Cruise across the Mediterranean - Athens to Malaga, via Valletta

RooFlyer · 2026-11-15T19:59:42+1100

So, to boarding. No upgrade

So kept my 'upper deck balcony stateroom' which means I get a door or a sliding door onto my balcony (I got a door) and I've chosen midships of deck 4. Deck 3 only has a door on a smaller balcony. Deck 5 has the same room, but is more expensive due to being higher and deck 6 has most of the suites.

Le Champlain.

https://au.ponant.com/cruise-ships/le-champlain?_gl=1*1jlsij1*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTY5MzY0NDk4Ni4xNzk0NzMzMjA2*_ga_XZ08FWYJLB*czE3OTQ3MzMyMDYkbzEkZzAkdDE3OTQ3MzMyMDYkajYwJGwwJGg5MjQ2ODI5MTQ.

Fully stocked and included minibar, refreshed daily. You can ask for your particular sprits, mixers etc

Summary of the cruise

There was a 'solo passengers get together, with canapes and Champagne', and I found a great group of about a dozen - USA, Canada, Switzerland, France, Australia. We socialised, trivia-ed and ate together throughout the voyage.

You can eat in the a la carte restaurant, Le Nautilis on deck 4 or buffet and a la carte on the outside pool deck, deck 3.

Occy

RooFlyer · 2026-11-15T21:18:19+1100

We sailed in calm seas overnight to Nafpilon and from there to visit Edpidaurus and Myceanae

There are usually 2 included excursions choices at each port, do one. Then the pax for each excursion are divided into French and English groups, separate busses and guides.

Driving out to Epidaurus

There we found out about Asklepios. He was the Greek god of medicine and healing. He was the son of Apollo and a mortal woman, Koronis. The myth says Koronis was unfaithful to Apollo while pregnant, and she was killed, either by Apollo’s sister Artemis or by Apollo himself. As her body burned on the funeral pyre, Apollo snatched the unborn child from her. One tradition, including one connected to Epidaurus, say Koronis gave birth in secret and exposed the child on a mountain, where he was nursed by a goat and guarded by a dog.

His wife was Epione, whose name means “soothing,” and their children personified aspects of health. Hygieia stood for hygiene and prevention (the root of our word “hygiene”), and Panakeia was the all-healing remedy (the root of “panacea”). Iaso represented recovery, Aglaia radiance, and Akeso the healing process. His sons Machaon and Podaleirios were physicians who served with the Greek army at Troy in Homer’s Iliad, where Asklepios himself appears only as a human healer, a sign that his divine status developed later.

Asklepios became so skilled that he could bring the dead back to life. Zeus, fearing this would upset the natural order, struck him down with a thunderbolt. Apollo, furious, killed the Cyclopes who forged the bolt, and was punished with a period of servitude to a mortal. Zeus then placed Asklepios among the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus, the “serpent bearer.” His most recognizable emblem is the Rod of Asklepios, a staff with a single snake coiled around it. Snakes symbolized renewal, since they shed their skin, and harmless snakes were kept in his sanctuaries and allowed to crawl among sleeping patients. The Rod of Asklepios is the emblem of the World Health Organization.

The Epidaurus site was a complex of a healing centre. Its most famous part is the theatre, well preserved and having almost parfect acoustics.

By the sixth century BCE the sanctuary of Asklepios was developing, and by the fourth century it had become the most celebrated healing center in the Greek world. Pilgrims came to sleep in the abaton, a dormitory where they hoped the god would visit them in dreams and prescribe a cure. Inscribed stone tablets recorded miraculous recoveries. Alongside this religious practice, the sanctuary offered baths, diet regimens, exercise, and rest, so it blended ritual and practical care.

In the late fourth century BCE, the architect Polykleitos the Younger designed the sanctuary’s theatre, famous also for its harmonious proportions. It seated around 14,000 spectators and hosted dramatic and musical contests during festivals such as the Asklepieia. Other structures included the tholos, a temple of Artemis, a stadium, and guesthouses for visitors.

There is a small museum, containing medical artifacts and and statues.

Statue of Hygea, with snake.

A stadium for racing, exercise etc

Quite a bit more to the site - dorms, refectories etc for the pilgrims

RooFlyer · 2026-11-15T22:41:29+1100

Quickstatus said:
Can you drop luggage with the ship to facilitate more wanderings before boarding?

Sometimes. This was the best for me - you could drop off from 10am and wander until boarding at 3pm. But not always.

RooFlyer · 2026-11-16T08:06:21+1100

A short onward drive to Mycenae and its palace.

Mycenae gave its name to the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece in the Late Bronze Age. The site was inhabited from the Neolithic period, but it rose to prominence around 1600 BCE, when elite burials in circular grave structures reveal a society enriched by trade and warfare. The famous gold funerary masks, daggers, and jewellery found there, including the so-called Mask of Agamemnon, show wealth and contact with Crete, Egypt, and the Near East.

Between about 1350 and 1200 BCE, Mycenae reached its height. Its rulers built the massive 'Cyclopean walls' around the palace, named by later Greeks who believed only giants could have moved such stones, and the monumental Lion Gate. Beehive-shaped tombs, such as the so-called 'Treasury of Atreus', were constructed for royalty. Clay tablets in Linear B script, an early form of Greek, show a bureaucratic economy that tracked goods, labor, and offerings. In Greek tradition, Mycenae was the seat of Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces at Troy, though the historical relationship between myth and archaeology remains debated. The script Linear A remains undeciphered.

Around 1200 BCE the palace was destroyed, part of the wider collapse of Bronze Age societies in the eastern Mediterranean. Causes may include earthquakes, internal conflict, invasion, and systemic disruption of trade. Mycenae continued as a smaller settlement for centuries. It sent a contingent to fight at Thermopylae and Plataea in 480-479 BCE, but Argos destroyed it in about 468 BCE. A modest Hellenistic and Roman presence followed. Heinrich Schliemann’s excavations in 1874 and 1876 revived worldwide interest, and the site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

the palace from near the 'Treasury of Atreus' tomb.