Whatever “It” Turns Out to Be! Our Mediterranean Journey.

Some of the best trips in my life have happened on the spur of the moment.

This is not one of those.

No, this trip started years ago, with a thousand little prompts in the quiet spaces of our lives—tiny pieces of information here and there in conversations after dinner.

You know it when you hear it: that longing you hear in someone's voice as they look at old family photos and relive a time and place now gone.

Sometimes a trip like this grows so loud that it demands to be taken.

This trip was a surprise anniversary cruise for my wife through the Mediterranean.

Although it didn’t become some grand revelation, it did morph into an unintentional sneak peek.

Let me explain.

I chose the itinerary based on the hard-learned classic game of marital give-and-take.

Rome has been my wife’s absolute “must-see again” place” for decades; her father had lived and studied there, and she grew up on his stories, seeing it through his eyes before visiting it with her sisters to see it with her own eyes many years later.

And she was dying to share her Rome with me.

Pompeii, on the other hand, was my bucket-list item. I am a history nerd, and I love to marvel at architecture and think about how it all works.

The rest of the ports—Crete, Ephesus, Mykonos, and Athens—were shared wildcards, and places that we wanted to see each of us having our own reasons.

Rome did not disappoint.

For me, watching my wife return to a place she hadn’t seen in over a quarter-century was just as enjoyable as seeing the sites myself.

I loved the sparkle in her eyes as we rounded a corner, and she’d call out, “There it is, Glen!” The Trevi Fountain!" “The Coloseum” “The Spanish Stairs”.

Of course, it was followed by the inevitable, “Wow, it is packed.’”" It wasn’t this busy when my sisters and I were here! " 

Followed by the story of what she and her sisters did when they were here last at this very spot.

Her happiness was indeed infectious.

We walked, talked, and ducked into lively cafés, and ate incredible food. I wasn't just seeing an ancient city; I was watching it come alive through her eyes.

And I love those eyes.

Then came Pompeii.

If Rome felt layered and living, Pompeii felt paused, frozen, and heavy.

I found myself slowing down, thinking deeply, and being struck by the regular human details.

I sat with the realization that I was walking through the last ordinary day of thousands of lives—places where people cooked, argued, laughed, and made plans for a tomorrow that was never to come.

There is something very different about reading that a city was destroyed almost two thousand years ago and actually walking down one of its streets.

After the splendor and bustle of Rome and then the weight of Pompeii, Naples, and Sorrento were both a beautiful chance to exhale.

Neither of us arrived with some great list of things we had to see. We wandered.

We looked around. We found cafés. We ate. We watched people. We enjoyed the views. Took pictures; just let ourselves be tourists and soak it all in.

Sometimes that's more than enough.

We were scheduled for a sea day after that, just watching the water, enjoying the ship, sitting on the balcony, but Mount Etna in Sicily had other plans.

She decided to erupt while we were enroute to the Greek islands.

She didn't check our cruise itinerary first, nor did she seem to care about any inconvenience she was causing the human race at all.

Volcanoes!

We had to sit tight outside the Strait of Messina until the winds changed and the volcanic ash wasn't a risk anymore.

LOL. There are worse places to wait and worse reasons to be late.

Crete was a complete wildcard.

Neither of us had any preconceived notions beyond the Instagram photos we had seen and the YouTube videos we had watched.

We started with a tour of the Arkadi Monastery.

It is one of those beautiful, surreal places, surrounded by mountains and lush valleys, built with lovely architecture, and all wrapped up in a super sad, tragic history that hangs heavy when you stand there.

After that, we hit Rethymnon—an ancient town with great photo ops at every turn, twisting turning streets, white buildings, and beautiful tile work everywhere.

We had a fantastic lunch at a little taverna, just enjoying each other’s company and talking about the day as it was unfolding.

Then off to Chania. A beautiful harbor city on the coast, where we did some window shopping, had a few cold drinks, and explored more streets that were worth getting lost in.

We loved our day in Crete. Sunny, clear blue water, breathtaking mountains.

We will absolutely go back, but to see the things we missed, not to repeat what we already did.

We woke up after another sea day in Turkei.

Ephesus was a big one for both of us, though for very different reasons.

She was excited by the biblical history—Paul and John had walked those paths, preached at places in this very city, and were imprisoned there.

Tradition also says John brought Mary here to live out her last days.  

Ephesus is one of those places where photographs simply don't convey the scale. You can know what you're going to see and still not really understand it until you're standing there.

The streets.

The library.

The theaters.

The public spaces.

This was not some little ancient settlement.

This was not just a major city. 

This was a rich, powerful city, a place that mattered in the world and time in which it existed.

And strangely, what fascinated me almost more than what Ephesus had been, was what eventually happened to it. 

There wasn't one single moment when this magnificent city simply ended.

There were earthquakes,

attacks,

changes in trade, and political power,

as the harbor slowly silted up; the people kept slowly moving out—

time and circumstance kept working on it.

People rebuilt a little less each time.

Things changed.

The world moved on.

And eventually, Ephesus. A city, a place that everyone had known for centuries, a city whose power could shake the world of its time, was slowly abandoned, buried, and forgotten.

Standing there among all that stone, I couldn't help thinking about how permanent things can seem when we're living inside them.

And how little permanence actually exists.

Time, still an undefeated champion.

But that's probably another story for another day.

After the morning in Ephesus, we spent the rest of the day in the port city of Kusadasi, where we stepped right back into the present.

Busy streets.

Shops.

People everywhere.

We walked the city streets, took in the sights, and stopped for a cold drink here and there.

A fabulous way to wind down the day.

I liked that contrast.

Mykonos was beautiful.

White buildings, blue water, windmills, sunshine.

We wandered, took pictures, had lunch and drinks, and took a boat ride across the beautiful blue water of the harbor.

Just relaxed and enjoyed the day.

But one single day was enough.

Athens is, of course, iconic.

Yes, of course, we saw the Acropolis, but you can’t go to Athens and not be smacked by history.

It is everywhere. Temples and ruins appear almost casually inside a modern city that has simply grown around them.

I love that stuff.

But my favorite memory isn’t going to be the ancient stones, or the stories they told.

It’s the fact that my old buddy, Keith, lives there now. His wife is Greek, so when he retired, they moved there to be close to her side of the family.

Instead of navigating Athens like lost tourists, we spent the day touring Keith's adopted home with him.

Hit some temples, laughed a lot, and ended the trip sitting over a wonderful dinner outside in perfect weather, having drinks and looking out across the blue waters of the Aegean Sea.

To quote Keith on his retirement life: "Sunshine, beaches, fresh markets, family, food, drinks, rinse and repeat. I LOVE IT."

There is a lesson in that statement for sure!

Looking back, one of the things I appreciated most about this anniversary wasn't any single destination.

It was how differently we experienced them, yet we experienced them together.

Rome was a place my wife had carried with her for decades, and now she got to share it with me.

Pompeii was something I had wanted to see for years, and she went there at first because it mattered to me; but she found herself deeply affected by the story and the meaning of what had happened there.

Pompeii touched her and ended up not being just abstract old ruins; it ended up being a place that mattered.

Then there were places neither of us knew.

Places we discovered together.

There is something special about shared discovery when you have been together a long time.

So much of a marriage eventually becomes familiar.

You know the stories. You know the routines.

You know the look that says, "I'm ready to go," without a word being spoken. 

Sometimes I may need the little kick under the table, saying, “that means now Glen”.

There is comfort in that familiarity, even if it comes with a pain in the shin.

But there is also something pretty wonderful about turning a corner together and both saying:

"Wow. Look at that."

A first for us.

Another memory neither of us owned before that moment.

Yes, we came home with hundreds of pictures, a few souvenirs, and a growing list of places we would like to see again.

I am already retired; my wife isn’t quite there. Her ongoing career acts like a light anchor for us right now.

It keeps us attached to our routines, but it is not set; it is loosely dragging across the bottom, allowing us to drift into the current of what comes next.

I am realizing that’s not such a bad way to ease into whatever comes next.

A trip here. A few weeks there. See what we like. See what we don't.

Figure it out as we go.

No need to have all the answers just yet. Heck, we are still working out the questions, to be honest.

For a little while longer, we are still in the tunnel, but that light is getting pretty bright at the end.

Maybe being eased into it while my wife is still working is good for us. It keeps us from trying to figure everything out at once.

We get these little previews. We travel. We come home. We talk about what we enjoyed and what we'd do differently next time.

And sitting there over dinner in Athens, looking out over the Aegean with my wife and an old friend, I had one of those simple thoughts that didn't need much analysis.

There's another possible version of life sitting right in front of you.

We had a hell of a good trip. We each brought something to it.

We discovered some things together.

It occasionally made me look backward at the life we've lived and forward toward whatever we're building.

And from what I've seen so far, I'm pretty damn excited about it.

Whatever "it" turns out to be.

I write this knowing how truly blessed I am!

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