Europe Trip 2008 Day #12: Laying at the Beach in Rhodes, Greece

There is no way to really know what each port is going to be like, until the day you get there. Sure many of the cruise people will tell you a bit about each port and what to expect but each port is so different. The island of Rhodes, Greece was very different then what we saw in Mykonos, Greece. For one Mykonos was much smaller, much less commercial, and from the area we saw lacked good beaches. Where it did measure up was in terms of the great landscapes that it had, where as Rhodes was more commercial, and much better in terms of beaches.

We decided not to do any excursions today, instead take a taxi to the beach and relax, and that is exactly what we did. We headed out for the port at 10:00 am this morning, found a great taxi driver who took us and picked us up from a beach that neither the cruise nor the map showed. We rented some loungers, and umbrellas and plopped ourselves on the beach for a good 4 hours. I had heard that the Mediterranean was very warm, and the water was warm but it was still cool to the initial touch.

There’s Me in the Mediterranean Sea

I laid in the sun for some of the time and then when it got to hot I went for cover or in the water, Jenn and her mom were much more into getting sun. I was laying there on the beach, listening to music on Jenn’s iPod, and I had one of those moments where everything just felt perfect. It was really the first time this whole trip that I sat back and reflected on how fortunate I am. How when this all began I was so nervous about bringing Jenn’s ring overseas, so nervous about making the engagement special, and so worried that something might go wrong this trip. As I laid listening to some great music, pondering back on all of this there was one thought that came to my mind, and that was that I was truly content with everything in my life.

A Picture of the Beach Where We Spent the Day

The only rain on today’s parade was found at lunch which I had a Greek style club sandwich and I guess it was all greek to me, because I barely got through half of it. The lunch was in such a beautiful spot but its food just tasted horrid. We left the beach at 2:00PM and headed back for town, did a quick stop at a few shops right in front of port and came back on the ship in time for a quick rest and dinner.

Jenn and I at lunch on the Beach

What has pleased me more then anything on this cruise has been the dinner staff, we have a two man team helping our table with the Head Waiter Marco, and his assistant, J (like Jay). These guys are not only extremely helpful, but are just really good people and our drinks are always waiting for us and they always have a smile on there faces when they come over to greet us, the staff couldn’t be nicer. We had a good dinner, it was a casual night, so the menu followed but I had a really nice Clam Chowder followed by a Cheese Tortalini and Chocolate Ice Cream. Jenn followed on the Clam Chowder and went for a repeat visit to the Black Angus Steak with Vanilla Ice Cream.

We went to the show tonight, and it was a pianist who played a lot of classical music, it was a little slow, but he was a really talented player, and it was the kind of thing I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch but was entertaining nonetheless. Right after the show, there was the Love and Marriage Game Show which is of course a complete rip-off of the Newlywed Game, but it was a lot of fun to watch, and boy were the contestants hammered, it was like they were giving away alcohol.

All in all it was another great day, I can’t believe how fast this cruise is going by, we have another big stop tomorrow in Limassol, Cyprus. Cyprus is another place I never thought of going to, but we have a nice short 4 hour excursion to see some of the big sights of Limassol and its off for a day at sea. So we will be back to you again tomorrow with our update from Cyprus!