It's taken almost two weeks since we got home, but I'm finally getting around to writing about our trip to the Aegean last month on a cruise with our friends Brad and Kelly Morin from Marshall. The cruise was actually a charter for the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, so while we were guests and not members, I actually already knew a fair number of the other lawyers on the trip through AAJ and State Bar work, and enjoyed getting to meet others. Who could forget TW and the hair flip?
We left from Shreveport on Monday, October 19, and flew to Dallas, then Chicago, then Brussels, where we had a LONG layover before finally arriving in Athens the evening of the next day, Tuesday the 20th. That actually wasn't a bad thing, as we could go have a quiet dinner of Greek salad (with a side of feta) at our favorite cafe in Cathedral Square, and then return to our hotel, the Grande Bretagne on nearby Syntagma Square for an early bed.
Breakfast Wednesday morning was at the hotel, which has a spectacular view of the Acropolis, then it was off on a LONG bus trip to see the shrine at Delphi. 
Enjoyable site, and good museum, but we were very tired by the time we got back to Athens, where the IATL had a cocktail party on the rooftop garden where we enjoyed watching the sunset and the spectacular night lighting of the Acropolis. 
Thursday was a nice slow day. We got started late, then walked to the nearby Byzantine Museum, which was mostly closed, except for an exhibit on Andy Warhol (I can't tell you what a disappointment THAT was!) But we got to see most of one side of the museum's new underground rooms (the side devoted to icons), and it was one of the best museum spaces I've ever been in. We then fought jet lag with a walk through the National Gardens behind the Parliament building, then a walk through the Plaka for some shopping, and a very late lunch next to half a dozen Orthodox priests at another favorite restaurant, the Hermion (or something like that - we were really tired). Then back to the hotel, where we had a IATL dinner at a very nice reaturant in the yacht basin at Piraeus (the port of Athens). Or maybe that was Wednesday night - I just can't remember.
Friday was another busy day of tours, this time to the phenomenal brand-new Acropolis Museum, 
followed by a trip up to the Acropolis itself. The museum is across from the Acropolis, so it is reflected in the museum's glass walls, and you can see it from within the museum. The Parthenon sculptures are arranged the same shape as the building, so you can view them up close in the correct relationship, and simply turn your head to see the original building. It's an amazing museum - the best one I have ever seen, although I liked the Byzantine museum better for display of art. (This is two months after we saw the Louvre, the Orsay, and the Orangerie in Paris, and they don't touch this. The Orsay is good, but the Byzantine is better, and the Acropolis is just in a class by itself). Then it was back to the hotel for a brief visit (during which we ran back down to the Plaka for souvenirs, and to take my picture with Constantine XI). 
We boarded our ship, the Seven Seas Navigator, 
at the harbor in Piraeus. Jamie and I had been on the ship before during our 2005 D Magazine Chef's Cruise to Bermuda, and the ship was as nice as we remembered. Cabins are "suites" they say, which apparently means you get a bathtub as well as a shower, plus a walk-in closet. They really are the nicest cabins we've ever had on a ship, I have to admit.
First port of call on Saturday, Oct. 24 was the island of Santorini. We'd been here before in 1998, and I'd done a fair amount of reading about the island since then for research purposes, so it was really nice to see it again. We chose to do two tours, a morning tour of the archaeological museum and the town, and then after after "sail and swim" around the two small active volcanic islands that are the center of the island. More on that little fiasco in a minute.
We had a great guide and the museum was outstanding. While we were at it, we learned that the excavations at Thira 
are no longer open to visitors. We then walked around for a bit, had some lunch (another tomato and feta salad) 
bought a couple of hats (including a ugly scrunchable hat for me that is now standard equipment in my travel bag it's so useful) and took the lift down to the pier for the afternoon "sail and swim". Yeah, right.
First of all, it rained on us all the way from the harbor to the island, Nea Kameini (did I mention how useful the ugly hat is?). 
Then when we got there we were expected to scale a 471 foot mountain made out of volcanic rock spewed out of the past several hundred years (the island is only about two thousand years old, and it made up of several eruptions of the old volcano that blew the island to bits back around 1600 BC). 
Now, I enjoy that sort of thing, and with my new Timberland hiking shoes and floppy hat I was all set, and had a blast photographing all these volcanic rock formations that were brand-new, geologically speaking. Jamie, or the other hand, was not pleased. 
So we hiked up, took some pictures, then hiked back down, where we boarded the boat (can I point out had no sails?) and headed for the "swim" in a hot springs (due to the volcanic acticity). 
That turned out to be 25 meters through cold water 
to water that those who did swim in it said was only marginally warmer.
If it's Sunday, we must be in Turkey, specifically Kusadasi. This is the port city for Ephesus, which was on the sea coast in antiquity, before logging resulted in massive erosion on the hills around the city and the port silted up completely. This map 
shows how far inland Ephesus is now, as well as the location of the city in relation to the ancient Temple of Artemis, one of the original Seven Wonders (as luck would have it, four of our stops in Turkey and Greece were at sites of Wonders that are no longer extant). The flat areas on the map are all fields now, but in antiquity it was all water.
We did two tours in Kusadasi as well, starting with the archaeological museum, which we'd never seen before. It had exhibits on the temple
, as well as some architectural fragments and statues of the goddess. (Those are not breasts hanging off of her, we were told, or even pomegranates, which I've read, but bull testicles. Okay, whatever.) After the tour we went to a rug facility, where we could see Turkish women making carpets and had a demonstration of how the silk thread is made and dyed for use in the rugs. We then looked at rugs, and ended up buying a couple for the house, plus one for new new office. (Rugs are kind of a tradition for our Eastern Med trips - a bit more expensive than T-shirts I have to admit, but they do last longer, and we've discovered that you remember the trip every day when you walk on them).
The tour guide then took us to the ruins of theGreco-Roman city of Ephesus. Jamie and I had been here before in 1999, but we enjoyed seeing it again
, and especially enjoying seeing the "terrace houses" 
which have recently been excavated, and show the housing enjoyed by elite Romans, including hot and cold running water, and steam heat. But the highlight of the day, and maybe the whole trip was what happened next. When we got down to the old 25,000 seat amphitheater, which is Ephesus' crown jewel, our tour group was treated to a private reception after the site closed, followed by a concert by the Izmir Conservatory Chamber Orchestra at sunset and into the night. 
Pieces played (for my musical friends) were:
- Menuett - Boccherini
- Aria - Bach (J.S., I think - didn't sound like P.D.Q.)
- B Minor Suite - Bach
- Rondo alla Turca - Mozart
- A Little Night Music - Mozart (memories of playing this in high school!)
- Hungarian Dances - Brahms
- Liber tango - Piazzola
- Por Una Cabeza - Gardel
Some tuning issues between the two first violins - other than that very good.
Monday the 24th, we were up the coast a bit at Bodrum, the site of ancient Halicarnassus and the Mausoleum (seen here behind Jamie in a wall painting). 
As with every other Wonder except the pyramids, the mausoleum was taken down in the middle ages and little exists at the original site now except for some foundation blocks. Much of the tomb was recycled into parts of the Castle of St. Peter, 
built by the Knights of St. John in the 1400's. We toured that, walked around a bit, then reboarded for a afternoon trip to a tiny Turkish village Etrim, where we met a tiny old couple 
(whose grandson 
works bringing tour groups to town - all the women wanted their picture taken with the little old man, and his wife was watching from their house next door, who she weaves rugs), had a wonderful meal prepared 
in the traditional manner, and served outdoors, 
and shopped for rugs again (just bought one this time). Looks very primitive, but behind the curtains these people were doing about as savvy a job marketing their town as you could imagine, and the upstairs of the carpet display house was more modern than my house, and the young people were working on their Facebook pages.
Next morning we were back in Greece, this time on the island of Rhodes. We took a bus tour around town, first passing the site 
of the Colossus of Rhodes, which - you guessed it - isn't there any more. We then toured the buildings used by the Knights of St. John, including the Palace of the Grand Masters, the old castle's hospital, and walked around the castle walls. We spent a lot of time in Rhodes shopping - great stores!
Next day was another Greek island, this time Mykonos. Jamie and I spent our 10th anniversary here in November of 2006, and decided to spend the day touring the tiny island of Delos 
which is a short boat ride from the bigger island. Delos is very windy and inhospitable, but we really enjoyed the tour, and had an excellent lunch back on the big island.
Thursday October 29 brought us (finally) a half-day at sea to sleep in and rest before we arrived at Istanbul around noon. 
We took a tour which covered Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, which we had seen before, and the underground cisterns (which we had not). We went back to the ship, but before getting back on stopped at this terrific baklava place 
where we got some baklava to bring home (hint - don't. It doesn't travel or age well, so you need to eat it fresh). They had just taken out a sheet of pastry with President Obama's face on it
, and we thought that was cool. It reminded me a lot of Cafe du Monde, except cleaner, nicer, and with far more courteous staff. (Don't make me pick between baklava and beignets).
The next morning we left the ship and went to our hotel in the Edirnekapi area of the city, the Hotel Kariye, 
which was next door (literally - that's the church next to it in the picture) to the tenth-century church of St. Saviour in Chora. 
The small church, which is miles from the city center and a stone's throw from the Theodosian walls, has he best surviving Byzantine mosaics 
and frescos
, dating from its restoration by a Byzantine official in the 14th century. It was everything I'd heard and I was very glad to have gotten to see it.
After seeing the Chora museum, we took a taxi to see the other ancient site I wanted to take a look at, and that was the land walls of Constantinople, built in the fifth century AD by Theodosius, and maintained up until the city fell to the Turks in 1453. 
Our cab driver took us all the way down the walls headed south before turning onto Kennedy Caddesi to drop us off downtown. Unfortunately headed south on the main highway you cannot see the stretch of walls (the mesotechion) where Constantine XI fell and the city walls were breached. Staggering under that disappointment, and surviving our taxi driver's collision with another car right outside Hagia Sophia (no, seriously), we walked over to the Archaeological Museum and toured that. Jamie got tired of it after one floor (although we both liked the Alexander sarcophagus a lot) 
, but I went up and saw the results of the excavations of Istanbul over the years and was fascinated. I especially liked seeing the porphry tombs of the early Byzantine emperors outside the museum. 
Now that was cool.
We then walked over to have lunch at our usual place in Istanbul, the House of Medusa, 
and spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in the Grand Bazaar, where jamie looked at jewelry and I ducked rug salesmen that could see me having covetous thoughts about their rugs. (You absolutely cannot make eye contact with a rug there or they are on you like fleas on a dog - you have to look surreptitiously and act like you have no interest whatsoever. Which is hard for me because I like to just stand there and say "damn, that's a nice rug". Jamie finally told me to just start looking at other women instead because it was interrupting her shopping).
After taking a taxi back to the hotel, we had dinner in the hotel's basement, which is a very trendy restaurant Asitane, which specializes in "fine ottoman cuisine" which is the result of research into the dishes served at the sultan's court. Which is not as easy as it sounds because the recipes were secret and you were executed if you let one out. So there's not exactly a Giada de Laurentis you consult here. (Wait - must start thinking about rugs again). Jamie headed back to bed first, since we had to get up at 3am the next morning.
The final highlight of our trip was the cab ride to the airport a little after 4 am the next morning. This cab driver stayed on the road south that runs parallel to the land walls and seconds after passing through the gate around the corner from the hotel we were looking down into the valley of the old Lycus river that ran through the land walls, with the land walls only a few tens of yards to our left. 
Where the river intersected the land walls at the bottom of that hill was the part of the land walls I had wanted to see. So while I didn't have my camera, and it was dark except for the lights on the walls, I could clearly see the low walls as we drove past them. I could see the Fifth Military Gate as we passed it, then the new highway a few hundred yards later, and I knew that the low, heavily damaged section of walls in between (see map for reference) was the mesotechion, where Constanine XI had his headquarters and where the final Ottoman assault broke through in 1453. - left in their heavily damaged state ever since the 1453 siege. So anyway, I'm psyched at this point, while Jamie is at best barely awake, and in fact was coming down with something nasty that she'd have to suffer through all the way home.
The flight home wasn't much better than the flight there, with a lengthy layover in Madrid, then we got to New York so late that we stayed at the new Hampton Inn across from LaGuardia. We had a light dinner at the hotel restaurant and went to bed early, then flew to Dallas and Shreveport on Sunday. We caught the end of the first half of the Cowboys' win over Seattle at DFW, then got the final score as we were taxiing into the gate in Shreveport.
