It was "exciting" right at the start. The ship had a damage to its hull when docking into the port in Heraklion (Capital of Crete) due to weather. This resulted in repairs, verification of safety from experts who flew in from Athens and hence delay in setting off for Santorini. As a result, in order to meet the itinerary for the next few days, the captain announced that we had to give Santorini a miss! Oh gosh! All of us were so looking forward to visiting Santorini, supposedly the most beautiful Greek island. That's a very piece of bad news right from the start! All this is beyond our control and we just have to resign to fate. What bad luck we had! =(
So the set off from Crete was delayed till about 7-8pm. This in turn resulted in a late arrival in Piraeus on the next day. We were supposed to reach at 7am but instead, reached at about 830am. By the time we disemarked and bargained with the taxi driver to bring us to and around Athens, left the taxi stand out into the peak hour traffic, we had only less than 2 hours for our shore excursion. In these 2 hours, we had to spend 35 mins each way on the road to and fro the port and visit the Athens sights in less than 30mins! Imagine our mood during this 2 hours. It was such a rushed 2 hours! We were really quite unhappy with the cruise line for arriving late and giving us only 2 hours for a visit to Athens. We were supposed to have 3 hours+ for a relaxing visit to Athens' Acropolis, Temple of Zeus, Roman Agora, Hadrian's Arch, etc but instead, the taxi driver became a race car driver and tour guide. He brought us to the sights where we stopped for 5 mins to take some photos and off we go to the next one! We didn't even go into the attractions but took photos outside! Sigh....really bad luck at the start of the cruise trip. =(
Fortunately, the rest of the cruise trip was more enjoyable and relaxing. =) On Day 5 afternoon, we reached Mykonos after setting sail from Piraeus at about noon. Mykonos is one of the typical Greek islands with sun drenched bare hills, whitewashed cubic houses, dazzling white chapels and windmills. There's a little area known as "Little Venice" because of it's high arcaded Venetian houses built right up to the water's edge. It was really a joy to walk along the coast with a beautiful sunset in view! This was one of the best shore excursion of the cruise. =) We totally enjoyed it!
On the cruise ship, Aegean Pearl.
At the Acropolis in Athens
In Mykonos
Day 6 morning, we docked at Kusadasi in Turkey! Time to visit the House of Virgin Mary and The Ephesus, an ancient city ruins. The ruins of Ephesus were very rocky but with quite amazing architecture and structure. Only 15% of the city ruins had been excavated and the rest are still underground! Wow! Imagine how big this place used to be! In the late afternoon, we reached Patmos, another Greek island and did a Scenic Island Tour. This excursion brought us to the Grotto of Apocalypse, Chora, a small medieval town and finally the small picturesque town of Skala for some free time. In Chora, the view of the Aegean Sea was breathtaking!
At The Ephesus in Kusadasi
Breathtaking views in Chora, Patmos
We spent the whole of Day 7 docked in Rhodes Island. The shore excursion we participated took us to the Rhodes town where we toured the medieval walls constructed by the St John's knights in the 13th century. Next, we climbed the 200+ steps up the the Acropolis of Lindos, set on the brink of precipice 400 ft above sea. The views from Acropolis was fantastic! We saw the great expanse of the Aegean Sea and St Paul's bay. At the top, we also saw the Temple of Athena. It was a tiring day with all that climbing!
View from Lindos Acropolis
Temple of Athena
I'm so tired from the climb up!
(PS: Daddy was carrying me all the way up! =p)
Finally on Day 8, we arrived at Crete again to wait for our night flight back to Amsterdam. We were pretty annoyed with ourselves for wasting time sitting around Heraklion doing nothing much while we could have sailed for Santorini for a one day visit. Alas, we only found out about this one day cruise at about 2pm that day and it was too late! =( So we were really fated not to visit Santorini this time. Sigh. =(
A fortress in Heraklion
Check out more of our photos here!
Day 5 - Athens and Mykonos
Day 6 - Kusadasi and Patmos
Day 7 - Rhodes
Day 8 - Heraklion
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