Lots of Seeking and Some Finding in Istanbul

After our idyllic visit to Crete, we were looking forward to visiting Türkiye. We had a one-day stop in Istanbul scheduled before our ship moved on to another Greek island, Mykonos. Unfortunately, tragedy struck on route and for the first time we experienced what happens when someone goes overboard on a cruise ship. The Man Overboard signal was transmitted late at night and announced throughout the ship. The captain turned the ship around to where the person had gone over and sent out rescue boats and searchlights over the dark water. They asked passengers to notify crew if we saw or heard anything, and they even turned off the air conditioning and other non-essential electric functions to make it easier to hear if there were any cries for help. Send we were in Turkish waters, the Turkish coast guard joined the search.

The heartbreaking end to this story is the person was never found. After a whole night of searching, Turkish authorities boarded our ship and reviewed the CCTV footage. Later, the captain confirmed it was a crew member who went overboard. Authorities cleared the ship to proceed, and although they never said this explicitly it seems likely based on circumstances that the crew member may have died by suicide.* I learned from other stories online that this happens more than I realized, and it made me so sad to think about how many of the other people I interacted with on ship who might greet me with a smile while hurting deeply on the inside.

With heavy and somber hearts, we continued on our journey with a modified itinerary that removed a planned stop in Mykonos and gave us an afternoon and evening in Istanbul instead of just the daytime. We had no real plan, just a list of family-friendly tourist sites we thought we might visit.

My favorite stop by far (as you can tell from the photos) was the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, commonly known as the Blue Mosque. It's a working mosque that closes for prayer times but in between is open for visitors to admire the stunning blue tilework from which it draws its nickname. It was an architectural marvel, and I felt so peaceful inside.

I know the Hagia Sophia is even more famous, but from recent reviews I read online it sounds like most of the interior is closed off to tourists and the price was very steep, so instead we admired it from the outside. We spent the rest of the day wandering the streets and getting a feel for the city, taking a couple rides on the tram to explore. It was a little hot and crowded, so we ended up returning to the ship after a few hours.

In the end, I felt like we had only scratched the surface of this fascinating city and I hope we get the chance to visit again someday. Next time, I'll blog about the very last stop on our anniversary cruise: Athens, Greece. Until then, stay safe and hold your loved ones close.

*If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, you are not alone. Please seek help from a professional mental health care provider or at findahelpline.com.

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!