The Hellenic Classics Cruise, 12-19 June 2015

A series of travel articles covering our trip with friends on the Thomson Majesty cruise ship as she sails on the Hellenic Classics cruise around the mainlands and islands of Greece and Turkey. There will be some spectacular and exciting excursions to some of the region's most beautiful and historic sites and some looks aside at lesser-known aspects of life in the Aegean. We might even find time for a drink or two...

Click each picture for the associated article. Each page contains a link back to this index.

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Iconic Islands Cruise on Thomson Dream, 9-16 September 2016

A set of illustrated articles about our trip around Greece and Turkey, 9-16 September 2016. Ports for the week are: Corfu (Greece); Thira (Santorini, Greece); Bodrum (Turkey); Syros (Turkey); Chania (Crete, Greece); Argostoli (Kefalonia, Greece). In the event, the weather was too rough to get into the harbour at Syros, so we spent that day in Rhodes, Greece, instead. Click each picture for the articles.

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Loving Chania

Wednesday 14 September 2016. We are in Crete today, in the wonderful town of Chania (the locals pronounce it as though the 'C' is not there).

The town is a four mile (6km) bus ride from the port and this costs Euro 1.70 each way per person. We fell in love with this place on our last visit with David and Jeannie in 2015. This time on the bus from the port someone asks if anyone has ever been here before. We say yes and when asked, we tell them how to get to the harbour but once we get off the bus they follow everyone else instead and on the way back we hear people saying "I thought there was a harbour...?"

The harbour is a few streets' walk from the bus drop-off but is well worth finding. It has a large three-sided basin, with a further basin off to one side and this is where we are sitting as I take this photograph. The fisherman has a couple of lines out and catches the occasional fish. I'd have called them tiddlers really - he'd need a big plate of chips if he was to have a decent dinner from them...

Opposite us is the deserted harbour wall or mole, with a lighthouse built in 1824-1832 on the base of a previous Venetian lighthouse. The region was under the rule of Venice from 1252 more or less continuously until the Ottomans took over in 1645. Chania has deeper roots than these however, as a Minoan city is buried beneath it. This was called Kydonia and lasted roughly 1000 years until the Romans came in 69 BC.

We sat for a while and I got out the sketch pad. The sun beat down and we were a little exposed where we were - there were no trees or other shade and we got extremely warm!

As we sat, two groups of riders on the ship's mountain bikes came past us. The easy tour, free-wheeling and taking their time. The more athletic group whizzing through in a blur of pedals and sweat and determination...

We were in dire need of a drink after sitting in the direct sun for an hour and my Coke came complete with its own mini-bar equipment and accessories! As we sat cooling down and enjoying our drinks a couple of familiar faces from the ship came past. Alan and Pat, both in their 80s, a lovely couple who never failed to get up and dance to Tomas and Maris each night in the Water's Edge bar.

"Did I see you drawing?" he asked as he passed. I showed him the sketch and we talked about it for a few minutes before they moved on.

Fran wanted to buy some sandals for both herself and for Miss Jeannie, back home. Sizes seemed to be a problem. As a consequence we spent more time in the shopping streets than we did on the harbour, but it was a pleasant day and we found once again how the shopkeepers were willing to search cheerfully high and low for exactly the item required.

At one shop a very attractive lady had just started to talk to us when another girl came in and slapped her on the shoulder before passing into the shop without a word. Almost staggering, she laughed at my surprise and said "My Bestie!" "Do all your friends hit you?" I asked, tapping her lightly on the arm. "Ooh! Thank you!" she said. "Ask if she's got these in a size 6..." came a tolerantly amused voice on my other side...

Singer/guitarist Ben Moss who took turn and turn about sets with Tomas and Maris each night. We remembered him as a shy 18-year-old on the Thomson Celebration four years ago. He's maturing into a great and confident artist.

Though once again tonight someone else is up on stage... Everybody does The Shadows for a guitar instrumental, but I like to be a bit different and play a Bert Weedon track which lets me talk about Bert's book Play In A Day. It gave so many famous guitarists a kick start to playing. I almost got it right too... I followed it with an audience participation sing-along - Billy Fury's Halfway To Paradise.

Iconic Islands Index

Sketching, Swimming and Eating in Crete

17 June 2015. We are at the harbour in Chania on the island of Crete.

I am sitting on a bench and drawing a sketch of the harbour area whilst Fran, David and Jeannie are having a wander. Miss Franny comes back to ask if I would fancy a ride on this glass-bottomed boat. We agree to catch it on it's next trip.

The sketch is taking shape. In any case this is a very nice place to sit and take in the scenery!

Most of the detail is there by now and we decide to go to get on the boat which has returned and is starting to take on new passengers. I can finish the sketch later.

A small shoal of fish swim by in the harbour close to the wall. They are between four and six inches long.

The good ship Erofili filling up before an hour-long trip which leaves the harbour and goes out to a small island which used to be a plague quarantine island.

As we wait for the boat to fill up I am shading in on the sketch. The little girl is Danish and doesn't speak English but is interested in what I'm doing.

Once out at the island the guide asks if anyone wants to swim. David is wearing his swimming gear under his clothes so decides to have a go.

Despite our best efforts at chumming, these are the largest fish we can attract. No sinister dorsal fins break the surface to provide the prize-winning photo...

This would be the prime moment though! Jaws? Kraken? Giant squid? Anyone?

Our bearded guide attracts a host of tiny terrors of the deep with a handful of fish food and leads them under the boat and the glass bottom.

When he climbs back onboard he has collected a shelled something or other and a sea slug that looks a bit like.... well you can tell what it looks like...

The shelled something has only one orifice and as he holds it up it oozes out to hang before sneezing and zipping back up into the shell. Ugh! And what are those tentacle things???

The captain refuses to listen to our pleas and the boat hangs about until David has come back aboard. We are now returning to the harbour which we shall sail about for a bit before docking back in the boat's usual corner.

A local is fishing from the corner. If he's after those fish we saw earlier, he'll need a lot of chips to go with them...

Plenty of domes there! This is Giali Tzamissi (the Seaside Mosque), built after the Ottomans drove out the Venetians from Chania in 1645. Its single, though small, minaret was demolished in 1920 and it suffered from the intense German aerial bombing of World War II. It once had a walled yard with palm trees.

A quartet of musicians play near the cool of a fountain.

It's lunchtime and we have lunch at a harbour-side cafe. Our glass bottom boat is embarking new passengers ready for another trip.

We order food and as we wait for it with a glass of wine to hand I have another go at the sketch. This is the finished article with people added and shading applied.

David and Jeannie and myself are having a mix of sandwiches, chips and salad but Fran goes straight for the sweet stuff and has a banana split!

As we are having lunch some rather weird little motorised tricycles appear. They look fun, though they also require some balance as she demonstrates by almost falling over...

Oh, wait... David's found a better view of one...

We are walking slowly back towards the bus stop. A large display of sweeties outside a shop draws attention. Some purchases are made. I don't bother with sweets these days. I always seem to need dental work as I can't help but chew and then hard sweets play havoc!

Fran finds a clothes shop with kids' sized clothes and buys a couple of dresses to take back for Grace before we get back to the market and find a bus waiting for us. Another 20 minutes and we arrive back at the port.

Hellenic Classics Index