Crete, Greece

Our last Greek post. Even though we have seen so little of it, Greece has been a wonderful country where we have enjoyed two and a half weeks of sun, food, history, and natural beauty. Crete was a great island to complete the experience.

We started out on Crete in Heraklion, its capital. We spent a couple of days there walking the city streets and testing out the Cretan sun on the beach. Mmm, the water was nice. We loved our hotel and enjoyed a few laid back days.

Off our hotel balcony

Then we ventured over to Chania, a wonderful little city on the western end of the island. We had around four days over there, so we were able to do and see a little more. The old town of Chania is something special. It has some terrific old buildings and a slightly northern Africa feel (not that we've been there, we just imagine). Crete is as close to Libya as it is the rest of Greece. We spent many hours strolling the streets and browsing in some of the cool little shops lining them.

We stayed in a cool little tourist section with great music, restaurants, pool bars, and beaches. So, as one might expect, we spent a good amount of time simply relaxing on sand and enjoying the atmosphere. We (as English speakers) were strongly outnumbered by Dutch and Scandinavian tourists in this area, which was actually kind of refreshing.

We did manage to take a day trip on one of our days in the Chania area. That's right, we actually dragged our bums off the beach. We woke up at 6:30 to take a bus to the Samaria Gorge in southern Crete. This gorge is the largest in Europe and stretches 16 km, taking about 5 hours to hike through. It was incredible to experience such a natural wonder. At times we felt extremely small. We really enjoyed this excursion, even though we finished the gorge by 1:30 and waited until 6:30 to catch our return bus. Getting back to our hotel at 9:00 made for a long day. But we got a lot of great pictures.

Now, we prepare for a 7 hour overnight ferry ride back to Athens and a flight over to Paris. A couple days of travel before we break into the home stretch!

Santorini, Greece

We have spent this last week on the wonderful Greek Isle of Santorini. Planning for this stop of our trip, we had no intentions of doing anything but relaxing. After sightseeing and moving from city to city for months, we were looking forward to hitting beaches and sauntering through wonderful white cities perched on cliffs. Believe it or not, we did exactly that. With no real agenda for our time here, we enjoyed days of sun, exploring the island on our rented quad, and peeking in numerous shops in the towns around the island. Needless to say, we were in straight up holiday mode and enjoyed every minute of it. Santorini really is a beautiful island that lived up to our expectations in full.

Our Mediterranean vessel

Perissa's black beach (Ouch! Hot!)

Move out of the way

The picturesque city of Thira

The Red Beach

Thira

Unfortunately, our six days here have come to an end.

Fortunately, we move on to another Greek gem - the island of Crete!

Athens, Greece

We made it to Greece! We arrived in Athens Monday, June 14 flying in from Rome. We got to our hostel at around 8:30 at night and were stricken by heat still sitting in the city. We were surprised at how warm it was even after the sun had dropped low and disappeared. But, I don't know, do you call 31C warm? The days, coincidentally, were also blazing. We saw a 41 from a digital display one day and didn't doubt it's credibility. Italy was hot too, but Athens was so humid and did not cool down at night really at all, and our air conditioner only went on half-heartedly for three hours during the night. Half-heartedly. But, we managed.

We actually had a very pleasant time in Athens. It has a very unique old town, the Plaka, where we explored, shopped, ate, and watched World Cup. We have had some terrific Greek food so far. We love it. Our first night, we went to a cheaper restaurant off the beaten path and had terrific salads, pork, sausage, and pastries. Most food we've eaten than any other meal on this trip. Combined.

Obviously, Athens has the ancient sights to see: the Parthenon atop the Acropolis, the Ancient Agora, and the Temple of Zeus, among others. We enjoyed these sights as much as the next tourist, but we spread them out finely over three days, spending as much time in the shade and in air conditioned stores.

The Acropolis

The Parthenon atop the Acropolis

Parthenon

The Parthenon

Temple of Athena on Acropolis

Theatre of Dionysus at the base of the Acropolis

Temple of Zeus

In the Ancient Agora - The Temple of Hephaestus

The Panathenaic Stadium - The site of the ancient Olympics, restored for the 1896 Olympics (and then in 1904), and used again in 2004. Quite the legacy.

The Zappeion

Athens is only a small part of Greece. Let's see more! Off to Santorini, one of the alluring Greek Isles.

Sorrento, Italy

After Rome, all along we were planning to go to Naples. Naples, however, apparently is a lousy city, so we decided to hit up Sorrento. Talking to people and looking at other travel blogs, we found it to be an appealing place. We were not disappointed. Sorrento is located on a peninsula which points toward the island of Capri. We stayed in a campground just down the peninsula from Sorrento and it was beautiful. We overlooked the bay and the city and Mount Vesuvius. Old boy Vesuvius is a volcano that is active but dormant, and destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii in 79 AD. We went to see these ruins one day during our stay. When the volcano erupted, it spewed ash, rock, and lava from its top and rained and flooded Pompeii, located at its base, with it. This eruption essentially killed the city, with a population of around 20,000, and left it covered. It wasn't discovered until the 17th century and excavation began in the 18th century. Still, today, much work is being down to uncover and restore this city. It was very cool to step back and explore an entire ancient city complete with houses, courts, temples, restaurants, and brothels.

Sorrento and its bay

Mt. Vesuvius

Pompeii's forum


Because Pompeii was buried and untouched for 1700 years, virtually the only damage on the present day buildings was done by the volcano and an AD 62 earthquake.


The city is still complete with original, first century roads and original, first century Roman chariot ruts in the stones.

When the lava and ash invaded the city, it buried people alive. Those bodies decomposed and left cavities in the rock. The excavators filled these cavities with plaster and, in doing so, gave us recreations of the citizens' last positions.

An authentic fast food counter where Pompeiians would eat their pasta and paninis.

Colourful frescos still on the walls of these ancient houses.

Roman baths - the real deal

Pompeii's own amphitheatre. No Colisseum, but quite the arena just the same.



We loved hanging out in the hot area of Sorrento, but feel it was a fitting end to our Italian travels. We are sad to know that Italy is finito, but are very excited to experience all that Greece has to offer!