March 2017

Valetta(population: 6,000) was the last stop before disembarking the ship at Barcelona to finish up the Suez Canal cruise that started from Dubai. We were told that the best scenery you get would be the view you get as the ship enters the port of Valetta, and we were not disappointed. We knew the city might not be fully awake, but we got really antsy waiting on the ship and got off the ship around 8 AM.

 

From the cruise terminal exit, we turned right and walked for a few minutes to reach the lift that took us up to the city center on top the hill. As we walked out of the park around the lift exit, we came to an area with government buildings, pictured above. We walked to the City Gate and walked out of it, and there was a big bus stop with the route numbers marked for each parking stall. We had decided to go to an old capital, Mdina, first to beat the crowd. We found the C2 bus(2.60 Euros for all day) stall at the lefthand side of the road separate from the traffic circle. The 30-minute bus ride was like an introduction to Malta mini-tour.

 

Mdina(population 300) is not the last stop for the C2 bus, but you won’t miss the stop. Most people get off there anyway. It is just a few minutes walk from the bus stop to the Mdina city gate. Here’s a map for the town. You will see 6 maps. The first one is for Mdina. The main cathedral of Malta, St. Paul’s, is in this tiny town.

 

We spent a little over an hour walking around the town discovering nice surprises in little alleys and buildings.  Then the tour buses started arriving and filling up the streets, which turned the sleepy little town into a major tourist attraction with hundreds of selfie sticks poking at your face. We quickly gave up on the idea of having a leisurely cup of tea at a cafe and headed back to the bus stop.

 

We were back in Valletta just in time for the Military Band March & Display that started at the City Gate at 10 AM. We followed them to the main square, St. George’s Square, and, they performed there for 45 minutes.

 

For a little town of 6,000 people, it has a lot going. There’s history, arts, culture — museums, beach, food, and, of course, churches.  You can discover all that just by walking. It still is a capital city, and, even for a small country like Malta(population: 450,000), that means something. The whole city is recognized as the UNESCO Cultural Heritage site.

Another main cathedral of Malta is in Valetta. Saint John’s Co-Cathedral(called such because it shares the function of the main cathedral with Mdina’s St. Paul.) doesn’t seem much from outside, but you HAVE TO go inside. Trust me. You will not be sorry. In fact, you will thank me!

 

I had read about this wonderful restaurant in Valletta, but it was closed forever. But we found a pretty good one behind the Cathedral called LaPira Maltese Kitchen.

The evening view of the city of Valletta was as impressive as the early morning view. I had a feeling we might return to this charming little place.

March 2017

 

We thought Athens (population: 660,000) would be one of the first cities we’d visit in Europe, but it never turned out that way. Only after visiting 100’s of other places around the world, the day came for us to finally see Athens. Our Suez Canal cruise stopped in Piraeus port for a day thanks to the political instability in Egypt which made the ship skip Egypt entirely and created room for a chance to include another ancient city in the itinerary.

It seemed there was a lot to see and might not be enough time to cram all that into a day if we traveled on our own. So we booked a tour on shorebee.com, a shore excursion specialist for cruise ship passengers. It was a 6-hour group tour on a bus with an English speaking guide. We paid 25 Euros per person, but the site shows the price at $35 Euros now. (admission to Acropolis was not included)

The tour was to cover:

• Stop at the Panathenaic Stadium (10 minutes)
• Stop at the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian‘s Arch (30 minutes)
• Stop at The Acropolis to visit the Parthenon and Mars Hill (90 minutes)
• Stop at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier for the changing of the Guard (10 minutes)
• Sightseeing of Athens center; Academy, University and National Library (30 minutes)
• Walk into the Plaka area of Athens with free time for shopping and lunch (90 minutes)
• Return to Piraeus cruise ship port before “All-aboard time”

Our bus was waiting for us at the cruise terminal parking lot. After stopping briefly at a high point by the sea in Piraeus, we went straight to  Panathenaic Stadium, a 2,000-year-old stadium built entirely in marble. (pictured above)

 

Changing of the Guards ceremony was interesting mainly due to the unusual footwork that the soldiers displayed. The pointed toe on their shoes was used as a weapon as needed in olden days, it was explained.

 

We drove passed the national research institute, the Academy, and the University next door, and the National Library in central Athens on our way to the Acropolis.

 

We got to the Acropolis just before it was mobbed by tour buses. This is a place every single tourist to Athens visits, and the ticket line could be very very long, our guide explained. By this time, we were hungry, but only a small food kiosk was available in the area. We had some snacks to tide us over, then marched into the site. We spent an hour or so exploring and admiring the works of ancient Greeks. If we had more time, we would have loved to visit the Acropolis Museum down the hill to learn more about the Acropolis.

Next, we stopped at the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian‘s Arch. By this time we were starving and all the monuments started looking the same. After a quick photo op, we were dropped at the entrance to Kolokotroni Street in the Plaka area. We finally had our late lunch at Paradosiako Restaurant, and we were satisfied with the food and the price.

When our tour bus dropped us off at the cruise terminal, we walked off to see more of the town of Piraeus. It was just a port town where everyday people lived their own lives.

Athens is not really a huge place, and the public transportation system was well in place. Cabs were not expensive. So we could have done this trip on our own. But the tour was worth 25 Euros, we thought.

September 2016

A big, beautiful lake far, far away. That was all I knew about Lake Baikal before we visited there in September 2016. Now I know it holds 23% of the world’s fresh surface water. It is the 7th largest lake in the world, but, it is the deepest(as deep as 1,642 meters), thus, it holds the biggest volume of water of any lake. It also is the oldest at 25-30 million years. The water is so clear and clean that you can just scoop up and drink it. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It has 2,100 km(1,300 miles) of shoreline.

But it was not too far. You can get there in 3 hours flying from Beijing or 4 hours from Seoul. That’s closer than going to Hong Kong from these cities. It is true, though, not many people live on the shores of this lake, and that is helping the health of the lake.

Our first introduction to Lake Baikal was a visit to a shoreline settlement called Listvyanka. On the way there from Irkutsk – the biggest city in eastern Siberia – we stopped at Taltsy Museum of Traditional Culture, pictured above. One can see some interesting architecture, and there is a small gift shop selling reasonably priced craft items.

Nerpa is the star of the Baikal Museum. Also known as Lake Baikal Seal, these earless seals are seen only in Lake Baikal. This museum tries to tell about the Lake as much in detail as possible mostly in Russian. Still, you can learn enough about the Lake Baikal to appreciate and respect it a bit more.

Listvyanka is the launching pad for all the activities on the lake, and there are a few resort style hotels right on the water in the general area. We had to have the fish endemic to the Lake called omul, and the grilled version of it was our lunch.

Anyone looking at the map of Lake Baikal would notice a big island in the center closer to the western shore, and this is Olkhon Island(population: 1,500),71 km long and 20 km wide. To get there from Irkutsk, you first have to get to the ferry launching point 250 km northeast. Then you do the 15-minute ferry ride.

Our friends in Irkutsk arranged a group van which started from the Central Market in Irkutsk, and it was a 6-hour drive with a lunch stop. As you can see in the picture, it was rather cozy in the van.

Yellow pine trees. Yes, I meant yellow. Pine trees never change color, and that’s how I learned in school. I even sang a song about evergreen pine trees growing up in Korea. Not in Siberia. Pine trees change color, and they are beautiful in yellow. Sorry that this is not a good picture. Here is a better picture. We saw a lot of these during the 6-hour trip.

The ferry service runs fromMay to October. the rest of the year, Baikal is frozen over. You can walk to Olkhon if you are so inclined! Here’s a great description of Olkhon and how to get there etc.

Our ferry captain had a sense of humor, and he left the dock right before our unsuspecting friends got onboard after a smoke break. The stranded friends in the picture above joined us about 20 minutes later. We waited for them on the other side at a cafe by the dock.

Now we are talking far, far away from it all. If you want to forget about everything and just chill, you come here. When we were there, there were no paved roads on the island. Running water was a luxury in our lodging, Nikita. Don’t get me wrong. Nikita was rustic, yes. Charming, yes. Attractive in its own way, yes. Even artsy. Our room was spacious and comfortable as long as you didn’t expect five-star amenities.

You can’t talk about Olkhon without mentioning shamanism. We were picked up by a converted military jeep at the dock and driven to the northern tip of the island, Khoboy Cape. Apparently, this was the most luxurious way to get around. Bumpy. Bumpier, Bumpy. Bumpier. An hour or two each way of this erased much of the memory of the scenery. Maybe that was what deleted the photos from this portion of the trip, I am thinking. I can’t find them! But I do remember shamanistic totem polls and delightfully colorful ribbon covered trees all over the place.

After a Russian style vodka drinking at Nikita’s cafe that lasted well past midnight, we were awakened early next morning and led to the Shaman Cave at the beachside of Khuzhir village, the main town where most of the lodgings were located including ours. Shamans believe this cave holds supernatural power, and we could see a lot more ribbon covered trees around there. Some even believe the elusive Genghis Kahn’s grave is hiding underneath this cave.

This was when and where our friend/host stipped down to his bathing suit and jumped into the water, and he was yelling at us to join him. The water was warm at 5 to 10 degrees Celcius, he claimed. No thanks.

Before heading back, we were supposed to visit other sites on the island, but we decided not to go through that bumpy ride again. This is the kind of place you come for at least 3-4 days and do nothing. Maybe next time – if it manages to stay that way. We were told they were already getting a lot more tourists than they could handle during the summer months, and the waiting time for the ferries could be several hours.

June 2017

Another thing most visitors do in this area is the Circum-Baikal Railway trip, and we did this when we came back to Irkutsk in June of 2017. We are glad we did it so that we can talk about it now. But, when we did it, we were not really all that happy.

First of all, it was raining on the day of our trip. This made it almost impossible to enjoy the scenery that is supposed to be spectacular. Second of all, our train car was filled with very loud tourists who never stopped talking, which made our head hurting like mad.

From what I gather, the train cost almost nothing if you booked on your own. But this historical railway originally built as a part of Trans-Siberian Railway is now almost entirely a tourist train. This means local tour companies are involved, and they gobble up the tickets. We had to buy a package from a local agency for $150 per person including a very humble lunch packet. The upside to this arrangement was that we could get the tickets last minute, like the day before. And, during the summer tourist season, the trains ran more than once every day.

The whole trip was to take 10 hours including the ferry ride at the end. The train started from Irkutsk Station and ended at the Baikal Station with a transfer in Slyudyanka, and it made several stops. They did have a recorded tour guide announcement going at each stop, but this was in Russian. Most people on the train had no idea what was being said. The $150 tour package did not come with any guide – in person or in a written form.

When we were finally relieved of all that noise by getting off the train at Baikal Station, a boat big enough to take only about 30-40 passengers was waiting to ferry the whole trainload of passengers to Listvyanka, from where we were to be bused back to Irkutsk. To make the matter worse, big tour groups were taken on the boat first. We looked around town to see whether we could have some snacks, but it was a sleepy fishing village that was not quite ready for foreign tourists. Just a few uninviting seafood restaurants were sitting there empty.

Then we spotted an open ferry boat that was about to leave the dock. We asked, “Listvyanka?” The answer was yes, and it was a ferry service for the locals. We hopped on happily quite willing to pay for the ride. No ticket takers or sellers.

At the dock in Lisyvyanka, we realized we were not far from the Baikal Museum, and that there was a bus stop in front of it. We hopped on the next minibus and were back in Irkutsk within 60 minutes.

Would we do it again? We do not feel the need. We’ve seen the scenery of the Lake from many different viewpoints, and we think we have a pretty good idea. If you want to do it, I’d say shop around and find the cheapest package available. They are all the same in essence.

The best view we managed to capture was this one.