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Published: September 5th 2008
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Greece Begins
Looking forward to a great trip in Greece! Fly high! Days 5, 6 and 7-- we are mastering the art of broken english. "You like this food?" "Is hot, no?"
Today is Day 8, we're still in the Pelopennese, just visited Olympia, the site of the first Olympics. But let me catch up. As I said before we arrived in Athens Sunday morning, and so much for the hot greek sun we've heard so much about, since there were thunderstorms and it was cloudy all day. We got to our hotel, checked in, putzed around, and headed out to see the sights. We were staying a bout a mile from the Acropolis. On the walk there, we saw the Olympic Stadium, which was used for the first modern olympics in 1896, Zeus' Temple and the Parliament Building. After this we made our way to the Acropolis. We tried to follow maps, but we couldn't seem to made heads or tails out of them. All the Athens streets didn't match up, seemed to be going the wrong direction, or were spelled in the old greek alphabet. But nevertheless, the Acropolis is on a hill, so we just kept looking up to get our bearings. I must say that seeing the Acropolis
Temple of Zeus
First day in Greece...one thing is not like the other. is very impressive. They are cleaning and working on it, but it just towers over the city, and once you get there, the views are spectacular. Athens is not a pretty city, but it certainly is interesting to see the temples dispered throughout the town.
We were a little beat so after climbing down through Ancient Agora (ancient Athens during the time of Socrates) we grabbed a drink at a nearby cafe looking up at the Acropolis. We decided to go down to the Port of Piraeus to check out the ferries and h ave dinner. I thought I had heard somewhere that Pireaus was a cute port town. I was way wrong. We quickly decided to skip the dinner and just check out the ferries to the islands. At first we thought all the ferry wholesale operators were shady, but came to realize that they are just very blunt and don't feel like helping. Who can really blame them as they deal with tourists all day. We ended up buying tickets to Mykonos leaving Sat morning. We headed back to Athens and decided to clean up. The Acropolis is pretty dusty. Tim wins the klutz award so far,
Acropolis
Amazing ancient ruins. Just like 1820 Calvert. slipping on the marble and nearly giving a temple worker a heart attack. We ended up being lazy and having dinner on the roof of the hotel, which turned out to be really nice with an amazing view.
The next morning, Day 6, we had a 7:45 pickup from our tour operator. This was the start of our Pelopennese tour. Being a Greek Mythology nerd (thought about majoring in it in college), I was very excited. Tim wanted to beach, but he needs the walking (straight from his mouth!! as he wants to get in shape). First stop was the Corinth Canal and the Theatre of Epidarous (sp?). Then we headed to Nafplio, a cute Greek coastal town. We were the only ones dropped off at this town ans we chose to spend the afternoon there and meet up with another tour group the next day. We were a little skeptical of this plan as our tour operator said "be here around this time tomorrow and you will be picked up." We checked in to a very nice hotel, unfortunately the ceilings were low, so Tim hit his head about 5 times continuing his klutziness. We decided to walk
Acroplolis
Amazing ancient ruins. Just like 1820 Calvert. around the town and get lunch and realized how cute this town was, even the wild Greek cats are cute little kittens. Even the sidewalks were made of marble, clean, cute, no tourists, beautiful seas, castles, could go on and on.
We climbed to one of the castles overlooking the town, there were nearly 1000 steps to the top. We only climbed 600 steps to the Eiffel Tower. Our calves now look like David Klasners (tim said that). It was a tough climb, but very rewarding views of the sea. We then walked to their pebble beach for a late afternoon swim. Water was clear and turquoise. No waves, simply beautful. Do you hate us yet? his
We had a nice rest, and the next morning we awaited our pickup. It was getting late, but finally a man dressed in all black came into the lobby to pick us up. He was to wear this outfit for the next 4 days. Welcome to Greece. We started the tour again, now with a honeymooning non-english speaking Italian couple, 2 polacks that live in Melbourne, 2 singaporeans- she talks, he doesn't, and 2 kiwis. We have latched on to the
Acropolis
The skies cleared and we had a great day in Athens. Kiwis. This is a nice group, very diverse and very helpful in our future travels (that's Tim being PC). We then visited Mycenae, and Agememnon's Tomb. Incredible history/mythology, hard to tell them apart at this point. We then leave for Olympia, a three hour drive and we arrive at nightfall.
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klasner
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i can't believe you blew my cover in the blog...