Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean, an independent country officially called the Republic of Cyprus. Weather in this area brings hot dry summers and rainy winters. Currency is the Euro. Limassol lies on the southern coast of the island and is known for its centuries old Limassol Castle, which houses the Cyprus Medieval Museum. Residents of Limassol speak Greek, but in touristy areas many also speak English or Russian. Limassol (Lemesos) is the 2nd largest city on the island.
building in Limassol
The economy is largely based on tourism, and we had no trouble finding English speakers working in the shops we visited there. The country also has industry and trade as well as agriculture and fishing. Agriculture was once the base of the island’s economy, and is making a comeback with resource-efficient farming of organic and superfood products.
the port terminal building is a series of oval pods
LIMASSOL CRUISE PORT
Cruise ships dock in the new port, 3k away from old town and the old port area. There may be free shuttles into town for some cruises, and bus 30 will also get people there. The terminal building has duty free shops, banks, tourist information, and taxis. The building itself is quite interesting looking. It’s a series of oval pods.
inside one of the pods at Limassol’s cruise terminal
The port is located in an industrial area not near anything for tourists to see. On our visit shuttles to a marina were available near our ship, the MSC Lirica. These shuttles cost 9 euro per person so there was no free port shuttle that day. Shuttle busses ran continuously from both ends with one leaving as soon as it was full and more always ready and waiting for the next load.
shuttle stop in Limassol
The buses stopped in a small parking area with an across the water view of some lovely homes. Boats there all appeared to be privately owned. From the parking area people could walk alongside the water past the boats in the marina or onto a street passing through town.
walkway at the marina
The area around the marina was newer construction with nice homes, shops and cafés around the fancy yachts moored there. From there it is not too far to walk to the old town area where buildings are far more ancient, or to a seaside walkway which has a seawall you can walk on as well as a walking paths and a bike path.
carousel in Limassol, Cyprus
Our wanderings took us through an area where a carnival had been set up, but it wasn’t open that morning. It still wasn’t open when we walked by later in the day on our way back to the shuttle stop. Perhaps it was setting up for the Christmas season and not yet operational. Or maybe it just wasn’t open that day or during the daytime.
the marina was full of fancy expensive modern yachts, and then there was this boat
Some people did walk from the ship into town, but you would have to know where you wanted to go and have some sort of map or mapping app to find it if you are not familiar with the area, as well as adding some distance to whatever you walk to once you get where you are going. We took the shuttle, but in my online research pre-cruise I found a site that said the walking distance into town is 3K so not a bad walk if you know where to go, assuming that information is correct.
view from the shuttle stop in Limassol
THINGS TO DO IN LIMASSOL
Attractions to see in Limassol include Limassol castle, museums, sculpture park, historic mosques and churches, medieval center, bars and cafes, Fasouri Watermania water park, zoo, Kolossi Castle, marina, ancient Kourian archeological site, Aphrodite’s Rock (seashore rock formation said to be where the mythological Greek goddess Aphrodite emerged from the sea), Molos promenade from old town to the zoo, Akti Olympion beach, Oleastro Olive Park & Museum, sanctuary of Apollo, Akrotiri salt lake, and Advimou beach.
Decatur Island is a private island in Washington State’s San Juan Islands. The island sits east of Lopez and south of Blakely. Lopez has ferry service and limited public amenities including a village with shops and a waterfront park with a dock, mooring buoys, and a campground. More lodgings on Lopez include vacation rental homes and other camping areas. Blakely is private, but has a shallow-entry marina with fuel, a seasonal store, permanent and transient moorage, and restrooms with showers. The only public facility on Decatur Island is a boat ramp in Davis Bay near Decatur Head on the east side of the island. It also has the Kimball Preserve, a wildlife preservation area on a tombolo and part of the headland at the southern tip of the island. It is open to the public for daytime use, but accessible only by human powered craft such as kayaks or rowboats. The easiest landing is on the sandy spit of the tombolo connecting the smaller island bit to the headland. A tombolo is defined as a sandbar or spit connecting an island to the mainland. In Decatur’s case they connect much smaller islands to the main island, which in itself is not all that large.
Kimball Preserve on Decatur Island
The island’s other tombolo, Decatur Head, lies next to much smaller James Island on Decatur’s east side. James is one of the islands in the San Juan’s where the entire island is a marine state park, accessible only by private boat. James Island has a dock, mooring buoys, beaches, a picnic area, hiking trails, pit toilets, primitive campsites, and a good amount of off-limits to people wildlife preservation area.
Piper on the beach at Decatur Island
Decatur Island was named for naval officer Stephen Decatur in the 1841 Wilkes expedition – an early naval exploration and surveying mission of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands. Decatur Island’s total area covers 3.524 square miles with elevations from sea level to 540 feet.
Decatur Island Store – the upstairs is a bnb
Decatur Island has some year-round residents and a number of vacation homes. The main residential/vacation home communities are Decatur Shores, which has a dock and and a small airport with a grass runway, and Decatur Northwest which has a dock. The cabins at Decatur Head have 2 small docks. Other residences and vacation homes on the island are in private areas without community facilities.
Decatur School
The island has a one-room school house for kindergarten through 8th grade, one of just a handful of active one-room schools still remaining in the USA. Near the school there’s a solar power generating facility and a small store which is currently closed. Gravel roads provide access from one area of the island to another. Residents have cars, but there are no gas stations so they have to have the fuel brought in. Old cars don’t seem to ever leave the island as there are many abandoned in the woods along the roadsides.
Island charter picking up passengers on Decatur Island
Decatur has no ferry service, but cars and freight come to the public boat ramp through Island Transporter and people can come to the island’s docks or boat ramp through either Island Express or Paraclete Charters as well as private boats. Small airplanes can land on the airstrip with permission from Decatur Shores. For anyone without connections to private homes or cabins on Decatur, accommodations may be found through Airbnb, but you have to look carefully because most of their listings are really located on other islands. Visitors to the island need to bring everything they will need during their stay with them since the island has just the one small store that has closed.
cabins at Decatur Head
We visit through my husband’s sister, who is part of a group owning cabins at Decatur Head. It’s a nice island, typical of the smaller San Juan islands in being mostly rural and forested. Some of the seaside areas have beaches while others end abruptly as rock cliffs jutting out of the water. Roads are gravel rather than paved. Other than birds and tidal sea life, small island deer are the most likely wildlife to come across while hiking about the island.
low tide swing hanging from a dead tree
Most beaches belong to the state and are accessible to anyone, but not crowded since there aren’t that many people on the island. I took long walks on the beach at low tide and never saw any other people. At low tide the beaches can go out for quite a distance, but some beach areas may disappear altogether when the tide comes in.
driftwood fort
Winter storms deposit driftwood of all shapes and sizes where currents bring them to the island’s beaches. People like to make forts out of the driftwood. A walk along the beach in an area that collects a lot of driftwood may bring you past various previous visitor’s forts ranging from small and simple to big and elaborate. None of them look as if they would provide much shelter from rain or storms though.
landslide
In areas where the cliffs above the beach are made of dirt instead of rock weather and tides may cause landslides.
limpets on a rock at low tide
Overall Decatur and many other islands in the San Juan’s are nice peaceful places to visit where nature is abundant and people are scarce.
Decatur Head at low tide
Photos in this blog are hazy because our last visit to Decatur was at a time when smoke from distant wildfires shrouded the entire pacific northwest.
I’ve always been partial to soft-sided luggage and resisted buying any of the hard-sided sort. My husband has had a big iFly bag for several years now, and loves it. After much online research on the best bags to get at an affordable price, my daughter bought a 3-piece set of iFLY a year ago on her last trip to the USA, to replace the falling-apart set of soft-sided luggage she arrived with. She loves her iFLY too. Meanwhile up until my most recent cruise I kept to the soft-sided luggage, though I did go with a higher quality medium sized bag on my last purchase as I was tired of replacing the cheap bags that either start coming apart or have wheel issues after a couple flights.
platform at Zurich train station – some of these stations are vast, like a giant shopping mall with trains
We knew we would put a lot of miles on our luggage on our most recent trip as we had quite a lot of train travel planned before the cruise. Because of all the train travel I just wanted to bring a small bag. Since we were traveling through Europe I also wanted one that would be at least somewhat secure. I did have a small bag in good shape, but that’s mainly due to not much use, and it has a couple external pockets so besides the wheels not likely holding up it was also not the best one for use in the vicinity of pickpockets and thieves. Although as it turned out the areas of Europe where we went did not seem to have such a problem with that as some of the more heavily traveled places.
iFLY is easy to lock. There’s just one central zipping area with zippers from each end that come together with a built-in spot for placing a lock.
Mainly because of having just the one central zipper and no external pockets as well as the hard shell and good wheels, I went with the iFLY carry-on size this time. While my daughter had found a great deal online for the 3-piece set, for just the one bag I wanted it was cheaper to buy it at the store. They had black and rose gold. While I’m not fond of rose gold, when you go to pick up luggage in baggage claim, the majority of bags are black so for ease of finding my bag amongst the sea of luggage on the carousel I got the rose gold. I also got a set of two tiny locks, one for my new theft-proof backpack and the other for the suitcase, though as it turned out we did not run into any problems with possible thieves on this trip. We did run into someone on the ship who said they had very few clothes for the cruise and no electronics as they had left their luggage unattended in the trunk of a car for a minute or two in the process of checking into a hotel and it vanished. Obviously not everyone had as good of luck as we did in avoiding thieves, though in that case it wouldn’t matter what sort of luggage or locks the victims had since the thieves took their entire bags rather than just getting into them when the people weren’t paying attention.
inside the iFLY bag
Inside the iFLY bags have two main compartments, one for each half of the bag. One side has a zipping flap that encloses everything packed into that side of the bag securely under the flap. The flap has a pocket in it too so anything put there can be both separated from either main half and easy to get to. The other side has straps that will hold things like clothes in place. It also has a small pocket hanging along the long inside edge.
even the big bag fit into the biggest size luggage locker at the Zurich train station
I’ve had bags in the past that went from looking brand-new to filthy and ancient in one flight. I’ve also had bags that went onto a plane intact and came off barely hanging together. One so badly damaged that I had to have it plastic-wrapped between flights to hold it together or there would be nothing left in it by the time we got home. Another one went from rolling along just fine to having a wheel so bent it wouldn’t roll at all in the distance between disembarking a ship and the taxi stand. Granted there was a long walk through the port building and another long walk outside at that port, but a decent bag should still be rolling regardless of the distance.
walking to the train station in the rain in Lucerne with iFly luggage and Skechers boots
Our iFLY bags definitely got put to the test this trip. My husband’s several years old bag held up just as well as my brand-new one. In fact by looking at it you can’t even tell it’s been used at all other than a few scratches. Cleanliness is another advantage of the hard-sided bag. His being black it doesn’t show the dirt anyway, and the smudge mine came off a plane with wiped away easily rather than putting a permanent stain on it as airplane dirt has with bags I’ve had in the past.
wheels on my iFLY bag after our trip where we put several miles on them
We really put the wheels to the test. We took a bunch of different trains touring around Europe between landing in Switzerland on the plane and boarding the ship in Italy. Small bags are definitely the way to go when traveling by train. My bag fit into the overhead luggage rack on all but one of the trains we took. John’s big bag only fit in the overhead rack on one train. While large bags are fine when going straight from airplane to ship, if we were to travel around by train again he said he’d get a small iFLY bag like mine next time. Some of the trains had room for him to just have his big bag by the seats, but that only works when there are empty seats. The one train where the luggage racks were only big enough for backpacks had racks by the doors so both bags went there. Not the best situation since it would be fairly easy for anyone getting off the train to take someone else’s bag with them from that rack, but that train was too crowded to keep bags by the seats and luckily nobody bothered them. We did put the more important things in our backpacks so if anybody did take the bags they would just get clothes and shoes – no computers, tablets or really essential things like passports and credit cards.
platform at Lucerne train station
At some train stations we wheeled the bags for quite a long distance getting to our platform. The distances they went at train stations or airports was nothing compared to how far we went between the train stations and lodgings though. Between all the different places where we stayed we put several miles on them, and the wheels aren’t worn at all. We also had to go about a kilometer in the rain to get to the train station one morning, so the hard-sided luggage was a bonus for keeping clothes dry there.
iFLY luggage
For anyone looking for durable affordable luggage where both the bag and wheels hold up under heavy use, iFLY is definitely a good choice. If I had planned on doing a review I’d have taken some photos of my bag when it was new and unused, but since I only decided to write the review after the trip because I liked the bag it was already used before I took any.
All the major cruise ships have a variety of cabin selections and plenty of food. Beyond that amenities vary greatly from one line to another, and even among ships of the same cruise line. Some lines provide self-serve passenger laundries on all their ships, some don’t have them on any. Holland America has them on some ships (like the Veendam), but not others (like the Westerdam). The best ship we’ve ever sailed on as far as guest laundries go was P&O Arcadia, where they were not only available, but free to use. All the other ships we’ve been on that had guest laundries charged something each for the washer and dryer, though the cost varied. Originally they were all coin-operated, but as time goes on newer ships or those who replace the equipment change it to paying with the same ship card people use to open their cabin door or make purchases in the shops, bars, or anywhere else on board. We took a 28-day cruise on the Westerdam from Vancouver to Shanghai, and would definitely have appreciated a guest laundry on that cruise if the ship had one. Unfortunately it didn’t.
cruise ship dinner – it’s all good unless you spill it on your clothes
It’s easy to pack enough clothes to sail for a week without washing any clothes, but what do people do on longer cruises? If the ship has guest laundries of course that’s easy – they wash them. If not, there are other options. People high enough in the loyalty program often get free laundry service, but on some lines that requires a lot of past cruises. On Holland America for instance you have to get to 4 stars, which takes 200 cruise day credits before your benefits include laundry service. Free laundry service often comes as a perk for those who book suites, but not everyone can afford those. There’s always the option to use the bag provided in the cabin to send your things out to the crew for laundry service, but the price is usually steep, sometimes so much so that you could just about buy new clothes for what it costs to have the crew wash them for you. Although even at that paying for laundry service is still far cheaper than the price difference between a stateroom and a suite.
sink full of laundry on the Westerdam
That pretty much leaves hand washing in the cabin for anyone on a budget. One advantage on the Westerdam was that anything above an inside cabin comes with a tub rather than a shower. This is useful for hand washing clothes because a tub gives a lot more hanging space than a shower. You could even use it to wash the clothes in if you wanted, though I do the handwashing in the sink. It doesn’t hold as many, but then the amount you can wash at one time is limited to the amount of space you have to hang them to dry anyway.
laundry hanging on lines tied to metal fixtures on the tub
Cruise ship showers or tubs come equipped with a clothes line you can pull across and hook to the other side, which is great for hanging wet swimming suits or just a few laundry items, but not sufficient for much else. Luckily there are always places to tie things to if you come prepared. I’ve used just a plain clothesline rope and clothes pins in the past. This cruise I had a travel line that had clips attached already, but I supplemented those with clothespins because it didn’t have enough clips, and I also used clothespins on the line the ship provides. Clothespins often come in handy when traveling even if all you need to hang is a wet swimsuit. The sort of travel line with suction cups would come in useful as you would not need to tie it to anything, though its hanging distance is limited by the length of the shower or tub where the sort you tie can wind around giving more hanging space. Having both would be ideal to maximize the amount of hanging space and use areas where there is nowhere to tie a line to, which would help keep the wet clothes more separated – and separation helps them dry faster.
adding more laundry on the cruise ship line
Cruise ship bathrooms don’t tend to have a lot of airflow, so the clothes dry a whole lot faster if you keep the bathroom door open. Some things will dry overnight and most will dry within a full 24 hour day so long as the door stays open. Stewards tend to shut it whenever they clean the room though, so you have to open it when you get back. Once things stop dripping they can move to hangers. Usually there’s a spare towel shelf with a bar under it they can hang from. Things like thick socks or heavy jeans may take an extra day so that’s a good place to put them to finish drying, or to hang swimsuits when you get back from the pool or hot tub if the line is full of laundry. Even if you aren’t washing clothes and the only thing you hang to dry is a swimming suit it will still dry better in a cruise ship bathroom if you leave the door open.
view of laundry lines from above
I’ve found that I can actually pack less clothes for a long cruise with no launderettes when I’m planning to wash things by hand than what I need for a shorter one where I won’t do any laundry or a long one that has guest laundries where I won’t need to wash clothes as often. Since there isn’t that much space to hang things if you wash clothes every day or two you don’t need enough clothes to last a whole week like you would for a shorter cruise or a long cruise where you can wash and dry a whole load at a time. Which is useful if you want to pack light to save on airline luggage fees. It does limit your wardrobe options so you don’t have a whole lot to choose from in what to wear each day though.
clothes worn on shore excursions might get sweaty – like when you walk on the Great Wall of China
My essentials for doing laundry in the cabin are a bottle of the sort of laundry soap intended for handwashing, clothes pins, and clothes line. Batch size of clothes that can be washed at once depends completely on hanging space, which varies from ship to ship depending on the size of the tub or shower as well as the amount of clothesline and clothespins you have available – and whether or not there is somewhere to hang the clothesline. It doesn’t help to bring a lot of line if you only have space to hang a little. Don’t count on using balcony space to hang clothesline as most ships don’t allow laundry hanging on balconies. It’s a safety thing. Ever since someone threw a cigarette butt off their cruise ship balcony and it landed in laundry hanging on the balcony below and started a fire most ships stopped allowing anyone to hang things on the balcony or to smoke there.
John’s clothes needed washing too after our visit to the Great Wall
Once your things are washed and hanging, wringing them out frequently will help them dry faster. Wring them out until they stop dripping. After awhile water works its way to the bottom of the garment and they start dripping again so they are ready for another wring. This is especially useful for things like socks that may otherwise take a long time to dry and don’t tend to wrinkle easily (and if they do it really doesn’t matter since putting them on would stretch the wrinkles out anyway.) Not so useful for clothing likely to wrinkle because the more you wring it the more wrinkles it will get and ships without guest laundries aren’t that likely to have irons available either. It does help some if you fluff the clothing up and smooth out all the wrinkles after you wring it out, and if you wring by rolling rather than squeezing the item.
sometimes there is a lot of laundry crowding the line
If you’re ready to wash more things and some are still damp, but long done dripping they can move to hangers dangling from the towel rack or even into the closet if you have enough room there to hang things with some space between them and any other item so they get some airflow and to keep them from getting anything else damp. If you don’t mind clothes hanging in the middle of the room they’ll dry fastest hanging from the heater/air conditioner, which is usually a ceiling vent. Of course they would have to be well past the dripping stage and just finishing off a damp item for that because wet things dripping onto a carpeted floor is a very bad idea.
when there’s less laundry you can spread it out so it dries faster
Handwashing in the cabin on a long cruise is something you have to keep up on throughout the cruise, but it does save a lot of money over sending clothes out for the crew to wash. You can cut down on the amount of laundry by wearing things more than once if they did not get dirty, sweaty, or spilled on. Often something just gets worn for a couple hours to dinner or some other onboard event so it doesn’t really need washing every time. Unlike gym clothes or something you sweated in all day on shore, which does need washing after each use.
View from the Knights Road with a bit of MSC Lirica in the background
Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes
Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes
Rhodes castle on the Avenue of the Knights is the dominant feature of the medieval walled city. This 14th century palace of the Grand Masters was occupied by the Knights of St. John, also known as the Knights of Rhodes from 1310 until 1523. Their presence influenced the character of the city with its walls, gates, churches, hospitals, and palaces.
one room in the Knights castle
The Gothic style medieval castle once functioned as the knight’s headquarters and a fortress as well as a palace. The castle was initially built during the 7th century as a Byzantine citadel and fortress on the foundations of an ancient temple of the Greek sun god Helios. After the Knights Hospitaller occupied Rhodes and other Greek Islands they were named the Knights of Rhodes. They turned the fortress into the palace of their grand master and administrative headquarters. They made numerous modifications and repairs early in the 14th century, but the castle was damaged in an earthquake in 1481 so they had to repair it again.
chapel in the knights castle
Knights Hospitaller were initially associated with a hospital and cared for sick and poor people. Over time they became more militant, participating in the crusades and defending the holy land as well as providing escort for pilgrimages to it. After their fortresses in the holy lands fell they found refuge in Cypress, but had no power there. With the approval of the pope and the king of France they took Rhodes over from Greece after much fighting and many deaths on both sides as their presence had not been approved by the Greek emperor. Later they were called the Knights of Rhodes and defended against a succession of enemies including Barbary pirates, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire. In 1522 the invasion fleet of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire arrived. He sent 100,000 men against the island’s 7000 knights. It took the Turks 6 months to breech the ancient city’s walls and in 1523 the knights lost the siege and left Rhodes forever. The Ottoman Empire then used the castle as a command center and fortress.
display in the castle
An ammunitions explosion in 1856 damaged the lower level and destroyed many of the first floor rooms. It was restored between 1937-1940 when Rhodes was under Italian rule and the castle was used as a holiday residence first for the King of Italy and then for dictator Benito Mussolini, whose name is on a large plaque near the entrance.
You enter into this courtyard and find a lot of locked doors. There was only one open entrance to the inside of the castle when we were there.
In 1947 Greece obtained Rhodes and other islands in a peace treaty, and in 1948 the castle was turned into a museum. It cost us 4 euros to go inside. At first it seemed as if all there was to see was a giant courtyard, all doors off of it being locked other than one leading to a restroom, which was free to use since people have already paid to be in there. Just one stairway off in a corner next to where you pay to come in was open. That stairway led up to an assortment of rooms.
crowd in the castle
We hardly saw anyone out in the courtyard, or in most of the rooms as we went through them. We ran into a large tour group when we were nearly done looking around so at least for the most part we beat the crowd, which was likely a cruise ship excursion. They probably paid a lot more than 4 euros to see a castle within easy walking distance of the ship. If they stayed with their guide they might have found out what all the things with no explanatory signs are though.
one of many mosaics
Each room had different mosaics on the floor.
ornate furnishings
Some rooms had very fancy furnishings, others plainer furniture made of wood.
this light fixture definitely does not look original
Some light fixtures had a medieval look about them, but all held electric bulbs so whether they were original features adapted to electricity rather than candles, or more modern lights made to look old I can’t say. Some looked old and others did not.
a series of cables connected the columns to the walls
Some of the larger rooms had a series of columns in them, which were probably what once held the place up, but apparently are no longer up to the task as all of them had some bracing cables running from one to another, around each, and hooked into the walls.
these whatsits were around the walls of an entire room as well as in some hallways, but there was never any information about what they were used for
Each room had informational signs, but they were always about the pattern of the mosaic on that room’s floor and never about anything else in the room people might be curious about – like whether the rows of what appeared to be sort of bench type thrones were where knights sat, or was a structure to hold giant vases or to store their armor or something.
excavation exhibit
While the castle was well above ground and in good shape, one room was partly full of dirt with wheelbarrows and signs about excavating, with no explanation of why that would have been necessary. Possibly because some of the mosaics are not original to the castle, but were excavated on another island called Kos. Only 24 of the castle’s more than 150 rooms are open to the public.
fireplace in the castle
Some of the rooms and spaces in the castle are quite large, and it had some pretty massive fireplaces.
Knights Road leads to the castle
Rhodes Walled City
road between the castle and the moat
The walled city in old town Rhodes was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. The Knights quarter occupied about a third of the city, with the remainder where the common people lived. Apparently somebody was lacking in math skills when the Knight’s quarter takes up a third of the space. The walls stretch for 4 kilometers and have 11 gates.
the former moat is now dry and turned into a park
Some of the streets snake through town under arches or over bridges that seem to be part of the castle, but aren’t, at least not currently. A long open parklike area under bridges sits in what was once a medieval moat, but now is dry land and greenery.
shops in the walled city
Architecture is predominantly Gothic, but also reflects the different time periods and occupations going back to the early Greeks and ruins of a temple of Aphrodite, as well as a Byzantine church and Ottoman Mosque among the cobblestone streets and stone buildings.
rock street corner with businesses on the wider road and residences on the narrow alley
Old town Rhodes is the oldest occupied medieval town in Europe. Current residents live in the same buildings where people lived in medieval times. Quaint streets and alleys are interspersed with homes and businesses in these ancient buildings. Some of the smaller streets are made from small rocks rather than bricks or flat paving stones.
open square in the walled city
Open squares within the walled city are the result of World War II bombings.
cat on a plaque in front of the castle
Many cats live there too. Some are pets, but a lot of them are strays. The locals take care of them so even the strays have enough to eat. We saw one that was quite obese.
Washington state’s San Juan Islands consist of the peaks of an ancient mountain range on the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. As this plate subducts under the North American Plate in the Cascadia Subduction Zone which runs from Vancouver Island in Canada to Northern California, it is one cause of earthquakes in the area. Subduction formed the volcanoes of the Cascade Mountains, part of the pacific ring of fire. This inland mountain range includes Mt. St. Helens, famous for its major eruption in 1980. The Olympic Mountains which are closer to the sea do not contain any volcanos. It is typical for ring of fire areas to have non-volcanic mountains closer to the sea with the volcanic range a bit farther inland. The San Juan Islands are not volcanic either.
Juan de Fuca plate
Than San Juan Islands are comprised of over 170 individual islands ranging in size from small rock piles to large forested islands. Early inhabitants of the San Juan’s were native Americans, mostly of the Lummi nation. Although early explorers noted the islands, European settlements didn’t infringe until the 1850’s. After 1846 the Oregon Treaty drew the boundary between the USA and Canada at the 49th parallel except for Vancouver Island which Canada claimed in its entirety. As this large island juts into what is otherwise the USA it caused some confusion as to where the boundary crossed by the neighboring San Juan Islands. Americans interpreted “middle of the channel” at the San Juan Islands as Haro Strait to the west of the islands as the border, being the deepest and widest channel. The English on the other hand claimed Rosario Strait to the east of the islands as the border, putting the islands in their territory.
American Camp and English Camp historical parks on San Juan Island
American Camp and English Camp on San Juan Island are both historical parks now. The two together make up San Juan Island National Historical Park. The confusion over ownership of the islands resulted in both English and Americans settling there and each country had an army camp on the island. Tensions escalated when an Englishman’s pig raided an American’s potato patch and the American farmer shot the pig for its nighttime marauding. When both farmers appealed to their nation’s military for settlement war nearly broke out. British warships and troops from both sides came to the islands in a major show of military force. These actions became known as the Pig War, with the only casualty being the pig. The boundary dispute was finally settled in 1872 when German arbitration ruled in favor of the USA.
beach detritus
Early settlers to the islands depended on farming, fishing, logging, trapping, and sheepherding. Tourism is a major part of the economy now. The ability to work from home on computers opened up the islands an attractive place to live for people who don’t have to commute to their jobs. They’ve joined the retirees, artists, and writers who have made up a portion of the population for years as people who don’t have to tie their job to where they live. The more populated islands also have some traditional jobs as they do have towns and small cities with stores and other places to work.
Piper on the beach
Average yearly rainfall in the islands is 29 inches, somewhat less than Seattle’s 37+. The pacific northwest is full of micro-climates with some coastal and mountain regions receiving more than 100 inches of rain annually (some significantly more) while rainshadow areas have less than 20. On the mostly drier east side of Washington State (east of the Cascade Mountains) there are places with less than 10 inches of annual rainfall. Islands in the San Juan’s tend to have their own tiny micro-climates with one side of the island generally wetter with a thick layer of underbrush in the forests and the other side drier with less vegetation between the trees.
orca and Washington State Ferry (internet photo)
Washington State Ferries provide service to the San Juan Islands from Anacortes. The wait there can be long so reservations are advised. Ferry service goes to San Juan Island and Orcas Island, the two main islands with tourist amenities, Lopez Island which has a village and some vacation rentals and campgrounds, and Shaw Island which has one small grocery store and a few primitive campsites at a county park. The ferry route sometimes extends to Canada on select sailings, at least it does when the border is open anyway. There are smaller inter-island ferries that just go between the islands and not to the mainland. Getting to the islands without ferry service can be done by small airplane, island charter services, or private boat depending on the island. Some small islands are accessible only by human powered craft. Many small islands are designated wilderness areas and/or part of the San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge and not accessible to people at all, though a few of those islands have small park areas where people can go.
map of Orcas Island
Orcas is the largest of the islands at 57 square miles. Much of the island is hilly and forested. Mount Constitution is the highest mountain in the islands. Its 2,398 foot peak is the highest point in all of the San Juan Islands. Parks on Orcas Island include the over 5000 acre Moran State Park, which is where Mt. Constitution is located. Places to stay include resorts, vacation rentals, and camping. The island has a towns, stores, and restaurants.
old car in Friday Harbor
San Juan Island is home to the town of Friday Harbor, which is the county seat for San Juan County. The shoreline along Friday Harbor sports huge homes with private docks. There’s a large marina next to the ferry dock and shops and restaurants in town. The island has lots of farmland as well as other parks in addition to American and English camps. There are lots of places to stay including the historic Hotel de Haro at Roche Harbor Resort. People sometimes spot whales from Lime Kiln State Park.
Obstruction Island (internet photo) – our beach was all rocks
As a kid I spent time every summer on Obstruction Island, a small private island between Orcas and Blakely where my parents used to have property. When we first went there the island had just one dock and no other amenities other than a dirt road circling the island so people could get from the dock to their lots. Later they added another dock closer to our property, though we just had a small boat and came in at high tide landing on our own bit of beach. At first we had to go to the marina at Blakely to get water if we ran out of what we brought, but at some point a community well was built that we could hike to and get water from an old fashioned hand pump. Eventually they added electricity and piped the water out to individual lots, after which some people built cabins, but we only ever camped. Now the island has a few permanent residents so it’s nothing like the island of my youth where we could go all over the island and never see any sign of other humans. My parents sold their property so we can’t go there anymore anyway.
plants hanging onto the edge of an eroding cliff
The islands are a great place to get away and relax. There’s no big cities and even the bigger islands have plenty of places to get out into nature. It’s always a great place to visit, and in these times of social distancing and local vacations a great option for people living on the mainland. For those arriving by private boat there are many marine parks. Some entire small islands are state parks, like Sucia which we visited when we took a cruise with Uncruise Adventures, and James. Many of these parks have mooring buoys or docks.
Sailing on a holiday often means activities specific to that day and food you won’t otherwise see on the menu. Major holidays also bring decorations around the ship.
blow-up dog on the Vista
For Halloween blow-up decorations are popular – after all ships have limited space to store things they aren’t using and these store flat, but then blow up into large objects. Most are stationary, but some have moving features.
pumpkin coach on the Explorer
We’ve spent Halloween on cruise ships a couple times, once on Carnival Vista and once on Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas.
pirates on the Vista
Vista had blow-up decorations all over the ship.
blow-up decorations by the ice rink on the Explorer
Explorer mainly had them around the ice skating arena.
Explorer photo desk
The photo desk on the Explorer of the Seas sat next to the doors to the ice arena and it too had some decorations.
Explorer’s haunted skating rink
Occupied!
A blow-up outhouse on the Explorer of the seas had some animation with a working door, which a blow-up pumpkin opened, snickering. The mummy inside was not so happy.
a ghost haunted the photo shop on the Vista
Not all the decorations were blown up. Like the photo shop on Explorer, Vista’s photo shop was also haunted by a hanging ghoul. Spider webs all over the displays added another element of creepiness.
decorated cabin doors on the Vista
Sometimes passengers get into the spirit of Halloween with their own door decorations.
pumpkin carving on the Vista
Halloween activities on a ship might include things like pumpkin carving, costume contests, a Halloween party, or games. The ship’s kid’s clubs arrange activities for the little ones like their own parties or trick-or-treating at the ship’s shops.
even the dog dressed up for Halloween
Some people like to dress up, like these people heading to dinner on the Vista.
ghostly goodies and chocolate death for Halloween dessert on Carnival Vista
Halloween menus are likely to contain things like pumpkin soup and special desserts.
On the Royal Princess, the ship itself has a variety of things to do without going to organized functions, but of course the daily newsletter called Princess Patter offers up plenty of those as well.
people dancing in the piazza
The daily schedule included things like games and dance classes, which we passed on. We did sometimes see other people in dance classes in the piazza, taught by our very enthusiastic cruise director who must have been in pretty good shape since he sometimes had several classes in a row.
relaxing in the enclave (spa thermal suite)
I tended to start my days at the gym, which luckily was open 24 hours, though I only knew that because one of the crew said the published open hours were just when it was staffed, but that the equipment was available anytime. I really didn’t need any staff there to run on a treadmill in the early morning so that information was greatly appreciated. I did wander about the ship in the very early morning one day because that’s a good time to get photos of places around the ship without anybody in them. Apparently my sisters and I did not spend enough time investigating what the ship had to offer in the evenings though because we totally missed the fountain show. We’d bought the spa thermal suite package and spent a lot of our free time onboard there and didn’t check out a lot of other options.
water fountain show video kiped from the internet
I did wander past the Princess Live show studio sometimes, but not usually when there was anything going on there and didn’t check out any of the shows. Apparently they film all sorts of different things like culinary shows, comedy, live concerts, and game shows to broadcast on the ship channel on the cabin TV’s. We didn’t spend much time in our room and I don’t recall actually ever turning on the TV other than to look for information so we did not catch any of their shows.
almost all the seats in the Royal Princess theater are good seats
I did go to a few of the organized events. We had invitations to the past guest gold and ruby level event. Attendance came with a show and free drink. The show was an actual singing and dancing performance in a shorter version of a nighttime production show. We had great seats and thought there wasn’t a bad one in the house, but when we went to an actual evening show we got there pretty late and nothing was left except for seats near the front off to one side by a speaker so we discovered that there are a few not so good seats in that theater. The free drink came in the form of a gift certificate to use later so it was the gift that keeps on giving since we got to enjoy their show at the event and then enjoy whatever drink we wanted later at a bar of our choice. We went to one on the edge of the piazza and had entertainment in the form of the dance class going on at the time while sipping on wine, daquiri, or piña colada depending on which sister was doing the sipping.
cooking demonstration in the theater that was part comedy show, part cooking
One day they had a cooking demo and galley tour that one of my sisters attended with me. Their cooking demo was more comedy routine than serious cooking, but they did show how to make a couple things. The chef also mentioned that he made 100 different kinds of potatoes and sure enough in the galley tour there were plates of all manner of potato dishes lined up along the edge of the counter the whole way, each with a little tag saying what it was. Not that I remember any of the names, but there was certainly a whole lot more than baked, mashed, and French fries.
galley tour with potatoes prepared 100 different ways
Like every attraction everywhere, the galley tour exited into a gift shop. Since the galley isn’t actually connected to any of the ship’s shops it was a makeshift gift shop in the dining room, but a gift shop just the same.
paper airplane contest with hoop, runway, and airplane marshall
Other events we attended included a paper airplane contest and a champagne fountain. The paper airplane contest was quite different from those I’ve done on other cruise ships where you just try to throw it farther than anyone else. Royal Princess actually had a little runway set up, with a crew member dressed as the aircraft marshaller who waves little lights around and directs the airplane where to go. There was also a hoop. The objective was to throw the airplane down from a balcony where it was intended to pass through the hoop and land on the runway. The hoop was pretty close to the balcony so the plane would have to drop down quite a lot and then go forward to get through. Only a couple people made it.
medal for a perfect landing
My plane sailed directly over the hoop and made a perfectly centered landing in the middle of the runway so they gave me a medal for a perfect landing even though I missed the hoop. Most people’s planes veered off to the side, completely missing the hoop and landing nowhere near the runway so very few people got medals. One person got one for going the farthest with a plane that sailed completely across the piazza and would have gone farther still had it not hit a wall.
champagne fountain
One evening there was a champagne fountain in the piazza, on a formal night when everybody was dressed up. People waited in line for a turn to pour champagne into a cup at the top of a pyramid of stacked champagne cups where it flows down the stack filling other cups along the way. Once everyone has a turn they pass out the cups to anyone who wants one, but we didn’t wait around for that. They had other special events in the piazza other nights. We saw all the balloons in a net one day ready for a balloon drop, but forgot about it by the time evening came around.
jogging track
The ship had a lot of other things to do, but we didn’t do any of them. We talked about going to afternoon tea, but never got around to actually doing it. We had early dinner and tea was served fairly late in the afternoon so it would have been a lot of food in a short amount of time. We also didn’t venture up to the sports deck, which has a jogging track, ping-pong table, game lounge, driving range, lasar shooting range, and basketball court. We did not go to the casino or any of the public freshwater pools or hot tubs. If we hadn’t bought the spa thermal suite package we may have gone to a hot tub, but since we did we used the spa pool instead. We never went to the nightclub either. We’re not really nightlife people. Relaxing in the enclave (spa thermal suite) in the evenings is more our style.
afternoon tea on Royal Princess (internet photo)
Music and dancing could be found around the ship, and of course it had quite a selection of bars too. Regardless of what people are into most can find something they like to do onboard. There’s also an art gallery and sometimes art auctions. The elevator bays all had video displays. These interacted with the medallions everyone had instead of a key card. They had additional functions besides room key card and onboard purchases. You could use the video displays for things like getting directions from where you were to where you wanted to go, finding out where your shipmates were, or playing video games.
Royal Princess ship model Christmas tree ornament
We did wander through the shops, where I got a Royal Princess ship Christmas tree ornament to add to my collection of other ship ornaments. We looked at the necklaces and bracelets they had to put the ship medallions in that were used on that ship instead of key cards, but they wanted too much money for them so we just stuck with the free lanyards for our medallions.
seawalk on the Royal Princess
The ship had a seawalk which curved out from the main deck and had a glass floor so you could see the sea beneath your feet and the side of the ship over the rail when walking there.
pro photo
When sailing with my husband we always avoid photos, but with my sisters we tend to seek them out in case we buy the photo package since it costs the same for everything whether there are a lot or a few. We visited the photo stations they had set up around the ship in the evenings several times to add a few more onto the stack. They merge some of the photos into fancier displays, but don’t usually use the ones we’d pick for that if we were given the option.
Lido deck movie screen
Besides the nightly theater shows, there were also movies out on the big screen on the Lido deck. If we’d gone to any of those we might have seen the water fountain show, though I don’t know that for sure.
surf & turf
Eating is of course something people do on cruises, and food is always plentiful. Between dining rooms, the buffet, the piazza café, and other little eateries as well as room service passengers aren’t likely to go hungry.
ship’s shops and casino
So basically the ship had a lot to do, but we did very little of it. We had lots of fun in our own way onboard and of course at the port stops too.
MSC Lirica in Rhodes, Greece – there are some ruins and a seawalk right at the port
Rhodes was once home to one of the wonders of the ancient world – the colossus of Rhodes, a giant statue which stood at the harbor. This replica of the ancient Greek sun god Helios was built by Charles of Lindos to celebrate Rhodes’ victory over an unsuccessful siege by Cypress in 305 BC. Construction took 12 years, starting in 292 BC and completing in 280 BC. The statue was stood about as high as New York’s Statue of Liberty, the tallest statue of the era.
ruins of the 14th century Church of the Virgin of the Burgh inside the walled city
Some of the iron and bronze used in its construction came from weapons left behind by the army from Cypress. The statue only stood for 54 years before falling in an earthquake in 226 BC. The earthquake also did significant damage to the city and to buildings at the harbor. The colossus lay on the ground for over 800 years, and even broken was so impressive for its time that people still came from far away to see it. In 653 AD Rhodes was captured by Arabs who melted the fallen statue down and sold the metal.
Palace of the Knights of the Grand Masters
Rhodes lies just 12 miles off the coast of Turkey and is one of the Greek Isles. Rhodes is the name of the main town as well as of the island.
church in the walled city
The city has ancient, medieval, and modern sections with the walled old town its main attraction. It is Europe’s largest inhabited medieval city and contains the palace of the Grand Masters, built in the 14th century by the Knights of St John, also called the Knights Hospitaller. Knights Hospitaller were initially associated with a hospital and cared for sick and poor people. The castle is a tourist attraction now, with a small fee to go inside.
door in old town Rhodes
Over time they became more militant, participating in the crusades and defending the holy land as well as providing escort for pilgrimages to it. Later they were called the Knights of Rhodes and defended against a succession of enemies including Barbary pirates, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire.
another fancy doorway in old town Rhodes
In 1522 they lost a 6-month siege to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificant of the Ottoman Empire who sent 100,000 men against the island’s 7000 knights.
cat and kittens
Old Town Rhodes could rival Old San Juan, Puerto Rico in the number of stray cats. There are cats everywhere. Locals feed them, and there is a spay/neuter program in place in an attempt to control the population, but we saw kittens in several places around town so they haven’t spayed them all.
there’s a few dogs in Rhodes
A few cats wear collars, those belonging to locals, but most are strays. The majority of them were in better condition than a scrawny dog that wandered by, and it had a collar on. We also saw some stray dogs, who generally looked better than the one with the collar. Way more cats than dogs though.
another one of the many cats we saw in Rhodes
MSC Lirica docked on a pier with a view of ruins running down that pier right next to the ship. You don’t get far – as in just outside the port gates – before running into people offering taxi tours, though their prices were on the high side. Just a bit beyond the port behind the first small building there’s a stop for the hop on hop off bus, with tickets available there.
one of the gates into the walled city
Walk a very short distance beyond that and you come to the first gate into the walled city.
shops in the walled city
The walled city is full of little shops and restaurants, streets made of rocks or stone, people trying to entice you into their store or cafe, old buildings and of course the castle and lots of cats.
open square in old-town Rhodes
There are some open squares within the walled city, but they were not always there. The buildings that once stood in those places were demolished by bombs during World War II.
seawalk outside the old town city walls by the port in Rhodes
The walkway along the seawall runs alongside the city walls on the other side of the street and there are other entrances into the old city further down. The seawall is a nice walk and if you go far enough you come to a more modern town where there are things to do like semi-sub rides. This is a port where there are things to see right off the ship and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to find things to do.
Nestled into the Austrian Alps, Innsbruck is the capital of the western state of Tyrol. The name means bridge over the Inn. It was once a major transportation link between north and south Europe being located along the easiest route over the Alps, with a bridge crossing the Inn River. Winter sports are a major attraction in this city which has both imperial and modern architecture. The Nordkette funicular brings people up a mountain to 2,256 meters above the city center for winter skiing or summer hiking and mountain climbing.
horse carriages may not be a modern mode of transportation, but you can still ride one in Innsbruck
The area has been settled since the stone age, and fallen under a variety of different rulers through the ages. It was taken over by the Nazis in WW2 and suffered heavy damage from allied bombings. Innsbruck hosted the winter Olympics in both 1964 and 1976. More recently it hosted the winter Paralympics in 1984 and 1988, and was the very first host of the youth winter Olympics in 2012.
the golden roof is more of an awning than a roof
Things to do in Innsbruck
Olympic Ski World is a main attraction for winter tourists. People go to the Bergisel Ski Jump for the views even when it’s not ski season. Other things to see or do include riding the funicular or cable cars, or a visit to the medieval old town area, Hofburg castle, the golden roof (which is an awning of gold plated copper, but also a major 5th century symbol of the city built by Maximilian I for his own personal viewing spot), Ambrass castle, and the Cathedral of St James – a 17th century baroque style cathedral with interior pink marble columns, painted ceilings, and free admission.
old building in Innsbruck
Stradtturn town tower which once housed prisoners is another tourist destination. People can climb it for a fee. Hofkirke is a gothic style church built in 1553. It has bronze statues of Emperor Maximilian 1’s ancestors including King Arthur. The emperor’s grand black marble tomb sits empty as he was buried elsewhere.
view of Bergisel Ski Jump from the Alpenzoo
Innsbruck’s Alpenzoo is the highest altitude zoo in Europe. It has great views and animals native to the alps. Innsbruck also has a number of museums including Swarovski Crystal World, Tyrolean Folk Art Museum and Tirol Panorama. Hofgarten park has walking trails and a little river, formal gardens, a playground, and a beer garden.
Inn River in Innsbruck
Our train travels in Europe prior to boarding the MSC Lirica in Italy found us traveling from Buchs, Switzerland to Innsbruck, Austria. We got lucky on this leg of the journey having one train making the full distance with no need to transfer. This train was quite different from all the other trains we rode on this trip. It had separate little compartments with 6 seats each. We had reserved our seats in advance and had the ones by the window. This was also the only train on our journey that had a rack over the seats large enough for a full-sized suitcase. There was just one other person in the compartment when we got on, but we didn’t get far before the rest of the seats filled up. A reserved seat was definitely a good plan for this train. As it made more stops people got on, but rarely off and eventually there was someone without a seat who stood in the aisle outside of the compartments for several stops looking quite sad before someone finally got off the train. We were quite happy to have reserved our seats early enough to get the window seats because the scenery through the Alps is beautiful.
booth at one of Innsbruck’s Christmas markets
Innsbruck is a lovely town, surrounded in tall rugged mountains and full of interesting old buildings. We arrived shortly after noon so we had time to walk around and see things on our travel day. We went to the Golden Krone hotel where I had booked a room the previous summer through booking.com. The girl at the desk asked our name and looked at her list and couldn’t find it. I gave her the paperwork I printed out when I made the booking. She went and looked it up on her computer and then said it was cancelled because I didn’t update my credit card info and that Booking.com sent a message saying to do so.
Innsbruck arch next to the Hotel Golden Krone
My credit card info had not changed since I made the booking. Booking.com did send me a number of messages between when I booked 3 of our hotels for that trip through them and when we left for our trip, but none of those messages pertained to my credit card. The only ones regarding Innsbruck contained offerings of things to book to do while there. Later when I checked my email I found the hotel had sent a message just the day before our stay in Innsbruck saying they had cancelled the booking, but since we were traveling and I wasn’t checking it all that often I did not know about it at the time. All our hotels were booked on the same card and none of the others had any issues.
the stairway at Hotel Neue Post had stained glass windows
The hotel receptionist said the hotel was booked full and she couldn’t offer us another room. Just like that we were homeless in Austria with 2 days until our next train even though I had booked all our lodgings months in advance. All she could suggest was to try another hotel, but she wouldn’t even call any to see if they had room. Luckily around the corner and down the way there was a giant sign saying HOTEL in English so we actually knew what it said. We went there. It was called Hotel Neue Post. While more expensive than our original booking, at that point we were just happy to get a room. If the reception area was any reflection of the rooms, this was a much nicer hotel.
room in Hotel Neue Post
It was a nice room too, and this hotel had free breakfast. Like all the other hotels this trip they had the odd sleeping bag type sheet & quilt combo things. Typical of a European hotel there was no coffee pot, no washcloths, no USB ports, and like the last one in Liechtenstein, some sort of nasty soap/shampoo/body wash all-in-one stuff.
view from our hotel room
view from our hotel room looking the other direction
The view from our room was awesome with giant mountains and an old building with a tall spire or steeple in either direction. Giant mountains are the norm for views in Innsbruck as that is what you see anywhere where there is not a building blocking your view.
Christmas market
We took a walk around town and found some of Innsbruck’s famous sites like the golden roof, some old churches, and a row of colorful buildings along the Inn River that reminded me of Curacao. We wandered through a couple holiday markets and got a tasty spiraled potato on a stick at one of them. Passing by numerous restaurants we noticed that all of them had prices about half what they were in Switzerland. Although the language there is German, just about everyone speaks English as well so communication was not a problem.
government building
We didn’t see any of the red-spired churches in Innsbruck that we saw so many of in little mountain towns as the train passed by, but there was certainly no lack of churches. They just didn’t have red roofing. There were also lots of onion domes on buildings, something we rarely saw on the way over.
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