Galley Tour

​Took a tour of the Galley yesterday. Started off in the room-service prep area which is staffed by two at a time  24x7

Then to one of the primary kitchens. People do work closely together. 

This kitchen can prepare prepare over 100 plates dinners per hour. The next kitchen in the tour could do up to 300/hr. Prep and planning is the key. 

Keeping track of what’s happening:

Oh, and an UP  escalator for the waiters with their trays of up to 6 meals doesn’t hurt. 

All the baking and pasties are done on board

And the breads are all done by the guy in the background. 

Visual guidance of what’s what:

This place hums at dinner time. 

Split Croatia!

Something about getting up in the morning to a rainbow is always pleasing. 

We arrived in Split, Croatia a few days ago and am just getting to post now. Its Croatias 2nd largest city but the highest “transport”  city with active port, airport train and truck traffic  

A short walk took us to the old city but we all had to stop and admire the latest thing in solar powered park benches.  This has spots you can plug in you phone to charge or use the mag-charge system. No no excuse to avoid taking a walk?

Today we toured the Dioclesean palace and stealing info from a Google Summary: it is an ancient Roman palace built between 295 and 305 AD for the Roman Emperor Diocletian as his retirement residence. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the historic center of Split has grown around it.

 The palace is a well-preserved example of Roman architecture and functions as a living part of the city, with modern shops, homes, and businesses situated within its ancient walls.  Of course there is a bit of Xmas decorating going on  we entered through the iron gate (4 gates, 4 sides iron, brass, silver and gold)

This was built over a period of 10 years with the  use of 90,000 slaves:  quite the retirement home 

Anyway the city was erected with the green market on one side and the fish market on the other side  This other side was on top of a sulfer  spring - apparently they figured it would help with the smell of the fish  

This was purhaps the most special Moment  of the day. Walked into this room 

And found these guys hanging out. Take a listen. Wish all rooms with or without roofs could sound as good 

The next shot shows   an example of air conditioning from 1700 years ago.  On the right side you can see a window in the top half of the wall and  on either side of that you see stone brackets jutting out.  A rod was run between them and a wet cloth hung over the rod covering the window.  The evaporation from the cloth helped cool the room

  

By the 1st century the had a  9 kilometer aqueduct system. Apparently this guy thought of himself as the last pharaoh so you’ll see sphynxes and tombs ment represent a pyramid. 

But…..

Here at what was the temple of medicine (can you see the carved snakes?) the Sphynx lost his head and the building was turned to a baptistery when the Christians took over. 

I’m sorry the detail of the relief is lost so the snakes are hard to make out. Story has it thought that the guy that cut into the old tomb lost his head much like the curse in the Eygultian tomb raiders. 

This area below ended up filled with garbage but apparently had been a ladies area (whatever that means) 

Located behind a “Christmas is forever” we found what is alleged to be the 3rd oldest synagogue which unfortunately was not open 

And as always there are random shots

to peruse. 

This is the winter drink for the season. 

And for unicorn lovers

And I’m not sure of what to make of this one. Melanie is sure this sign means if you wanna drive your car into the ocean here is where you can do it. The question is why would they encourage that?

And our tour guides made a big point of assuring that they were of no relation to you know who

Spelunking he will go

 Today Melanie and I “split up.’  While she took the tour of Akona I took an hour and a half bus ride to go see the caves of the great winds. 

Imagine you’re 16, 19 or 21 year-old and you’re off playing in the hills and you feel a gust of  wind coming out of the mountain. Of course you have to go see what it is. You see  a small opening and you dig it out and your climbing on your belly (Now called the cave of the worms) and after quite some distance you come to a hole.  

Hmm- who goes first. Oh wait, let’s drop a stone and see how deep it is. You drop the stone and count the seconds one, two, three, four, five. My goodness that’s a long way down.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I came back with a rope ladder went down to explore and the rest of his history. 

We had a great tour guide who I swear is Peter Comerford‘s brother from another mother: same sort of irreverent humor, but with an Italian accent. 

. 

I’m just gonna post pictures and not going to bother you with the history, the chemistry or the other blah blah blah. 

Above called “ lake of candles”

Oh wait, I will tell you one thing which I thought fascinating. You’ll see metal railings, which helps going up and down the stairs and keeps people from stepping off the path.  These actually carry water which is used to rinse down the paths every night and then that water is collected and transported out of the caves and used for the toilets and the every day needs for the tour center. They spend a lot of energy trying to prevent contamination of the site and their care act really shows.

Our tour guide actually changed careers in his mid 20s went back to school and got a masters in biology and in was certified to lead the these tours And has made this his life‘s work. He has befriended two of the discoverers who are now in their 60s and 70s and they continue to do exploration. Currently they’re using drones to explore some of the more than 35 Kilometers of known cave. We explored less than 1.2 Kilometers. 

Time now to channel my inner Guido Brunetti and catch a vaporetto to the Doge’ Palace and St Zechariah’s church.  Arrivederci

More details 

https://www.frasassi.com/GrotteScoperta.aspx?l=en

https://www.frasassi.com/

Ancona

 Ancona 

Before I talk about my, Melanie‘s, trip to Ancona, I have to tell you twice on this trip I saw David so very excited  There is nothing better than seeing David excited. The first time was when we got to hang out with the HR person from Viking. The poor woman! David peppered her with about 100 million questions which she was very polite and answered It was a bit fascinating. The second time is when he came back from the caves, which was today’s trip, and told me all about it. It’s so nice to see him happy.

Today we are in Ancona. David did cave tours and I went on a city tour. For obvious reasons, I was really interested in the fact that Ancona has Museum for the blind. In it is a reproduction of Notre Dame and many famous paintings that the blind can touch. All is written in braille.

Ancona is on the Eastern coast. The mountains already have snow now. 

The Greeks first settled here   They Came from Scilly The Greeks were here until the Romans came in 200 BC. From the 1500s to 1860s Ancona was part of the papal state. I didn’t realize at that time the Popes were the politicians and decided what to fund e.g. hospitals and such. Ancona left the Papal state in 1867 to join the new kingdom of Italy.

We visited at least 6 churches. I’m only writing about one since, to be honest, I lost interest. We visited a 13 th century Greek cathedral we could see underneath this cathedral was another cathedral from the 12 century. Actually, the  Ancona Cathedral's history began as a 4th-century B.C. Greek temple to Aphrodite

We went down to the crypts.  There we saw the grave of the first bishop of Ancona, Saint Cyriacus. He died by torture forced to swallow liquid hot lead. 

Also at this church the painting of the Virgin Mary was said to have cried when Napoleon came to Ancona. 

But I love most about this church was outside the church were two lions guarding the church. It reminded me of the fifth Avenue Library in Manhattan where I spent many happy hours grading papers while my kids were at Camp reunion.

Just a few more points of interest about Ancona. There was a Greek amphitheater built here. It was converted to a monastery. When that closed it became a prison.  The Italians do not waste stone and resources. 

Ancona  is a big shipyard. Two new Viking boats are being built there right now.

Lastly, and most importantly, we also saw the ancient Palace of old people. What is that you ask? Was it a nursing home? No, apparently they had the older people govern because they were the wisest.  I hope our children and our grandchildren are reading this.

Musings

1. From someone from the US, the Mediterranean history is pretty mind-boggling. The thought of civilizations from thousands of years BCE is hard to wrap my mind around

1. Croatia‘s history is so different from the rest of the Mediterranean. Italy and Greece are clearly in their modern period and nobody expects Changes in their borders. Croatia seems to be still in a period of flux with changes happening in borders.  Well, Tito had many flaws ( that’s an understatement ) but he kept Yugoslavia together by sheer charisma. As soon as he died, it all fell apart.

Yugoslavia became Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo.

Under Josip Broz (Titos real name) Yugoslavia was established as a communist state in 1945. He pursued a policy of non-alignment between the Eastern and Western blocs, most notably defying Soviet dominance with the Tito-Stalin split in 1948. During his rule, Yugoslavia developed a unique form of socialism with "workers' self-management," and de-centralized power to the republics to manage ethnic tensions, a system that ultimately weakened after his death in 1980. After Tito died in 1980, the rising ethnic nationalism eventually led to the violent dissolution of the federation in the 1990s, leading to the Yugoslav Wars. 

1. Viking offers a Shabbat setting every Friday. By that I mean, they provide wine and challah and two electric candles.  We went last night. I’m one to never turn down a good challah.  We’ve done this on Viking before and they’re usually is one other couple to join us and it’s quite sociable. This time there were 20 of us. Do I have to explain what it’s like having 20 Jews trying to decide what a Shabbat services? It be it became clear early on that there were two Alpha Jews fighting over how we should proceed.  The more observant person one.  I started to pass out the wine to be useful and Alpha Jew told me I was doing it in the wrong order. I decided to grab some challah and leave. Unfortunately, David didn’t stay that much longer and I felt I ruined it for him. I didn’t mean to He claims I didn’t ruin it but what does he know?