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It has been a bit of a break following Part 9, and the reason is that Pete and I had two other trips planned, one from 7 August thru 1 September, which included France, Portugal and Greece. The second trip was just a week following that trip, and was to Aruba for two weeks. As I begin writing this we are just beginning our 2nd week in Aruba.

We were in France for only 3 days, to visit our dearest friends there, Bruce Kleyer and his wife Charlotte, and their new baby girl, Irene, who has the most beautiful red hair, and always a ready smile. It was such a delight to be with them.

Bruce and his son Sam met us at Charles de Gaulle International airport and after dropping Sam off in Paris, Bruce drove us to their home in Chalvron, which is approximately 2 1/2 hrs by car south-east of Paris (237.2 km) in the Bourgogne region.

This was our second time visiting Bruce in Chalvron, and I for one love the place. To me it seems an idilic life style. The village is very quiet, and I can’t remember seeing a traffic light anywhere. The farmland is rich and there are lots of white Charolais cattle grazing. Their origins date back to the time of Charlemagne, and they are one of the world’s finest beef cattle.

Bruce and Charlotte have 3 border collies, that are the friendliest and most loving dogs I’ve known. Bruce also has several bee hives he maintains. I love honey still in the comb.

We spent the most wonderful and memorable three days with them, but sadly we had to return to Charles de Gaulle for our flight to Lisbon. Bruce drove us back to Paris where we spent the night in his home there. Since we had an early morning flight, if we had driven from Chalvron that morning, we would have had to leave very early. Sam joined us early that morning to see us off. I would have dearly loved to have had more time to spend with Sam, but he was kept very busy with school and rugby practice in Paris, while we were spending our time in Chalvron. A little history, Bruce and I met at Arthur's Pass on New Zealand’s South island, and this was on my first trip to New Zealand, in 1979. At the time I was in the middle of an unpleasant divorce, and I just wanted to get as far away from the United States as possible, even if it was only for a two-week vacation. Bruce was traveling with his friend Barry Caitcheon at the time, and over the years the three of us have maintained a very close friendship.

Our reason for going to Portugal was to visit another friend we’ve known for almost as long. It was on my third visit to New Zealand, this time with Pete, that we met Paulo Rocha on the South island. We had rented a camper van and were traveling around both the North and South islands, and met Paulo, who was from Portugal, in one of the many wonderful camp grounds. We were on our way to Queenstown at the time. We have remained in contact via email over the years, and this would be the first time we had seen Paulo (other than on facebook) since our chance meeting in 1983. It was a wonderful reunion.

Paulo spent an entire day showing us the amazing sites of Porto. It was a wonderful day and we got to see much of Porto. Although we were only able to spend a very short time with Paulo, the time was spent well. He gave us a list of places to visit on our trip back down the coast to Lisbon, for our flight to Greece. Due to delays in our flight from Heathrow we did not arrive in Lisbon until around 11 PM. By the time we rented a car and drove to Porto and our B & B, it was 3 AM, which made for a very short night for us.

The first place on our list of places to visit was this beautiful beach with an amazing array of boardwalks for getting around.

We had a problem with our GPS, and this caused us to miss the second recommendation altogether. Pete didn’t want to retrace our path back to it, so we continued on the Sintra. It was on my first visit to Europe, in 1978, when I visited Portugal and saw this magnificent Moorish castle in Sintra. I’ve never forgotten it, and I wanted to share the experience with Pete. Poor Pete who was doing all the driving, was beginning to get stressed out. When we got to Sintra and saw that it was packed with thousands of tourists, all ready to climb the mountain to the castle, and there was obviously no place to park, that was the last straw for him and he said lets just go find our B&B and get some rest. It was probably for the best, as in 1978 I was much younger, and I had forgotten what a difficult climb it was to the top of this mountain to visit the castle. Today it probably would have killed me. ;o) I found the photos below on the Internet and put them here to show Pete what he missed.

On the flight from Lisbon to Heathrow the child below was my seat mate. I had the isle seat in a row of 3 and the window and middle seats were both unoccupied, until we got airborne, and then this young woman moved in with her sleepy child. Fortunately he was able to sleep the entire flight.

It seems that with British Airways, no matter where you want to go in Europe, your flight must go through Heathrow. We had a rather long layover, and did not arrive in Athens until 2 AM. We were driven to our hotel, the Electra Metropolis, and were happy to learn that the first day in Athens was a free day, so we were able to sleep in. We had both breakfast and dinner on our first day at the 10th floor terrace restaurant of the hotel, and it had a fantastic view of the Acropolis.

Morning view of the Acropolis Evening view of the Acropolis

We had a city tour on the second day which included the Acropolis, and the tour was continued on the morning of the third day, ending at the port where our ship was waiting at the Marina Zeas.

This is the Harmony V, a 184.7 foot motor yacht, on which we spent the next 8 days touring the Greek Isles.

During those 8 days we would visit the islands of Polyegos, Milos, Santorini, Patmos, spend a day at Kusadasi, Turkey, and then the islands of Mykonos and Kythnos. We saw some of the most amazing archeological sites.

Milos is the island famous for being the home of the Venus de Milo, now in the Louvre Museum. On Santorini we visit Akrotiri, a Minoan Bronze Age settlement that was destroyed in the Theran eruption about 1627 BC and buried in pumice and volcanic ash, which preserved the remains of fine frescoes and many works of art. Extensive modern excavation of this site was started in 1967.

The scope of this archeological excavation is mind boggling. Frescos, art works and normal everyday object of this Bronze Age town were perfectly preserved since the settlement was coverer by the protective pumice and volcanic ash.

On the island of Patmos we visited the Cave of the Apocalypse, which is purported to be the place where John wrote the fourth Gospel, and the last book of the bible, the Book of Revelations.

Photography inside was not allowed, however, as everyone knows, you can get almost anything off the Internet. Hence, this next group of photos which were taken inside the cave.

During our stop at Kusadasi, Turkey we visited the ruins of Ephesus, one of the best preserved ancient cities of the world. It was built by Attic and Ionian Greek colonists in the 10th century BC. During the 2nd century BC, Ephesus was the fourth largest city in the eastern Roman Empire, famous for its Artemesium, the Library of Celsus and its medical school.

There was this hillside complex of buildings that were being excavated as we walked through them. About half a dozen archeological students were working at tables, putting together stones like a jigsaw puzzle. They would walk from table to table, looking for the perfect matching stone for a location on another table. Their efforts were amazing, and daunting to say the least.

The rooms still had much of the original plaster covering of the building bricks in place. What the students are piecing together are the fragments which have fallen off of the bricks. I suppose the hope is to put everything back together exactly as it was over 2,300 years ago. It will undoubtedly take many years of pains taking effort by thousands of archaeology students before this goal is reached.

We returned home from Greece on 1 September, and just 6 days later we were on another plane, this time on our way to Aruba. We spend 2 weeks in Aruba for two out of every 3 years. On the odd year we spend 1 week in Aruba and 1 week in Orlando. The short story is that we bought ⅓? week of time share at the Villages at Parkway resort in Orlando and can only visit it every 3rd year, which as it turns out is just the right frequency for us to visit Orlando. This was a two week year in Aruba, and we love doing absolutely nothing there other than enjoy the sun, the beach and the restaurants. We did all the normal tourist things our first year there, in 2002, and since then we have learned how to simply relax in the sun.

Getting to Aruba is a long and arduous flight from Buenos Aires via Miami, so when we arrive we are pretty tired. Our first dinner is at the Pure Beach restaurant on the beach at the Divi Phoenix where we have our timeshare.

The next night we enjoy the outstanding fish served at Fishes & More. The bottle of wine we ordered had a strange label. Our waiter Alex had an App on his phone, and when he pointed it at the label on the bottle, the woman started talking, and her face moved just like it was a movie instead of a two dimensional label on a bottle, quite entertaining.

An of course there’s nothing more enjoyable than Happy Hour, and watching the sun setting in the west each evening.

But enough of explaining why the Japan travelogue has been on hold. I will now try to get back into the swing, and do justice to the real Part 10. If you remember, in Part 9 we boarded the Thunderbird Express Train for Kyoto, the former capital of Japan. We visited the scenic Bamboo Grove and Togetsu-kyo Bridge in Arashiyama. On day 10 we will explore Nijo Castle, home of the first Shogun. But this will be in my next attempt at writing Part 10.