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The 86-carat Spoonmaker Diamond was dazzling, the diamond-and-emerald encrusted daggers were mesmerizing, and the throne of emeralds and pearls was very, very impressive. But in Istanbul's Topkapi Palace, a magnificent complex created by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1468 and later enlarged by Suleyman the Magnificent, the most impressive and moving sight we encountered was not the glittering jewels, the shimmering pearls or the golden treasures.
Our magical moment came after we had toured the Harem, the 16th-Century Labyrinth of more than 400 rooms, hallways and terraces where the Sultan and his family and servants lived. We walked across the Third Court of the hilltop complex overlooking the Bosporus and entered a low pavilion where some of Islam's most sacred relics are displayed. There, in a room called the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle, we were inspecting the First Koran, and relics of the Prophet Mohammed: his sword, hair from his beard, teeth and earth from his tomb.
Then the sound began, at first a low moan that turned into a modulating wail. "It is the call to prayers," our guide explained. "Muslims pray five times a day."
We could hear the call to prayer echoing from loudspeakers on the towering minarets studding the city landscape. But this call, we noted, came not from an electronic speaker, but from much closer. We edged over to an arched window looking into an adjacent room, where, almost hidden by the wooden grate keeping us out of that room, a Muslim cleric knelt on a rug before a large copy of the Koran. His hair and long beard a platinum white, the cleric, dressed in a an elegant gown of red and white, chanted his prayers.
Here, while scores of nearby tourists gawked or took photographs of the more temporal attractions, the cleric focused his total attention to the realm of faith, praying with emotion and a solemnity in a way that gave us more understanding of the holy relics in the rooms behind us than any tour guide or book could ever do.
This display of faith was just one of the memorable moments we encountered last summer on a two-week "Cradles of Civilization Cruise" that focused on all of the major civilizations of the Mediterranean. Cradles of Civilization Cruise on the Royal Olympic Cruises' Stella Solaris. The itinerary was a natural for history and culture buffs, touching on more than five millennia of history.
The epoch-hopping, ruin-a-day itinerary was the strength of this cruise of the 620-passenger Stella Solaris. he cruise began in Athens, where we had spent a night in a hotel literally under the shadow of the Acropolis trying to overcome jet lag.
After a morning group tour of the Acropolis and the Parthenon, we boarded the Stella Solaris in Piraeus, the port of Athens, and sailed for Kos, a popular resort island better known as the birthplace of Hippocrates. We had only a half-day in Kos, so we explored the ruins of the Castle of the Knights, built in the 15th Century by the crusaders, and then walked along the cafes in the harbor.
By lunchtime on the next day, we were entering the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a busy commercial port city where we would board buses for a whirlwind visit that included the Citadel, the city's stronghold since the 12th Century, and the mosque of Mohammed Ali, the Egyptian ruler who forged an independent Egypt in the early 1800s. Then it was onto the Cairo's Museum of Egyptian Antiquities to see the treasures of King Tutankhamen, including his famous gold funeral mask and other artifacts, including gold-encased furniture, mummies of numerous pharaohs and other utensils of daily life. And finally the Pyramids, an eagerly awaited stop that turned irritating because the ceaseless hustling by postcard sellers, camel jockeys and other vendors constantly interrupted any attempts to just seethe pyramids.
After a brief (and thankfully uneventful) stop at the Sphinx, we boarded the buses for our drive north to Port Said, where we rejoined the ship.
We could have used a day or two to recharge our batteries after this trying tour of Egypt, but our next stop was another magical land&emdash;Israel, where we arranged for a guide to take us to Jerusalem.
Our guide, Birgit Fischermann, a Holocaust survivor from Denmark, met us with a van and driver on the dock in Ashdod, about an hour's drive from the city of Jerusalem. During the drive, she told us about the history of the area we were passing through, noting the frequent burned-out shells of vehicles on the roadside that stand as monuments to the 1948 war.
We took our van to the Dung Gate, where we entered the old city of Jerusalem. "Today is Friday," Birgit explained as we walked into the city, "and because it is a day of prayer for the Muslims we cannot go on Temple Mount."
Temple Mount is the place where King Solomon built the First Temple, which was destroyed, our guide tells us, by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. and replaced by the Second Temple 60 or so years later. The 30-acre stone platform is also home to the El Aksa Mosque, one of Islam's most sacred places.
We walked a bit farther and came to the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, the holiest of Jewish place because it is the only remnant of the wall that dates to the time of the Second Temple. Jews constantly, offer prayers to the wall (with men and women carefully segregated for religious reasons by fence-like barriers and several military vehicles and soldiers standing by to prevent any troubles). The intensity of the prayers is such that it seems we can feel the emotions even from our perch, about 25 yards from the wall.
Our next stops in this marvelous city are on the Via Dolorosa, the "Way of the Cross," the route that legend says Christ carried the cross on his way to his crucifixion. The streets in this area were narrow, cobble-stoned and lined with shops and vendors selling religious artifacts for all faiths.
Our final major stop in Jerusalem is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a religious center whose story tells much about Jerusalem. The church is divided among six different faiths: Roman Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Green Orthodox, Egyptian Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox and Syrian Orthodox.
After Egypt and Israel, we needed port calls that were easier on our psyches. Limassol, in Cyprus, offered us more ruins of a Greek theater decorated with mosaics and temple and then came Santorini, a chic resort known for its nightlife, shopping and sheer, picturesque cliffs left by an ancient volcanic eruption, filled the bill.
Our second week aboard took us first to Heraklion in Crete, where we took a tour of the ruins of the palace of Knossos, which legend says was where King Minos lived and the fabled Minotaur roamed a subterranean maze.
The cruise also took us to Rhodes, a walled city built by crusaders in the 13th and 14th centuries, where we walked the cobblestoned streets built by knights and toured the 14th-Century Palace of the Grand Masters, a showplace of Hellenistic and Roman mosaics and medieval architecture. Our next stop was Patmos, a small island known as the place where St. John the Divine wrote "Revelations" in a cave-like grotto.
We then left Greece for port calls in Turkey. First came Dikili, where passengers took a bus tour to Pergamum, a mountain citadel where psychiatry was first practiced many, many centuries ago, and then Kusadasi, a resort town where the major attraction is inland -- Ephesus, perhaps the finest archeological ruin from the Greco-Roman era, where we saw the grand facade of the Prytaneion, or city hall, whose four 30-foot-high columns are covered with inscriptions in Latin and the dramatic Library of Celsus, which has an 80-foot-high facade. Latin inscriptions attesting to the glory of one caesar or another decorate many stones in the walls.
Beyond the ancient shopping district is a 25,000-seat amphitheater, where the Apostle Paul preached here against the idol-makers, according to Acts, and was shouted down by the silversmith Demetrius, who saw Paul's preaching as a threat to his livelihood. The marble road leading to the amphitheater is the fabled Arcadian Way, where Anthony and Cleopatra once rode on their way to ancient Ephesus.
Our last major stop was another legendary city -- Istanbul, from which where the Sultans ruled much of the Mediterranean for centuries.
The top attraction here was the Topkapi Palace, but no less impressive was Hagia Sofia, a huge rust-red building just outside the Imperial Gate of Topkapi. Erected in 548 as Saint Sophia by the Emperor Justinian, and it was the greatest church in Christendom -- and the largest building in the world until St. Peter's was constructed in Rome -- until 1453, when Constantinople (the Byzantine name for Istanbul) was conquered by Mehmet II. Today the building is a mosque (though it still retains the Christian mosaics and stained-glass works).
After lunch, we caught a taxi and headed to the Covered Market (or Grand Bazaar) and the nearby Egyptian Bazaar, a confusing, crowded and often frenetic district with more than 4,000 shops, by one estimate. After a few purchases, we wearily returned to the ship.
This was the 12th day on the cruise, and by this time we were still if awe of all the history we had seen, legendary places from the Pyramids to the temple of King Solomon, from crusader castles to Greek temple. It was time to wind down from this history lesson with a day on the beaches at Mykonnos. After a cruise that took us through 5,000 years of history, it was the perfect, relaxing ending to our journey into the past.
WAYS & MEANS
The 14-day "Cradles of Civilization" cruise is offered July 20 and Aug. 10 this year by Royal Olympic Cruises. Cruise-only fares start at $2,725 per person, double occupancy (early booking and other discounts not included). Other itineraries are offered that include many of the stops we visited on our cruise. For more information, see a travel agent.
(c) 1998 Larry Fox and Barbara Radin Fox