Travels WithJohn and Janice
Greece

Middle East

Greece

3 adventures documented

All Stories

John and Janice at the Library of Celsus in EphesusGreece
6 min read2022

Dateline November 11, 2022, Athens and Ephesus

The land half of the journey behind us, we flew from Cairo to Athens to begin the cruise we had planned for years, from Greece all the way to Dubai. Two days at Piraeus and its bitter orange trees, then aboard the Norwegian Jade to our first stop in Turkey: the House of the Virgin Mary, the vast Roman ruins of Ephesus with its Library of Celsus and great theater, and the lone surviving column of the Temple of Artemis.

#Athens#Piraeus#Ephesus
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A cliffside restaurant in Oia, SantoriniGreece
7 min read2016

Dateline June 14, 2016, Greek Isles on the Oceania Sirena

Chapter four began with a gut-punch: a memo at check-in telling us the Egypt stops were cancelled, the very reason we had booked the cruise. We swallowed our disappointment, met a couple named Gordon and Karen over lunch who would become lifelong friends, and set off to see the Greek isles. Over four days we rode the cable car above Santorini's caldera, hunted a wine pitcher in Crete, were thoroughly ruined out in Cyprus, and walked the medieval streets of Rhodes. Then came a day at sea we will never forget, with a galley fire and fighter jets buzzing the ship off the coast of Syria.

#Santorini#Oia#Heraklion
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The Acropolis lit up at nightGreece
5 min read2016

Dateline June 12, 2016, Athens

Athens opened the last leg of our journey, the part we would spend at sea. We landed from Rome to a hotel right below the Acropolis, watched it glow at night with a glass of wine in hand, and spent a full day climbing through its ruins with a guide named Stavros. We wandered Plaka, made friends over Greek wine with a couple named Cathy and Dino, and then took a city bus to the port to board the Oceania Sirena for twelve days, unpacked at last.

#Athens#Acropolis#Temple of Olympian Zeus
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