October 15th – Apocalypse Now in Patmos

The beautiful island of Patmos in the Dodecanese, goes by the rather unflattering nickname of "The Island of the Apocalypse". This isn't because it's been the scene of some Apocalyptic devastation, but rather because it's the place where the Apostle St John received the Revelation that led to him writing the Book of Revelation, or "Apocalypse" in Greek.

As a result of its biblical connections, the island quickly became a revered place of pilgrimage and its many monasteries became very rich and powerful in the Middle Ages – this has left the island with a heritage that's out of all proportion to its tiny size.

We first went up to the place where it all started – the tiny cave where the aged St John was hiding when he heard a mysterious voice coming from a cleft in the rock, telling him to write down exactly what it was saying. It turned out that this was the voice of God, and this divine dictation was to form the contents of the final book of the New Testament, with its lurid descriptions of the fight between good and evil, and the end of days.

That tiny cave has now been turned into an extremely atmospheric chapel, and we were lucky enough to be there while a service was going on, with some very moving singing and chanting from a small congregation of nuns and priests. I'm not normally a very spiritual person, but there was a real sense of power inside that rocky cave.

From there, we moved up the steep hill to Patmos Town, home to the imposing fortress-like Monastery of St John the Theologian. St John goes by so many names – St John the Evangelist, St John the Apostle, St John the Divine and St John the Theologian – that there are theories that there were more than one St John out there (one who was the Apostle, and one who was the author of parts of the New Testament), but our guide was adamant that it was the same person.

The Monastery was another atmospheric place, an evocative medieval complex of frescoed chapels, arcaded courtyards and hushed libraries. Inside the museum, amongst its many treasures was a wonderful icon by the young El Greco – a fusing together of stylised Byzantine art and western renaissance forms, you don't often see such emotions and movement in an orthodox icon.

Patmos Town itself had a similarly peaceful atmosphere. Its virtually deserted whitewashed streets, a maze of blind alleys and switchbacks, designed to confuse any attacking pirates coming to steal the treasures from that heavily defended monastery. In summer Patmos Town is busy with wealthy holidaymakers, but at this time of year you creep around its narrow lanes, wondering where all the people have gone – perhaps this was a post-apocalyptic scenario after all?

After watching an energetic display of shoe-slapping Greek dancing, down below, at sea level, the town of Skala was a much livelier affair – this is where all the people had gone. We wandered around its attractive harbour, and had a tasty lunch in a taverna overlooking the sea. It was about as idyllic as it can get – great flavours, cool beer, warm breezes, blue seas, tranquil atmosphere (hardly a motorbike driving past to break the spell). You can see why people like Tom Hanks, Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are all rumoured to have bought homes on Patmos.

If this a vision of the Apocalypse, then it looks pretty good to me.

October 14th – Ephesus By Day and By Night

When you've done a lot of cruising in the Eastern Mediterranean, you can get a bit blasé about visiting magnificent Roman ruins like those at Ephesus; however, we try to make sure we come back here at least once a season. Because, even though only a small proportion of the site has been uncovered, the sheer size and grandeur of its marble streets, temples, shops, houses and theatres tell you that this must have been an incredibly impressive and sophisticated city in its prime, 2,000 years ago.

 

For our visit, our guides told us that this was the busiest day of the season, with 4 ships in (2 of them being monster ships). But luckily we were just ahead of the main groups, so the site wasn't unbearably busy, and our views to the front of us weren't too crowded. However, when we were at the bottom of the site, in front of the Celsus Library looking back, the ancient streets had become a crowded sea of people – I guess that the streets were often like this back in ancient times, when Ephesus was one of the busiest ports in the world, and home to 250,000 people.

 

So, by day Ephesus was wonderful, but that evening we were going to see another, rarely glimpsed side to it. We had the privilege of going to an evening concert at the site, especially put on for a select group of 100 Silversea guests.

 

Where once the site had been busy, crowded and noisy, by night it was silent, empty and mysterious. As we crept through its slightly eerie floodlit ruins, it really felt like we were trespassing upon the ghosts of the past. The only signs of life were the many cats who cast enigmatic shadows across the columns and arches as they prowled in front of the lights.

 

Our auditorium was set up in front of the haunting Celsus library, its time-worn statues staring down at us, looking like they were going to come to life at any time, like the human statues you see in so many European cities. The setting was magical, and the performance of classical music by a string sextet gave the whole experience a mystical, ethereal quality.

 

Living life on Silversea is a privilege anyway, but today I felt even more privileged than ever.

 

Ephesus is wonderful by day, but it's truly magical by night.

October 13th – Marmaris and Me

Marmaris and me go back a long way. When we were in our early 20s, Tracy and I had a very cheap package holiday here, when the town was just beginning to boom as a low-cost resort. In the early 90s, we paid very little, and unfortunately we got exactly what we paid for. The hotel was so bad that Tracy burst into tears when she saw the state of our room; while, our end of town was mainly a dusty building site, peopled by youths who drove up and down endlessly on noisy mopeds.

The good thing was that that trip persuaded us that package holidays were not for us, and it forced us to be much more adventurous in our travel – Marmaris proved to be our inspiration and our last resort.

20 years on, Marmaris has improved markedly – just the walk in from the ship through the yacht harbour, showed us that Marmaris is trying to carve out a more upmarket image for itself. This is the largest yacht harbour in Turkey, and there were plenty of megayachts in there to justify the row of upmarket boutiques targeting the rich yachties.

Then we got to the old harbour lined with restaurants – again, looking pretty good, even if it was pretty deserted. However, the further you went along the coast (the further towards where we had stayed of course), the more mass market the resort got. We passed boats offering trips at "Asda Price", bizarre looking pirate-themed boats, plenty of restaurants offering all day British Breakfasts, karaoke bars, and pubs named after English football teams.

Just when we got to the epicentre of tackiness, it all began to look vaguely familiar. We headed a couple of streets back and found a particularly dodgy looking hotel that fetched up some negative memories. Yes, it was our hotel – looking as grotty (in fact, more grotty) than we remembered. No wonder our tastes in travel have changed.

So, from this low point, we headed back and things improved again. Basically, if you're visiting Marmaris by cruise ship, I'd do one of the tours (trips to Dalyan or a boat trip), or don't head too far from the ship.

October 12th – Cookery School in Rhodes

The great thing about Rhodes is that there's something for everyone. If you want beaches, then there's loads of places for some sun and fun on this perennially warm island. If you love history, then you can take your pick of ancient sites, the medieval glories of the Knights of St John, Ottoman Mosques, or Italian monumental buildings. So many powers and empires have passed through Rhodes that it has layer upon layer of history.

However, in spite of the repeated invasions (and in spite of the current tourist invasion), somehow this place still has a wonderfully authentic Greek atmosphere to savour too. Something that particularly comes through in the cuisine here – a side of Rhodes that we enjoyed exploring today.

So, after doing a quick tour of the highlights of Rhodes Town, we arrived at a taverna to be greeted by our wonderfully exuberant host, restaurant owner, Savva. He has perfected the blunt, no-nonsense yet warm persona (as per Tom Conti in Shirley Valentine), and he gave us a fun demonstration of the superbly simple but tasty Greek cookery, before letting us eat the fruit of our labours.

To be honest, it was more of a construction of ingredients prepared by him and then letting him cook for us, rather than hands-on creative cookery; however, the results were great, and we all ate way more than we should have.

At the end, it was either surrender to sleep, or get moving, so we did a long walk around the New Town – not half as picturesque as the medieval Old Town, but still plenty to see.

Rhodes is one of the few places where the full onslaught of modern tourism still can't tarnish its historic splendours, nor dull its traditional flavours either.

October 11th – Warming Up on Mykonos and Delos

At last, the warm weather has returned! It was still a bit grey and windy today in Mykonos, but the breeze was pleasantly warm and humid.

There was a bit of an "end of season" feel to Mykonos today, but that did mean that there weren't the usual numbers of tourist crowds for our trip out to the neighbouring island of Delos. That meant that we could enjoy one of the most extensive ruins of the Aegean in peace, and really get to appreciate that this now-deserted island was once one of the most important cities of the Ancient Greek world.

Delos is only a small little island, without any natural resources or much vegetation, but it gained its fame by being the mythological birthplace of the twins Apollo and Artemis, two of the most revered gods of the ancient world. So, the island carved out a role as a hugely popular place of pilgrimage, and with its central position in the middle of the Cyclades, it also became a significant trading centre.

As still happens today, pilgrims bring a lot of money to a town, and so the island developed into a sophisticated city of 50,000 people, equipped with wealthy temples, busy markets, huge mansions and large theatres. As we walked the streets of Delos, our excellent guide really made the town come to life for us, as we saw its shops, its street lighting, and even its extensive sewage system – by the standards of the time, ancient Delos must have been a pretty good place to live.

Sadly for Delos, it all came to a crashing end in the first century BC, when the Romans decided that they didn't want the island to be a rival to Rome as one of the centres of the civilised world. So, to show the islanders just how civilised they were, they sent a military expedition over, that massacred 20,000 islanders and enslaved most of the rest of them. From that point, Delos was abandoned, and most of its architectural riches were stolen over the coming centuries.

In fact, it's amazing that there's anything left for us to admire today – yet, even so, this remarkable ancient site isn't too far down the rankings below Pompeii, Ephesus and Leptis Magna, in bringing to life the sophisticated nature of ancient urban life.

How many visitors to Mykonos coming for sun and fun, leave without knowing that this amazing site is on their doorstep?

October 10th – The Hills of Volos

Cruise ships mainly come to the modern Greek town of Volos, for the chance to visit the stunning monasteries of Meteora, a 2-hour drive away. However, on a windy day, we chose to stay a bit closer to the ship to explore the area around the city.

We first went to the Volos Archaeological Museum, which has a decent collection of finds from the local ancient sites – you get the impression that pretty much any town in Greece could dig up an impressive array of ancient artefacts.

Next we drove up the extremely winding roads that climb the steep hills of the verdant Pilion Peninsular, home to the legendary centaurs of Greek mythology. One of the main attractions of peaceful hilltop towns like Makrynitsa, are that they provide a cool escape from the heat of summer, however on a slightly chilly day like today, there wasn't quite the same premium on cool breezes. Even so, it made for an extremely attractive setting, overlooking the sprawling city of Volos below, to a background theme tune of trickling streams and rustling trees.

Fortunately, we have warmer weather forecast for the coming few days.....