Mediterranean Cruise - May, 2023

In May, 2023 we spent 17 unforgettable days on a deluxe Royal Caribbean Cruise. We were in awe of the many beautiful wonders of the world and feel very fortunate to have been able to go. 

The weather was lovely and we spent lots of time with our feet propped up while enjoying our balcony views.

 

It was exciting to look out the sliding glass door of our room and see foreign places and ports come into view and realize they were the ports of Italy, Greece, Turkey and Crete and all of these iconic far-flung places in the Mediterranean.

 

We also caught some scenic sunsets. Good thing it wasn't sunrises because we would have missed those.

We had such a cozy room. You really have to enjoy one another's company if you're going to go on a 17-day cruise. 

(Towels animals are fun - even when you're in your 70's).

 FIRST STOP - ROME

We flew into Rome and stayed in a really nice Hotel for the first two nights. This was our "getting to know you" dinner with the 90+ people who were on our Morris Murdock cruise. You can see the back of Karla's head and Uncle Richard. We had a great time sharing our cruise experiences with them.

We have been to the Rome Temple TWICE! We have been to Rome TWICE! It was never on my bucket list. The first time we went, four years ago, it was so memorable but SO HOT. This time the weather was perfect. I liked it better this time around. I was able to enjoy the moment and knew what to expect and my jet lag wasn't as bad on this trip. The temple grounds are gorgeous and the temple experience was heavenly. The cute Italian temple workers were still wearing little crocheted shawls that I loved when we were there the first time, and when I complimented one of them, she asked me if I wanted to wear one too and I sure did! I wish I could have taken a picture. I looked adorable. 

Darling newlywed Jane and me hanging out at the visitor's Center, Rome Temple.

Mr. and Mrs. Nick Jones at the visitor's center. They had been married all of 5 days when they got to come on the cruise. They were in love with each other and everyone was in love with them.

Dennis and I at the visitor's center, Rome Temple. The statue of Christ with the sunbeams radiating behind it, and the statues of the twelve apostles are stunning.

This is one of the men on our tour named David. I asked him to take our group picture and when I looked at my camera roll later that night there were five pictures of him, just like this. He is a character. He was on our British Isles Cruise too. Richard asked one of David's friends, "what is UP with David?" "Oh, he's just that way." "That way" being he canNOT sit still, he runs off to places nobody else does and is usually late getting on the bus. His wife is a saint.

The next eight photos are all taken at the Roman forum and the Vatican Museum.They speak for themselves. Sublime. 

 

The 4th picture down is a picture of Nick and Jane with the open window behind them and I think the sky and its reflection look like a painting!

The Colosseum (below) is 2,000 years old. It could hold 60,000-80,000 people. It was used for gladiators, all sorts of medieval things. It's not at the top of my list of "wonders of the world" and I was worried because I wasn't blown away by it the first time we went to Rome, and then I was afraid that all of the other ancient ruins would be underwhelming. But, no, it's just the Colosseum that for some reason underwhelms me.

The next two pictures are of the Spanish Steps.We were fortunate to be there while the beautiful pink flowers were in bloom.The longest and widest steps in Europe they are also an important landmark in Rome as they host events and are home to Italian traditions.

The big mural on the wall in the second photo is a good example of how today's world and the world of ancient Rome exist side by side.

These next four photos are of the Trevi Fountain which was as magical as I remembered from our first trip to Rome, but also as CROWDED too. Just look at the middle photo. We enjoyed our first Gelato there too. It is arguably the most famous fountain in the world, partly made so by the movie "Three Coins in a Fountain." Dennis and I didn't throw coins this time though. There were too many crowds to wade through. But the younger Sweats all threw coins.

"C-C-C-Y-P    R-R-R-U-S   C-Y-P- R-U-S --- CYPRUS!!" 

Oh how I can remember Amy and Angie chanting those words at Cyprus High School Little league football games when little 4-year-old Amy was a cheerleader and Angie helped them practice. And now I know why Cyprus High School's mascot was the Pirates. Turns out that the island of Cyprus was a stronghold for pirates in the 14th and 15th centuries.Cyprus is located north of Egypt, east of Greece, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria.Wow! It is a Republic and part of the EU.

All of our many, many tour guides spoke English quite fluently, although some had much stronger accents than others. Our guide, below, had a very high-pitched sing-songy voice that kind of grated on me after about, oh two minutes. I think the high-pitch is a way of speaking Greek though. We also noticed that their conversations and exchanges between each other seem like they're arguing to our ears, but in reality they could be discussing last night's football match. It's just a very different exchange. 

We enjoyed touring the House of Dionysus was built around 600 BC and is well known for its colorful mosaics.

Another memorable stop along the way was this jaw-dropping panoramic view of the turquoise Mediterranean waters as we traveled across the countryside in Cyprus. I took about 20 photos of the same view because I couldn't stop. I hope you can get an idea of how gorgeous it is from these photos which do not do it justice.

There were about 90 of us who were part of the Morris Murdock Anthony Sweat group and we got to  hear Tony teach on cruising days. He spoke for at least two hours each time and even put together an additional day of class for us when our Jerusalem tour was canceled (working like crazy huddled away in his room on the ship). He also stayed one afternoon for an impromptu Q&A.. Tony does a masterful job teaching and is so interesting to listen to.

I wandered down to a cooking show one afternoon. Tony was much more interesting :-)

And I got my wish granted to play shuffleboard while on a cruise. It was fun!

            WE DID NOT VISIT JERUSALEM :( 

Unfortunately, "due to escalating geopolitical tensions" we were unable to go to Jerusalem. We were disappointed to say the least. This was our one shot and we didn't get to walk where Jesus walked. We will always feel a pang of sadness, but girded up our loins and everyone took it in stride, pretty much, and we were ready to enjoy the rest of the cruise, because, well, we had no choice :-).    Below are three photos of Haifa, Israel where we ported before we had to amscray.

BEAUTIFUL TURKEY

This is the port outside of Ephasus, Turkey. Choosing my favorite things about the trip is hard, but Turkey was a highlight.

Tony will probably love going on cruises when he's an old retired geezer like us, where he can just be a tourist and not have to shepherd 90 old people around! It's nice that he's tall because we could spot him.

We spent a beautiful and peaceful Sunday visiting to Mount Koressos outside of Ephesus, Turkey. And, that's the ubiquitous David pictured below admiring the olive trees. Tony took lots of photos of the surroundings to use for future paintings. He said they were even better for painting purposes than being in Jerusalem because there weren't hordes of people among them. Isn't it beautiful?

We had a sweet experience being able to quietly listen to a Catholic Mass. Since it was Sunday, they had reserved this area, I'm sure years in advance. We were on the path walking quietly by as they held their outdoor service. We even heard them recite the Nicene Creed. In one of Tony's "cruising day" lectures he discussed the Temple and ceremony and ritual and how there is much ritual and ceremony to Catholicism and we lean away from that, We have ceremony and ritual in our temples, but our chapels and Sunday services are fairly utilitarian, other than the sacred ritual of the sacrament. Tony mentioned that Joseph Smith was restoring temples, not meetinghouses and he doesn't know if they even had official chapels. Anyway, he drew a wonderful parallel between helping us teach the rising generation and also understand better for ourselves about the ritual and ceremony of the Temple. If we can embrace the symbolism and the ritual of the temple as sacred and holy it won't seem so unfamiliar.

Tradition has it that this little house is where Jesus' mother Mary lived. Jesus charged the Apostle John with caring for his mother, and John and Mary lived in Ephesus. Whether or not this is actually the house where she lived, it was sweet to be there.

Three generations of Sweats in Ephesus, Turkey. Cindy and Jane matched and they didn't plan it.

The Western Wall in Jerusalem was one of the many things we did not get to experience. But they had a little brick wall here on the grounds and lots of pilgrims had slipped little slips of paper into cracks just like they do at the Western Wall. Some of them were stuffed into the littlest nooks and crannies you can imagine. I found a receipt in my wallet and wrote down "God Bless all the Sweats and Hiatts" and squeezed it into a little crack.

If you look closely at these slips of paper somebody used a Sudoku sheet!

Lots of statues of Mary and Jesus.

Below are beautiful ancient ruins in Turkey that spread out for miles as we made our way through the countryside.

An ancient amphitheater....

Lots of cats languidly posing. Posing languidly?

I had no idea that Nike was the Greek goddess of victory and athletes who wanted to win worshiped her. The Nike swoosh is even based on the wings of the goddess Nike. Dennis posed with his Nike hat.

I believe every male on the tour got their picture taken holding up these pillars. That's our friend David taking Dennis's picture, so maybe Dennis is part of David's blog?  Maybe David pulled Uncle Richard aside and said "What is UP with Dennis?" :-)

This was so cool - it's an ancient LIBRARY! It held 12,000 scrolls and was one of the most impressive buildings in the Roman empire during it's heyday. It is still very impressive today.

 

 

There was another LDS group on our cruise ship that were sailing with the singing group GENTRI. We were able to go to a couple of their concerts on cruising days too. I saw one of the singers in their group while we were at a bazaar in Turkey and had Dennis sneakily take a picture of "us".I love the look on my face!

And while I'm on the GENTRI kick, here they are in concert. Dennis LOVED them. He'd never heard of them before. I'm not surprised. I don't think 70-year-old men are their target audience.

Here's our Turkish guide explaining fascinating details about Greek symbols, the fish symbol origin used for Christians, the cross, etc. I can't remember any of it. She said that supposedly the Apostle John is buried around there but they have no evidence that he was. Tony mentioned that Joseph Smith taught that John the Beloved had been permitted to remain on the earth to do “a greater work yet among men. She was really interested in that and said, I've never heard that before, but it makes sense! 

I don't have a photo of our tour guide on the bus in Turkey but none of us will ever look at Turkey the same after listening to her. It was supposedly the day that their President Erdogan was going to lose the popular election after being in power for 20 years. Oh she HATED him! She said she could speak of her dislike out loud because in six hours he would be out of power. But he wasn't! He won! I'm sure all of us followed the election run-off after we returned to the US with much more interest than we would have ever had, and will be more interested in Turkey now for the rest of our lives.

We also got to watch them make hand-knotted Turkish rugs. Unbelievable!

At the end of the demonstration they herded us into this big room and kept throwing down rug after rug after rug and the guys who were unrolling them looked kind of like thugs so it was thugs unrolling rugs. Seriously there were probably 30 big room-sized carpets that they unrolled, one on top of the other, all the while urging us very vehemently to test them barefoot, come on, TEST them! They are dying to barter and bargain with you. And then the best part is all of a sudden some lovely maidens appeared with little trays filled with something to drink. "Tea!" You should have seen the collective "eeek" look on our faces! "We don't drink tea. Sorry!"  No, no it's just apple tea no caffeine. So we all gave each other a collective shrug of the shoulders and enjoyed our apple tea. It was yummy. You can't really see it, but all of the people sitting on the back benches are holding their little glasses of apple tea.

 

 

SANTORINI on the Aegean Sea

When we found out we were not going to Jerusalem, they informed us they were adding two new destinations to the cruise. The first was "Santorini." When I texted Julie and Denny, Julie was apoplectic with excitement. She said Santorini was her favorite place on earth and she had a poster of the blue-roofed white buildings hanging in her home for years (and I remember it!). She was there as a 20-something unmarried adventurer 50 years ago. Her other recommendation was "ride the donkeys!" If you look at this photo you can see the all-white city of Santorini high upon the cliffs. There were actual donkeys to ride but we took the tram. Tony and Cindy and Jane and Nick rode the donkeys and they said it was fun! Santorini was breathtaking and ended up being one of the highlights of our trip.

We hadn't booked any tours and so we were just wide-eyed tourists standing around and of course we were approached immediately by a swarthy looking man who told us we definitely wanted to tour the island in his 16-passenger van, except there were only 12 of us so far. Then six more people came and he immediately herded all of us into his van but left two people who had been there waiting the longest behind. They protested loudly but he didn't care a bit! He drove like a maniac and we were  holding onto our hats!

Lots of beautiful things to see, lots of young adults taking instagram-worthy selfies, lots of good vibrations and beautiful vistas. We ate in a beautiful restaurant but our pizza took too long so we had to take it with us, because we knew the crazy van driver wasn't going to wait for us. This kinda pathetic picture is of Karla and Richard hurridly eating their pizza in the cigarette-butt-laden area we found.  

Tony brought paint supplies and the four Sweats painted Santorini scenes. I made a copy of Tony's and sent one to Julie for her birthday and made a little 5x7 for me.

When I went to Fed Ex Kinko's to get the copy sized to 5x7, they were super busy and kinda rude. The lady said I had to do it online or wait until the next day. So I decided just to use the copier and re-size it myself. I was thinking I wanted it shrunk down by about 25% so that's what I put into the copier instructions. I laughed out loud when it was printed. It was hardly bigger than a postage stamp! So, back to the drawing board. I finally got it right after about six tries :-) I put the teeny postage stamp size one in my wallet (photo below this one).

Update: I decided to take that photo out since it had my driver's license number in it!

 

CRETE

The other island we were able to visit was Crete. Julie's reaction to Crete was totally opposite of Santorini. She texted me "I loath Crete!" I guess when she was there 50 years ago it wasn't developed and there were rats on the beach. But I really liked Crete. I wish we could have gone to the beach with Tony and Cindy and Jane and Nick but by the time I bolstered Dennis's enthusiasm to walk for 20 more minutes and join up with them, the kids had turned off their phones. Oh well, they brought me some beautiful rocks though!

Karla and I had a great afternoon shopping.

These are the rocks from the beach in Crete that Tony's family gathered for me. I put them in the fairy garden here at home.

 

GREECE

Our last port was Athens, Greece where we saw the ancient acropolis and Mars Hill. It was another of my favorite destinations, although the city of Athens itself was depressing and dirty. Their ancient ruins, however, can't be beat.There were throngs of people at the acropolis and the ancient stones were slippery with thousands of years of wear and tear. They were doing some work on the exits so we all had to share one stone staircase up the mountain and I bet they had people falling down all day long. Just enjoy these photos, and realize again that photos don't do justice to actually being there in the midst of it all.

I had fun taking some photos of the theatre of Dionysos on the south slope of the acropolis. It was first built in 600 BC - right when Lehi was leaving Jerusalem!. It is the oldest Greek theatre and is the site where some of the most famous Greek plays. So I said "How do you like it dad?" I think he liked it!

Our group also visited Mars Hill which is the place Paul preached about the unknown God and preaches that we are the offspring of God. For 50 years I've looked at this photo of Grandma Jolley when she visited Mars Hill at the age of 85. It was awesome to be there ourselves. The climb to the top of these rocks doesn't look too daunting but everybody was saying people were slipping and sliding like they were hiking on glass. Nick and Jane walked to the top but they said they ended up on their hands and knees at one point because it was so slippery and they saw lots of people slip and fall. So I'm glad we didn't try it.

 

The steps Grandma Jolley is sitting on were just out of camera range on our right. Dangit I wish I would have been smart enough to bring the photo so we could recreate it.

 

Tony gave a short presentation at Mars Hill.

We then drove to a lively marketplace. Look at these strawberries!

Well, that's the end of my blog about our Mediterranean Cruise. It was so memorable and we had a remarkable time seeing so many wonders of the world.

We played lots of "Up and Down the River" with Karla and Richard. I taught Nick how to play Old Maid at the airport. That was fun!

There were two formal nights and I wore my woo-woo-woman sparkly shoes to the last one. Dennis had to hold onto my arm while I walked and it was strange being 5' 11''. I asked Dennis to wear a tie just for pictures and he turned me down flat!

Our waiters were Savio and Iqbal and we made fast friends with them. 

One day the seas were angry, but all of the rest of the days it was gorgeous weather.

And finally, we got a $100 credit on our ship's account because we booked early. We hardly believed it was true, or that there weren't some strings attached like "....if you spend $500..." but it was free money!

Anyone who has ever been on a cruise and has strolled down the shopping avenue glancing into store after store filled with expensive purses, watches and artwork has thought, "Who on earth would ever buy this stuff?" Well, it turns out Dennis would! And I guess lots of other people would too, and maybe everyone but me, I don't know what people think as they're strolling! Dennis found a really nice watch and was able to put the $100 toward it. I took the photo below when we took drive to Cascade Springs on the 4th of July. Jack David Huish is a watch connoisseur (who knew?) and he comments on it every time he sees it. (And who knows how to spell connoisseur)? 

So happy cruise memories are now stored in my blog. Yay!

THE END~!