Greece

Hello from Istanbul, Turkey! A lot has happened since I last posted a message, and all of it has been good! We had a wonderful trip across the Greek mainland and through the Aegean Sea and yesterday we began the Turkish phase of our adventure.

The Greek culture is ancient and we saw many temples, sculptures and artifacts. But we were not prepared for how beautiful the land is! Green hills, incredible rock structures, isolated monasteries set into the rocks, snowy mountain tops. Fertile land with crops, picturesque villages and blue water. We had a wonderful guide, Maria, who gently kept us on schedule, arranged everything for us and who taught us so much about Greek Orthodoxy as well as the political and cultural history of her people.

The cruise portion of the trip was 7 days long and we wished it could have gone on forever. OAT has it's own fleet of ships and outfits them to meet American needs and tastes. Our group of 22 shared the ship with another OAT group of 15; the ship has capacity for 50 passengers so we had plenty of room. The other group was led by Maria's daughter, 27 year old Katia (cot - ee - ah) which made it fun for all of us! We had a lovely cabin with a balcony and enjoyed having washcloths and bread/butter plates for our meals - both are rare in Europe.

The cruise started out interestingly. Our ship was supposed to pick us up near Athens but because of heavy winds it had to stay docked at the island of Naxos and we took a ferry to that island. The ferries are huge, made to travel in rough seas, so even though it made for a late (midnight) arrival, we were glad that we had taken it. Happily the winds died down and we were able to complete our cruise with only one variation. We visited the islands of Naxos, Paros (instead of Siros), Mykonos, Santorini, Delos (an archeological sight), Amorgos, and Patmos. You are probably familiar with the names Mykonos and Santorini - and they are every bit as wonderful as their reputation. Patmos is the island where St. John wrote the "Revelation" book of the Bible. We were able to see the monastery named for him as well as the cave where he is supposed to have written it. We loved Patmos; it had cute villages and a nice harbor area with a beach where we waded in the Aegean.

We've had wonderful food, the weather has been perfect (warm and sunny - I'm as tan now as I usually am in September!), and the co-travelers have been marvelous - not a complainer or habitually late person in the group!

It has been a wonderful experience and we would recommend the trip to anyone! We continue on the post trip beginning tomorrow and I will write more about that (and Istanbul) later. Here are some photos. From the top: the verdant land of Greece, rock formations near Meteora, icon painting, a beautiful Greek Orthodox church, the ancient temple of Athena, Jon and our wonderful guide Maria, our hosts for a dinner in their home that they prepared on the island of Naxos, a lovely staircase on Mykonos, ruins on Delos, Jon with our wonderful ship the "Arethusa" in the background, churches on Santorini, our path to the monastary on Amorgos, enjoying the water on Patmos.