Back to Reality - October 11 & 12, 2006

This was a travel day. We got up and ate breakfast at the hotel then took the hotel shuttle to the airport and left Greece. At least on this trans-Atlantic flight we would be gaining time. We landed at JFK, went through customs and then flew on to Atlanta. It was evening when we got to Atlanta. We booked a room in a little run-down Day’s Inn near the airport; $50 per night and no ambience, no view, and no good food.

The next morning we took an early shuttle to the Atlanta airport and ate breakfast there. Then on to Minneapolis and back home again with our dirty laundry, souvenirs, and memories. Travel is food for the soul, but home is a good place for digestion. Now it's back to work and back to reality and time to think about the next adventure.

Santorini - Hiking to Ia

Breakfast again on the patio and then we checked out of the Astra. We had a full day on Santorini before our flight left, so we stowed our luggage in the office. We told Electra, the concierge, that we would walk to Ia and spend the day there. She seemed impressed at either our fortitude or foolhardiness; I’m not sure which. Apparently, not that many tourists walk to Ia.

It did turn out to be quite a hike. After we got outside of Imerovigli the path turned to dirt with a lot of rock and gravel and wound up and then back down two large promontories. We hardly met another person on the whole walk. We did overtake a German woman and her two children along the way, all of whom had backpacks. One of the children, a teenage girl, was sobbing and crying the entire time we were within earshot. This, apparently, was not her idea of a fun Santorini activity.

It took us two and a half hours to get to Ia, and by the time we got there I was getting pretty sunburned. As soon as we hit the outskirts of the town, I found and bought the first sunscreen I could find. It cost 16 Euros. Wow.

We found lots of fun shops in Ia. Other than the sunscreen, things seemed reasonably priced. Kathy was happy with the variety of “cute puppies and kitties” wandering the streets. At one point there were seven dogs lying in one spot on one narrow little street.

Ia (not to be confused with Iowa)

We had pizza for lunch at an outdoor rooftop café. The pizza was great—thick crust with feta cheese, tomatoes, and olives. The pack of cats hanging out there scored big at our table with pizza handouts.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped for ice cream at a little café. The proprietor told us “I have the best ice cream in Europe!” It turned out to be Hagen Daaz. As we were eating our ice cream, we noticed clouds moving in from the horizon. They darkened and produced thunder and lightning as they neared us. While we had originally planned to walk back to Imerovigli, we decided that being on the path in the rain, or worse, on one of the promontories during a lightning storm, would not be a good idea. So we paid 1.20 Euros for the bus ride back.

It did start to rain while we were on the bus. When we got back to Imerovigli, we holed up in a little café—not quite indoors, but under an overhanging roof. We had coffee and read the Herald Tribune until the rain tapered off. Then we took the walking path to Firostefani and had dinner at another good café, Remni. I had cheese stuffed peppers and spanokopita, my last meal in Santorini.

We caught the shuttle to the airport and flew back to Athens. Heavy rains in Athens delayed our flight, so we stayed longer in Santorini than we had planned. Unfortunately, the small, Spartan terminal was not the pinnacle of Santorini ambiance.

It was becoming clear that Greece was entering the rainy season. It had rained in Santorini after we had been told by the locals that “it never rains here.” Athens was experiencing heavy rains, and central Greece, where we had been a week before, was getting torrential rains. Floodwaters washed out a bridge that we had no doubt recently crossed on the main road between Kalambaka and Athens. We, fortunately, seemed to stay one step ahead of the rains.

Our plane finally arrived and we flew to Athens, and then took a taxi to the Holiday Inn near the airport where we spent the night.

Santorini - Kicking Back + A Skaros Ramble

I woke up not feeling well and we decided to lay low for the morning. But what a great spot for laying low. I spent the morning hanging out on our patio reading Hemmingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and enjoying the view. By early afternoon, I felt well enough that we decided to take an amble out onto Skaros. It turned out to be more than an amble. The path became quite rough with a lot of steep ascending and descending. We didn’t ever get to the very top of the peak. The climb became quite steep—literal climbing, not walking. Since the footing was loose gravel and there was nothing between us and the sea below except hundreds of feet of air, we decided to forgo that experience. We did enjoy poking around in the ruins, though. Kathy discovered a hole on the bank of the path that was the entrance to an intact room right under the walking path. There was enough sunlight filtering into the room that we could see an interesting passageway. We left the passageway and whatever it led to unexplored. We also found a little white stuccoed church tucked away at the very end of Skaros. We also discovered that there was fennel growing wild along the path. Chewing on a few fennel seeds as we walked was refreshing.

Sundown

It was late afternoon by the time we trekked back to the main part of the island and then we settled on our patio to watch the sunset again. This sunset was not as spectacular as the day before. While the previous day had been cloudy, the clouds had separated at the western horizon just in time for sunset. This day had been partly cloudy and the clouds actually congealed at the horizon just before sunset. Thus ended our second day on Santorini. It was low-key, but enjoyable.

Santorini

We had one final Achilleas breakfast before leaving Athens for Santorini. It was Sunday morning. This morning we retraced our steps from exactly one week previous. We carried out luggage out of the hotel and down the narrow little street to Syntagma Square, then across the square and down the stairs to the metro. Then we rode the metro the airport and flew Olympic airways to the island.

We could see the whole island from the air as we landed. The island is shaped like giant letter “C”, and is so shaped because it is part of the cone of an extinct volcano. It is the eruption of this volcano that likely destroyed the Minoan civilization of Crete, which may have given rise to the legend of Atlantis.

We had arranged to be picked up at the airport and the driver from the Astra Apartments was waiting for us. We had to wait for a bit for another American couple who was staying at the Astra and had just flown in from Rome. The airline had lost their luggage. They had just spent a week in Italy and the airline had lost their luggage on the way to Italy from the US as well. We commiserated and thanked our lucky stars that to date our luggage had stayed with us. The driver drove us across the island and dropped us at the Imerovigli “town square” which looked suspiciously like a parking lot. There were some stairs descending from one edge of the parking lot. The driver told us to go “down and to the left.” “Down” took us over the edge of the caldera where a plethora of white stuccoed building clung to the side of the cliff. “To the left” took us onto the walking path that traverses the caldera from Fira, near the center of the “C” to Ia on one of the tips. A sign on the path announced the Astra. We descended some more steps that led to a little plaza that ran the length of the Astra Apartments. All of the apartments either entered directly onto this plaza or entered onto stairs that went down to the plaza. The office was located next to the stairs and at the opposite end of the plaza were a pool and an outdoor bar. The edge of the plaza opposite the apartments dropped down to the next level where there was another small hotel. Below that level was nothing but hundreds of feet of precipitous cliff and then the sea. We checked in at the office and then were escorted to our apartment, which was located near the pool and had its own little private patio on the plaza and faced west toward the caldera. The apartment had a small kitchen/living area, a bedroom, and a bathroom that was nearly as big as our Athens hotel room. The shower was so commodious that not only could you bend over, but you could run laps.

Projecting into the caldera from the edge, and directly in front of our hotel was a small promontory of land called Skaros. There were ruins of a castle at the peak of Skaros. From the Middle Ages until the mid-1800’s this castle and its associated buildings on Skaros housed the island’s administrative offices. It eventually fell into disuse and time, combined with several earthquakes, has reduced it to ruins. It is difficult to tell even when you are among the ruins that an elaborate complex of buildings once existed here.

After checking in, resting, and enjoying the ambience of the hotel for awhile, we walked a half-mile or so down the walking path to a little seafood restaurant hugging the side of the caldera with a great view of Skaros. The restaurant was appropriately called Skaros. Kathy and I split a Greek salad and I had a Mythos and some calamari along with tzatziki for dipping. The calamari was huge and was fried with a coating of fava. “Fava” is not fava beans but rather is a local legume that resembles a small yellow pea. Each pea is about the size of a grain of barley. The tzatziki was pungent with garlic and the whole meal was wonderful in every way.

Unfortunately, since it was a 3 PM meal, I was not a bit hungry when we went out for dinner at 8 PM. We had followed our 3 PM lunch with more wandering on the hiking path and then several hours of watching the sunset from our balcony.

Dinner was at the world-famous Selene, located on several terraces overlooking the caldera in Fira, and presided over by the world-famous Selene, herself. The setting was beautiful and the food was imaginative and thoughtfully prepared. Since I was still bloated from my hearty late lunch, I tried to pick light items off the menu. I had a dry Santorini white wine, and Selene’s version of a Greek salad, which was attractively presented with crunchy croutons, a local variety of cherry tomato, wild Santorini capers and grated (gasp!) feta. I followed the salad with a bowl of fish ball soup with a very mild fish stock broth. I finished with a cantaloupe sorbet served in a slice of cantaloupe. What was a memorable occasion unfortunately became all the more memorable due to the acute gastrointestinal distress that followed--not in any way due to the food, but more than likely due to the quantity consumed. I have witnessed cows suffering bloat from overeating fresh green grass on a spring day, and that's the way I felt. The day ended with my chugging some Kaopectate and going to bed.

Athens - October 7, 2006

We had an Achilleas breakfast and then walked to the National Archeological Museum. This is one of those museums that you could spend days at and still not see everything. We spent half of a day there. The museum’s collection simply surpassed our stamina. Some of the outstanding items we saw there included gold death masks from the Mycenaean excavation. Walked back to the hotel and rested before heading back to (where else?) the Plaka for another fine meal. We settled on an early dinner due to the need to get to bed early because of our early flight the next morning. Early, in this case, meant six rather than our usual eight pm—proof that we’d fallen right into a European rhythm. I had wanted to eat at Platonos since both my on-line resource and my Frommer’s guide had recommended it, but we discovered that they didn’t open until seven, so we went back to Xani. It wasn’t quite as happy the second time. We ate in the very back room of the restaurant because all of the sidewalk tables and tables in the front room where the musicians sit were taken. The restaurant was overflowing with an American tour group—retired Midwesterners. I had chicken souvlaki that was mediocre; it was dry and didn’t have a lot of flavor. It was a utilitarian meal that had more to do with filling the stomach than enjoying the experience. After our meal, we went back to the Achilleas for a final night with the stone tablets otherwise known as beds.

Athens - October 6, 2006

I crawled out of bed with a certain sense of freedom. Our tour was over and now we were free to explore Athens on our own time and do whatever our whims dictated we do. My whim dictated that I shower. I lead a spontaneous and fascinating life. The shower was so tiny that if one would drop the soap, one would not be able to bend over to pick it up. I can proudly report to everyone that I did not drop the soap. Breakfast was self-serve on the mezzanine level. The victuals that the hotel provided ranged from good to bad: Good Greek cheese, tasty brown bread, hard-boiled eggs, fresh fruit, yogurt, fake Tang-like orange juice, and instant coffee.

We decided that this would be our day for the Acropolis, so after breakfast we headed in that direction. First, we walked to the Plaka, then to the ancient agora and up the hill through the Propelaea, the 5th century BC entrance, and onto the hill. It is all still there as it was in 1980 when I had last been there, but even ancient ruins change. Most of the buildings are under repair, so there was a lot of construction material, and scaffolding covered many of the old buildings. Still it was good to see these ancient structures again: The Parthenon, the large temple dedicated to Athena; the Erechtheon, built as an honorary tomb to Erechtheus, legendary king of Athens, and containing the famed delicate Caryatids, columns in the female form (these are replicas—the real ones are in museums), and the temple to Athena Nike, the small temple to Athena built in 424 BC. Totally new to me was the Acropolis museum, which included some great recovered statuary. It also held all of the Caryatids from the Erechtheon that are in Greek possession. Another new thing I noticed here that I also noticed at the other archeological sites is restrooms. A very positive step! The Greeks used the British designations and have them all labeled as “WCs.” A rosebush grows by the ladies room door at the Acropolis. I noticed a woman holding one of the blooms gently to her nose and sniffing. Another woman came by and asked, “Is it fragrant?”

“Smells like a loo,” the woman replied.

From the Acropolis, we peered down into the Theater to Dionysus where an orchestra and operatic soprano were recording—never found out who they were. After we were done at the Acropolis, we found an outdoor café for more Greek Salad, and then visited more ruins.

Our post-lunch ruin was the vast ancient agora, the ancient original Athens marketplace at the foot of the Acropolis. In ancient times, the agora, the Acropolis, and the theatre of Dionysus made up the entirety of Athens. The sacred way ran through the agora and up to the Acropolis. The best-preserved ancient temple in all of Greece is located in the ancient agora: The Temple to Hephaestus. It never fell to ruin because it was in constant use through the centuries, first as a church then as a museum.

-Parthenon-

We also visited the old Roman agora. The Roman agora is just off the ancient agora and was constructed contiguous to the ancient agora beginning in the times of Julius Cesar. Much of the Plaka lies between the ancient and Roman agoras and probably covers innumerable undiscovered ruins. Archeologists want to start digging, but so far, the Plaka merchants have held them at bay. The most outstanding building within the Roman agora is the Tower of the Winds. It was originally built in the first century BC as a combination water-powered clock and giant sundial. Under the Turks in the 18th century, it was a Sufi center for whirling dervishes. Nearby, and within the Roman agora is an old mosque, one of the few signs of the 400 years of Turkish occupation.

After looking at the ruins, we did some souvenir shopping in the Plaka. Kathy bought some jewelry and I bought a lightweight white cotton shirt, some Greek Delight to bring to work, and a nice bronze Athena holding an owl and a spear.

We ate at Xani Taberna (XUNI) in the Plaka. It was great sitting at our little street-side table listening to the taberna’s guitarist and bouzouki player while I sipped my Mythos beer. I had another fine Greek salad: cucumbers, purple onion, green pepper, tomatoes, olives, a little olive oil, and a slab of feta sprinkled with oregano. I followed the salad with grilled octopus, something I maintained I would try when I was in Greece. I got a tentacle. It was a little weird eating the little suction cups, but it was good. It tasted like a mild fish, with a firmer texture. I had expected that it might be tough like calamari, but it wasn’t. With all the good food and relaxation, I had my cold on the run. Cold viruses don’t stand a chance in a happy body. We strolled back to the Achilleas and went to bed. Another fine day in Greece.

Kalambaka

Kalambaka is an old Turkish town located in Meteora—the land of the giants. Meteora is located in a fertile plane at the confluence of two rivers. It is notable for the towering columnar rock formations that rise above the plane. The ancient Greeks say that after the giants lost their battle with the gods, the gods turned them to stone in this place. In Christian times, hermits climbed these formations to live their lives in simplicity and solitary prayer and contemplation. Eventually groups of these aesthetics banded together into monastic orders and built monasteries perched atop the rock towers. We spent our morning viewing the monasteries and visiting two of them. In the past, the only way into most of the monasteries was by being hauled up in a basket attached to a rope. Now, in all cases, stairs access the monasteries and some have had roads built to them. They all pretty much have electricity and plumbing now, too. Monasticism isn’t what it used to be. Many of these beautiful old buildings are now empty, or at best have one monk caretaker. Two have become convents. There just aren’t enough monks to go around. Monasticism, as I mentioned before, isn’t what it used to be.

Both of the monasteries that we saw were filled with beautiful examples of Byzantine icons and art and many are in the process of renovation and restoration thanks to tourist dollars. In addition to the amazing art and architecture, the scenery itself was fantastic and awe-inspiring. We took lots of great pictures of all of that plus some cat pictures—Kathy’s particular fascination. At one scenic overlook, we came upon two cute waif kittens that hungrily devoured two crackers, the only food our group had to offer them.

A Meteora Monastery

We drove back to Kalambaka for lunch and ate at a traditional Greek restaurant where, in traditional style, we went into the kitchen to tell the cook what we wanted. The cooks were Mama Kate, the proprietor, and her daughter, who spoke English. I was tempted by the chicken and peppers in retsina wine, but settled for the meatballs, rice, and beans.

After lunch, we went hunting for some Vitamin C to treat my cold. Because a green cross marks all apothecaries, they aren’t hard to spot; but since no two seem to carry the same things, finding a specific item can be an adventure. In the first one we tried, the clerk didn’t speak English. I tried several variations of “Vitamin C” but we were not communicating. Finally, we both just shrugged. As I turned to leave, I spotted a small box on a shelf that had written on it, amidst all the Greek writing, the English phrase “Vit C.” I happily bought it. The box contained two vials of tablets. I promptly opened one vial and popped a tablet in my mouth. An immediate “fizzy-in-the-mouth” reaction allowed me to determine quickly and astutely that these tablets were meant to be put into a glass of water. I found my way to the nearest garbage can, and with my mouth foaming like a rabid dog; I spit the tablet out.

The next apothecary sold me some fruit flavored lozenges that actually proved to be quite effective in relieving my sore throat and making my cold go away. Then, to get the fizzy tablet taste out of my mouth we went in search of a taverna where I could have coffee. We found a little outdoor place on the main street where another member of our tour group was despondently sipping coffee. From previous encounters with this person, I had him pegged as one of those middle-aged American white guys who wanted the whole world to be like his hometown. “I tried to tell them how to make American coffee,” he told us.

“How is it?” I asked.

“Tastes like shit,” he responded.

My first interaction with the Greek coffee hater was the day before when we stopped at an ice cream place that served, according to Irini, the best ice cream in Greece. He was despondently eating ice cream when I sat down next to him. “Where you from?” he asked me.

“Minnesota,” I told him

“You got Cold Stone Creamery there?

“Yes, we do.”

“Well, they sure as hell don’t have it here!”

Eventually, we got back on the bus, left Kalambaka, and spent the rest of the day on the road, driving back to Athens. It rained a little on the way back. Later in the week, Kalambaka and the surrounding area got torrential rains that resulted in flooding. The flooding washed out a bridge on the main highway between Kalambaka and Athens that I assume we had passed over just a few days before.

By the time our bus got through Athens traffic and dropped us at Syntagma Square it was after seven pm. There had been demonstrations that day in central Athens. Irini had been worried about how those demonstrations would affect traffic and if agitation by anarchists would turn the demonstrations to riots, but by the time we arrived, all seemed quiet. The demonstrations were evidently due to the current state of political turmoil. There is much polarization regarding the best economic course for the country. While we were in Greece, the secondary teachers were out on strike demanding a 45% pay increase and local elections imminent, which increased the public discourse. The demonstrations were part of that process.

We walked several blocks from the square to our hotel. This time we were staying in the Achilleas, which was another old, classic hotel, like the Astor, but smaller. The Achilleas, shoehorned between other old buildings on a side street, has around 30 rooms on six floors. After we checked in and unpacked, we walked down to the Plaka and found some Greek salad at an outdoor café called the Hydra (in Greek YDPA), situated in a shaded square. It was dark when we got there, and the café lighting was dim—a few light bulbs fastened to trees. At one point, I put my hand down onto the bench that I was sitting on and felt something tickle my hand. At first, I thought it was a bug and tried to brush it away, but when I looked down, I realized a cat had curled up next to me on the bench. He was not shy. I petted him a little, but when he put his paws on the table and started to show interest in the feta on my salad, it was time for him to go.

After we had eaten, we went back to our little old room, crawled into our little old hard-as-rock beds in our little old cramped home away from home.

Delphi - October 4, 2006

We drove maybe a half-mile from the town of Delphi to the ancient site of Delphi. When the early Christians destroyed the holy Delphic site, because it was pagan, earthquakes had already damaged the temples. The one building that still stood after the Christians finished their work was the Roman agora, the market building built by the Romans below the temple to Apollo. This remaining building became a Christian church, and as is often the case, where there is a church, a town eventually grows up around it. In this case, the town of Delphi was built right on top of the forgotten ruins of the old temples. It wasn’t until the last century that archeologists began to imagine what might lie beneath the town. They actually were able to put together a fund and offer the townspeople money to move to a new location so the site could be excavated. Nobody wanted to move until an earthquake caused extensive property damage. At that point, the offer of money to rebuild made complete sense and the town moved to its present location.

When excavations began, they found that beyond the Agora, and up the mountain were the treasury buildings—each city-state had one to both guard and flaunt their wealth and the spoils from their conquests. Statuary abounded. Above the treasuries was the large temple to Apollo where, in ancient times, the earth was cracked open and fumes emanated—a mysterious and holy place. There in the dim basement of the temple, the priestess would breathe in fumes in an ecstatic, hallucinogenic state while fondling the stone that represented the center of the world. She would babble in tongues and one of the temple priests would interpret her strange incantations to the pilgrims who had come to seek their future or find the answer to their dilemma. The priest always answered the pilgrims’ questions in an ambiguous way to not risk being wrong. Also, a network of spies gained information from the pilgrims as they traveled to Delphi, which helped stack the odds in the favor of the Delphic Oracle.

-By Temple to Apollo, Delphi-

Above the temple was an amphitheater and above that was the stadium—games were held at Delphi as they were at Olympia. At the base of the mountain was a temple to Athena. All of the ruined temples were still located at the site, but any statuary had been relocated to the either the museum at Delphi or the National Archeological Museum. Irini, as usual, gave a great tour. But, as usual, she talked for too long—thus the time we had to look around on our own was a mere 15 minutes. After touring the site, we spent time in the museum and then drove back to the town of Delphi for lunch. After lunch, we made the long drive to Kalambaka.

We arrived in the evening at the Amalia Inn just outside Kalambaka. I’d been fighting a scratchy throat all day and by bedtime, it was obvious that I’d contracted a good old Greek rhinovirus. I took a little stroll around the hotel grounds that evening after sunset—through a small grove of apple and pomegranate trees and then took my cold to bed.

Olympia - October 3, 2006

If there were nothing else in Greece, the trip would be worthwhile just to see Olympia because of the history surrounding it: The site of the original Olympic games; the original stadium, the ruins of the Temple to Zeus, the Temple to Hera, the Phillipian Temple built by Phillip of Macedonia. The games were run every four years from 776 BC until 393 AD. Then the games ended and eventually the site slipped into disuse and ruin. When the site was finally excavated, it was covered by ten feet of dirt.

-Phillipian Temple, Olympia-

There is a great new museum, new since I was there before, with a wonderful collection of statuary and other artifacts recovered from the Olympian temples.

After spending the morning at Olympia, we drove on to Delphi via the new bridge over the Corinthian Straight at Patra. We stopped at a Greek version of a truck stop in Patra—a BP gas station and a snack shop. Impressively, they served cappuccino in real cups and had a second floor area to relax and enjoy your cappuccino while looking at the straights and the new bridge. Plus, they had waiters to pick up your cups.

We got to Delphi in time to watch the sunset over the Ionian Sea from our perch in the mountains—another Amalia Hotel. We did some shopping in Delphi—Kathy bought some earrings, a bracelet, and some worry beads. She bought me a pig—a little pink porcelain porcine. Might be the only pig in Greece. She bought several decks of mythological playing cards and I got some woven bookmarks for gifts.
We had a buffet dinner at the hotel—all the standard Greek fare: Dolmadis, spankopita, calamari, mousaka, pestitsio, and all sorts of other good things. The hotel was nice, and the view, as I mentioned, was fantastic. The town was fun—there were two very steep main streets running more or less perpendicular to the slope and parallel to each other and there were stairs connecting these two streets. The slope was so steep between the two streets, that there was a mere building’s width separating them but what was the main floor on the upper street was the second floor on the lower street—and the main floor on the lower street was the basement for the upper street. The drop-off was so steep on the lower street that buildings built along the other side of that street were six stories high and you entered the sixth floor from that street level. There was a little terrace at the base of those buildings, but no street and then there was another even more precipitous drop-off.

CHAT Tour - October 2, 2006

This was the first day of our CHAT tour. A CHAT person met us at 8 AM in our hotel lobby. The tour bus couldn’t make it down our narrow little street, so we walked out to the square to get on the bus. The bus was big and contained about 25 other tourists. Our tour guide’s name was Irini and our driver was Socrates. We found our way out of Athens during rush-hour traffic and finally picked up one of the new roads that the Greek government built for the influx of Olympics tourists. We drove across the bridge over the Corinthian canal into the Peloponnesian peninsula and made our first stop at the bridge for refreshments. Then we drove on to Epidaurus, an ancient center for healing. The acoustically perfect amphitheater there is still intact and still in use. We drove through beautiful countryside and stopped at the port of Naufplia long enough to take pictures of the Doges island palace and the Venetian fortress on the hill. A variety of foreign powers has occupied Greece from the time of the Romans until the mid-1800’s, and Venice controlled this particular corner of Greece at one time.

Then we drove on to Mycenae to look at the Mycenaean citadel and beehive tomb—dating back to 1250 BC. Homer told the story of how the Greeks at Mycenae under King Agamemnon went to Troy and fought the Trojans for ten years to reclaim Helen from the Trojan prince Paris. The German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann found and excavated Troy in the late 1800’s proving once and for all that Troy was not just a mythological city. In 1874, he began to excavate Mycenae and found a city that matched Homer’s descriptions perfectly. He also uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts, including gold death masks that are now on display at the Archeological Museum in Athens.

We stopped in Megolopoli for coffee in a nice little town square park, then drove on to Olympia. We got to the Amalia Hotel in Olympia late, had an 8:30 dinner (so-so fish, rice, and vegetables), and then went to bed—a long day.

Athens - Puppies in the Temple

I’m not sure exactly when the day started—somewhere in the dark over the Atlantic when I advanced my watch from Eastern US time to Greece time, I suppose—a seven-hour time difference. Eventually the sun rose and we flew over Europe and landed at the Athens airport. We disembarked, got ourselves to the luggage pickup area and rejoiced that our luggage actually arrived with us after switching planes twice. We were waved through customs, changed money, found the metro to Athens, and boarded without a hitch. There was some confusion regarding if we were on the right train. There didn’t seem to be anybody in charge there. The only passengers were tourists—perhaps because it was early on a Sunday morning. I asked a few if we were on the right train and they seemed confused as we were. A few people asked us, too, and we no doubt seemed confused as they were.

Kathy slept on the ride into Athens and I looked at the landscape until we went underground. We arrived in Syntagma Square, the large square in front of the Greek Parliament building in central Athens, got off the train and found our hotel without too much trouble. At first we got a little lost & confused among all the little streets that meandered willy-nilly off the square. We were at the point of finding someone to ask for directions when a gentleman decided we looked like confused tourists and pointed us in the right direction. We thanked him for his help and when he started promoting his tour services we told him that we were not interested since we already had one booked..

The Astor Hotel was about what I expected—a little worn about the cuffs, but clean, more or less, the staff was hospitable, more or less. Regardless, it was nice to have a bed to lie down on after having been cramped in the cattle-car environment of the plane for hours and hours. We felt dirty and wanted to shower, but had no towels in our room and the hotel could apparently only provide towels on their schedule, not ours. We took a nap and then, still grimy but somewhat rested, we went out to explore Athens.

We ate at a little nondescript outdoor restaurant on Syntagma Square—I had a beer and a sandwich, and then we looked at the ruins excavated from the site of the Syntagma Square subway station. It is amazing that pretty much anywhere you excavate in Athens, you’ll not only find artifacts, but you’ll find artifacts from a variety of periods. I guess that goes along with Athens having been continuously occupied for over 3000 years.

Temple of Olympian Zeus

After looking at the Syntagma Square artifacts we went back to our hotel for a rest and then went hiking through the park behind Parliament—the National Garden. We wound up down by the ruins of the Temple to the Olympian Zeus. The temple was one of the largest temples in the ancient world and the massive columns scattered on the ground bore testament to that. The Greeks started building it in the 6th century BC, but it was not until 700 years later that the Emperor Hadrian oversaw the completion of construction. The temple at one time contained two large statues, one of Zeus, and one of Hadrian, who obviously had ego issues. The ruins now are home to some feral looking dogs. One of the dogs had a den with six puppies beneath some collapsed columns. The puppies weren’t at all shy. Kathy ooed, cooed, and made friends.

We took puppy pictures and ruins pictures and pictures of Hadrian’s Arch, which was also located there. Hadrian built the arch as another way for him to demonstrate his claim on the city. The inscription on one side reads, “This is Athens, the ancient city of Thesus.” The other side is inscribed, “This is the city of Hadrian, not Thesus.” We walked past the arch, once the official entrance into the city, and entered the ancient city. The area of steep winding streets on the slopes of the Acropolis is the Plaka, and is now home to millions of outdoor restaurants and souvenir shops. We wandered around the Plaka looking at touristy souvenirs, ate at a little sidewalk café, and finally found our way back to the hotel after dark.

Puppies!

The hotel had a rooftop (10 stories up) restaurant with a great view of the Acropolis, which is illuminated at night. Our final activity before calling it a day was to have apple pie and coffee on the roof while looking at the view. The coffee was OK, the apple pie was a little suspect, but the view was incredible and will be one of those images that I carry with me the rest of my life.

Leaving Home - September 30, 2006

Getting ready for a vacation is no vacation. Even after you've made the travel plans and booked the hotels and tours, there are still all of the loose ends at home to tie up. OK, it's true that Kathy and I are now empty nesters, but we still have kids; they just don’t live at home. And life does not stop just because you're gone. Examples: There were the three days tying up loose ends at work. There was a conference happening as soon as I was back in town. On Thursday and Friday, I spent my time making and canning applesauce so I could unplug the second fridge, which would normally be full of apples from our trees this time of year. My concern was having a refrigerator and freezer on the same circuit which has on occasion popped the breaker—not something that I want to have happen when we’re gone for two weeks.

I also hauled five loads of cut logs to the splitting pile—done with that project for the year! I ordered a new door for the walkout basement door, and a new sash for the broken window in our bedroom, two projects for when we were back in town.

Saturday morning we were up at 4:50. Linda W. drove us to the airport for an 8 AM flight to Atlanta. We got to Atlanta noonish to discover that our 12:45 flight to Kennedy had been pushed back for a half-hour—so we ate lunch in Atlanta and then caught our flight to New York. Got to Kennedy around 3:30 PM and then boarded the flight for Athens at 5:20. We’d already been traveling all day and we hadn’t even done the trans-Atlantic part yet!

The flight across was interminable. There were a couple of crying kids right in front of us, and it is impossible to get comfortable in the confined space you’re allowed in an airplane. I didn’t feel like reading, so I watched lots of trashy TV reruns on the cabin screen. This was an older plane so we didn’t have individual screens, just one fuzzy dim screen a row in front of us. After the trashy TV shows I faded in and out through “Mission Impossible III”. The movie seemed to consist of people running and shooting at each other and blowing things up, but I’m not sure what the exact plot was. Then I finally found a music channel playing new-agey music that relaxed me enough to sleep—for a couple hours at least.