Homeward Bound

Dear friends, family and a few unspecified others:

On Friday we turned the corner in Kusadasi, Turkey, and are now heading west for the final time. We spent yesterday in Pireaus (Athens) and are at sea today on the way to our final port, Messina, Sicily, and then disembark Wednesday in Rome. We will stay there until Sunday, when we fly to Miami, and likely home on Monday.

This will be the last post, mostly because our camera crashed, but we also would be redundant with last year in reporting on Athens or Sicily. Unfortunately, the last pictures taken in Ephesus, Turkey, are trapped on the memory chip as we forgot to bring the adapter card for direct insertion into to the computer. (We've been using a USB connection, which will not work with a dead camera.) It must be a kind or irony that we would bookend the trip with picture problems, as you may remember the difficulty in posting any pictures at all to the blog in the beginning.

Our intent was to spark some smiles, provide information and the opportunity to reflect, or even provoke thought from time to time; we certainly enjoyed the process and hope you did as well.

The final pictures come from the quintessential Greek Island, Santorini. It lies in the southern stretches of the volcanic remains that form the broad expanse of islands lying between mainland Turkey and Greece, mostly belonging to Greece and hence the term, "Greek Islands."

As you may glean from the picture, the ship actually anchors in what was the crater between the eastern wall and the central lava cap.

The principal tourist city of Thira sits atop the remaining volcano wall.

There are three ways up there: shanks mule, a real mule (donkey), or a cable car. We went CUWD--cable up, walk down (you share the path with the donkeys.) After getting Linda to hold a monkey and ride a camel, a vertical of several hundred yards aboard a donkey was beyond the pale.

They did look friendly enough, though.

The main section of Thira, an iconic Greek Island town, whitewashed buildings, narrow streets and picture post card perfect on a sunny day, which we were fortunate enough to have.

Most published literature about Santorini features the blue church dome contrasting with the otherwise white and beige surroundings, and/or the clock tower beyond.

We wish we could do justice to Ephesus without relying on pictures, but too much would be lost. It was a second century BC town of about 250k population, at the time lying on the Aegean sea. (The sea is now about 10 miles distance due to silt filling in where water once was.) It is claimed to be the most well-preserved ruins in the world, but we feel Pompeii and a couple of others are at least competitive. Ephesus enjoys a particular fame since it was where the apostle Paul gave three sermons trying to convert the pagans, which earned him the local dungeon for his efforts. It is also strongly believed but not proven that the Virgin Mary's final resting place is on a nearby hillside. Perhaps we will do a brief post script post assuming we can rescue the pictures.

Meanwhile, we look forward to getting reacquainted with all of you after our four month sojourn!

John & Linda