Acropolis Museum, Athens

This is the Parthenon reflected in the windows of the new Acropolis museum.

Since this museum was what I most wanted to see in Athens and it wasn't on any of the planned excursions, I went solo for the first time on this cruise. Successfully, despite the best efforts of the Athenian cab drivers, who seem to number a larger than usual number of thieves in their ranks, and the inescapable fact that the ship was going to sail at a certain time whether I was on board or not.

A large sign in the terminal advised tourists what fares they should expect to pay for taxis to various locations. A cab to the Acropolis should be 12 euros, but this was news to all the drivers who offered their services for a mere 30 euros, and who walked away when I said I wouldn't pay it. I finally walked out into Piraeus and hailed a cab on the street, which took me to the museum for 13 euros. 

Hours later, after the museum and Hadrian's arch and the Zeus temple and the old Olympic stadium and the Parliament building, I attempted to get a cab back to the ship from Syntagma Square. Every driver refused to take me. One told me that Piraeus was a fixed fare -- 35 euros. I said, "It is not!" and he sneered, "Just see if you can get a taxi here."

I was running out of time but figured I'd try the side streets away from the square before I gave in to highway robbery, and managed to hail a cab, with a very nice driver who used the meter and took me back to the ship -- for 8 euros.

Plus a very big tip.

Greek pottery

A potter in Archangelos, Rhodes. It's a family owned business, where he makes the vases and his daughters paint them, copying classical Greek designs and selling them to the tourists who are herded through the shop by the local tour guides.

And although his wheel runs on foot power, I have to say it seemed like an enviable existence: throwing pots under the pomegranate tree, firing them in the kiln in the olive grove. I'd switch places with him in a heartbeat.

At least until my legs got tired, which would probably be about ten minutes into the experiment. I guess I could always do the painting.

Doors into summer

Two doorways in Lindos, which is as perfect a Greek village on as perfect a Greek island as you could wish for.

I want to live in both of these houses.

Ktisis

This mosaic is in the house of Eustolios in Kourion. It's Roman, probably from the 4th Century, which suddenly doesn't seem very old. (But at least you can view it without worrying about getting dusty or being abducted by wayward camels. Sorry. Still in a snit about the whiny tourists.)

Depending on which source you believe, Ktisis is either the spirit of creation, or of donation, giving a generous gift. I love her face but she doesn't look particularly generous to me. She's a little stern, a little strict. She might inspire you, but you still have to do the work. Kind of like a Muse with a bullwhip.

More Kourion

There were other people there, but after the hordes in Egypt these ruins did seem almost lonely.

Kourion

Here I am in Kourion, for some reason looking delighted to be sitting in the midst of these beautiful ruins above an azure sea on yet another perfect Mediterranean day.

And I was delighted, despite irritation at my fellow travelers, who were still complaining about Egypt -- the dirt and the dust and the poverty, and how it had the nerve not to be a prosperous European country when people like them wanted to go there.

Cyprus is beautiful. The archaeological sites are models of clarity and good maintenance, with restrooms and wooden walkways and clear multilingual signs. Egypt is poor and crowded and messy, and they clearly didn't take our modern sensitivities about dirt on our shoes into account 4500 years ago when they put those pyramids out in the middle of the damn desert.

It's probably too late to move the pyramids, since we still can't figure out how they built them in the first place, but I hereby demand that they start shampooing those camels! And teach them not to run down hills when tourists are riding them! And not be such a poor country!

That'll teach them.

Lacemaker, lacemaker

This is a woman making and selling lace on the street in Omodos. She had some crocheted pieces, but also made lace with just a needle, which I'd never seen before.

I bought a small piece of lace and now I can't find it. I suspect that it dissolved.

To see or not to see

These two women in Cairo are wearing the niqab, which is the source of a lot of controversy at the moment, with one of Egypt's religious leaders threatening to issue a fatwa to ban wearing it, saying that it's a tribal custom and not required by Islam.

I did not see many women in the niqab, though almost everyone wore headscarves. And it was unsettling because I found the headscarves charming -- I loved how bright the colors were, pink and purple and lime green, and how each girl tied it differently -- and I, viscerally, passionately, see the niqab as so wrong. But isn't not showing your hair just a few degrees away on the same scale from not showing your face at all (or your hands -- most of the veiled women I saw were also wearing gloves, unlike these women.) Or since we cover our boobs and butts and genitals, is it all relative, and cultural, and not for outsiders to criticize?

Still. I saw one girl, in the Alexandria library, running up the stairs between two of her friends. They wore headscarves; she was in full niqab, including gloves. She was maybe fifteen, judging by the age of her friends, thin, coltish, and full of energy, and weighing her down with all those heavy black garments just seemed cruel. What harm could she suffer if we saw her? What harm could seeing her do to us?

Both of our tour guides in Egypt were women and both discussed headscarves and niqabs. They admitted to hating the scarves in summer when it's hot, but prefer to wear them. "I feel safe when I wear it. No one looks at me."

Not being looked at. I understand the freedom of that; being looked at, and judged, and generally found wanting, caused me much grief in my youth.

But it has to be optional. Sometimes you want to be seen.

He sells seashells by the sea shore

Highly cropped, and the light was terrible, but I like these two shots of Alexandria street vendors.

Alexandria the Great

It would have been very easy to skip the tour of Alexandria. After fourteen hours going to Cairo and back and seeing more sights than one feeble brain could absorb in a day, who needed Alexandria?

But it's a beautiful city, exotic, Egyptian and Mediterranean at the same time. And my camera battery died midway through the morning, and the spare that I knew I had put in my bag was nowhere to be found (it turned out to be hiding under the bed back in my stateroom) so instead of photographing I looked.

At the new library, where teenage girls in headscarves giggle over computer terminals. At the birds sitting in a dusty date palm. At the vendors selling Egyptian kitsch and seashells by the water. At the bored men smoking on the terrace by the royal gardens. At the tomb of the unknown soldier commemorating the Six-Day war. At the people strolling the Corniche.

Under African skies

Horses overlooking the ruins at Saqqara at dusk.

The Pyramid Which is Pure of Places

One pyramid picture after all: the pyramid of Userkaf at Saqqara. This is from the 5th dynasty so it's later than the pyramids at Giza, a mere 4400 years old or so.

And it may not have held up as well, but I live in a building from the 1890's and work in a building from the 1960's and they both show their age already. It's remarkable that this pyramid is still here, even if it's just a pyramid-shaped pile of rubble at this point.

The official Pharaonic name for it was "The Pyramid which is Pure of Places." The local nickname is "the ruined pyramid." But I suspect that's been the name for a couple of thousand years now.