Blogs from Greece, Europe - page 491

Advertisement

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens April 24th 2006

Today was our last day in Athens, and I think we are both ready for the islands. Since we still had the Getz!, we drove down the coast to the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, which is the southernmost point of Greece. Beautiful drive along the Aegean, with a stop at a local fish market, with the fishermen docking their boats to drag their catch onto metal tables to be sold. The Greeks really seem to be sticklers for cleanliness standards. The Temple of Poseidon is magnificent, on a cliff over the Aegean. If I were the god of the ocean, this is where I would want my temple. After we turned the car in back in Athens, we had lunch at the Plaka, went shopping for Athens souvenirs (Parthenon coasters and snowglobes, anyone?), then packing ... read more
Temple of Poseidon
Temple of Poseidon

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens April 24th 2006

We rented a car on Saturday called a Hyundai Getz!, and is considered to be mid-size. It's a little smaller than a Ford Focus. I think the only thing more challenging than trying to navigate through a strange foreign city where no one speaks English is a strange foreign city where no one speaks English and the signs are in a different alphabet altogether. By the end of Sunday I started to figure out what Athens looks like in the Greek alphabet, but other than that, we just kind of drive around until we get where we're going. Saturday night was the Easter mass, when practically the entire county was in church (similar to midnight mass). We headed up to this tiny church on the top of Lycavattus Hill, which had excellent panoramic views of Athens. ... read more
Parthenon
Parthenon
Parthenon

Europe » Greece » Central Macedonia » Kavala April 22nd 2006

We drove through huge mountains and the weather started to turn dark and gloomy, it was raining as we tried to set up camp in a town called Meteora. We all sat undercover and had dinner and played cards for a few hours dreading going back to our wet tents, although it wasn't too bad at least they didn't leak. Morning came quickly, its quite soothing sleeping to rain on a tent. We saddled up and went high into the mountains to the old monasteries on the cliff tops. Originally there were 21 monasteries that where built on top of these mountains. We were only able to go into one. What a life the monks who lived here (and still do in three active monasteries) must have had! With respect we put on the provided sarongs ... read more
neighbor
Up there!
Disegno!!! in Kavala

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens April 21st 2006

Took the Metro for the first time today - it was built for the 2004 Olympics, and is the cleanest and nicest subway I've ever been on. For .80 Euro you can go anywhere in the city, and the Metro station is about 5 blocks from our hotel. The Metro stops at the foot of the Acropolis, and it is so much higher up on the plateau over Athens than it looks in pictures. There is so much to see in the Acropolis that you need a map of the monuments or you'll forget what you're getting your picture taken in front of. In addition to the Parthenon (which is HUGE, way bigger than I thought), there are 2 theatres, 3 more monuments, and some piles of rubble of past monuments that have been blown apart ... read more
Delphi
Delphi

Europe » Greece » South Aegean » Rhodes April 21st 2006

I staggered on to the flight to Athens from Frankfurt pretending like to my internal clock it really was 7:50pm. It was overall a funny day hanging out in the airport but as exciting as it was (or as I made it), I think it was good that my trip was leading elsewhere. The flight to Greece was (surprisingly?) the first time I encountered the Greek language on the trip. By blood, I'm exactly 50% Greek which just means that 95% of the time, people initially address me with the audio form of pie, theta, delta, beta, and psi (only those). I landed in Athens at 30 mins past midnight local time and thankfully I had another trip set for 5:30am. This meant I needed to find a trusty bench to sleep on. I found just ... read more
mike in action
a walk to my place
a walk to my place 2

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens April 20th 2006

Traveling to Athens took a whole day of driving and on our way there we got to see the Corinth Canal which was a bonus. The Corinth Canal was hugely deep and long, they carved that out in 1881-93 and it's 6kms long. It's deep because it's at sea level so there's no locks needed, but these days it's too narrow so hardly any boats use it. We got up nice and early to make the most of the day, we all caught the bus into the city centre and got a little bit of a tour on the way - helped us to get our bearings and also saw the Roman Stadium where the 1896 Olympics were held. Our first stop through the famous city was the Temple of Zeus where we also found a ... read more
Neptunes Gate
Temple of Zeus
Turtle

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens April 20th 2006

Well, 11 hours of flying time (about 20 minutes sleep total) later and we made it here safe and sound. I can't say the same for one of my suitcases, it should be delivered to the hotel Friday. Wonderful weather for day one, 70 degrees and sunny. I was prepared for Athens to be uglier and more Middle Eastern looking than it actually is - although the Greeks seem to have a special love of concrete. Our hotel is very cute, and is only a few blocks from the Metro. After checking in a sleeping for a couple of hours, we headed out to check out the neighborhood. We stopped at a cafe in front of the National Archeological Museum, where dad had his Greek coffee (which looks like mud), then off to a sidewalk cafe ... read more

Europe » Greece » Thessaly » Meteora April 18th 2006

The Greek people talk with their hands, passion, waving about, I was wandering around the streets of Athens and caught a netted football match. They are worse than the English, more shouting and waving than playing. In my first three days here I saw two cab drivers get accosted for stopping in the median, several people slam payphones and men sipping coffee presumably to restore the vocal cords, but its not anger that drives it. But the kitty incident was too much, for a block and a half I followed behind two men vigorously shouting, screaming almost, waving hands furiously. One man had a furry object wrapped up in a plastic bag, bits poking out. When I overtook them, to my amused horror I saw a cute, terrified face of an orange kitten on the ride ... read more
Plaka home
A weekday stroll
Look away

Europe » Greece » Ionian Islands » Corfu April 17th 2006

The ferry over to Greece was delayed so we missed a day of sailing. It was a massive ferry over and a fairly smooth journey even though some of our group got sea sick - we suspect it wasn't the sea that caused it more to do with the on-board bar. Once we arrived in Greece the bus drove us further a few more hours down the coast where we saw our sail boats! Well to tell you all the truth, we didn't think WE would be the sailors! We thought we would have experienced sailors doing it all for us, and that all we had to do was soak up the sun... he he he. Well that wasn't the case, because there was only one guy (Fraser) to teach us all how to sail! The ... read more
Out at sea
Dancing with Fire
Dancing

Europe » Greece » Attica » Athens April 16th 2006

"They" say you must see it. Whoever they are. But they do not recommend how long you should stay. "IT" is the Acropolis. And it is quite impressive. Okay, not Angkor Wat, but impressive none the less. And really crowded to boot. Today we touched down in Athens on an Olympic Air flight from Tel Aviv to London. We chose this flight for many reasons and frequent flier miles were not one of them. Turns out that the company is in and out of bankruptcy so there isn't really any code-share to speak of. We also were not inspired by the newly updated website, which led us to an unoccupied office in Bangkok. Unoccupied for more than two years according to the new tenants. So we were drawn to this flight in much the same way ... read more
How true it is...
Made It!
Bulk Head




Tot: 0.118s; Tpl: 0.006s; cc: 11; qc: 76; dbt: 0.0693s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb