All too soon, it was time to leave. Usually when I get to the end of a trip, I'm pretty ready to get home. Ready for my own bed, my own schedule. Do laundry and eat normally again. There was no part of me that was ready to leave. Partly I knew that the work was in a tremendous pile waiting for me, and to return home was a sentence to work. But also it was that I had such an amazing time. So I was grateful for the trip and sad it was done.
We stopped at the bakery on the corner of Carrie's block for breakfast - my last spanikopita from this great bakery. I think I'd be huge if I lived two blocks from it, yum!! Carrie walked me to the bus and rode with me to the metro station, where I'd catch a train to the airport. When the metro pulled up, I started to cry, which caused Carrie to cry. It was a blubbery mess.
The rest of the day was a typical day of travel. I ended up sitting next to a neurosurgeon from NYU on the flight from Athens to Newark. She's Greek, and when she asked where we'd gone she said, "That's the trip I would have wanted! How did you know to plan such a fabulous trip to all those places?!" Yay for Carrie's friends' recommendations. Awesome.
I had planned to stay awake for the entire travel day, but by the end of the layover and then the flight from Newark to MSP it was well over 2 am Greece-time, and I was too tired to stay awake. But it turned out just fine - I got home, unpacked a bit (outside, because Carrie occasionally has cockroaches and she warned me to be careful in case of a stowaway), climbed into bed, slept just fine, and didn't feel too bad the next day. I mean, aside from being super sad to be done.
A highlight of my life, it was. A trip I'll always remember.
Showing posts with label greece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greece. Show all posts
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
August 4, Day 11
Our last day in Athens, Carrie and I got up early to run, and she took me to see the 2004 Olympic Village. The structures were really cool, but overall it was kind of sad. All the money that went into building these stadiums that are hardly used. And the area around the village is pretty run-down. I've heard this about other Olympic sites. I've been to some, but this seemed the most deserted. I honestly cannot imagine how awful traffic was during the Olympics. It's terrible on a weekend during August!
We had a massive to-see list for our one full day in Athens to sight-see. In an ideal world, we would have been able to break it up. As it was, we ended up doing a LOT of walking and seeing and picture taking, and by the end I think we were saturated with sun and ancient sites. I loved the day, though, and I'm glad we got to everything! First up was the Acropolis, the site of the Parthenon. I read it gets really busy between 10-4, so we headed out as early as we could after the run and getting another load of laundry in, and got to the Acropolis around 9:15. We hiked around the base and saw some of the smaller ruins and statues. And then we made the trek to the top. The first main thing you see is the Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus, and then you head to the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis.
Clearly, we were not the only ones with the idea to visit the Acropolis that morning. I had read in Rick Steves' guidebook that he had podcasts to download and listen to for a bunch of the Athens sites. So I listened to the podcast and told tidbits to Jill as we walked around. It was a great addition, and I learned a lot to add to the experience.
Though of course it would have been nice if there wasn't construction going on, it was pretty cool to see the workers in action. Rick Steves told me that the reconstruction efforts have taken over twice as long as it took to build the Parthenon in the first place!
This flag is significant because during the WWII Nazi occupation, a soldier was ordered to take down the flag and fly the Nazi flag. Instead, he wrapped himself in the flag and jumped to his death. It seems like taking down the flag was what the Nazis wanted, but no matter. The incident is considered one of the first Nazi opposition movements.
The olive tree on the left of the Temple of Athena Nike there is supposedly the first olive tree in Greece, planted by Athena herself!
We breezed through the Acropolis Museum, to see some of the remaining friezes from the Parthenon and other temples in the Acropolis. The museum was small and not super interesting, but it was cool that we could watch the archeological dig happening underneath the museum through glass floors.
We then headed to Ancient Agora, which was the assembly place in ancient Athens. There's quite a few things to see here, and I regret a little not reading more about the specifics of this site before we got there. I had my kindle with me and skimmed the guide book, but I know I missed some in this site. The most impressive of the ancient sites was the Temple of Hephaestus, seen below:
The Temple is one of the best preserved in Athens. It was built around 400 BC built for Hephaestus, the patron god of metal working and craftsmanship. For many centuries, it was used as a Greek Orthodox church f St George until it reverted to status of an ancient monument.
Off to the National Archeological Museum, the big one in Athens.
It houses lots of ancient statues and sculptures, which was my favorite part. The famous piece there is the bronze Zeus:
I also really liked the Greek Mythology rooms, and though I still don't remember all the figures in Greek Myths, it was good to read about them and see different depictions. When we were in Santorini, I fell in love with a silver necklace with olive leaves. I couldn't afford the necklace, so I guess this picture of this ancient version will have to do.
Not done yet! Next it was on to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, a temple that took some 650 years to build. Must not have cared all that much about Zeus, I think. After it was completed, the temple was pillaged for building materials for future churches and houses (such a shame!). Only 15 of the original 104 columns remain.
Then we headed to the Panathenaic Stadium. Not to be confused with the stadium in Olympia (which we unfortunately couldn't make it to), this stadium hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896. The stadium was reconstructed from the ancient stadium, which hosted athletic games in honor of Athena. Originally, the seats were made of wood, but it was remade in marble in 329 BC and renovated by Herodes Atticus in 140 AD to accommodate 50,000 spectators. It is currently used as a concert venue, and in 2004 was the finish of the Olympic Marathon. If Carrie ends up running the Athens marathon in November, it's where she'll finish.
The Stadium had an audio tour, which was awesome and I learned a ton about the site. For example, did you know "Stadium" comes from the Greek word "stadion" (στάδιον), a measure of length equaling approximately 200 metres? Interesting. We sat in the original seat for royalty, of course.
Another cool thing about this stadium is that the seating is curved so everyone can have a good view as runners move around the track.
This is the underground entrance into the stadium, getting a sense of what athletes might have felt entering the stadium. Sort of.
It was really cool to see this stadium after having been to the 2004 Olympic stadium in the morning. After the stadium, we walked through the national gardens and came to the Parliament building. This is where all the protesting has been happening, though there was none in the square when we got there, because duh, no one is giving up their August vacation for something like protesting!
Getting home was a bit of a debacle, as we ended up on a bus in the wrong direction adding some walking and time. We were totally exhausted after a hot day spent walking miles and miles through monuments and museums, so we were a little crabby. But we stopped for gelato on the walk home. Nothing a little gelato can't help. We ordered food from Carrie's favorite local restaurant for our last night in Athens while the girls packed. We watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," well, I watched about an hour of it before I fell asleep. Collapsing in bed once more, I was sad to be almost done with the adventure.
We had a massive to-see list for our one full day in Athens to sight-see. In an ideal world, we would have been able to break it up. As it was, we ended up doing a LOT of walking and seeing and picture taking, and by the end I think we were saturated with sun and ancient sites. I loved the day, though, and I'm glad we got to everything! First up was the Acropolis, the site of the Parthenon. I read it gets really busy between 10-4, so we headed out as early as we could after the run and getting another load of laundry in, and got to the Acropolis around 9:15. We hiked around the base and saw some of the smaller ruins and statues. And then we made the trek to the top. The first main thing you see is the Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus, and then you head to the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis.
Clearly, we were not the only ones with the idea to visit the Acropolis that morning. I had read in Rick Steves' guidebook that he had podcasts to download and listen to for a bunch of the Athens sites. So I listened to the podcast and told tidbits to Jill as we walked around. It was a great addition, and I learned a lot to add to the experience.
Though of course it would have been nice if there wasn't construction going on, it was pretty cool to see the workers in action. Rick Steves told me that the reconstruction efforts have taken over twice as long as it took to build the Parthenon in the first place!
This flag is significant because during the WWII Nazi occupation, a soldier was ordered to take down the flag and fly the Nazi flag. Instead, he wrapped himself in the flag and jumped to his death. It seems like taking down the flag was what the Nazis wanted, but no matter. The incident is considered one of the first Nazi opposition movements.
The olive tree on the left of the Temple of Athena Nike there is supposedly the first olive tree in Greece, planted by Athena herself!
We breezed through the Acropolis Museum, to see some of the remaining friezes from the Parthenon and other temples in the Acropolis. The museum was small and not super interesting, but it was cool that we could watch the archeological dig happening underneath the museum through glass floors.
We then headed to Ancient Agora, which was the assembly place in ancient Athens. There's quite a few things to see here, and I regret a little not reading more about the specifics of this site before we got there. I had my kindle with me and skimmed the guide book, but I know I missed some in this site. The most impressive of the ancient sites was the Temple of Hephaestus, seen below:
The Temple is one of the best preserved in Athens. It was built around 400 BC built for Hephaestus, the patron god of metal working and craftsmanship. For many centuries, it was used as a Greek Orthodox church f St George until it reverted to status of an ancient monument.
Off to the National Archeological Museum, the big one in Athens.
It houses lots of ancient statues and sculptures, which was my favorite part. The famous piece there is the bronze Zeus:
I also really liked the Greek Mythology rooms, and though I still don't remember all the figures in Greek Myths, it was good to read about them and see different depictions. When we were in Santorini, I fell in love with a silver necklace with olive leaves. I couldn't afford the necklace, so I guess this picture of this ancient version will have to do.
Not done yet! Next it was on to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, a temple that took some 650 years to build. Must not have cared all that much about Zeus, I think. After it was completed, the temple was pillaged for building materials for future churches and houses (such a shame!). Only 15 of the original 104 columns remain.
Then we headed to the Panathenaic Stadium. Not to be confused with the stadium in Olympia (which we unfortunately couldn't make it to), this stadium hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896. The stadium was reconstructed from the ancient stadium, which hosted athletic games in honor of Athena. Originally, the seats were made of wood, but it was remade in marble in 329 BC and renovated by Herodes Atticus in 140 AD to accommodate 50,000 spectators. It is currently used as a concert venue, and in 2004 was the finish of the Olympic Marathon. If Carrie ends up running the Athens marathon in November, it's where she'll finish.
The Stadium had an audio tour, which was awesome and I learned a ton about the site. For example, did you know "Stadium" comes from the Greek word "stadion" (στάδιον), a measure of length equaling approximately 200 metres? Interesting. We sat in the original seat for royalty, of course.
Another cool thing about this stadium is that the seating is curved so everyone can have a good view as runners move around the track.
This is the underground entrance into the stadium, getting a sense of what athletes might have felt entering the stadium. Sort of.
It was really cool to see this stadium after having been to the 2004 Olympic stadium in the morning. After the stadium, we walked through the national gardens and came to the Parliament building. This is where all the protesting has been happening, though there was none in the square when we got there, because duh, no one is giving up their August vacation for something like protesting!
Getting home was a bit of a debacle, as we ended up on a bus in the wrong direction adding some walking and time. We were totally exhausted after a hot day spent walking miles and miles through monuments and museums, so we were a little crabby. But we stopped for gelato on the walk home. Nothing a little gelato can't help. We ordered food from Carrie's favorite local restaurant for our last night in Athens while the girls packed. We watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," well, I watched about an hour of it before I fell asleep. Collapsing in bed once more, I was sad to be almost done with the adventure.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
August 3, Day 10
This was the only bummer day of the trip. We planned to have a leisurely morning, do a little sightseeing, and take the ferry 7 pm back to Athens. Instead, we got a call shortly after we woke up letting us know our ferry had been cancelled and we were rescheduled on the 10 pm ferry. This was ok, except that Carrie and Jill were already a little freaked out about the quick turnaround before their leg of the trip to Namibia and were concerned that getting in really late and then having to pack in our only full day in Athens the next day plus getting their laundry and packing done was going to be tough. I don't blame them. So we checked the bus schedule and realized we could catch one to the port in fifteen minutes so we did the incredible feat of finishing breakfast, getting ready, packing and checking out with Betty all in time to catch the bus.
Once we got to the port, we checked with our ferry company about an earlier ferry, and then thought about a flight, and then checked with another ferry company (narrowly missing the boat - I ran to try to stop them but wee me was no match for a full ferry to wait 10 minutes for the team). So we got on a ferry that would take longer than our original but would still get us in earlier in the evening. We spent the morning at a cafe, reading and writing postcards. So we didn't get to see any of Milos, which I was bummed about, but I was glad the girls felt better about the schedule.
The ferry we took was more like a cruise ship. We got comfy chairs by a window and there was a bar right on the floor with us. Some of the floors were locked, so I couldn't explore the entire ship, but the dramamine worked well and made me think that if I ever wanted to, I could do the cruise ship thing. We got good naps and good reading time in, and all in all was uneventful. Once we got back to Athens, we had a bit of a hike to the metro and bus and then home, but we made it. We ordered the greek pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner (it wasn't bad!) and the girls got their laundry and packing started. We had a big day the next day, so we tried to get to bed early (it didn't work, finally collapsing around 3 for a solid 2.5 hours sleep!).
Once we got to the port, we checked with our ferry company about an earlier ferry, and then thought about a flight, and then checked with another ferry company (narrowly missing the boat - I ran to try to stop them but wee me was no match for a full ferry to wait 10 minutes for the team). So we got on a ferry that would take longer than our original but would still get us in earlier in the evening. We spent the morning at a cafe, reading and writing postcards. So we didn't get to see any of Milos, which I was bummed about, but I was glad the girls felt better about the schedule.
The ferry we took was more like a cruise ship. We got comfy chairs by a window and there was a bar right on the floor with us. Some of the floors were locked, so I couldn't explore the entire ship, but the dramamine worked well and made me think that if I ever wanted to, I could do the cruise ship thing. We got good naps and good reading time in, and all in all was uneventful. Once we got back to Athens, we had a bit of a hike to the metro and bus and then home, but we made it. We ordered the greek pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner (it wasn't bad!) and the girls got their laundry and packing started. We had a big day the next day, so we tried to get to bed early (it didn't work, finally collapsing around 3 for a solid 2.5 hours sleep!).
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
August 2, Day 9
Our full day in Milos was spent on a boat excursion that came highly recommended by a couple of Carrie's friends. All in all, it was a great day. I ended up getting pretty seasick in the second half of the day, and I was ready to be done a couple hours before we were done. But, we got to snorkel through some caves and enjoy more aqua-blue, crystal-clear water.
We had been told that one of our captains was a Greek Bradley Cooper, and I thought that was a pretty fair comparison:
I enjoyed seeing the island from that vantage point, and it was great to be on the water (for some of the time). Deep breaths. The only other bad part was when I was moving from the front of the boat to the back, remembering to bend my knees and stay close to the ground and take my time like we'd been told at the start of the trip. But when I went to step over into the cabin, we hit a big wave and I slipped. One of the captains (not Bradley Cooper, the other guy) yelled at me and I got really embarrassed. Plus I hit my foot on the edge and got a terrible bruise which hurt a lot. But the views were great!
A view of one of the cute towns on Milos...
Another great sunset. We didn't get tired of them.
We had been told that one of our captains was a Greek Bradley Cooper, and I thought that was a pretty fair comparison:
I enjoyed seeing the island from that vantage point, and it was great to be on the water (for some of the time). Deep breaths. The only other bad part was when I was moving from the front of the boat to the back, remembering to bend my knees and stay close to the ground and take my time like we'd been told at the start of the trip. But when I went to step over into the cabin, we hit a big wave and I slipped. One of the captains (not Bradley Cooper, the other guy) yelled at me and I got really embarrassed. Plus I hit my foot on the edge and got a terrible bruise which hurt a lot. But the views were great!
A view of one of the cute towns on Milos...
Another great sunset. We didn't get tired of them.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
August 1, Day 8
We had a leisurely morning the next day, which was desperately needed. Checked email, had breakfast at the hostel, and then did a little last minute shopping and wandering around Oia.
We left Oia and headed to spend some time in Fira before our ferry. It was crowded and we didn't have anywhere to store our luggage, so we had a long lunch, did a tiny bit of walking around, and then headed to catch a taxi to the port. The taxi took FOREVER! I think there were three taxis for the entire island. After an hour waiting in line with some very annoyingly angry Italians, we finally headed to the port. We shouldn't have worried about missing our ferry, as the ferry was 2 hours late. And then we almost missed it, as it only stayed docked for about 10 minutes and we had to pay our bill at the cafe. But we made it and settled in for a 3 hour ride to Milos.
Once we docked in Adamas on Milos, we wandered the port looking for the boat we had recommended to us for an excursion the next day. We found the Mama Maria and booked three spots in the next day's outing. We then grabbed a taxi to Plaka and found our way to the adorable Betty's Rooms. Betty met us and showed us to our room. She and the room could not have been cuter, and we were so happy to have found that spot to stay. We had gotten one recommendation for a restaurant in Milos, and it happened to be in Plaka, where we were staying. We asked Betty about it, and she gave us directions. Rick Steves recommended the shrimp, and he was not wrong. Yum!
We wandered around a bit before heading back to the hotel room to get a good night's sleep before our boat excursion the next day. Plaka was an adorable little town. Another place I want to return. Add it to the list!
We left Oia and headed to spend some time in Fira before our ferry. It was crowded and we didn't have anywhere to store our luggage, so we had a long lunch, did a tiny bit of walking around, and then headed to catch a taxi to the port. The taxi took FOREVER! I think there were three taxis for the entire island. After an hour waiting in line with some very annoyingly angry Italians, we finally headed to the port. We shouldn't have worried about missing our ferry, as the ferry was 2 hours late. And then we almost missed it, as it only stayed docked for about 10 minutes and we had to pay our bill at the cafe. But we made it and settled in for a 3 hour ride to Milos.
Once we docked in Adamas on Milos, we wandered the port looking for the boat we had recommended to us for an excursion the next day. We found the Mama Maria and booked three spots in the next day's outing. We then grabbed a taxi to Plaka and found our way to the adorable Betty's Rooms. Betty met us and showed us to our room. She and the room could not have been cuter, and we were so happy to have found that spot to stay. We had gotten one recommendation for a restaurant in Milos, and it happened to be in Plaka, where we were staying. We asked Betty about it, and she gave us directions. Rick Steves recommended the shrimp, and he was not wrong. Yum!
We wandered around a bit before heading back to the hotel room to get a good night's sleep before our boat excursion the next day. Plaka was an adorable little town. Another place I want to return. Add it to the list!
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