Greece is the Word

Our final stop on the European continent was some time in Greece.  It began with a ferry trip from Italy to Greece and kind of a funny story.  The ferry left at 7:30 pm and was due to arrive in Greece at 1 am, I thought--a reasonable trip.  Well, when 2 am rolled around and we showed no signs of stopping, Mike rechecked the itinerary.  Turns out our arrival time was 1 P.M.!  Mom was not the most popular member of the family when this announcement was made and we all had to scramble to find a quiet place and get some sleep.

Trina lost another tooth!  I've lost count of how many on the trip, but this was the second one on a ferry ride.

Our ferry landed in Patras, Greece and we had a three hour drive to Athens.  We were enjoying a beautiful drive along the coastline when we all heard a pop and Ella heard hissing.

Changing a flat, with a view

Unexpected new knowledge gained on this worldwide adventure

 We were very thankful there was a spare in the van and we could replace the completely flat tire.  But then the spare looked low so we really needed to find a repair shop (on a Saturday afternoon).  Also, there were very few exits on this road.  Such a blessing to make it to the exit and then see this picture as we rounded the bend:

Um...hey, I think this might be a tire shop!

 These guys were so great.  They were ready to close but they took time to fix the spare and find us a new tire.  And, because of this "random" exit, we also found this great spot for lunch:

Our restaurant was right along this promenade

We had our first great Greek food here (but I did avoid the spring rolls!)

On the way to Athens, we made a short stop in Corinth to see the ruins.  We could look out over the water and imagine how Paul might have made his journey here.

 And then it was on to Athens:

The Temple of Zeus with modern Athens around.

Of course a visit to the Acropolis...

...and the Parthenon

And then we walked on the Areopagus or Mars Hill.  I never knew the significance of this, but it's the spot where Paul speaks to the Greeks about the gospel (Acts 17).  The plaque on the right gives the verses in Greek.  In the middle of lots of mythology and false gods, it was very meaningful to see those words of the truth of the gospel still "speaking"

The Panathenaic Stadium--this hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896 and also hosted some events in the 2004 Olympics.  The stadium is made completely of marble.

After driving around lots of narrow streets and entering the wrong church (Orthodox, where the service was just ending), we finally found this little Baptist church we were looking for.  The pastor gave a great message on Romans 1-3. His wife is Greek-American and he is Greek-South African and they both grew up in Greece.

The original Sparty!

Kinda tacky to take a picture of half-eaten food, but it looked so good we couldn't wait!  Souvlaki, moussaka, gyros, yogurt with honey.  

 October 5 rolled around and it was time to celebrate Mike's birthday (on another ferry ride).  We've now celebrated 5 of our 6 birthdays in various parts of the world.

Guinness hat (with a bottle opener), Budapest bottle opener, poster--do you sense a theme?!!

 Our ferry was taking us from Athens to Milos.  There are so many beautiful islands (200+) with so much to offer that it was overwhelming for me to decide.  Good thing we have a decision-maker in our family, so Faith narrowed it down to Milos and found us two great places to stay.  This island was the original home of Venus de Milo and was a great island to explore.

This was the first beach we visited.  Pictures just don't do justice to the multicolored water or rock.  And, since summer is over, the beaches were pretty quiet.

Next stop was Tsigrado Beach.  This one is well known because of the interesting descent to the beach--a narrow, steep walk down a crevice in the cliff...

...and then a ladder

There were two little cove beaches at the bottom and great swimming through and around these rocks.

The girls loved swimming through this opening in the rock and then started climbing up the rocks and jumping off.  This is Trina's sign that "I'm fine" :)

The next day we visited Sarakiniko Beach, the most well-known and photographed because of how unique it is.

The whole area is covered with this white volcanic rock.

The girls swam out to this island so they could jump off the cliffs.  All of their talk carried across the water to where I was sitting.  A low moment was when I heard one of the girls ask the jumper if she saw any rocks.  "I'm pretty sure there aren't any"--and then she jumped.  PRETTY sure??

And then there was one dive.  Faith decided one dive was enough--it was a long way down!

While walking around the rocks, they also discovered this cenote-type pool that eventually led out to the sea.  Some more cliff jumping from here.

Each day we would map out some beaches to visit along with other sights.  This island has a big mining history, so we visited its mining museum and also swam in an area of the harbour with little hot springs.

Discovered this beach as we were driving.  It had a narrow cliffside path leading down to a little cove.  What sign?!!

This is so typical--Mike finding the one little patch of sun.  You can see where this swimming area opened up into the ocean.

The first place we stayed was very cool and on the hill overlooking town.  But then we moved to this great place right on the water.

Mike's conference call to the team in Oklahoma City.  Wonder who had the better surroundings?

A beautiful sunrise from our deck

This was the town beach.  Trina loved the gigantic swing.

Mike likes to think the van is an off road vehicle (shh, don't tell the rental company)

"Our" street in Pollonia.  We went to this little Greek Orthodox church on Sunday.

One of my most awkward Sunday experiences to date.  The Orthodox "way" is so unfamiliar plus it was all in Greek.  The smattering of old women would randomly stand up or sit down and sometimes some would stand and some would sit.  Celia and I were in the front row so it was hard to just follow the crowd.

 On Sunday afternoon, we discovered some more beaches, including this one.  Most popular for the girls are any that provide jumping.

"Hey, Dad--we're going to jump in over here and we're pretty sure there aren't any rocks below."  "Hmmm?"

The old streets in Plaka, the capital city of Milos

And then we had one more day in Athens before catching our flight.

Graffiti was everywhere in Athens--disappointing to see on so many public buildings.

We discovered some Rick Steves audio tours to teach us more.  As you can see, the girls were super excited about this added learning development.

Before heading to the airport, we had our last Greek meal in a very local restaurant in a small town.  Now that's a Greek salad!

We noticed most people had this local wine on their table.  We ordered a half carafe for the whopping price of  1.25 euros (about the same in dollars).

And sadly, this is where we said goodbye to our trusty van that got us all over Europe (and even a little of Africa) over the past few months.  25,000 kilometers--more than two thirds of the way around the globe--with one fearless driver.

As I write this post, we're experiencing some time in the Middle East which has been a HUGE learning experience for all of us.  More on that in the next post.

The Riviera

So after our Moroccan adventure, we're now back in Europe, taking one final spin along the southern coast.

From the ferry, we continued along the coast of Spain to France.  We stopped at some random beaches along the way to catch a little sun as we traveled.

The highway followed the coast so we had some amazing views

Suddenly we were seeing greenhouses everywhere.  Turns out this is a "thing"--The Greenhouses of Almeria.  Since the 1980s, these greenhouses have been built in an area that is arid and didn't provide much industry.  Now this area provides half of all Europe's fruits and vegetables.

They traveled down the mountains right to the coast, some at crazy angles.  I kept thinking how this might possibly be an industry for Haiti??

More and more this is becoming a picture of this year.  Four independent travelers telling their parents to keep up :)

And, after finding the cooler, we finally found the actual beverage!

We made a stop in Barcelona, mostly to visit Sagrada Familia--the cathedral that's been under construction since 1882. 

The cathedral got mixed reviews.  It combined a lot of different styles and incorporated color, which was unusual. The little spires to the left are topped by different fruits which were brightly colored and sparkly.  Some have referred to it as a melting birthday cake.

Across the street was a little Barcelona football shop and museum.  Trina once did a report on Argentina and its football players and became a fan of Lionel Messi, who is Argentinian but plays for Barcelona.  She had fun reading up on him and finding his jersey.

Then we crossed the border and traveled along the French Riviera.  We felt a little out of our league as our big white van filled with six travelers wearing their same old unlaundered clothes traveled among Jaguars and Rolls-Royces and toy poodles and botox through Cannes and Nice and Monaco.

Then it was on to the Italian Riviera which was so beautiful and a little more low key.

We stayed in this apartment tucked in the hills with a distant view of the ocean

This is Paolo's dad, Julie, and Paolo, our hosts.  They lived in one side of the house.  Paolo is from Milan but moved here to get away from the rat race.  His parents followed.  And Paolo's partner, Julia, is Romanian.

Julia made breakfast for us each morning with homemade breads and Italian coffee, along with fresh figs and grapes from their yard.

 

The view from our balcony.  Way in the back you can see the water.

So Mike is fascinated by the vehicles and machines and materials.  I, on the other hand, love to see the different foods and housewares and ways of living.  Here are a couple from this area of the world:

Many of the kitchens in France and Italy have these drying racks.  They just look like a cupboard over the sink but the bottom has holes so the water drips into the sink as the dishes dry.

It's hard to find a coffeemaker or french press here, but we've gotten used to using a Moka pot, like a mini percolator.  Coffee grounds and water are put in the bottom and the coffee perks up into the top as it heats up on the stove.

And then it was Sunday and we can add this to our list of interesting church experiences.  There was a little Catholic church up the hill where mass supposedly started at 11.  But we sat for a half hour with a couple of other people and watched the priests and others prepare everything.  In the meantime, Faith looked at the bulletin and, using her best Italian translation skills, said "I think it's a baptism today".  Then the church began to fill up to overflowing with people who obviously knew each other well.  Things were starting to feel a little awkward, especially as we were taking up prime seating.  Mike insisted it was still a normal mass meant just as much for other people.  But it did appear that the entire service was directed at little Paolo.  When the service ended, we exited as quickly as possible before anyone could ask whose side of the family we were on.  So, those of you from the Catholic background--was it appropriate for us to be there?

We feel as if little Paolo now holds a special place in our hearts as we greeted him along with the priests and the rest of "our" family :)

It amazes me to find all these ornate churches tucked away in tiny little towns.

Before leaving, Julia suggested we walk to their little town of Velva.  This area was filled with all these little towns built on the hillsides.  The town was built along steep cobblestone streets and alleys and staircases.  So quaint and historic.

 We spent a day hiking the Cinque Terre (Five Lands).  This trail follows the coastline and connects five small towns (hence the name).  Because of ongoing flooding, the trail to the 4th and 5th towns was closed, but we hiked between the first three.

We began in this beach town of Monterosso al Mare.  The trail began as a walkway to cute hotels and suddenly we were climbing steep steps and narrow paths up and up and up.  The girls were quite grumpy with me that I had called it a "walk"--"this is definitely a hike!"

You can see the path along the left as we began our descent into Vernazza, the next town.

Lunch in Vernazza.

Then we began the second half of our hike to this hilltop town of Corniglia.

From Corniglia we had views of the next town of Manarola.

These poor girls gave us some sad story of never having gelato before.  

Near the train station for our return trip, ol' Eagle Eye Ella spotted a little reminder of home.  Small world!

We were driving right by on our way to Florence, so of course we had to stop.  And of course we had to do dumb poses just like everyone else around us.

As an example of how weird this adventure gets sometimes, we had planned to stop in Florence, but when we got there no one really knew why or what.  Of course, we hoped to see David while there, but the line was crazy.  So we walked around the town and visited the cathedral.

Ya kinda forget how many good foods Italy is known for.  Couldn't leave without trying an authentic cannoli.

And then it was on to Rome:

Colosseum

Roman Forum

Pantheon

 We had a great day walking around Rome.  We've done a lot of things wrong on this trip, namely trying to see too much too quickly (but our motto continues to be "better quickly than not at all"), but one thing I realize we've done right is walking around the cities.  It's so much fun to walk through little neighborhoods and do lots of people watching.  And in between that, we stopped to tour the historic hot spots.  I'll probably get the facts all twisted up, so feel free to google them yourselves or think back to all you learned in Ancient History class :)

Our host highly recommended we visit Castel Sant'Angelo, also called the Mausoleum of Hadrian.  Hadrian, the emperor of Rome, had this built around 135 AD as a mausoleum for him and his family.  Later the building was used by the popes as a fortress and castle.  At one time, this was the tallest building in Rome.

 

We also visited St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.  We had hoped to visit the Vatican Museums (Sistine Chapel!), but once again the lines were hours long.  Even the line to walk through St. Peter's Basilica wrapped all the way around the square (you can see these people in the forefront of the picture are in line).  So we just did a look-see and moved on.

On the outskirts of Rome, we visited the Catacombs of  St. Callixtus, dating back to the second century.  (Not a great picture, but at least Mike got one before he was reminded that there was no photography!).  This network is 12 miles long and 20 meters deep. It was not allowed for bodies to be buried within Rome city limits so these were built to bury mostly Christians.  This one is also the burial place for 16 popes.  There were 4 levels of chambers carved into the walls, either individual sized or family sized.  

The catacombs were located along the Appian Way, one of the earliest Roman roads, built in 312 BC.  We followed the road for a few bumpy kilometers (although it's said when it was built, it was so smooth you couldn't even feel the joints).  All along the road were old ruins...and old goats.

The morning routine--we've got quite a suitcase system going.

Our final stop in Italy was Pompeii.  We'll talk about those little old ruins in a minute, but first things first.  The Pasta!  We had dinner at a restaurant that was just "so Italian".  Friendly, lively servers and boisterous groups of diners.  And now I understand the importance of pasta "al dente"--so good!

But the ruins of Pompeii were pretty amazing too.  I struggle with ancient history--give me Civil War and WWII any day--but Pompeii was surprisingly interesting to me.  I had no idea just how well preserved it was, so instead of just a pile of ruins, I could see the houses and town and really imagine people living here.

Look at the marble and the statues--still in amazing condition.

The original roads.  Many areas were fenced off for ongoing work.

The amphitheater.  Those bottom seats are marble.

In a large amphitheater near the exit was an exhibit with photos and these plaster casts of bodies found.  The one in the middle is of an adult with a child.

This was our final stop in Italy.  From here we drove to the east coast where we "ferried" from Italy to Greece--our final European country.