Picture of the Moment: Santorini Dragonfly

I wish I knew the species. This poser hung around long enough to let me snap a few pictures. Zooming in dulled the harsh backdrop of nondescript weeds.

Santorini - Austere Beauty in a Ticking Bomb

I was eager to spend a full day on Santorini, a cultured adult excursion that promised wine and good olives in a geologist's playground. It was to be a brief interlude of contemporary sophistication sandwiched between several sweaty days amongst ancient ruins, mostly brothels. But first we had to get to shore. The big boat was unable to tie to a pier or anchor--the port cannot accommodate large vessels, and the water in the caldera is too deep--so we had to take a ten minute tender to the main island of Santorini (Thera) and the port of Athinios. This time the procession to disembark the Ruby Princess was very orderly, so much so that I wondered whether body snatchers had been at work overnight. This could not be the same passenger list. I get much more fodder from standard human chaos, and this herd was just not cooperating.

Thrill Ride to Postcard-perfect Mykonos, Crowds and a Geometry Lesson

A nice paint job for a wreck

Generally, when I write about a travel destination, I try to write, with a theme and a hook that pulls the story together as a unified piece at the end. Our visit to Mykonos was a random meandering over a short timeframe, almost an afterthought after a full morning at the ancient religious complex and residential ruins on Delos, leaving me a series of pretty memories that can fill a sketchbook, but which lack any structure. If you are looking for a sublime treatise on travel in the Cyclades, leave now.

Following our morning excursion, my father, son and I were originally scheduled to return to the Ruby Princess, and we assumed we'd need to arrange our own transport to Mykonos for the afternoon. But heavy seas meant our return tender had to detour to the sheltered city pier, which saved us 10 € for a one-way taxi. The cruise port is only about a kilometer from Mykonos Town (Chora), but a winding road with very narrow shoulders makes for the pedestrian version of Russian roulette. Happily we had stowed the Mykonos edition of the ever-dependable Tom's Port Guide series in my camera bag and hadn't left it on the ship, so we were prepared for the unscheduled walking tour.

Ancient Delos - Wind, Cats, Beheadings and Piracy in Classical Greek Suburbia

I liked desolate, windblown Delos as much as the Acropolis of Athens but for different reasons. Ancient Athens is a place I dreamed of visiting; the island of Delos was a surprise. While the Acropolis can be overwhelming, the relatively pedestrian, expansive ruins of Delos are more approachable. The site gives a glimpse of how people lived their daily routine between the 7th and 1st centuries BC, in a working town of approximately 20,000 people. The surroundings of the Acropolis were possibly much like Delos' residential and commercial areas 25 centuries ago, but they are now buried under modern Athens. Conjoined in my recent memory, the two sites when contrasted give a fuller picture of life in antiquity.

The agora of the Italians dates from the late Hellenistic period and was used by merchants from what is now Italy. It is near the commercial harbour of Delos. Mt. Kynthos rises in the distance. There, according to the Greek myth, the Titaness Leto gave birth to Apollo. It is also the birthplace of his twin Artemis, also known by her alternate name of "Kynthia," (Cynthia today) after this place. Just as interesting to me was the well-engineered drainage trench on the floor of the agora. Ruins extend up the flanks of Mt. Kythnos, giving a sense of the scale of this site.

What is missing today from Delos is the people. Athens still has a surging humanity familiar to its monuments; workaday Delos is frozen in time, and our touristic fascination with its ancient suburbia would be alien to its ghosts. The island is now deserted but for cats and a few caretakers, and the site's breadth means large groups of visitors can disperse into scattered, intimate groupings, voices carried over the wind. Otherwise, there is the howling silence of rustling grass and blowing sand.

The Acropolis of Athens, a Bedrock Foundation under Ruins

Athens is a dichotomy, a mix of magnificent ancient ruin and modern debasement. I expected something epic, and I found that, but I also found an ordinary city. Residents eat, sleep, work and play there, living out daily life without much awe of, or reflection on, their storied surroundings. It reminds me of the difference between a summer cottage and a winterized house on a lake. One is a dream; the other is reality, with bills, chores and a daily drive to work. Some districts of Athens are visually appealing, and some can only generously be called shambolic. But ancient Athens surely had its own lowbrow districts too, probably in the same areas. How time does soften our perceptions.

I'm pondering this as I sit by the terrace pool of the Ruby Princess, overlooking the port of Piraeus and Athens. It's hot, but not quite the sweltering of recent days. In the hazy distance is the Acropolis, our main destination this morning. My son Thomas is not here, preferring to read in our suite. He hasn't put on his swimsuit except for reluctantly at Glyfada beach on Corfu. I'm starting to think I should have just got us a hotel room in New Jersey for two weeks and called it Rome. It would have saved some coin.

A floating hotel is not a bad way to skirt the coastline and islands of Greece.

Modern Athens from the port of Piraeus. The hill of the Acropolis stands far in the hazy distance (center).

 

We started early, sparing ourselves exertion and exposure in the heat of the afternoon. The bus trip to the Acropolis from Piraeus takes about 30 minutes. It takes about eighty steps from the base of the edifice to the Propylea, the monumental gate to the temple complex. A few elderly tourists dropped off in the face of that, waiting out the tour in a shady spot below¹. How many had yearned for a lifetime to come here and were finally defeated by the last sets of stairs? I wondered how they felt. Outwardly, there appeared to be stoic acceptance. Maybe with age it's easier to accept the disappointing outcome of a well-fought struggle, like a farmer who has learned not to cry over blighted crops, but has found solace in the effort.

Olympia - fleeting immortality in the sun of Ancient Greece

Near the port of Katakolon, Greece and site of the ancient Olympic games for a millennium, Olympia is a reminder that nothing made by the hand of man lasts forever.

The village of Katakolon is really nothing more than a short avenue of shops and cafes servicing the port. There are the nearby underwater ruins of ancient Pheia and the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, but the main attraction for those who are not near-dead is Olympia. Our shore excursion did not begin until 12:15 pm. Even the sleeping habits of my fourteen-year-old son Thomas were accommodated, and our breakfast aboard the Ruby Princess was more of a brunch. Access to the archaeological site was via a 30-minute motor coach ride through olive orchards and scattered vineyards of the western Peloponnese.

Katakolon as seen from the decks of Ruby Princess

Ruins at Olympia date from circa 776 BC (the first definitively recorded games) through to Roman times until wet blanket Emperor Theodosius put a damper on the party after AD 393. Here, Thomas got his first taste of the ancient sites that so interest him since our family visit to Bath, England in 2009. Though our admission was included in Princess Cruise Line's shore excursion package, standard entry costs €6, €3 for a child; rates for both site and museum are €9/5.

Corfu - Burning on the Beach and Steaming in Church

Corfu is the second largest Ionian island, roughly shaped like an upper-case Σ (sigma), which is fitting for a Greek isle. It's hard to write anything about 'a day in Corfu' that sums the essence of such a big island. However, if you focus your visit on beaches, forts and monasteries, I think you'll have as much success as can be had. The mythical Jason and Odysseus also visited here by boat, and Hercules figures in local legend. All three tarried here with beautiful women before there were the forts or monasteries, so the island has that going for it.

A typical view of the rugged coastline from the monastery at Paleokastritsa.

Clocks were set forward an hour last night, so my son Tom was especially difficult to wake up this morning. As if on cue, once we were in the ship's theater waiting to debark, several people proved it's possible to stuff up even the simplest instructions, like lining up single file. I wonder how much of the theoretical work on chaos theory was inspired by cruise ship passenger behavior.

Three Sweaty Men and a Princess

Ruby Princess at the port of Kuşadası, Turkey.

When our older two boys began to take interest in the world at large, my wife and I devised a plan for special travel experience with each of our sons individually. Stacey takes the boy on a special mother and son trip when he reaches age ten, and I follow with an adventure of our own when he is fourteen. The personalized itinerary is tailored to each son's specific interests at the time. We've been blessed so far to have the financial means to travel internationally, but the most important takeaway isn't the destination. It is a week or so for my wife or I to spend quality time with a son and build a lifetime of memories. Hopefully the boys learn something without suspecting we're trying to educate them.

My oldest boy Thomas spent a week on Kangaroo Island, South Australia with his mother several years ago. He has long been interested in Ancient Rome and Greece, at least as much as a fourteen-year-old can be, and for his father-son trip last August (2013) we settled on a Princess cruise of the eastern Mediterranean with bookend visits to Venice and Rome. My father became aware of our plans that spring, and Thomas was OK with a stowaway. Dad has always wanted to travel in retirement, and he was happy to oblige my prerequisite to center the trip around Thomas' interests in antiquity and need to do our own thing, so we made a natural team. Dad's only request was to dip his toes in the Adriatic.

Then we three settled back while Stacey made all the arrangements for us, knowing that if it was left to me we wouldn't get beyond my driveway. An organized wife is another blessing that I don't take for granted. We'd be travelling between points of interest in style and comfort. But it was apparent we'd see a lot of ruins, we'd do a lot of walking, and it would be very hot.

Over the next several weeks I'll sketch my perceptions of three generations of American men sweating across the Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean seas by boat between Italy, Croatia, Turkey and the Greek Islands.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip. Thomas (l), me and Joseph Orobona (r). We're on the east (back) side of the Parthenon, at the Acropolis in Athens.