Gigi and Bearpaw travels

April 30, 2026 This morning we headed out of the city to see a few sites that might prove interesting.  About an hour out of town we stopped for a pit stop (there’s a lot of old people on the bus).  We did manage to find some Golden Oreos.  They were good and a touch of home. In the late 1800’s a major undertaking in the area was begun.  A canal was built that joins the Gulf of Corinth in the Ionian Sea to the Saronic Gulf  in the Aegean Sea.  It is eighty feet wide and four miles long.  This canal would cut days off the journey around the peninsula.  It is too small for modern ships today, but it still exists. Our next stop was at the Epidaurus Amphitheater.  Built in the late fourth century B.C. it is still in use today.  It is said that this theater has the most perfect acoustics for any ancient theater.  A person can stand at the top of the amphitheater and hear someone on the stage if they are talking above a whisper.  The...

April 29, 2026 Yesterday was a somewhat hectic day.  It began with a visit to the European Union / Greek immigration control.  What was touted by the ship’s staff as “just a couple of minutes” ended up being an hour and twenty minutes.  To quote Maxwell Smart, “Missed it by that much!”. We did take a “panoramic tour of Athens”.  What this means in lay terms is “You will see a lot of trees and buildings but not much else”.  It was a good time for a short nap. We then had a quick tour of the Athens Archeological Museum.  They had a large number of artifacts from early Athens history, some dating back as far as the 18th century B.C. After returning to the ship we had dinner and spent most of the remainder of the evening packing. This morning we left the ship and prior to checking into our hotel we made a journey to the Acropolis of Athens.  The parking lot is at the bottom of the hill so it was a climb to get to the top.  It was well worth the hike....

April 27, 2026 Our excursions today took us to two places that were somewhat related.  Both told of the history of the Minoan culture, the first to settle the island of Crete.  We first traveled to the Palace of Knossos, a massive palace that originally dated back to around 2000 B.C.  After being destroyed a couple of times by earthquakes and once by fire the palace was eventually rebuilt around 1500 B.C.  Each time the palace was rebuilt a little bigger and a little more grand.  It eventually covered an area around 22,000 square meters.  The palace was occupied from its origin around 2000 B.C. to around 900 A.D., some 3000 years. Our second excursion took us to the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion.  This museum contained many artifacts dating from the stone age (around 7000 B.C.).  A bulk of the artifacts came from the times from 3000 B.C. to 1500 B.C.  There was a great deal of pottery, tools and utensils from the bronze age, and a great ...

April 26, 2026 Today we find ourselves in Rhodes, which was founded in 408 B.C.  Much of the city, along with the castle, called the “Palace of the Grand Master”, which was built in the 1300’s.  We were disappointed that the ‘Colossus of Rhodes’ was no longer standing.  It apparently disappeared several centuries ago in a major storm.  It supposedly broke into pieces and a number of those pieces landed in the harbor while the remaining pieces were scattered about on shore.  Since it was made of bronze some of the enterprising people scooped up the pieces, melted it down, and used it for other things.  So no more colossus.  It might have looked like this next image, except much larger. Our first excursion took us to the Lindo Acropolis.  An acropolis is simply the tallest place in the city.  And at the time a temple to honor some god was built. On the way to the top of the acropolis we climbed some six million steps, or at least it seemed that...