Rhodes, Greece

We have had several long and interesting excursions the last few days in Israel and today in Greece. Rhodes is a walled city with a Palace of the Grand Masters. So the Palace is very ornate for its time.

I love the castle look.

It was built in 1492.

Most floors in the palace were mosaics.

There is a current French Consulate here.

After our tour we found my favorite restaurant from our trip in 2013.

I ordered the same thing, lamb kleftiko. but it was different. Instead of cooking the dish in parchment paper it was cooked in phyllo dough.

Beautiful! it is lamb pieces cooked with potatoes, carrots, zucchini, bell peppers and topped with tomatoes and some small peppers (not hot).

The waitress we had10 years ago does not work there now. But our waitress knew her. She is Katarina. This is our new waitress.

Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee

Mount of Beatitudes

Then on to Capharnaum, St. Peter’s home.

St. Peter’s home

River Jordan Baptism

Church of Annunciation in Nazareth

Haifa, Israel

I am trying to get caught up on the blog. The tours in Israel were long. The first day was a panoramic view of the city and then extended to Acre (pronounced AKKO). This city was famous during the Crusades.

Baha’i World Center in Haifa.

This was the dining room during the Crusades.

Then we walked through the local market.

The most interesting building in Haifa was this.

At sea and sailing the Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is about 120 miles long with dessert on each side. It was sort of boring but I still took loads of photos.

We were not alone.

The locals fish in the canal.

Egypt built a city in the Sinai. We were told it was finished in 1965. I haven’t found the name.

There are Mosques frequently along the shore.

There is nothing around it.

Often there are places where pontoons are stacked that could be floated and joined to make a bridge.

Luxor, Egypt

Our excursion was another very long day, but very special. We went to Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. The bus ride to Karnak took over 3 hours. Same on the way back.

We drove through some agricultural areas.

Wheat fields

Sugar cane going to the “mill?”

Often by donkey carts.

Much of the area was just the Sahara Desert. Nothing grows.

Karnaak Temple

There are 134 large columns supposedly holding up a roof at one time.

Then on to Valley of the Kings.

Rameses IX

King Tut

I know. You expect to see the gold mask of King Tut. It is in the museum in Cairo. But I took a photo from the web.

It was a long and dusty day. Well worth the effort!!!

Aqaba, Jordan

We took a very long duration excursion to Petra. Netra is an ancient Nabataean Capital City established in about the 4th century BCE. It was used extensively by nomadic Arabs in the incense trade routes. The most famous building is called the Treasury. There is a large theater and many tombs. Not really much of a city! To get there today is a long walk in through steep cliffs.

Eventually we made it to the Treasury. This is perhaps the only view of Petra known by most people.

Some people actually paid to sit on a camel to have their picture taken. We did not.

I was amzed at the goats that graze in the area.

Some groups of people just walked in and about out the same way. That’s too easy. Kathy and I went with much of our group to walk by the theater and the “cemetary”.

And the cemetery.

Typically people walk in, see what they want and ride our on a shuttle bus. But the shittle bus drivers went on strike over some dispute about the tour buses of which there were many. So we had to walk out. We were told that walk was 2.5 kilometers. Uphill!

Do you see the buildings at the top of the hill? That was where we walked after a full morning to walk in. We walked a total of 18,000 steps. Kathy did better than me. Around one of the curves in the road I sat on a railing and rested for 5 minutes or so. She kept going.

This terrible long delay in our excursion meant we missed our lunch reservation in a local hotel. We were even so late that the ship had to stay in port for a couple hours longer than scheduled. We did get some food in the evening in the cafe.

At Sea

I went to a most interesting lecture by Nigel Cox about breaking the Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

The reason it was so interesting was that Kathy and I had dinner with Nigel and his wife, Olivia the night before. We talked about Embassy duty. And I even shared that I was an Arabic linguist and broke code. In his presentation he mentioned me by name 2 times. Later some of our new friends asked me about that. That was a lot of fun.

Jedda, Saudi Arabia

I forgot to add a story about Kathy’s special event yesterday. She went to a baking class and made bread. We shared it as part of our dinner.

Since today is Easter we were given Chocolate Bunnies in our room.

Most of the time on my excursion I was careful to not speak Arabic. But a couple times I couldn’t help myself. I always received a normal calm response in Arabic that was just what I expected and understood. Great fun.

I was surprised how horrible the buildings were during the tour. There must be better areas to show us.

Many Mosques. I will only add one photo.

Fortunately, I was able to return to the ship for lunch. Easter Sunday means lamb. And I added some vegetable lasagna.

And the cafe was decorated. I want one big egg!

Red Sea

We are far enough from Somalia that there should be no pirates.

We were joined for dinner by Nigel Cox and his wife Olivia. They lecture and are Brits who have served in the Diplomatic Service. We had a great discussionincluding my time in Beirut and Nicosia, Cyprus. I don’t think they expected to meet someone with that experience. And especially since we also lived in England

We are sailing near Somalia to get to the Red Sea. Somalia has been famous (infamous) for pirates attacking cruise ships. Viking installed barbed wire all around the ship at the lowest open deck.

They also brought a special security group on board. I believe they are armed.

Mostly another quiet day at sea with a couple of guest lectures. Dinner was special. There was a big celebration at the pool area with singing and dancing. But when we went there it was so crowded and there were no empty tables. So we went back to the cafe. We did have lobster!

The singers did come through briefly.

And we had a full moon. What that had to do with the celebration I do not know.