A Big, Beautiful and Interesting World

Mrs. BeeLine and I have just returned from a month long cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean where we visited Italy, Greece, the Greek Isles of Santorini, Mykonas and Rhodes. Turkey, Cyprus and Israel.

Our schedule of three days in Israel ended up being cut to about 13 hours as we arrived in the port of Haifa on the morning of the Hamas attacks on Israel.

We were on tour that morning heading to Caesarea when we learned there had been incursion from Gaza and missiles fired into Southern Israel.

As our tour continued at Caesarea we learned that there had been numerous killings and we were ordered to return to our ship as soon as possible.

When I heard that I knew that our visit to Israel was going to be very limited. 

This is a picture I took while we were at Caesarea.

It was quite a challenge notifying and getting everyone back on the ship but we ended up departing Haifa at about 830 pm on the night of the attacks.

We never felt in immediate danger while we were in Israel as in Haifa we were at good distance from Gaza. However, I was aware that we were well within range of Hezbollah in Lebanon if some type of coordinated attack was planned.

This map of Israel gives you some perspective on where Haifa is in relationship to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Gaza and Lebanon.

Haifa is about 60 miles from Tel Aviv and 100 miles from Gaza.

As it turned out, Hamas did target the Caesarea area with rockets that night.

However, we were on our way to an unscheduled stop in Alanya on the southern coast of Turkey which is a popular tourist area for Europeans due to its sunny climate and beaches.

In total, Hamas has sent over 7,000 missiles targeted at Israel in the last two weeks.

We were sad to miss out on our scheduled tours in Israel but sadder still for what lies ahead in a war that undoubtedly will see much bloodshed and deaths on both sides.

A few random observations that I took away from the trip.

• Tourism was back in full swing everywhere we went. Our flights were packed and the fares were up substantially compared to the last time we flew to Europe shortly before the pandemic. Hotel rates in Rome were also much pricier than the last time we were there four years ago. Almost everywhere we went it was crowded. Travel is back and people clearly want to make up for lost time.

• Poverty was more evident in Egypt than in any other country we visited. The Cairo metro area has a population that now exceeds 22 million. It is not unusual to see carts pulled by donkeys sharing the road with large tour buses. There is a strong police presence. Many. buildings in Cairo look like hollowed out shells with no windows. Driving on the freeway from Alexandria to Cairo it seems there was a mosque every couple of miles in which you could pull off the road much like a rest stop area in the United States.

• You can get some perspective on the level of poverty in Egypt by looking at this comparison of the percent of annual pay that is required to purchase a new iPhone in various countries.. It takes almost a year of pay to buy an iPhone in Egypt. It only requires 2% of a year's pay in the United States

• The standard rate for getting your picture on a camel at the Pyramids is $5. Someone I met on the ship negotiated the rate down to $3. I passed on the opportunity.

• Although Turkey (they now refer to the country as Turkiye) is 99.4% Muslim it feels a lot more like a Western country than Egypt that is 90% Muslim and 10% Christian. In fact, I saw several Christian churches in the drive between Alexandria and Cairo. The difference between Turkiye and Egypt goes back to the origins of modern Turkiye in the early 1920's where the founding father of the country, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, declared that Turkiye would be a secular country not mixing religion and state. He also dictated that the Latin alphabet would be used instead of Arabic. In talking with a few locals they were fiercely in favor of the secular nature of Turkiye and had no desire to become theocracies as is the case with almost all other Muslim countries today.

• Sailing to Istanbul we passed through the Dardanelles Strait. It is the body of water that separates the European and Asian continents in northwest Turkey. In going through the strait you pass from the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Mamara.

• During that passage through the Dardanlles we went under an enormous suspension bridge. Some quick research showed that the bridge, opened just last year, is now the longest suspension bridge in the world. It spans 2,023 meters between its two suspension towers. To put that in context, the three longest suspension bridges in the U.S. are the Verrazano Narrows Bridge that has a 1,298 meter span, the Golden Gate Bridge has a 1,280 meter span and the Mackinac Bridge is 1,158 meters. That Turkish bridge is more than 50% longer than anything in the U.S. Something I did not know before taking this trip.

1915 Cannakale Bridge between Europe and Asia in Turkey
Longest Suspension Bridge in the World

• In Turkiye it was rare to see any women wearing a hijab. Almost every woman in Egypt dressed that way and some wore burquas that covered their faces as well. One local in Istanbul told me that when I saw a woman wearing a hijab in Istanbul it was most likely she was a visitor. If a woman was wearing a burqua it meant she almost definitely was from another country.             

Grand Bazaar in Istanbul

• In that Turkiye is such a Muslim country I was surprised by the comments about Israel I got in speaking with a local in Kusadasi, Turkiye which is on the west coast of the country near the historical site of Ephesus. This was shortly after the Israel war had started and this person knew that our ship had been in Israel when the war commenced. I was measured in my comments on how the war was a tragedy for both Israel and the Palestinian people knowing I was speaking to a Muslim and expressed my hope that peace could come to both sides. I was surprised when this local Muslim told me that she was rooting for Israel and wanted Hamas to be annihilated. She said that anyone who is educated about the issue knows that Israel has a rightful call on their land. She stated that everyone she knew felt the same way. It was something I did not expect. I think it also explains why the other Muslim countries in the region have no interest in taking any Palestinian refugees.

• Our visit to Ephesus, Turkiye was one of the highlights of the trip. I think I was more impressed with what I saw at Ephesus than I was with Pompeii which I visited a few years ago. It is remarkable to get a glimpse at what was developed and built at Ephesus dating back as far as the 10th century B.C.  One remarkable fact is that Ephesus was once directly on the Mediterranean and became a major commercial center for the spread of Christianity. The Virgin Mary spent her last days in a house in Ephesus. There are reports she moved there at the behest of the Apostle Paul who spent a lot of time in Ephesus and is generally believed to have written his letters to the Ephesians while in captivity in Ephesus.

Ephesus

• You can see in the photo above that Ephesus is nowhere near the sea today. It is six miles inland. I thought this was interesting in that the narrative today is that coastal areas around the world are going to be engulfed by the seas due to manmade climate change due to the use of fossil fuels. How many fossil fuels were being used 2,000 years ago compared to today? Why is Ephesus now six miles from the Mediterranean rather than being under the sea due to all of the carbon emissions over the years? What I was told was that a river near Ephesus carried silt down from the mountains in the area that slowly filled the sea. Yet another example that natural forces on earth are much more powerful than anything that man might do to affect climate change.

A few more photos from the trip.

Santorini, Greece

Athens, Greece

Mykonos, Greece

Limassol, Cyprus

Rhodes, Greece

Sunset on the Ionian Sea

It is a big, beautiful and interesting world out there.