Ancient Wonders Cruise Ends

A while since we last heard about the cruise, so it's time to finish things off properly and bring the cruise holiday to an end.

We had spent Sunday 27 May in Mykonos, Greece and that night saw us once more in the Horizons Bar onboard the Thomson Celebration for our last chance to hear Tomas and Maris singing.

In fact it was Maris's comeback night - she had been stricken with laryngitis and had totally lost her voice earlier in the week being ordered by the doctor to keep to her cabin and not sing, not speak for three days. She had been devastated by this - it's something that affects most singers at some point and is worrying to say the least. But she had been very good. We joined them for their evening meal most nights and she was doing her best to keep quiet, only whispering. All those good looks and silent too - an ideal woman, hee hee! Sorry Maris! Tomas had done a magnificent job on his own but it was great to have 2 Intense back together again for our last night.

And Maris was sensational that night. We spent some time chatting with them afterwards and I'm sure will see them again before too long.

Monday 28 May came along and we awoke back in Marmaris, Turkey where we had to say goodbye to the ship and travel back to England.

Dalaman Airport was its usual crowded and chaotic self. We were told to join a queue only to see lots of later arrivals bypassing us and after a while we bailed out to join the less formal crush. You go through security with your bags on entering then go to check-in where your bags are taken as usual, then you go through another security check and then through passport control. I beeped going through the first security, was ignored, retrieved the bags and then got an apologetic tap on the shoulder and was frisked.

Then six or seven hours later we were home. The sun had been cracking the flags whilst we were away and we enjoyed the last evening of that before the rain started again the following day...

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Night Time in Kotor

Saturday, 13 August 2011. We are still in Kotor, Montenegro, 28 kilometres from the Adriatic Sea up the deepest fjord in southern Europe.

We are standing on the Promenade Deck of the Thomson Spirit cruise ship, waiting to sail out of Montenegro and back down the fjord to the sea.

As darkness falls the ancient city of Kotor comes alive - so much so that the full car park below us on the wharf has a long stream of cars queueing to get in. They each must wait until another car leaves.

Many of the cars are bringing people who have come to watch us sail. There's a sizeable number of people ready to wave at every slightest movement. It's still a very warm night and we wave back as the ship's crew continue their preparations to leave.

It's already quite dark, just a hint of a glow in the sky. There won't be much to see on our way down the fjord once we pass the lights of the last town.

The city walls that earlier had blended in with the mountainside which they climb, now stand out in floodlighting, showing just how high above the main city they reach. A crowd is now standing close to the gates to the dock area, waiting to see the ship leave the port. Young couples, older couples, entire families... they all stand or sit looking expectantly upwards. Then the startlingly loud blast on the ship's hooter. No wonder they are all out here with their kids - no one would have slept through that!

The crowd of people start to wave at the few of us who have come out to watch our own departure. "Goodbye! Don't forget to write!" Actually I don't speak Montenegrin... It could have been "You bastards! You woke the baby!" One chap looked slightly apologetic at the rail. Hmmm - maybe it had been "You bastard! You left me with a baby!!!" The ship moves away from the dock, turns slowly, then starts off down the fjord. We pass a few ferries, lots of small boats and a yacht, swinging slowly to its mooring.

As we move away from Kotor the lights dwindle until there are just a few houses here and there along the fjord's bank. There is not enough light to take photographs of the scenery by and we move towards the back of the ship.

From the rear of the Promenade Deck we stop to overlook the Lido Deck where people are enjoying a late dinner or snack and a drink.

We then climb up a few decks to Horizons Bar for a drink and to listen to the vocal harmony group, New Dimensions. We'll meet them properly later in the week.

It would be easy to drink yourself into stupefaction on a cruise ship - plenty actually do. Others set foot on the boat already pretty stupid... I'm not a good drunk. I have a short spell of feeling merry but, let's face it, most people wouldn't tell the difference anyway and then I just feel ill and fall over... Not good. I don't do it. People tell me they'd love to see me drunk but I'd just aim for them if they got me that way... So after a giddy pint, we finish our evening on the Lido Deck with a sedate coffee. The next day is our day at sea so in our next entry we will have travelled all the way up the Adriatic to call in at the top right hand corner into Koper in Slovenia.

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Independent in Rhodes

Sunday, 22 August 2010. It's our last port of call. We wake up in Rhodes, moored against the dock and having decided that we are just going to walk off the ship and into the city which is so close to the harbour that even a bus isn't needed.

Rhodes Harbour. It was here (well... just around the corner to the right...) that another of the Seven Wonders, the Colossus of Rhodes was built, a huge bronze statue straddling the harbour. An earthquake destroyed it and lumps of it then littered the place for 700 years until it was sold for scrap and taken away on the backs of 400 camels.

St Paul visited Rhodes once he started his travels and there is a gateway into this fort that bears his name and that he was supposed to enter the city by.

This photo was taken from just inside the city walls and you can see how close the marina is. The harbour is not much further away. The city was well defended, having been fortified by the Knights Hospitallers after they were driven from Jerusalem. This medieval city is well worth exploring. But of course we are exploring the shops...

Hey hey! I've found one that's worth looking inside! Fran can't believe it and for a while walks up and down outside, with her head in her hands whilst I am inside buying a few guitar picks just in case I get another chance of a spot in the Horizons Bar!

There are just so many brilliant sights in Rhodes that I can only cherry pick here. There are bars-cum-restaurants every second doorway and walking along is to accept a constant barrage of "Drink? Beer? Coffee?" even though they have just watched you turn down their neighbours. One was particularly insistant. "You say 'no' to Georges?" he said to Fran, "you say 'no' to Georges?!?" he can't seem to believe it. "Say 'no' just one more time!"
"No!!!!!!" says Fran forcefully. He gives up. Well she frightened me, never mind him...

Up at the top of the hill we came across a number of painted trees. This was quite clever, taking the unique shape of the tree and building on it. Another one had a cat chasing a mouse down the trunk.

The fortifications are evident everywhere. It as though the entire city is the fortress and certainly the Knights Hospitallers were able to withstand several invasion attempts and sieges.

It was hot. We went back down the hill and stopped for a drink at the same bar we had used on a previous visit. Just sitting with a long drink and watching people was entertainment enough! We had walked several miles and after the drink walked a few more before returning to almost the same table and flopping for a second time.

Later in the Horizon Bar I was glad to have found the music shop as Tomas and Maris very generously invited me up on stage again. So whilst others were going home with new clothes, trinkets and souvenirs, I brought back half a dozen Greek guitar picks!

I played Joe Brown's Picture of You at the end of one of Tomas and Maris's 6 sets for the night and we sat afterwards chatting with them until it was time for them to go on again.

The week had started with a generator fault. At 11:30pm when we were well out at sea, Tomas and Maris were halfway through a song when the sound and all the lights went out. The emergency lighting came on after a brief moment and then after about ten minutes waiting Tomas and Maris carried on singing without the aid of any amplification and accompanied with just the guitar. Then the intercom bell sounded the code for a Captain's announcement and his voice came over the speakers: "Good evening ladies and gentlemen. As you may have noticed..."

A generator, the same or another, had hiccupped and as a result all the earth breaker switches onboard had tripped. It would take a full hour to reset them all with the air conditioning taking precedence. Tomas and Maris played a brilliant set acoustically and then an officer appeared to reset the switch and bring the sound system online. I wondered how the Captain had made the announcement but Tomas explained that there were both 240 and 110 volt circuits onboard and whilst they were using one circuit, the main intercom was on the other. Only the one had blown.

With all systems restored and only a short distance to sail back to Marmaris, we put aside hopes of an enforced extra day's holiday! So tomorrow will see us back on a flight to England and rain!

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An Evening in Istanbul

Thursday, 19 August 2010. We are back on board the Thomson Celebration and looking over the side of the ship as dusk approaches.

This gives us our final view of the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque on the hill opposite the ship. It clearly shows the six minarets of the Blue Mosque. There is a story that when built, this was as many as the mosque at Mecca itself and that to avoid criticism the Sultan had a seventh minaret built in Mecca. Nice story but untrue - there was already a seventh minaret in Mecca at the time.

Another story, perhaps not so nice, concerns this tower, the Galata Tower. In circa 1630-1632, Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi strapped on some sort of false wings and flew or glided from this tower over the Bosphorus to the other side, nearly six kilometers (four miles) away. The story goes that the Sultan, far from being pleased that his country should be so advanced in scientific thought and example, was miffed at the thought that Çelebi was trying to be more important than himself and had him killed... The wings were thrown into the Bosphorus and it would be another few hundred years before anyone managed to do the same.

We went into the Horizons bar to listen to the superb sounds of entertainers Tomas and Maris. We managed to sit close by the stage this night and introduced ourselves and got to know them a little. Lovely people and a great sound. I knew I was going to come home to a weekend of 3 gigs with the band and joked to Tomas that I needed to borrow his guitar to keep my fingers hard - you can tell a guitarist by the layers of corn on the finger tips of the hand that fingers the neck and strings. He immediately grabbed my hand to look for the evidence and from that moment we were firm friends!

The ship was in port until 5:00am tomorrow so on leaving the Horizons bar about 11:00pm I collected the camera again and took a few more shots over the side. The Thomson Celebration (and its sister ship the Spirit) has a steady vibration that can be felt all over the ship - something to do with twin generators being out of synch with each other so we were told once. Anyway, it does make it almost impossible to take a long exposure photo and of a dozen or so, I only managed to get a few that are worth keeping.

Above is the bridge over the Bosphorus. It links the continents of Europe and Asia. Despite the hour it is still very warm and people are still sitting out on the rear decks. In fact on several nights we made the lower pool deck our final call before going to bed as we could sit there with a last mug of coffee and talk over the day or plan the next day. Very relaxing!

Just at the side of the ship over the roof of the port buildings was this mosque. I've no idea of its name or whether it is in any way important, but at night it looked spectacular with the floodlighting and the lights on the minarets.

Tomorrow, standing on deck I, along with many other passengers, will shed tears. But for now all is peace.

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