grand tour 2025 – Rhudimentary

All Rhodes lead to, well, Rhodes.

Arrived in Rhodes around 6am. Breakfast with all the other early risers. I meant to say this before but I have noticed a lot of hearing aid wearing passengers. We should form a club. Unfortunately we have to take our hearing aids out when we use the Tour Headphones so there is a lot of “WHAT?” and “where are we going?”

We should also form the “heavily medicated” group. “Meds” would be sufficient. I say this because just about everyone coming to breakfast has a pill box. Day one and most of us were hiding the pill box, digging into bags or pockets to get the morning meds. Now, 4 days into the cruise and piles of morning medications are mounded up on the breakfast tables. Sometimes I think people search for their table based on what meds are on display. And wow! Some people take a LOT of medication.

After breakfast we headed off for a guided walking tour of the old town. Probably could have done this without a guide but it was free so….

Crystal clear water the colour of crisp turquoise. No matter how tempting it was we were advised against swimming. 2 men did jump in and swam around and, according to Glenys, they were English. She could tell by their poor rendition of the Aussie Crawl.

Rhodes is probably another tax haven for Russian Oligarchs, if this tiny motor boat is anything to go by.

It was a lovely place to visit and, as I had read many Knights Templar stories over the years, I was keen to see the fortifications and the Palace of the Grand Masters of the Knights.

A side street leading to the main square. Foot traffic had started to build but it was manageable. I did notice that most people get around on motor scooters…without helmets.

Another side street leading to the main square and then the palace

Sculptures on the walls were created in Italy and brought to Rhodes in the 19thC, I think but I could be wrong.

I’m probably getting the information slightly incorrect but the tour guide was Greek and her accent, well….. anyway, I’m sure I’m mostly right.

The Church of St John which was adjacent to the Palace of the Grand Masters of Knights blew up sometime in the 1700s. A store of gunpowder was kept in the basement and the church was hit by lightning and poof! or bang actually as the explosion almost destroyed the palace.

It was re-built by Italians which explains all the statues. You can see the line where the old building ended and the reconstruction began. Amazing that something built in the 1400s is still standing.

Apparently the Palace was re-built for Mussolini. He wanted a summer holiday shack so this was it. Sadly a war happened and he was rather busy being a Fascist so he never enjoyed the palace as he had hoped. Anyway, he was executed in 1945 so missed the opportunity to experience his opulent weekender. “A fitting end…” as they say.

The palace has vast rooms and slightly over the top interior design with carvings, sculptures, mosaic floors and tapestries. The room that was eventually used by the Prime Minister for signing documents and things has an enormous desk and heavy wooden chairs, all from the 16thC.

Not sure who this woman is but she wouldn’t move so I have used her as a size reference. She was about 5’7” or so. As she wouldn’t move when I asked her to I doubt she would have told me her height.

I had FOMO so I went in here expecting it to be this amazing room. Toilet. I didn’t stay long.

Managed to capture the Greek flag unfurled. As luck would have it I had put my camera away when a Greek Airways plane flew over. It looked like striped blue and white socks. How disappointing that I didn’t get the photo

All the statues got together for a game of cards. He threw his hand in.

Everyone went “oh wow!” I figured this was important so I took a photo.

Model of the boat that carried the Knights Templar to Rhodes. My camera is amazing but it has a 14-42mm lens so sometimes I can’t get everything in.

More Italian stuff. This time a Murano glass chandelier.

No idea of age but I thought it looked lovely but uncomfortable. My mother would have said it could do with a good clean.

The rooms were really dark so it was difficult to take pictures of the tapestries and floor mosaics. They were lovely, nonetheless. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Lunch time Sunday crowds had started to build so we made our way back to the ship.

Rhodes was lovely and, despite the vast crowds, it was relatively relaxing, in a full on buzz kind of way.

There were loads of jewellery shops but it was difficult to decide if the prices were tourist prices or not. Personally I think they were but as I wasn’t planning on getting any jewellery, I didn’t mind.

For those of you interested, today’s step count was 9k. Felt like 20k but there you go.

Tomorrow we invade Crete.

Leaving Cappadocia for Istanbul

Cappadocia, May 6th

For our last night in Cappadocia we were entertained by a local dance group. I say entertained as a loose term. A troupe of male dancers came on and did their best to entertain a group of seriously exhausted travellers. We had been warned by the tour guide that the night was for the dancing, not the food. She was right.

One of the male dancers was a star, or at least he thought he was a star. He was ok really, as were they all, I’m just being critical. I shouldn’t criticise because I can’t dance to save my life. Anyway, he was a standout and not for his dance skill. He was very tall, blonde and he had a man-bun (a pet peeve of mine). He was very fond of doing a shimmy even when no-one else was doing one so obviously the shimmy was not actually part of the dance routine. The men went through 2 costume changes until finally Man-Bun was able to show his true skill. He came on with a red shirt, black pants, long black boots and he was wearing a white pork pie hat. As it wouldn’t fit over his man-bun he had it perched forward over his eyes. I’m telling you, he looked just like the Construction man from the Village People. Same dance moves and everything.

He just loved the crowd and did a LOT of shimmying to raucous applause.

Next to come on was a female whirling dervish (and here was I thinking whirling dervishes were only men). She had created her own choreography and, I have to say, there was a lot of whirling but not much dervish.

The last act was a belly dancer. As my old dad used to say, it must be jelly ‘cause jam don’t shake like that.

He was right.

I had to take a photo although it didn’t turn out too well. I wanted to get the belly dancer looking her best and she was very keen to show off her performance assets.

Next, Istanbul

See ya

Istanbul to Cappadocia

Monday 5th May

Left the swanky hotel in Istanbul bound for Cappadocia early Sunday morning. I’m not sure I’m really cut out for a cruise way of life but the bonus is someone tells me where to stand. We arrived at the smaller airport (forgot the name, sorry) and had to lug our baggage to the far end where our gate was. 2 sets of security, self serve boarding pass (everyone in the airport needed assistance for the self serve which makes you wonder why they call it self serve) and then board.

Tour of Cappadocia started as soon as we landed and, after the flight and anxiety of being unable to communicate, I was zonked before we reached the first stop.

It appears the Turks like to name things with appropriate titles that have significance to the land site or history of the area such as Pigeon Valley named thus as there are lots of pigeons in the area.

The first place we visited is referred to as Fairy Towers owing to the odd rock structures.

I think a more appropriate name would be the Phallic Fields. I didn’t share this gem with anyone.

Bit of scrambling up shale and gravel and then we descended into the Underground City, appropriately named as it was a city and, well, underground. apparently the underground dwellings were still inhabited until the 1950s. Many dwellers rejected the offer of free housing as they preferred the underground caves.

I went all Indiana Jones (see pic below) and started humming dum-de-dum-dum, dum-de-dah… which no one appreciated (they’re a dull lot) but everyone laughed when I walked through a tunnel without ducking my head. Yeah, super funny, extremely tall American dude. Sorry you had to bend double to get through.

We were told that the local police still use one of the caves as their police station.

Next was the journey to our hotel. We drove past some truly spectacular scenery, extremely dry but with fields of luscious weeds (no idea) which was heavily irrigated so really green.

I’ve been away from an internet connection for a few days so have forgotten exactly what we did. Best stop here and post again with further updates.

Round stone used to block the passageway. Looks like the moon, no?

Glenys, open mouthed at the wonder of the cave ceiling

13 days and counting…

My first post documenting my Grand Tour 2025 and the lead up to it.

Today’s picture is an artist’s impression of me on my journey.

It is completely false.

To start with I’m not hiking anywhere and secondly I have LOADS more stuff to take so considering employing a porter to help with my bags.

They say using electronic devices is much better and more convenient but I’m a notepad and pencil sort of person so making the transition to a digital blog has been a challenge. Plus, paper and pencil means just that – paper and pencil – whereas digital means I have to pack iPad, stand, cables, keyboard and charger.

Anyway, stay tuned.