But whether the state of exhaustion in which the early Anglo-Saxon, French or German traveller returned to his homeland was any less than that of his twentieth-century descendant is a moot point.
One of the most popular cruises available in this part of the world is the seven-day cruise departing from Piraeus and taking in a number of Aegean islands and Turkey. It is performed by more than a dozen finely-appointed cruise ships operated by various shipping companies but the itinerary is more or less the same for all and there is not much that differs among them in the way of shipboard entertainment, good food and impeccable service – or the grueling pace that starts as soon as you set foot on board. If you have the stamina of a cart-horse, the nimblefootedness of a mountain goat, the drinking capacity of W.C. Fields, and if you can go for a week without sleep, you can take it in your stride. But ordinary mortals are more likely to crawl off the ship at the end of the seven days and head for the nearest rest home.
The revelry begins as soon as the vessel has slipped its moorings in Piraeus and heads south for Santorini, the first port of call. The Captain’s Welcoming Cocktail Party is followed by a dinner with a menu that looks like the index of the Larousse Gastronomique. This is followed by dancing in the main ballroom and more dancing into the early hours of the morning in the discotheque where the hostess, usually a fine, bouncy specimen of twenty-year old British pulchritude, infects everybody with her sheer joie de vivre and gets the slackers on to the dance floor. A buffet supper in the discotheque is laid out to assuage any early morning pangs of hunger that may arise in the meantime.
Early next morning the ship puts in at Santorini where you are advised to wear “sensible shoes” for the shore excursion. You are then hoisted on to a stalwart mule that gallops up some five-hundred terraced and cobbled steps to the township at the top. You can use the mules for the downward journey as well but most cruise passengers prefer to negotiate the descent in their sensible shoes and dodge the mules as they go careering down to pick up more passengers from the landing stage.
Back on board for another irresistible menu in the dining room or a buffet lunch by the swimming pool and next thing you know the ship is alongside at Iraklion in Crete and off you go again on another shore excursion. This time it’s Knossos and the wonders of an umpteen-year-old civilization, but not an Alka Seltzer in sight. Then the museum with the treasures the obdurate Cretans have successfully prevented from going abroad, after which you return to the ship, change hurriedly for more cocktails and a Greek Taverna dinner in the dining room, with plenty of retsina and plastic vines hanging from the ceiling. This is followed by another late-night session in the nightclub discotheque with the peaches-and cream daughter of Albion.
You have hardly gone to bed when it is time to be up again and ready for the excursion to Lindos. Without your knowledge; the ship has surreptitiously steamed straight across the Aegean to Rhodes during the night. The journey to Lindos is a fifty-kilometre coach ride through the beautiful Rhodian countryside and the climb to the temple at Lindos is partly by mule and partly on foot. The time I did it I was in the company of a middle-aged gentleman from the Bronx who stopped half-way to mop his brow and ask me plaintively, “This is a vacation?”
After some scrambling among the ruins in one’s sensible shoes it’s down again to the coach and back to the ship for lunch. The souffle Grand Marnier has hardly settled in your stomach before you’re off again for the afternoon excursion to the town of Rhodes. Back on board again for a folk-dancing show by Rhodian damsels in national costume, another Lucullan dinner and yet another session in the nightclub with Britain’s answer to Ginger Rogers.
Next morning, the sensible shoes are donned once more for the excursion to Ephesus, the ship having stolen the march on you again by steaming overnight to Kusadasi on the coast of Asia Minor. Another coach ride and another walk through magnificent ruins and back on board for another superb lunch in the dining room or a buffet lunch by the swimming pool. This is followed by bingo or trap shooting or a bridge tournament and then a hilarious evening in the main lounge with a Fancy Hat Parade in which passengers have decorated their heads with bits of gay bunting, tinsel and old hand-bags. Finally, another session in the discotheque with the girl from the Hammersmith Palais de Danse.
The following morning you are in Istanbul for more sightseeing. The coaches whisk you round the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia and the Topkapi Museum in fifteen minutes flat and then leave you for two hours in the Grand Bazaar in the hope that you will spend your hard-earned dollars on camel saddles, leather pouffs, amber rosaries and other items that you need like a hole in the head.
Off again, this time for Patmos, and at the Cruise Manager’s earnest urgings, you agree to take part in the Amateur Night planned for that evening with your rendition of “On with the Motley” from “I Pagliacci”.
But after the Gala Buffet in the dining room at which the ship’s Chef has placed his entire culinary skill on display, you feel that any attempt to burst forth into song would create unspeakable hazards for the front row of your audience so you remove yourself unobtrusively to the night club and seek solace and a club soda with Twinkle toes. The following day is entirely taken up with the excursions to the monastery at Patmos and to the ruins of Delos, ending up with a stroll through the town of Mykonos with its picture-book windmills and wandering hippies.
Then comes the Captain’s Farewell Dinner and you skip the discotheque night club this time for a long session with the ship’s doctor who recommends a suitable nursing home to which you can repair to recuperate from a wonderful week that will remain indelibly carved on your memory, your waistline and on your sensible shoes for the rest of your life.
