Mom and Other Classics

“Maybe she’s right,” I thought to myself, hanging onto my mother’s elbow and steering her around a fallen column at the ancient Turkish city of Ephesus. “Maybe this cruise really will be her last big trip.” As she sank down to rest on a block of white marble, a nightmarish thought occurred to me: “If she falls and breaks a hip, our trip would be over in an instant.”

My mother’s firm step and bright eyes usually fool strangers into thinking she’s younger than she is. She knows the truth. But her wry sense of humor and a near-photographic memory for a lifetime of extraordinary travels keeps them guessing. Seventy-five? they wonder. Eighty?

Now, for the first time in my memory, Elsa Zettelman, a white-haired, 90-year-old was flushed and breathless as she stepped over the uneven paving stones. Maybe she was right. At her age, each year makes a big difference.

“I’m sure this will be my last trip,” she had reminded me as we brought the suitcases in from the garage, setting her jaw to show she’d made up her mind. It was an announcement she made each time we embarked on another trip.

“I’m not worried about what happens to me, but the last thing I want to do is cause any work or worry for anyone else. At my age it seems foolish to take chances.”

“Sure, Mom,” I agreed, amused at the now-familiar conversation. We’d traveled together half a dozen times since my dad died, and each time she was sure it would be the last. So far we’d cheated the odds. Our trip last year, a two-week Greek Isles cruise on the Vistafjord, one of Cunard Line’s smaller, five-star ships, had been smooth from the start. Almost immediately, in fact, we’d been reminded that age and accidents are actually unrelated.

At our first port stop, Canakkale on the Turkish coast, a passenger pursuing that most perilous of all travel pastimes, souvenir shopping, slipped in a puddle and broke his leg.

“Oh, that poor man,” said Mother, as we stood at the rail and watched the ambulance pull away from the dock. “He’s going to miss everything. And he was only 62.”

She was thinking of the 10 more ports and the thousand-and-one ancient treasures still ahead of us: Istanbul, Ephesus, the walled medieval city of Rhodes, Santorini’s watery crater, the white-washed city of Mykonos, the Minoan Palace at Knosos on Crete, the ancient walled town of Monemvasia, Itea and the Delphi Oracle, the island of Corfu and, finally, Venice.

*

Traveling with my parents was always wonderful. But the trips mother and I’ve taken since my dad died, eight years ago, are experiences I wouldn’t have missed for anything. Standing together in the rain, sharing taxis with strangers, finding lost hotel reservations and deciphering subway maps changed our old mother-daughter relationship to a real friendship.

It worked so well we went to Spain, France, Mexico and England. She was the brains, planning the itinerary, reading historical accounts, poring over maps, comparing guidebooks and making lists of must-see sights. I provided the brawn, fetching suitcases, carrying souvenirs, calling taxis. But two years ago she had a new idea.

“Wouldn’t a cruise be a good idea?” she asked. “We won’t have to pack and unpack every night, or look for a good restaurant. It’ll be easier for you too. And,” she smiled, “I can wear those two silk dresses I bought at Draper’s.”

We’d have more time to sightsee, she said, to read guidebooks, even to relax. She was trying to persuade me because she wanted to see the great Greek and Roman ruins of the Aegean Sea. A classics major, she’d read the Aeneid in Latin but never visited Troy, studied the Odyssey in ancient Greek but had never been to Athens.

It sounded plausible. There was plenty of family history I remembered hearing and had always meant to get on tape before it was too late. Now I’d have time to listen to her recollections. I could even take my laptop and catch up on work.

Most compelling, I’d never been to Greece either, never climbed the rocky path up to the Parthenon or asked the Oracle at Delphi about my AT&T; stock. Never taken one of the rusty ferryboats that makes day trips to Delos from Mykonos--you can do it in a couple of hours while you’re in port--landing at the cove where ancient peoples stepped ashore to walk among the sacred marbles.

Besides, Mother was willing to do all the planning. And so she went to work with a pile of cruise brochures, comparing itineraries, examining cabin and deck layouts and checking shore excursions.

Finally, remembering half a dozen long-ago glorious Atlantic crossings with Cunard Line, she settled on the sentimental favorite, a Cunard ship, the Vistafjord, built in 1973 and overhauled in 1994 for $15 million. It’s a classic ship outfitted with brass hardware, mahogany paneling and teak decks.

In the 1920s, travelers chose shipping companies the way they choose airlines today. They find a favorite and stick with it. Cunard became Mother’s line of choice in 1924, when she sailed to France on the Canopic (of the White Star Line, later merged with Cunard) for a year of college at the Sorbonne. In 1925, she sailed home on the Berengaria, also a Cunard ship.

Somewhere on our cruise, halfway between Rhodes and Crete, we stopped to chat with Josef Gruber, the ship’s hotel manager. Immediately Mother spotted a framed picture of the Berengaria hanging over his desk.

“That was a German ship before Cunard bought it and renamed it, and it was really elegant,” she said. “I wonder where it went,” she added, as if mourning for a long-lost friend. And she beamed at Gruber.

The Vistafjord was a practical choice as well as a sentimental one. While we both prefer professional, big-budget entertainment, we also wanted to avoid the mega-decibel music and party atmosphere on so many big, mass-market cruise ships. The Vistafjord’s entertainment is cultural and there are history lectures, chamber music, piano concerts and opera recitals. The nightly floor show, with six fresh-faced young dancers and singers, was flashy enough to be fun, but wholesome enough to pass even William Bennett’s test of virtues.

Too straight-up to sound fun? It might have been, except for the other passengers, an above-average group of lively, intelligent, mostly well-educated people from a wide range of backgrounds. Our table companions included a psychologist, journalist, a doctor and his wife and a real estate agent and her friend.

Actually, Mother wasn’t the oldest person on board, that honor going to a 92-year-old great-grandmother who struggled to cope with the rough terrain and cobblestone paths we encountered on so many of the ship’s shore tours. But except for the acropolis at Lindos, on Rhodes, where the path was not only steep but narrow, most sites were fairly easy to reach.

At Delphi, built on the steep slopes of Mt. Parnassos, the long approach and the hot sun had Mother worried. “If it’s as steep as it looks from here, I don’t think I can make it,” she said, opening her guidebook to show me the map. I took her arm and we walked slowly up to where the guide had stopped to collect our group and was pointing at the plazas, colonnades and temples that climbed the hill toward the summit.

“I’ll wait here,” she said, sitting down on a marble block under a tree, “and enjoy the view.” I gave her my water bottle and the apple I’d brought from the dining room. “You go ahead,” she said, “you shouldn’t miss this.”

To see the ancient Greeks’ most sacred buildings, always built on the nearest high hill, or the acropolis, you have to drive. But since the Greeks actually lived near the sea, the oldest historic towns are usually near the harbor and easy to explore on foot.

*

The ship offered organized shore tours at every port except Mykonos, but if we went again I’d sightsee on my own, using local cabs. Fleets of them waited on every dock, looking for fares and willing to bargain. Shore tours may be a necessity in some foreign countries, but in Greece they’re slow, cumbersome and expensive. (As on all cruise ships, the Vistafjord’s shore tours cost extra, from $28 to $140.) At Ephesus, Knosos and Delphi, we arrived by tour bus en masse, only to find other Vistafjord passengers who’d grabbed a cab and gotten there two hours earlier.

On most days, Mother was her old self, eager to see the sights, remembering every museum with uncanny accuracy and always ready to entertain our table companions with tales of traveling when guides were few, roads were poor and tourists were almost unknown. But for the first time she was glad to retreat to the cabin for an afternoon nap, and to trade the evening floor show for an early bedtime.

As the cruise wound down, we attended a Skald Club party for repeat passengers and watched, amazed, while the cruise staff awarded pins and certificates for 100 days of cruising, 200, 500, even 750. The grand prize went to one 60ish couple, the Putnams, who’d cruised for a mind-boggling 1,051 days.

A week after we’d come home and were settled in, I stopped by Mother’s one afternoon to see how she was doing. I expected to find her reading, but she was sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of cruise brochures.

“Oh, I’m all caught up on my rest and feeling fine,” she said. “And I’ve been reading about these cruises to South America. Of course, I wouldn’t want to cause any extra work for anyone, but some look easy, even for me. What do you think?”

Who knows, I thought, trying to keep a straight face. Maybe she’s right.

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GUIDEBOOK

Greek Island

Odyssey

If you go: The Vistafjord is operated by Cunard Cruise Lines, which has five luxury ships. Vistafjord capacity’s is 677 passengers, and it was last refurbished in 1994. It has one dining room (single seating) and one restaurant. Some formal evenings.

Itineraries: Various 12-day Mediterranean itineraries in spring and fall. Cruises involving Greek islands depart: May 5, May 24, Sept. 13, Sept. 25 and Oct. 7. Many cruise lines offer Greek island itineraries; ask your travel agent.

Cost: Advertised per-person, double-occupancy rates from $4,940 for cheapest inside cabins, air fare included. Advance purchase discounts available. Shore excursions extra.

For more information: Cunard Cruise Lines, 555 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10017; telephone (800) 528-6273.