My September Vacation

Part of Thaao's love for visiting these destinations comes from his interest in archeology. To that end, he visits places you may remember from world history or maybe even from the Iliad or the Odyssey. First, Thaao visited Troy, which you might have learned about when you studied the Trojan War.

Above an amphitheatre.

"I did take a journey to Troy and that was fantastic. I found some caviar and some champagne. I'd always wanted to do it. I put a towel out and sat and looked over the ancient site, where nine cities were built over each other, and imagined the war that took place between the Greeks and the Romans."

Next, Thaao traveled some place you might remember from more recent history, if you consider the First World War "recent." In the battle of Gallipoli, the Allied forces of Britain and France mounted an offensive against the Ottoman capital of Istanbul. The battle is considered to have awakened in the Australians and New Zealanders a national consciousness, replacing their identity as members of the British Empire. To this day, the battle is commemorated in these southern hemisphere countries by ANZAC Day, for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

With a three thousand year old tree.

The naval attack targeted the narrowest part of the Dardanelles, where the strait is only a mile wide. "The waters are so calm, you'd never think we lost that many men," Thaao noted. "But there's an incredible stand there with a sign that said that the 'Johnnies and the Mehmets here are buried and we fought each other but having died here together they became our brothers as well.'" The Australians lost 400,000 men in the battle of Gallipoli.

Next stop in Turkey was the Cappadocia. Here, Thaao visited some ancient Christian sites where they cut churches out of the limestone. He also stopped at a city that was nine stories under the earth. "It's just amazing how they lived, hiding from the Romans. By the time I got down to the third stage of the city," Thaao said, "I couldn't take it anymore. I got so claustrophobic that I had to leave." Outside of this ancient buried city, he found some grapes growing wild, "white and red grapes, and I just put my whole face into them, there were so many, and just ate. It was like ancient times. You're parched in the desert; how do you find food?"

The spot where Moses produced water for his people.

As is usual for a trip of Thaao's, there was a little danger involved; thankfully, it didn't come from how close he got to the current war in Iraq. Instead, he very nearly had a spill that only his work as an actor seemed to have saved him from.

"I was high up and walking down and before I knew it my pace started to build up. Before I know it, I'm escalating. I'm going to go straight down. And I was running and all I could think of, believe it or not, was Days of our Lives! I thought 'I've got to match this face. I can't have an accident!' An actor to the end! I'm racing down and my guide is screaming. And suddenly, I see a bush to my left. And I did a Mission: Impossible. I spun around in the air and I landed in the bush! Except it was a thorn bush! I got thorns all in my back and my arms but when I looked, I saw I would've gone straight down. My guide took the thorns out and they stung terribly. It was a bit crazy."

Thaao also made a return visit to the ancient city of Petra, a city cut out of stone in southwest Jordan. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, when it was described as one of the most precious properties of man's cultural heritage.

The Treasury in the city of Petra.

"As we were entering Petra, my guide said he wanted to show me something special. I went to this spot and there's a rock - ancient, gnarled - and he told me that this was where Moses used his staff when his people were thirsty. Moses prayed to God and God told him to take his staff and hit the rock and water came. It's still running after all these thousands of years. So, of course, you know me, thinking if you drink it you live for a hundred years, I drank bottles of it. It's pure. I washed my face, I took bottles, I was drenched by the end of it."

With one of the pack animals used to get to Petra.

Last stop before Amsterdam was the desert of Wadi Rum and then the Dead Sea. Thaao has a warning for those planning on bathing in the Dead Sea: don't dive in head first. He did and the salt is so strong he was temporarily blinded. After his eyes were cleared, he got out and bathed himself in mud, four times, a treat that is free when you're on the shores of the Dead Sea.

When asked what the lure is of these ancient cultures, Thaao is quick with a thoughtful answer. "There are some areas that you go to in these ancient places … and something about the way you feel is unexplainable. It makes you emotional. In Troy, I thought to myself, was I here before? There is a sadness that permeates that whole area, of how many people have lived there. You think of nine cities that have been destroyed by war. How many women and children and men have been killed and the way they killed in those days, the brutality of the ancients. The other place that I've felt that way was in Egypt. Not too many places, but enough to know that there's something that I connect with there."

A restful moment in a beautiful rock formation.

And for something completely different, Thaao paused for a short stopover in Amsterdam on his way back to Los Angeles. He had caught food poisoning on his last day in Jordan, so he thought "what would make me feel better? Here I am, the indulgent actor. What would make me feel better? I can't have caviar. And I went, oh! Armani!"

A great way to round out the trip.