I realize that it is too hard to write about travels that
have happening at the moment. So, I am
going to jump ahead and write about our travels pretty much as they happen and
then go back from time to time and play catch-up.
So, we left Italy for Greece, hoping that we would leave the
rain behind us. We drove across the boot of Italy and took a ferry from
Brindesi to Athens.
We were quite
traumatized to see what looked like hundreds of trucks
backing up onto the ferry and having to wait almost an hour and a
half for our turn did nothing to calm our fears.
However, in the end, we were able to drive
straight up onto the third deck of the ferry and park.
Even that was really weird because almost no
directions came from the crew and it was pretty much left to us to figure
things out.
We went into the lounge and
tried to get comfortable for about a hour, not looking forward to the very long
night ahead of us.
Then David had a bright
idea!!
Why not sleep in our own
bed!!!
So, up to the outdoor deck we went
with no one stopping us; into Yertle we climbed, made the bed and went to
sleep!!!!!!
At 4:00 am the ferry made
its first stop and I slept right through it.
At 7:00 am we woke and found we were only one of two vehicles on the
upper deck and it was a breeze to turn around and drive down the ramp and
out! Well rested and amazed!!!!
Our campground in Athens was very expensive, but very very
convenient.
We had a bus stop right in
front of the campground which took us to the subway and into Athens.
They have a system where one ticket allows
you 90 minutes of travel, and the subway system is really good! I have been collecting plants along the way and now cart my little garden with us wherever we go
One of our goals was to apply through the U.S. embassy for
our Peace Corps passports and the other was to find a doctor who spoke English
and could help us work our way through the medical check-up procedures for the
Peace Corps..
Unbelievably, we found a
vice-consul in the embassy who made our passport and visa application easy and
then found a doctor from the list of English speaking physicians published by
the embassy who was able to get us what is called a complete physical (cursory
at best, but just what we needed to get all of our testing and exams done:
eye, teeth, chest x-ray, mammogram, much
blood work, many shots such as polio, measles, mumps and rubella and a few
others.
Here are our TB shots! Since the shots are in a series
of 2 and have to be a month apart, we did all our sightseeing and paperwork and
will return to Athens on March 11 for the second series of shots.
In between doctor and embassy we did a lot of sightseeing
and enjoyed the great weather. Not a
drop of rain! Not warm enough for summer
clothes, but sunny skies were all we asked for!
Our first great day was visiting the Acropolis museum.
But before we could even find the place, we
saw a crowd gather at the Parliament and got to watch the changing of the
guard.
I thought it was way more
interesting than Buckingham Palace!
We had been to the
Acropolis years ago, so chose not to go again.
But this museum, new in 2011 was amazing! First of all, it is built on top of the ruins
of a village at the base of the Acropolis
and the museum is arranged so
visitors can look down into the excavation work as they tour all the statues,
freizes, etc. taken from the temples on the Acropolis. Also, the museum itself is full of the original stuff taken from the temples on the Acropolis.It was a great museum!!!!!
We also saw `the remains of Hadrian's Library, right outside the old Agora right in the center of old Athens! We have seen Hadrian's wall, now his library. What next.
Then it was on to the Agora right in the center of old Athens!
Sunday night we had a great time.
We visited the home of Georgia and Papa
Stavros Kofinas, the sister-in-law and brother of Gary, the man I worked with
in Alaska.
She is a culinary arts
teacher and cookbook author and the meal was incredible as was the conversation
and whole evening!
We had a great time.
Then it was off, the next day to the Archeology Museum,
after which we decided that, “If you have seen one statue, you have pretty much
seen them all” and we decided we had had enough of broken pots and naked men!
This tree outside the museum is just a wonderful example of how little man's world means in the grand scheme of things!
Since we were in no rush, from time to time we spent the day
either at the campground or just doing errands, as well as three days visiting
the hospital for our medical stuff and two days visiting the embassy.
We had some nice meals, including one where a
shopkeeper personally took us to his favorite restaurant for a typical “small
plate” meal.
We would have walked right
passed this hole-in-the-wall had our “guide” not directed us.
These beets were so simple and so good!!!!
Here I am eating the Greek version of a moon pie.
Yummy!
But we didn’t even think to eat the pig parts!
We left Athens looking for Delphi which we had visited many years go. We took a side trip to Livadia where there was said to be another
oracle. Couldn’t exactly find the
oracle, but the town was amazingly lovely and we spent quite a while there,
climbing way up to a church perched high on a hill.
The only problem as that we got to Delphi at
around 2:45 and found that the oracle site closed at 3:00. Too bad!!!!!
sited years
ago, but felt it deserved another trip.
We stayed in a campground outside of Lisbon that was very near the sea and quite popular with folks from the UK who came there to winter over. It was our first experience with this kind of campground which had permanent residents. All was quite nice as they were in one area and we were in another and had most of that area to ourselves. The beach near our campground was known for its great sunsets.
Lisbon is known for these little cream filled pastries and this chop is known for the best of them!
and lots and lots of sardines!
