Our first full cruise day started with a quite unique experience – a visit to the Blue Eye: a multi-sensory lounge located beneath the waterline on their smaller, Explorer-class, ships. It is quite lovely - all blue light and visually exquisite designed to follow the lines of a whale. We saw a few fish swim by. It has a bar which is open in the evening.
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| The Blue Eye lounge |
We arrived at Patmos where we were to go ashore and visit the monastery and Cave of the Apocalypse. Patmos Island, an island of quiet and tranquility, is where St John the Evangelist was banished during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian. And it was here that he is said to have received the visions of the Apocalypse which later became the Book of Revelation. We visited the cave where he was supposed to have had his visions and where he, or someone, wrote them down.
The monastery and cave are high on a hill but we were fortunate to have a bus to take us most of the way up from the port to the fortress-like Monastery of St. John, built in the C11th. Absolutely stunning with its iconography and frescos squeezed into a tiny space. Today only 15 monks reside in the monastery. We then traipsed down the hill a little way to have a look at the cave, the Apocalypse Cave, where St John wrote. Quite inspiring.
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| I love those windmills. we were to see many on the islands |
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| The museum at the monastery held many precious items |
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| A souvenir 'cave' |
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| Mysterious windows and doorways |
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| It was a place with many steps! |
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| Head ing down to the Cave of the Apocalypse. Stunning views! |
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| The first and last pages of the Book of Revelation |
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| A labyrinth of staits and doorways |
After a day of biblical scenes, we dined quietly watching the sun sink lower in the sky. We had set sail for Rhodes. Later we sat under a green sky with coffee and liqueur. It is wonderful being at sea! As the sun slipped slowly behind the mountains of Patmos …… what a magical day. The first of many I suspect.
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| The dancers on board put on a fabulous show |
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