Visiting Greece II

After Athens, AD and I decided to wander around on two islands, Santorini and Paros. Santorini is a volcanic island in the shape of a crescent moon. The sand on the beaches is black, which is very impressive. It's also one of the most touristy places in Greece, so it was quite a feat to get it relatively free from visitors, May being the beginning of the season.

AD and I are both huge eaters, and we ate our way through Santorini. One evening, I slipped on a pretty dress, AD put on a shirt and we went to an excellent and very chic restaurant, which was entirely empty! New food crush: beetroot salad with yogurt ice-cream on top. Amazing.

So what did we do on the islands? We spent a little time on beaches...but not that much. We walked a lot, inhaling the soft, almost sugary smell of fig trees. We rented a quad bike and wandered around the coasts. We climbed up black volcanic rocks and ingested a huge amount of olive oil.

I loved Greece. Before I left, I was pretty nervous. It was my first trip with my boyfriend and we've been dating for six months-it's all very new and freshly painted still, and I was afraid a whole week of twenty-four/seven exposure to Sara would drive anyone mad. But it was wonderful. Even when I got earache on the plane coming home and dragged my suitcase through a rain storm to get home, before preparing for a gruelling week of hellish exams, it was so worth it. I'll never forget the colour of the sunsets, or the way I could feel the past come back to life around me.

Now that I'm preparing for new adventures in foreign countries, I'm thankful I had a true week of holiday, with sunburns, giggles and yogurt ice-cream.

A few snapshots, mostly taken by AD, so they look much better than usual!





Beautiful Santorini and its ridiculously photogenic troglodyte houses...


Enjoying the black sand beach with my partner in crime...


Looking ridiculous with my Birkenstock sandles on our vehicle.


Drying octopii. The fishermen bash them first before hanging them out in the sun. I was both repelled and fascinated by them.

Visiting Athens (Greece, I)

I've decided to start the travelogue with our first few days in Athens. We booked our tickets ages before the trip but then didn't bother to organize anything until our arrival in Greece started looming in the horizon. We booked hotels on the internet, vastly helped by comments on the different travel websites, and just went there, thinking we would play it by ear.

Boy did this plan work.

To start, I have to thank A.D, my tireless GPS and restaurant finder extraordinaire. He never gets lost. He never gets confused. He is always hilarious and entertaining, even on a night ferry when you have earache and want to kill everyone, especially the dehumanized ferry voices telling you to RELAX ON THE FERRY PLEASE.

Ahem.

Back to Athens. So the plan was 2 and 1/2 days there. And the plan worked amazingly well.

We went to a nice hotel near the centre of the capital and decided after a quick change of clothes (huge change of temperature!) to go visit. We went on top of one of the small mountains and saw the wonderful view there, I was quite enamoured.

As I wrote a few days ago, I became very emotional in Greece. I love ruins and ancient history, and visiting all the places I had read so much about...

For some reason I packed a lot of dresses. I don't wear them so often, but I was on holiday!



Love turtles. Their adorably slow and awkward gait touch me and I always feel like stroking their prehistoric heads before they slowly retreat.

This handsome fellow was later rejoined by his wife and child. A.D didn't feel like taking his giant camera out though, but they looked very comfy next to the Dyonesian temple.





This is the theatre where Sophocles, Euripides and Eschylus performed their plays. I may have squealed loudly when I saw it.


This is the agora, which was described in my guide book as "a badly organized, messy area where Ancient Greeks met to discuss political affairs". Harsh!



Travelling with a biologist=ant pictures. You don't want to know how many Hellenic Ants I now have on my computer.

The Acropolis was wonderful, but the museum was very boring. Most of the frieze remaining on the Temple was "bought" by Lord Elgin in 1805 and brought to England, so all the movies in the museum kept mocking the British. All the red lobsterish English people looked even more lobsterish as they listened to a broad Texan accent discussing Corinthian columns.

In the Acropolis museum, I took a few pictures of Hellenic art.

I especially like this pervy showing.



This jockey riding a horse is disturbing, but amazingly graceful, wouldn't you agree?



Not many tourists (it's just beginning to be tourist season at the moment) and so much fun. We had lavish dinners and amazing ice creams, oh and more tomorrow.

Back from Greece

When I was a little girl, my mother woud tell me and my sister stories from Greek mythology. I grew up with Gods and Goddesses who behaved very badly indeed (almost every story about a nymph starts with her rape). Visiting Greece has always been one of my dreams, mostly because of this tradition.

I have so much to tell. I've come down with terrible earache and sickness, and I'm overwhelmed with work, but as soon as my boyfriend sends me some pictures, I'll do a nice travel diary.

Walking up to the Acropolis...Drinking cocktails above the Santorini Caldera...Driving a scooter around Paros with sun-burns on my shoulders...Swimming in the Aegean sea...

It was an amazing week.