After a quick stopover in New York, we hopped on an Air France plane
to Athens, via Paris. We indulged ourselves with free champagne on the
flight over, which probably didn't help our sleeping patterns
any. Upon arrival in Athens at about 1:10 PM local (we had managed
to grab a couple hours of sleep on the plane, but not enough), we
headed off to the Travelers' Inn, where we slept off some of the
jetlag before heading out to find some food and take a look around
that evening.
The next day we were off to see the Parthenon, in the Acropolis in
Athens. They were doing some pretty heavy duty reconstruction going on
there. They had a wall up in the museum there, hiding an exhibit, so
we lifted the camera above the wall and took a
picture. We aren't
sure what it is, either.
After seeing the Acropolis and the Parthenon and several other
Athenian sights of interest, we took an overnight ferry to the island
of Santorini (AKA Thira). (Yes, it really does look like the
postcards.)
Our first day there we bummed around the
island for a while, seeing the various little towns and going swimming
and such.
One of the great forms of architecture in the Greek islands is the door, such as this one, found in the town of Fira. They like doors so much, sometimes they build them but don't bother to build a building to go with them. Please note the sheer cliff on the other side of the railing, and watch your step, please.
The next day we rushed out of the hostel, onto a bus, and down a huge 600-step staircase down the side of a cliff to get on the early tour boat bound for the 400-year young volcanic island near Santorini, where we went and looked into various craters.
On the way back up the path, we decided to ride on mules instead of
climb the 600 steps up the cliff back to Fira. We wandered around
the town for a while longer, and found an
interesting shop.
We then raced down to the dock and caught the ferry for Iraklio, a city on Crete. We arrived in Iraklio late at night, and had quite a trek across the city to find somewhere to stay. Most places were full, so we ended up in a cheap hotel with (YAAAAY!) a shower!
The next day we got on a bus for Knossos, which is located
practically in the suburbs of Iraklio. If it weren't for all the
fragile stuff
and crowds and such there, it would make a great place
to run an LFRP adventure. Back in Iraklio, we went walking through a
16th century castle which the Venitians built to guard the harbor when
they captured the town. The castle seemed to be doing a dual-duty as
an art gallery. Many rooms
and tunnels in the castle were pitch black; fortunately I happenned to
have a flashlight in my backpack, so we went off exploring all the
dark little holes in the
castle. Afterwards, we climbed onto the roof and looked at the
view. There was a tower up
there, with circular stairs
that went around the wrong way. We finished off the day by stuffing
ourselves with seafood in a little hole in the wall near the
ocean. The first thing we saw when we walked in were five or six old
greek men sitting by the door at a table heavy with food. They were
there the whole time we were there, eating a little bit, drinking a
little bit, resting a little bit, then starting over. It looked like
fun.
We didn't want to spend another night in Iraklio (it was too much of a
big city) so we took a bus to Agios Nikolaos (one of six or seven
cities with that name that we saw; agios means "saint" in Greek) on
the Eastern part of Crete. We prowled around there for a couple of
days, went to the beach, and enjoyed the rain (the first we saw on the
trip). The owner of the B&B we found kept poking through our baggage
and such, and since we had been around the city enough we decided to
take a ferry back to the Cyclades islands, to Milos. We checked out
and spent most of the rest of the day poking around the town and
seeing their small Cretan
museum.
We were met at midnight at the ferry dock on Milos by a young couple who ran a small hotel. The room they gave us was posh to say the least; we had a huge porch, marble floors and, luxury of luxuries, a private bathroom. I woke up early that morning and went out onto the porch to sit in the sun and read, and was immediately assaulted by a young stray cat who was determined that I pet him. He stuck around for the three days we were there, and I had quite a time convincing Jen that we couldn't take him back to the US with us.
We ended up taking a walk on the beach one day, and found some hot
springs which emptied into the sea. As you walked around in the
shallow water, you could see bubbles of gas coming up from the bottom,
and the sand was really warm just a few inches below the bottom. We
noticed some really huge (2+ feet long) fish basking in the warmth
with their dorsal fins sticking out of the water, but we couldn't get
close enough to them to see anything more about them.
Another day we decided to explore the inland part of Milos. We saw a
replica of the Venus de Milo (which was originally found on Milos), a
really well preserved amphitheater, and the only set of Christian
catacombs on the Greek islands. There used to be people living in
caves in the cliffs near the
catacombs; we went in and looked around.
The day we left we checked out of the hotel early, then got on a
full-day boat tour around Milos, and around the nearby island of
Kimolos. The boat would stop every hour or two near a beach and we dove off and went
swimming around. As I was swimming around some rocky cliffs, I found a
deep dark half-submerged cave in the water. I swam in a ways, but it
quickly got too dark to see. Out came the trusty flashlight from the
backpack, which just happenned to be waterproof, and jen and I swam
all the way to the back of the cave, where we found a small
underground beach. The cave was definitely the highlight of that
day. Milos also has a really neat volcanic island near it made
entirely out of hexagonal
rock. After a stop on Kimolos (a
nearby island) for lunch, the tour went back to Milos where we
bummed around for a couple of hours until the ferry for Athens
arrived.
We arrived in Athens at around 5:30 in the morning, after altogether
too little sleep on the ferry. We found an extremely cheap hotel to
catch some sleep in, and woke up around noon to find that the price of
the room had mysteriously doubled while we slept. Instead of hanging
around in Athens, we decided to get out and go to Delphi to see the
Oracle and such. On the bus there, we saw a beautiful
sunset.
After spending the night in Delphi, we walked up to
see the oracle, only to find it closed because it was election day. So
we saw the Temple of Athena (at left) and
the Gymnasium and took
pictures from afar of the Temple of Apollo, then hopped onto the late
bus for Patras, a big port town on the western edge of Greece.
We arrived at about seven that evening, bought some boat tickets for Venice, then proceded to make a valiant attempt to spend all our Drachmas before we left Greece. So we went out and ate what was probably the best dinner we had on the trip: a huge seafood platter along with a beet salad and a eggplant-paste roll. The restaurant was empty, so we spent much of the time chatting with the waiter. At the end of the meal, he brought out a couple shots of really delicious homemade liquor with the bill (to lessen the impact?). Apparently the chef at that restaurant was rapidly becoming famous in Greece and was soon to have a TV cooking show. Too bad we didn't get his name so that in the future we could brag about eating there when he was still "small time".
After dinner we rapidly bought all the wine, retsina and Ouzo (a popular local anise liquor) we could carry, and lit out for the ferry. It was a big 1500-person job, with a casino, swimming pool (with no water in it, unfortunately), Disco, shops, and everything. We ended up sleeping the 2 nights we spent on the ferry in airline-style seats, except we managed to find some seats that were broken so they would recline all the way.
We arrived in Venice late in the morning, and were met at the dock by Jen's aunt and uncle. They took us back to their place in Udine and we spent a day and a half seeing the town there and drinking the wine we bought in Greece. We left on the train for Venice early the next morning with all our bags, and spent the day exploring Murano (or is it Burano? Whatever...the island with all the stained glass), the Cemetary (creepy...), and just wandering around and seeing the sights in Venice. We figured that we had come halfway across the world to Venice, so we would have to take a gondola ride that evening. We bought a sampling of local sausages, bread and cheese for dinner, then late that night caught a train for Zurich. Sleeper cars aren't too bad, except they're designed for people about three inches shorter than I am. I banged my head a lot on the light fixture at the head of the bed.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of our pictures are still in the camera, so you're just going to have to wait for them until we get them developed. But I can tell you what happenned.
We met Jen's other aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmother and such in Zurich, climbed a mountain, went on a boat ride on the Lake of Zurich, and all that fun stuff. Then off to Basel, where we met Jen's exchange sister and another friend. After a day there we left for Paris, arriving in the evening. So we spent a day in Paris gorging ourselves on the food, seeing the louvre, visiting the building where they kept all the people who conspired against the Revolution while waiting to lop off their heads, and climbing the Eiffel Tower. I understand now why people like French food, although I still don't understand what they like about escargots. (I've been wanting to try snails for about 10 years now. People keep insisting that I got a bad batch of them, so I may have to try them out again next time I have the chance.
So the next morning we went to the airport, burned the rest of our money buying cheese, and hopped on a plane back to New York.