adriatic, greek isles & egypt explorer | venice to cairo

Of all the cities in the world, only Paris comes remotely close to matching Venice in terms of sheer beauty and romance. You've seen it in photos and films, but there's no substitute for the reality -- the shimmering Grand Canal, the gondolas slipping down watery alleyways, the elegant palazzos emerging straight from the sea.

Venice once ruled the Mediterranean as a shipping power, amassing vast wealth and producing some of Europe's greatest artistic and cultural treasures. But, over the centuries, Venice has declined a bit and now has less than half the population it had at its peak. What remains of its former grandeur -- the crumbling palaces, the sumptuous art in its museums and churches, the fantastic rituals of Carnevale -- makes Venice a living tribute to the past.

Aside from a number of charming squares, such as the famous Piazza San Marco, Venice is mostly composed of a warren of narrow canals and streets spread over more than 100 islands. These tangled passageways are an attraction among themselves. There are few better cities to simply get lost in, particularly if you want to escape the tourist hordes that clog the main arteries around San Marco and the Rialto Bridge.

So once you've seen the major sights, fold up your map, and set off on foot. You'll discover pretty, residential neighborhoods with colorful flowerboxes in the windows and clean laundry billowing in the breeze. You'll discover tiny trattorias where the locals enjoy the catch of the day. And, away from the vaporetti (water taxis) and motorboat traffic on the Grand Canal, you'll discover one more pleasure of this place, aptly dubbed La Serenissima -- the unexpected quiet of a city without cars.

The seaside Greek town of Katakolon, with a population around 600, is your typical small-town cruise port -- fishing boats bob in the harbor; cafes lace the waterfront; shops sell T-shirts, hats and jewelry; and a small beach draws swimmers and splashers. But that's not why ships make this town a destination. They arrive because Katakolon serves as the cruise gateway to Ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games. Drive 40 minutes from Katakolon and you are transported back thousands of years. Stroll the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ancient Olympia, and you walk in the footsteps of early Greek and Roman athletes -- wrestlers, chariot drivers, discus throwers, runners and long-jumpers -- who vied for glory and the gods' favor. Stand alongside the massive columns, and, with the tales of a good guide, you can envision the once-magnificent temples, athletes training in the palestra and runners readying on the track. Alexander the Great, Nero, Plato and Aristotle are among those who watched the games from where you stand. Tourists flock to the site and its companion museums, including the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, a treasure trove of pieced-together sculptures and statues that once adorned the ancient structures, and the Museum of the History of the Ancient Olympic Games, where you can learn about the original competitions. If you've already visited Ancient Olympia, there are other sights in the area, including the spectacular temple of Apollo Epicurius and the medieval Chlemoutsi (Hlemoutsi) fortress -- or seek out the golden-sand beaches that ring the Gulf of Kyparissia. Note: We recommend that you use Google Maps to locate the destinations in this guide by entering the name of an attraction or business, rather than the address, which often stumps Google Maps. You should also confirm the hours, which are changeable, based on the season and day you will visit. In some cases, the fact that there's a ship in port will also affect opening times.

Olive groves, mountains and beaches made for swimming and sandcastles; Crete is as beautiful as it is fascinating. See Greek mythology come to life as you visit ancient ruins like Knossos, home to the legend of the labyrinth and its Minotaur. 

Rhodes, with an average of 300 sunny days per year and mild temperatures in the winter, has been a popular tourist attraction for centuries. Located 12 miles off the coast of Turkey, it's the largest of Greece's 12 Dodecanese islands. Rhodes sits in the Aegean Sea, and its beautiful blue green waters reflect a tropical paradise. The island features 35 beaches and many cultural and historical attractions.

The view from the sea is spectacular as you sail into the port of Rhodes. It's one of the best preserved medieval towns in the world and a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. The ship disembarks its passengers just outside of Old Town, a maze of cobblestone streets, flanked by historic buildings dating from the 14th century.

Between the city's sturdy walls, magnificent palaces, fascinating museums and ornate mosques line the narrow, atmospheric passageways and carefully planned squares. Souvenir shops, restaurants and boutiques are plentiful in Old Town.

The main attraction here is the Palace of the Grand Masters, built in the 14th century by the Knights of St. John. The structure survived an earthquake but was destroyed by an explosion in 1856; it was later restored by the Italians in the 1930's. Now a museum, the palace contains priceless mosaics, sculptures and exhibitions of medieval and ancient Rhodes civilizations.

But it is not just Old Town that attracts visitors to this beautiful island. The New Town, located across Mandraki Harbor from Old Town, contains a large marketplace, the Nea Agora, which contains a food court, gift shops, cafes and bars. New Town also offers many luxury hotels and beautiful beaches that attract vacationers who enjoy paragliding, windsurfing, swimming and sunbathing. A casino also is available for those who want to try their luck at games of chance.

Cruise ships offer half-day tours that include Old Town sites and full-day tours that include jeep tours of the island and visits to the ancient city of Lindos with its cliffside acropolis, whitewashed houses and picturesque scenery. Guided tours and excursion boat tours are also available, but just walking around with a guidebook will be enough to enjoy this interesting and picturesque part of the world.

Limassol, the largest coastal town in Cyprus, sprawls around Akrotiri Bay, midway between Larnaca and Paphos and close to the southern foothills of the Troodos Mountains. It's the island's principal cruise port.

Cyprus is the kind of destination where you have to venture off the beaten track to uncover the true nature of the place. At first glance, Limassol is a low-rise, sun-baked, urban sprawl, slightly chaotic and architecturally uninspiring. Scratch the surface, particularly around the castle area, and you'll find a tangle of shady, pedestrianized streets in the medieval centre; ancient mosques alongside Greek Orthodox churches; and broad shopping boulevards, lined with boutiques that showcase up-and-coming designers. Its waterfront, still in the process of being developed, offers a sculpture park and lovely vistas of the bay. All in all, Limassol has, for years, been a pleasant -- if not exactly cutting-edge -- destination, in terms of style and cuisine.

Immediately outside the town are rolling hills, olive and citrus groves and tiny villages, where locals still use donkeys for transport. Limassol is at the heart of the island's wine-growing industry, and visitors will see dusty vineyards, clinging to the sun-bleached, sloping hills.

It might not otherwise feel old, but Limassol, which dates to at least 2000 B.C., is the gateway to sites of antiquity, such as Kourion, with its Greco-Roman Theatre, and, nearby, the Temple of Apollo. Also worth a look is Nicosia, the only capital city in the world to be divided by force (by Turkish and Greek Cypriots).

If you feel like a low-key day, you'll appreciate Limassol itself. Despite the city's busy urban setting, Limassol's 200,000 residents demonstrate a healthy respect for the work-life balance, spending time in coffee shops, strolling along the beach in the evenings and dining in large family groups in the many tavernas and restaurants. This attitude gives the town a holiday atmosphere, even in the spring and late autumn. The tourist season is long, with cruise ships calling from April or May up until early November. Limassol essentially exists in two parts. The main town is the closest area to the port, where you'll find, just inland, the medieval castle and the main shopping boulevards of Makarios III and Agiou Andreou. The beach stretches all the way from the waterfront to the far end of Akrotiri Bay, a narrow ribbon of development that has been dedicated mainly to four- and five-star hotels.

Limassol is ideally situated for cruise passengers, as it's in the middle of everything. The important archaeological sites of Kourion, Kolossi Castle and Limassol Castle are less than 30 minutes from the port. Day trips into the mountains and wine-growing areas are easily manageable. Paphos, an attractive UNESCO World Heritage site and major tourist centre, is less than an hour away -- thanks to efficient motorway links -- while the capital, Nicosia, is an hour inland to the northeast.

Visitors to Cyprus tend to remember the friendliness of its people. Everybody in the hospitality trade speaks English, and everybody -- from taxi drivers to taverna proprietors -- will engage visitors in conversation. People are not on the make here, although they're pretty entrepreneurial; they're just naturally and delightfully hospitable.

Pick up just about any travel guide on Cairo, and you'll read about horrendous traffic, poor air quality, poverty and an unrelenting assault on the senses that can send the unprepared traveler into orbit.

The guides have it right. As cities go, Cairo is a tough customer. And the various strikes and protests that have continued since the country's January 2011 revolution -- some of them violent -- have made life in the Egyptian capital even more unpredictable.

But it's also a place with unique appeal. As a tourist destination, Cairo is known as the gateway to the legendary Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, fixtures in our psyche. But there are also mosques that are architectural masterpieces, still-inhabited neighbourhoods that evoke thoughts of ancient Egypt, churches that date back to the beginning of Christendom, one of the largest bazaars in the world and, of course, the mighty Nile river.

Cairo traces its origins back to the Egyptian capital of Memphis, believed to have been founded in the fourth century B.C. Today, with a population of 16 million, it's both bustling and chaotic, but there are places to find respite, such as leafy Zemalek Island and the Citadel, the largest fortification in the Islamic world, which has dominated Cairo's skyline since 1176. From the Mohammed Ali Mosque at the fortress, you'll encounter views of the sand-coloured city that bring to mind storybook Egypt. As a man notes in a tale from "One Thousand and One Nights," "He who has not seen Cairo has not seen the world."

Because it is often treated as a pass-through to the Pyramids and Nile River cruises, most travellers don't linger in Cairo -- except, perhaps, to take a perfunctory look at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities' world-class collection of treasures or to take a curious look at Tahrir Square, where 2011's Arab Spring arguably began. And that's too bad, because this is a city that deserves far more than a fleeting first impression.

It wasn't Rome or Athens that intellectually dominated the ancient world, as most assume, but Alexandria of Egypt. It was here that humans first realized the world wasn't flat, invented geometry, built the steam engine, created latitude and longitude, and drew the first accurate maps of the world.

As Justin Pollard and Howard Reid note in their recent must-read book, The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind, "Alexandria was the greatest mental crucible the world has ever known, the place where ideas originating in obscure antiquity were forged into intellectual constructs that far outlasted the city itself. If the Renaissance was the 'rebirth' of learning that led to our modern world, then Alexandria was its original birthplace. Our politics may be modeled on Greek prototypes, our public architecture on Roman antecedents, but in our minds we are all the children of Alexandria."

Who knew?

Founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., Alexandria today is a bustling, modern city (though calmer than frenetic Cairo, about three hours away) with sadly little to show of its incredible ancient roots. However, with a population of roughly four million, it is an important commercial and cultural center blissfully situated on the Mediterranean coast. It's no coincidence that Alexandria is known as "The Pearl of the Mediterranean."

Almost 90 percent of Alexandrians are Sunni Muslims. Listen up for the spellbinding calls to prayer that resonate across town from the city's minarets five times a day. Cafes and shops will suddenly empty as men make their way toward their prayer rugs. One mosque of note: Abu Abbas al-Mursi, on Sharia Fransa, just a block from the seafront boulevard called Corniche, is a striking example of Islamic architecture that draws thousands of worshipers for the noon prayer on Fridays.

The first thing that strikes you on arrival in Split, Croatia, is how very busy it is. The quayside is lined with local ferry boats -- some wood-trimmed and charmingly old fashioned, with room for no more than about 12 passengers -- and there are hordes of young backpackers embarking or disembarking as they make their way around one of Europe's most beautiful regions. Bigger ferries and cruise ships come into the main terminal, and from there it's a short but uphill walk to the Old Town with its market and the world-famous jewel that lies at Split's heart, the magnificent Palace of Diocletian. En route you'll encounter plenty of those gap-year kids, some toting backpacks or wheeling cases, others sitting -- rapt in young love -- on the many wooden, sea-facing benches that line the harbour front. Split's youthful buzz arises partly from its status as a university town and partly from its position as a jumping-off point for exploring Dalmatia's lovely coast and islands. So it's hardly surprising that it has such a young population -- and the affordable bars and lively nightlife that go with it. But older travellers arriving by cruise ship should not feel left out, for there is much to enjoy in this delightful port, from elegant pastel-coloured tea shops and great restaurants to even better shops. There's also a museum featuring the works of Ivan Mestrovic, one of Croatia's greatest sculptors. And, of course, there's that magnificent palace, built by a Roman emperor around 2,000 years ago.
  

Of all the cities in the world, only Paris comes remotely close to matching Venice in terms of sheer beauty and romance. You've seen it in photos and films, but there's no substitute for the reality -- the shimmering Grand Canal, the gondolas slipping down watery alleyways, the elegant palazzos emerging straight from the sea.

Venice once ruled the Mediterranean as a shipping power, amassing vast wealth and producing some of Europe's greatest artistic and cultural treasures. But, over the centuries, Venice has declined a bit and now has less than half the population it had at its peak. What remains of its former grandeur -- the crumbling palaces, the sumptuous art in its museums and churches, the fantastic rituals of Carnevale -- makes Venice a living tribute to the past.

Aside from a number of charming squares, such as the famous Piazza San Marco, Venice is mostly composed of a warren of narrow canals and streets spread over more than 100 islands. These tangled passageways are an attraction among themselves. There are few better cities to simply get lost in, particularly if you want to escape the tourist hordes that clog the main arteries around San Marco and the Rialto Bridge.

So once you've seen the major sights, fold up your map, and set off on foot. You'll discover pretty, residential neighborhoods with colorful flowerboxes in the windows and clean laundry billowing in the breeze. You'll discover tiny trattorias where the locals enjoy the catch of the day. And, away from the vaporetti (water taxis) and motorboat traffic on the Grand Canal, you'll discover one more pleasure of this place, aptly dubbed La Serenissima -- the unexpected quiet of a city without cars.