Update no.803B

Update from the Heartland

No.803B

1.5.17 – 21.5.17

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

            Update no.803B – This is travelogue installment two of four.

Day 3

At sea:

Tuesday, 9.May.2017:

            We did indeed sleep in . . . well I did relative to my usual routine, but Jeanne really did . . . 10 hours worth for her.  All this touring, walking and stair climbing is exhausting, don’t’cha know.  We dressed (after all, this was not a nude cruise) and went up to the Lido Deck for a very nice breakfast.

            I purchased a ticket for the first of several wine tasting events to begin at 11:15 [B] in Sabatini’s ristorante on board.  For those who may be interested, here is the wine selection for this particular session:

1.  “Nicholas Feuillatte” Brut Reserve Champagne (France) –

2.  Savignon Blanc Nobilo (New Zealand) –

3.  Chardonnay Simi (United States [California]) –

4.  Protea (South Africa) –

5.  Don Maximiano Cabernet Sauvignon (Chile) –

6.  Brunello di Montalcino (Italy) –

I added the dashes with the intention of offering my assessment of each wine.  Then, I concluded, who the hell am I to be passing judgment on fine wines.  At the end of the day, they were all excellent and unique.  With the selection of offered canapés, I do believe they made the case for white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat.  I also figured out by practical demonstration why the crew wanted the time zone switch early, during our day at sea in transit.  An attractive young woman showed up nearly an hour into the crew’s 90-minute presentation.  She volunteered that she had forgotten to turn her clocks forward last night as instructed and missed the start time.  She managed to catch up on the wine, but passed on the unique canapés.  LOL.  Case made!

            Our movement plan called for transiting the Strait of Messina, beginning at 17:15 [B], which is unfortunately across our scheduled suppertime.  Man oh man, our timing is just off on this cruise.  C’est la vie!  Fortunately, Jeanne indulged my penchant for history, so I dressed early (suit & tie, formal night) and went topside to observe the transit.  I learned from the ship’s captain that a mandatory pilot was required for the transit of the narrowest portion of the strait, which has a hook to the east to the very northern end of the passage.  I tried to get a decent image to portray the straight, but none of those images taken were sufficiently descriptive to warrant taking up precious time and space, so these sparse words shall have to suffice.

Day 4

Katakolo (Katakolon; Olympia), Pyrgos, Elis, Peloponnesus, Hellenic Republic (Greece):

Wednesday, 10.May.2017:

            Katakolo is a small fishing village with a substantial breakwater, and they apparently invested in large ship docking provisions.  We were the largest ship docked there on this particular day, and we could only get the port side forward half of the ship dockside.  Two other medium size cruise ships were also docked near us on the same day.

            The primary visitation site for this port call, beyond the small fishing village, was the equally small village of Olympia, where the original Olympic games began.  The first games were reportedly held in 776 BC to honor Zeus – the king of all gods.  A 42x20-foot statue of Zeus in gold and ivory occupied the Temple of Zeus completed in 456 BC.  The games were held every 4^th solar year in July and August, and included running, wrestling, javelin and discus throwing, the long jump, horse & chariot racing and boxing.  Only men were allowed in the compound; women and children were strictly prohibited.  An oath of peace was required of all participants and it was reportedly strictly enforced; the punishment for violation was death.  Also, anyone caught cheating in competition was heavily fined, and those monies used to construct a bronze statue to Zeus, displayed along with the name of the offender and his offense, as a reminder to all athletes to play fair; eleven of those statues sat on short pedestals at the entrance to the stadium – lest they ever forget.

Stadium at Olympia

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This is the stadium used for the ancient Olympic game.  We were told the grassy slopes had no seats per se and the stadium held upwards of 40,000 spectators.  The red arrow marks Jeanne’s location on the field of competition.  I took the image at the top of the spectator slope.

Jeanne at Olympic Stadium

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The majority of people gathered on the stadium floor are standing near a line of stones in the earth that was the starting line for races.  Among those people was our lovely lady, who was probably saying, “What the heck is he doing up there?”  If you look closely behind Jeanne in the image immediately above, you can see the starting line stones.  Anyway, back to our story, the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius ordered the Olympic games disbanded and the site destroyed in 426 AD, since it was a pagan ritual site and not consistent with his Christian beliefs and the games were conducted completely naked (anatomical modesty was becoming the norm); 700 years of history gone in a fit of religious fervor.  Earthquakes and floods completed the destruction and burial of the site by the 6^th century.  The site lay buried under the accumulated earth until it was rediscovered in 1766 by the English archeologist Richard Chandler; however, the first excavation was not begun until 1829, by French archeologists.  The excavation to its present state was not completed until 2013.  The modern Olympic Games were not initiated until 1896.  Since the 1936 (Berlin) Games, the Olympic torch has been lit by the sun, using a polished metal parabola, in the remnants of the Temple of Hera at Olympia, and the flame of peace relayed by successive runners to the site of the modern games.  A rather nice museum of recovered artifacts from the various excavations of the site offered us a glimpse of days long gone past.

Day 5

Mykonos, Cyclades, Hellenic Republic (Greece):

Thursday, 11.May.2017:

            We decided to slow down and not to engage one of the ship’s planned shore excursions.  Instead, we let all the hub-bub of the early morning dissipate, had a nice leisurely breakfast, and then departed the ship to explore the town on our own.  We docked at the ferry pier away a couple of miles from the town and took a shuttle bus to the village of Mykonos.

MV Royal Princess at Mykonos

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I offer an annotated image of our ship docked at Mykonos for those who might be curious.  The red arrow points to our stateroom for this voyage.  Jacqueline Lee Bouvier ‘Jackie’ Kennedy Onassis reportedly made the island famous when she took a shine to the island.  Cruise ships, from small to massive, occupied the harbor, along with this rather impressive yacht –

Cruising for the Super Rich

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Ah yes, the lifestyles of the rich and famous, don’t’cha just love it.  We also had a sail cruise ship with rather interesting rigging for those of us intrigued by nautical things.

Cruise Ship under Sail

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We took a shuttle bus to the edge of town and walked the rest of the way.  Just a little FYI: we have done a lot of walking and stair climbing on this adventure – great exercise, actually.  As we approached the beachfront promenade of Mykonos, we came across this character.

A Man and his Octopi

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The man had a half dozen octopi draped in the rigging and held one for the delight of the myriad tourists passing by.  He was actually a very colorful advertisement for the first restaurant just around the corner; the boat sat on stone blocks and had not been to sea in many years.  We were also impressed by how white everything was, and then we came across this young woman.

Young Woman Painting

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She appears to be whitewashing the grout between the stones, but actually she is refreshing the paint on concrete to make it look like cobblestones – part of the ambiance, I suppose.  We had heard stories about a massive pelican that inhabited the village.  We never did find the bird; however, one of the ladies at a neighboring dining room table chanced across the bird and snapped a ‘pic’ for all of us to marvel at during dinner.  Then, as if to celebrate this day’s port call, we watched the movie “Jackie” in our stateroom.  Natalie Portman gave a smashing performance as Jacqueline Beauvais, portraying the days after her husband’s assassination from her perspective.  The movie was very well done, especially for such a difficult topic.

Day 6

Santorini, Cyclades, Hellenic Republic (Greece):

Friday, 12.May.2017:

            We took another self-tour day.  By the time we had breakfast, actually brunch, and went ashore, the ship was practically deserted, except for the crew.  The island archipelago in the Southern Cyclades is most intriguing for geological rather than anthropological reasons.  The archipelago as it is today was formed by a massive volcanic eruption in 1650 BC.  The harbor today is the remnants of the caldera of that eruption.  The small island of Kameni (Old Burnt) appeared after further smaller eruptions in 157 AD; the island boasts hot springs to this day, warmed by the areas volcanic past.  The village of Fira serves as the capital of the archipelago and sits atop the rim of the caldera.  It was difficult to take a meaningful image to portray the geologic arrangement.  The following will have to suffice for this humble journal.

Fira, Santorini

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The brilliant white of virtually every building blends in with the light blue sky on the ridgeline, so this image does not do the city justice.  That is the railing of our stateroom balcony in the foreground.  The foot and donkey path zig-zagging from the boat landing to the village on the rim is not so easy to see in this image – it is just to the left of center on the caldera cliff.  The cable car lift is the straight line at the left-center of the image, to the left of the donkey path.  We elected to take the cable car up and down.

Jeanne at Fira, Santorini

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Behind Jeanne is the Royal Princess at anchor and the best shot I could get of the three islands at the center of the caldera – Palaia (larger, closer island), Kameni (the dark sliver just to the left of center of Palaia), and Aspronisi (the smallest island beyond, above the center).  Aspronisi is actually at the western passage to the harbor.  There is a lighter, conical, volcanic deposit to right of center of Palaia that appears to be comparatively recent in geologic terms.

            We had a perfect table for two at the early seating for evening meals.  The table was at the very stern of the ship with a nice big porthole (window) behind us.

Jeanne & Cap

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Our adjacent tablemates took the happy snap of us and for us.  We were still in port and did not depart on time.  The captain said they were waiting on a shore party to return – an oddity I am not familiar with in my nautical experience.

            As we were weighing anchor, the captain indicated our route to Kotor would pass just south of Cape Matapan.  Being the novice historian that I am, the captain’s note reminded me of the Battle of Cape Matapan (27/29.March.1941) – the largest fleet action in European waters during World War II.  The Royal Navy defeated the Italian Regia Marina.  The key was a decoded Enigma message that simply said, “Today is the day minus three.”  Combined with other information, the message indicated to Admiral Cunningham exactly when the Italian fleet would sortie from their anchorage at Taranto.  The Royal Navy was waiting for them, as they used their intelligence perfectly with devastating results.

Day 7

At sea:

Saturday, 13.May.2017:

            I was finally able to sit out on our balcony and write – a smidge too cool on previous days.  I listened to the waves and Beethoven’s exquisite music, while I watched the sunrise over a nearly full moon.  The sea is so peaceful . . . well, except 76 years ago.  I am caught up on the cruise journal and I am nearly finished with the first draft of chapter 15 of TSF6 – Deflection.  One more chapter to go before I jump into editing draft two.  It was a good day of writing for me.  A strange sort of hazy day kept the sun from being quite so ‘Mediterranean’ brilliant, but that did not stop Jeanne from laying out, baking herself.  I even got in a nice nap in the afternoon.

            We had our last formal dinner night of this cruise.  Jeanne was absolutely gorgeous in an apricot, sheer, lacy, long dress. 

Our Lovely Lady

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We enjoyed lobster and king prawns for our main course.  Jeanne had a blueberry frozen parfait custard, and I had a delightful pistachio custard covered in a very nice chocolate.

            There are always myriad things to do onboard cruise ships like the Royal Princess.  It is only a matter of choice.  By happenstance, we listened to an interview of British violinist Chris Watkins on the ship’s morning television talk show.  This night, we decided to listen to Watkins play his signature Yamaha electronic ‘silent’ violin.

Chris Watkins

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Watkins performed in perpetual motion.  Despite many attempts, this is the best image I could get with my iPhone.  The sound quality was impressive, and his skill with the instrument was nothing short of astounding.  Watkins’ performances are apparently in high demand in Europe and I can understand why.  Heck, even that gold leaf tunic he was wearing was remarkable.