Rhodes, Cyprus & Israel

Nov 13th – Friday the 13th – Rhodes

No tours today. Bob and I feel very comfortable running around a Greek town without assistance, and since I’d been to the ruins in Lindos and Rhodes (neither of which overwhelmed me), we decided to mosey in the town with the million other tourists who had gotten off of cruise ships. There were at least four large cruise ships in addition to us…so the local merchants, selling all manner of junk, saw nothing but euro spenders walking through the main streets in their shorts, jeans and skirts.

Since absolutely nothing appealed (having spent our entire budget on a lovely Turkish rug), we walked along the waterfront to the furthest old city entry gate, and then meandered back to the first entry gate browsing at shop windows, stopping for a wonderful and simple lunch of fried calamari and a salata horiatiki with some Mythos beers. Then back to the ship for a dinner in the ship’s formal dining room.

On our Azamara journey last year (an identical ship owned by a different cruise line) we were underwhelmed by the main dining room and avoided it. But Oceania is a totally different and more delightful experience. The food selection is much better, and sitting at a table for two between two other couples, we could strike up nice conversations but it wasn’t compulsory as it seems to be when you sit at a table for six or eight. Everyone with whom we have chatted has a long cruise history and a seemingly interesting life before retirement. (But then we’re only to tier one after one week on the ship). Tonight we met Henrietta and Paul who are originally from Holland, but who now live in Melbourne, having retired with Shell Petroleum. With Diana our charming Russian waitress we enjoyed good food, good service and good conversation.

November 14 – Saturday - Limassol Cyprus

An early start to our day as we head into a totally new country – our first on this trip. Our local guide on the tour showed strong partisanship for the Greek portion of Cyprus where we were docked and where we’d be touring. When she spoke of the ‘northern part’ of Cyprus she said it was ‘under the control of the Turkish Army ‘and not that it was a self contained country. We learned about the primary sources of Cypriot revenue are tourism ,followed by olive oil and grapes. Otherwise for the most part they imported everything else.

Our first stop was Kourion, an archaeological dig which has uncovered a very large civilization of first Greeks ,and then Romans. The site is something of which Cyprus is very proud and so the infrastructure supporting the site was magnificent and orderly. Every walkway, diagram, visual affect was carefully laid out and described in multiple languages. We walked through the ‘house’ of a Roman citizen with its own private bathes structured similarly to the Roman bathes we had seen at Miletus a few days earlier. The key difference being that these baths were not public but rather private and the tile work and mosaics identified the man whose house it was. We then proceeded to the theater at Kourion, which , like many ancient theaters, is still in current use. After all, if your predecessors 2000 years ago have built a perfectly designed, acoustically correct theater, why not take advantage if it and simply improve the seating for 20th century butts. One can still see remnants of the original structure in all the little nooks and crannies at the edges of the structure just to remind you that this is truly antique. At this particular theater, which was Roman, we learned that not only did they have theater productions, but in addition they enjoyed the ‘sport’ of pitting man against beast. They would provide lions and tigers which had been left without food for three to four days and let them loose on the slaves for a ‘fight’. This event, similar to that performed at the Coliseum in Rome, seemed almost as much ‘fun’ as watching modern day boxing matches, or wrestling, or bull fighting. The small difference being that no one loses their life in our civilized 20th century ‘sports’.

From here we hopped back on the bus to drive to another part of the Kourian site - the Greek Sanctuary of Apollo. Like other sanctuaries we’ve seen in Greece, this one consisted of the ‘undressing’ rooms for the visiting supplicants, the baths, the sauna, the sacred way to the main temple, and the temple itself which had two columns re-erected so one could get a ‘sense of place’. I always enjoy visiting Greek or Roman ruins , particularly since every time I see another site, I can make comparisons between them, but more importantly each new site adds another new piece of data to my collected wisdom.

The whole site of Kourion, which includes the sanctuary, is large and for the most part not yet excavated. Here the primary responsibility for the dig is with the University of Pennsylvania and it is only money that stands in the way of their ability to open up more of the site.

The last stop of the day was almost a bust. It was advertised as a drive into the mountains of Cyprus to visit a ‘quaint’ village named Omodhos. Unfortunately its quaintness is primarily for the tourists and so as we arrived, all the little vendors were out selling lace, worry beads, honey or statuettes. There were old people sitting outside their homes to greet us, and in the main square the men were sipping their coffee and smoking like fiends as they watched the tourists and commented on them. The main purpose of the tour was to show the village, and its ancient church which was at one time a monastery, dating back to the 1500’s. Bob and I chose to amble on our own and as a result found a very small but poignant exhibit tucked away within the monastery. Here in one small room, under the ‘eaves’ of a portico, was a tiny memorial to the brave youth of the area who had given their lives fighting guerilla warfare against the British in 1955 – 1959. There was a description of each individual’s short life along with his photograph, some of his clothing and other items such as their schoolbooks or knapsacks. Each description was written in Greek, German, English and French. Who ever had funded this effort definitely wanted people to understand what had gone on. We were stunned, not only by the age of these young people, but more that we were so totally unaware that there had been such deadly skirmishes at that time. Research to understand this period of time is definitely required at some point in the future.

After a stop at a wonderful local bakery, we met up with the rest of our tour group and headed back to the ship for another dinner in the main dining room before crashing. Tomorrow is a long day in Isreal, with a very early departure.

November 15 –Sunday - Haifa Israel.



Israel having been attacked entirely too many times, and having far too many enemies, takes its security very seriously. Every passenger had to meet in the Nautica Lounge at 6:30 a.m. to claim our passports and landing cards, but more importantly to have a face-to-face meeting with a series of Israeli security personnel. Only then were we officially allowed to step foot on land -which we did after some breakfast.



We met up with bus # 11 and our guide for the day, Selwyn Rose, an impish man with graying beard and growing paunch. Selwyn was born in England but came to Israel in 1969 – two years after the six day war. He proved to be a very articulate, knowledgeable tour guide whose only issue was his inability to herd his tour group in any meaningful way. Our first stop of the day was at a town called Safed, which had a series of synagogues going back to the 1500’s. In 1948 at the departure of the British, the town was 10% Jewish and 90% Arabic. The Jews bravely fended off the Arab population through the trickery of a very large and noisy gun – The Davidka –rather than superior forces, and took control of the town. Since then this town has become a place for Jewish Scholarship where the ancient synagogues draw scholars to the town. In addition an arts community has grown up in the narrow winding streets and thus it is quite a tourist haven. We visited one Ashkenazi synagogue built originally by Sephardic Jews from Greece. Rabbi Yitzhak Luria came here and founded a sect known as the Luriaric Kaballah in 1500. One entered through a small doorway with a beautifully wrought modern steel door. Inside, a most holy Jewish scholar guarded this synagogue with great care and asked for donations. At one point during Selwyn’s talk there broke out a most boisterous ‘discussion’ between Selwyn and this Jewish scholar. The discussion was based on the place of women in the synagogue: were they historically separated from the men, or were they not. The Jewish Scholar took umbrage at Selwyn’s historical description and the ‘discussion’ ensued. As Selwyn described it, many of the traditions which have come down over time are not necessarily in the Torah, but are rather interpretations which hold no credence and are not obligatory. The scholar thought otherwise. One man was basing his wisdom on history and l the other on religion. The two men could not agree and neither was going to cede ground to the other. If we thought that Israel had problems with its geographic neighbors, it seemed that they have almost as difficult a time getting along amid the various tribes of Israel.

From here we came to another synagogue where the bema was painted in brilliant blue, the dome was painted in a variety of colors, and the walls were covered in different pictures and tablets. Even the place of the ark was wonderfully colored. It was very old, but had the look of a children’s schoolroom where your eye was caught by something colorful and interesting in every corner.

Having had our religious education for the day, we boarded our bus after a bit of retail therapy in the narrow streets of Safed, and continued on to a kibbutz high up on the Golan Heights. The ride took us around the northern end of the Sea of Galilee. We were right near the Jordanian and Syrian borders and we were aware of barbed wire, siren towers, and bunkers everywhere. It is one thing to read about this part of the Middle East, it’s another to be in the middle of it. In some ways the countryside reminds you of any rugged Mediterranean landscape – dry scrubby hills, cultivated fields fed by irrigation, rocky out croppings, and plenty of olive trees clinging to the sides of hills. But then you see a sentry with a machine gun, or the remains of an old tank and you realize you are in the midst of what was recently a war zone.

It was very eerie. We were seeing places which we’ve read about either n the Bible or more recently in Newsweek – all this within a very small geographic space.

The Kibbutz – Kfar Haruv (translated place of the carob) was started after Israeli won back the Heights in the ’67 war. Somehow we had in our imagination that we’d find a rustic enclave with healthy young people eating under lean to shelters. What we found instead were a series of factory buildings (this Kibbutz makes air valves for irrigation pipes), farm plots and sandstone buildings all looking fairly modern. Of course amidst this agricultural scene were bunkers, lookout towers and large siren/ speaker horns mounted everywhere to give out alerts. But otherwise it was a lovely ‘suburb’ in the hills. We ate in the main dining hall where we had a simple but tasty meal along with Kibbutz members coming in to grab their lunch before returning to their work. Once we had bussed our own dishes, we were met by a member of the Kibbutz who guided us around (with the help of her black dogs) for the next two hours talking about the life of members of the Kibbutz.

The original concept was that when one joined a Kibbutz you were there for life. Everything you owned was communal, all work was parceled out based on what was required, not necessarily on what your particular skills were, and all people were paid the same amount of money. All decisions were made communally by members and children were raised communally as well. Even living quarters were shared with many families in a common building. But as time and human nature prevailed, things have changed. That pioneer spirit and dedication to building a new country is still a part of a Kibbutz but now people are assigned work based as much as possible on their skills; they are paid according to the skill level of their job and children are now in a common area only during working hours and school but return to their families at the end of each day. Many of the children born at the Kibbutz chose to stay on after their military service, but this one had a specific membership size of 100, and so everyone else who lives there is not a voting member, including the returning children.

When asked what would happen when a member of the original 100 died, our guide admitted that when this Kibbutz had started they hadn’t thought about old age and the potential of death, and thus there had been no procedures set up. I’m sure that this too will be decided communally at some point. (Bob said the whole concept reminded him of a condominium association where there are identical rules about how one paints one’s home, designs one’s garden, landscapes one’s area and everything must be decided by the members).

One wonders how long the Kibbutz concept will continue to be viable. As Israel becomes a high tech country with 21st century technology in medicine, defense and agriculture will young Israelis continue to chose to be in a communal kibbutz environment or will the entrepreneurial spirit move them in new directions. I need to do more reading about this. Everyone on the tour was interested and kept asking question after question and this lovely woman, born in Morocco and married to a man from Rhodesia , quietly answered all questions as best she could.

At last we boarded our bus and started back down off the Heights, driving along the Jordanian border where we could look across a small ravine to villages in the other country. Selwyn pointed out various points of biblical interest, and our last stop was at a point on the Jordan River where John the Baptist was said to have baptized Jesus Christ. It is a combination holy site and tourist trap, and Bob and I chose to sit in the bus since our legs were sore. The report from those who went was mixed: some felt it was a religious experience, others thought it just a rip off place for people to sell trinkets. It is always a problem with places that purport to be ‘the spot’ where something happened. Who knows how accurate these are.

We were too tired to have a formal dinner so we ate in the buffet on the 9th floor before falling into bed. It was a most worthwhile day between learning ancient history, seeing the countryside and learning about Kibbutz life. Tomorrow will be a more intense city experience.

November 16 – Monday – Jerusalem

Our ship sailed a short distance to the port of Ashdod – the port where we’ll stay for two day, s so people can enjoy Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Masada and the Dead Sea. Bob and I had chosen a tour which focused old Jerusalem and on Yad Vashem – the newly built holocaust museum of Israel.

It was another early morning departure, and once more we had Selwyn as a guide. Our fellow travelers on this tour were for the most part what I would call New York Jews who probably gave lots of money through Hadassah to this city and felt a strong connection. As we drove through morning traffic on new highways into the city, we could look out and see that Jerusalem like much of Israel is in a permanent state of construction. Old buildings from the British period are either being renovated or torn down , and whole communities are being re-created. Our first stop was Yad Vashem where I had been with Gay and my cousin Bebe fifteen years ago. Since then then museum has been totally rebuilt, on a new site (thanks to American contributions) and it re-opened in 2005.

It is a wonderful museum, designed to lead the visitor from the simple days in the early 1900’s when Jews lived in Poland, Germany, France and Russia… and room by room you are led through the history of the coming of the Nazis, the destruction of Jewish settlements in all European countries, the pogroms, the ghettos , the death camps and the end of the war. It is a slow sad progression with each room having a combination of pictures, artifacts, video and oral testimonials from survivors. It is an emotionally draining experience that cannot leave anyone untouched, but what amazed Bob and myself, based on comments overheard, is how ignorant people were of the details. Not that everyone needs to be aware, as a Jew, of every event in this sad period of history, but anyone should know the basic history of World War II and the events surrounding the holocaust and the Nuremburg trials.

What strikes me every time I go to another of these museums is why did my parents wait so long. As early as 1930 – soon after daddy returned from his trip – there were gradual and steady diminution of rights and privileges for Jews in Germany as Hitler took control. Could they really think they could stave off each new law and declaration which reduced their privilege and status? I will never be able to ask anyone since they’re all dead, but it makes me wonder if I would react similarly were I in their shoes. I hope I never need to know.

The last room is the hall of remembrance where one can find the records of every person killed in the holocaust. I searched for my grandmother and great grandmother. Could find neither, so I took a copy of the forms and will complete them and send them back so they too are recorded. There were three other main monuments: the trees grown for the “Righteous Gentiles”(those non-Jews who helped to save people), a tall column honoring all partisans and fighters against the Nazis and lastly a subterranean monument to the million plus children killed.

After four hours we left, a quieter group …and had lunch at a local hotel where a buffet was available to us. Then we were off to walk through the Jewish section of the old city behind the walls. Since I was last here there has been much construction done, but it has also been made so ‘touristy’ that one doesn’t get much ‘sense of place’. By the time we got to the West (Wailing) Wall it was dark. The Temple Mount and the Muslim temple were lit, the wall was spot lit and as always there were thousands of people praying, dancing, or simply watching the activity in this huge open area. Since my last visit security has been beefed up and one had to go through security check points, and everywhere there were soldiers with machine guns. And whereas in the past one could go through the Arab sections of the old town, now it is off limits completely.

It was a long emotional day which became even longer when we found that two members of our group had gone astray. They had found the walking too grueling and had been told where to meet us. But of course, it had gotten dark and they weren’t there. The poor bus driver and Selwyn spent an hour calling the ship to see if they’d come back on their own, calling other buses to see if they’d boarded the wrong one. Ultimately we were given permission to return to the ship without them. Poor Selwyn was devastated. In twenty-five years of being a tour guide he had never lost anyone. Finally after twelve hours we were back at the ship, had a drink, dinner and crashed.

November 17 - Tuesday – Ashdod

A day of sleeping late, doing laundry, catching up with the blog and other housekeeping chores. We felt no need to see more. For some reason Israel has disappointed us. For all their knowledge, high tech aura and seeming invincibility, we found the country visibly no different from other third world countries, and far less attractive in some ways. Perhaps expectations were too heightened, but I think it will be awhile before we come back.

We ended our Israeli stay by having an elegant meal in Toscana the Italian restaurant where, for no additional expense, we could enjoy a smaller more intimate dining experience. Bob’s Swordfish Carpaccio appetizer was so thin you could see the china plate beneath , while I had a wonderful penne pasta with chicken liver and chick peas. Our main course was veal scaloppini with lemon or marsala. Too stuffed for dessert we had a cappuccino, and retired.

Tomorrow begins the journey which replicates Daddy’s journey. I have to pretend that we have just sailed from Venice and are landing in Alexandria. I’m very excited and plan to take pictures identical to those taken in 1927.