santorini

Monday 13th July
We visited Fira Town on the island of Santorini (Saint Irene), Greece today. Our ten story floating hotel was anchored in the Caldera of a volcano which last erupted in 1956. The tender to shore was rocky and mercifully short delivering us quickly to the few shops at the dock. The town, which is perched 300 metres up on the edge of the volcano, can only be reached by donkey or cable car. We lunched in the sky with a view over the caldera and the town as Greek music played and a gentle breeze wafted past. Then Johnny Cash started singing ‘Walk the Line’ and a huge wind started up only to disappear at the same time Johnny did.
People all around busied themselves with shopping, chatting, sipping coffee or Greek beer and eating Greek delights. The locals were all relaxed smiles and hospitality; they had all the time in the world to spend with us.
Santorini is the classic Greek island you see on all the pics – whitewashed houses with blue framed doors and windows. The church domes are blue too. It’s nothing short of gorgeous.

Thursday 16th
Today finds us at sea between Greece and Italy. Yesterday we visited Athens. I’m sad to report that I didn’t like it at all. It seemed to have all the worst aspects of some inner suburban areas to the west of Melbourne. Walls everywhere were bedecked with graffiti. We were twice ripped off by taxi drivers. We weren’t ready for the sleight of hand trick where the 25 euro we handed him suddenly became 15 euro. It was only an hour later that we realised that must have given him the 25 we thought we had – he had a neat magic trick that turned the 20 into a 10. The second driver tried the same stunt with a 50, but we were awake up to it the second time and stood our ground! That kind of thing leaves a bitter taste. Despite my gammy foot, we took the walk up to the Parthenon with 15 million other people on a hot July day. It wasn’t worth it, though I didn’t mind donating the 12 euro entrance fee that I assume is going to restoration works. We were both glad to be back on our floating hotel.

just like a chocolate milkshake only crunchy (it beats as it sweeps as it cleans)

A cruise is not just about toe-dipping tourism. Sure you flit through ports looking around for a few hours, maybe pick up a few souvenirs directed specifically at tourists, learn a little and then move on. However, as I’ve learned on this holiday, there is so much more. It’s a health resort if you want it to be. There is 24 hour food service which is free (well, paid for in the ticket price) so if you want to you can chow down all day on hamburgers and high calorie, low nutrition delights, but it’s also easy to find salads, soups and seafood and eat healthily and modestly. There are all manner of health and beauty services on board. I dragged my bad back and gammy foot off to the resident acupuncturist / Chinese herbalist. The treatment was both beneficial and educational and I’ve been lounging lazily in the hydrotherapy pool and then wandering off to the heat treatment chairs to lounge some more. All this lounging is done while watching sparkling aqua ocean and gorgeous Adriatic islands pass by.
So it’s not the same as doing the Paul Theroux and travelling through Asia and India by train while chatting to and learning from ordinary and colourful local folk. In fact it is probably at the opposite pole, any cultural knowledge gained is extremely shallow, but cruising has an awful lot to recommend it. Just expect a totally different experience to other forms of travelling.

it's just like Venice without the water

That seemed like a pretty wild claim to me. Venice is all about the water so how would old town Dubrovnik be just like Venice? K claimed he’d accept that claim if it had narrow streets, piazzas, gelati and Venetian style masks. Well, the old town has narrow streets, piazzas, gelati and even masks not unlike Venetian masks. There are no cars or motorcycles just like Venice, but then there are no Vaporettos and no canals. So while not being a totally bizarre claim, there are essential ingredients missing.
It’s incomprehensible that just twenty years ago this town was being bombed in the Serb-Croatian crisis of the day. It’s a lovely town set on hills rising out of the Adriatic. We dined on a terrace overlooking the diamond water. A pair of pigeons preened next to us as we ate.
The old town is like many in Europe. It has massive 25 metre high walls surrounding it and it is well preserved. It only functions because of the tourist trade. Small shops house paintings and crafts by local artists, others sell the usual run of souvenirs – it seems that every city in Europe claims Pinocchio as their own! Some of the buildings house international clothing companies like United Colours of Benneton. Every thing is aimed at extracting euros/krunas from tourists who flit into town, take photos, eat, buy a few souvenirs and move on.
In the fleeting visit what I learnt was that this part of Croatia is breathtakingly beautiful. it survives on the tourist trade and that the locals, like many throughout Europe, are multi lingual.

paris

Paris finds us sans fun art in a grand old hotel. We've stumbled on a wonderful place that oozes 19th century opulence, has jazz in the layback bar, great Rosie, good coffee and knowledgeable, helpful staff. What more could one want?

Pics to follow. There seems to be some kind of limiting device stopping pic uploads at present!!

refuge from the thronging crowds

Brugge lives up to its reputation of being jam-packed with people on the weekend. You'd have needed a shoe horn to fit anyone else in yesterday. While wrestling our way onward we spotted a Kempinski Hotel down a narrow cobblestone laneway. A minute later we were in spacious air-conditioned luxury.

The building is a 15th century residence which has been refurbished beautifully. Fun art is a theme. The bar has a sculpture of a giant set of paintbrushes as well as several paintings of musicians which combine paint and brass. The most amusing though is the giant red poodle in the manicured gardens.

planes, trains and automobiles

We had a day of varied transport. An uneventful automobile trip to the airport was followed by a cattle-class flight across Europe to Paris. The plane took off late so we were at the airport for over 4 hours. On the bright side the Air-France crew got us safely to our first destination. We arrived rather later though and had to hot tail it out of there to make our connecting train. What was reputed to be a 100 metre stroll turned out to be a one kilometre fast paced limp. We leapt on the train as it was pulling out and made it to Brussels. After a quick brekky we headed for the train to Brugge. I think that they pinched a train from India and plonked it in Belgium for the day. People were standing cheek to jowl, hundreds were hanging out windows and others and their cows were strapped to the top of the vehicle as the train laboured and grunted under the weight of cows, baggage and people. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but it was close.

Brugge was a thriving and important seaport until the 16th century. Interestingly many of the buildings were rebuilt to original specifications in the 18th century. They made it all a bit more gothic than it had been to start with so now it's ubergothic.

This was outside the Gruuthuse museum. Apparently 'gruut' or 'gruit' was a herb that was used in beer. Mr Gruut had a monopoly on it and made a killing. When gruit was replaced by hops, Gruut was given the right to tax the brewers and managed to make even more money. How the rich do prosper!

This is the view from the top of the brewery.

Belgium is reputed to be have the best beer in the world, or so the Belgians say. Aussies would dispute that. Anyhow, in respect of our hosts I had to have a beer. Normally I get the glass to my face and back out. The yeasty fragrance is too much for me. But, being a good tourist, I gave it a go. It wasn't completely disgusting.

Brugge is quite lovely with its cobblestone streets, lovely old buildings and canals. It's a bit reminiscent of both Amsterdam and Venice, but at the same time it is quite different.

This pic is simply a case of playing with focus. I like it so I thought I'd chuck it in.

mussels and chips are fine by me

There are many enjoyable aspects of a holiday; the sights, the colours, the sounds, the smells and the strangeness of the places you visit amongst them. I think though that one of the best elements is the opportunity to reinvent yourself. No-one knows you. You don't know them. It's a relatively clean slate. I don't need to be the shy introvert. I can be the confident extrovert. I can be lazy, energetic, dull, excitable ... anything I like.

Hmmm. On the other hand, I'm going to be taking my gammy foot with me. And ... can you go to Belgium and enjoy mussels, chips and beer if you don't like beer? Can you start liking beer? Do you want to start liking beer?

Well that's obviously a question of earth-shattering importance that I'm going to have to answer in the next few days.

Picture nicked from http://punchin.net/blog2/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/steak-frites-mussels.jpg

hospitals yet again

I'm walking through the a shopping centre without a care. All is well with the world. Suddenly with the next footfall I'm writhing in pain. Each footstep is incredibly difficult. I limp across the shopping centre, along a passage, out a door, across a carpark and into the car. As I do I realise that the pain is in the exact parts of my foot that hurt two years ago when I fell and sprained my ankle. It took me months to recover from that injury ... and here it is again out of the blue.

I limp off to see an orthopedic surgeon as last time it was suggested that I may have broken a bone in my foot. He quickly tells me that despite the pain and despite the swelling, there's absolutely nothing wrong with my foot. What I am feeling is referred pain from a problem with the lower back. As strange as it sounds, I come to terms with that.

A few days later I manage to get an appointment to see a brilliant osteopath in Dubai. Upon hearing my story he doubts the accuracy of the diagnosis. The upshot is that he is sure that the pain I am feeling in my foot is a result of injuries to ligaments and tendons. My back is fine. I look down to see that he is wearing a hard plastic boot; the same one he wore when I visited him two months earlier. He fell off his motorbike and fractured several bones when the bike landed on top of him. I figure he knows about foot pain!

So here I am about to set off on a walking tour of Europe with a gammy foot. Or is it a gammy back? I'm going with the foot.

you've gotta love banks

Well you know it's a funny thing. A year ago I was blogging and grumping about banks here in Al Ain. We were about to do a grand tour of Europe and had applied for an HSBC card. All was going well. The card was approved and we'd received it, but when I decided to test it, it didn't work - declined. That was a great start! I rang the bank. Yes, I'd activated it. Yes, I'd done X, Y and Z. It turns out the bank had cancelled the card for some, still mysterious, reason. It took us several days to figure out that this had happened. After making umpteen phone calls, in desperation, we ended up going to see the bank manager, who was a very nice young-ish Emirati man. With his assistance we finally got the account reinstated and received a replacement card the night before we took off for Europe. This was a great relief to us on the eve of our holiday.

Well, as it happens we are about to head off on holidays again and true to form HSBC have decided that now would be a good time to mess us around again. Our credit card, which had a 35,000 dh limit has just dropped to a 600 dh limit. 600 dh? They have to be joking. It turns out that they reduced our credit limit because we haven't been using the card. Apparently one has to use 1000 dh per month to maintain the limit. Not that we were ever told that, it must be in the extra-fine print. Of course it's not possible for the bank to adjust the limit up again, but if we keep the card at the 600 dh max for six months, they'll review the situation and may adjust our credit upwards. That's so helpful. I am completely underwhelmed!

Cards are now cancelled and we're not in a hurry to have dealings with HSBC again!