Mary West

Mary and Dan

Mary West

We are a 40 year-old couple from Portland, Oregon, USA who have been traveling to Europe a couple times a year for several years. So far we've seen Portugal, France, The Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. My husband has also been to Australia and Sweden without me. He speaks at international conferences regularly for a few days and then we add on 1-2 weeks to the trip in order to see the country. My husband is an avid birdwatcher, so we almost always spend more time in the countryside and small towns than we do in the big cities. We also tend to rent houses or apartments for a week or so instead of staying in hotels and bopping around to a new place every night. This allows us to start to get a feel of what it might be like to live in these countries and a chance to speak the language. Actually, we never really speak the language. We butcher it to the grins of the locals. There is nothing better than traveling...except coming home.

Day 14 - Homeward Bound

Europe » Greece » Thessaly » Meteora August 8th 2007

Mary and Dan

It is time to head home. We were all a little down this morning. It has been such a great vacation that it is hard to think about heading back home. Daniel and I had five goals for our vacation and we easily met every one of them. First, we wanted to deepen our relationship with our niece, Rachel. Second, we wanted to guide Rachel through a life-changing experience that would provide her a newfound confidence to explore her own backyard and the entire world. Third, I wanted to learn more about Greek history and culture. Fourth, we wanted to have fun and relax. Finally, Daniel wanted a few more life birds. Mission accomplished! It seems the universe wasn’t ready to have us back home either. Our plane was delayed in Athens, which then made us ... read more

Day 13 - Acropolis Closed?!

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens July 7th 2007

Mary and Dan

Daniel wakes up at 6am to get ready for his meeting. He is giving a talk today so he has to shave and put on a tie. He grumbles about it the entire morning, but we all know that this meeting is what brought us on this fabulous trip together. I can’t fall back to sleep after he gets up so I spend some time straightening the apartment and doing laundry. I decide to wake Rachel up at 7:15am since this is our last chance to see the Acropolis. You can’t go to Athens without seeing the Acropolis. It is like going to Istanbul and not visiting the Grand Bazaar (oh yeah, it was closed when we were there due to a holiday). It seemed that our travel luck continued because the Acropolis was closed too! ... read more

Day 12 - Birding and Nightlife

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens July 6th 2007

Mary and Dan

Daniel takes off birding in the morning and Rachel and I sleep in a while. This the day that Rachel plans to finish her gift shopping. Believe it or not, the other days were mainly “pre-shopping”, meaning scooping out what is available for what price. Now it is time to buy, Buy, BUY! The previous day we found the everyday flea market row, which Rachel calls “skater heaven” since almost all the shops have cute “skater” type Greek boys with piercings and/or tattoos standing out front trying to get you to go in to every shop. Over the next few days, we spent a fair amount of time in this area. So much so that one of the cute boys working starts calling out to Rachel, “Maybe this time you will come in”, or “Hello, again, ... read more

Day 11 - Walking about Athens

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens July 5th 2007

Mary and Dan

It is another hot day in Athens. Since this morning is Daniel’s only time to explore Athens, he decided to go to the Acropolis. We walked 10 minutes through the heat and got there about 10am, right when all the tourist buses were unloading their hundreds of passengers. We walked up to the entrance and saw what looked like thousands of people entering and walking around the site. It looked absolutely miserable. We decided to pass on the Acropolis today. Instead, we walked to the Atheneaum Intercontinental, which was about 30 minutes away, in order to register Daniel for his conference. We could have taken the Metro, but decided to walk since ½ of it is on a nice pedestrian lane and the other half would give us an idea of how average neighborhoods looked and ... read more

Day 10 - Finally, Athens!

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens July 4th 2007

Mary and Dan

We left the villa at 10 am and drove to Athens…more white-knuckled driving for Daniel. We dropped off our rental car at about 1:30 pm, took a shuttle to the airport and got a taxi from there to our apartment. We were charged 35 Euros, which was probably about 10 Euros more than we should have been charged. Daniel didn’t mind because he didn’t have to drive anymore. The apartment is located in the Thissio district of Athens. It is a perfectly situated apartment, close to the ruins, Plaka shopping and old district, the Metro, and Europe’s longest pedestrian way. You can find it at www.athenspenthouses.com/Thisio.html . For the cost of what you would normally pay for one room in a nice hotel, you can have an apartment with two bedrooms, 1 ½ baths, an outdoor ... read more

Day 9 - Zakynthos

Europe » Greece » Ionian Islands » Zakynthos July 3rd 2007

Mary and Dan

Today we actually wake up early enough to head off to the island of Zakinthos. The ferry terminal is about one and a half hours north of Kalo Nero in Killini. Ferries go out from here to Kefallonia as well. We decided to take the 10:30am crossing and left the house at 8:30 in order to give ourselves plenty of time. We have to plan on missing turns and having delivery trucks blocking roads for extended periods on one-way streets without anyway to backtrack. We arrived at the ferry station at 10am, bought our one-way 6.50 E tickets and were able to board immediately. Pedestrian safety is not considered when designing almost anything in Greece. We had to cross 6 ferry traffic lanes to reach the ticket booth and then six more to get back where ... read more

Day 8 - Kalamata / Stoupa

Europe » Greece » Pelopennese July 2nd 2007

Mary and Dan

Awoke at the crack of 11:00am and stumbled through breakfast. We realized that we were too late to make the 08:30 ferry to the island of Zakinthos, so decided to go for the second choice, a trip to Kalamata for shopping (yippy skippy), then down the coast to the beautiful beach at the town of Stoupa. The last few days, we have chosen our beaches by looking at the racks of postcards at the tourist joints, then going to the beach that has the best postcard. The drive down to Kalamata was much quicker than expected since the roads were much better than anything we have driven on for the past week. Kalamata did not disappoint. We found our way down to the port area and had a frappe while we planned our attack on the ... read more

Day 7 - Laziness

Europe » Greece » Pelopennese » Kyparissia July 1st 2007

Mary and Dan

Since Sunday is the typical day of rest, we decided to rest more than usual. This day was the “villa” day, which meant we tried to not go anywhere if possible. We layed around, read books, and listened to Rachel’s music. Her music was better than what the villa had to offer, which were CDs of the Best of the Bee Gees, the Best of George Michael, and the Best of Ricky Martin. I also spent the morning trying to plan out our next few days at the villa. As everyone who has traveled with me knows, I love looking at maps and reading guide books. I found a new book about this region and dove in. I was heckled for my planning, but I ignored them because I know that they will ultimately see my ... read more

Day 6 -

Europe » Greece » Pelopennese June 30th 2007

RECOVERED

Mary and Dan

Today, we are being “postcard travelers”. This means that we saw a postcard yesterday, loved what we saw, bought the card, and headed out to see it. The postcard we bought yesterday was of the beach of Voidkilia. It is about 12 kilometers north of Pylos. What a beautiful site! The sand is beautiful. The bay is almost like a swimming pool, unless you get close to the entrance where the water flows in from the ocean. Then, you just enjoy the rocking of the water while floating on your neon pink inflatable. We found a perfect spot in the shade to set up camp right next to a rock cliff. We had a quick dip in the water before eating the pastries we bought at a local market on the way to the beach….mmm. ... read more

Day 5 - Olympia

Europe » Greece » Pelopennese » Kyparissia June 29th 2007

RECOVERED

Mary and Dan

Daniel and I both woke up feeling much better today, which made Rachel happy because she didn’t want to hang around with a bunch of old fogies(SPELLING) that were falling apart. I could finally see in the sun and Daniel didn’t have a napkin hanging out the end of his nose. Today we took off to Tholo beach, which is north of our holiday villa in Kalo Nero by about 5-10 miles or so. I had read that it is sandy, clean, and uncrowded. All this things were true. We could have easily found a spot all to ourselves if we walked a little bit down the beach. However, there were free umbrellas and chairs near our car, so we snagged them up. Daniel was the first in the water as usual. “Cold” he said ... read more

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