Thursday, October 7, 2010 – Piraeus, Greece – 70s – Light Rain

Distance Traveled from Civitavecchia:  800 Nautical Miles

Another sleepless night – made worse by the time change.  Up at 6:30 AM and off to the Oceanview Cafe.  Unfortunately, the buffet doesn’t open until 7:00 AM but I have a little oatmeal and coffee.  The weather outside is nasty – lightning and thunder – and it is still dark.  In spite of this, the seas are smooth as we approach Piraeus, the port of Athens.

Piraeus is a pretty big city – pop 600,000- and Athens is a major metro area with 4.5 million people.  Athens is about 6 miles from Piraeus. 

We are on tour today - “Ancient Corinth and Canal Cruise” with our Tour Guide – Yohrgus (I think – who looks like David Letterman’s lost Greek cousin).  The tour takes us through Piraeus and then along the highway to ancient Corinth near the entrance to the Peloponnesian peninsula.  

The bus ride to Corinth is about an hour and half and most everyone on the bus is zonked and napping.  Ancient Corinth has it’s own Acropolis (complete with castle at the top)

Acropolis at Corinth

The ancient city is a mini-Ephesus complete with temples, agoras, and walkways.  The most impressive structure is the Temple of Apollo, built with solid columns (not column sections held together with metal pins).

H and E and the Temple of Apollo

The city also has an impressive public meeting place – the Agora

where the market used to be and people would gather for any and all occasions.  Another impressive building is the Fountain of Glauke.

Fountain of Glauke

The Bema (Greeks for Steps) and origin of the Bema in Synagogues is also a well preserved structure in Corinth.

The Bema 

Even though the rain started falling a bit harder, we were still able to explore the entire site and get more terrific pictures including a great shot of the Temple of Apollo from the Agora.  Also present on the site were examples of Corinthian architecture (columns with leafy capitals) as well as statuary in pretty good shape.

Temple of Apollo from Agora

Remnant of a column with writing 

Corinthian Style Column

Statue (no head) – vandalized?

We spent a little time at the Corinth Museum (great collection of pottery, glass objects, and statues).

Our final stop was the Corinth Canal, which connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Ionian Sea.  This canal, which is about 6 miles long and about 50 feet wide, has transformed the Peloponnesian Peninsula into an artificial island.  The canal now allows boats to make the shortcut between the two bodies of water and avoids sailing all the way around the old peninsula saving time and money. 

We board a boat on the Gulf side of the isthmus and we are on our way.

Entering the Corinth Canal

Bridges crossing the Canal

The tour promised food on the boat – feta cheese, bread, stuffed grape leaves, pastries stuffed with cheese, plus other non-edible stuff.

E trying food on the boat

We noticed unusual circular brown objects (about a foot in diameter)in the water.  I thought they were some kind of debris from the nearby trees but I now believe they were a type of jellyfish.  They were everywhere and were probably being chopped up by the ships propellers.

 

After entering the Ionian Sea, the boat turned around and went back to the starting point (where the bus was).

 

After dinner (which was good), we took in the show – Roman Danylo, a very funny comedian, who did some great improv stuff with audience members.

Sampled the various lounge acts before calling it a day.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 – Embarkation Day – Civitavecchia, Italy – Storms – 50s F

The hotel was pretty quiet (earplugs helped).  A crazy, jet lagged, night of sleep.  Almost slept through the breakfast (quality not so good so no great loss).  Outside, it is a monsoon complete with lightning and thunder. 

Rain, Thunder, and Lightning

I think I see the Celebrity Equinox at the far end of the pier.  An RCI ship is also there along with several local, small, cruise ships.

We grabbed a quick breakfast – cold cereal with warm milk and assorted but unidentifiable pastries.  The cappuccino was the highlight of the meal.

The weather has improved somewhat so we are going to attempt to walk to the pier entrance and catch the bus to the ship.  The shortcut provided by the hotel proved to be useful and we cut off considerable distance to the shuttle bus stop.  The Equinox bus was waiting for us and soon we handed off our bags to the porters and checked in at a special desk.

We dropped off our bags in our room – behind the door in Stateroom 3519 (next door to the room we had last time on the Equinox).  Porthole and tiny bathroom but a nice room.

A light lunch in the Ocean View Cafe and downtime on the pool deck. 

Dinner was in the Silhouette Room at a table for eight – the people were nice but we are hoping for a table for two over the next day or so.  Food was good.

At 8:15 PM, all the speakers on board met with Esparanza Gambroudes, the Activities Manager (Dru Pavlov is the Cruise Director) to go over the schedule and film a promotional video.  I am planned for five talks – there is a Destination Speaker also (Kathleen Wulf) and a Smithsonian Journeys Speaker (Astronomer Carolyn Peterson).  The passengers will get some serious education on this cruise.

We checked out the various music venues – folk rock singer Valerie Ponzio in the Ensemble Lounge, Pianist Katie Guglielmo in Michael’s Club, and the Georgetown Jazz Quarter (the female singer is a Brit) in the Ensemble Lounge. 

Back in the room by 10:30 PM and lights out at 11:00 PM.

Double Holy Land Cruise – October 3 – November 1, 2010 – Celebrity Equinox – Travel Day to Rome

October 3, 2010

The day is finally here; the back to back cruises (Rome – Mediterranean to Israel and Egypt) that were scheduled over a year ago are just about to begin.  We were given a ride to the airport by Gary so we had a chance to see both sets of kids prior to heading out.

Security was not that difficult – we are carrying on our bags today – and now we are sitting in Terminal 3-L8 waiting for our transportation to arrive.  Departure has been delayed 15 minutes to 5:20 PM.

Our plane was towed to our gate (must have been in one of the hangars)

Soon it was gassed up, cleaned up, and ready to go.

 

Climb Out was smooth

Our route took over Newfoundland, south of Greenland, over Ireland, France and into Rome. 

Our Kosher meal (Asian chicken – which was actually chicken in tomato sauce) was Ok except for the risotto, which suffered from severed frostbite and was inedible.

The flight was pretty bumpy – maybe remnants of the recent hurricane along the east coast was responsible – making it difficult to get any sleep.  We did get a nice sunrise over France

Breakfast was served during the last hour of so of the flight.  Our kosher breakfast was unappetizing but we were able to get two regular meals from our flight attendant.

The plane touched down on time at 9:20 AM

We made our way to the train quickly but the train ride (two trains – one very warm) took about 90 minutes to get to Civitavecchia.  That, coupled with the 30 minute walk with our bags to our the Hotel Traghetto, just about did us in.

After a little rest, and some time our very nice terrace

we took a walk to check out the town and find a place to eat.  Just like most of Europe, restaurants close at 4:30 PM and reopen for dinner at 6:30 – 7:00 PM.

We did get a nice view of the port and the beach area.

The Civitavecchia Cathedral was an interesting landmark

The rest of the evening will consist of pizza and rest.

We want to be ready to start our epic voyage tomorrow well rested.

Sunday, July 18, 2010 – Bayonne, NJ

Our unique two week combo cruise has come to an end – we are back in Bayonne.

Manhattan in the distance

Celebrity Summit ready to go again

Disembark was quick and soon we were on on our bus to the Newark Airport.  It wasn’t long that we found out that there would be a weather delay (storms on route and in Chicago).  After an hour, we boarded the plane but were told that we were in a gate hold due to weather.  We finally did take off about 40 minutes later.

ERJ ready to take us home

Climbout Newark International

Newark Oil Storage tanks

Thunderstorms in the distance

 

Final approach over Evanston 

Deplaning the old fashion way

Home again…

Saturday, July 17, 2010 – At Sea – Atlantic Ocean - 80s

Because we left Friday afternoon, we will need only one sea day to return to Bayonne.

For the first time, the seas were a bit rough.  Today is my last talk “Cold Cases Solved” and I am revising the talk to include the cracking of the decades old “Grim Sleeper” case.  I need a special graphic for my talk – a pizza crust (the evidence used to nail the Sleeper) so I am going to stage a pizza lunch photo.  We wait for the pizza place to open (12:00 Noon), grab some pizza and set up the shoot.  It worked out perfectly.

A good final crowd (200 plus) for my final talk including Ryan Ahern (pianist) and his wife (from Argentina), who are big fans of the show (and who might have attended earlier but I did not notice).

Tonight is the farewell show in the Celebrity Theater – James Stephens III and Ryan Ahern perform and are great. The ship also had great dancers and singers.

 

Celebrity Dancers and Singers

We listed to some piano in Michael’s Club.

Our bags are packed and we are ready to go home.

Wednesday - Friday, July 14 - 16, 2010 – King’s Wharf, Bermuda – Sunny – 87F (muggy)

The Bermuda itinerary is unique in that the ship docks at King’s Wharf for three days – Wednesday through Friday – so that passengers can take advantage of Bermuda’s beaches and other sites.

Approaching Bermuda – HAL Veendam on the way to Hamilton

 

Celebrity Summit from King’s Wharf 

Ellen and the Summit

King’s Wharf – Ferry docking and Marina

We did not sign up for any excursions on this trip but rather opting to take the ferry or other public transportation to spots around the island. 

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Today, we are going to walk to the Tourist Village area at King’s Wharf and check out the shops – there appear to be some new ones since 2007.  We are also looking for internet connections since there is no wifi to be co-opted from the ship.  Some of the stores are new but everything is very pricey and the main mall – The Clocktower – is essentially unchanged in three years.  We walked to the small beach area but chairs were not available and again it was hot.

We ducked into the Tourist Center to escape the heat and were told that their internet connection was down.  There were three Tablet PCs on stands (which makes it difficult to work with since the virtual keyboard is difficult to use when the screen is straight up).  I fiddled a bit with the computer and was able to get to Google – from there I got to gmail and was able to check e-mail and write the kids.  No one from the Center came over to check on me so I was on line for about a half hour.  I did want to check on the Grim Sleeper case but it was too hot and we returned to the ship.  The other internet connection was at a nearby restaurant and they were charging $10/hr. 

Spent some time at the Revelations Lounge on Deck 11 (the Observation Lounge)– on my way back to the room I met a fellow and his son in the elevator.  We did some small talk about the heat and he said he had been playing basketball (too hot for me, I said).  He said he was the comedian on board and he was playing some ball to loosen up for his show.  I didn’t get his name but found out later it was James Stephens III.

We caught his show that night and he was indeed very funny.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Today, we are going to take the Ferry to Hamilton, the capital city, and walk around and see any sites we missed the last time we were here. 

 

First Class on the Hamilton Ferry

 

Departing King’s Wharf – Summit and NCL Dawn 

Where the rich folk live – approach to Hamilton

Self shot on the ferry – not bad 

        

HAL Veendam docked in Hamilton

The ferry was crowded but it was a pleasant run over to Hamilton.  We were able to walk about an hour before the heat and humidity took their toll.  Again, as last time, everything was so pricey in Hamilton.  The decision was made to return to the AC and food on the Summit. 

In the afternoon, I braved the heat to walk to the Visitor’s Center to use their internet to check e-mails and download some information on the Grim Sleeper.  I did that until they closed at 5 PM. 

Ryan Ahern, a very talented pianist, was the headliner tonight.  He had an interesting look complete with piano graphic tennis shoes.  His music was enjoyable.

Friday, July 16, 2010

We have an mid afternoon departure today.  I walked back to the Visitor’s Center for the last time to get more Grim Sleeper information for my final talk and to check on e-mails. 

We watched the Sailaway from the Observation Lounge.

 

St. George’s - Sailaway