Serenity had a leisurely overnight cruise to Khsab, a small port town of about 18000, at the tip of the Musandam peninsula that forms the western shoreline of the Straits of Hormuz.  It is part of Oman but it is physically separated from the rest of the country by U.A.E.  The area is surprisingly mountainous, after a week of seeing little more than near sea level sand.  The town is built in a small valley between uplifted 2000 foot sedimentary rock that reaches 6000 feet inland.  The government recently created a commercial harbor by building a pair of jetties, with a fairly narrow opening, just beyond what was originally only a wharf, without any protection from waves that might develop in the usually placid Persian (Arabian) Gulf.  They completed the new harbor by building a rock seawall about half a mile inside the jetties and dredging sand fill to create hundreds of acres of new land.  There are a couple of canals that still access small marinas at the original waterfront, about a mile behind the new seawall.  
 
The shuttle bus dropped us at the parking lot that was essentially the main square in the center of town.  There were stores on all four sides of the square and a large mosque, finished in desert brown stucco, which occupied almost the whole block to the north, behind the stores.  A partially restored fort, a block away on the original waterfront, seemed to be the only other attraction.  We passed a few stores that weren’t even strip malls, on the road from the ship’s dock.  Passengers that took either of the two shore excursions offered, had similar comments.  It is billed as “The Norway of the Middle East” because of the many fjord-like bays on the coastline but I didn’t hear any raving reviews.  The area is also known for the frequent dolphin and whale sightings just offshore.  We saw several small stores that had signs advertising snorkeling and scuba, but I don’t believe any passengers tried them.  It may be a seasonal offering.
 
While we were in town, a commuter turboprop flew low over the roadway and a few minutes later an Omani C-133 military cargo plane took off.  From what I could see from the ship, all take-offs are to the east and landings are to the west, with missed approaches and go-arounds definitely not recommended because of the mountains.
 
The principal activity was the small boat fleet. It was fascinating and I kept returning to the lanai to take photographs.   At one time, I counted 101 twenty-foot fiberglass outboards anchored, docked or in motion at four floating docks connected to the new seawall by gangways capable of handling small pickups.  There were probably half that many more out in the Gulf.  Thousands of parcels, most of which were in silver colored overwraps, like a common burlap bag but waterproof, were piled on the docks and adjacent shoreline.  Pick-up trucks, loaded with boxes or bagged parcels piled twice as high as the top of the driver’s cab, arrived constantly, backed down the gangways and deposited the cargo onto the docks or directly into the small boats.  No matter when I looked out of our verandah, I could always see at least two or three boats, heavily loaded with parcels departing or, usually empty, entering the harbor. 
 
The small boats all have big outboard engines, 75 to 200 horsepower, that enable them to make the 35 mile crossing to Iran in two hours when loaded and half that coming back empty.  Why?  Clearly it is some type of smuggling activity, which has been on-going for a long time, where high speed enables them to evade interception, otherwise they’d just load up a few dhows and make the crossing in 6 hours.  Is the Iranian Navy unable or unwilling to stop it, or do they just nab one or two boats now and then as token enforcement?  I asked the dispatcher for the tour busses what was going-on.  He called over a couple of bus drivers and I tried asking questions.  The answers were vague, and they said they didn’t know much, but I did hear that most of the cargo in the silver bags was cigarettes.  I didn’t want to walk over there and investigate but from the ship, I saw piles of bottled soft drinks, a pickup truck full of Plasma Screen TVs and hundreds of cardboard boxes with indecipherable Arabic printing on them.  Most boats come back empty, so I guess they sell for cash or gold but I did see an occasional boat entering harbor with parcels on board.  The dispatcher said they did barter and regularly bring in several large truckloads of live goats in the early morning.  All activity stops at 11:30PM (I don’t know why) and starts again at 6AM.  The next morning, a passenger told me that the boats all belonged to Iranians, who come over to buy the cargo and take it to Iran.  They use the goats, and probably cash and gold, to exchange for the goods. 
 
Next morning we awoke as Serenity was negotiating the harbor entrance at Al Fujairah, U.A.E., and tied up to the a new dock that is the inner structure of the sea wall, south of the entrance.  Merged with the other seawall is a large oil terminal dock with 30 or more circular oil storage tanks on shore.  Two large tankers were moored at a seaward terminal island, connected to shore by a half mile long steel trestle that carried the oil pipes.  I counted 8 more tankers anchored farther away in the Arabian Sea.  There are pipelines connecting some U.A.E. oil producing wells with the storage facility at Al Fujaira and I was told that they are constructing a network of pipelines and tanker loading facilities that eventually will bypass the Straits of Hormuz.  Thirty or so cargo launches, which service off-shore oil platforms, were tied to the concrete wharf in front of the small city.  The Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas was across from us, and there were 5 container cranes at the north end of the mile long wharf that ended at the oil terminal. 
 
There was a forty story high-rise and half a dozen ten story buildings in the downtown area but the rest of the city, which is only a half mile in any direction, was small buildings.  Rugged mountains rose steeply from the narrow coastal plain on which the port facilities were constructed.  A spindly legged communication tower, silhouetted against the hazy sky, was perched on top of one mountain crest adjacent to a sharp cliff where dust rose from some type of mining activity.
 
The shore excursion department offered two 4×4 Jeep rides through mountain passes or out on the desert and a less athletic familiarization trip.  Passengers told of riding 4 hours in a bus to visit a couple of old forts and a Bedouin tent village.  We stayed on the ship.
 
The next day the entire ship was involved in a drill to rehearse us in the event that the captain felt it necessary to execute maneuvers to make it extremely difficult for occupants of a small boat to be able to board the ship, i.e. another pirate drill.  Further he announced that the exterior of the common areas outside the core of the ship would be off-limits to passengers for about 24 hours while the ship transited the area just north of the Somali coast.  I am happy to say there were no incidents and a few passengers were disappointed that there were no sightings of suspect boats.  The ship was within protected traffic lanes established by the multi-national force tasked with suppressing pirate activity and we were constantly in sight of several large container ships and even had a fly-by from a French naval helicopter.
 
The port facility at Jeddah is rather small but extremely well developed.  The northern breakwater has space for residents to park their cars and watch the ships transit the harbor entrance.  Adjacent to the park is a tall tower with a multi-level spherical glassed-in harbor traffic control facility with twin radar antennae rotating at the top of the 200 foot spire.  The pilot boats and several large tugs were docked in a small basin that separated the tower from a half mile long commercial dock that primarily handled bulk freighters.  A dozen vacuum cleaner style unloaders removed grain from the holds of two cargo ships that had Greek names but were registered in Panama.  The grain dropped into trucks that drove to the terminal where a powerful blower raised the kernels to the top of a massive concrete structure where they flowed into one of 60 circular silos.  The end of the harbor was sort of “T” shaped and Serenity was made fast to the middle of another long wharf.  Two panamax container ships were being worked by half a dozen cranes opposite us and there was a large hard stand full of containers, all neatly aligned in double rows, beyond the ships.  There was about ten acres of paved lot, about half of which was filled with cars of all descriptions, obviously used cars waiting to be loaded on the huge slab sided car carrier at the dock off our stern.
 
We watched as 23 busses arrived.  Six could fit into the area on the dock adjacent to the ship and the rest waited in the lot on the other side of the fence.  There were 16 identically painted busses, clearly almost new and of the same model, plus the seven others of somewhat questionable heritage.  As usual, we went to the gangway a few minutes before the rest of the passengers who dutifully assembled in the Stardust Lounge to be escorted, serially by ship personnel, to their respective busses.  The shore excursion department organizes departure for tours very well, but we learned in past years when Nancy was in a wheel chair that we could be early and have plenty of time to accommodate her needs.   Now we just take advantage of the system.
 
We were in bus eight, one of the new ones, a King Long that turned out to be made in China.  It was so new that most of the original clear plastic protectors were still on the upholstered seats.  We were driven a couple of miles to a single story flat roofed building through which we were directed.  There was a large room with a series of booths whose chest high counters were topped by glass panel surrounds.  A uniformed man said one word—”passports”—, spent 10 seconds perusing Nancy’s booklet, stamped it and slid it across the counter.  He examined mine in detail, for what seemed like half an hour while four people were processed by the adjacent clerk, and finally pounded a page with a rubber stamp and returned it to me.  He did smile when I said “Thank you”.  Meanwhile, our bus exited the security controlled port and was waiting for us on the civilian side of the immigration building. 
 
For several days before our visit, we were repeatedly told, both as side comments in lectures about the middle-east and short articles in the daily newsletter, Reflections, about the dress code in Jeddah.  No sleeveless shirts or short pants for men while women must wear a hijab and abaya.  The abaya is a full length black gown usually worn over comfortable clothing, at least something more than a bra and panties.  The hijab is a two foot by six foot simple scarf, almost always black, with or without an embroidered band at each end.  Nancy’s abaya was a slip-over tube with sleeves, rather than open fronted, and had a simple black embroidery at the neck.  We were shown how to quickly wrap the hijab but I developed a different approach by placing the gold and red embroidered band across her forehead and fixing it with a safety pin in the back.  Then I folded an edge band and draped that over her head and down the sides, securing it at the temples with bobby-pins.  We wrapped the rest around her neck and pinned the free end across her chest to show that embroidered band.  It was a unique arrangement that received comments from fellow passengers and admiring smiles with a nod of approval from several Arab men.  Most of the women removed the hijab as soon as they were in the bus.
 
It rains in Jeddah about once every ten years.  It rained, albeit briefly, while we were in port.  I don’t believe it was an omen.  Desert wells supplied a limited amount of drinking water and consequently Jeddah was a small town for centuries.  Today, the city is literally awash in water provided by a huge desalination plant fueled by cheap oil—gasoline is US$0.60 per gallon.  It is piped to greenery along the roads, grass in parks as well as to lawns and plantings at almost every home. 
 
The seaport, founded in the seventh century, was the principle means of access to Mecca for the Hajj, at least before jet travel.  It became clear that our new Chinese busses were intended to transport pilgrims to Mecca, only an hour’s ride into the desert.
 
We did not see the historic part of town but other passengers described it as a collection of old one and two story buildings on narrow poorly paved streets that resemble a maze.  Since the end of WWII, the wealth of oil has enabled the city to grow almost exponentially on the desert sands, restricted only by the Gulf.  The new downtown area has dozens of 50 story high rise buildings and hundreds of others of lesser height.  We drove along the Corniche, a six or more lane beautifully landscaped boulevard, which roughly follows the coastline.  Traffic was heavy, mostly cars with a heavy presence of Mercedes, BMW and other expensive brands.  Traffic lights, at which we sometimes waited 5 minutes for a green light, were at major intersections but they also used round-abouts where the entering traffic has the right of way.  Every traffic circle has a large sculpture and there are hundreds of smaller ones spaced along the roadway in the center divider, which at times is quite wide.  Major intersections might have one on each corner.  In addition to the driver and guide, there were four additional men on board, dressed in the white robes (dish-dasha) commonly worn in middle-eastern countries.  About half wore red checked headdresses, which are common in winter, and half wore white summer styles.  We guessed they were more to keep us under control than to protect us.
 
Our destination was the museum, a relatively modern building that was constructed and decorated to emulate an Arabic home compound.  The exterior of the white masonry building was extensively decorated with dark brown wooden dentil and faux balconies.  We were directed through a small patio to a central courtyard from which a pair of doors led to the main corridor of the museum.  It was about 20 feet wide with only about 8 foot ceiling.  Three foot wide dioramas and other displays in glass cases sat on dark stained wooden pedestals, leaving narrow corridors either side.  Everything was labeled in Arabic but there were abbreviated translations in English for most things.  Side rooms could be accessed through labeled doorways, each one a separate theme such as medicine, science, geography, the history of various periods, paintings and other art representing various sections of the country, tile work, heavily decorated furniture and even a school classroom.  We are not normally museum persons, and we were on this particular excursion because of an error in making reservations, but I found it quite interesting and appreciated that they allowed photography.
 
It has been interesting to note how observance of traditional customs varies, vis-à-vis how the Arab male dominated society controls its female counterpart.  I think the severest we have experienced is in Saudi Arabia where all women, even visitors, wear an abaya and head cover, varying from a burkah where there is a 1 inch slit for the eyes to a wrapped hijab, covering all hair and more or less tightly wound around the face.  Women are seldom in the work force and are not allowed to drive a car.  In Abu Dhabi, Dubai and even Jordan, more women wear western style clothing and have greater freedom of activity and expression. 
 
Our visit to Aqaba was interesting.  From our lanai, while docked, we could see Saudi Arabia to the south, Egypt to the south west and Eilat, Israel only three miles across the water.  Our guide repeatedly said “Jordan is peaceful” but it is inevitably affected by strife in neighboring countries.  Crossing the border at the south to Arabia or to the west into Israel is normally about as difficult as crossing the U.S.-Canada border.
 
The principle attraction is the all day trip to Petra, the ancient trading city where so many of the antiquities are in excellent condition.  However, it is a strenuous undertaking involving long walks over uneven surfaces and steep inclines.  We took the local tour to the aquarium, a run-down single story low ceilinged building with a dozen poorly maintained tanks displaying reef fish.  Another stop was at the public square which borders on an area containing small shops.  We spent a lot of time on the bus, people watching and secretly taking photos, while we waited for others to return.  Very few passengers found anything they wished to buy.  On the other hand, it was interesting to see that there is a large industrial complex near the Saudi border containing a lumber yard and mill for producing things like doors and window frames; a large chemical complex with a ship at the adjacent dock, transferring liquid through four sets of flexible pipes; potash and phosphate mines with the associated processing mills; and a modern container port.  Aqaba is Jordan’s only access to the sea and they have at most, ten miles of shoreline.  Unlike many of its neighbors, we saw little evidence of trash in vacant lots or along the roads, which were in excellent condition.  There was some scattered building construction and a large new hotel project, owned by a prominent Lebanese hotelier, whose name I didn’t understand.  The people seemed friendly and wore a variety of clothing styles.  Our guide said all children attend school from six through eighteen and that medical care was provided by the government.  We also visited an ancient building that had been used as a house, a hospital and the headquarters of the British occupation forces, under the League of Nations Mandate, from the end of WWI until 1956.  It is currently a museum with only one room containing four small display cases with shards of pottery, some partially reassembled as storage vessels believed to be 4000 years old.
 
During the night, Serenity headed south to Safaga.  Its simple port is sheltered by a natural sand spit that has built southward, forming Soma Bay that is about 4 miles across.  A bauxite unloading and storage facility occupies the south end of the half mile long, aging concrete dock.  Trucks transport the granular ore to the aluminum refining plant near the Aswan dam where there is abundant electrical power.  A grain handling conveyor system and storage silos occupies the northern end.  The central portion of the dock is used by ferries transporting Egyptian guest workers and some pilgrims to Jeddah.  When the ferries arrive, up to 2000 contract and guest workers disgorge onto the dock and form long lines to clear immigration formalities.  Then they return to the broad dock area, which by now porters and stevedores have filled with luggage and thousands of packages of “stuff” the workers have brought back from Arabia.  By some miracle, they are united with their possessions, which they pile high on rickety four wheel strap iron carts and tow to the back of the shortest of four lines, waiting to clear customs.  They progress forward, a few feet at a time, a process that takes all day, eventually piling their goodies on busses for the ride home.
 
We tied up adjacent to the bauxite terminal.  The only conceivable reason for stopping at Safaga is to take the 3 hour bus trip to Luxor to see the Colossi of Memnon, Hatshepsut’s Palace, the Valley of the Kings and the Temple at Karnak.  Three bus loads stayed overnight in Luxor but most endured a 12 hour marathon.  There are no local tours but 23 of us played golf at the Cascades Soma Bay resort, which is close to being a five star hotel and spa.  The Red Sea is a popular scuba destination because of the warm clear water and excellent reef diving opportunities.
    
Serenity left port a few minutes late but with ample time to reach the latitude that she had to cross by midnight to be eligible for the following morning’s convoy through the Suez Canal.  Of course, we were asleep then and even at about 5AM when the pilot boarded.  We passed the beautiful mosque in the small city of Suez and entered the canal at 5:30.  For the entire length of the canal, the west side is green from irrigation with Nile River water.  With few exceptions, the east side is barren desert.  Every kilometer, there is a military watch tower on both sides.  About 9AM the captain announced that we were dropping anchor in Little Bitter Lake because a south bound tanker had run aground and that tugs had been dispatched to the scene.  An hour later, we resumed the sedate 9 knot passage, taking the old channel that went near the city of Ismail.  We passed the grounded tanker, its bow about 6 feet above where it should be and with a drunken tilt to starboard on its dirt streaked white superstructure.  It was blocking 2/3 of the channel and only about 200 yards beyond where we re-entered from the bypass.  We were very fortunate because had the incident occurred where there was no by-pass available, we could have been stuck in the canal for at least 10 hours, until the next high tide, or maybe longer. 
 
The next day we were in Alexandria.  The two overland tours to Cairo and the Pyramids were popular choices but we stayed on board, taking a quick trip into town on the shuttle and a look at the dozen shops set up just outside the cruise terminal.
 
(I have deliberately left out detail of Safaga, the complex of Luxor(Thebes)/Valley of the Kings, the Canal and Alexandria/Cairo/Pyramids because they have been described in prior years.  If you want those stories, please ask)
 
After a day at sea, the captain backed Serenity into one of the commercial docks at Ashdod, one of three Israeli ports on the Med.  Before containerization, most cargo ports utilized derricks, mounted on pedestals, which run on railroad tracks embedded in the dock.  If they still exist, these old dust covered relics are usually shunted toward oblivion at one end of the tracks.  In Ashdod, they were freshly painted and actively working at sun up.  We had a quick breakfast in Lido before joining the long line waiting to clear Israeli Immigration, which had been forming since before we had breakfast.  After 15 minutes of slowly shuffling forward, a few feet at a time, we were ushered up onto the stage in Galaxy where a pudgy middle-aged lady, one of a dozen agents sitting behind a line of tables covered with white cloth, stamped our landing cards.  Interestingly, they did not put any stamp in our passports because they know an Israeli stamp in a passport can cause problems in some countries.
 
The busses were relatively new, i.e. our Mercedes had slightly less than 250,000 km on its odometer.  Except for a whining sound in one of the gears of the automatic transmission, it performed faithfully.  The driver maneuvered around various buildings and stacks of cargo containers before passing through the exit gate.  The road was a two lane divided highway most of the way and traffic was fairly heavy, although we moved along at the maximum allowed busses, almost anywhere except the U.S., 100 kph or 62mph.  After about 45 minutes, we diverted to a rest area that was incorporated in a military outpost, next to a gas station where unleaded was posted as 6.52 NIS (New Israeli Shekel) or US$6.59 per gallon.  The area was called Lutron and our guide said it was one of the places where Christ was reported to have appeared after the Crucifixion.
 
The engine labored a bit as the bus climbed into the Judean hills. The surroundings quickly changed from rocky mountain slopes covered with conical shaped pines and underbrush to urban streets and limestone buildings.  We climbed again, this time in a lower gear, to the top of Mount Scopus, passing the Hebrew University, and then through a depression to the top of the Mount of Olives, where we parked and walked to a vantage point.  Slightly below us, and a mile or so across the Kidron Valley, was the Old City of Jerusalem, on a small rectangular plateau formed by ancient walls.  We were viewing from the east and the most prominent feature was the octagonal Islamic Temple with blue walls topped by a sort of matte finish golden dome—The Dome of the Rock, the third most place revered in Islam after Mecca and Medina.  It grabs your eye, immediately as the most salient and recognizable landmark.  To the left of it was El Aqsa Mosque with a much smaller grey dome.  At the base of the mosque, out of sight from our position, was the Western Wall.  To the right, sort of behind St. Stevens Church, which is outside the walls, was the start of the Via Dolorosa, which leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, its bluish-gray dome difficult to identify among the adjacent buildings.  Far below on the edge of the Kidron Valley, and barely visible to the right, was the Garden of Gethesemane, the Basilica of Agony, and the St. Mary Magdalene Russian Church with the characteristic onion shaped spires.  These globes sparkled in highly polished pure gold that reflected the morning sun.  Almost every line of view landed on some landmark in a city that was essentially the birthplace of three of the world’s most important religions.
 
We visited the walled-in Garden of Gethsemane, where the gnarled olive trees are carefully tended and protected, and were able to enter the adjacent Church of Agony, which is believed to be the site where Jesus prayed on the night before he was arrested.  From there we crossed the Kidron Valley and were deposited on the roadway near the Dung Gate in the south wall.  It is so named because the ancient residents apparently used it as the portal through which they disposed of garbage and household waste, throwing it down the hill across the road.  The original stone paving rocks are still visible inside the gate.  A hundred meters inside and adjacent vehicle gate, there is a military check-point, where the women and men pass through separate channels, and another hundred meters to a vantage point from which we could view the faithful, praying at the Western Wall (Wailing Wall).  I was able to walk through the scattered groups and touch the historic rocks, but it was men only—Nancy had to wait at the nearby plaza.
 
We were taken to the Grand Court Hotel for a delicious lunch offering selections of chicken, beef, fish, potatoes and vegetables accompanied by various salads, middle eastern specialties, such as kebobs, hummus, stuffed grape leaves, olives and matzoh bread, plus far too many choices of dessert.  The rest of the day was a tour in the bus, through the new city outside the Walls, past dozens of points of interest including the Knisset, Supreme Court Building, various government ministries and Netanyhu’s office (he was supposedly in the city).  We were dropped off at the hotel again at the end of the tour.
 
We had an hour to freshen up and rest with refreshments of coffee or tea, cookies, various dessert breads, fruit and some of the most wonderful fresh dates I have ever eaten.  Another bus took us halfway back to Ashdod and then to Beit Guvrin, at the southern end of route 38, which is really in sparsely populated country.  There is a privately operated park there that contains “bell caves”.  In antiquity, the people dug a hole in the ground about 6 feet in diameter.  At about 4 feet, they came upon a mineral deposit that they mined, bringing the material up through the hole.  As they dug deeper, they expanded the hole forming a bell shaped cavity.  They have been adapted to be an entertainment site.  We walked about 5 minutes along an access path to a couple of caverns where they had dug an access through the side.  High above us, we could see a pair of holes that they had capped.  We were served wine and beer with some hard flat bread and a white caviar spread that the waiter described as trout eggs in sour cream and cream cheese mix.  We didn’t like it but I thought the beer was good and Nancy sipped at a local red wine.  We serenaded by a lady that also introduced the Israeli Minister of Tourism, who officially welcomed us and droned on a while about the wonders of visiting Israel; oh well, it was his only opportunity to give a commercial.  The lights dimmed and we were invited to move through some curtains into a series of larger caves.  Six long tables were set with white table cloths, regular service plates, silverware and wine glasses.  Lines of closely spaced wooden chairs were on each side and a dozen beautiful flower displays in two foot tall vases were spaced along each table.  A low stage was set up at one end, flanked by the omnipresent loudspeaker systems, where an eight piece band was seated along the back.  We were served appetizers of marinated chick peas, onion, peppers and sliced olives; dolmades (stuffed grape leaves); with slices of a pita-like flat bread and olive oil for dipping.  The band played in the back-ground, if sound levels just below the threshold of pain can be considered back-ground.  Then we were served hot cheese and spinach in a light filo dough wrap and ground lamb in pastry, sort of like an empanada, while we were serenaded by a black Israeli Gospel quartet, who also tested the maximum capabilities of the sound system.  Finally, we were served a selection of desserts while David ” ? “, an international star and very popular in his own country, sang several songs, ending with Hava Nagila joined in by all.  It was quite an evening, to say the least.  After an hour ride in the bus, through the darkest countryside possible, we saw the lights of Ashdod, cleared security at the port gate and trudged up the gangway.  The hotel department had set up a full buffet in the Crystal Cove, with offerings of French sparkling wine (a.k.a. Champagne, but this wasn’t bottled in the region) and regular wines.  We politely declined and fell into bed ASAP.
 
Serenity tracked across the eastern end of the Med in calm seas for a day and a half and entered the protected commercial harbor at Piraeus, adjacent to Athens, just before the scheduled nine o’clock arrival time.  There were more than a dozen ferries of various sizes, from sleek tubular hulled hydrofoils that looked more like wingless airplanes than ships and scooted along at 40 knots, to giant catamarans that offered high speed service, at 25 knots, providing most of the 3000 inhabited islands in the Aegean Sea with a connection to Mother Athens.  Three conventional hulls almost the size of Serenity, were along the north side, and four that had vehicle ramps built into the stern, were docked, stern to the wharf, along the east side.  Three medium size cruise ships were at docks, adjacent to the three story cruise terminal, on the southern shore.  I saw a bulk carrier facility, just inside the north breakwater with three vacuum cleaner grain unloading cranes but no sign of container cranes.  As we left port the following afternoon, I did see a large container port about four miles away to the west.
 
As soon as the ship was cleared, we went ashore, dodging the baggage handling carts that were servicing Cristal, a stark white mid size cruise ship that was docked against the shore line several hundred feet away.  Passengers were boarding special 5 meter wide busses that operated only within the port. We were led through the main room that was crowded with Cristal passengers waiting to check-in, to our Crystal busses in a side lot.  Our complimentary shore excursion bus driver expertly negotiated the narrow streets of old city Piraeus, driving by the small Zea and Micromilano marinas that once harbored the sail and oar powered wooden warships of the ancient navy, but are now filled with million dollar yachts, sleek fiberglass sailboats and cabin cruisers plus a few classic wooden sailboats.  It was the Saturday before Easter and the traffic was very light once we were on the highway into Athens.  We passed Constitution Square, several of the newer buildings in town, i.e. built after 1800, including a museum, the Monument of the Unknown Soldier, 16 of the 48 pillars still standing in the Temple of Zeus, Hadrian’s Gate and stopped for pictures at the Olympic Stadium, an open ended horseshoe shaped marble faced grandstand that held a running track and infield.  It was reconstructed, on Roman foundations, for the 1896 resumption of the modern games.  We also made a stop at the base of the Acropolis for pictures and then continued along the Aegean shoreline on Vouliagmenous Street to a hotel where we were treated to morning refreshments, unfortunately too close to lunch hour.  Our native guide, who spoke almost impeccable English, frequently translated the Greek base words that formed modern language, i.e. acro=top, polis=city, micro=small and many others I can’t recall.
 
We rested for the remainder of the day.  Serenity stayed overnight in Athens, with about 200 passengers leaving the next day and about 180 expected to embark, so we should have about 400 passengers aboard, although the exact numbers seem to vary depending on the source, and a precise count is only a matter of curiosity to us; its important only to the accountants.
 
Duke and Nancy Harrison
 
Copyright 2010, Charles H. Harrison