Blogs from Pelopennese, Greece, Europe - page 16

Howdy, readers. We're in Greece now, but I'll give you the whole story... I apologize for the pun. (written on Saturday) Originally, we had planned to drive south from Venice on Thursday and Friday, and catch a ferry Friday night to Saturday morning to Greece. However, my dad was browsing the internet and found a different, longer ferry route that left on Friday at 2 pm and got in on Saturday at 8-ish, and it left from Venice, which eliminated about 10 hours of driving. So we're on that ferry now, and we have had some lovely views of the Greece coastline. The water here is absolutely lovely, navy blue in the deep water and turquoise in the shallows. We've had only good weather on the ferry, which is fantastic because noone is terribly seasick :). ... read more

The mid-afternoon ferry brought us back to the Peloponnese and we had many hours before we took our midnight ferry overnight to Corfu. Since we spent days in extreme SW Peloponnese we decided it only fair to check out the extreme NW corner – a spit of land poking into the Patraikos Gulf had both a wildlife preserve and apparently the best beaches near Patra. Kim had been saying that she hoped we saw some scenes of traditional Greek rural life that she has seen during previous visits. Will tells me the Greek God of the crops is Demeter. Clearly Demeter heard Kim’s pleas because the next fifteen minutes was remarkable. We had been passing many roadside stands sporting all sorts of melons – mainly watermelons and what looked like pumpkins. At the edge of farms ... read more

Here begins my first blog post of my travels to Pylos, Greece! I would try to roll out the drum rolls and fanfares, but since I’ve actually been in Greece for almost two weeks now and have been travelling since June 3, this first post is a little too tardy to merit much applause. Either blogging is not for me, or I didn’t have much to write about while in California and have been much too exhausted this past week to do anything other than dig, eat, and sleep (I bet you can guess which option I prefer). I will hopefully be a little more prompt with my posts in the future, but if not, I should be able to manage once-a-week updates with pictures and a few words about my adventures. Truthfully, if I ... read more

Kim rocks – big time. Off and on while here we have been in search of the elusive African Chameleon – found in an area of Gialova – the only chameleon in the wild in all of Europe. After dinner last night we waited until after dark and then drove to the nearby lagoon w2hich plays host to the lizard. But for eight hundred billion mosquitoes we were alone. Kim tho9ught she saw something and sure enough – we were right near this bizarre radiant green creature. After a few photos and many high fives for Kim – we crowned her Queen of Gialova for the spot – we headed back and oohed and aahed over the photos. This morning Marika Kim and I headed to the dreamlike Voidolakia BBeach. But work before pleasure. We ... read more

Sand sea salt and skorthalia – sums up our life these days. (Actaully we have had many, many Greek delicacies but not skorthalia - it was the only Greek dish that starts with S that came to mind)) We found the idyllic beach that we read about – cliffs on one side – dunes on the other – the ruins of Nestor’s Castle on a hill top ahead with the Mediterranean beyond. A huge cave halfway up to the castle we will explore tomorrow (where in myth Hermes hid Apollo's cattle). The beach is perfect sand and you can walk forever in the crystal clear water with nothing but clear sand underfoot. Approaching the beach is like nothing I have experienced before – the blues and green of the water render Caribbean waters I have seen ... read more