WHITE AND BLUE

Most time when we talk about Greece, the image in our mind is the houses in white and blue colors with the blue sky in the background; the typical romantic image of Greece for most people.

After visiting Patmos and Criti, we finally visited Santorini, the island with lots of house painted in white and blue.

The main town of Santori, Thira (Fira) is 1916 feet about sea level, so visitors need to take the cable car (or by donkey) to reach it. At Thira, you can enjoy the romantic atmosphere and walk through small alleys to see some pretty churches, houses, restaurants and gift shops; you can always find something WOW.

Because our cruiser only stopped at Santorini for less than 5 hours, we only can visited Thira, but no time for another beautiful town, Oia, which the town seen in many TV commercials and post cards. Hope I can have another chance to visit it again and stay few days there to taste more about Santorini.

Photos of Santorini

HIKING AT PATMOS

We said good-bye to Turkey in Kusadasi, then took the easyCruise Life heading to Greece. After enjoying lunch and the sunshine of the Aegean Sea, we arrived at the first island of Greece during this voyage, the Patmos.

Patmos is a small island of Greece in the Aegean Sea, one of the most northerly of the Dodecanese group. With small population of about 2500 people, the main business is farming for grapes, olives, tomato, wheat and others.

The two important sites at Patomos are the Monastery of St. John and the Holy Cave of Apocalypse. Monastery of St. John is located on the highest point at Patmos, so our plan was taking a taxi to the monastery and walk back to the harbor. The hiking trail at Patmos is quite good, it is an old footpath; from the monastery to the Cave of Apocalypse, then back to harbor. Most tourist took taxis or buses for round trip, so we were almost the only people enjoy hiking there.

I do recommend people who visit Patmos to enjoy this hiking trail if you are capable, at least having one single trip (uphill or downhill). So you can see the harbor/town and the 2 sites from various angles. Also, there are always something surprise you when you pass through the residential area.

Photos of Patmos

CRUISE ON THE AEGEAN SEA

easyCruis Life at Patmos Island, Greece

Happy couple was ready on board

Our cabin (Deluxe Outside) which is enough for 4 persons

My first time travelling on a cruiser was in Egypt, but it was just a small boat on the Nile. During this Turkey/Greece trip, we had a chance to take a 3 day cruise on the Aegean Sea from Kusadasi, Turkey to Athens, Greece.

This boat named easyCruise Life, which is operated by easyCruise.com, a specialist in value for money Greek island cruise. Be most specific, the boat of easyCruise.com is smaller, less luxurious, and charges less than other big cruisers.

Anyway, it was our first cruise trip on the sea. Though this boat is not as fancy as others, it still offered decent service, food and entertainment. I think it was a really nice deal for budget travellers. Maybe easyCruise Life is like the Cruise101 to us, then we can enjoy higher level cruisers later.

Cruisers on the Nile (I think their rooms are more like hotel rooms than easyCruise Life)

HARMONY OF MULTI-CULTURES AND MULTI-RELIGIONS

Blue Mosque

House of Virgin Mary

The library at Ephesus

The coliseum at Ephesus

The typical image of Muslim countries to me is conservative, anti-capitalism, anti-American, and Muslim-only. Sorry! it is my fault. I think that is why people need to visit other countries and learn about the truth, not only being educated by Hollywood movies.

During this trip. I found Turkey is a very open minded Muslim country; they accept different cultures and different religions. They are really a role model for "harmony of multi-cultures and multi-religions" in Islam world.

In Turkey, we saw many mosques, but also visited several places related to Catholicism/Christianity such as Hagia Sophia, Goreme Open Air Museum, and the house of the Virgin Mary. For the ancient cultures, we did not see only ancient Turkish culture, but also some remains from the ancient Greek (Ephesus) and the ancient Roman.

Istanbul : Mix of multi-cultures and multi-religions
Cappadpcia: Catholicism/Christianity
Konya: Muslism culture
Ephesus: Catholicism/ Christianity, ancient Greece

PRETTY ROSES ALL THE WAY IN TURKEY

Maybe because of the nice climate, we saw all kinds of pretty roses when we traveled in Turkey. Also, Turkey is famous of cherries. We had chances to enjoy the cherries in the restaurant, also once we got some free cherries from friendly Turkish farmer.