Steps, Stairs but no Chicken Kiev!

It was a great achievement to master the Kiev Metro and also to book our train tickets for Friday to Lviv.  There are almost no English speakers here and all signage is only in Cyrillic.

After this we headed for the Pechersk Lavra.  This is an enormous religious complex that grew up on the site of a monk's holy cave.  To get there, we went by Metro and walked the last one and a half km.  The Metro station is the deepest in the world - twice as deep as the cavernous ones in Moscow and Washington.  There seems to be some correlation between those cities with deep underground train systems and those that would make good nuclear targets.

Pechersk Lavra took us from mid morning till the end of the day to explore. It has cathedrals and churches, all the monastic buildings and a complex cave system where we wandered holding a candle to see the dozens of glass topped coffins of deceased monks.  We didn't join in the local custom of kissing the coffins or the icons. We also visited several museums inside the complex including church treasures, icons and a large archaeological museum.

There are an abundance of steps, stairs and hills and we trod everyone.  What it doesn't have is many tourists.  Pechersk Lavra deserves its World Heritage ranking.

Out for dinner, we decided we should have chicken kiev.  Chicken Kiev is not a Ukrainian dish as it was invented in New York based on the Ukrainian dish, chicken supreme.  Our chicken was anything but supreme!

 The golden domes of Pechersk Lavra.

 

Altar details inside the cathedral.

Approaching the cathedral.

The lower level.  The caves are located in this area.

Walking Kiev

 We spent late yesterday and all today walking  around the old town of Kiev. There is so much to see, we will leave things unexplored at the end of our 4 days.

Kiev is a beautiful city with stunning buildings and impressive monuments and churches.  We visited  Independence Square and the monument to Ukraine independence.  As  yet we haven't been to the earlier monument to celebrate the reunification of Russia and Ukraine. Around Independence Square are many stunning buildings, fountains and statues but with very few tourists other than Eastern European people.  To date we have yet to meet anyone who is fully fluent in English.  Our Ukrainian is improving.  We now know how to buy milk rather than pouring yoghurt and how to tell the difference between dry and sweet wine.

We visited St. Sophia's Cathedral, now a museum, built in the 11th century.  It fully deserves its World Heritage Status.  It is more than just a cathedral - it is an entire complex of buildings, all of which are museums.

The other impressive church is St Michael's which was destroyed in 1934 during the communist era and has been rebuilt between 1997 - 2000 and already looks a few hundred years old.  The golden domes are stunning.

We also visited the Golden Gate which is an old defence gate with a church built on top.  This gave us a great vantage point to view the city.

We have a wonderful, centrally located apartment.  We are adjacent to the Museum of Art and almost next door to the Japanese Embassy.

We plan to explore more of the city tomorrow.

If we keep up this pace, we will be back to our pre cruise weight in no time.

 The monument to Ukraine independence....hard to fit it all in.

 Gail at St Sophia's.

St Michael's.

 

 Yaraslav the Wise with Robert the invincible.

This is St Michael's.  An incredible sight and practically deserted.

Two Delightful Days in Athens

We disembarked from our cruise ship in Piraeus and arrived at our hotel in Athens to find we had received the room requested with great views of the Acropolis.

We met up with Kathy and Grahame and enjoyed a stroll with them before getting into the room then after a siesta, walked down to Hadrian's Library and the Agora.  This was a lazy day to recover from the hard life of cruising.  We further unwound over dinner and caught up on all sorts of family news.

Today while Kathy and Grahame went to the Acropolis, we had a far more relaxing day.  First we walked up to Parliament to see the Changing of the Guard and then strolled through the National Garden.  Later we walked through the wealthy Kolonaki District and took the funicular up to the top of the Hill of Lykavittos.  The views were absolutely stunning.  From here you are looking down on all of Athens' great monuments including the Acropolis and the Temple of Zeus.  You can see as far as the Port of Piraeus and the ships waiting to come in.

We had a long lunch, then walked all the way back to our hotel via the Museum of Modern Art. We had a siesta before having drinks with Kathy and Grahame before another delightful meal.

Tomorrow we fly to Kiev and the hard overland travel begins.

Kathy and Gail in the Plaka.

The Acropolis from our hotel.

The Evzones march by after the Changing of the Guard.

 

View of Athens from  the top of Lykavittos Hill.

Lunch looking down on Athens.

Looking down on the Acropolis.

More Greek Islands!

Two more days, two more islands.

On Thursday we visited Santorini.  This was the hottest day we had so far and viewed from the top our ship was lost in the sea mist.

We went ashore and up to the town of Fira by cable car along with our friends, Liz and Anne.  We visited shops and sat in a small café to have a drink and take in the view.

After Liz and Anne returned to the ship, we spent more time shopping and looking and getting hotter and hotter.  Eventually we returned to the ship to swim, sip champagne and swill beer.

On Friday, we visited Paros, arriving at the tiny port of Naousa (pronounced Noosa).  This was picturesque and quaint but after a while, we caught the local bus across to the larger village of Paroikia, the capital of Paros.  We had been here before in 2004 where we changed ferries.

We visited one of Greece's most famous churches, the church with 100 gates and its museum and then the Venetian castle.  We really enjoyed walking around the maze of narrow streets, painted in the traditional white with a few splashes of blue and the contrasting reds and crimsons of the bougainvillea and oleander.

We sat at a café at the local beach with our feet in the sand but returned to the ship for more swimming, cool drinks and a late lunch.

Two very hot days, two very beautiful islands.

 Liz and Anne with us on Santorini.

 Cinderella waiting to try on shoes!

 Inside the church of 100 gates.

If you need an extra column, this on is portable.  Just not sure what is used for.

Relaxing at the beach on Paros.  What will we order?

The whitewashed walls offset the bright red of the bougainvillea, my hat and my face.  It was a hot day.

 This is Naousa viewed from our balcony.

Found this souvenir in Paroikia.  Decided to leave it there!

St John on Patmos

Today we visited the tiny island of Patmos where only 3,000 people live.

It was from here that John was supposed to have written the letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor and the Book of Revelation.

We went by taxi up the steep climb to the castle and citadel in the old town.  We visited the monastery and museum and then our taxi took us half way back down the hill to the Cave of the Apostle.  It was here they believe that John penned his letters and wrote Revelation.  It was quite austere and had very steep steps.

The views from the old town over the harbor were fantastic.  We used local tenders to go ashore.  At the moment we are sitting in the new town in a small café on this beautiful, quiet Greek island.

Beauty in the streets...not the Bouganvillea

Rob's Strong Right Arm

Thought you might be interested to know how the arm is getting on!

Rob decided to lend a hand at Pergamun.

Charming Cesme

Cesme (pronounced Chesmay) is a charming small town in Turkey where we docked close to the town.  It is dominated by an early  16^th century fortress that is now an archaeology museum and from here we had 360 degree views where we could look across the marina to our ship.

We visited an old caravanserai, the resting place for traders on the silk route as Cesme marked the end of the Silk Road and from here, goods were shipped to European ports.  The caravanserai is now a hotel complete with swimming pool and bar in the central courtyard and not a smelly goat or camel in sight.

This is our last port in Turkey.  Tomorrow we visit Patmos, another of the Greek Islands.

 Gail at the castle.  Our ship is in the background.

 Gail on the castle walls.

 The ship from the castle.

 Gail and Robert at the castle.

 There are unicorns flying around in Cesme.
The castle from our balcony on the ship.