Italy-Greece

[murgdan]

Wow, miss a few days and the messages really pile up. I can see I will have plenty of reading to do when I get back.

Since I enjoyed looking at some other travel 'journals' here I thought I would add a few of my own pictures too. Sorry if some punctuation isnt right but Im using my husbands Italian keyboard and some things are a little out of place for me...especially é,ç,è,° and so on...(just not things that usually show up when I hit those keys).

Anyway...I have a few pictures. The first is of our arrival here. We arrived in Milano on Wednesday morning after a decent flight that Im finally able to sleep through for the most part, which helps with the jet lag.

We have spent most days walking around the city, visiting various friends and family here and so on...Im only here for the week so there are plans for every hour of the day. Its exhausting, but also relaxing, considering the huge change of pace from being home, stressing between school and work. This is at least the tenth time Ive come here so at least its a little more enjoyable now that I can actually speak with people and understand the language. It was really difficult the first few times and I felt really isolated, but now itÃ**s interesting to hear conversations and understand different points of view.

The second picture was of a building in the city. I like seeing these buildings completely covered in green the middle of this somewhat gray city.

The last picture was taken today. Our apartment is at the end of this street, really too far away to see, but just a 5 minute walk. This weekend they are having an art exhibition along the river and we spent some time walking around there (and enjoying a nice gelato).

Hope to share more pictures later...but of course here Im luckily spending a little less time in front of the computer..and less time in the house...

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Those are great shots, Cindy. It sounds like you are having a great time. I really liked Milan. It was the first city in Italy that I visited. Keep the photos and travelogue coming!

Cheers,
BD

[Molly Taco]

Thanks for sharing and have a great trip and a safe reentry!!!
Cin

[Kerry]

That shot from the plane going over the mountains is great! The others are lovely too.

[Piper]

Have a wonderful time! At least you won't have to worry about earwigs...

Ciao!

McBuonanotte

[GiovannaD]

I hope you packed your bathing suit because the temperature in Athens is nearing 30C! (86F).

[murgdan]

I finally returned yesterday afternoon, and of course thanks to jet lag I was up at 3am today. (Just in time for my lost luggage to be delivered!) Thought I'd share a few pictures, hopefully just enough to show some highlights!

This first picture is obviously from Athens---can't miss that landmark. We arrived here from Milan in the afternoon and after a short round of hotel hunting found a place to leave our bags and set out to explore (and find dinner).

Of course we are tourists ourselves, so I can't complain too much about tourists, right? We stayed in the Plaka which, although is is the historical and tourist center, it has become, in my opinion, a Hellenic Disney World of sorts. There was even a little train that circles around the little streets bringing tourists around who don't feel like walking. I saw that little choo choo train and thought 'you've got to be kidding me!' Further we were constantly heckled my restaurant pimps who would follow us down the street trying to get us to eat at theirs. So...simple. I decided I would not eat at ANY restaurant that harrassed me. So we wandered around, left the main tourist areas, and found plenty of nicer places.

Ok, again, who am I to complain? I am a tourist and with only 2 days in Athens how much can you see outside of the regular tourist-crowded areas?
Of course the location where we stayed was quite convenient to many historical sights so it was worth it to stay in the midst of the madness! There were some really beautiful areas that we found after wandering away for a bit---

[murgdan]

After our few busy days in Athens, we headed out on a ferry to the island of Santorini, in the Cyclades. It took us about 8 hours to get there. After taking a scary bus ride that snaked up the side of a cliff, we arrived in Thira, the main town in Santorini and the one that is shown in the first picture.

The view is breathtaking...as you may be able to get a glimpse in the photos, but they still don't do it justice in my opinion.

After our initial pleasure with the great view we were off to the great task of finding a hotel. Had I known my way around this would have been simple, but after making two full circles (very hilly steep circles) while carrying our heavy packs I was at a loss...and hadn't found a hotel. So I left my husband with our luggage and set off to find the perfect place. Let it be known there were hotels...but (much to my husbands dismay as HE wanted to go with one of the hecklers to his house where they offered to keep us for a mere 6 Euro a night if I wanted to save that much money I would have stayed at home!) I wanted a view of the caldera AND I wanted a decent price. Well, it took me an hour and some sweating (and great exercise) but I found us a lovely hotel for a good price that had an amazing view (see the sunset photo for part of our view!).

This was really a great experience and a great place to visit. It's incredible to imagine the volcano that erupted to create this cliff, and you can see the many layers from different eruptions in the past that were completely blown apart!

The weather here was cool and windy--which was good because we spent most of our 4 days here hiking around to different parts of the island.

[murgdan]

The first picture is from a hike we made from the main town of Thira to Oia, which is just barely visible on the L side of the picture. It was an incredible hike, about 6 miles, and it snaked all along the side of the cliff---so the view was wonderful. It was a little misty and cool that day, but we were determined to make the hike anyway.

There were several events that were associated with this hike. The sad part is this is one of the last pictures taken on that hike (not even halfway there)...Why? Because after taking something like 400 photos, on a perfect day for them as the light was really diffuse so there were no shadows or backlighting to deal with----we came home to download them and found there was some type of error with the memory card and we only had about 56 photos saved!! Ouch... My husband made the trek two days later to try to retake some of them, but the lighting wasn't the same and after doing a little damage to my knee on another hike I didn't go with him. So...we will have to keep that day in our memory only...

Within 5 minutes of returning from that hike we saw dark clouds approaching our hotel (and from our height they were coming right at us) Boom! It was a HUGE storm with heavy winds and rain that lasted nearly an hour. Water blew in through our window and under the door! We were so lucky to be off the trail, because otherwise I think we would have found ourselves skidding down a 'not so fun' waterslide!

The second photo is from a hike we made the following day up to the site of Ancient Thira. If you look at the first picture of the main town in Santorini you can see a mountain the the background---that is the one we hiked. There is a nice, if steep, walking trail to the top. In this picture I was so pleased with myself, thinking I was finished with the hike...then I discovered we were only halfway up! No matter---the views were amazing and it was worth every minute...

Looking down in that picture you can see the town of Kamari. The beaches here are black, made of volcanic stone. You can just make out the little rows of beach umbrellas...

[murgdan]

After leaving Santorini we took another ferry to the island of Naxos, only about 2 hours away. This was really the best part of the trip for me. Here it was much more relaxed, less tourists, less crowded. We extended our trip and stayed a whole week. Here we basically just rested and recovered from our vacation in Athens and Santorini!

The first picture is of the Portara--it is just above the harbor in Chora (main town of Naxos) and it is the only thing that remains of an ancient temple of Apollo.

The second picture was taken while walking along the harbor. There are plenty of seafood restaurants and I loved seeing all the fresh fish, and in this case, octopus displayed. You see them hanging out because before grilling them you have to hang them out to dry. The were pretty tasty too!

The last picture shows more than anything why I loved this place so much! Look at that water. Each day we would take the bus out to the farthest beach on the route, Plaka---and walk back to the beach where we spent most of our days, Aghia Anna.

Thanks for looking at my pictures! Now the sun is finally coming up and I have plenty of things to do! (and later I have a few hundred posts to read here!!!)