Messina, Italy - 4th April, 2019

Messina or Sicily is our port today.  It was raining so no one really did much.  The ship was docked in a very strategic place and we just had to walk across the road and a couple of blocks to the main attraction on the island - the 15th Century Messina Cathedral which houses an astronomical clock and animated bell tower.

At the top, the lion roars, the hen crows and in the two naves, the statues of the apostles and virgin Mary appear.

As the apostles go around, they bend in the middle to give respect to the Virgin Mary.

Valleta, Malta - April 3, 2019

The walled city of Valletta was established in the 1500s by the Knights of St. John, an order of the Roman Catholic Church.  We chose to travel across the island of Malta and then take a little boat to the island of Gozo.  The trip was supposed to be a jeep tour, but it really was riding in an open truck throughout Gozo and seeing all the historic sites.  I thought it was fun and very interesting.

Along the way, we saw the same color of rock on all the buildings.  There is a rock quarry on the island and all the homes and commercial buildings are built from the stone in this quarry.  The embellishments that were placed on some buildings made them unique, but all in all, the town looked pretty cookie cutter.

The main plant is this cactus on all roads and rocks.  They make a cactus wine from it and it is the national drink.

 These rocky ledges are the western most shore of Gozo.  They lead to the blue lagoon.

Perhaps the greatest part was taking a small boat through a narrow slot channel and ending up in the blue lagoon of the island.  The colors of the rocks, water and size of the cliffs was amazing.

 During the Roman days, they made these salt fields.  The ocean comes in and fills the indentations with water and then the water evaporates leaving salt.  They harvest the salt and ship it to various places in the world.

The Mediterranean and Athens, Greece - March 31 and April 1, 2019

The waters of the Mediterranean Sea are much more rough today and the wind is chilly. The weather from here on out will be 30 degrees colder than the Middle East. I can’t believe I didn’t pay more attention to this change, I didn’t bring enough warm clothes. I had to even buy a coat on the ship. Just wasn’t prepared and wasn’t thinking.  

Today is a little - it’s time to go home feelings.  Theron is anxious about his solar system and I’m just ready for my own stuff.  Oh well, 10 more days.

This is a picture of the Corinth waterway dug after Paul's time to save travel time from Athens to Corinth.

There is a Roman fort on top of this hill in Corinth.  A strategic point for the Romans.

Marianne is at the end of the city of Corinth and the main walk way into and out of the city.

Corinth is not very well restored. There are the three Temples that Paul would have preached against. Paul would have traveled there by ship, we rode on a nice van.  Corinth is a hour drive from Athens.

Athens, Greece

Love Athens. We took a Viator tour, the first one we have used, and went to Corinth and then all around the sites of Athens.  The driver took us to a fantastic Greek restaurant and we had our gyros.  We also had our first gelato of the trip.

In Athens, we went to the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon and various sites on top. Steve wanted a tour guide and rented an old,old lady that wanted to teach us everything history and charged us 100 euro. Bad decision but we will live with it. 

We have seen the Parthenon several times and they are always restoring it, as they are today.

Theron posing at the new Olympic Stadium.

 
I always love the picture of us sitting on Mars hill and thinking about Paul preaching here.  He would have had a great view of the temples on the Acropolis and been able to point out the errors of their ways as they debated in Socratic fashion.

This is a favorite picture of us looking at the Acropolis in the background.

The Suez Canal - March 29 - March 30, 2019

Our very first cruise was through the Panama Canal.  A trip of lush green forests and beautiful scenery.  Years later, we are now traveling through the Suez Canal; an interesting time to travel this waterway with lots of sand and no lush green forests.  The Suez Canal is a trip through Egypt, but no matter how high I went on the boat, I could not see the pyramids.  So, that's still on my bucket list.

The Suez Canal is 79 feet deep.

Ships go through in a convoy.  Our ship had to park in the Red Sea overnight and then travel through starting at 6:00 am the next morning.  Cruise ships have a priority but military transports are always first.  We followed a US military supply ship.  There are up to 48 ships per day that travel through and on our day there were only 30 ships in our convoy.

The cost for our cruise ship to travel the canal was $600,000 US dollars.

The waterway is only one way at a time until you get to Bitter Lake.  At this point there is a parking lake and two shipping lanes.

About every quarter mile, there is a military guard post.  Usually only one side is a developed community and the other is sand, sand and more sand.  Our ship was quite wide and we had only about 20-30 feet on each side leeway.  A tug has to accompany every ship and when the wind was blowing, we were almost sideways in the waterway; don't know what a tug could do for us if we did get side-to-side stuck. 

Anyway, it was a very interesting day sitting in the dining halls and decks and watching the sand banks go by.