The amphitheatre was fabulous; not massive, but sunk down below the surrounding circus and street level, with a lovely view of the sea. It must have been quite a place to visit in the second century. It was, however, a huge heat trap, eliminating any offshore breeze that might have cooled elsewhere in the city and we had to seek out a place selling cold drinks in the shade immediately after visiting.

One of the first things we noticed in the city were the statues; there were quite a few and they were quite varied.

Architecture in the city was quite varied too.

I do like to take photos of street art when I see it on my travels and although Tarragona did not offer up many examples the ones I shot were of pretty reasonable quality.

The scenery along the shoreline of Tarragona was beautiful, affording views out over the railway line, amphitheatre, and sea, as well as granting us some small amount of breeze to combat the bone-penetrating heat of the day.

Boat Trip To Delos

We’d booked a full day excursion with Royal Princess which started with a gathering on the dock under scorching early morning heat and a not inconsiderable wait to board the boat that would take us onto Delos. We sat on top as the boat made its way out from Mykonos which left us exposed to the sunshine for the voyage, something we decided we wouldn’t repeat when coming back as it proved to be quite uncomfortably hot.

The Island Of Delos

According to Greek mythology Delos was the birthplace of both Apollo and Artemis. This was likely because Delos had already been a place of significant importance in the Cyclades group of islands for a millenium beforehand with its history including some time as the home of pirates allegedly later expelled by King Minos, then as a holy sanctuary. It also functioned as an important centre of commerce, possibly coming through a need to import nearly everything for its inhabitants, then because it was made into a free port by the Romans looking to undermine the trading influence of Rhodes. Think of its planned location and importance as being what Brexiteers think Britain will be like and its current, barren, empty condition as what will come of that.

From the dockside we walked as a group up a slow incline, stopping at the ruins of various houses and important buildings that had been close to the shoreline where we learned a little of the history of Delos as well as what had been found by archaeologists to suggest the functionality of those places we peered into.

Delos Theatre Quarter

Over the top of the incline from the dock area on Delos we entered what was described as The Theatre Quarter with a fair number of fancy houses given over to the arts and the remains of the theatre itself, around which we sat, impressed with the size of what we were experiencing for the first time.

The House Of Dionysos

From the theatre we retraced some of our steps into a location we’d passed on the way up: The House of Dionysos. One of the more complete buildings on Delos it was easily identifiable from nearby by the presence of several, tall columns but inside its walls it was the impressive floor mosaic that attracted the eye. As we walked around the artistic floor decoration we stopped to look into many of the rooms off the courtyard area of the house, some of which retained some of the original plaster and faded wall paintings too.

Temples

Our tour took us back through the marketplace of Delos then onto the more religious centre featuring wider avenues and the remains of numerous temples. Many of the stones in this area bore inscriptions indicating their history or pointing to some part of the history that the rulers of the island at the time wanted to impart to the locals and visitors; religion has always been a political tool.

The Terrace Of The Lions

At this point on our Delos tour we were given free time to either explore on our own (with some pointing out of locations of interest by our guide) or head off to the shop and café. We watched as a huge portion of our fellow cruisers set off immediately for the shop. Despite the heat, despite being almost out of water, we didn’t want to waste any time at the fabulous archeological site so made for the Terrace of the Lions. Only seven of the original nine-to-twelve lions remained but were in position as they would have been two-and-a-half thousand years earlier forming an avenue very much like the sphinxes did in ancient Egypt. Either the artists responsible for the sculptures had never seen lions before or there’s been a huge surge of evolution in the intermediate years but they still formed an impressive sight.

Delos Wildlife

I’ve already said that Delos was practically silent during our visit once you moved away from the tour group and that was what alerted us to the fact that there initially seemed to be no wildlife at all. Admittedly, the island was pretty desolate so didn’t seem to have much that would attract living creatures to its landmass but we remarked at one point that we’d not even seen or heard any birds during our visit. As we looked a little closer, though, we did pick out a few moving things in the form of some lizards and a dragonfly that led me on a merry chase for a while as I tried to get a photo of it. We even spotted a single dove sheltering from the sun at the House of the Trident.

Stoibadeion

From the stone lions we walked among the stone ruins of the agora and past the Minoan fountain, numerous impressive columns, and some fairly intact sculptures on our way towards the Stoibadeion which had a certain piece of statuary that attracted the eyes from quite a distance.

From Wikipedia’s entry on Stoibadeion:

The Stoibadeion contains a rectangular platform containing a statue of Dionysos […] Two pillars, one on each side of the platform, each support a huge phallus, the symbol of Dionysos. […] Three sides of the southern pillar have relief representations: the central scene shows a cockerel whose head and neck are elongated into a phallus, on either side are groups containing Dionysus and a Maenad, with a small Silenus on one side and a figure of Pan on the other. The southern pillar bears an inscription that it was erected ca. 300 B.C. by a Delian named Carystios in celebration of a victorious theatrical performance he sponsored.

Conclusion

We concluded our visit to Delos by heading back towards the boat through the temple area and past the Portico of Philip V of Macedonia. As I’ve mentioned before, this cruise around the Mediterranean provided some highs and lows with the service on the ship and the less-than-impressive historical site of Knossos falling in the latter category. The visit to Delos was most definitely one of the high points of the cruise, though, and I can’t recommend it enough if you’re staying on or visiting nearby Mykonos; the disparity in its grand scale and my feeling of insignificance in its history is something that will live long in the memory. I wouldn’t hesitate to revisit Delos and simply retrace the exact same route we took through its streets and buildings but there was plenty we still didn’t see in our time there anyway so if we’re in the area we’ll be back.

Whenever we’re flying back from a cruise we always try to arrange the flights late so that if these sorts of excursions are available we can get a last bit of sightseeing in and know that our luggage is being taken care of at the same time; we’d rather not have the hassle of trying to sort out getting ourselves and our cases to the airport and we’ve got no problem with sitting around and reading while waiting for a plane back home so we’d rather extend our holiday time by a little bit than be rushed or simply get off the ship and head straight back to the crushing reality of having to work for a living.

We left the ship early (sad, naturally, despite the problems we’d had on board (see: Review: The Royal Princess Cruise Ship)), picked out our luggage from the terminal, made our way onto the coach, and with everyone else on board soon after headed off for a short drive through Athens. In hardly any time we had arrived at the parking location near the base of the Acropolis and the moaning from fellow passengers had started as some realised that when the excursion mentioned there would be walking up slopes and steps to get to the Greek landmark they hadn’t realised that meant there would be slopes and steps they would have to walk up. An easy mistake. Nevertheless, most persevered (some stayed behind to explore some shops) and we headed up to the historical site.

The walk up allowed for a number of stops to examine some of the stone walls and arches visible on the approach, give the less-mobile-but-determined members of our excursion the opportunity to catch up, and allowed some of us to take some shots outwards and towards Athens from a higher elevation.

The Acropolis is a citadel comprising a number of ruins of buildings of importance to the ancient Greeks. Situated above the capital it is easily seen from miles around and naturally a very big tourist draw. Fortunately, thanks to our early arrival it wasn’t too busy when we got there and there wasn’t a long wait before we got inside for a proper look around.

Our tour guide gave us some history of the main buildings, including of course, the Parthenon temple which was covered to some extent by scaffolding. This was due to the necessary replacement of supporting metal that had been placed in the temple in decades past but which was rusting and in danger of causing more damage. Tip: if you want to see the Parthenon without scaffolding then you ought to wait about a decade. We didn’t think it detracted too much although it makes for slightly less appealing photographs. The important thing is being there and seeing it, though.

On the walk around the Parthenon there were plenty of chances to take advantage of the commanding views over Athens. There was a little haze in the distance as the temperature was starting to rise. One thing we spotted was the Theatre of Dionysus which my wife recalled visiting on a school trip when she was younger. Both of us had been to Athens before – her on the aforementioned school trip and me, passing through for a flight home after hopping around some of the Greek islands with some friends in my late teens – but neither of us had been to the Acropolis itself prior to this excursion.

One of the other, more attractive temple ruins on the Acropolis was the Erechtheion and its Porch of the Caryatids with columns formed from the figures of women.

We continued looking around the various temples and other buildings on the Acropolis as time permitted but with the rising temperature came the realisation that we hadn’t brought any water along and had packed our suntan lotion in our suitcases. There was little we could do about the latter issue as shade was severely limited on the citadel but there were a number of public water fountains dotted around the Acropolis so the need for water was curtailed. I would recommend bringing water with you, though, as it’s far more convenient than the fountains, useful though they are.

Before we headed back down to the base of the Acropolis where we were due to meet up and head towards the coach I grabbed a few more shots looking out across the city towards some of the other ruins in the distance. There is certainly a lot more to do than just the Acropolis in that small area of Athens but our time was limited out of necessity. Opposite the entrace to the temples were a few places selling food and drink so we grabbed some ice-cold slushies and wandered back to the meeting point.

As we waited for everyone to arrive we got talking to some fellow passengers. For some it was their first cruise, for others it was their first Princess cruise, and there was one older couple who were elite passengers and had been in a suite on board. There was a definite split in opinions as to how our time on the Royal Princess had been with those new to the cruiseline and cruising in general thinking it was incredible and those of us more experienced having serious concerns about the service we’d had on board and the ship’s design decisions. At some point we’ll return to a Royal-class ship and see if things improve because sometimes you just have a bad experience.

There would be one more stop before reaching the airport: a photo opportunity at the olympic stadium.

But we wouldn’t be spending any time in Marseille as we had a full day’s excursion taking us into the Provence countryside and two locations, the first of which was the city and commune of Arles. Sometimes we’ll do a fair bit of research into a place we’re visiting, read the description of the excursion, try to read between the lines of what’s in the excursion description because they invariably gloss over elements, take a look online to see what other people have seen or thought of a place, that sort of thing. Sometimes we’ll see a pretty picture of an amphitheatre and go “Ooh! An Amphitheatre!” and that’s all that’s needed. Our decision to visit Arles was due mostly to the latter way of thinking but we did also factor in the time of year in order to rule out for now a visit to the slightly farther afield Avignon (although that’s on the list for the next time we take a trip to this part of the world).

Once our bus pulled up in Arles we found ourselves beside the river Rhône where we could see a Viking River Cruises boat moored (more on them in a little while) and a few people enjoying the pleasant morning sunshine including a local painter. This was our first chance to experience one of the things other than Roman and medieval architecture that Arles is famous for: art. Vincent Van Gogh lived in Arles for a year and it was here that he painted many of his most famous pieces of work. The city has a walking trail with signs showing some of the locations in which the artist painted and we would spot a few of them on our half-day exploring but while we like art our tastes tend towards the more modern so, yes, Van Gogh’s connection was interesting and a bonus experience but it wasn’t our reason for wanting to visit the city.

Walking southwards from the bus parking spot near the train station we passed the location where Van Gogh lived but only a painting of the house remains – The Yellow House – as the building was badly damaged by allied bombing in World War 2. With nothing to actually see we continued and this brought us to the remains of city walls and towers. These formed the Porte de la Cavalerie (Cavalry Gate) and are medieval, having originally been built in the 13th century for and by the Knights Templar and at one point used to house prisoners. Their damage cannot be attributed to planes dropping munitions but instead to deliberate attacks during the French Revolution.

Through the gate we immediately encountered a monument inspired by a similar one in Place Saint-Michel, Paris erected for a former mayor of the city. The Fontaine Amédée Pichot (Amédée Pichot Fountain), despite its name, is no longer a functioning fountain. The monument itself, though, comprises some interesting historical elements such as an Auguste Cain-designed lion profile, the fountain design by Joseph Flandrin, and the most prominent piece of all, the enamel medallion created by Paul Balze. The fountain doesn’t appear in any of Van Gogh’s works despite it being around during his time in the city and very near to his house so I’m guessing he didn’t think much of it but I liked the classical feel.

We followed the road southwards which rose slowly away from the direction of the river and which was flanked by tall houses. As we reached our first major stop in Arles, the amphitheatre, we stopped to take in the view and noticed that not all the shuttered windows we could see nearby were quite what they seemed. This would turn out to be a feature on a lot of buildings during this week-long cruise along Europe’s southern coastline.

Arles Roman Amphitheatre

Almost any photos of the city will include pictures of the very prominent tourist attraction of Arles Amphitheatre – it is what attracted us to this cruise excursion, after all – and it’s easy to see why. Already on a high point of land in the landscape its two arched tiers rise up a further twenty metres. The building was constructed a little later than the Colosseum in Rome (somewhere we’d not seen at the time of this tour) and is understandably not quite as grand in scale, designed to hold less than half the Italian capital’s capacity. Still, it could cope with over twenty thousand spectators, something that seemed completely at odds with its size because despite appearing impressive – the white stone especially bright under the clear, blue sky – I will admit to thinking it was a bit smaller than I’d expected.

We gathered at the entrance and waited to go in, our guide going on ahead to pick up the tickets. It was at this point that a tour group from Viking River Cruises strolled up. The members of the two groups eyed each other; some did so warily; some glanced and smirked. Some people started playing with the rings on their fingers and chewing imaginary toothpicks. Fingers were clicked. Music from West Side Story drifted across the concrete. A rumble was on the cards. Our gang were there first and we outnumbered the river cruisers with their fancy headphones in to hear their guide without her shouting but they had that cocky self-assurance and oozing smugness of superiority that river cruisers always have – I think it comes from paying too much per person per night and needing some way of suppressing that realisation – which made them dangerous opponents. Dangerous, yeah, but I wasn’t worried. We were the younger group overall and my wife and I are veterans of brawls with bullies. We could take them. It only needed a spark to set it all off.

Our tour guide popped her head back out and called us in. The Viking group tried to move at the same time but we kept our discipline and slipped past the ticket booth as the person manning it tried to count us off and keep the river cruisers from messing up the total. It wasn’t pretty but the Princess gang won.

Inside the amphitheatre we stopped briefly in the gallery where our guide was able to point out that the lower tier used wholly Roman architectural techniques but that the upper one borrowed Greek elements for strength and practical reasons. I’m sure you can probably tell that just from looking at the photo, though.

It was to the main arena of the amphitheatre we were then led where we could quickly bake under the sunshine from above and reflected off the sandy, dusty surface and the seating. Some of that seating was the original stone but there were plenty of modern though uncomfortable-looking benches and seats too. The reason for the latter’s presence was that Arles Amphitheatre is still used these days. It no longer plays host to bloodthirsty activities such as gladiatorial combat but instead embraces the more enlightened practice of *checks notes* tormenting animals into a frenzy before stabbing them for the entertainment of sadists.

Van Gogh’s painting Les Arènes depicts people in attendance at Arles Amphitheatre and was painted from memory (as no fights were taking place at the time) in The Yellow House just a few weeks before the artist’s famous ear-cutting incident. Maybe the idea of subjecting animals to needless cruelty played on his already somewhat fragile mind.

Not all of the Arles Amphitheatre is Roman in origin. The towers were later additions and were built when the amphitheatre was fortified further and a walled town grew up inside for protection following the fall of the empire.

The next stop on our tour of Arles was a few minutes away on foot and through some narrow streets to the amphitheatre’s southwest.

Roman Theatre Of Arles

To give it its French name, the Théâtre Antique D’Arles was constructed in the last years of the first century BCE and was one of the very first stone theatres in the Roman world. Like most Roman theatres this one in Arles consisted of three sections: seating for spectators (the cavea, with the higher-ups in society at the bottom and the general public above that, typically with men in the middle and women at the top), the stage (wooden, around fifty metres in length, housing mechanical apparatus for plays), and the back wall which was decorated with columns (two of which remain standing) and housed an awning which protected the stage and also allowed a curtain to be held in front of it and dropped as the performance started.

The seating capacity in the Arles Theatre was about half that in the amphitheatre which makes sense as the design was a semi-circle as opposed to an oval. Like the amphitheatre, the theatre is still used these days but you’ll be pleased to know that the French haven’t devised another way to torture creatures unless the music or festival shows they occasionally perform are offensive to human ears. And knowing them…

In the latter half of the first millenium CE the theatre, like the amphitheatre, was fortified for further protection for the people remaining in the city. The south wall of the theatre includes the Rotland Tower, part of those defensive additions. The land area inside the seating and where the stage once stood were turned into narrow streets and buildings were erected to form a fortified town, again just like in the amphitheatre. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the area was cleared and the historic space recovered.

With its use as an actual theatre stopping altogether following the decline of the Roman empire, stone from the spot was taken and used in other building projects around Arles, hence the more ruinous look to the place. Exploring the grounds of the theatre many of those stones have since been retrieved and returned as an indication of the workmanship of the time where it has been possible to do so.

While the amphitheatre in Arles is the more complete ancient site it was the theatre to me that felt more interesting. It may have been less easy to imagine the stage, the curtain apparatus, and the huge backdrop but there felt more a sense of a connection with history because of the state of the ruins, and the more evident, artistic elements of design in the stonework held a lot more interest.

Place De La République

A couple of minutes west of the theatre on foot was the Place De La République; effectively the town square.

The first thing to catch the eye upon entering was the Obelisk of Arles. Originally erected in the fourth century CE during the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine II who had been born in the city this twenty metres high monument was rediscovered in two parts and re-erected in the fourteenth century, this time on a pedestal. In the nineteenth century a fountain was added because adding fountains to things was apparently the business to be in during this period of time in France.

Important buildings surrounded the square on all sides but the key one was the former cathedral, The Church Of Saint Trophime. Trophimus was the first bishop of Arles, around the third century CE, but the cathedral’s construction didn’t start until the late eleventh century. During the first couple of centuries it was used on a few occasions to crown the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

The semicircular arches are strong indicators of the Romanesque architectural style used in the church’s design but it was the fine, intricate sculpting, especially in the tympanum and around the columns either side of the doorway, that really stood out. The theme depicted is The Last Judgement with figures shuffling from left-to-right and past an impassive deity, their clothes removed, chained, and with flames at their feet. It looks like beard-wearers are going to hell so consider your style choices carefully, hipsters.

Free Time In Arles

At this point in the cruise excursion we were given free time to look around Arles on our own, do some shopping, etc. All we needed to know was where and when to meet for the lunch that would be provided as part of the tour experience.

Guide: Okay, so we will meet at one o’clock at the Best Western Hotel Atrium. I will show you on a map. It is here. From the Place de la République where we are now you head down this alley, cross the road, and it is right in front of you.

Person walking up: Wait, what time are we supposed to meet?

Guide: One o’clock.

Couple coming back over: Is everyone going off? Where are we supposed to meet?

Guide: The Best Western Hotel, here on the map.

Another person leans in: Is the hotel through there? And what time are we supposed to meet?

Guide: Yes. One o’clock.

Person tapping guide on shoulder: One o’clock, but where?

Guide: It is this hotel on the map, see.

Person (loudly): Did anyone get the name of the place we’re supposed to meet at?

Me (to wife): Let’s get out of here before I kill someone or our guide does.

We don’t prioritise shopping if there are interesting historical and architectural sights to be seen but since we’d already visited a few we decided not to explore the interior of the church and make a beeline for a shop we’d spotted bordering the square. We tend to pick up specific types of souvenirs for ourselves when travelling, these being shot glasses, mugs, bookmarks, alcohol, and soap. The area of France in which Arles is located is well-known for its soap and it was to a shop that we saw stocking a lot of it that we ventured. The woman in Folies de Provence was very friendly and gave us too much change when we stocked up with our purchases (but we returned the money as soon as we realised because the English have a poor enough reputation as it is without us adding to it). You’ll notice we didn’t pick up anything with lavender in it. My wife associates the smell of lavender with old ladies peeing themselves. That’s all that needs to be said about that.

We had a slow stroll through Arles on a curving course towards a large area of greenery we’d spotted on the map. The only interesting sight spotted on the walk was the facade of a former Carmelite chapel, now privately-owned building.

Arles Summer Garden

Passing through a large street market (but not taking any photos because everyone looked like the sort who attend car boot sales and experience tells me they’re moody buggers) we entered the Jardin D’Été (Summer Garden). It was a very pleasant little area to walk around, especially on a gorgeous day such as the one we had, and the grass space was broken up with occasional statues and sculptures. The garden area to the east seemed to be more formal – a sculpture here, for instance, was to a Doctor Urpar, a former mayor of Arles – while that to the west had more modern pieces of abstract artwork in it.

The west side of the garden also had one of the occasional markers around the city’s Van Gogh trail showing that he’d visited and painted Entrance to the Public Garden at Arles in this spot.

The northern end of the western side of the Summer Garden butted up against the gate to the Roman Theatre and the fortified Rotland Tower. In front of it was an attractive pond with statuary.

We started to make our way towards the meeting point for lunch. This took us past the Arles tourism office where we were pleased to see an old carousel set up (though it wasn’t possible to take a nice photo of it in its entirety thanks to fencing around it) and some pretty decent street art adorning the building.

Lunch In Arles

Incredibly, everyone from our excursion group managed to find the hotel and only a couple were slightly late. Lunch was described as “traditional Provençal” but we’re not naive enough to believe that many people in the region dine in quite this way. The food may not look particularly appetising from the photos but we had no complaints; it was all cooked or prepared well and the servers were very engaging. Our company on this table was towards the superb end of the spectrum with – including us – one couple from the UK (that’s us there), one couple from Canada, one couple from America, and one couple from Australia. What brought us all together was that not one couple there liked the party or person running their own country (yes, that’s right, we did talk about politics; it started when we mentioned we were British and received a “Wow! What the hell are you lot doing with Brexit over there?” and rightfully so). It was interesting to hear the Canadian couple’s views about Trudeau but mostly a pleasant change to find Americans who despised Trump because they seem to be very much in the minority on cruises.

We were mostly keen to experience the red wine during lunch since we like to try local alcohol whenever we’re travelling and we’re big fans of red wine but we’ve yet to find a French one we like. Let’s be generous and say that it wasn’t the worst we’ve tried but we still cannot grasp the wide regards of the country’s production in this respect. Our Canadians, on the other hand, really liked the red wine. Really, really liked it. While we limited ourselves to a single glass they managed to finish that bottle, take most of another one from another table that wasn’t wanted, and persuaded the staff to open yet another for them too. The small coffee to finish was probably going to come in very handy in keeping them upright and awake in the next part of the day’s excursion. And, weirdly (or perhaps not when you factor in their love of alcohol), it would turn out that we would end up on the same excursion as this Canadian couple on each of the remaining days of the cruise.

Once lunch was over our bus arrived to pick us up and head off for the afternoon’s portion of the day trip, that being a visit to Les Baux-de-Provence, covered in the next post in this Mediterranean cruise travelogue series.

Sometimes on excursions you can find that you get to see all or most of what a place has to offer in that short trip but that wasn’t the case with Arles. It appeared to have a lot more to see that we simply didn’t have time for on this occasion and we’d love to give it a more in-depth visit at some point. I’d definitely add a few days exploring Arles into any itinerary you might have for visiting the south of France.

The Street of Facades is a wide area beyond the Treasury with numerous Nabataean tombs and Nabataean decorations on them in their typically grand scale. The placing of tombs doesn’t reflect the age of when they were constructed or any real significance with the person entombed as the tombs were simply produced in the most suitable sandstone spots at the time.

A lot of the damage on the tombs is natural so possibly the most distinctive of those in this part of Petra was the Aneisho Tomb which seemed to be standing separately and withstanding the assault of time better than others around. The tomb includes features in Greek and Egyptian styles, was built for the minister of Queen Nabatiyeh Shaqilh II, and its interior is split over two levels and covers around four hundred square metres in area.

Carrying on our walk we next came to the Theatre. Built early in the first century CE like most of the more impressive architectural feats in Petra and later modified during Roman rule, this was nevertheless a distinctly Nabataean theatre on account of it being carved out of the surrounding sandstone rather than constructed independently in the Greek or Roman manner. Its location was picked to have the best view of most of the more impressive tombs leading up to it and its capacity is estimated at around eight and half thousand people. A couple of days after our visit to Petra we would visit Chester which also has ruins of an ancient theatre and I can assure you that the one at Petra is a smidge more impressive. Maybe even a tad more than a smidge.

A little further along from the theatre was a place to stop and simply admire the views for a while as those who needed to use the toilets could do so at a spot in front of the Royal Tombs where a number of shops and stalls were set up. The tombs looked particularly impressive and if we return to Petra at some point then I’d certainly like to explore them but on this trip we were too limited for time.

The main walking trail in Petra then curved to the west and took us down the Colonnaded Street. This would have been the main shopping street in the city with a large market area to the south. The street includes drainage channels under its curved shape to remove excess water from rains and while it was originally Nabataean it had clearly been improved upon and rebuilt during the period under which Petra was ruled from Rome.

The Colonnaded Street took us to a structure that didn’t look that impressive but which was the Temple of Qasr Al-Bint, one of the most intact buildings in Petra and still standing at its full height despite seismic activity in the area. From the perspective of our excursion, though, this was an important location that indicated the last bit of flat ground we’d have for a while as it also signified we had reached the start of our hiking trail.

And so, with a final gathering together and some words of encouragement from our guide – “This will be hard work and I will push you to get you up as quickly as possible. Please let me know if you feel ill at any point” – (okay, not exactly words of encouragement) we started our hike to the Monastery.

If you read about it ahead of time, even if you read it here, then you know that the Ad-Deir Trail (the hiking trail to the Monastery) consists of approximately eight hundred steps. But that doesn’t mean you’ll take eight hundred steps to ascend because there are long, sloping sections in between the steps. And that doesn’t account for the fact that some of those steps are steps in the loosest definition possible. And the steps are covered in sand and stones in places. And they’re different heights and angles. And some areas have sheer drops near them. And donkeys thunder past every couple of minutes. And donkeys are wider than you realise. And donkeys don’t care about you.

It is, in short, not an easy hike, and if you’re the wife of someone writing this who just happens to have old injuries to her ankle and knee to contend with plus a fear of any unstable surface under her (edge of a cliff: fine; stand on a foot stool: palpitations) then it’s a horrible hike. I very quickly saw that my wife was experiencing a panic attack on the ascent and I think it was pretty obvious to most of our tour group that she was struggling too. In fact, at one point heading up we passed a French group coming down and one woman in there approached us to say there wasn’t much further to go and we could do it so it was even obvious to kind but complete strangers passing fleetingly. Of course I offered to stop the hike because that’s what a caring husband does but I also only offered once because that’s what a caring husband who receives the Glare of Impending Homicide If You Ask That Question Again does.

Our guide was true to his word and kept urging us all on but we did stop three times briefly up the enclosed trail to rehydrate. Out of necessity because of the time we’d arrived and would need to depart we were probably hiking up the trail at the worst time of day with long sections in full sunlight so it was hot, but probably because of the time of year not terribly so; it was considerably hotter when we’d hiked in Nicaragua earlier in the year, for example. Even still, we were very glad to have packed some wet wipes with us as their cool dampness helped to bring down our temperatures quite nicely during those moments of respite on the climb.

And so I shall let the pictures do the talking for the hike up the trail to the Monastery at Petra now. You’ll see how there are sections of flattish ground between the steps and see how the trail zig-zags back on itself in places. You will also be able to get a feel for the narrowness of the trail and height of the surrounding walls of sandstone at parts along the hike as we made our way to the summit.

From the start of the hike to reaching the plateau at the end took us just under an hour. What greeted us was definitely worth the trek.

Despite its name, the Monastery was most likely a temple or tomb (those Nabataeans really liked their tombs) to a king, Obadas, who was later deified. The fantastic facade is fifty metres wide and almost as tall. If you’re visiting Petra and you think you can do it then the hike to the Monastery is highly recommended by us.

The wide plateau in front of the Monastery was artificially created by the Nabataeans for social and ritualistic gatherings and in more recent times, as you’ll see from the video above, rest facilities have been established. After a short gawp at the Monastery we headed to the café to get some more water as we’d almost depleted everything we’d brought with us on the hike. Other people were eating as they – as well as cats and dogs – were sheltering in the seated section of the cave adjoining the café but we were content to just get some liquid inside us.

It didn’t take me long to recover but I wasn’t fighting an hour’s worth of panic-attack-induced adrenalin coursing through my system so I left my wife to rest a little longer while I took a walk around the area for some more photos. Behind the café was a raised area of ground affording better views of the impressive Petra building and which included some rock mounds with hollowed out rooms and windows carved into them. There was also an area up another set of steps that claimed to offer a fabulous view to the west over the Jordanian landscape but I wasn’t sure if I’d have the time to make it up and back without my wife worrying so satisfied myself with some pictures of the people and sights more close by.

When we checked the time we realised that we had plenty of it left. We have to thank our guide for that because his constant pushing for us to complete the hike meant we could really relax if we wanted from this point on. We could probably have stayed around the Monastery for another forty five minutes if we’d really wanted before starting on the way back but we decided we’d make our return ahead of everyone else in order to be able to take our time going down – those fears of my wife and her issues with the uneven terrain would return just as much on the way down as on the way up – and potentially explore some of the areas we’d passed on the walk through Petra to the hiking trail.

It would transpire that something would distract us from exploring more of Petra’s ruins on this visit. Something wonderful. You can find out what that was in the final part of this travelogue series covering our cruise excursion to Petra which takes us from the Monastery back down to ground level and out of the fabulous Jordanian city.

You might recollect from our hike up to the Monastery that the path involved in the region of eight hundred steps and that these were uneven, angled, different heights and widths, sometimes near sheer drops, covered in loose stones and sand, interspersed with stretches of unstepped pathway, and frequented by donkeys clip-clop-thundering past every couple of minutes. All of this was true on the way down too because these weren’t your Harry Potter-style steps that transform when you’re not looking. You might think that descending the hiking trail from the Monastery to ground level in Petra would be considerably easier than the initial climb but it would be more accurate to say it was simply different. For me, yes, an easier task because going down is always easier than going up. Please take your filthy mind out of the gutter. For my wife and her historical injuries to ankles the descent was as bad as the ascent because the slope on many of the steps put a lot of pressure on sore points. Not only that but her shoes – proper hiking shoes – seemed to have more trouble keeping a good grip on the sand-covered sandstone. And, of course, a fear of heights on uneven surfaces is a fear of heights on uneven surfaces no matter which way you’re facing. Progress was slow but that was why we’d elected to head off early. We’re semi-sensible like that sometimes.

Slow progress meant I could stop to take photos when I wasn’t stopping to help my wife down another scary part of the trail.

Where there are tourists there will be people trying to sell things to tourists and the hiking trail to and from the Monastery at Petra is no exception to this rule. You’ll find three or four spots along the route where a handful of tented stalls are erected, some selling drinks, many others offering souvenirs. One thing we particularly liked was that there was no hard sell from any of the stallholders; when we stopped and looked we were left in peace, no lifting of goods and proffering, no attempt to encourage a sale at all. This was a refreshing contrast to many other places we’ve visited on our travels over the years. Another thing we liked were cats because we saw quite a few in Petra. Only ginger ones, mind.

In the two photos below you can get some sense of how the Monastery hiking trail turns on itself, how the steps are, how the donkeys carry the tourists along the path, and the sort of drop along the route.

It was not far beyond this point on our return to the main part of Petra that my wife’s feet slipped out from under her on the sandy steps. Luckily, nowhere near an edge and not in any donkey droppings either. More importantly, the only bruising was to her ego and she wasn’t hurt at all. She also wasn’t the only person to fall that we witnessed with a least half a dozen tumbles seen going up and down.

The descent was taken even more slowly but with no major breaks to recover our breaths that we’d needed earlier in the day and with fewer stops to get some respite from the sun as it had moved around and was being blocked in many points by the sandstone walls we were passing, it took no more than around thirty five minutes to make our way to the base of the trail. And that’s with lots of photos along the way of rocky walls and narrow gorges, of course. I am me, after all.

The lower end of the Monastery trail brought more evidence of human activity in the sandstone walls with plenty of niches, caves in some instances, and carvings.

And thus it was that we completed our descent of the trail. More weird rock formations as we’d come to expect from Petra marked the point at which we’d reached level(ish) ground…

… but it had something else too.

At the base of the trail and identified as toilets on the map we’d looked at there were a few buildings and lots of seats outside. We both needed to use the loo thanks to the volume of water we’d put into ourselves not actually all being sweated out on the hike up and down the path so we made our way to them and made use of the facilities. A local was sat at the entrance to the toilets pointing men to one side and women to another but with toilets being the way they are all over the world this meant there was a queue for the ladies’ side. After I’d relieved the pressure inside and washed my hands I indicated to some women in the queue that there was nobody in the men’s side and there were a couple of cubicles in there. They shot past the guy telling people where to go who looked shocked at first but then quickly resigned to the fact that practicality was probably the priority.

My wife had already passed into the queue the other side of the door by this point so I had to wait for her to complete what she said was a snake around the inner walls of the toilet block which gave me time to look at the rest of the building we’d found. Amongst other things there was a café there (hence the seating outside) and attached to it a small shop where things could be ordered through the hatch. And one thing caught my eye: beer. A horrible assumption on my part was that Arabic countries are dry countries (where alcohol is concerned as well as just in general). Not the case at all.

There are many things we like doing when we travel and one of them is trying local drinks in countries we visit. When my wife emerged from the toilet I pointed at the beer and got an “Oh, hell yes!” look from her. We had plenty of time thanks to our guide’s forced march up to the Monastery which I’d initally thought might mean we could explore the Royal Tombs, perhaps, on our way out, but with so many other things to see that we could really do with a longer visit anyway the lure of beer won us over. We’re easily won over when it comes to beer.

The beer was not cheap and that’s coming from someone who’s bought drinks in Iceland and Hong Kong. We were behind a hiker who also enquired about the beer and quickly opted for water when he was told the price. For us, no problem at all. We grabbed the cans of cold lager – and we are not lager drinkers under normal circumstances – and found a seat in the shade of some trees where we both uttered deep aaaahs of contentment. So now we can say that we’ve drunk beer brewed in Jordan in the ancient city of Petra. That’s the sort of thing we live for.

We negotiated the chicane of resting camels and found ourselves back on the Colonnaded Street heading directly towards the Royal Tombs. My camera immediately attracted the attention of some French girls who assumed that lugging a great big DSLR around meant you must have an innate skill at using a stranger’s iPhone and mimed some gestures to get me to take their photo with it. I don’t like touching Apple products and I don’t like holding expensive equipment belonging to other people and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust anything I was carrying to people I didn’t know – I’m guessing they realised there was little chance I was going to run off with it – but I persevered and there’s a reasonable chance I got them in the shot I took.

I looked longingly at the Royal Tombs from afar and glanced at the time. My wife said she’d wait if I wanted to get up closer to them but I decided we’d stick together, take our time leaving Petra, and make sure that a return trip in the future would include a visit to them instead.

We followed the main route through Petra and next passed the Theatre which was now proving to be popular with goats and people wanting to take pictures of goats alike.

We retraced our steps past the tombs lining the Street of Facades next. There were plenty of souvenir stalls along this route and we stopped to take a look at some of them but didn’t see anything we fancied purchasing.

This brought us back to the building that this ancient site is most famous for, the Treasury. You can see some more photos of the building and read a little more about it in the first part of this subset of the Jordan travelogue series where we walked from the visitors centre to the Treasury at Petra. The area in front of the building was in shade now making it a far more pleasant time of the day to gaze up at the workmanship and take in the scale but we weren’t sure how long it would still take us to get back to the coach and so didn’t dawdle long.

Stepping into the Siq – the long gorge you pass through to get to the main parts of Petra – I turned back to take another shot of the Treasury through the narrow gap in the sandstone walls. A tip if you’re visiting Petra and want this classic (fine: clichéd) photograph is that the later afternoon period is better for it because there are fewer people around to get in the way (unless you want them for scale) and the light contrast between the inside rocky walls and the outside area where the Treasury can be seen is lower meaning there’s far less chance that your camera will overexpose or underexpose the picture.

Just the Siq to go and then the trail up to the visitors centre. Mostly flat from here.

Is it? Is it really? Because I seem to recall there was quite a slope heading down to here this morning.

Well, a hint of a slope perhaps. We’ll probably not even notice it.

We noticed the slope quite a lot as it turned out. It isn’t steep, it’s true, but it’s constant and it’s longer than you remember. However much time you take heading through the Siq to get to Petra’s impressive sights in the first place, add half that time again to head back. And after you exit the gorge the steepness increases. Prepare to be a little out of breath and just this side of completely knackered by the time you complete it.

One thing we noticed was that there seemed to be a lot more horse-drawn carts galloping past us on the exit from Petra. I suspect that people who’d been up for the walk earlier in the day were in more of an up for the terrorise pedestrians from the comfort of a seat mood as the afternoon headed towards evening. Luckily, horse-drawn carts aren’t quiet things and the walls of the gorge carry and echo hoofbeats well and even in the narrowest parts of the Siq we were able to get close enough to the wall to not be too threatened by the speeding vehicles.

The final bit of walking was in sunlight and as has already been mentioned a little bit steeper than the walk preceding it which meant I was called upon to take some tactical photo stops along the way. The Obelisk Tomb and Djinn Blocks were the most interesting of the features along this last bit of the route out of Petra and you can read a little more about them in part one of this series of posts too.

Amongst the souvenir shops around the vistors centre area we finally picked up a few purchases but still had money left over. Luckily, the two-hour bus ride back to the ship at dock in Aqaba included a stop at a store and we got rid of almost all the remaining Jordanian money we’d taken with us then. People who know us and who know how much we like soap will be unsurprised to learn that we came away with lots of soap.

Just before we reached the bus park I was taken in by the modern architecture of the Petra Museum and the gorgeous light conditions of the time of day. We didn’t quite have enough time to pop in and visit but if its interior is as nice as its exterior then I’d say it looks like it’s worth a visit if you’re there.

We weren’t the last people on the bus but we might have been the penultimate couple to arrive and only by a minute or two. As regular cruisers and regular partakers of excursions this was a pretty close to unique experience for us as we’re usually back with plenty of time to spare and invariably have to wait for stragglers to turn up late. That wasn’t the case here and possibly because everyone had sensibly allowed more time than they needed to get back from sightseeing, and our bus was able to leave ahead of schedule as a result.

It goes without saying that Petra is absolutely incredible. It is one of the most impressive places we have ever visited. If you’ve not been then you must go and there can be no argument about it. If you were to visit as part of a cruise excursion like us then I’d also recommend the hike to the Monastery that we did if you think you’re capable of it. It isn’t easy but it’s rewarding and it’s an experience you won’t regret.

In the final part of this Journey to Jordan Cruise travelogue series I’ll cover our last night and morning on Marella Discovery plus our experiences in the airport at Aqaba and on the flight back home. Well, not quite home.

The hotel we’d booked was the Mill Hotel & Spa situated on both sides of the Shropshire Union Canal which passes through Chester. Driving into Chester from the motorway was simple and mostly a case of going straight on at every turn; the final few roads to get to Mill Hotel proved to be a painful maze of one-way roads that saw us circling the place twice before finding ourselves outside it and then discovering there were no parking spaces anywhere to be seen. I left my wife in the car while it was parked on double yellows and wandered into the reception to ask if they had any idea where we could park and a helpful person there then unlocked a private parking area for us.

Our room in Mill Hotel was on the south side of the canal, reached by a covered walkway over it from the main hotel building, and there are some obligatory photos below. It was a perfectly fine place to stay, convenient for a walk around Cheshire, and the hotel bar had a fantastic range of ales available.

The first evening was just a wander into Chester to get a sense of where things were. If you’re visiting Chester then you are required by law to take a photograph of the Eastgate Clock, reputedly the second most-photographed clock in the country after Big Ben. This clock was added to the Eastgate, the original entrance to the Roman fortress that once stood on the spot, to celebrate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

This was a Friday night in November in the north of England so it was, naturally, raining and bitterly cold, especially compared to the soaring temperatures we’d only just experienced on our cruise through the Suez Canal and exploration of the ancient city of Petra. Chester was not busy but the people out were remarkably noisy. We liked the number and variety of pubs and bars that we could see but decided to head a little away from the more raucous centre to seek some shelter, a little peace, and to sample some real ales and ciders. The Brewery Tap on Lower Bridge Street did not disappoint us and we would end up returning to it on the following evening too. For this first night in Chester we made do with a couple of drinks and some crisps from the bar because we weren’t in the mood for anything more.

We had a very simple plan for our one day in Chester and that was to explore some of its historical sites for the morning and early afternoon then hit some of those bars that had caught our eyes on the evening’s reconnoitre.

We’d chosen Chester as the place to stay and break up our return trip to Portsmouth because of its Roman history in the main. The fort that was originally erected where the city now stands was called Deva and was built in around 79 CE by a legion comprising mainly Roman marines. Deva was occupied by the military for around four centuries until the Romans departed Britain but the strong defences were used by civilians to protect themselves from raiders and a town then city grew up around it. The city was strengthened and expanded further by the Saxons and it was one of the last places to fall to the Norman conquest of the eleventh century. These days Chester is well-known for its city walls, which are almost complete, and for its medieval buildings, although many are Victorian restorations and reconstructions.

After a very good breakfast in the hotel we headed back into the city, accompanied by a persistent drizzle. The first place we made for, in the hope that after we’d visited it the rain might have eased off, was Chester Cathedral. As fans of art and unusual scupltures we were pleased to see that the entrance to the cathedral had attracted a small crowd of tourists around what we discovered was the Knife Angel. Also known as the National Monument Against Violence & Aggression, this eight-metre-tall sculpture was made by Alfie Bradley from knives used in crimes and handed in during amnesties to highlight knife crime, and it tours the country to do so. Its potential for a future Doctor Who enemy was discussed.

Chester Cathedral doesn’t have a specific creation date, being one of those buildings that has been erected, deconstructed, amended, and extended over the course of several centuries, although a Benedictine abbey was founded on the spot in the late eleventh century. The vaulted ceiling was particularly nice and the unusually wide south transept helped to increase the perception of interior space in the church against the dark sandstone brickwork.

The south transept was also the location of a cenotaph for the nineteenth century MP for Chester, Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, easily noticed by the sleeping dog at the foot of the sculpture. Grosvenor was a very wealthy man thanks to his interest in managing estates and horse racing, and probably needed to be in order to support his family. Over two marriages – one to his younger first cousin, another to a baron’s daughter thirty years his junior – he fathered fifteen children.

Off the north transept were the cloisters with some twentieth century stained glass windows depicting 130 saints. The small garth outside featured a prominent bronze sculpture by Stephen Broadbent called The Water of Life.

If you do pay a visit to Chester Cathedral then take some time to read some of the case notes on display in my favourite part of the building, the Consistory Court. The court was established in 1541 and until the nineteenth century covered moral and religious conduct of clergy and laity, building maintenance matters, and tithe, probate, and matrimony issues.

A light, cold rain continued to fall once we’d finished looking around the cathedral so we made our way the short distance to the Grosvenor Museum next. As you’ll probably already have guessed, the museum is named after Hugh Lupus Grosvenor once more who donated part of the site. Grosvenor Museum was built in 1885. The first floor was given over to art displays, some of them very interesting indeed, while the ground floor was dedicated to the Roman history of Chester. A conventional museum layout also featured a room containing a collection of Roman tombstones.

At the rear of the museum, through a connecting area complete with small souvenir shop and toilets, there was Number 20 Castle Street. This is a house with rooms decorated and furnished in period styles from 1680 to 1925 and is definitely worth a look. With our visit taking place not too long after halloween some of the rooms featured scary additions such as fake spiders and cobwebs.

The rain had relented by the time we’d finished exploring Grosvenor Museum and its period house so we took advantage of this time to seek out a couple of Chester’s most famous landmarks: the castle and the walls. The original castle was built during William the Conqueror‘s reign and would have been a motte-and-bailey construction. A stone building wouldn’t appear on the spot until the following century, and subsequent centuries saw changes in accordance with the times including an outer bailey and moat appearing, neoclassical design elements, gun emplacements, etc.

Chester Castle sounded like it had all the sorts of things we like to see. And we’d have liked to see them on this day too but we apparently approached the tourist spot from the wrong direction, couldn’t work out how to get in, and in the process of walking along part of the city walls decided we’d just carry on with our walk instead. The weather played a part in this decision because the wind was biting and blowing in from the River Dee along which we were walking, and the walls which had been subject to a lot of rain and were covered in fallen leaves were proving to be quite slippery. Like the castle, the walls evolved from wooden and earth structures to brick defences following the Norman conquest, but by the late seventeenth century, after the English Civil War, they had become mostly what they are now: a place for people to walk with a historical connection to the past.

We only did the southern stretch of Chester’s city walls as we didn’t want to have survived a hike to the Monastery at Petra a couple of days before only to twist ankles on sloped paving stones in the northwest of England. In addition, we’d spotted something on the map that had caught our eyes. To get to that we needed to pass through the Roman Gardens. These were just outside the walls on the southeast corner and followed the natural gradient of the land leading from the River Dee towards the city centre. The layout of the gardens roughly followed a pattern of snaking paths representing a serpent coiled around a staff and you’ll recognise this shape as the symbol of Asclepius, associated with health in Greek and Roman mythologies. A number of Roman artefacts provided interest in the gardens and the explanations on boards served an educational purpose, and the spot is probably a very pleasant one to sit in during the warmth of summer. We hurried up the slope.

That thing we’d spotted on the map and to which we were heading was the Chester Roman Amphitheatre. We’ve been lucky enough to visit a few amphitheatres on our travels. We’d only just returned from Petra where there is a large one dug into the sandstone. Earlier in the year we’d visited the amphitheatre at Arles in southern France and driven past the Colosseum in Rome, and several years earlier we’d walked around another one in the Spanish city of Tarragona. The amphitheatre in Chester is spectacular for all the wrong reasons.

I… I think this is it.

Where? Where are you looking?

Here. I think we’re in it.

I can’t see any entrance.

No, I don’t think there’s an entrance. I think this may actually be the amphitheatre.

This is dirt and a not particularly straight stone wall.

Yes, I know. I think this means our garden back home might qualify as an amphitheatre too.

It’s not quite as good as the one in Petra. Or Arles. Or Rome. Or Tarragona.

Or that one in Cirencester that we tried to find in the dark but couldn’t. That’s probably more impressive too.

Our garden’s better.

That mostly completed our cultural exploration of Chester. Every part of us was freezing by this point and our two quick disappointments with the castle and the amphitheatre put us more in the mood to seek out somewhere indoors where we could get something warm inside us. We identified a likely candidate on the map and headed in that direction which naturally took us through Grosvenor Park. You’re probably thinking “Ah, that old Hugh Lupus chap again!” but in this instance the park is named for his father, Richard, of whom there is a statue erected in the centre. Of mildly more interest to us were the modern art sculptures of varying degrees of quality.

Our mid-afternoon lunch and alcohol fast-breaking took place in the Chester Brewhouse & Kitchen. We have a couple of the Brewhouse & Kitchen pubs in and around Portsmouth and knew what to expect: on-site-brewed ales and good quality food. We weren’t disappointed by either and ended up staying for a second drink just so I could sample something else from the beer menu.

We decided to hit the shops in the centre of Chester next as we’d spotted an interesting-looking place on our evening’s amble the day before. Turmeaus Whisky appealed for its range of obscure whiskey brands and for the chance to hunt down a bottle of port-finished Finlaggan that we’d sampled in Amsterdam in May of that year. The staff were very knowledgeable about whiskey in general but completely wrong about the Finlaggan we asked about, insisting that they wouldn’t stock that as you could pick it up in the supermarket (you can’t) and that we’d just be able to order it online (you can’t; it was a limited edition run). Nevertheless, we bought a couple of bottles of things we’d never tried before and decided to take them back to the hotel rather than lug them around with us. If you like whiskey and don’t mind the smell of cigars then the shop is worth a look around.

From our hotel room we could see across the canal to the hotel building on the north side and to the river boat that is used as a restaurant. If we were staying in Chester in warmer weather and for a few days then we’d have been very interested in booking a table for the floating, dining experience. Well, you know us and how much we like to be on the water. We decided to have a drink in the hotel bar before returning to the city because the range on offer looked exceptional and it’s another big plus point for the Mill Hotel too.

To finish off our single day’s tour of Chester we engaged in a little bit of hopping around a few of the city’s bars. First up was Craft & Company, very nearly directly above the whiskey shop we’d visited earlier. Impossible to get a phone signal of any kind because of the thick stone walls but that was the only negative. Drinks were gorgeous and the bar staff were friendly.

An aborted attempt to find another place we’d seen on the map drove us back to Watergate Street, not too far from the first bar, and Lono Cove. The tropical stylings looked particularly welcoming on what was now a chilling-to-the-bone evening with the sun having set. With us being nearly the only people in the bar and with the door being wide open it wasn’t quite as warm inside as we’d have liked but we did our best to raise our core temperatures with some of the fantastically-varied cocktails on offer. The drinks here were excellent too and we stayed for a second round after a few more people arrived and the staff shut the entrance door.

We didn’t fancy the idea of wandering the streets too much in search of somewhere with good drinks and available seats (well, we’re getting on a bit and like to sit down) so made the decision to return to the bar we’d hit the night before, the Brewery Tap, as it had seemed just the right level of busy and spacious for a Friday night that we hoped it would be the same on a Saturday. Indeed it was, and we finished the night and our stay in Chester with another couple of very good drinks here. They also did food which we contemplated after seeing fellow patrons tucking in but we ultimately gave it a miss.

We did enjoy Chester and we think we made a good decision to pick it and the hotel we chose as a way to break up the journey down south after our flight. This was our first visit to Chester, though, but we won’t be rushing back for a second.

There’s nothing wrong with Chester at all and it had one thing we really liked: a good number and good variety of drinking establishments serving good drinks. The biggest problem we had was that there was nothing outstanding about it. It had city walls and they were okay but not the best we’ve seen or visited. It had Roman remains and they were okay but not the best again. It had a cathedral which was nice but nothing extraordinary. We’ve been in better museums. We’ve seen better rivers and canals in cities. We didn’t see the castle inside but from its exterior view we knew we’d been in and seen better too. Everything was just okay and nothing was awful (the amphitheatre came close), and maybe that’s just a side-effect of travelling as much as we do. Everyone is different and you might love the place but that’s the reason I tend to write travelogues rather than reviews as the latter might not reflect your experiences in the slightest.

We knew that Kos had an abundance of ancient Greek and Roman ruins dotted around so our general plan was to see if we could find a few then check out a bar that had come to our attention during the very brief bit of research into the town. However, by the time we’d reached the town one of us needed to use the toilet. We could see that there was a public toilet right in front of the bar we’d been interested in but this turned out to be locked (and possibly would have required coins we didn’t have on us to use as well, as I recall) so the only sensible option was to use the toilets in the bar instead, and since it would be rude to do that and not have a drink we were compelled to alter our general plan accordingly.

The bar in Kos Town that we stopped in – and the first visit of many to it – was Zero Café-Bar and if you’ve read any other travelogues on this site where we’ve hunted down pubs then you might understand why after a quick look at the beer list there (if it’s open) or the gallery of images of previous beers they’ve sold. We are extremely fond of real and craft ales and ciders, and when we travel we like to try anything locally-produced if possible. Many times this turns out to be lager because lager is popular around the world. People and their tastes, eh? However, Zero specialised in proper Greek ales: pale ales, golden ales, ambers, rubies, porters, and stouts from Kos or other Greek islands or the mainland. If you are fond of local craft ales and you’re visiting Kos then Zero is a must-visit bar. Drinks were served with complimentary (and lovely) nibbles.

We only had the one drink each but we promised the owner we’d be back after we’d explored a little of the streets of Kos Town and cast our eyes over some of its historical ruins.

Zero Café-Bar is directly opposite the harbour and set back from the main road along the front. Allowing for the road layout we headed away from the water and due south from the bar as the map indicated that the main place we wanted to look at was in this rough direction.

Those ancient ruins that you can find on Kos were immediately visible. It was hard to walk down a street or two and not glance across into a field to see old columns or parts of a wall. With Kos being a Greek island it would be easy to think that what we were seeing was all ancient Greek – and in a way, of course, it would be – but the style of the columns where some had been reconstructed looked to have decidedly Roman capitals on them. In fact you’ll find a mix of periods and styles and the reason for that and for the general ruinous state is simply that Kos has had its fair share of earthquakes over the centuries. When the Romans were at the height of their power in this region they would have needed to restore or build anew what might have fallen.

The Western Excavations archaeological zone that we came upon reminded us a little of Herculaneum with the ruins of the ancient site surrounded on all sides by modern buildings. Sadly, we couldn’t see a way into it and didn’t look too hard because it was clear from our vantage point that nobody was exploring it. I assume it was closed on the day we visited.

The closed archaeological site hadn’t been where we were intending to visit, thankfully, so we proceeded through the attractive streets of Kos Town.

Our walking route then brought us to the Eski Cami Mosque Minaret. The Bab-Gedid mosque was built in Kos in 1586 and stood in the Muslim quarter of Kos Town until the early 1930s when an earthquake treated it with as much respect as buildings of the Greeks and Romans had been treated. Since 1912 Kos had been under Italian rule so they used this earthquake and its widespread destruction as a reason to redesign much of the town. What remained of the mosque was torn down with the exception of the minaret that had been on the holy building’s northwest corner, and this was relocated to this spot.

A set of shallow, stone steps led in the direction we wanted so we continued on our way south.

We never get lost when we’re travelling. Instead, we take surprise scenic routes. We ended up taking a surprise scenic route to where we needed to get to when we picked the first of two possible roads that would apparently take us towards the historic site we most wanted to see. We saw more ruins and some wildlife – I’m not sure if cats and cows really count, to be honest – before finding ourselves at the locked gates of what turned out to be a Catholic Church on Kos. The tall, narrow, arched gateway mirrored the shape of the entrance to the church we could see beyond but this wasn’t what we were after.

We backtracked and selected the second road.

So, this was what we most wanted to see. The Roman Odeon dates from the second century C.E. and the reason we wanted to see it was because of its architectural similarities to theatres or amphitheatres which we’re fond of seeing when we hop around the world. An odeon (or odium) can be thought of as a smaller scale theatre and one that would originally have had a roof over it as its primary purpose was for singing rather than acting, for which the roof made for better acoustics. There’s no entrance fee and you’re free to clamber about and sit on the steps so we did.

The side entrances to the stage of the odeon were lined with decorative mosaics and in Kos you can see one of these by following the walls to the left of the rows of seats as you look at them. To see the mosaic tiling outside, only protected from the elements by a sheet, was quite surprising.

Opposite the entrance to the Roman Odeon there were more ruins on show but we headed along the road towards the shore in an easterly direction instead as not too far from the ancient site was another one that sounded interesting.

Casa Romana, a Roman villa, was what we’d seen on the map but this too turned out to be closed when we arrived. With our travelling taking place in 2020 and most of the world sensibly employing some form of pandemic precautions we were a little disappointed but weren’t too surprised that the opening hours shown on the phone weren’t accurate, but a sign on the gate did seem to indicate that temporary rules in place meant it was only shut on the day we were there. Since we already expected to make return trips into Kos Town during our week on the island we figured we would try again on another day. A spoiler here: we did try again and were successful, we can definitely recommend it, and that will be covered in a later post in this Kos travelogue series.

Since we were heading east we continued in that direction with our new plan to simply be a walk to the coastline then following the road as much as possible back in to the harbour area where we’d make for the bar again and grab another drink or two. Or more than two. It really depended on whether we’d see anything else on the walk that caused us to stop for long but we’d made up our mind that we’d be coming back to check out more of the ruins on another day so we were mostly just thinking about having a drink. We had been out for many hours by this point, most of it on our feet, it was warm, we’d finished the water we’d brought with us some time ago, and throughout the town area we’d been masked up like the majority of people so we were getting a little uncomfortable by now anyway. That’s my excuse and it’s the one I demand you accept.

There were still plenty of sights to see, as it turned out. First up was a statue of a man on a horse. This was a memorial to Theodoros Kolokotronis, a prominent leader and hero of Greece’s 1821-1829 War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire. He isn’t specifically connected with Kos, though, and similar statues can be found in other locations around Greece and its islands.

I do like my architecture and frequent earthquakes on Kos means you can get to see a wide variety of styles depending on when something fell over and needed rebuilding. You can clearly guess that the somewhat unlooked-after Costel Hotel in the photos below was probably built by the Italians after the 1933 quake on the island thanks to its Art Deco design elements.

As we reached the seafront, outside the main town walls and turning towards the castle on the southern and eastern side of the harbour, I heard someone shouting from across the road. Ordinarily, I’d ignore this sort of thing but the shouting was in English and it included the sentences “Hello! You with the camera!” and “Hey, camera man!” and “Across the road! You with the professional camera!” which sounded frighteningly like it might be directed at me on account of me being a man with a professional camera who was across the road from the noise. I made sure to ignore this even more than normal because my experiences with people shouting about me and my camera to date hasn’t been entirely a good one. Some people really don’t like the idea that things that are in public view are not protected from photography and I’ve adapted my approach from raising a middle finger and swearing in response to a more moderate just pretending they’re not there over the years. However, my wife wasn’t really aware of this and just assumed that my tinnitus was preventing me from engaging with a local man so she ensured I stopped and looked across the road. Thankfully, as it turned out, it was just the proprietor of the Amaryllis Restaurant who wanted to have some photos taken. I don’t get many requests like this but I was happy to oblige without crossing the street. We didn’t go in the restaurant but the reviews are good and the owner seems friendly so it might be worth a visit if you’re in Kos and fancy a bite to eat.

Along the road and past a pier (that we skipped walking along for once thanks to the wind that was whipping in) a prominent building in white and cream with crenellations and a tower and arched facades felt like it should be something more than the police station. Around this area too, according to the map, was the Tree of Hippocrates, a plane tree said to have been planted by the fourth and fifth century B.C.E. physician. We didn’t know what a plane tree looked like so took photos of any trees in general but it turns out that none of these are them and you need to get behind the building to see it. Also behind this building is the Ancient Agora which we completely missed when looking for things to see so that’s two points of interest in close proximity to take a look at should we ever return to Kos. I never claimed that this exploration of Kos Town would actually be a comprehensive or even moderately good one.

The next area we walked through was an incredibly picturesque part of Kos and, indeed, when we looked up photos of Kos Town before flying out to the island it’s shots from here that featured a lot. The castle around the harbour entrance was built in 1315 by the Roman Catholic military order of the Knights Hospitaller. It originally had a ditch around it over which a bridge ran connecting the inner and outer walls, and this bridge, known as the Fortress of Neratzia Bridge, still stands, albeit over a road now. The combination of this old, stone bridge, the fortress walls on one side, and the road lined with palm trees makes for some very attractive photography possibilities.

We didn’t dawdle along the harbour front as that already-mentioned wind was nipping at the exposed flesh on our arms but it forms another pleasant area of Kos Town that I can easily imagine is a joy to spend time in during summer months when viruses aren’t running rampant across the globe. There were some interesting-looking boats moored up, many of which would normally be available for trips out to various islands or hiring for fishing if that’s your thing.

Back to Zero we arrived and this time we opted to sit in the large garden area in front of the bar rather than the sheltered courtyard at its entrance. While my wife felt safer sticking to the one type of Greek ale she’d already had and knew she liked – a red ale from Septem – I proceeded with Operation Try Everything On The Menu. Just not all at once. Because the heat of the day was fast-disappearing we ended up having just another two drinks each, both with accompanying nibbles again, and with a complimentary ouzo each too. How can you not like this place? We knew we’d be popping back here when we returned to the town to check out more of its archaeological history later in the week.

All that remained for us to do at the end of some drinking under some lightly-clouding-over skies was to head back to the hotel.

The initial part of our walk took us from the harbour front along the main road heading north-northwest from the dolphin-decorated fountain in the centre of a roundabout. This walk back would be along all new roads for us as we’d come into town on a more scenic, shoreline route in the morning so I took the opportunity to snap a few shots of buildings on the way when they were interesting enough to do so. Some of the architectural mouldings and the paint finish on a mostly-white building gave it the appearance of being formed from plastic, and another building’s colour scheme of pea green and pale orange shades felt fabulously 1970s.

If you’ve read the previous part of this series where I covered the walk into Kos then you’ll possibly remember the significance of reaching the Konstantinos Shopping Mall/Supermarket building. We’d reached this junction from the north in the morning and had then turned east towards Lambi beach. Now we had reached it from the south and turned west because this was the shortest route back to the hotel. On repeat walks into Kos Town during the week it was this short route that we would take heading both in and out.

The road you’ll most likely walk along between the town and the Blue Lagoon Resort Hotel if you’re staying there too is Olympias and it’s lined for the most part with open fields and not so many buildings to break up the expanse. What buildings there were, though, were a complete mix of types, with some appearing old and dilapidated while others looked frighteningly huge, new, and expensive. One of the nicer things about walking this road was that because it was quiet and not built-up there was no reason to keep our masks on so we could enjoy the walk towards the western horizon in a little more comfort. Without the light cloud cover this would have been a gorgeous time to see the sun setting on a lovely day of ancient history-viewing and modern beer-consuming.

In the next post in this travelogue series describing our week in Kos I’ll cover a second full day spent around the hotel complex with a little more exploration of it in order to scope out the location of the speciality dining restaurant we’d booked.

Oh well, we thought, you can’t have everything; and thought no more of it.

Getting off the bus after our return from the excursion to see Lake Bled we started to head towards Azura, looking gorgeous in the Italian sunshine (a big change from the overcast conditions and drizzle that had been with us earlier in the day).

“Oh, if anyone’s not been to Trieste before,” said our guide as we were stepping off the bus, “then it’s well worth a look around. You’ve got a few hours until the ship leaves.”

“We thought it was quite far away,” we replied.

“It’s there,” the guide mentioned, pointing over our should and down the road. “There’s a public square right there, about a hundred metres away.”

Well, lesson learned there that it’s always worth checking an actual map at some point and maybe even opening your eyes and looking around, because, yes, we were a very short walk indeed from what would turn out to be lots of fantastic architecture, statuary, and historical ruins, not to forget loads of cafés and bars and just great views too. A very fortunate interaction with the guide otherwise there’s a good chance that we’d have followed the majority of the rest of the tour group back to the ship. As it was, I think six of us turned around and headed across the road to look at the city.

A minute or two later, we found ourselves in Unity of Italy Square (Piazza Unità d’Italia), considered to be Europe’s largest public square next to the sea – which sounds like one of those made-up categories just so you can be first in it – and occasionally the venue for music performances in addition to serving more political roles hosting world leaders.

Surrounding the square were impressive-looking buildings including City Hall but the only feature within it was a fountain. This was the Fountain of the Four Continents, constructed in the middle of the eighteenth century and showing off Trieste’s importance as a trading seaport by representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America with sculptures within the pool area of the structure, and representing four major rivers in the way water was delivered to the pool. The fountain has been affected by history, surviving an attempt to remove it entirely in 1920s, then actually being removed ahead of World War II so that Mussolini could use more of the space to compensate for this tiny fascist penis, being returned in 1970, being moved to its original (and current) location at the start of the new millennium, then becoming subject to attacks by small-minded vandals in more recent times.

Obviously, we didn’t have any plans about what we wanted to see and so to start with we picked a direction at random and started walking. This brought us past the opera house into Piazza Giuseppe Verdi initially then along to a statue of Gabriele D’annunzio. He was quite the character and well worth reading about on that link; suffice it to say that he was associated with decadence and occasionally occultism, and a poet, journalist, playwright, army officer in World War I, had argued in favour of Italy siding with France and the UK against Germany, became a fighter pilot, and was ennobled as the Prince of Montenevoso. We’d passed buildings of some unknown importance and grand architectural design on the way, including the Meridiana Interattiva set into the ground floor of the Palazzo della Borsa; this was a twelve-metre-long sundial marking used by ships to set their marine clocks when arriving at Trieste. We also came across another fountain, this to the Roman god Neptune, and as keen sea-goers it’s always nice to see something like that.

The Leopold Column commemorates a visit to the city of Trieste in 1660 by Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor.

We took a moment at this point to actually take a look at the map and see if there was anything we particularly wanted to see nearby now that we actually had a chance to look around Trieste.

“There appears to be an amphitheatre just around the corner from here,” I told my wife. As you might be able to tell, we like seeing amphitheatres when we travel.

“It’s not going to be like Chester, is it?” she asked. That had been surprisingly naff, to be fair.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

Trieste has been inhabited for several millennia, firstly by Illyrian tribes, then into the second century BCE becoming incorporated into the Roman Empire. Naturally, therefore, Roman ruins exist because the Romans built pretty well, and the amphitheatre we found ourselves in front of a couple of minutes later dates from very late in the first century CE, likely around the time of Trajan’s rule. The hilly landscape just back from the coastline acted as a natural support for the amphitheatre’s sloping seating.

After we’d admired the ruins for a short period we checked the map once again and spotted a tower and a castle relatively close by. However, while the map wanted to keep it a surprise, we could tell that this would involve some increase in elevation as our eyes could see buildings raised up from where we were in the direction we’d need to take; that hilly landscape I’d just mentioned. We are not particularly fit people anyway, but one of us also carries a long-standing injury that makes climbing up steps painful so this wasn’t a decision we took lightly, but we figured that we could take it at our own pace, rest often, and just see how we did.

The walk up was not particularly thrilling or enjoyable but we reasonably soon reached the Tor Cucherna, a medieval watchtower dating to the fourteenth century and positioned along the city walls that existed at that time. In 1719 Trieste became a free port and the city’s expansion that this required necessitated the destruction of almost all those fortifications, but the tower survived as it had found a use as a house. Fairly interesting history-wise but I wouldn’t say it’s something you should go out of your way to see.

Continuing upwards we reached the highest point where the Castello di San Giusto was located. With absolutely no research beforehand we hadn’t known what to expect and if it had looked small enough then we might have taken a look around, but we quickly realised there was a lot more here on this plateau overlooking Trieste and that to really do it justice we’d need to come back and dedicate more time to this spot. That’s what we intend to do if we’re ever on a cruise that makes a stop in this part of Italy in the future.

The castle was constructed over the course of a couple of hundred years from the middle of the fifteenth century onwards and many aspects of its design reflect whatever was typically regarded as the best defensive shape for the period in which it was being built. The rounded bastion comes from the Venetian period of the early sixteenth century while some straight-edged examples can be dated later in the century and into the next.

A monument to fallen soldiers stood at the end of a tree-lined space, itself next to ruins of a Roman forum beside the castle. Completing the sites of interest on this hill in Trieste was a medieval cathedral too, apparently known for mosaics and frescoes. This will definitely all be on our list to visit when we inevitably return to Trieste.

We decided we’d walked around enough for the day and made the decision to head back towards the ship. At least it would be mostly downhill, although in parts no less easy to negotiate than coming up for my wife. Everywhere we seemed to look there was something to catch the eye.

It wasn’t long before we were back in front of Azura, ready to take the weight off our feet, freshen up, and maybe treat ourselves to some refreshments. Looking around Trieste had been a bonus for us on this day and the perfect sort of one that makes you want to come back for more. You get a feel for a place, and Trieste really rates right up there in terms in favourite places in Italy just from the small amount of time we had in the city.

At the cruise terminal entrance we spotted a final statue on this day that had featured many of them. This was to Nazario Sauro, recognised as a hero in Italy for his actions in the navy during World War I.

In the next post in this Azura cruise travelogue series we’ll enjoy some time on the ship in the port waiting to leave Trieste.

We started by heading east where the maps indicated there was a public park space. In fact this was a very narrow strip of paved areas, the odd sculpture here and there, and some twisting concrete structures that resembled mounted spines of leviathans (assuming leviathans are actually a thing and that they’re vertebrates). Coupled with the flotsam of seaweed and thin tree trunks washed up along the water’s edge and the churned-up dark sand discolouring the sea this gave the area an oddly desolate feel with just enough peace from the gentle cooling of the evening and the white noise of the small rollers breaking nearby to temper the overall bleakness.

We headed back past the pier and the queue of passengers being checked by security before they headed for the ship, making our way westwards along the shore of Puntarenas where there seemed to be more signs of civilisation. There were certainly a few interesting architectural pieces. A large concrete building that was part of the National Technical University had some clear Art Deco styling to it, and while there’s no information online that could be easily found I did see a date on it of 1930 which ties in with the right period. Opposite that, nearer the sea, there was a more modern public space comprising a stage shielded by giant leaves with amphitheatre-style seating opposite it. We like spotting amphitheatres when we travel and while this one isn’t the historic sort we typically go out of our way to look around, we’re still counting it.

Around the outside of the cultural public space there was artwork in a street art style but all themed for the general environment, touching on local people, customs, and the sea. The large open space beside it included one of those popular city signs for the tourists that it’s often impossible to take a clear photo of, although at this time of the day we were very nearly the only people there.

Finally, as we approached the pier we passed by Antigua Capitanía de Puntarenas, a preserved landmark building with some cannons mounted nearby, all dedicated to the maritime history of the city and region. This would be the sort of place we’d very likely visit on a return to Costa Rica but there was no indication that it was open at this particular moment and we were now keen to head back to the ship as we don’t like leaving it to the very last minute.

Our walk along the long pier to where Ruby Princess was docked was interrupted several times for photos out across the water, and near the gangway and security checkpoint for the ship there was some local entertainment provided in the form of carnival characters which, like all carnival characters, felt vaguely threatening.

The all aboard time came and went and we sat out on our balcony with some drinks and snacks waiting for the sail away from Costa Rica. The light faded from the sky, searchlights from the ship danced across the water, and two hours passed before Ruby Princess finally left. We never did find out the reason for the delay but we suspect that an organised excursion returned to the port late and, because it was an organised excursion, the ship waited.

In the next post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series we’ll experience Halloween on a cruise ship before we arrive at Panama for an excursion we were really looking forward to and for which we’d had to get yellow fever vaccinations for ahead of time to do it. Oh boy, I hope nothing happens to spoil those plans!