RHODES - Day 71 - One sea day cruising the Mediterranean Sea and we arrive in Rhodes, the largest in an island group in Greece and only 11 miles from Turkey. There are 2 seasons on Rhodes - rainy winter and hot summer - summer starts the day after we visit. They average 300 days of sunshine.
It is a Greek custom to spit after giving someone a compliment. This supposedly protects the recipient from the "evil eye".
Pop 60,000, currency Euros.
We did a tour covering the old and new cities. The old city is surrounded by walls and there are large pebbled, narrow streets. There are around 5000 people living in the old city and you must be a resident to drive a car or scooter on their streets. We spent quite a bit of time in the Palace of the Grand Master where the floors are made of marble and small mosaic tiles. At the Acropolis (which just means the edge of the city) we had a great view of the island and Turkey. There were a lot of peacocks strutting around (it is mating season).
Cafes are numerous and some shops are not open as tourist season will start towards the end of April. At this time of year the Mediterranean Sea is warm enough that people were swimming but as temperatures rise the snow in the mountains of Turkey will melt and the water will become colder. There are lots of beaches but most are small pebbles instead of sand.
CHANIA - Day 72 - pronounced with a silent c (or maybe not - it seems to be a personal preference). Pop around 200k, language -Greek but English is widely spoken.
Sailed in and anchored around 7 am -saw our first snow since Christmas. This is one of our few tender ports and it takes about 10 minutes to reach land from the ship. This is a highly unionized country and we expected that Crete would supply the tenders but we did use our own life boats.
Again, this is an old city with narrow streets. There are lots of restaurants and small shops - several not yet open for the tourist season. It seems that the ship passengers can't wait to get ashore to eat and drink. Today people were not only eating ashore but bringing things like Greek salads and baklava back on board - the amount people can consume boggles the mind.
Pictures - 1 & 2 - Rhodes
3 & 4 - Chania
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