We realised my life-long dream of cruising through the Norwegian Fjord-scape last summer, and you can read all about that adventure in the preceding posts. This Spring, we followed up with a cruise along another European coastline hitherto unknown to us, the north-easterly subregion of the Mediterranean Sea. Leaving the chilly depth of the Norwegian Sea and the memory of Viking Longships well behind us, we sailed through the, more or less, balmy Aegean, Ionian, and Adriatic Seas, this time following the billowing sails of Phoenician bireme, who left their indelible mark on all circummediterranean civilisations.

Not many details are known about these seafaring people who were headquartered in Tyre, present day Lebanon. From roughly 1500 BCE onward their ever expanding trade routes along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, possibly even the Indian Ocean, formed a link between peoples and their diverse cultures. The Phoenicians were not only the forefathers of navigation and international trade, they also gifted us with something far more important. They left us one of the most significant inventions in the cultural history of mankind, an alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet spread near and far across the coastal civilisations they visited. Arameans and Hebrews used it to transcribe their languages, and around 800 BCE the Greeks adapted it to their own needs in non-semitic versions. The Phoenician alphabet gradually faded away, while the Greek’s, by way of the Etruscan’s and Roman’s gave birth to our modern Latin alphabet. [Based on Dynamiques des Ports méditerranéens 80/2010, Maria Helena Trindade Lopes, Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine, l’Université Côte d’Azur, modified & abbreviated]

Starting our cruise in Αθήνα, Athens, the capital city of Greece, we were scheduled to sail first through the Aegean Sea and visit the islands of Crete and Mykonos. Then, rounding the Peloponnese, we would enter the Ionian Sea where we expected to call in the harbour of Sarandë, a resort town in the Republic of Albania. After Sarandë, our ship, the Silver Moon, would pass between the town of Otranto in the very heel of Italy, and Mount Çica in Albania, thus moving from the Ionian into the Adriatic Sea. Mount Çica is a well loved mountaineering destination, so impressive in fact that Lord Byron mentioned it in his poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”

Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak,
Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear,
And gathering storms around convulse the closing year.

Our itinerary included six further stops in the Adriatic Sea. Bari in Puglia, Italy, and Kotor in Montenegro, then Dubrovnik, Šibenik, and Zadar in Croatia, and finally two more Italian cities, Ravenna and Trieste before the conclusion of our voyage in Venice.

LET THE JOURNEY BEGIN ✈️

Leaving our lovely wisteria behind, we started early in the morning of April 25 for the airport, expecting to reach Athens that evening. Expectations, however, don’t always come to fruition. Instead of awakening in the best known town of all of Antiquity and enjoying a birthday breakfast overlooking the Parthenon, we found ourselves stuck in the Bordeaux airport owing to a technical problem with the Turkish Airline plane. It is just a smidgen aggravating, when one is stranded a mere hour and a half from home, without the option to actually return because half the luggage is already checked, and nobody has the slightest clue as to when one might be able to continue the journey. It has to be said, though, that this unexpected 26-hour grounding added a positive human aspect to an otherwise annoying interlude, as we had many interesting encounters and conversations and even made a new friend, lovely Vildan from Istanbul.

Finally arriving in Athens, we immediately repaired to the hotel’s rooftop bar for our first, real-life glimpse of the illuminated Acropolis.

After a good night’s sleep, we enjoyed a tasty breakfast of a wide selection of Greek mezedes (tidbits, similar to tapas) and delicious coffee, accompanied by gorgeous views of Acropolis and Athens at large,

Afterwards, we set off in direction of an Athenian neighbourhood called Πλάκα, Pláka. For this one and only full day in town, our simple goal was to get to know Athens a little better by meandering through Old-Town that stretched between our hotel, the Electra Metropolis and the Acropolis rising majestically above the city centre. I was hoping for a visit to the Acropolis Museum the next morning before boarding ship. One more expectation that … well, you’ll find out.

After cake and champagne at the hotel, preordered by my sweet husband – for a day earlier, of course 🎂🥂

… we continued our explorations.

Following the recommendation of Ms. Vicky Stavropoulos, a local business woman, we settled for an early dinner at a long-established restaurant called Ευγενία, παραδοσιακό οινομαγειρείο, Evgenia, paradosiako oinomageireio meaning Eugenia’s traditional winery. Eugenia and her family have provided traditional Greek home cooking for over 30 years and she is well loved throughout the neighbourhood and by Vicky and her gang. We were served the house wine in the traditional tin beaker, just as I remembered reading in some guide book. The wait person rejected our menu choices as boring and we gladly excepted and enjoyed her substitutions. Only now that I write this, did I come across the recommendation by a knowledgeable blogger of restaurants in central Athens, Matt Barrett, who had chosen Eugenia’s place as his number 3! The last sentence in his review states: “It is not the most romantic location, on a small but busy street overlooking a parking lot, but the food more than makes up for the lack of ambiance.” We can confirm that.

Unfortunately, my husband got very sick during the night. Since we had shared the dishes at Eugenia’s, her food clearly wasn’t the issue. In hindsight, I realised that Barry had been listless and spacey all day. After his terrible night, he was feeling awful, and it was entirely unclear if we were going to be able to embark on our cruise in just a few hours. He is hardly ever ill, so this was really worrisome and I asked the hotel to send up their physician on call. She poked and probed and questioned the patient before prescribing a long list of meds to get him fit for boarding in the afternoon. Nothing serious, doctor declared, most likely an intestinal virus. I was then send on a mission to procure the medication and, just for assurance, adult incontinent panties. Not the most auspicious beginning of our trip so far!!!

The Electra Metropolis hotel gave us a very generous late check out, in fact, we could stay in our room till the pre-ordered taxi arrived to take us to the cruise dock in Πειραιάς, Piraeus, the international port for Athens, Greece.