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| EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND AEGEAN GEMS |
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| MAY, 2023 |
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OUR SHIP - THE SEABOURN ENCORE | ||||
| Near
the end of the covid pandemic, out of an (over)abundance of caution, we cancelled a cruise in the eastern
Mediterannean. We just weren't sure how
things would pan out, so, instead of paying the balance for the cruise
4 months in advance, we just cancelled. Later, it became clear that
covid was really on the way out, so we found this cruise instead and it
had a couple of advantages over the cancelled cruise - it also sailed
in the eastern Med, it was with a high end company, and best of all, it
started in Haifa, right where we live! |
 check out our home page |
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As we reserved this cruise at the back end of the Covid pandemic, we got a very nice price, and it was on a very nice ship - the Seabourn Encore, a relatively new ship (2016) run by one of the premier cruise lines in the world, and as I said, most importantly, it sailed from the city where we live - Haifa, Israel, and finished in Athens, Greece. | ||||
| The cruise was
for 7 days, and ported at Limassol in Cyprus, Antalya and Marmaris in
Turkey, and the Greek islands of Kos, Mykonus, and Paros. The
Encore is a small luxury ship with a capacity of about 600 passengers, and the
cruise was lovely from start to finish. At the end of the cruise, we
spent a couple of days in Piraeus (rather than Athens), as we were in
Athens in September for several days. |
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| As
noted above, the cruise started in Haifa. Most cruises which stop in
Haifa stay for a couple of days in order to give the passengers enough
time to visit the many holy sites in the Holyland, particularly
Jerusalem. This cruise was different. It was built of 2 legs. The first
leg started in Athens and ended in Haifa, and the second leg started in
Haifa and ended in Athens, with different itineraries for each leg. It
was listed as 2 independent cruises, but many passengers stayed on for
the full 2 weeks. |
 the worst part of cruising: the waistline! |
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| The time spent in Haifa was just 1 day. We of course got onboard in Haifa, along with many American tourists who had spent a few days before the cruise in Israel, and then got on the cruise to visit a few Greek islands. The cruise line provided all the pasengers getting on in Haifa a hospitality greet and check-in at one of Haifa's nicest hotels, including lunch and transfer to the Haifa cruise port. | |||||
| As
much as I would like to write that embarking at the Haifa cruise
terminal was smooth and quick pleasure, but I can't. Lots of security,
bus-rides, golf cart rides, and 2 exercizes in finding and identifying
luggage. In the end, we got onboard peacefully, and the rest of the
cruise was much easier than embarkation! Below is a capsule description
of each port. |
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| LIMASSOL, CYPRUS |
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| We
have been to Limassol before. There's not much to do here, except go
somewhere else on the island, like Paphos (2 hour drive), or the
divided city of Nicosia (1:30 hour drive). The most interesting part of
the city is the new Limassol Marina, an ambitious project built over the last
few years. |
 LIMASSOL MARINA |
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 LIMASSOL MARINA |
Our
visit to Limassol was limited to a visit to the marina to meet friends
who live in Cyprus and whom we had met on a recent visit to Rhodes. We had a
nice visit and a very forgettable lunch at a restaurant called "Jamie Oliver's Kitchen". We
often watch Jamie Oliver cooking on TV, and it was disappointing to see
his name on a very average restaurant like this one. The salad was
good, but the other dishes were not. The best thing about this
restaurant was that it was a perfect meeting point with our friends, as
it was in the marina area, and, it was very close to our shuttle bus to and from the boat. |
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| ANTALYA, TURKEY |
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| We
had been to Antalya many years ago, and felt that the bus ride in and
out (which took about 35 minutes) of the city was enough for us. It's a
typical resort town, full of hotels along the beachfront. It's a
popular tourist destination on what is known as the Turkish Riviera. |
 MARMARIS MARINA |
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| MARMARIS, TURKEY |
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 VILLAGE SNACK |
We
had not been in Marmaris before, and we wanted to see the area. We booked a private tour of nearby
villages with a company called Mares Travel Agency. We visited several
villages to the south of Marmaris, one waterfall, and one private home
where the lady of the house prepared a mid-morning snack for us. The main village we visited was Turgut Village, and its nearby waterfall. It was lovely countryside, and our guide, Caner was very informative.
We didn't spend any time within the city of Marmaris except for a quick
drive through. |
 WITH MARMARIS GUIDE CANER |
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| KOS, GREECE |
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 KOS TOURIST BOATS |
Kos is a very nice and popular island. It's not the closest, but it is one of the closest Greek islands to the coast of Turkey.
It's about 15 KM from the coast of Turkey. We took the ship's shuttle
into Kos town, and wandered around town for an hour or two. It's a cute
little town and we did some souvenir shopping here. |
 KOS VIEW OF THE ENCORE |
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| MYKONUS, GREECE |
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 LOVELY MYKONUS |
Mykonus
is known as the Greek party island, and has become extremely popular
with tourists from all over the world. We booked a small group tour
with a local company called WCM (We Create Memories).
There were 12 people on the tour and everything went smoothly.
The tour took us all over the island. Our guide was a young woman named
Rinatta, who was a great guide, and who explained everything perfectly.
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 MYKONUS TOUR GUIDE RINATTA |
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 MYKONUS |
At
the very end of the tour, we walked through Mykonus town, and that
was the only unpleasant part of the tour (no fault of WCM or Rinatta).
The town
is simply inundated with tourists, and at times we could barely move
forward. Also, there were 2 ships in port, ours with 700 passengers,
and the Virgin "Resilient Lady", with 2700 passengers. Mykonus is a very pretty place, but also, a very crowded place. |
 MYKONUS ALLETWAY |
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| PAROS, GREECE |
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| On
Paros island, we were scheduled to dock at the town of Naousa, but the
day before we were notified that we would dock at the other town on the
island, called Parikia. It
didn't really matter to us as we had already decided that we would
spend this day on the ship, so I can't proffer any opinions about Paros. |
 SHIP DAY |
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| Our last port of call was Piraeus, the port town which services Athens.
Who stays in Piraeus, and not Athens? The main reason people stay in
Piraeus is that they are on their way to a cruise, or have just
finished a cruise. We could have flown straight home, but our
flight was in the evening (very inconvenient day lugging 2 suitcases
around), so, we decided to stay for one night. However, we hate
one-nighters, so we stayed 2 nights, and we stayed in Piraeus because
we had visited Athens for several days just a few months earlier. |
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 BREAKFAST AT THE ALEX |
In Piraeus, we stayed at "The Alex", a fairly new hotel located in a nice district of the city. It is located in the Castella neighborhood, which is directly above the small marina, known as Mikrolimano. |
 ROOFTOP BAR AT THE ALEX |
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 NEPTUNE'S TEMPLE AT SOUNION |
While in Piraeus, we booked a driving tour with George’s Taxi to take a drive from Piraeus to Sounion,
a temple site at the southernmost point of the Attica Peninsula. We
were very pleased with the service, and booking was easy and simple.
All our questions were promptly answered. Our driver, Stavros was
excellent. His English is perfect, he was a safe driver and was full of
information. The drive down through the "Athens Riviera", and the site itself of Sounion was very impressive. The main attraction at Sounion is to visit around sunset. At sunset, it gets very crowded, so we went in the middle of the day. We don't care for the sunset crowds. |
 THE SEA VIEW AT SOUNION |
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| Below is a description of the most notable neighborhoods of Piraeus. |
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| Kastella This breezy neighbourhood is perched on top of a hill and feels a little like a rundown version of Lisbon, Valparaiso or San Francisco, with winding stairways and colourful turn-of-the-century buildings. At the summit is the park surrounding the Profitis Ilias Church, with the Saronic Gulf and Athenian Riviera stretching out below. It's a 5 minute walk downhill to the Mikrolimana marina described below. |  PIRAEUS STREET |
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 LUNCHTIME VIEW OF MIKROLIMANO |
Mikrolimano Greek for ‘little port’, Mikrolimano is sits beneath Kastella. Its biggest draw is the Michelin-starred Varoulko Seaside Restaurant (where we dined once), presided over by celebrity chef Lefteris Lazarou. This small marina is completely encircled by restaurants and fish taverns and is a lively place in the evening. It has a definite upscale "resort vibe". |
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 AT THE PIRAEUS MARINA |
Marina Zea (Pasilamana) Marina Zea has the relaxed air of a well-to-do port town, with fancy yachts moored alongside lively cafés, restaurants and bars. This was the main shipbuilding area in antiquity; if you do a little searching, you can still see evidence of ancient Greek and Roman fortifications. Close by are 2 of the city's best known museums; The Archaeological Museum, and the Hellenic Maritime Museum. |
 PIRAEUS SUPER YACHTS |
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 LESS THAN SUPER YACHT IN PIRAEUS |
This marina is huge and
dwarfs the Mikrolimana. We found a great place to eat lunch right in
front of a whole row of huge yachts, straight out of the "Below Deck"
TV series. We enjoyed this area very much, and if we were to stay again in Piraeus one day, I think this would be the area where I would look for a hotal. |
 BELOW DECK IN PIRAEUS |
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| The Main Port The main port has many interesting landmarks, including the Agia Triada Church, The Municipal Theatre of Piraeus and Municipal Art Gallery of Piraeus, and the mostly-pedestrianised shopping area south of Korai Square (Platia Korai). It's pretty much what you would expect from one of the biggest ports in the entire Mediterannean basin. |
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| The Peiriaiki Peninsula The Peiriaki coastal road is on the far western part of the city, and has lovely views of cruise ships and cargo vessels silhouetted against the islands of Salamina and Aegina on the horizon, and locals fishing from the rocky shore below. The Peiraiki seaside strip and the nearby backstreets of Hadzikyriakion are where most locals go for affordable, authentic seafood in Athens. Unfortunately, we didn't get to this very picturesque area. |
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| SOUNION |
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| Since
we were on a cruise, there aren't a whole lot of restaurants to review.
As for the dining on the Encore, it was
a bit disappointing. Generally, on a cruise of this quality, all the
dining venues are excellent. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. In
all venues, the service was excellent, but the food was just
average. On the other hand, on this cruise, the bars were open and most
alcohol was included in the price. It was no surprise that the bars
were usually very busy. Typical bar scene to the right. |
 ONE OF THE MANY BARS on the encore |
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| There was one dining experience onboard worth mentioning, and we ate there twice, and that was... | |||||
 LOBSTER THERMIDOR |
THE GRILL, by THOMAS KELLER Thomas Keller is a multi-starred Michelin chef, and he has created a very nice restaurant on the Encore. The service was of course, superb and the food was excellent. We had some very nice dishes, but the best were the lobster thermidor, the crab cake, the salmon, and best of all was the slow roasted veal chop, pictured to the upper right. The meat was done perfectly! |
 VEAL CHOP AT KELLER |
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 SALMON |
 LEMON TART |
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| VOROULKO SEASIDE RESTAURANT |
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 CARPACCHIO OCTOPUS |
This is a
Michelin star restaurant specializing in fish and seafood. Our meal was
excellent, the service was superb and the view was beautiful. This is
also the largest Michelin star restaurant we have ever seen. It had
2 full floors of diners, both overlooking the micro marina of Piraeus. We had fish soup, octopus carpacchio, crayfish tartar, and filet of grouper. Everything was delicious! |
 BEAUTIFUL VOROULKO DESSERT |
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| PSI...ART |
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 ARTWORK AT ART |
The
full
name starts with a full Greek word, not just a Greek letter (psi), but even
the owner ignored it. The
name on the business card looks exactly like the name above. The
restaurant is a fish and seafood restaurant with lots of obscure art on
the walls. It was right near our hotel, and we decided to check it out.
We dined alone, and chatted with the owner. We had a nice meal of shrimp
and stuffed calamari. It's also got a great view overlooking the
Mikrolimano right below. |
 TASTY SHRIMP DISH |
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| HAMS AND CLAMS |
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 HAMS & CLAMS MENU |
Hams and
Clams was probably the biggest culinary surprise of our trip. It was
recommended by one of our hotel clerks, and we were in the right place
at the right time, and there it was, and we went inside for lunch. We
were there at 1 PM, and it didn’t start out well. We were told there
was a problem, and we should come back at 2 PM. I wanted to
eat elsewhere, but Alisa liked the look of the seafood, so we went and
found a café for a drink and a cup of coffee, and returned at 2. |
 SEAFOOD PLATTER |
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 14 EURO JUMBO PRAWN |
Our lunch here was terrific. This place had the best and freshest seafood we have ever had. We had oysters, and shrimp, and then some more shrimp. We even had a single grilled giant prawn for dessert. The restaurant is simple, the service was super friendly, and the seafood was amazing! |  HAMS & CLAMS SEAFOOD SELECTION |
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| MARIDA |
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 MARINATED SARDINES AT MARIDA |
Marida
is the kind of restaurant, only somebody who is very familiar with the
local area, even
knows that it exists. We were taken to the restaurant for lunch by our
guide of a few hours, and it was absolutely great. It is near the town
of Lagrena (near Sounion), which is about 60 KM south of Piraeus. It is a
family run restaurant which only serves the freshest fish and seafood.
We had great food here – friendly service and, a wonderful lunch.
Marida is the name of the tiny little fish they serve here fried and
delicious. Picture to the right. To the left are marinated sardines, a
popular dish in Greece. |
 THESE TINY FISH ARE CALLED MARIDA |
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| CRUISE CRITIC (the best site for advice, reviews and information about cruises) |
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|
HUFFPOST ON THE QUESTION: TO CRUISE OR NOT TO CRUISE
(an insightful article if you are contemplating taking a cruise) |
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| CULTURE TRIP - THE TOP 7 THINGS TO DO IN PIRAEUS |
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| CRUISE LINES, RANKED FROM WORST TO FIRST (one critic's opinion, and an informative read) |
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| 7 ANNOYING REASONS WHY MYKONUS IS OVERRATED |
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| ALL ABOUT VISITING THE ISLANDS OF GREECE |
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| THE 25 BEST GREEK ISLANDS TO VISIT IN 2023 (National Geographic) |
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| THE WINES OF GREECE |
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This is a page from our site "Travels with Steve & Alisa". It describes one of the many trips we have made together. We've built these pages not just to describe our trips, but to help other travelers if we can. Please use the information we've provided freely, and let us know if you have any questions we might be able to answer about your own planned trip, or just let us know if we have helped you. Or perhaps you have some information we could add to the site. Visit our home page using the link to the right.
Enjoy
your next
trip!!
~Steve & Alisa~
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