the law from, or so the story goes, the Babylonian god of justice Shamesh.
The Minoans lived on the island of Crete 3,000-3,500 years ago. They were the first civilization in Europe and were social and political ancestors of the Greeks.
The Minoans obtained a copy of the Hammurabi Code in its original Akkadian language, translated and transliterated it into early Greek, and finally carved the code into these stone blocks.
The Hammurabi Code carved into these stone blocks constituted the first codified law in Europe.
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| Seating for civic meetings |
Rhodes
Every Mediterranean city and country we visited had fortifications that have survived since ancient times. But Rhodes went berserk.
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| This is a closeup of our view from the ship |
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| This car rental agency occupies a portion of the battlement |
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| The walk into the city was lined with these battlements. The obelisk on the right in the far distance is at the edge of the city. |
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| Zoom in to see the fortifications on the other side of the inlet. |
The City of Rhodes is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the ghost of one feature still towers above the others. The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was a giant bronze statue with legs and feet that bestrode the entrance to the harbor. Now, two deer, each one perched on a column, indicate the locations of where the feet and legs of the Colossus used to be.
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While we walked around Rhodes we spotted a restaurant and decided to go get cappuccino. I also looked at the breakfast menu and saw something that reminded me of a mind-boggling phenomenon: Europeans are nuts about Nutella. On the menu was a Belgian waffle covered with Nutella and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Ephesus, Turkey
Ephesus (EFF-uh-sus) was one of the places St. Paul visited late in his life. Sometime afterward, he wrote a letter, an "epistle," to the inhabitants. You can find it in the Holy Bible. It's the book of Ephesians.
In the time of St. Paul, Ephesus was a Greek outpost. Over a thousand years later, the Ottoman Turks took it for themselves. Modern Turkey has not offered to give it back.
The earliest inhabitants arrived there about 8,000 years ago.
In 2015, Ephesus was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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| The Gates of Augustus |
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| The Temple of Hadrian |
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| The Library of Celsius, one of the largest libraries in the ancient world. |
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| Stadium seating at the Theatre of Ephesus |
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| Mosaic tile floor |
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| Public toilet with room for 9 people in this row and 4 more around the corner |
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| The imprisonment of St Paul on Ephesus occured in a structure, now gone, at the top of this hill. |
Corinth
Yes, yes, yes. Corinth was where the Corinthians lived.
Apart from being a place St. Paul visited and wrote an "epistle" to, Corinth plays a pivotal role in the story of Oedipus.
Oedipus lived in Corinth with his parents. When he was a young man he traveled to a distant city to attend a party. While there he overheard a conversation in which one particpant said Oedipus had been adopted. This disturbed Oedipus so much he abruptly left the party for home but first stopped at the Temple of Apollo to get the truth.
Oedipus asked the god whether he had been adopted. But instead of answering the question, Apollo foretold that the young man would kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, Oedipus decided not to return to his parents in Corinth but changed course and set out for Thebes.
On the way he found himself on a narrow mountain pass. Coming toward him from the opposite direction was a carriage with two men standing on the outside of it, plus the driver, and one within. The driver found he could not get around Oedipus and remain on the road. The passenger ordered the men to throw the obstacle off the mountain. Instead, Oedipus threw the men off one by one. The passenger leaned out of the carriage window and tried to beat Oedipus with his cane. Oedipus disarmed the man, beat him soundly, and threw him off the mountain too. He then continued his walk to Thebes.
When he arrived he learned that the sphinx had put a curse on the city which was now under siege by a series of catastrophes. The sphinx offered Thebans a way out. Solve this riddle and I'll remove the curse. Here was the riddle: What goes on four legs, then on two, then on three? Oedipus thought and then answered "man." As a baby he crawls on all four, then walks upright unaided till old age forces him to use a cane. That was the correct answer.
The curse was lifted and Oedipus was a hero. The townspeople said that a month earlier their king had left town and not returned. They assumed something dreadful must have happened and he wouldn't be returning. So they proclaimed their hero the new king. The queen, the castle, and the realm were his now.
A few years later, the sphinx and its curse were back. By this time, Oedipus was popular and well-established as king, happily married to his queen and proud of their three children. But the sphinx reported that the curse would remain until the murderer among them had been discovered and brought to justice. This man had murdered their king!
This has already been a long story so I'll cut to the chase. An old man stepped forward and relayed a story he had heard and partially witnessed a long time ago. The king and queen had just had a son, but the king didn't want the child and ordered a henchman to take him out into the forest and kill him.
The henchman laid the child down far away from the castle and then nailed the child's ankles to a heavy tree branch. He couldn't kill the child but wouldn't free him either. He just walked away.
The old man previously mentioned came upon the helpless child, removed the branch and nails, and thus freed him. The old man knew a married couple who had been trying to have a child but couldn't. He gave the baby to the couple and they raised him to adulthood. Recognizing the scars on the grown man's ankles the old man shouted, "That abandoned boy is now your king!"
Another man stepped forward. He had been one of the henchmen on the carriage that had met Oedipus on the road, but he had fallen off and hidden behind a large bush before the mayhem started. Nevertheless, he saw the whole thing. "The man who killed your king is this man," and pointed to Oedipus. Everyone understood the implications.
Apollo's prophesy had come true: Oedipus had killed his father and married his mother. The queen ran into the castle and killed herself before Oedipus could stop her. He then found a long needle (like today's knitting needles) and stabbed his eyes until he was blind. He was then arrested and jailed.
For those unfamiliar with ancient Greek tales, Corinth is mostly known for the Corinth Canal. Ancient Romans conceived the canal during the Empire. They planned to cut it through the Isthmus of Corinth, which separates the Peloponnese from mainland Greece.
The ancients only partially built their canal. The Emperor Nero used 6,000 prisoners of various Roman wars as laborers. But they only made progress one-tenth of the way across the isthmus. Today, no remnants of the original canal remain.
Between then and the 19th century there had been several plans to finish the job or rebuild a canal from scratch. For a variety of reasons, these attempts never got further than the idea stage. Finally it was built between 1882 C.E. to 1891 C.E.
Departure day was the day after Corinth. We disembarked from the Viking Star at 4:00 AM Central European Time for the bus ride to Athens International Airport. Our plane took off for Zurich at 6:35 AM. We took off from Zurich at 12:25PM Central European Time. From Zurich to LAX was a 10-hour flight. That's 10 hours in real time. LAX to Sacramento allowed a brief nap. We arrived home at bedtime.
Mecca is fully recovered from her fall inside the tour bus.
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