Izmir, Turkey

Our next stop was in Izmir, Turkey. We also took a shore excursion there with Costa for 9 hours. This was well worth every penny. In fact, we paid for 3 excursions and were pleased with each one of them. They were well worth our money.
This tour took us to many "hot spots" in the Christian faith. The first was the house of the Virgin Mary. This was so neat. St. John the Evangelist brought Mary to live in Ephesus after Christ's ascension. It was too dangerous for her to live in Ephesus itself so she lived in the mountains above it, next to a clear spring. Many popes have come to this place and have deemed it a sacred spot. There is a small church there now over the house. There are spigots to drink from the spring that runs underground there and it is said to have healing powers. We all took a drink. We also went to St. John's basilica, which is no longer standing but the ruins and foundation are still there. He was the only apostle to die of natural causes. He was buried and the basilica built over his tomb to honor his faith. However, when the crusades came through the area, his remains were taken. His tomb site remains.
While we were at the house of the Virgin Mary, there were a bunch of Turkish police academy cadets visiting on a field trip. There were maybe a hundred of them and they were all decked out in their uniforms. They were so friendly. We ended up seeing them again in Ephesus and they learned Lily's name and it was ringing out everywhere. She had her picture taken with a number of them. One of the pictures is of Lily builting her own ruins...she was stacking rocks she found. That was what she had seen around her for the last two days and adults thought they were cool, so she built her own in Ephesus.
Ephesus amazed me. It is so well preserved for being thousands of years old. The ingenuity of the way they had water and sewer systems astounded me. I put a picture up of the latrines in Ephesus...the only issue being they were marble....the slaves were made to warm them first before the upper class placed their hineys down. :o)
We also had a fabulous Turkish lunch at a gorgeous resort hotel. The weather couldn't have been better. I would come back here in a heartbeat as well!
The Turkish shop owners also fell in love with Lily (she got really spoiled on this trip) and would give her safety pins with the "evil eye" and some other beads shaped like dolphins to ward off evil spirits. I went to a store with Joe and when I met up with Lily, she had two of them pinned her her sleeve. They are blue and on the outer ring, then white then black for the iris. They were all over Turkey and Greece and we saw a few in Egypt as well.
Our other stop was at a Turkish rug shop. We were amazed at the craftmanship and the designs of all these rugs. Rich bought a smaller one that had a design that was made by only two families in the area, which was unlike we had ever seen before. Rich has always admired the Turkish rugs. He spent a lot of time deployed to Turkey while we were living in North Dakota.

Athens, Greece

We loved Athens! Our port call was in Piraeus and this was the first shore excursion we paid for through the Costa cruiselines. We had a fabulous Greek guide named Eugenia and she was able to help us understand all the sites we were seeing. THe day was a long one...an 8 hour tour, but we saw a lot of wonderful sites and had some tasty Greek food!
Also we met an American family originally from NYC but now living in Connecticut that had a son that was 12 and a daughter that was 10. Yay! Our boys had some new friends to pal around with. The four of them were spending all their waking time together on the ship from that time on. They are now corresponding via email and we are hoping to stop in a say hello to them once we come back to the States.
The first place we went was Cape Sounion. High upon the cliffs is the Temple of Poseidon. The view was amazing and when the sun started to come out, the Messina family was totally in awe...sunshine...a high commodity in Norway over this last rainy, dark year. We had a wonderful Greek buffet lunch at a resort hotel and then finished out our day spending the afternoon walking around the Acropolis in Athens. What a day rich in history! The Greek people are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Once you have been to Greece and exchanged names, you are family. I would go back in a heartbeat!
There was a large group of Chinese-born Canadians on the cruise. Lily saw a group of about 6 of them walking near us at the Acropolis and shouted to them, "Ni hao!" (which is Mandarin for hello). They all shouted it back and ooh'd and ah'd over her billiance. I have been trying to work with Lily on more Chinese words. She can actually count better in Chinese than English! (she always forgets the number 4 when counting in English)
One thing I found interesting in Greece....depending on whether the last number of your license plate on your car is odd or even, tells you the days you can drive your car. Let's say that number was 3. You can drive your car on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The other days you must ride the bus. Helps curb traffic and pollution. At 3:00 p.m. on Friday, the rule is lifted and everyone can drive, no matter what your number is. This was when we were in Athens. Going back to the ship after 3 on a Friday. The traffic was bad but not anything compared to what we would experience in Cairo.
We also stopped and had our picture taken in front of the first Olympic stadium of the Modern Era, built in 1896 and made of white marble. Pretty impressive. There were many things from the Acropolis that were taken by the British many years ago that are in the museum in London. Eugenia was near tears talking about how she wished it would be returned to the Greek people so it could be shared with the world from its own historical spot. We actually heard on the news that night that a lot of Greek pieces were being returned to Athens for the new Acropolis museum that would be opening in September. Yay! Eugenia was fabulous...she had been a tour guide for 27 years and really knew a lot about history. I found it absolutely amazing to hear about how a matriarchal society worked.

Olympia, Greece

Our next stop was Katakalon, Greece. It was about a 50 minute train ride to Olympia. There we were able to meander through the ruins. Tim is studying this sort of thing in school right now, so he was having a great time. Joe thought all the ruins looked the same and took pictures of flowers and stray cats and dogs. :o)

Savona, Italy

Savona, Italy was our first stop. It was a short one...only 6 hours long, but we got off the ship and we walked all over the port city in northwestern Italy. The nearest city is Genoa. We came across an old fortress near the port and spent our last hour walking through this hulking ancient building. Most of the town goes uphill quickly, with loads of staircases to lead to the next layer of the city. We went as high as we could and ended up at an abbey with a beautiful little chapel.

Life on the ship....

We were aboard the Costa Concordia...which holds about 4700 people when you include the passengers and the crew. It was HUGE....almost embarrassingly so when we came into port. We had a great time. There were mostly French speakers on board with Italians a close second. Everything was announced in Italian, French, English, German and Spanish. There were 12 decks and walking the length of the ship would wear your out. We loved being pampered! I really didn't want to come home! The lights were gorgeous handblown glass chandeliers and were found in the center of the ship and a few other places throughout the ship. The lady sunbathing in her fur coat....we couldn't stop laughing. You could tell the Italians onboard. PETA would have had a hayday on this cruise ship and in Italy in general. There were three nights for dinner that we all had to dress in "gala" attire. The boys looked handsome in their shirts, slacks and ties and Lily had a number of dresses with her and her Chinese outfit. We also had to do a safety drill and don our life preservers and head outside to our evacuation location.

Civitavecchia

Civitavecchia, Italy is where we embarked on our cruise. It was a nice port city about an hour or so from Rome.

Ah....we're back!

Well, we were gone for two glorious, funfilled weeks in the western Mediterranean Sea. We took a cruise on the Costa Concordia (I highly recommend Costa Cruiselines-they are based out of Italy and are very popular in Europe). There was no illness, no injury and we all were able to have a really great time. I was thinking that cruises are definitely the way to travel and vacation (although you pay heavily for that)...I did no housekeeping or cooking or cleaning the entire time. Everyone asked me what they could do for us....what a novel idea!
I am in the process of downloading pictures and will be posting a few pictures with each place we visited in separate posts. We had lovely weather...it is winter in the Med so it wasn't warm...but hey, it is all relative. We live in dark Norway! The sunshine and the mild temperatures were a nice change for us. We will definitely do another cruise again!
As for now, Rich and Tim are off to lacrosse practice while Joe works on homework, Lily plays with all her toys and I try to get enough laundry done to clothe everyone for work, school and errands for tomorrow!
Thanks for all the kind birthday wishes! Happy birthday to my grandmother, again (who turned 85 on Feb 17th) and to my dad, who turned 61 on Feb 28th. My old pup, Cheyenne, who stayed at home being watched after by a Norwegian soldier during the week and American teen girls on the other days, turned 10 on March 1st. I had never seen her so happy to see us. She hasn't let us out of her sight since we got home late last night. More posts to come as I sift through pictures!