Of Cats, Olives, Graffiti and the Market

The comment we heard uttered most frequently aboard our ship in the past week was, "If this cruise wasn't prepaid., I wouldn't be here." It has been a bit surreal plying the waters of the Aegean and the Adriatic while the pillars of the global economy were crumbling. You can probably look for cruise ship bargains for the next couple of years while our economic ship is being righted.

Our tour of Greece began in Crete (where we elected to stay on board and rest) and ended in Corfu. I won't bore you with too much travelogue - the Greek isles are in fact among the most beautiful on earth, Oia (pronounced EE-yah, on Santorini) is picture-perfect with its whitewashed buildings and cobalt blue rooftops, the Acropolis is awe-inspiring (made even more so as we clambered around it while being buffeted by 30 mile an hour winds and trying to keep our balance on worn-smooth marble), Navplion (in the Peloponnese, the first capital of independent Greece in the 19th century) and Corfu are perfect Aegean/Ionian towns that we'd return to in an instant.

Some notes along the way:

* Cats are everywhere in Greece and Turkey. Apparently no one "owns" them, and there are no SPCAs in the region, but they all appear to be well cared for.... and widely photographed. Ditto for the dogs on the Acropolis and in the ruins of Ephesus (Turkey).

* On every tour we have heard about each region's unique contributions to the olive oil industry. We heard that southern Greece has about 140 million olive trees, and that the Puglia region of Italy (about which more later) has about 50 million trees, and that other regions on our journey had tens of millions. Doing some rough math to account for Turkey, the rest of Greece and Italy, France, and the rest of the Balkans, we've concluded that there are a bajillion olive trees on earth. And to think that it all began (according to myth) with the Tree of Athena atop the Acropolis.

*On a trip to the beautiful old town of Lyon, France about five years ago, we were stunned by the amount of graffiti on its ancient walls. On this trip, we've continued to be amazed at how much graffiti mars the beautiful towns and villages of Turkey, Greece and southern Italy. For those of you who are Philadelphians, you'll know what I mean when I say "Paging Jane Golden!"