The Greek Islands

For several days we traveled by ship and visited the island of Symi, which was the center of the sponge trade in earlier times but now caters to tourists. We zigzagged across the Aegean Sea to visit Bodrum, Turkey, where we explored a medieval Castle of St. Peter built by the Knights of St. John in the 15th century and another Wonder of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, which is where we get our word for tomb or mausoleum.

Onward we traveled to the Island of Chios where we learned about mastic which is used in making fragrances and gum. In fact, we learned more about this than we really wanted to know. This island was the birthplace of the poet, Homer.

We visited the islands of Kos and Patmos. Kos is famous for Hippocrates and his place of healing, and a tree that was reputed to have exhisted in his time remains vibrant to this day. Patmos is famous as the place where St. John was incarcerated, although he had the run of the entire island. We visited his cave, where he is said to have written the book of Revelations and maybe the gospels of St John as well. To stand in this cave and touch the place where he put his hand to stand up and overlook the island is breathtaking and mind boggling.

We disembarked from our lovely ship at Kudasi, Turkey. Here we visited a Basilica of St. John where his tomb was located, as well as another Wonder of the Ancient World, The Temple of Artimis.

Our ship, The Arethusa accomodates about 50 travelers, and we had most of our meals on this very new ship. It was only on its sixth voyage. It even smelled new. Meals were magnificant, and the service provided made us truly feel cosseted. I highly recommend such travel if you really want to relax and be taken care of all of the time.