Greek Drinks

Now that we are home from our trip to Greece and Turkey, I’ll try to catch up with some of the photos that I didn’t share during the trip. Today’s post isn’t very serious about art and culture: it’s just about drinks.

The weather during our voyage was brutally hot, so we needed many cool drinks.

Coke cans in Greece and Turkey have personal names on them, as they do in other places.

A sunset dinner in Santorini.

Turkish coffee, of course. This was served at a large establishment selling a wide variety of Turkish carpets.

Athens lunch.

 Photos © 2025 mae sander

The end of the trip

 

Goodbye to Greece 

Nine hours to Boston airport with a 7-hour time change.
Not bad airplane food.

Now waiting for flight back to Michigan.

Naxos

From the breakfast table this morning: a view of the island of Naxos, where we visited soon afterwards.

 

Naxos is is a lovely island.
It seems much less overdeveloped than Santorini and is thus more pleasant.

In a farmer’s field not that long ago, the owner discovered this statue. The area was once a marble quarry.
The statue is unfinished (probably because the leg was broken) and it was evidently abandoned in the 6th century.

We visited an olive oil producer, where we tasted olives, oil, and other products.

Most of the area where we visited was agricultural.

Blog post © 2025 mae sander.

Santorini

Santorini sunset

 Yesterday (July 21) we toured Santorini. In the morning (7:30 to 11:30 AM) we visited a farm that produces mainly pistachios and sun-dried tomatoes. In the afternoon and evening (1:00 to 9:30 PM) we visited a fascinating archaeology site and a museum dedicated to the lost civilization of this island — not early Greek, but something entirely different and still little known. The site was discovered and explored in the 1960s — excavations are continuing as it was a very large early city until an earthquake destroyed it in 1700 BCE (I think).We also went on a walking tour in BRUTAL heat (Len and I opted to sit in a cafe) and then a bust tour of the island and then a dinner at a very “traditional” (I mean stereotyped) restaurant with the usual Greek salad, tatziki, etc. The dinner was more hokey than usual Lindblad offerings. You know, dancers in costume, throwing the dishes on the dance floor etc.

Leros, Greece

Returning from the harbor of the island of Leros on the ship’s Zodiac inflatable boat.

Leros was our destination this morning, after our ship — the National Geographic/Lindblad Orion — anchored in the beautiful harbor. We spent the morning seeing several interesting locations on the island. From the port where we disembarked, we took a small bus up the very narrow streets of the town, and then winding up the tallest  hill to an old Crusader fort at the top.

Windmills. These no longer have their sails.They are around 300 years old.

First, we stopped at a very picturesque group of windmills (no longer in use). Then we visited a small chapel, with more impressive views of the small coves that are everywhere along the coast of this rather small island.

Inside the chapel, which was open because it’s Sunday.

The chapel.

At the Crusader Castle. The town priest is the only person who has the key.
We had to wait a while for him to come up to the hilltop and open up for us.

Looking towards the harbor from the Crusader Castle.

After walking up the ramparts of the castle and exploring the crumbling walls and battlements, we proceeded back down the hill to the War Museum. Leros was the site of a very bloody battle in World War II, in 1943, when the Greeks and British tried to prevent Nazi German forces from taking over the island after several horrifically destructive days, the Germans prevailed. Our tour was accompanied by Adonis, a man from the community who is active in the historical center in the town, and he related a personal view of the war — based on his own memories and those of his family and other members of the community that he knew.

Some time after the war, the people of the island contributed their war objects to
make a museum. The museum is inside of tunnels that go under the mountains of the island.

Our guides: Adonis and Dena.

Bodrum, Turkey

 

From the ship’s deck this morning we could see the imposing Crusader castle of Bodrum.

Soon, a small shuttle boat took us to the dock nearest the castle, and we climbed up the huge stone stairs
to the ramparts. Everything you ever read about early fortified castles is true here. Wonderful views from the top, a double wall designed for defense against attack from the sea, and lots of twisty staircases.

Two shipwrecks are displayed in dedicated museum-rooms in the castle. This one is around 1100 AD.

The storage and shipping of wine and oil was done in clay amphoras for several thousand years, and all the ones in the photo were found in the shipwreck, along with a vast quantity of broken glass (seen on the ground). Both glass bricks (that is, raw material for glassblowing) and complete glass vessels were included in the cargo along with a variety of other goods. 

A few of the shattered glass objects were reconstructed — with great effort — and are on display.

Gold jewelry was another part of the rich cargo of this ship.
We also enjoyed seeing the ship and cargo from a 3000-year-old wreck— I’ll post photos another time.

A view from the castle ramparts, including a minaret that was added much later.

The harbor from the deck of our ship.

In town: people were enjoying lunch in outdoor cafes.
I liked the mural on this wall.

There’s a big tourist shopping district in the town.

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Didim, Turkey

One of the two lighthouses at Didim.

Didim is a small harbor town where we anchored this morning. A ferryboat picked us up — along with around 40 of our fellow guests — and took us to the town dock where tour buses were waiting. Our destination, around an hour’s drive from the port, was the archaeology site of the ancient city of Herakleia, near Lake Bafa and at the foot of Mount Lamos.  Ancient Greeks and Romans lived in the city, which later belonged to the Byzantine Empire. The disappearance of the population that once lived there  is due to the silting up of the nearby lake, which in earlier times was a sea port. Afterwards, for some years, the lake provided a large catch of eels, which were caught, smoked, and canned for export, but this industry too has become unfeasible because silt and algae have built up in the water.

Ancient stones at Herakleia.

Only a tiny village still exists at the site of Herakleia. We made a stop at the town’s one cafe, where we encountered several women from the village. They were wearing head scarves, plaid shirts, and brightly printed pants, and aggressively selling beaded kerchiefs and other handicrafts. We sampled the local drink made from yogurt, salt, and ice water. The two buses from our ship were the only visitors this morning. So different from yesterday! 

Another ancient Greek city, Miletus, also in this area, was home to several famous ancient Greek philosophers including Anaximenes and Thales. Miletus is on the schedule for this afternoon, but because it’s extremely hot today (over 100°F) we decided to stay on the ship.

The other people from our ship this morning made a tour of the Herakleia site. It was led by the archaeologist/professor who is currently excavating the site and several students from the University of Kansas. Meanwhile, Len and I requested a different activity: we went on a bird walk near the lake with one of the local guides and one other birder, who happens to be the ship’s doctor. Obviously, we wished we could have been there at 5 AM for optimal birding. However, we did see a few nice birds, especially some herons, egrets, and cormorants, and one lone flamingo.

Len’s photo of the flamingo, which is white.
(You may know that flamingos get their color from the food they eat, so I guess this one does not eat shrimp)

We looked for birds on the lakeshore. A Byzantine-era fortress is on a small island
near the edge of the lake. Heavy fortifications were all along the shore.
You might be able to make out an egret at the left of the fortress.

Photos © 2025 mae and len sander

Ephesus, Turkey

The ancient city of Ephesus was one of the largest in the Roman Empire, with a very long history from earliest times. We visited the center of the ancient city, with good views of the library and the theater. 

A very strange archaic statue of Artemis in the archaeology museum.

At the remains of the ancient city, which has been preserved and restored.
The first restorations were in the 19th century, and work continues.

At its peak of population, Ephesus had around 1.5 million people.
Today the number of tourists and visitors was less than that, but it was crowded!

Blog post and photos © 2025 mae sander

Samos

Today’s island is Samos (July 16). Here are a few photos of the town and the fabulous archaeological site. From early in the history of Greece, the island was sacred to the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus and queen of all the gods. Her sanctuary was built, rebuilt, added to, developed and redeveloped from the 6th Century BCE or before until the end of Roman times, when Christianity demanded the end of pagan worship.

Here are a very few photos of the town and the archaeological remains. The internet isn’t cooperating or I would post more photos. All © 2025 mae sander.

Patmos

 

The Monastery at the high point of the island of Patmos.

Today, Tuesday July 15, we are visiting the island of Patmos. Our walk in the morning was through the whitewashed and very narrow streets that twist around the top of the highest hill on the island. At the very top is a monastery, but our tour didn’t visit it. (The other tour did visit it.) Patmos is famous for its role in early Christianity, and did not appear much in the history of ancient Greece.

We mainly looked around at the streets, the views out to sea — very picturesque — and a brief stop in an old mansion and a small church. The old mansion was like a hoarder house: crammed with miscellaneous collectibles from several different time periods. Our real interest is the ancient Greek ruins in these islands, and we hope the other days of the tour will provide more access to such ruins.

The National Geographic/Lindblad Orion, our ship.

Windmills.

The small Greek Orthodox church.

Blog post and photos © 2025 mae sander