Black Sea Empires on Swan Hellenic Minerva - Just arrived!

Well - where did we start? At home of course. We drove from home to the Mercure Hotel near Heathrow a couple of nights ago, (Sunday). A nice hotel, and we were able to leave our car parked in the hotel car park for the two weeks we will be away. Monday morning we were up and out at 8.45, ready for the 9.15 Hoppa Bus to take us to Terminal 2.

Our Aegean flight was scheduled for boarding at 12.15, but due to the normal queuing process that goes on at Heathrow, we didn't take off until 1pm. Then it was a relatively uneventful flight to Athens landing at 6.15 pm Greek time (2 hours ahead of England). At Athens we were met by Swan Hellenic reps who organised our bags and put us on a bus. By 7.30 we were on the Minerva. 

So........... First impressions?

It's a very nice ship. Small but perfectly formed. Well...... not quite, I still prefer decks that go all the way around the ship, and I'm not entirely sure about the multitude of carpet pattens, but to be honest, there's not a lot to fault. There is more than enough lounge space for the relatively small number of passengers, the staff are very attentive and again, there are more than enough of them to look after us. We were very pleased with the cabin. It doesn't seem much bigger than any we've had in the past, but it is much better fitted out, and the bathroom has obviously been refurbished in the past few years.

Our Cabin on Minerva

The meal on the first night was very good. The Veranda Restaurant has a buffet service, but it is very definitely a restaurant, with tablecloths, wine glasses - the works. All in all, a little more upmarket than anything we've been on before, and for those of you who are interested, here are the pictures.

The Veranda Restaurant

The Library

The Shackleton Bar.  A very pleasant atmosphere

The Swan Restaurant

The rear deck.  We found it very pleasant and not to windy to eat here on our first evening in Piraeus.  

Looking down on the rear deck from above.  

Last but not least, the Orpheous Lounge, Peter will be holding his classes here.  It looks a really nice space. 

Yep.  So far so good.  We really like this ship.

Tomorrow the ship stays in Piraeus until 1pm.  Most of the passengers will take a tour to Athens.  We've decided to be lazy and take it easy on board, with maybe a short walk from the port just to have a quick look at Piraeus.  And then it will be onward to the Black Sea.  I am really going to enjoy this cruise. 

Day 9 of our cruise - Rekjavik take II

I'd seen a few tourist brochures over the last couple of days regarding whale watching in Rekjavik. Since we weren't on tour I half had it in my mind that we could go for it. The tours were advertised as starting at 9 am and 1 pm. OK, so we hadn't got up early enough for the 9pm tour, but I thought it might be worth trying for the 1pm one. Working it backwards, the ship was due to sail at 5pm, which meant we would have to be on board by 4.30pm, which meant we would have to be in a taxi and on our way back by as soon as possible after 4pm, which meant we could fit in a 3 hour whale watching tour.

Oyster Catchers ignoring us in Reykjavic

So a leisurely breakfast and then off for the day, except we got a shock as we reached the gangplank to get off. The captain had changed the times, and we had to be back on board by 3.45pm! We took the same walk as yesterday, and made our way down to the old harbour and asked anyway. But sadly, the tours are 3 hours long. It would have cost us 53 Euro's each, which isn't much, so it was a shame we couldn't make it.

A colourful and bizarre wall mural in Rekjavik.  Another example of the quirky Icelandic sense of humour

Feeling a bit disheartened, we decided to try again for the EVE monument for my son. This time we made our way into the maritime and asked the receptionist there who was the least receptive receptionist we've come across for a long time. It felt like we were the most tiresome people she'd ever had to deal with. She did explain to us though that the monument we'd found was the right one. The reason we'd not found all the names (500 000 of them), was that they were carved into the floor tiles, and that they so small, you'd need a magnifying glass to see them.  So, photographs taken, that was a mission accomplished. Time for a little wander around the city to see what we could see.

At first we had a plan to go back to the Harpa Concert Hall, for a cup of tea and a bit of cake. As we'd discovered yesterday, the building is fantastic, and we thought it would be nice to spend a bit more time inside and wonder at the glorious architecture.

A view inside the Harpa Concert Hall

Thing is, we got to the little cafe place inside and then realised it was one of those places that was going to take all day to get served, and to be honest, we had plenty more that we wanted to see, rather than wait around there. We did get some more photographs from the inside of the hall though. It really is the most fantastic space.

From the hall we made our way over to a small lake, full of swans, ducks and geese.

Love Birds.  

Before heading for the cathedral. I was using a tourist map to find our way, and as we walked through the quiet streets nearby we came across "C is for Cookie", a wonderful little cafe with a very relaxed atmosphere and large portions. No waiting for service here. Our soup was served in a couple of minutes. Really nice.

We found the cathedral.

Rekjavik Cathedral

And then started to make our way back, past Hofdi House, which is where Reagan and Gorbachov held a summit meeting which was the start of the end of the cold war.

Hofdi House, Rekjavik

And then we followed the coastal path back to the ship. My last treat was to see a duck I've not seen before.

Long Tailed Duck in Rekjavik, Iceland

Back on board ship, the Captain warned we were due for rough seas. Luckily they held off until after dinner. By bed time the ship was beginning to rock n roll, and this is due to carry on until tomorrow. Let's see how we go then eh?

Day 8 of the Natural Wonders and Total Eclipse cruise

Well, the ship certainly did a little bit of rocking last night, and it was still rolling when we woke this morning, but not too badly, and the sea got calmer has the morning progressed.

Today we went and sat in on the photography lecture, and I'm really glad we did, I've started learning how to use my camera at last, after owning it for a good year already. I've learnt the settings I need should I get the chance to photograph the Northern Lights. I admit I took about an hour trying to work out to get the camera off "illustrative", (and I've no idea how I switched that on!), before I could start playing with shutter speeds and aperture size, but Hey Ho, it's all good fun.

So then it was Peter's art class, a bit later than usual, at 12 midday. He has about 20 regular's and then the rest of the Lookout Lounge is filled with people lounging with their ipads and tablets, books and knitting. As it turned out, they were also listening in on Peter's lesson. We know this because the whole lounge burst out laughing when one of the passengers got confused over the name of the oar rests on rowing boat........... They're actually called rollocks, but this lady got her r's and b's mixed up.

So after the class we took it easy, watching the world go by until we reached Reykjavik. We got there earlier than expected, at about 4ish. Peter and I decided to take advantage and walk to the old town. It's about 3 miles from the new harbour where Voyager is berthed, to the old harbour where we were headed. We took the easy path that followed the coastline and I can recommend it to anyone. The views were stunning!  It is about 3 miles though.

My destination was to reach a monument on behalf of my son.

He's a gamer, and he wanted me to get to a particular sculpture that had been erected in "honour" of the game of Eve. Apparently, every player that was registered on a particular day has their name carved into plates on this sculpture. My son wanted me to take a photograph of a particular plate with his gaming characters name on.

On the way, we passed various sculptures,

Briefly visited the amazing Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre.

The Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre looks amazing from the outside.

But he looks even more exciteing from the inside

Before reaching the site where my son had told me the sculpture was located. We found a sort of monument, but it didn't seem to have any relevance with online gaming, and certainly didn't have a load of plates with names carved into it.

We looked around the area again, which was essentially a building site, and gave up. We had to hurry back to the ship to get there in time for dinner, but the views across the bay were still spectacular.

After dinner, we decided it might be worth going out on deck to see if the Lights were going to make an appearance. They did, and I was able to put my new found camera knowledge to the test. I admit to a squeal of delight when I realised I'd managed to capture the glow.  I've still a lot to learn though, I took loads and loads of photographs, here is one of the two that were worth keeping.

Faint Northern Lights from the back of the Voyager whilst we were berthed in Rekjavik.  I have to admit that the camera sees much more than the eye.  To us they were almost invisible.  

Tomorrow we have a full day in Reykavik, and no escorting duties. It should be a good day.