Ireland, The Last Stop

I feel bad about this entry. I have owed you this submission for many months. Ireland was our last stop on the around-the-world trip. And I am only now letting you know about it. The main reason I am finishing this today is that tomorrow we are off on another big trip and I wanted to finish the last posting from the previous trip before I hit you with a new post from the new one. Towards the end of the week I will start some new posts from the December 2011 Adventure Extraordinaire!

We left Mykonos on May 17, 2011, without incident, and flew back to Athens International Airport. Our connecting flight out of Athens was unfortunately several hours after we arrived from Mykonos. As a result, we got to know the Athens Airport pretty well. This gap of several hours was by design though because we were worried about tha flights from Mykonos being run on 'Greek time" so we gave ourselves plenty of wiggle room. We need not to have feared any delay though because the Greek island-hopper was run in a very efficient manner and the Boss and I arrived to savor some down-time in the Athens airport with plenty of time to spare. We spent the whole day there and I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie: The Terminal. Ten hours later, I was just about to start speaking Greek when they called the flight to Dublin.

The next leg of our epic journey would take us across western Europe to our last stop in Ireland. As both of our families are from the Emerald Isle we thought it was appropriate to stop there before heading home and returning to the real world. The evening of May 17, 2011, we finally boarded the Eire Lingus flight in Athens and made our way across the continent to Dublin. It was a red-eye and we flew over a darkened Italy and France. We landed in Dublin early the next morning.

Wow, what an airport. The new Dublin airport is beautiful, not at all what I remember from our last trip there 10 years ago. Unfortunately for the Irish, and it was the Irish that told us this, the new airport is a little too big for the the traffic coming in and out of the capital. It is a great thing for tourists though and a nice start to our Irish leg.

We only had a few days, so we limited ourselves to touring Dublin itself. The last time we were in Ireland we did not get to see much of the capital because Linda was running the Dublin Marathon when we were there and our kids were with us so we couldn't tour the pubs and other grown-up attractions. We had the rest of the island to explore and we drove all over the countryside with our children on that first trip visiting our roots.

This trip we stayed in the Westin Hotel which is very centrally located between Trinity College and the River Liffey. We were close to the insane party atmosphere of Temple Bar and stones throw from the great shopping area on Grafton Street. The Westin was kind of cool, it was built into an old bank and the vault in the basement had been converted into a very funky watering hole. Our room was an interior room which was nice because it was very quiet.

The next morning, we went for breakfast in Temple Bar and as we were walking back to the hotel we decided to stroll along the river. Unfortunately, the path of the planned stroll was blocked by police barricades and gawking crowds. We knew the Queen was in town for her historic visit to Dublin but do you think that we planned on seeing her? Not a chance. As Irish luck would have it though, we stood there behind the police line for a while, and amazingly, Liz's limo slowly passed our position and we make eye contact with the monarch, as the Queen waved to the cheering Irish crowd. I turned to Linda and said, "Do you realize that we are her only real subjects in this crowd?" Linda nodded, and then we started kicking ourselves for not bringing the camera. You probably think that this is poppycock because we have no photos, but I will swear on the graves of my ancestors in Tipperary that this happened the way I describe it. The rest of the day we hiked around Dublin finding our old hotel and O'Donoghue's Pub which we had to get pictures of for my pal Patrick O'Donoghue.

The first night in Dublin we dined at the Brazen Head which was billed as the oldest pub in Dublin dating from 1198. The pub has managed to retain the charm and characteristics of it's past and in particular it's patrons, who have included such literaries as James Joyce, Brendan Behan and Jonathan Swift as well as such revolutionaries as Robert Emmet, Wolfe Tone, Daniel O'Connell and Michael Collins. Now Jim & Linda have been there.

The next afternoon we hooked up with the Andersons. To refresh your memory Roland and Brenda Anderson were the nice English couple we met in Saigon. We had made arrangements to meet them in Ireland before we left them in Dubai. We met in The Mint Bar, that very funky watering hole in the basement of the Westin. We immediately picked up where we had left off with them on the cruise ship between Viet Nam and the U.A.E. We got caught up while we enjoyed a libation and got back into joint-touring mode. We soon reached a consensus that the best way to see the town was to do so by buying 24-hour passes on Dublin's Hop-On/Hop-Off bus tour. Fortunately, the bus stopped just outside the Westin near Molly Malone Square and we could start our joint venture immediately. The start of the tour was dampened by rain but we jumped on the bus at Trinity College and toured much of the historic parts of Dublin that afternoon.  We cruised by Grafton Street, St. Steven's Green, St. Patrick's Cathedral and finished up for the day at the St. James Gate Brewery where we got off the bus to do the walking tour of the Arthur Guiness establishment.

Now I am a baptised and confirmed Catholic and I might have sinned that day. I did not get out of the bus to tour St. Patrick's Cathedral and instead I chose to do the Guiness tour. I feel somewhat guilty about that decision but believe that since old Arthur Guiness and his family basically re-built the cathedral, Jesus, Mary and St. Patrick are indifferent to the choice that I made. God had his chance to strike me with a lightning bolt as I stood at the top of the Guiness Tower after the tour enjoying a gratus pint and I survived to write this blog. So I figure that St. Patrick intervened and stayed the Hand of God. We dined at the O'Neill's Bar with the Anderson's but the service was not good that night.

The next day we met up with the Andersons again and proceeded to complete the bus tour before our 24-hour passes ran out. Roland and I didn't quite make it to the end of the bus route but the girls did. The four of us took in the sights of the Kilmainham Jail and Phoenix Park where the Queen had been the day before and at the next major attraction, Roland and I parted company with our dear wives. Linda and Brenda continued on down the road to the shopping opportunities that were beckoning them as Roland and I jumped off the bus at The Old Jameson Distillery. We did another walking tour of the Irish Whisky facility, which ended in a quite satisfactory whisky tasting. That night our foursome ate at the Winding Stair restaurant which was a place recommended by my sister and Fodder's. We had an excellent meal there. We subsequently parted company with our English friends as they were headed to the south coast by train in the morning and we would be completing our epic journey on the morrow with a flight back to Calgary via Chicago.

We have been home for now since May 21, 2011, when we landed back in Calgary. We have subsequently returned to our family and our jobs in the Calgary oilpatch. But we had been bitten bad by the travel bug. So given the chance and with the grace of God we were going to continue our global exploration as soon as we could manage to get away.

We have had a very good year and therefore my next installment of this blog will start when we arrive in London two days from now on the December 1, 2011. Stay tuned!

Gym with Roland and Brenda in Dublin taken by the Boss

The door I did not go in (St. Patrick's)

Benjamin Guinness's statue on the grounds of the Cathedral. He was son of Arthur Guinness who founded the brewery. Ben restored the cathedral in the 1860s. 

The gate I did go in

From the Observation Deck at the top of the Guinness Tour

Hop-on/Hop-off Buses at St. Stevens Green

The Stokes were here

The Moores were here too

A typical park scene

For my buddy Patrick

Mykonos Follow-up

I just wanted to share a couple of photos that we took over the past 24 hours or so.

Watch where you park the car.

Our hosts in Mykonos

Full moon over the Aegean

Kalafatis Beach, Mykonos

Since May 10, 2011, we have been resting comfortably on the island of Mykonos. It is Monday, May 16, 2011 now and we have had several days to get rid of our sea legs and just sit in one place for a little while. The flight over here from Athens was all of 30 minutes and although this island is close in distance, it could not be more distant in terms of settings. It is very quiet here and the pace of life is much slower than on the mainland.

We are at the quiet end of the island too. Our hotel is at the end of the main road, as far away from Mykonos Town as you could possibly be. We are staying in a nice place about 250 yards off of Kalafatis Beach, which is about a 15-minute drive from the town. You need to have a rental car here but that is not a problem because there are dozens of competing outlets throughout the island and one within walking distance of our hotel. We rented a small 5-speed automatic Chevy. We have found most of the beaches and have already been into town several times. We are loading up on t-shirts and evil eye pendants, which are both must-have souvenirs.

Kalafatis Beach is the beach that the windsurfers like on Mykonos. That is because it is at this beach that they are exposed to the best windy conditions on the island. For the first couple of days we could understand why a windsurfer would like it here, but the past several days have been beautiful and today, some of the guests including Mrs. Gym are catching rays next to the pool. Later in the day we plan on getting away from the hotel again and driving to our favorite beach which is Kalo Livadi, about 5 minutes away.

This is a good time of year to be on Mykonos. The summer madness has not really started yet. However, the other day Mrs. Gym and I saw an example of the summer crowd that starts to arrive soon. One young fellow was staggering along the promenade in town far out ahead of the evening party crowd. He was negotiating the stone walkway with a complex 4-step routine that changed with every yard. Even more amazing was that his rambling gait took him right along the edge of the harbor wall and he did not fall over the side. A police car that I thought was going to give him some grief simply waited for him to get by a narrow area and then wheeled around him, likely on its way to some Greek donut shop further on down the way.

Since we got here there have been some strikes that may affect us getting out of here. The airlines have already bumped us once and we fully expect that we will get bumped again before we are scheduled to leave the island. However, things could be worse than being delayed on Mykonos for a bit.

Unfortunately, we will be home very soon. 

Our favourite beach Kalo Livadi

The famous windmills of Mykonos

A windy day on the point. The windmills are behind us. 

Gym between the windmills about to lift off

Note the wooden room in the middle of the picture hanging over the sea

This is that room from the inside. It is a cool little pub.

Little Venice in Mykonos town

These small Greek Orthodox churches are everywhere

A great shot of Mykonos town. Little Venice is on the far right.

Can a car get through there?

No problem? They have one inch to spare on either side.

Gym's ride on Mykonos. It is smaller than a mini.

Scene from our room. On calm nights you can hear the mandolin from the
Fish Taverna in  the village that you see in the right-middle of the photo. 

A Brief Visit to Athens

On May 10th we arrived at our last port, Athens. After 45 days and 19 other ports in 12 different countries, we had reached the end of our epic cruise. As Mrs. Gym had graciously packed everything up the night before, we simply woke up, ate a quick breakfast and shook the Captain's hand good-bye as we beetled off the gangplank. It was a well executed landing, but it was sad to leave the Nautica, after all we'd been through together. However, we had another leg of the journey all planned out. We were to  rendezvous with some Athens' natives in the cruise ship terminal to begin the last chapter in our epic.

Sure enough right on time, a local guide and a driver were there at the terminal, with Gym's surname posted on a sign. They were standing beside a comfortable looking Mercedes, our ride for the tour and the transfer to the airport. The guide who was a 42-year old archeologist named Stadi, asked us what we wanted to see and do in the 3-4 hours we had to look around her city? We had two ideas: our first wish was to get rid of a 14 kilogram box of souvenirs and dirty socks that we had carried off the boat with our other luggage; and, our second wish was to see the Parthenon. Stadi and the driver did not disappoint on either request. 

On the way to the central post office we got a city tour. We passed the Olympic Stadium which has been used for two Olympic Games. This was a must-see for my dear wife the marathoner because it was also the finishing line to two Olympic marathons. We also passed a number of neoclassical buildings in downtown Athens, one of which was notorious for being the headquarters of the German occupation force in WW2. We then stopped in front of the Central Post Office. Thank God we had a local with us or it would have taken us all day, because everything was Greek to Mrs. Gym and I. Stadi immediately ascertained that we needed to go down the street to another outlet to post boxes which contained turkish delight gift packs and dirty socks. We skittled down to the right office and were on our way minus the box, in 10 minutes.

Our driver then negotiated the downtown core which basically rings the the Acropolis and snuggled us right up to the base of the hill. Then Mrs. Gym, Stadi and I started our climb up to the gates. Stadi bought the tickets for us and as we entered the gates the tour began. Stadi was no slouch in her knowledge of the subject matter and with the limited time that we had she took us around the ruins and pointed out all the broader concepts and then was able to show us the other ruins that lie below the acropolis and in the city beyond. There is an unbelievable view from up there.

I took many things away from Stadi's tour and I will not bore you with all the details but I would like to share a few nuggets with you, my loyal followers. The ruins that you see today are not ruined solely due to natural decay.  Two very recent events caused tremendous losses at the site and both of these events were caused by foreign intervention. Greeks had nothing to do with these tragic events. First off, in 1687 the Venetians bombarded the Turks that were occupying Greece and who thought they were being smart by storing their ammunition in the Parthenon. No one would bombard the Parthenon, right? Wrong, the Venetians did, and the resulting explosion did tremendous damage. Then in 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, removed the surviving sculptures with the permission of the Turks and later sold them to the British Museum in London. In two quick strikes the Turks laid waste to the heart of Greece. Today the Greeks want the British to return the works of art that were basically stolen, but so far they have not been given any encouragement by the British Museum, who incidentally also hold much of Egypt's national treasures.

We covered the Parthenon and more importantly we saw most of Athens from the top of the hill, so in our short time there we covered plenty of territory. Then Stadi and our driver dropped us at the airport with plenty of time to catch our flight to Mykonos for a few days in the sun before we had to return to Calgary completing our round-the-world trip.

Deja Vu! Hey what the hell? I thought we had something different in Calgary.
Does this look like the Saddledome or what? The sad thing is, their's was first!

Athen's LRT

The Parthenon. Note that is is constantly being restored.

Erechthion is a temple to the north of the Parthenon. On the left you can see
the maidens which hold up the porch on the southwest corner.

These beautiful columns are actually narrower at the tops and bottoms and
thicker in the middle but appear to be narrow at the top only. 

Lord Elgin made off with 17 marble statues from the east and west pediments,
15 of the metope panels depicting battle scenes between things like the Centaurs and the Lapiths and
160 meters of the Pantheon friezes.

Looking down on the very first theatre of any civilization, the
Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus

Hellenic Parliament

The Olympic Stadium used in the 1st games of the modern games in
1896 and the games in 2004.

Stadi and Mrs. Gym

Kusadasi and Ephesus

We left Haifa, Israel on the evening of May 7^th, 2011 and steamed north for the next 36 hours. We were headed to a scheduled one-day engagement in Kusadasi, Turkey. When we woke on May 9^th, 2011, we were docked at what turned out to be one of the nicest cruise ship terminals since Hong Kong. Kusadasi is a beautiful place as you can see from our photographs and the Turks are for the most part pretty nice people. The place is modern and clean and I did not see anything that looked remotely like the Turkey that I saw in Midnight Express. There was this one truck driver though who almost ran me over when I‘d lapsed into a daze on my way across the street. He kind of looked like one of the prison guards in that movie. Other than him though, everyone was really nice.

We signed up for a half-day tour of Ephesus and it was a really beautiful day to hike through those ancient ruins. Now, Mrs. Gym and I had no idea what to expect on this tour, but I think we both agree that it ranks right up there with Petra and Masada in terms of the wow factor. I’m sure that when you look at the pictures you will see what I mean.

Now just because Ephesus is not a well known today, doesn’t mean it has always been that way. Mrs. Gym and I walked the same streets as Alexander the Great who liberated the city from the Persians in 334 B.C. Later during the Roman period under Emperor Augustus, Ephesus became the second largest city in the Roman Empire and the entire world, behind only Rome. It is said that during the Roman Era, the population at the peak may have been as high as 500,000 inhabitants. And that’s not all. St. Paul went there after the death of Christ to spread the word of the Lord. He wrote 1 Corinthians there and later wrote the epistle to the Ephesians while he was in prison in Rome. Finally and most importantly, Ephesus is said to have been the last home of Mary, mother of Jesus. So some big names hung out in Ephesus.

The amazing thing about Ephesus is that so much has survived intact. The one obvious main reason for this is that unlike most other ancient cities like Rome, Athens, Jerusalem and others, no modern city was built on top of the ruins. Ephesus was saved because this former port on the Mediterranean Sea is now 2 kilometers from the sea. What? Is Gym mad? How can this be? Well I was there and I drove in from the coast past a number of sugar cane and banana fields that are between the beach and the old port city. What has happened is the Cayster River silted up the old port and has continued to dump silt into the sea creating new land through the centuries at the rate of about 100 meters per century. This meant that Ephesus could no longer function as a port city. The river is still dumping prodigious amounts of silt and continues to build some nice flat fertile land for future generations of farmers.

After our tour of Ephesus we returned to Kusadasi. In the afternoon we went to a little tea party in town. The Turkish custom is to offer tea to visitors and we were told that you should not refuse these offers. We were with a few shipmates just minding our own business when we got caught up in a sales pitch on the street and were swept into the basement of a cavernous Turkish Carpet warehouse store. Fearing a Midnight Express-like incident, we accepted the offer of tea and listened to the pitch. I have never heard a slicker salesman in my life. He was immaculately dressed in a custom-made suit and spoke English with a ‘moneyed’ east coast accent. I don’t know how we got out of there without at least a 500 knot-per square inch runner for the front hall. Thank God that Mrs. Gym was able to out-charm the Turkish slickster and give us time to slip out of through the back door. We ran all the way to the ship.

That evening we left the Aegean coast and started west towards Athens. That would be our last night of a very long cruise. 

Coming in to Kusadasi, Turkey

Island fortress guarding harbor

Driving along the waterfront

On the way to Ephesus looking back at ship docked in harbour

Ephesus - the seat of the government

This way to the lower city

A clue as to how pillars were re-inforced. Iron pegs and molten lead were used.

Medical Campus

Victoria goddess of Victory. The Greek name was Nike.

The Linda in Ephesus

Ancient portico floor - if you look close you can see the intricate tile work

Temple of Hadrian

42-hole public toilet just off main street and yes, it had running water

Celsus Library and the market next door to the right

Theater for 25,000

Road to the port. The sea was just off the end of the scene and now is 2 kms. away.

Chariot Grooves

'Christians were here' - an early ichthys symbol made by combining greek letters for 'fish' and carved into the road.

At least Turks are kind of honest