It was an age old dream of mine come true, to cruise around the Aegean and see some of the major Greek islands, thanks to the courtesy of Ambassador Yennimatas, the Greek Ambassador in Ankara who gave me my Greek visa which is alas for an ordinary Turk not easy to get, requiring as for other countries in the European Union proof of property, bank account etc. A few years ago there was no need for a visa on these cruises but alas the EU has now insisted on everyone having a visa. Despite these difficulties Aegean cruises are becoming very popular with Turks 3-400 of whom and in 2006 took those cruises, which are becoming part and parcel of the Turkish travel pages. As it spreads by word of mouth these figures will grow.

There are two ways these cruises can be joined by passengers from Turkey, either from Istanbul or Kusadasi. They extend from 3-7 days ending in the same port where you embarked. Prices vary depending on the cruise liner and cabin quality and the length of the cruise, whether you take a 3-4 day one or, as we did, and which we thoroughly recommend, one that gives you four nights included in a hotel in Santorini. Two major Greek cruise companies have the monopoly of these cruises, Golden Star and Louis. I interviewed the Cruise Director, George Nakos, of Hellenic Cruise Lines, from whom Golden Star Cruises chartered the first ship on which we sailed out of Kusadasi, the Aegean 2. His company has 14 ships, 4 of which are in the Aegean circulating around the islands. These cruises run from April to November and make around 600 tours carrying about 3000 holidaymakers per week from all over the world, most of whom are Americans. Mr. Naxos told me that the Aegean 2 has a crew composed of 16 nationalities and is doing a better job than the UN. According to Greek law, 40% of the crew, starting with the officers, must be Greek, and the remaining 60% is divided between 15 nationalities, from Philippino to Indian, Egyptian, even Honduras. The ship has a capacity of 600 but on our particular cruise there were only 200 passengers, to 500 crew, though they were going to be full for the next cruise which had been chartered by South Koreans.

Diana and I boarded Aegean 2 at Kusadasi around 10 a.m. and it sailed at midday for Patmos, St John's island which features in a book my son Timur gave me "1000 places to see before you die", along with our other ports of call Crete, Mykonos, Santorini and of course the Parthenon, our hurried highlight from Piraeus.

Patmos is part of the Dodecanese islands and where St John the Divine was banished for a few years in his eighties and writing the Book of Revelations in AD 95 before going to Ephesus where he died in his nineties. We bought a tour on the ship and visited the small cave where he dictated Revelations and then went up to the museum and church above. Patmos is a crescent shaped island, dry and volcanic in origin, where 2500 people live on grapes, olives, tomatoes, wheat and other crops, but where the main source of income is from St John, back to Byzantine times when the island belonged to the Orthodox Church. Many buildings date back to the 10th century. The Monastery of St John, next to the cave was founded by St Christodoulos in 1088. The Monastery not only owned the island of Patmos, given by the Patriarch in Constantinople but also owned land in nearby Crete and Asia Minor as well as ships carrying trade exempt from taxes, and in a way it still does own this tiny island, in that it is the sole industry and responsible for what wealth it has, selling its past. The Monastery has a precious library, archives and treasury and icons. Ottoman Turks Patmos from 1537 until 1912, but nothing remains from that time. In the Museum there are two precious relics, one of which is a 33 page edition of the earliest written Gospel of St Mark, from the 5th century and the other a painting of Jesus by El Greco. The view from the church across the crescent shaped island is breathtaking.

The Aegean 2 then traveled all night from Patmos to Crete where it arrived at 4 a.m. through extremely calm waters which accompanied us throughout the trip as a piece of good luck before the meltemi of July and August. A disappointment was waiting for us at the port of Heraklion, where we learned to our dismay and deep disappointment that there was a one day protest against the government by local inhabitants who had occupied and closed the doors of Knossos Palace for that one particular Sunday. We hired a taxi hoping to be able to gate-crash or at least get a glimpse of the Palace from outside, as promised by the taxi driver, but in vain, neither were possible and from one kilometer we could just see one square centimeter of the palace. Crete is the biggest Greek island in the Aegean, well watered with natural springs good for the cultivation of olives, grapes and grain. It has a magnificent 5000 year history, starting from the Bronze Age, but actually goes back to the Neolithic age. The civilization, which was contemporary with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, was called Minoan. The island was conquered by the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Venetians and in 1645 by the Ottomans who occupied it until 1898. It was a great pity to visit Crete just for a few hours and miss the frescoes and grandeur of the Minoan art, the Museum being closed as well. This short nibble of a visit brought to mind two lines which I wrote many years ago from a longer poem "When I am 60 I will go to Crete with friends Greek," a promise which 16 years later can still be said to be unfulfilled which is a great pity particularly since the grandparents of my two children originated from Crete.

From Kusadasi to Crete to Santorini we wined and dined in the sumptuous 4-star restaurant, with buffet lunches by the swimming pool, which I had to myself as if it was my own private pool. The food was excellent throughout. It was around 4 o'clock that we caught the first glimpse of Santorini which has its name from the church of St Irene which Venetian sailors used to see as their first glimpse of the island which was then called Thera. Santorini is not part of the Dodacenese but of the Cyclades, another geographical group of islands in the Aegean, meaning "circle" in Greek, among them Delos, Anafi, Paros, Naxos, Tinos, Mykonos. The Ottoman Turks occupied them from 1566 until 1829.

Santorini is 29 sq km in area. In around 1500 BC a huge explosion resulted in a drowned volcano which created the island of Santorini and the surrounding islets which are the edge of the crater which is called the Caldera. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes visited the area from early history to the latest in 1956 and the volcano is expected to erupt any time but luckily not tomorrow. When the boat came nearer to the main island I was under the mistaken impression that the high volcanic cliffs were snowcapped, a mirage in the summer heat. In fact it was the town where we were to stay, Fira, built on the volcano's crater. There are three choices when landing at Santorini, you either walk up 600 steps, get carried up them by donkey, or go by tender boat to another port from where is a hairpin bend drive up the hill and along the top of the crater to the main town, which is what we did. As soon as we arrived in this most favorite Greek island of unusual landscape, we were met by the travel agent who took care of our luggage and sent us to our little family owned hotel with a large swimming pool, the Golden Star. In Santorini you have 3 choices, either to stay in the chief town, Fira, or in Akrotiri in the south with its Minoan settlement which was unfortunately closed due to a tragic accident on the archaeological site last year, or at whitewashed Oia on the northernmost part of the island with its splendid bird's eye picture postcard views. Even though it was early June the island was packed with tourists, mainly American, European and Japanese, presumably because like us they knew it was the best time to visit. Santorini has 56 jewellery shops and goldsmiths some of whose products doubtless come from Turkey with Turkish workmanship. Santorini is famous for its sunsets which we religiously attended at 8.43 p.m. every night without fail accompanied by famous Santorini wine. I do not recommend their swordfish, even from one of the best restaurants, or their moussaka from a taverna, which I had thought was a Greek specialty, but here was 90% with potatoes, 10% mince and nothing else, to which cook Diana took great exception, having often made the dish for me and raved about the mossaka on Skopelos, where her family have a house. Even our Greek neighbors at the next table commiserated with us at the awfulness of the dish and joined in our complaint to the management.

On Monday 11 June I celebrated my 76th birthday by walking up the one still active volcano on the island of Nea Kameni which is a national park. We took a boat with an international crowd to the volcano. In fact, the whole area is the 6 mile crater of the sunken volcano and called the Caldera. The Neo Kameni volcano which we climbed to celebrate this unique occasion was 127 meters high with a most rough and stony surface and smaller dry craters to right and left. Now the volcano is under seismic surveillance so we were guaranteed that there would be no birthday eruptions in celebration. We were told not to pick up small stones from the volcano as every year 6000 tons of volcanic stone disappears from the island as souvenirs, thanks to the tourists. This island is only 430 years old. We swam in the sulphuric green sea springs of the volcano followed by lunch at Thirassia island, of Greek doner, called gyro, a delicious version on the theme but quite different, consisting of a small pide wrapped round slices of pork with cacik, tomato and onion. Diana and our companion, an Indian journalist from Madras, had lobster kebab at the excellent and surprising price of 7 euros, all washed down with refreshing Greek beer.

Santorini has an excellent museum full of relics of the Bronze Age and some Minoan frescoes. There is also a golden ibis, maybe from Crete. This in part made up for our missed Akrotiri visit. We were waiting in line to board a municipality bus to Oia when the conductor noticed I was carrying a stick and out of respect to my white hair he took me by the arm and gave me priority in boarding the bus, which I appreciated as an extremely human touch. Our hotel at 65 euro per room (included in the cruise package price) was fully occupied around the clock despite its spartan breakfast devoid of olives, feta or even olive oil, not to mention no eggs or other choices than ham, processed cheese and jam. The hotel boast a most helpful receptionist, the owner's daughter Katerina, who at 19 had graduated with a diploma in hotel training and was typical testament to the fact that Santorini is well attuned to tourism, its main source of income. At the end of our stay we were again picked up by the same representative of the cruise company, but this time for the Louis, the company which owned the Perla, our second ship of the holiday.

Perla was built 35 years old in 1971 in Italy, but is in such tip top shape that it looks as though it was built yesterday. It has a length of 163.5 meters with a tonnage of 16.700 and a speed of 16.5 knots. Perla has 7 passenger decks with 395 cabins and a 1000 passenger capacity and an international crew of 350. I had a conversation with the Hotel Manager, Nicolaos Chatzistamoulis, and the Captain, Giannis Papangelis, who gave me a lot of information, including that the line had 12 ships, 2 of which are chartered in the Aegean. 70% of their passengers are American and consisted mainly on this occasion of American schoolchildren from Colorado who were on a special travel project with their teachers, for whom the ship supplied ample amounts of pasta and hamburgers. The ship started taking Turkish customers 2 years ago, and now has a Turkish hostess, Fusun, who moved as did many of the crew from the sister ship Sea Diamond which mysteriously sank in Santorini in April 12 hours after hitting a rock, by the crew's own admission due to "human error". 21 nationalities serve as crew on Perla and there is also a Turkish waiter, serving 27 nationalities of passengers. Shore information pamphlets and announcements are also given in Turkish. We again dined in the main restaurant where each and every passenger is treated as VIP and great courtesy, giving you the feel that you are the most important person there.

The ship docked at Piraeus at 6 a.m. whereupon we had a hasty breakfast and rushed to make the best of our three allotted hours, 7-10 a.m. First we followed the shore terminal noticeboard advice that a taxi to the acropolis was 8 euros, but as soon as we climbed in the taxi the driver started objecting to the 8 euro business by saying "this is a limousine and there are extras," offering instead a one hour tour round Athens for 50 euros whereupon I asked him to drop us at the train station which was some walk from the pier, for which he charged us 5 euro, nearly 100% more than the correct fare. However, he was helpful enough to tell us how to take the train to Omonia and change to the metro for acropolis. This we did for 80 cents arriving at the Acropolis shortly before 8.0 a.m. when it opened. If you are a European country national and above 65 you are entitled to 50% reduction in the entrance price, making it 6 not 12 euros. On the way to the United States in 1966 I had a glimpse of the Acropolis from afar which I thought was all one could see, with the rest being in the British Museum, but classical educated Diana, named after the Roman goddess herself, led me firmly by the hand up the 20 minute climb in the morning cool telling me I hadn't seen anything yet. As we got near to the entrance of the Parthenon swarms of Japanese and Russian groups appeared but despite all the tourists and the scaffolding, the magic was still there, as Diana remarked, 47 years after she first saw it in 1960 on a Swan's Hellenic Cruise with the Turkish liner Tarsus. The size was monumental, and originally the temple was brightly painted including the pediments that are now mostly in the British Museum courtesy of Lord Elgin. It was amazing to imagine that the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, from which nothing remains today, was three times the size of the Parthenon. There is a boutique museum, the Acropolis Museum, built on what Lord Elgin left of the Acropolis, housing among others the original Caryatid statues. The Parthenon was used as a church by the Byzantines and later on as a mosque during the Ottoman era and was badly damaged in 1687 when a Venetian bombardment ignited gunpowder that was being stored inside the building. Now a European Union project is under way to restore the 5th century BC Doric temple, but with what we considered to be great consideration, the construction workers lowered the aluminum scaffolding to allow us to take pictures of the Parthenon in all its majestic beauty. We missed seeing the National Archaeological Museum, in view of the fact that it did not open until 9 a.m. when we had to start to return to the boat, but all in all we accomplished in three hours a great feat defeating the heavy traffic of Athens that Friday rush hour, something that nobody else from the boat even ventured to do, as there was no guided tour due to the shortage of time.

When we arrived back on Perla, the ship had been invaded and occupied by schoolchildren from Colorado, young and beautiful and unfortunately all too often obese which was a sad and incredible sight. The ship had catered for their appetites around the pool, rather than in the plush restaurant, with mountains of pasta and hamburgers. From Piraeus to Mykonos was only a few hours and by the early afternoon we went ashore by tender boats. To me the vision of my mind did not match the Mykonos I saw in those short hours, negating all the images of my colorful dreams being more artificial, more tourist oriented rather than an island of character. We wandered around its narrow streets dotted with European brand names and lots of international tourists including many Greek holidaymakers. We saw the Little Venice which Anthony Quinn made famous with his dancing. 60 years ago, believe it or not, it was only a pirate refuge with a small population of a few thousand. The experience of an ice cream cone is worth mentioning. To quench our thirst we went into an ice cream parlor, rather than into a shish kebab bar. We chose our ice cream flavor, beckoned in by the vendor calling "Gel buraya." She asked whether we wanted the ice cream in a cone or a plastic cup. As we are not accustomed to plastic cups we opted for the cone. Upon asking why I was charged 5 euro for two ice creams I was told that it was one euro for each cone which was sold separately from the ice cream! Nowhere in the world could I imagine that an ice cream cone would be sold separately and at such a high price. This brings me to a major observation, that thanks to the euro of the European Union, Greece, compared to Turkey is ridiculously expensive. Even the textiles were at least twice the price of Turkey. The average modest dinner for 2 with two glasses of wine was never less than 30 euro. Mykonos to me was a disappointment though doubtless it would have had more atmosphere after sunset with all the lights and nightlife.

The next day we were again in Patmos for a few hours before passing through the narrow 1 km long straits between Samos and the Turkish mainland on our return to Kusadasi which was the end of a most enjoyable and worthwhile cruise in the delightfully calm June waters of the Aegean.