Ottoman Treasures Cruise 16-23 August 2010

Highlights of a week cruising the Aegean Sea on the Thomson Celebration cruise ship. The itinerary is Marmaris, Turkey > Day at Sea > Istanbul, Turkey > The Dardanelle Straits > Kusadasi, Turkey > Rhodes, Greece. Excursions include the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul; the Basilica and tomb of the Apostle, St John and the village of Sirince in Turkey, and an independent wander around Rhodes town.

Each place of interest is shown on its own separate article, reached by clicking/tapping the photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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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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A Village Called Sirince, A Bar Called Horizons

Saturday, 21 August 2010. The coach leaves St John's Basilica and takes us to a small village called Sirince, pronounced Seh-RIN-jay.

We visit the Artemis Restaurant where we are given a glass of wine and a pancake stuffed with spinach. Apart from being just a little dry, the pancake was lovely. The wine was produced in the village which has been producing wine for quite a while.

Sirince is one of those villages that exchanged populations with Greece after the First World War.

The Greeks who lived here went to a village in Greece and that village's Turks came back to Turkey to live here.

There's some debate as to whether it was the Orthodox Christian Greeks or the returning Turks who instigated the wine making but the Turks either started or continued it and we sampled it and honestly couldn't tell whether it was Greek or Turkish in flavour... The restaurant cat - or it may have been a stray - purred as it brushed past me under the table and clawed the leg of the woman sitting opposite...

Sirince is one of those places where you wonder how they all make a living if not for tourists. I suspect many of the inhabitants work in Selcuk but the main street is a row of shops or stalls selling clothes, baskets and all sorts of stuff that I never ever buy on holiday... Actually if all tourists are like me, then it's to be hoped the majority of the population have a job in Selcuk!

Even the local road train only had one carriage. We had a couple of old ladies sitting opposite us on the coach and they reminded us a lot of Sadie and Joan who we met on an Island Star cruise. They were skilled experts at haggling to the point of making loud disapproving sucking noises if anyone else was in danger of paying too much! We waited in the hot sun for the coach to come back to pick us up. The locals were mainly sitting in the shade or having a siesta and probably thought us all mad...

A row of catering size tins, once containing cooking oil held a row of sunflowers.

That night in the Horizons bar we again sat to enjoy the music of Tomas and Maris - 2 Intense. At the end of one set Tomas brought the guitar off stage and gave it to me. The nylon-strung classical guitar felt nothing like my Fender Stratocaster, but I ran through the opening riff to Johnny B Goode and then dropped into Concrete and Clay whilst becoming aware that tables around us had gone quiet to listen.

"Come up and do one at the end of the next set," said Tomas. The end of the set came really quickly and as I was called up on stage, Fran realised our camera was still in the cabin and dashed off to get it! Talk about support - as I take the stage she runs out of the room!!! Once on stage I'm realising another challenge. Tomas did not use a strap or a guitar pick. My fingernails are not long enough so I had to strum and pluck with my finger ends. Also his legs are longer than mine. So whilst sitting on the stool Tomas's thigh is horizontal and supporting the guitar whereas mine is sloping down and the guitar wants to slide away from me!

So I play Concrete and Clay and am rewarded with a large burst of applause from the room. I thank Tomas and Maris - who has been keeping time, playing an egg-sized rhythm shaker throughout without even knowing the song! During the break between sets someone comes up to say how much they enjoyed my song and that I should go on again... Ooh aye! Feed the ego!!!

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In the Steps of St John the Apostle

Saturday, 21 August 2010. The Thomson Celebration is in Kusadasi, Turkey. The main tour of the day will be going to the ancient city of Ephesus, but having been there twice already (links to relevant blog entries at the end) we are today going to see the remains of the basilica and the tomb of St John the Apostle who came to live here and perhaps wrote his gospel here.

Moored on the opposite side of the wharf was a huge cruise ship of the Celebrity-X line. A Turkish dance troupe was doing their stuff on the dockside, but I'm not sure whether they were for the other ship or for us or perhaps weren't all that bothered and would do their stuff for anyone who showed an interest...

And before I get loads of emails asking about that really weird hat the chap in red is wearing, if you look again a bit more closely you'll see that it is a woman standing behind him! Her sleeve is the same colour as the ship and even I looked twice when I saw it! Looks a bit like a fish with a bird's legs standing on his head...

So we lump ourselves onto a coach and sit looking bemused at the staggering amount of people who seem unable to understand the need to find a bus marked with their own ship's name or the correct number before our guide decides he's got enough of us to go and we set off on our semi-biblical morning.

The first stop is at the golden statue of the Virgin Mary on the hillside leading to her house, which again we have visited before and the links are below, should you be interested. The statue was the gift of an American Society and that's as much as I had an interest in knowing before the marvellous views over the steep drop on the other side of the road took my attention. No doubt the guide told the rest of the bus load the date it was built, the material, the weight, how many mules it took to bring it up the hill etc...

But I had found something else to look at and it was a sight missed by the vast majority of those whose attention was making the guide think "Hey, these dates are really grabbing them! I must look up some more for later on in the tour..."

On the hillside opposite is the Odeion or Small Theatre close to the entrance to Ephesus. It was built as a council chamber aound 150 BC and was originally roofed and seats 1400 people. The city of Ephesus continues to the left and then round away from our viewpoint around the edge of the hill against which the Odeion is built. Hey up! They are all heading back towards the bus! There's only three of us have bothered to look this way.

The Basilica of St John was built over the remains of a first century AD temple around 530 AD by Emperor Justinian, who you may remember from an entry of a few days ago, was also building Hagia Sophia and the water cistern at Istanbul at the time.

This is a partially reconstructed wall to give some idea of how the basilica may have looked. I'd recommend a visit to the Sacred Destinations web site for anyone interested in reading further. They also have a photograph of a model of how the basilica once looked.

There were several rebuilds of the city of Ephesus. The first city was on top of the hill on which the basilica stands, in the heart of what now is a ruined fortress. The famous ruined city we visit today is the third city and the modern one, close to this hill, is now called Selçuk.

The Tomb of St John the Apostle. The central dome of the basilica was placed over the tomb. A small grating can be seen to the left of the photo. Behind this again is a rectangular grated hole with steps leading down, presumably into the chamber of the tomb. St John is the only one of the saints whose body has never been claimed by any church. The legend is that on entering his tomb whilst alive, an intense light prevented the other apostles from following him. When the light dissipated, so had all sign of him. Just a dust was left, floating in the tomb. Manna... The tomb was opened in the reign of Constantine the Roman Emperor. No body or relics were found.

The size of the basilica was such that if still standing it would today be the seventh largest basilica in the world. It fell into ruin with the decline of Ephesus and was converted to a mosque in 1330 only to be completely destroyed in 1402 by the Mongol horde of Timur or Tamerlane who had conquered almost as much of the world as Alexander and was likewise termed "the Great". He had been through Delhi and Moscow and was on his way back from Persia when he passed this way and the story goes that the Ephesians were so nervous they sent all their children to process out of their open gates, singing. Tamerlane is reported as saying "What is this noise?" and then commanded his nomadic horse warriors to ride down and kill the children under the hooves of their charging mounts. There is no way to play down the horror of that act.

Some ancient wall paintings depicting saints are on display in situ - in a small room, almost a cave. However they can only be seen from inside and you are not allowed in. To facilitate viewing a large mirror has been placed on the rear wall but in reality, all you see is your reflection - silhouetted against the bright doorway whilst all the surrounding detail is pitch dark by comparison. I took a photo but only saw the painting on the left once we were home and I had fiddled for quite a while with Photoshop! The painting on the right can vaguely be seen, but the head is obliterated by the glare of the reflected doorway.

Recent excavations have revealed this baptismal pool.

From the basilica site you can look down to an earlier site. The Temple of Artemis was one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Destroyed by earthquakes and looted for building materials there are just a few scattered stones and one reconstructed pillar. A link to a previous visit is below.

Previous related entries from this blog:

Turkish Delights
The Awe-Inspiring Ephesus
The House of the Virgin Mary
The Temple of Artemis

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The Dardanelles Straits and Gallipoli

Friday, 20 August 2010. The Thomson Celebration spends another day at sea. We spend the day reading. Er... I mean we pound ten times around the Promenade Deck and then when we've worked a sweat up we visit the gym for some gruelling workouts. Well... perhaps it was reading after all...

Around 4:00pm we are passing through the Dardanelles Straits. As we approached the Gallipoli peninsular many passengers gathered on the Promenade and upper decks and the Cruise Director began a commentary over the tannoy which covered both the naval actions during the Crimean and the costly action during World War One. The photo shows the Turkish monument to the fallen.

It bears this inscription from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: "Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side in this country of ours. You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears, your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they become our sons as well."

The commentary was very moving. The landscape we looked on so bare and so obviously capable of being heavily defended. The commentary included the words of the song "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", written by Eric Bogle in 1972 after watching a parade of veterans.

When I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said: Son,
It's time to stop rambling, there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When the ship pulled away from the quay
And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers
We sailed off for Gallipoli

It well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in five minutes flat, we were all blown to hell
He nearly blew us back home to Australia

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again

Oh those that were living just tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
I never knew there was worse things than dying

Oh no more I'll go Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind and the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity

And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
When they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away

Now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Renewing their dreams of past glories
I see the old men all tired, stiff and worn
Those weary old heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But year after year, their numbers get fewer
Someday, no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
So who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me? - Eric Bogle

The British memorial. Our tears fell to the memories of those thousands of casualties, whether British, Australians and New Zealanders or Turkish.

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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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