Day 7--Rhodes and Day 8 at sea
Playing catchup with the blog, is not something I like to do.
The crew must have been up all night decorating the ship for Halloween. Bill really appreciates anyone who can carve.
The waiters all dressed for the occasion to serve our meals. The menu for the day had a halloween description, I forget the name they had on the lobster tail.
Our tour in Rhodes began at 9:20 with our guide and also a local guide. The four groups always leave at different times to reduce any crowds. We were the only ship in the harbor at that time. Vasilis told us that many shops are closing on October 31 for the season.
Rhodes is the largest island of the Duodecane. We could see Turkey which is 11 miles away. The weather was once again perfect. Our guide showed us the three gates of this Old Town. We've been here before, but different guides all tell you different and interesting things.
After touring the Old Town we proceeded up a long hill. This road was one of the oldest in the world and led us to the Palace of the Grand Master. Our group was the only one in the Palace.
The Palace had an additional 70 steps to get into it. There was no handrail and the steps were very steep.
The Palace has been rebuilt after an earthquake. There are mosaics on the floors everywhere. It's hard to imagine these are 1,700 to 2,000 years old.
As we were walking back to the ship a big ship was coming into the harbor. It was so nice not having a lot of tourists in town while we were there. After dinner, the tour guides had a nightime walk through Old Town but decided not to go.
Beer and wine are included with this tour. It's not one glass at dinner but anytime you want one. They had free cocktails and wine today. I might also mention that we have free wifi. Tips are paid to all local guides porter, and drivers.
We had a magic show for the nightly entertainment.
Today we had another beautiful day. After breakfast we had a talk "The Church of the Holy Sepulcer and the Status Quo". It was very interesting and well presented. A half hour later we had a towel folding master class along with bloody marys.
After lunch we attended a discussion on Cypress Conflict. This was followed by the people that have taken three or more trips. The couple we were sitting with had 30 trips. Makes our 16 trips seem like nothing. They received a very nice gift. The canapes and champagne were very good.
We were told that of the 74 passengers, 47 are in the Sir Hillary Edmund Club--three or more trips. They also told us that many companies went out of business during the pandemic. Anyone that had a trip booked during the pandemic were offered their money refunded or the option to rebook. The vast majority said they'd wait for another date. This allowed the company to pay their employees,(not 100%) even though they weren't doing trips.
Tomorrow we arrive in Cyprus. While we have a tour of Cyprus, it was announced that we will also have a tour of Turkey. We'll need to have our passports with us. I always wanted to visit "Checkpoint Charlie" so this will be the next best thing. I can tell our tour guides are nervous and they want this to be a good tour.
We had a tour of the ship's bridge. Bill sat in the Captain's chair. We learned what it takes to sail this ship.
We skipped tonight's ships crew show, which I'm sure was good. I wanted to finish this and try and catch up before tomorrow's tour.
The doctor says Bill's hand is coming along. He changes the dressing every morning.
Turtle Safely........
Your tour guides sure take good care of you. Smaller groups are always nice.
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