An Enchanting Island

Rhodes, Greece, November2 ,2011

This past summer our friends Mike and Sue asked us to meet them for dinner to discuss their making their first sojourn overseas. During the course of the dinner, Mike asked Tim if we had ever had any travel disasters. After much thought Tim responded that we had not had any. Any problems that we had encountered were cultural problems that were our fault. Tim told Mike that the joy we get from traveling is encountering new cultures. Just as there is no bad day of golf there is no bad day of travel. We mention this because we are sure that some of you are a bit tired of us talking about another wonderful day of travel. Unfortunately for you, it was another excellent day. We had not signed up for any cruise sponsored shore excursions, planning on exploring on our own. We were at the shore excursion concierge desk discussing our options when one of the couples we had dinner with our first night on board asked if we would be interested in renting a cab with them to go up to Lindos. Duh! Did the sun come up this morning? We talked with the concierge to get guidelines on renting a cab and set off. After brief negotiations with the cab driver we were on our way. It was about an 18 mile trip to Lindos. Once out of Rhodes City the landscape became quite barren and hilly. We saw many goats along the road that our cab driver assured us were domestic and just foraging about.

Just outside of Lindos our driver pulled off the side of the road to give us an opportunity for pictures. We had a breathtaking view of Lindos below us. Lindos is a small town located at the northern tip of the Island of Rhodes. All of the buildings were white washed just like you see on the Greekce travel posters. An acropolis sits on a high hill above Lindos. When we arrived in Lindos we were immediately confronted with a stall full of donkeys available for us to rent to take us up the hill to the acropolis. Neither our new friends, Greg and Sue, nor we were interested. We agreed to meet back at the taxi stand at a certain time and explored Lindos. What a lovely, quiet little town. There were the usual tourist trap type shops selling t-shirts, etc. but none of the overbearing hawkers we had put up with in Turkey. These souvenir shops were mixed in with jewelry stores, little art galleries and the like. We also came upon a drop dead gorgeous little Greek Orthodox Church. Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures. As we sat and had a small pizza and a beer for lunch we were struck with how simple a life the residents of Lindos lead. We may have been a bit envious.

We explored Rhodes City upon our return from Lindos. It is much larger than Lindos and, as you would expect, more bustling. Because Rhodes City is where the cruise ships dock there were considerably more of the tourist oriented shops, but it was still not as frenetic as the bazaars in Turkey. We returned to the ship in the late afternoon so the rest of the day was spent lounging, having another wonderful meal and seeing another good show. Tomorrow we arrive in Cyprus. Again, we do not have any excursions planned. We only have about five hours in port so we will probably just take a shuttle bus into Limassol and explore a bit.

We did get some bad news this morning. It was announced over the intercom by our captain that because of shelling in the area of Ashdod in southern Israel we would not be docking there. Instead, we will go directly to Haifa and spend two nights in port there. The good news is this will not affect our planned excursions to Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee. Unfortunately, the trip into Jerusalem will be considerably longer due to a longer drive. For us that simply means we’ll see more of the Israeli countryside - another bonus!