The highlights of this day was the visit to the Garden of Gethsemane. The olive trees there are so old that some of them may have actually been there since the time of Jesus. It was a jaw dropping thought. We visited the Western (or Wailing) Wall. Did you know there are separate male and female entrances? The western wall is the actual base and wall from the first temple of the Jews. We also visited the Tomb of David with separate male and female partitions; the female portion only saw the feet portion of the sepulcher and the men's partition had the view of the head of the tomb.
Friday, October 12th Caesarea
Caesarea was King Herod's dream. He was an incredible ruler that controlled the eastern Mediterranean and survived numerous conflicts. He built this huge palace as a port palace. We were able to view many of the excavated ruins of the palace included the port with the retaining walls that were partially intact even though besieged by many civilizations and earthquakes.
Saturday and Sunday, October 13th-14th Haifa and At Sea
We took a break today and stayed in the room reading and relaxing.
Monday, October 15th Crete
Instead of visiting the Minoan palace of Knossos, we went up on the plateau and saw the agriculture of the last millennium. David, with his family history of farming, was fascinated. He said it was like Espinoza, Mexico except they didn't grow peppers. We saw the remains of many ancient metal and fabric windmills that were used for pumping ground water. The views from the top of the plateau were fabulous.
Tuesday, October 16th Santorini
We visited the Prehistoric Archaeological Museum with artifacts from 1690 back to 2590 BC and even older lava fossils from 60,000 BC. The pottery and wall painting were fascinating. The most interesting aspect of this place is that it is the cradle of our heritage. We rode the cable car up this huge cliff side and strolled through the old town markets, stopping to have a traditional Greek lunch before returning to the ship.
David and I kick back on our balcony after another hot day in Santorini. Just imagine us saying ahhhh..
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