A series of articles describing our experiences onboard the Ocean Village cruise ship 22-29 April 2010. The cruise was called Palaces and Pyramids and our itinerary was Heraklion, Crete > Day at Sea > Port Said, Egypt > Rhodes, Greece > Kusadasi, Turkey > Piraeus, Greece > Herklion, Crete.
Each article can be accessed by clicking / tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will return you to this index page.
A look at the Ocean Village cruise ship that we travelled on 22-29 April 2010.
Ocean Village seen in Rhodes port. Built in France and launched in 1988 as Sitmar FairMajesty, the Sitmar cruise line was bought by P&O cruises the same year and the ship was sold and sailed as Star Princess with Princess Cruises in 1989. In 1997 she sailed with P&O as MV Arcadia and when P&O's less formal brand Ocean Village was launched in 2003 she was named after the brand and was joined by Ocean Village Two on which we had sailed in 2009 up the Adriatic Sea.
Both ships were, despite being seen as a "cheap brand", very well equipped and furnished. Both had structures on the top deck for acrobatic and trapeze acts and these were also performed in the high atrium on both ships.
There was a modern coffee bar on the ground floor of the atrium, for the latte addicts. Coffee from here was not included as part of the usual food entitlement, but had to be paid for.
Reception was also to be found in the atrium.
The atrium rose to cover three decks and descending by stairs required you to walk to opposite ends of the atrium on each floor.
One of the main lounges. These featured entertainment at night.
Our cabin. Compared to cabins we had had on other ships you could have called it a stateroom. Apart from the double bed, we had a three-seater settee.
This was a handy place to read, listen to music or watch TV - something I have never done on a cruise and I'm not really sure why anyone would want to unless they have small children...
The balcony was small, but we hadn't expected to play tennis on it...
A lovely ship. 2019 addendum: Shortly after this cruise, the Ocean Village brand ceased operating. The ship transferred to P&O Cruises Australia, sailing as Pacific Pearl under which name she sailed until 2017 when she was sold to Cruise & Maritime Voyages for whom she is currently sailing as MV Columbus.
Saturday 24 April 2010. After our morning looking at the stepped pyramid of King Zoser, we were to head back to Cairo to see the famous pyramids at Giza.
We were surprised to see just how close to the outskirts of Cairo the pyramids really are. But before we get to see them up close we have a stop at a restaurant for lunch, together with several other coaches, each with their armed security guard. Ours was ok - he didn't speak English but was quick with the smiles and he went to sleep on the seat in front of us with his holstered gun sticking between the seats right in front of us. I could have drawn it far quicker than he could have...
I did the same trick again with the glasses - left my sunglasses on and the normal glasses on the coach. Therefore once in the fairly dark restaurant I stumbled about gathering weird buffet concoctions onto my plate - cheese with sardines and pasta with waiter's cleaning cloth... I managed in the toilets ok - someone screamed at one point but it was a chap, so I knew I'd gone in the right door...
Fran was chuckling when I came out. "One of those blokes with a gun just came out with wet streaks all down his trousers... here... don't rush me... What's the hurry?!?"
"Come on," I urged, "We don't want to miss the bus!"
Then onto Giza and the most famous pyramids of all. There are 140 plus pyramids dotted all over Egypt but how many of you could name them all and spell them correctly? Me neither...
Lots of camel jockeys, postcard and jewellery sellers, enthusiastic would-be guides. Most Brits make the mistake of saying a polite "No thanks..." which results in the invisible glue between yourself and your new best persuasive buddy getting stronger. Best way to avoid them is to ignore them totally. It's their culture. They find ours just as mystifying. "Hey if we just ignore them maybe they will come to us and ask to buy!" "Oh yeah, right, sure - I think your brain fell off with your fez!"
Luckily there are Tourist Police here to protect us. One saw Fran stumble and indicated a safer way down from a pile of rubble. Then he grabbed her arm and led her off away from me to look more closely at the stones of the Great Pyramid. I uttered an authoritative "Fran!" and he let go, cursing me that I'd realised he was about to charge around 20 euros for whatever insignificant fact he was about to impart... They are all at it!
There are three major pyramids here, the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops in the Greek) which is the only survivor of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, at its side that of his son Khafre, which is the one with the cap of facing stone still in place. Further to the side is the pyramid of Menkaure. Smaller pyramids at the base of the large ones are tombs of queens and princesses. All around are lesser tombs and mastaba of court officials and followers.
We wandered around the pyramids and piles of attendant rubble for a while until the colour of my shoes had changed to the colour of our surroundings. When it started to creep up my legs we headed back to the bus which was now about to head slightly down the hill to another ancient monument that I had wanted to see for a while.
The Sphinx pre-dates the pyramids by a couple of thousand years. It wasn't built to guard them at all but it is possible that they were built to be guarded by it. Not necessarily though - if you look at any Egyptian image of a bird, god, animal, or person it will be a profile - a sideways view. So the Sphinx is definitely not intended to be guarding the pyramid that sits right behind it.
Nor, apparently, was its nose shot off by Napoleon and his band of lager louts on their away tour through Europe. It was depicted in drawings as early as the 1300s AD with no nose. I was rather disappointed by the Sphinx I am sad to relate. For one thing the sun was behind it so it wasn't all that easy to see any detail on it - I've increased the contrast of the photo by several times to get it as clear as this. But also it's smaller than I imagined. The head is incredibly small for its body and it is thought by some that it did have a lion's head originally to match the body but that some lordly "Hey look at me, I'm a Pharaoh!" type such as Rameses II had the head re-whittled in his own image.
Guide, Manal demonstrates the flexibility of a papyrus stem prior to us being shown how the Egyptians made papyrus paper. Then it was back through the Cairo traffic. Ha! This has to be seen to be believed. And I thought it was bad in Naples or around the Arc De Triomphe roundabout in Paris!
Cairo traffic is a doozie! Almost as entertaining as the Pyramids themselves... And why did most pick-up trucks have either a couple of cows in the back or a pile of stuff reaching as high as a double-deck bus?
Once on the freeway on the way back to the port, a siren-blaring military-looking police van with three armed guards in the back waved us into the kerb and then led us in a convoy of coaches back through the traffic, which was stopped at every junction to let us through unimpeded. This apparently is a regular occurrence and has been for a number of years but when you're not expecting it is a bit of a facer. Fran described it as "a bit scary" but the armed escort on the seat in front of me didn't seem worried and the guards in the back of the open truck in front looked bored so I wasn't too bothered. Although if they had marched us off to a brick wall whilst handing out blindfolds, our friend in the seat in front would probably have just joined them and taken aim...
We got back to the port and ignored the vendors wanting to sell us more souvenirs. "Two Euros for you all to go back to England!" muttered one as a joke for his mate. They'd had a long day at the port. "Ten!" I tossed back, wittily...
Wednesday 28 April 2010. We dock in the port of Piraeus, Greece. The Gateway to Athens.
The Ocean Village is berthed next to Costa Victoria which I presume is fairly new to the Costa line as it was the first time we had seen her.
It was window cleaning day on the Costa Victoria - fancy that as a job? We have been to Athens before and therefore were planning on just having another day walking around the area of the port. Lots of taxi drivers touting for business with some bizarre conversations as they saw it...
"Taxi? You English? You want to go to Athens?"
"No we're just going to walk..."
"What?" said in an astonished tone of voice, "it's 10 kilometres!!!"
The port itself is huge. We walked around about 2 and a half sides of it then retraced our steps and that took 2 hours solid walking. But it's a pleasant walk. We stayed on the side of the port only crossing roads wherever there was an entrance to the port. There are trolley buses here - a sight I just about remember in Manchester as a boy, though the Manchester trolley buses were double deckers.
The main road was fierce with traffic and even crossing the port entrances - even when the little green man was lit(!) - was not always straightforward. Whilst the green pedestrian man is lit, the main traffic lights still allow traffic to turn right into the road you think is safe to cross!
There were a lot of big ships in the harbour, at least one other cruise ship, the Silver Whisper, and a row of four liner-sized ferry ships.
The path we walked on was separated from the main road by a screen of bushes and trees and there were few people wandering about. More or less the only ones we saw struck up a conversation with a hesitant "Excuse me - do you speak English?"
"Eengleeesh? Ah yesss, I speeek Eengleesh!" I answered in my best Mexican bandit accent (see any spaghetti western for examples) "We come from Blackpool...!"
Oh look! Little red toilet brushes on a bush!
When we returned to the ship, the Ocean Village was being refuelled. Access to balconies on that side was forbidden due to the risk of fumes. Luckily we were on the other side! So we spent our final afternoon once more on the cabin balcony, reading, listening to music, my iPod safely tucked in my shirt breast pocket for safety! (see the entry for Rhodes)
Tomorrow we would return to England from Crete but it had been a relaxing holiday which was what was needed. In fact I was on my fourth book of the week. After three of the Bolitho series by Alexander Kent (only I could spend a week at sea reading about sea battles...) I had started the third in the Jason Bourne series, The Bourne Ultimatum.
There's one more article in this series to come and in that we'll take a look at the Ocean Village herself.
Tuesday 27 April 2010. We docked in Kusadasi, Turkey and joined the second of our two excursions of the week from the Ocean Village Palaces and Pyramids cruise. This was a tour we had done before as a full day last year, but we were doing a half-day version today, visiting the Virgin Mary's house and the city of Ephesus.
The Virgin Mary's house is a 6th or 7th century AD reconstruction on top of 1st century AD foundations which are marked on the side of the building with a red line. All the evidence for this simple building being the last residence of this most venerated Lady is given in my blog entry of our previous visit, but however sceptical you are, it is fairly compelling if only for the reason that there was a church to the Virgin Mary here since a very early time, when dedications could only be made to saints who had lived in proximity to the church.
It was a fairly dull day to begin with. In fact on our arrival at Ephesus it started to rain just as we had entered the city with a full hour's walk ahead of us. It only rained for five minutes though and the wetness soon evaporated.
Again, there is an entry in the blog of a previous visit which you can read in conjunction with this one. It was an ancient city even when the Romans came and virtually rebuilt it. It housed the Roman world's third largest library and is so well documented that we know the names of its streets. This is Curetes Street and it leads downhill towards the Library of Celcus and the great theatre of Ephesus.
It was lined with shops and temples. This is the Gate of Hercules. On the left hand pillar he is pictured holding the head of the Nemean lion. No ordinary lion, it's fur could stop any sword and its claws could cut through armour. Hercules kills it as told in the legend of the First Labour of Hercules. Stunning it with a blow from his club, he strangled it with his bare hands then skinned it, using one of its own claws - his knife unable to pierce the pelt which he later wore as his armour. In fact there actually once did exist a sub-species of lion that lived in south eastern Europe!
This mosaic floor shows how well preserved some of the remains are. Whilst the structures have had to be recreated using fallen stone, this flooring is virtually intact and is still home to this little chap, who demonstrates how lions have shrunk over the centuries...!
This is the Temple of Hadrian - the same Hadrian who had the wall built across the north of Britain.
The impressive but reconstructed front of the Library of Celcus faced East so that the reading rooms were lit by the morning sun. Directly opposite this (so behind my back as I took this photograph) was the brothel... Hence the saying "Just popping out for a read at the library, love! I'll be a good hour or so because the Gazette's got an exclusive article about Ephesus United and their chances in the play-off against Alexandria Rovers..."
The Library of Celcus was the third biggest library of the Roman world after Rome itself and Constantinople. It contained over 12,000 scrolls. Many is the man who returned from the library and brothel, fending off the wife with the phrase, "Not tonight, Love - I think I've got the scrolls..."
By turning to my right and walking down Marble Street we arrive at the magnificent theatre. Seating 24,000 spectators, it was the site of sermons by both Apostles St John and St Paul and was the site of the Riot of the Silversmiths, described in the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible. Marble is a slippery surface to walk on. I stood on a sloping piece and my sandalled foot slid forward quickly only coming to a stop when my second toe collided with the edge of another solid chunk of marble... Several people went "Ooh..." but let me tell you, dear readers, that their sympathy was lost on me just for the moment...!
Leading between the theatre and the harbour (which has silted up - the sea is now 6 miles away) is the Arcadian Way or Harbour Street, an 11-metre wide thoroughfare along which many notables of the time must have walked or ridden. Mark Anthony and Cleopatra walked hand in hand down the road, but there again, so did I and Fran! And strangely none of the guidebooks mention that!
We returned to the port and I quickly declined the attempts to wave us into a carpet shop for a demonstration (hard sell) and Turkish hospitality (which you are asked to pay for afterwards...)
Monday 26 April 2010. We sail into the harbour at Rhodes.
This is another of the sites of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Colossus of Rhodes was a giant statue of the god Helios. He held a bow in one hand, a torch in the other and straddled the entrance to the harbour, with a foot on either side so that ships had to pass between his legs. He had an expression that said "Mind that mast! MIND THAT MAST!!!"
The statue was built of iron and brass between 292 BC and 280 BC and survived all of 56 years before an earthquake brought it tumbling, the statue breaking at the knees and then falling into pieces as it fell. I've used dates from Greek sources here as Wikipedia unhelpfully and somewhat confusingly says that it was built "between 304 and 293 BC, which took 12 years and was completed in 282 BC"...? There was no sign of it as we sailed in, perhaps just as well, as the statue would surely have closed its eyes and gulped at the sight of a mast standing 12 storeys tall... In fact the rubble stayed in the harbour, a hazard to shipping for an amazing 800 years before it was sold for scrap and taken away on the backs of 400 camels.
Even without a gigantic man's gigantic dangly bits dangling gigantically over our heads, the approach to Rhodes is impressive. The Knights Hospitallers came here to avoid the persecution of the Knights Templars in 1307 and built impressive defences which were to become the most solid Christian fortifications of their time.
The city is only a short walk from the harbour and we had elected to make our own way again rather than book an excursion. We found ourselves in a procession of cruisers, skirting the city wall to a convenient gate into the streets of the city.
The medieval city is so well preserved it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and justifiably so.
It was a joy to walk through the streets of the city, which are light, airy and interspersed with occasional piazzas, the greenery of trees and plenty of street cafes and bars where you can just sit and people watch with a glass of something cool or warm as to your taste.
We are inside the city but the towers of one of the main gateways can be seen over the roofline of the Greek steak house that also offers pizza and spaghetti and all sorts of other traditional Greek fare... er…
We found a table at the cafe on the left - which was the same as the cafe on the right - and happily spent 40 minutes or so just letting the mind detach.
There were plenty of craftware on sale in shops from finely embroidered linen to leather goods (Fran as an ex-leatherworker can never resist stopping to just sniff in the rich aroma of leather - it's a fetish I've yet to exploit, but who knows...)
The connection with the Knights Hospitallers is acknowledged in the presence of several shops selling swords, armour and other goods that are likely to be confiscated by customs or ship's security personnel.
This was a very relaxed day and we had the luxury of not being tempted to try to see everything as there is another trip to the area in the offing later in the year and I want to go up to see the remains at the Acropolis of Rhodes then.
For now we retrace our steps back to the gate through the walls and stop to buy the inevitable fridge magnet (I can just about remember when the fridge was white...)
We sat on our balcony for the afternoon and I listened to music on my i-Pod before taking the headphones off and almost falling asleep. The thing that stopped me was the iPod slipping from my grasp and hitting my shin which deflected it to cleverly miss the railings of the balcony and shoot straight off the side of the ship... I grabbed the headphones at the last minute and somehow, unbelievably, the headphone plug didn't come out of the socket. I was a bit aghast with relief as I brought the i-Pod safely up and back onto the balcony! Otherwise someone on the dock below might have been brain damaged by music...
