July 20 2014 Heraklion

July 20 2014

 

Scott, Lynn, George and I got an early start to the day to head to ancient Knossos, the place which originated the Labyrinth, Minotaur and Ikaros legends.  This area is also known as Crete.  We met up with Ed, who is from our facebook group on this cruise.  He is an avid photographer.

Heraklion is an island is Greece that gave birth to gods, to rebellion and to a place that inspires everyone who feels the spirit of Crete. 

We got off the ship at 7:30 a.m.  This was Disney Cruise Lines first visit to Heraklion so we thought there might be dancers and a city welcome group, but there wasn't any.  (Found out later that the dancers came and dance by the ship around 10 a.m.  Everyone was gone by then, but heard Brent, the cruise directors and 2 other officers watched.)

We started our journey by walking to the City Bus (which runs every 20 minutes).  Scott and Lynn had done the research and found we could ride the city bus to and from Knossos for $1.50 euro each.  The port of Heraklion is a working port, so you have to take a shuttle bus to the front on the port.  After we arrived at the front of the port we went out and to the right, past the hop on hop off buses and to the city bus terminal.  Waited about 3 minutes once we bought out tickets for the #2 bus to arrive.  The city bus does offer a $5 all day ticket, however it is not available on Sundays.  But we ended up only spending $3 euros for the bus, so it worked out fine.

The bus ride to Knossos was about 15 minutes.  No traffic at 8 a.m. in the morning on Sunday!  We wanted to get to our destination before all the cruise excursions.

The Palace of Knossos is the largest of all of the palaces in Crete.  The site was first settled in the Neolithic period 600 BC to 3200 BC.  According to tradition, it was the seat of the wise king Minos.  The Palace of Knossos is connected with thrilling legends, such as the myth of the Labyrinth with the Minotaur, and the story of Daidalos and Ikaros.

The first palace was built around 1900 BC.  The Palace is comprised of different buildings that grew up around the Central Court.  There were entrances at all main points.  The Palace appears to have been the center of political, economic and religious authority.  The main excavator, Arthur Evans, attempted to interpret the function of the spaces and gave them names according to his opinion.  The palace was in continuous use until 1450 BC when the rest of the Cretan palaces were destroyed.  Most experts believe that new inhabitants from the Mycenaean Greek Mainland were installed in the Palace.  When the palace ceased to function remains uncertain, but experts say that after 1380 BC, a large part of its former glory had been lost.

The central Court and outer areas of the palace

Olaf in front of one of the grand staircases

The palace was built on the side of the hill and it terraces up and down the hill.  There are six floors in the palace.

Pots for wine, grapes, olive oil:

We spent a couple of hours at the site.  Ran into Jeanna (performer) at the end of our exploration.  She had joined a DCL tour for the day.

We jumped back on the #2 bus to go to the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion. 

Before we went to the museum we stopped as a sidewalk café and had a delicious lunch.  Greek salads, crepes and waffles were the order of the day.

The Heraklion Archaeological Museum is one of the largest and most important museums in Greece, and among the most important museums in Europe.  It has artifacts from all the periods of the Cretan prehistory and history, covering a chronological span of over 5,500 years from the Neolithic period to Roman times.

This is one of the best museums I have visited with artifacts.  We spent extensive time here looking at all the rooms of artifacts.

The Phaistos Disc bears forty-five pictorial signs, arranged in sixty-one groups  separated by lines, presumably representing words.  Experts have not come to an definitive conclusions regarding the contents of the inscription.  It comes from the early 1700 BC.  I thought the detail on the disc was amazing.  It is hanging in a display case and I would say it is about  inches in diameter

The next picture represents bull-leaping which young trained athletes made a dangerous leap over a charging bull.

Detailed workmanship on an item in the museum

The Dolphin Fresco was part of a marine landscape composition.  The Fresco was in the Palace of Knossos.

Mosaic floors from Knossos

We got back to the ship sometime in the afternoon, and my cold has set in full force so I took some cold medicine and slept for the afternoon so I could try to get rid of it.

Went up on deck and grabbed a snack around 5 p.m. then watched us sailaway at 6:45 p.m.

The Show tonight in the Walt Disney Theater is “Once Upon a Song”.  Excellent show.

Went to Bingo, but we are on a losing streak.  Hope that changes soon!

After Bingo, we rushed off to dinner.  Tonight it was the Master Chef menu.  I ended up just having soup and salad for dinner tonight and drank lots of herbal tea hoping to get rid of this cold.

When I got back to my stateroom I had a notecard from the cruise staff that my stateroom door had been selected for the Opa Greek Celebration on deck 9 tomorrow at 5 p.m.  My stateroom door, along with others, will be shown on the big screen out on deck during the party.

It’s 12:30 a.m. already, headed to bed.  We are taking it easy in Mykonos tomorrow.  None of us are planning anything specific and we are just heading into the village whenever we want.

I will be heading in for gelato and free internet to download pictures so I can post today’s travel blog!

Goodnight from the Disney Magic!