Crete, Greece

The Emerald Princess was docked in Crete the morning of May 18. Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is the home of the great Minoan civilization which arose during the Bronze Age and the mythological home of Zeus.

Our activity that day was going to Knossos, the largest archaeological site on Crete and is considered Europe's oldest city. It is located in the growing suburbs of Heraklion.

The site was discovered in 1878, with excavations beginning in 1900 by the English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans and his team. They worked on this site for 35 years.

The Knossos Palace was excavated and partially restored but its size far exceeded Evans's original expectations.

The palace has an interesting layout. The 1,300 rooms are connected with corridors of varying sizes and direction, which differ from other contemporaneous palaces that connected the rooms via several main hallways.

The 6 acres of palace included a theater, a main entrance on each of its four cardinal faces, and extensive storerooms.

Within the storerooms were large clay containers that held oil, grains, dried fish, beans and olives. Many of the items were processed at the palace, which had grain mills, oil presses and wine presses.

There were frescoes on the walls.

This is an example of their water drainage system.

The centerpiece of the palace is the throne room. The throne is flanked by the Griffin Fresco. Griffins were important mythological creatures which were used on signet rings. The rings were used to stamp the identity of the ring holder into clay or wax as a signature or to secure important documents.

The oldest road in Europe.

Once back on the ship, we stopped at the International Cafe to get something to eat for our late lunch.

Glen was able to enjoy a little balcony time between loads of laundry in the ship's laundromat.

Beautiful view from our balcony. The water was so calm the whole week we were on the cruise. I did not have to use a seasickness patch and kept things under control by taking ginger capsules. It was fantastic to not be drugged!!!

It was nice to be with Glen for so many days in a row. At this point we had been vacationing for over a week and we still had a ways to go. We were loving it!!!

Steven had an unfortunate set of events--both of which occurred while he was eating.

This was the second time he was enjoying a delicious meal when he detected a back molar had broken off and he verified his suspicion when he found the tooth fragment.

We kept praying for him that he wouldn't break any more teeth (Patricia didn't want him toothless when they returned back home to Albuquerque) and that the two teeth that were broken would not cause him any pain or grief the rest of the trip.

Update: our prayers were answered. Steven was able to continue on with the trip eating whatever he wanted and his broken teeth did not become painful. 

Further update: when he went to the dentist, he learned those teeth were part of a bridge and they are still not bothering him so the dentist suggested he wait to get them fixed until the insurance will pay for a new one. Apparently it's only good for one every five years.

Alas! I am heartbroken to report we neglected to make note of how many steps we walked this particular day. I know it was at least over 10,000 steps because we never had a day less than that.