Today we plan to go to Florina to visit Steve’s cousin who’s a nun at the monastery of St. Marcos. This cousin is another of Christos’ sisters. We actually managed to get up and get ready to leave around 9-10am, shocking! It was about an hour and a half drive to the monastery with me, Steve and Alice in the Yaris and Magda, her sister, her mother and another nun from Mikrokastro in the Vitara. The monastery is in Florina which is only about 18 kilometers from Albania and it is set way up on a mountain overlooking the entire valley with beautiful views. The monastery is fairly new and they are adding on a dining hall and kitchen wing for when they have visitors come to see the church (usually a tour bus full). It ... read more

A couple of problems sleeping last night first it was really warm in the upstairs where we were staying as there were no screens so mosquitoes and flies came in if you opened the windows and also a dog barked right outside our windows off an on all night. Steve ended up getting up and chasing the dog down the street to get him to stop. So we resolved to buy some fans first thing when we went to Kozani (the closest city) to solve the heat problem and I wore earplugs when I slept for the rest of our stay in the village. Magda had gone to the bakery for some ham and cheese croissants for breakfast, so we ate those and drove into Kozani to look for fans and to use the internet café. ... read more

I woke up around 10am because Steve got up to get some Dupon (pain reliever) for his crashing hangover headache. We all went up and had breakfast together. We had planned to have a quiet day, mostly hanging around the hotel. Steve went back to bed immediately after breakfast and Alice and I went to the pool. We stayed at the pool until about 1pm, when it dawned on me that we had to pick up the laundry in Fira before they closed at 2pm and the rental car had to be returned by 4pm! By this time Steve thought he was probably going to live through his hangover and got up to go with me. The laundry cost 45 Euros for 5 loads, but it was worth it to get it back all clean and ... read more

Woke up just in the nick of time to leap up and get breakfast at the hotel buffet. It was well worth it though, the hotel put on a huge, impressive spread of food; scrambled eggs with ham, bacon, meats, cheeses, little hot dog things, breads, apple turnovers, mini pitas, chocolate filled croissants (Steve say’s they were extra yum!), fruits, super sweet fruit juices, cereals and yogurts. Whew, I’m sure I forgot something but that was basically it, the only downside was you had to eat in the dining area, if you took the food back to your room or deck there was a 3 Euro per person charge. We planned to go shopping in Fira and decided to go to the Hondos Center , so we parked at the entrance to Fira. We ended up ... read more

Ios is known as the party island of Greece and so far we’ve mostly seen the town at night, but today we planned to explore the town during the daylight. Chora, Ios’s main town is a typical of the Cyclades with whitewashed buildings and is full of steps and small alleys, curtained doorways and small courtyards. On the main thoroughfares there are the jewelers, souvenir shops and, of course, the clubs. Ios has lots of churches; as a matter of fact it claims to have 365 churches, one for each day of the year. In Chora in a plateia just off the main road is the modern Orthodox Cathedral of Ios named Evangelismos (Annunciation). It’s an large whitewashed building with the traditional blue domes, very beautiful. Nearby is the church of Agia Ekaterini. First we picked ... read more