Valletta, Malta is one of the prettiest ports we've sailed into. Today was a beautiful day, making for great pictures. We had thought we'd take the Hop On Hop Off bus, but the route covers the island and not the old city, so we decided to walk around as we had done on a prior visit. It was a good choice -- the old city is a treat.
Sail in with the early morning sun. Lots of churches in the old city.
The city is up the hill from the port. Not as bad as Santorini, but a good hike. Fortunately, they've recently built an elevator that lifts you up to the main level of the city. Well worth the 1 euro round trip fare.
View of the harbor from the elevator plaza .
Nautica tied up just a few hundred meters from the elevator.
Unique shutters. They open up for air circulation but still provide shade when the sun is high.
St. John's Co-Cathedral
The streets are narrow and the buildings are tall. It's tough to take a picture of the building facades in Valletta.
Sail away took place in the late afternoon with golden light, only from the west this time.
Sorry to leave
I know it's been a long time since I last posted, but I have reasons (excuses).
After a string of days in port we have a day at sea so we can recover. It was a day that allowed me to catch up with all of the photos from the days before. Cruise Director Julie scheduled a couple of events to fill the rest of the day. In the morning was a Country Fair, a chance for people to play some games and participate in a lottery for cheap prizes.
Most games were vaguely carnival-like. Toss a ring around a bottle. You don't win the liquor, you win a raffle ticket that might allow you to win a discount on a spa treatment.
Every departments hosts a game -- the casino, of course, plays blackjack -- for raffle tickets.
Even the captain came to see the action. He did NOT sponsor a game where you attempted to steer the ship between a pair of buoys.
Julie
Assistant Cruise Director and best singer on the production cast, Lisa Jean.
Julie is always on stage
Part of the lunch offering. I prefer mine further processed into bacon.
The afternoon brought a High Tea in the Nautica Lounge. Lots of deserts, some with a Greek theme.
Not much of a story to tell about Santorini since we stayed aboard the ship. Several reasons for doing so: Santorini is a tender port, so you have to load into boats to ferry to shore. The main city, Thera, is on the side of a cliff so you need to get up to the top somehow. You can take the cable car, a donkey, walk the donkey path, or a ship's excursion which goes to the dock that the buses can access. You still have to get back down, and that's cable car or donkey/path.
There were 3 other ships, all with 2K+ pax each drifting around in the caldera. (Santorini is the remains of an exploded volcano. The water is too deep to anchor so everybody maintains position with their engines.) And, after climbing to the acropolis in Lindos we had sore knees, so no desire to hike around on cobblestones and steep hills.
First stop is off the port of Athenios, where the buses can get down to sea level.
Here's what the buses have to contend with. You can see the switch backs above.
Then we reposition closer to Thera. If you look at the picture full size you can see the donkey trail switch backs and even the cableway just to the left of the trail.
Santorini supplies their own tenders. All the locals get to take part in the cruise ship gravy train.
Just a pretty picture of a sailboat in the caldera.
A closeup of the modes of transit up and down.
The upper end of the cable car run. At about 3-4pm, with 3 of the ships scheduled to leave about 5pm, the line for the cable car was 1.5 hours long. Nautica didn't leave until 11pm, so smart Oceania travelers waited until 5pm to get in the 10 minute line.
Panorama of Santorini
Same picture as above, but taken just after sunset. The clouds still have color but the lights are coming on in the buildings.
Oceania is celebrating 15 years. This is the standard cocktail napkin used everywhere. As such it has become the topic of conversation, as one does when conversing in a setting where cocktail napkins are used. With the help of the Oceania Club Ambassador and the Food and Beverage Director, we've named them all.
But now to the bigger discussion: How and why were they chosen? Fourteen in total, but four in Japan! Several are in places that even the Oceania R-class ships can't get to, like Agra, Berlin and Moscow. To be fair, Oceania does offer overland trips to all of the named locations if the ship can't pull right up next to it. But why so much Japan? In 2020 the Around The World cruise will visit at least 9 Japanese ports, several of them for the first time. Perhaps O's marketing department is pushing the Far East.
The main activities for the Kushadasi port are visiting the ancient port city of Ephesus and purchasing Turkish rugs. Since this was our 3rd visit to this Turkish port and we don't need rugs, we took the Oceania excursion to Miletus and Didyma, in keeping with the theme of this cruise: old ruins.
Arrival in Kushadasi, grey warships and pastel houses
The city of Miletus dates back to the 19th century BC. Most of the ruins are from the Greek and Roman periods. Here's the Roman stadium.
The Roman baths
Our guide did not translate this sign, just outside the entrance to the baths. One of our fellow tourists suggested that it said, "Men on the left, women on the right."
İlyas Bey Külliyesi from 1403 at the edge of the Miletus site. In this context, a very new Mosque.
Not sure why these building pieces were lying in the creek near the bus pickup point.
Didyma temple and Oracle of Apollo. You went here to get your questions answered. The priests who interpreted the Oracle's response were quite clever in phrasing the replies so that whatever happened, they could assert it was the correct prediction.
After the hot temple, a refreshing beverage, orijinal tat.
Part of the gift shop outside the oracle
Miletus was a port city in antiquity and is now several kilometers inland. The Meander river (and it does meander) deposits a meter of new shoreline every year, more or less.
Typical of most house roofs we saw. Water heaters and dish tv.
The city is up the hill from the port. Not as bad as Santorini, but a good hike. Fortunately, they've recently built an elevator that lifts you up to the main level of the city. Well worth the 1 euro round trip fare.
View of the harbor from the elevator plaza .
Nautica tied up just a few hundred meters from the elevator.
Unique shutters. They open up for air circulation but still provide shade when the sun is high.
St. John's Co-Cathedral
The streets are narrow and the buildings are tall. It's tough to take a picture of the building facades in Valletta.
Sail away took place in the late afternoon with golden light, only from the west this time.
Sorry to leave
