Patmos Island

 We headed back on the bus after seeing Ephesus and headed to a place where they made Turkish rugs!  OH MY GOSH - what a process they go though to make these fabulous rugs!  And no wonder they cost so much!  The guy did a wonderful job of explaining the process!

It takes hours and hours and hours to make one rug!

And after the demonstration, all the workers came to this huge back room - we were all served either juice or wine and the workers started picking up rugs and spreading them out for all of us to see!  They were all beautiful!

And of course the selling process started after that - the cheapest one started about $1000!!  No, I didn't buy one - but I think a couple of people bought small ones!  But they were quite high pressure salesman which I never enjoy!

Then it was back to the cruise ship for a late lunch AND FINALLY special coffee for me - oh it tasted SO GOOD!

We had a little bit of free time as the boat was cruising towards Patmos Island - here again, most of the groups on the boat were getting off to tour Patmos Island - we waited and waited in the auditorium for the guy to call our group - and darn it, we were the LAST group called to ride the boat in (the ship couldn't dock at this island) and get on our bus - by this time it is getting to be dusk!

Here's Patty and Janis (Janis attends Eagle Grove Lutheran Church where Patty's son in law Jason is Pastor)

And here's Marla and I - Marla also attends Jason's church!

And a nice picture of the cruise ship from our boat!

I took this picture before I got on the bus - as you can see it's getting darker out but all those white buildings sure stood out!

We started climbing up higher in the bus and soon were there - we had arrived at the Monastery of St. John where John received inspiration for the Book of Revelation!

Our guide specifically told us that as long as we could see the sky, we could take pictures - but everywhere else was off limits!  So not a lot of pictures from this monastery.  We were in a very old part of the building when I snapped these!

Finally it was our turn to see where John lived and spent out his last days - very moving - very interesting!  The pathways were dark and rocky so we really had to watch where we walked and use our flashlights on our phone!

And the view of the town from up high where we were!

By this time it's really getting late and we hadn't had dinner - but we were assured there was food waiting for us at the buffet!

This was waiting for us on our bed after we got back to the ship and had a bite to eat!

It was a ROUGH night!  The seas must have been bumpy because there were noises most of the night - clanging and banging and I don't think anybody got a good nights' sleep!