We arrived in Istanbul two days before the cruise began to give ourselves a chance to adjust. We stayed near Topkapi in the old city (Asian) side.

We did our own tour of Ephesus

We opted to walk around Piraeus rather than go into Athens which we'd all visited before.

We did a couple of walks from the ship out exploring the walled crusader capitol of Rhodes

A small town but a major harbour for sailers and boaters.

We used our half-day to visit Jaffa and Tel Aviv instead of trying to get into Jerusalem from Ashdod (the port)