Day 1 of the cruise -dj

We signed up for a bunch of excursions last night, so the first of many will be today. Before that though, I walked upstairs to the spa to get a tour. With our suites, we get access to extra areas, like a private hot tub, sauna, steam room and the thermal beds. These beds do NOT look comfortable. They are made of some sort of mosaic material and they look and feel hard as a rock. However… lay on one and… wow. Feels GREAT! Mom has already decided she needs one and thinks it can be powered by solar energy. But how to get one home… hmmm… Ha. I booked a massage package for tomorrow.

Now, onto the excursion... Lisa, Janet, Mike and I went on the Panoramic Thessaloniki trip. Thessaloniki is the capital of Macedonia. First, we went to the Archeological museum. It was very interesting with lots of beautiful antiquities. I could spend hours in there, reading all about each exhibit. But…, it was onto the next site. We then visited the White Tower, which served as both fortification, as well as a prison. They performed executions on the top of the tower and said that the outer walls turned red with the blood of the people killed there. Creeeeeepy. While along the coast line, we also walked to see the statue of Alexander The Great. We then travelled to the top of the city, where we saw the old city walls from the Byzantine times. Beautiful views of the city. We could see St Paul Church from there as well. .We had a Greek beer while others shopped. Note the interesting bottle opener. Onto our last stop, St Demetrius Cathedral. This church was built over the site of Roman baths, which we saw the remains of on our tour. Very good guide and enjoyable tour.

After dinner, Mike, Lisa and I enjoyed some traditional Greek music in the Blue Lounge. The trio (two men; one woman) were great - beautiful voices. One of the men played an instrument similar to a mandolin, a bouzouki. We had a shot of mastika, which made our full stomachs feel better. Lisa and I ended the day singing karaoke and our renditions of Bye, Bye Love and one other song that I can’t remember right now… Ha.Read more