Turkey & Greece Cruise June 30 - July 9, 2023

20230630_135410.jpg A model of Topkeki Palace, inside the actual Topkeki Palace.

20230630_135501.jpg The palace part of the palace, hidden behind some glare and a tourist.

20230630_142214.jpg I really wish I'd done this when I got home, I have no idea why I took a picture of a pillar any more.

20230630_143208.jpg Some very cool tiles.

20230630_144513.jpg Looking down at the Bosphorus Strait as it flows into the Sea of Marmara.

20230701_075506.jpg The Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III, outside the Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia).

20230701_075728.jpg I think this is the Blue Mosque, given that we were right next to the Ayasofya at the time I took this.

20230701_075841.jpg This one is the Ayasofya.

20230701_080853.jpg Having breakfast and looking out at the strait again.

20230701_104505.jpg There's a bit of a line to get in. Turns out the world-famous mosque is a tourist attraction.

20230701_104515.jpg The entryway, where you have to take your shoes off, if I'm remembering right.

20230701_105255.jpg The main room of the mosque. The large signs on either side of the... indentation... say "Allah" and "Mohammed" assuming I haven't forgotten. I don't know which is which.

20230701_105318.jpg More of the large signs around the main room. I think these were Mohammed's closest followers?

20230701_105400.jpg Some of the architecture and the lights they have to light the place.

20230701_112126.jpg I specifically asked our tour guide what this little lifeguard-chair-looking thing was, and now I can't remember his answer.

20230701_112144.jpg Looking straight up into the dome.

20230701_113638.jpg Back outside and looking at the Blue Mosque again.

20230701_113930.jpg Fountains near the hippodrome.

20230701_114544.jpg The German Fountain.

20230701_114614.jpg The Obelisk of Theodosius.

20230701_115526.jpg Inscription at the bottom. Too bad some dumbass covered part of the shot with his finger. The full text is:
DIFFICILIS QVONDAM DOMINIS PARERE SERENIS
IVSSVS ET EXTINCTIS PALMAM PORTARE TYRANNIS
OMNIA THEODOSIO CEDVNT SVBOLIQVE PERENNI
TER DENIS SIC VICTVS EGO DOMITVSQVE DIEBVS
IVDICE SVB PROCLO SVPERAS ELATVS AD AVRAS

20230701_115547.jpg The full obelisk again.

20230701_115727.jpg The base of the Serpent Column.

20230701_151522.jpg The cruise ship up close at the port of Istanbul.

20230701_172759.jpg Still on the European side, looking across the Golden Horn to where we'd been. The Ayasofya is on the left. At least I think that's what I'm looking at, I can't remember where exactly the boat was, or where I was looking.

20230701_172821.jpg A cool building, I don't know what it is.

20230701_172823.jpg I think I was wrong before, this looks more like the Ayasofya.

20230701_204436.jpg Sailing out of Istanbul.

20230701_204531.jpg Other ships in the Bosphorus.

20230702_080019.jpg Pulling into port in Çanakkale.

20230702_080406.jpg Our neighbor didn't quite have the amenities we did.

20230702_095154.jpg We're standing on the Behramkale Bridge, which was built sometime in the Middle Ages. Its modern replacement is right next to it.

20230702_095259.jpg The old bridge.

20230702_095342.jpg And looking under.

20230702_095430.jpg Friggin' toolbag, etc.

20230702_102932.jpg Assos is on the southern coast of the Biga Peninsula, and is where Aristotle was born in 384 BCE.

20230702_103243.jpg The entrance to the historical site and acropolis (not The Acropolis, that's in Athens, but every Greek city had a hilltop temple.)

20230702_103537.jpg Looking out over the nearby town of Behram.

20230702_103638.jpg The Who's Who of Assos.

20230702_103909.jpg Over the Aegean you can see the Greek island of Lesbos.

20230702_103917.jpg The remains of the temple complex.

20230702_104119.jpg A better view of Lesbos (settle down).

20230702_104254.jpg A model of how the Temple of Athena would have looked two thousand years ago.

20230702_104731.jpg In the temple. walking around with all the other folks.

20230702_104759.jpg The Turkish flag at the highest point on the hill. Just in case you forgot where you were.

20230702_114749.jpg After Assos we went down to the coast for a wine tasting. Given that I don't really like wine I'll let you guess how that went for me.

20230703_075005.jpg A new day, and now we're in Greece. This is Kavala, who were/are big in the tobacco trade. They have their own tobacco museum.

20230703_075732.jpg There's a bit more to it than Çanakkale, and the pier is right downtown.

20230703_093625.jpg Our first stop was a trail along the Nestos River.

20230703_094239.jpg And here's the river.

20230703_094412.jpg When I say the trail was along the river, I meant it.

20230703_094830.jpg Beautiful scenery.

20230703_094936.jpg A railroad tunnel. I'm pretty sure that line is still in use.

20230703_104632.jpg After that we took a walk around the city of Xanthi. This clock is in the center of town in the Platia Dimokratias.

20230703_105034.jpg The Church of St. Vlasiosin. Apparently also called the Church of St. Blaise. Had to do a reverse image search to track this one down.

20230703_105419.jpg The Manos Hadjidakis Residence is a museum for one of Greece's most famous composers.

20230703_110738.jpg The House of Shadow is a neat little art museum that we didn't get a chance to go into.

20230703_111655.jpg Another cool building that I'm not going to try to find.

20230703_120114.jpg A city park where we walked to wait for the tour bus.

20230703_143953.jpg Back on the boat.

20230703_144009.jpg Kavala from the walking deck.

20230703_213039.jpg I think that was our last look at Kavala as we sailed toward Thessaloniki.

20230704_091322.jpg And here we are at the port of Thessaloniki.

20230704_091326.jpg "Macedonia Passenger Terminal" -- Greeks get touchy about the name Macedonia.

20230704_091330.jpg Downtown Thessaloniki.

20230704_091332.jpg The beautiful scenery of a Greek... parking lot. And the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate.

20230704_103424.jpg Me, July 2023: "This building looks cool."
Google, September 2024: "It's the Thessaloniki YMCA."

20230704_103447.jpg This baby Space Needle is the OTE Tower.

20230704_121422.jpg A gravestone on display in the museum in Vergina.

20230704_121542.jpg Pottery. This stuff all comes from the 300s BCE.

20230704_121607.jpg More gravestones.

20230704_121628.jpg The museum at Vergina was set up at the location of the burial site for Alexander the Great's father. This is a model of the mound the tomb was hidden under.

20230704_122405.jpg Grave marker.

20230704_122425.jpg Model of a burial vault.

20230704_122746.jpg I can't remember if this is a replica of a tomb, or a real one that was brought in.

20230704_122758.jpg "Tomb 4" kind of makes it seem like it's real stuff.

20230704_122907.jpg More about the tomb.

20230704_123454.jpg A "heroon" is the tomb of a hero.

20230704_123508.jpg More about the heroon.

20230704_123829.jpg Paintings from the tomb walls.

20230704_124820.jpg Artifacts, for sure. Maybe from burials?

20230704_125300.jpg More stuff.

20230704_125327.jpg I remember this one being important, but I can't remember why. Maybe it's Alexander the Great's father?

20230704_125829.jpg The main entry. Obviously as close as you can get to it.

20230704_130548.jpg Phillip II. Pretty sure that was Alexander's father.

20230704_130629.jpg A... mural? Diorama? Frieze? From the tomb that they were able to recover.

20230704_130704.jpg Armor.

20230704_131325.jpg Lots of detail on those little pieces. I think that one is supposed to be Alexander, but damn if I can remember.

20230704_131431.jpg Shiny.

20230704_132309.jpg I kept coming back to this, since it's the whole reason that museum exists.

20230704_132946.jpg Pictures of paintings from the inside of the tomb.

20230704_133100.jpg A tombstone. I can't remember what the painted-on ribbon was for.

20230704_133110.jpg Several more stones (the previous one is on the left).

20230704_134924.jpg A little shrine outside the museum.

20230705_091946.jpg A new day, now at a local museum in Volos. Volos was my favorite stop, I dug it for some reason.

20230705_091952.jpg I don't think these are from tombs, these are general archaeological sites from the area.

20230705_092205.jpg An example of stratification.

20230705_092226.jpg There are tombs, of course. And they go back quite a way.

20230705_092804.jpg Archaeological sites around Volos.

20230705_092833.jpg Pottery.

20230705_093039.jpg I wish that big sign had also been in English.

20230705_093637.jpg A living space, I think.

20230705_093647.jpg A street/alley of some kind.

20230705_093728.jpg An amphora.

20230705_093738.jpg Tablets with ancient Greek on them.

20230705_093851.jpg Coins.

20230705_094102.jpg Little figurines and some jewelry.

20230705_094125.jpg Model of a house.

20230705_094154.jpg A kiln, I think.

20230705_095027.jpg Engravings. Our tour guide was narrating this all for us, I wish I'd recorded it.

20230705_095347.jpg A tombstone.

20230705_095352.jpg And the red ribbon again. I wish I could remember what it was for. Google doesn't turn up anything.

20230705_095451.jpg Bust of Aphrodite.

20230705_101614.jpg After the museum we went outside for a look at the gulf that Volos sits at the end of.

20230705_101753.jpg Art installation.

20230705_105710.jpg Then we went up into the hills outside of town to see Makrinitsa. This is looking back down on Volos. You can spot the ship if you zoom in.

20230705_111214.jpg A small museum in Makrinitsa.

20230705_111307.jpg And a fountain.

20230705_111455.jpg That's a street. Very Pittsburghian.

20230705_111541.jpg A little Greek Orthodox chapel.

20230705_111656.jpg Jesus with the head of John the Baptist.

20230705_174153.jpg Getting ready to leave port.

20230706_085416.jpg Our next port, Ermoupoli, on the island of Syros.

20230706_085420.jpg The hills come right down to the shore.

20230706_085438.jpg A big Orthodox church is one of the highest buildings in town.

20230706_091644.jpg The view from the dock.

20230706_091649.jpg More of town, and a finger.

20230706_092953.jpg Markos Vamvakaris, a famous Greek musician that was born in Ano Syros, now part of Ermoupoli.

20230706_094159.jpg The central plaza, with a statue of Andreas Miaoulis, a major figure from the Greek War of Independence.

20230706_095018.jpg Another bust near the plaza. Theophilos Kairis, another big name in the war of independence.

20230706_101345.jpg There's a little museum of industry on the island. This is one of the displays there.

20230706_101545.jpg Propeller from a small ship.

20230706_101604.jpg A marine diesel engine.

20230706_101621.jpg More boat engine stuff. How odd for an island.

20230706_101805.jpg Blueprints of... something.

20230706_101916.jpg This guy, Elias Kechayas, was presumably big in shipping, but googling that name doesn't turn up anything.

20230706_102125.jpg Blueprint of the first electrical grid on the island.

20230706_102334.jpg Enfield Automotive built cars on Syros during the oil crisis in the 70s.

20230706_102405.jpg Electric cars.

20230706_132955.jpg Back on the ship for lunch, looking around at the nearby islands.

20230706_153903.jpg Went for a little walk afterwards, this is the Church of St. Nicholas.

20230706_154030.jpg The hills here are pretty steep, and offer some really neat views.

20230706_154144.jpg Just a cool-looking building.

20230706_154614.jpg This neat-looking building is an actual historical landmark. Let me just translate what's on Google Maps and... "Neoclassical building (year of construction 1886)". At least I know the year it's from.

20230706_154906.jpg Looking at the Aegean again.

20230706_161758.jpg And back down to the pier.

20230706_200728.jpg The dumb things I convince my friends to go along with. We're walking up the "countless steps" to some church I can't remember the name of and can't find online.

20230706_201228.jpg Where we'd come from. You can see it was a while before I whipped out the phone.

20230706_201234.jpg That's not where we're going. That's the Church of the Resurrection. Lots of churches on Syros.

20230706_202343.jpg This is where we were going, Church of St. Sebastian. Just for the sake of having made it to the top of the hill.

20230706_202453.jpg Ermopouli and the ship.

20230706_202544.jpg I took lots of pictures here. I wanted proof, after what I'd put myself through.

20230706_202620.jpg

20230706_202653.jpg

20230706_202708.jpg The frustrating part of this is, Google Images can find just about every picture I took here. And they're all labeled, "Church in Ano Syros". Nobody anywhere ever bothered writing down the name, I guess. I finally asked my friend who I was on the cruise with if they remembered, and they were able to find it where I couldn't.

20230706_203132.jpg A memorial outside the church that I also can't find online anywhere. No street view, because no streets -- it's all walkways and alleys.

20230707_083126.jpg At Mykonos.

20230707_083134.jpg The port isn't big enough for the boat. Therefore, we needed a ride in.

20230707_083150.jpg Looking at Mykonos before getting on the little boat.

20230707_104807.jpg After catching a ferry, arriving at Delos.

20230707_104816.jpg This is in kind of the "downtown" area of Delos. Lots of larger ruins from things like temples and trade. And I've forgotten pretty much all of it.

20230707_111055.jpg Agora of the Competaliasts.

20230707_111458.jpg Ruins. And a cat.

20230707_111712.jpg Carving on one of the stones.

20230707_111722.jpg A small temple on the hill.

20230707_112609.jpg Another carving, on the "base of the Colossus".

20230707_112618.jpg More ruins.

20230707_112930.jpg The guardians' house, if I remember right.

20230707_113514.jpg More ruins.

20230707_113608.jpg A shop stall, if I remember right.

20230707_113616.jpg Some columns.

20230707_113645.jpg And a lion.

20230707_114146.jpg More lions.

20230707_114239.jpg A very bad selfie with a lion.

20230707_114354.jpg More from the terrace of lions.

20230707_115033.jpg A shop.

20230707_115220.jpg A row of them, with the museum in the background.

20230707_115717.jpg (Some of) a statue.

20230707_115726.jpg Pretty sure those are exactly what we think they are.

20230707_115952.jpg Y HALLO THAR

20230707_120312.jpg Back to the ruins.

20230707_120318.jpg We didn't climb that hill, partly because of time, and partially because we didn't want to die from the heat.

20230707_120519.jpg A wider look at the downtown area.

20230707_121535.jpg A bench. (You're not allowed to sit on the bench.)

20230707_121637.jpg More ruins. It can be kind of hard (at least for me) to try to piece it all together and get an idea of how it looked 2500 years ago.

20230707_121748.jpg Really neat tile work. This is getting away from the downtown, into a residential area. So these would all have been houses.

20230707_121954.jpg They had multi-story buildings.

20230707_122035.jpg More tile work.

20230707_122048.jpg Our guide explaining what this was for. Given the spout it was for fluids, but I can't remember what.

20230707_122552.jpg Inside a row of houses.

20230707_123035.jpg Looking back to the harbor again, downtown is out of frame to the right. The walkway/street is on the other side of the wall.

20230707_123940.jpg More tile work inside that house that I don't think we were allowed to go in.

20230707_124242.jpg The amphitheater.

20230707_124248.jpg Sound carries pretty well here, our guide had us sit in the first few rows of seats and talked from the middle of the stage. We heard him just fine.

20230707_142043.jpg Back to Mykonos. Pretty sure this is another really old building, given the sign next to it.

20230707_142046.jpg More ruins on Mykonos.

20230707_142804.jpg And back to the new (relatively speaking).

20230707_142811.jpg The "streets" here are almost all walkways that loop back on each other and cross at weird angles. Same as it's been since people settled here.

20230707_142817.jpg Climbing up a hill toward some windmills.

20230707_144002.jpg The Panagia Paraportiani. It's five conjoined churches each dedicated to a saint, I don't know which saint's church this one is.

20230707_144822.jpg Back to the old pier to look at the city.

20230707_203947.jpg The last sunset we'd get on board.

20230708_083537.jpg In Athens now. We got in early and had to GTFO. This is on the walk up to the Acropolis.

20230708_083543.jpg A smaller temple.

20230708_093247.jpg In line now. I think we had to wait for it to open, then for the movement to make its way back to us.

20230708_093252.jpg I can't remember where we were standing at this point (besides "in line") so I'm having trouble finding that bit of ruin on the map.

20230708_093910.jpg A much more intact amphitheater than we saw at Delos. The Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

20230708_093924.jpg They reconstructed the seating area, but the stage is original.

20230708_093930.jpg And Athens beyond.

20230708_093957.jpg Thank you, past me, for giving current-me a location and direction. That thing I was looking at before was the Philopappos Monument.

20230708_094805.jpg Selfie.

20230708_094952.jpg We're on the hilltop now. Which they basically flattened and filled in to make the temple area.

20230708_095054.jpg The Temple of Athena (what people usually call the Acropolis).

20230708_095137.jpg The Erectheion.

20230708_095154.jpg And a dork standing in front of it.

20230708_095429.jpg Temple of Athena.

20230708_095614.jpg More of me.

20230708_095955.jpg The Porch of the Caryatids, attached to the Erectheion.

20230708_100118.jpg Looking out over the city.

20230708_101025.jpg The Panathenaic Stadium.

20230708_101953.jpg Athens and the Aegean.

20230708_105242.jpg Heading down the hill, on the way to the museum.

20230708_110023.jpg Looking at where they shored up the hillside centuries (millennia?) ago.

20230708_111010.jpg A couple statues in the entryway of the Acropolis Museum.

20230708_111223.jpg Stuff.

20230708_111413.jpg Half a stuff.

20230708_111440.jpg That's the amphitheater from before, so I guess the other name was the guy who had it built, in honor of Dionysis.

20230708_111929.jpg Heracles becoming a god.

20230708_124925.jpg Then someone came over sand told me you can't take pictures in there. So when lunchtime rolled around I went out on the balcony for another shot of the real deal.

20230708_131425.jpg The area, including the Panathenaic Stadium, in the part of the museum you're allowed to take pictures in.

20230708_172433.jpg Later on, at the National Archaeological Museum not too far from the hotel.

20230708_173319.jpg I thought about taking a cab to this place while I was on Syros. Kinda glad I didn't.

20230708_174331.jpg We didn't go to Mycenae, it's on the Peloponnesian peninsula and we stayed om the east coast.

20230708_181307.jpg A good boy.

20230708_183910.jpg Bust of Hadrian.

20230708_185639.jpg The front of the building.

20230709_111912.jpg Flying over Istanbul to transfer to our flight home. I don't know what's up with the Istanbul airport, but I'm pretty sure we spent more time on the ground taxiing than we did flying.