Crete-ings from Greece!

I think my puns may be getting worse as the anniversary cruise posts continue, but that won't stop me from raving about our time in Crete, Greece! After Italy, our ship stopped in Chania, a town on the northwest coast of Crete. This trip, I tried as much as I could to alternate highly structured days with unstructured days. So because on our last stop in Italy I did a tour of Pompeii on my own, we decided to take Chania in a more laid-back way (which always makes things easier when you're traveling with a little one).

I could've spent at least a week in Chania. From the picturesque streets to the bustling waterfront and fascinating history, I was hooked from the moment we stepped off the ship. In Old Town Chania, I visited so many historic buildings but the one that stood out to me the most was St. Nicholas Church. I learned that the church was built in 1320 as part of a Dominican monastery.

Then, Turks came to the city and in 1645 the building was converted to a mosque, complete with added minaret. In 1918 it was converted back to an Orthodox Church, and they added a bell tower. One can't help but be struck by the mishmash of architectural features, a testament to the history of the place.

We passed by a few other historic churches and adorable gift shops and cafes on our way through the old town, and eventually the streets just opened up to a massive plaza and a view of the ocean. We'd made it to the Venetian Port Waterfront. The weather was gorgeous and every table outside every restaurant was packed with people enjoying a beautiful day by the water.

We strolled along the waterfront (the first photo of this post) and visited the Ottoman Mosque, also known as the Kucjk Hassan Mosque. From what I read online, the mosque was built by the Turks after they conquered the city in 1645. I also read that when Nazis bombed Chania during World War II, it destroyed one of this mosque's minarets. I'm no architecture buff, but I was amazed at how much history was held in the walls of these buildings.

We were exhausted from walking so much and decided to return to the ship for our main meal, but I couldn't leave without trying bougatsa (phyllo dough filled with custard). Thankfully, there was a well-known place that specializes in bougatsa called Bougatsa Iordanis right next to the stop for the shuttle bus that would take us back to the ship. It was delicious! It was warm and had the perfect mix of creamy custard and crispy phyllo with a hint of sweetness. I'm pretty sure I could eat it every day.

One day wasn't enough for Crete, but it was such a lovely introduction for our family to this beautiful island. There is still so much history, culture, food, and more to experience - I'll have to save it for our next visit. That's all for now, until I get around to blogging about our next stop in Istanbul!

Pompeii and Circumstance

I'm so proud of myself for the title of this blog post, but M never finds my puns as funny as I do. After Cinque Terre, I was so excited to visit Pompeii (which I've always wanted to do but never have before), so when I saw it was an option from our stop in Naples I booked it early. I remember learning in school about this fascinating and tragic city buried under volcanic ash, providing the most complete preservations of ancient Roman life we have in modernity.

I learned so much on my tour, including the fact that archaeological research is still ongoing on these 2,000-year-old ruins - archaeologists have only uncovered about two-thirds of Pompeii so far and they're discovering new things all the time. For example, recently they uncovered evidence that people returned to live in the ash-encrusted ruins of Pompeii even after the major eruption that buried it.

Pompeii was obviously a city rich in the literal and metaphorical sense. It amazed me that some of the homes still showed signs of the elaborate architecture and painting, and I can only imagine how lavish it looked before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried it in ash. One of the reasons the disaster captured the imaginations of so much of Europe was because the city had been well-known as a center of trade and culture.

At the same time, there were plenty of the indignities of ancient life to learn about: the example that stuck out to me was how servants would dump human waste-filled chamberpots in the sloped streets and rely on water and gravity to wash it away; however, the horses and animals would still walk in it. I guess they did what they had to do.

They also had an interesting concept of sex back then, and we visited the ruins of several brothels. The women who worked there were known as "lupa" meaning "prostitute" or "she-wolf" and apparently some of them actually howled like wolves to get clients... There was also a street so known for sex work that it had a mounted sculptue of male genitalia attached to the building. (See, these are the fun facts you miss if you just wander the ruins yourself without any kind of a guide.) I learn something new every day.

The Pompeii Antiquarium is also a must, offering a stunning array of artifacts including casts of perfectly preserved victims and well-preserved items. One of my favorite things I saw in there was a beautiful segment of an elaborately painted wall of one of the wealthier homes with what looked like cave art scratched on top of it. A plaque explained children had scrawled their drawings on top of what was likely a very expensive wall, and it occurred to me that children thousands of years ago weren't too different from children today.

For any lover of history and culture, I would put Pompeii on your bucket list. Given that it's thousands of years old, many of the paths we walked were not accessible so I would keep that in mind when planning a trip. And I think you really need a knowledgeable guide (or at a minimum a bunch of advance reading and studying) to get the most out of it. But if you have the opportunity to go, you won't regret it. That's it until next time, when I write all about Crete in Greece!

Fulfilling a 10-Year Dream in Cinque Terre

Our next stop on our 10-year anniversary cruise after Genoa was La Spezia, a port city in Italy from which you can access many famous sites. Originally, we were planning on visiting the leaning tower of Pisa but decided instead to visit Cinque Terre, a series of five towns in the region of Liguria in the Italian Riviera.

This was the culmination of a 10-year dream of mine, because we wanted to go during our honeymoon cruise but we got a late start and missed the train and then it would've taken too long by the time we got into the city. We had to turn back then, hopeful we'd have another chance to visit someday.

So when we had the opportunity on our anniversary cruise, we knew we had to take it. We just had to choose whether to see Cinque Terre from Genoa or La Spezia, and M figured out La Spezia was significantly closer. There are a few options for transiting Cinque Terre: ferry, train, car, and hike. If it had just been M and me as it was on our honeymoon, we would have opted for as much of the hike as possible.

Instead, since we had S with us, we walked the easiest path between villages (Via dell'Amore between Riomaggiore and Manarola) and otherwise took the train between the towns. Even still, it was extremely hot and tiring to explore in the heat of August, and later on the ship we learned it had broken over 100 degrees Fahrenheit that day! So much for escaping the heat once we were out of Dubai.

We bought a Cinque Terre day pass that included the trains between the Cinque Terre towns and La Spezia without having to reserve specific times. The ticket came with other perks, too, like free use of otherwise paid bathrooms at the train stations. The Via dell'Amore path did cost extra on top of the Cinque Terre ticket, but having done the walk I think it was totally worth it since it was beautiful, mostly shaded, and recently renovated in 2024.

Online, people recommended you only attempt Cinque Terre with good sneakers, and I'm so glad we listened to that advice. All the towns were hilly, even if we didn't do the big hikes.

One mistake I made was bringing sunscreen and leaving it in my bag. I didn't realize until the end of the day that we hadn't put it on, and by then it was too late. I wound up with a dorky tan line, but somehow the fair-skinned M and S were relatively unscathed... They're better than I am about always finding shade wherever we walk, apparently.

Each town had its own charms. Here are some of the highlights:

• Manarola had the best scenic viewpoint, with the perfect snapshot of the town's colored buildings contrasted with the gently rolling ocean.
• We had spectacular gelato at Alberto Gelateria in Corniglia. The Basilico Speciale is a must, with creamy basil ice cream made from basil from their own garden topped with local olive oil.
• We didn't have time to experience them ourselves, but the beach clubs in Monterosso looked amazing. We glimpsed the iconic orange and green striped umbrellas from above.
• Vernazza had great shopping and smaller/calmer swimming areas than Monterosso.
• We just passed through Riomaggiore to start Via dell'Amore, but the town looked fantastic and I would've loved to spend more time there if we hadn't had a deadline.

We really had to rush to cram in all five towns in a single day and make it back to our cruise ship in time, so I can totally see why people stay in Cinque Terre for a week or more. It's one of those places that completely lives up to the hype. The towns were so cute, with colorful buildings lining the vineyard-striped mountains and crystal-clear blue water below. I would definitely come back again. Wouldn't you? That's all for now, until I blog about our next stop, where I visited Pompeii.