SANTORINI! Dick has wanted to visit this island for 40 years. His mother visited here in the late 1970s and loved it. Well we are finally here. What a disappointment! It is raining, misty, foggy and windy. Maybe we should just sleep in.
However, we don’t and after a good breakfast, we head for the island on a local tender. That means the local boatmen’s union is strong enough to prevent the ship from using its own lifeboats as tenders and to force the ship to hire the local boatmen and their boats to tender the passengers ashore.It is a rough passage to the landing but we arrive safe and relatively dry. At least we do not have to ride donkeys up the twisting path to the top of the cliff as they did in the past. Now we can ride the cable car to the top in much less time and out of the weather.
The cost is €4 each or $5.30US for a one way ticket. We ask and find out that the cable car is about 15 years old.At the top, we plan to rent a small car and explore on our own but the agency is closed and we do not want to wait in the rain so we walk down to the taxi stand. Dick wants to go to the archeological site at Akrotiri but learns that it has been closed to the public for over two years. The cabbie suggests that he take us to Oia on the western tip of the island.
This village is reputed to be the most photographed place in Greece, if not the world.
We agree on a round trip price of €55 ($73US) and for the car to wait for us one hour while we explore the village.Even with the wind and rain, the village of Oia is a photographer’s dream.
It must be stunning on a cloudless day.
The building’s paint schemes are very simply with doors and window frames one pastel and the house wall another.
Together, the houses make up a montage of pastel colors and photo opportunities are around every corner.
Our hour passes all too rapidly!
Unfortunately, it is not over before Carolyn has contributed to the local economy by buying a pair of earrings!We return to Fira, the population center at the top of the cable car, pay the driver and explore here for a while. There are over three hundred churhes in Fira.
Unfortunately, it is beginning to rain harder and a chill is setting in from our wet clothes. We stop for the day, disappointed that Santorini is not at its best today but thinking that we would like to come back and rent one of the traditional houses that spill down the cliff side.
Not having seen the island in the bright sun, we can only imagine how spectacular the place and the view must be on a clear day. 
As we sail out of the Santorini caldera, the Captain warns us of high winds and continued rain for the next 24-36 hours. It sounds like Patmos may be a washout.We elect to keep our standing reservation in “2” for dinner as they are serving an Italian meal and Osso Bucco is an entree choice. Dick loves Osso Bucco! It is good night for a heavy meal since it is cold and rainy. Before dinner, we attend a cocktail party for returning passengers. I guess we are on our second cruise with them as this is a separate segment. We sit with some people from Fredericksburg, Texas and their friends from Arkansas and have a nice chat before dinner.
Dinner is very bouncy with ship heeling smartly to starboard due to the wind. Several times, the ship does a double back flip and bounce due to the sea conditions and once, people are grabbing for their plates and glasses as the ship bounces and heels. It is definitely getting bouncy tonight.
During the night, things go flying several times. Carolyn opens the curtains and watches the heavy spray wash over the front deck and balcony for a while. Mind you, we are on the 5th deck. The sea is very angry tonight!
This time, we find a taxi to take us out to the medieval town of Lindos, 
with its two small harbors
and pretty beaches,
for a view of the Lindian Acropolis.
According to the Iliad, the Dorians built this hilltop stronghold four hundred feet above the sea. The 4th century BC Doric Temple of Athena Lindia, a Byzantine church and the remains of the castle-citadel of the Knights of St John are all nestled behind the walls. It is a 20-minute climb and a number of steep steps up hill to reach the walls so we just will take some pictures! 
The driver also agrees to show us some sights in Rhodes City: the quaint old harbor 
with its windmills,
the Temple of Apollo,
the ancient stadium and the panoramic view of Rhodes City from Mount Smith.
The taxis on the island are not competitive and have prices posted. In addition, they are proud of their work. Anyway, for €120 or $160US we get what we want. The ship’s tour was the same price, but it didn’t allow time in Lindos or drop the people back at the city gate up at the Palace of the Grand Masters in Old Town. 
Therefore, just maybe, it was worth the price not to try to wander around without a good map and not have to deal with parking etc. We wonder what a small rent car would have cost but it is Sunday morning and the car rental agencies are not open when we leave.
with church ruins,
nice little plazas 
with places to eat
and the gathering crowds of tourists.
Or, at least Carolyn does. She is jewelry shopping and Dick leaves it with her and heads back to the ship and a cold beer about 2:00PM. Carolyn shows up at 3:00PM empty handed having decided that Rhodes is too expensive at the beginning of the tourist season. 
We spend the rest of the afternoon napping and enjoying the hot tub. We usually have it to ourselves and it is a very pleasant to be out on the front deck. 
Tonight we have reservations at “2” again. It is a pleasant evening so we again eat outside and watch the sunset as we sail between Turkey and Rhodes. The menu is a “Tasting” menu of 11 items. Again, Dick likes everything and Carolyn enjoys most of it. Some of the “tastings” have an Asian flare and one has soy so they leave that off her plate. Over all the dinner is nice though the service is slow. The wind begins to kick up as we leave and by the time we go to bed the sea is moving again.
without being “strip searched” and hassled by 10 people over something; be it our passport, what we are carrying or a taxi ride to this or that place! The 11:00AM run of the shuttle bus takes us into downtown. Carolyn enjoys a little shopping time while Dick rents a small car for ₤42 New Turkish Lira (NTL) or $26.37US. Now don’t ask me why the price was not ₤40NTL or ₤45NTL. I do not have a clue but collision damage waiver was included so it was not a bad price. The tank came empty and any gas left in the tank is a gift to the next renter. We put in ₤70NTL ($44.00US) or 22+ liters and wound up making a gift of ¼ tank of gas to the next renter. Oh well, it was better than running out or having to look for gas in a strange place.
There is a Saturday market going on that looks really interesting, but we are not here to shop and besides we are off to a late start. We rent a boat for ₤110NTL ($69US) to take us out to the ruins of Caunos, a city that dates as far back as 500BC. What is there now is mostly Greek and Roman and dates from 200BC to 300AD.
It is just the two of us plus Mahmed, the captain aboard. Along the way, we get a good, distance look at series of tombs carved in the cliff face.
The entrances are very ornate and appeared to be on a par with the ones we saw in Petra, Jordan.
We could not get close to them without a lot more effort than we had time and inclination to expend.
the domned church
and to the Roman baths.
This is the upper route and it gives us a good view of the lower city with its agora, walls, other ruins
and the silted up harbor 
that originally made this such a choice site for a town. The high hill above the amphitheater has significant walls and fortifications but it is too much of a challenge given our knees and time constraints. 
Thank you, time constraints. You saved us from climbing the 250+ steps to the top. We explore the ruins for an hour before heading back down the hill for our return trip to the dock at Daylan.
and go shopping together in the modern souk. We both buy items from a silver shop and would have purchased more if we were rich and had unlimited funds.
This part of the Turkish coast is beautiful and the people are very nice and welcoming. We have liked and enjoyed Turkey before and it is on our list of places to which we would like to return.
We are beginning to think about our time in Europe that starts in less than two weeks. We get out the maps and guide books for Europe and do a little planning. It appears that it is roughly 800KM from Frankfurt to our house in Tuscany and the GPS says the drive will take about ten hours. That is just 50MPH and we bet it will take less time than that since there appear to be freeways all the way. We are debating whether to drive the direct route through Switzerland or to cut over to Innsbruck and cross over the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy. We are also thinking about spending the first night after we leave the villa in Florence instead of doing a day trip. We email our American Express agent that did the big city hotels for us to check on a couple for us. 
The hawkers are few and we do not see the every present “Tourist Police” and armed police everywhere. Carolyn had had a car and guide for half a day arranged with our guide in Cairo, but Dick was so fed up with Egypt that day, he canceled that plan! So our plan now is to take a taxi to El Corniche (water front promenade), and find a hotel then go from there, but the port taxis all want ~$80US for two hours! Not knowing much about the city, we pass and just walk into town. We discover a food souk
that covers many square blocks and we wander through it seeing how people buy their food, shoes and household items. Vendors are selling everything from live fish 
to toilet paper.
We do not see any signs in English in this market and only a few people greet us in English, but many people acknowledge our presence and greet us in Arabic. All seem quite friendly. 
at the monument to the Unknown Soldier. It is the consulate area. People are climbing over the sea wall to have their pictures made with the fortress of Sultan Qaitbay and the Eastern Harbor in the background. 
The fortress is built on the site of Pharos lighthouse built by the Ptolemies in the 3rd century BC. The lighthouse was one of the wonders of the ancient world until it was toppled by an earthquake. From here, we walk back to the port through another area that is home to the fabric and tailoring souk and the gold souk. The gold here is 21kt and very bright. We found this great walk by pure dumb luck! Alexandria is a much nicer than any other place we have visited in Egypt. It is cleaner and the people are much more pleasant.
somewhat foot sore after walking several miles, and go to lunch. The ship is very quiet, as the new passengers have not started boarding yet. We spend the afternoon working on the blog, watching a movie and reading. About 6:00PM, we go to the hot tub to wait for the sail away but that is delayed by 30 minutes due to port traffic.
Alexandria’s harbor
is Egypt’s busiest and there are many ships anchored outside the breakwater waiting to enter. We see several half-submerged wrecks in the harbor and guess these date from one of the Arab/Israeli wars. Why they do not clear them away is a mystery. 
