Yet another great set of pictures from another corner of the world. We clearly were born to run...see the world, experience everything of what is out there. I already spoke a bit about my greek experience in my last post, but I can give a little bit of more detailed info along with the pictures.
4 days and 3 nights that were surely worth it! Seeing Shane before his big journey to Cairo was a bonus, and it´s just amazing how we are (literally) able to see the world together...meeting up all over the globe.
The first day was spent relaxing and walking around the little parts around our hotel. We were pretty tired from our trip, so we decided to take it easy and had some great Gyros with greek salad...ahh, I can´t compliment the greek salads enough...I have a new appreciation for Feta. :) Something new to add to my list of fave foods...The next day was spent visiting all of the temples and ruins of ancient Greece. It was, simply, spectacular...and the weather was very hot, too.
I like this picture. After a while, you kinda start to wonder what every temple and monument is called, so unfortunately I can´t really tell you what this one was called. Shane, am I right when I say that the one pictured above is from a site called ancient Agora? I´m not sure for this one, though...Shane explained to me the difference between a Doric pillar, an Ionic one and a Corynthian one...he was even able to read a bit of greek. That boy keeps surprising me, as I surprised him when I told him that I wrote a lil children´s book and that there´s a copy of it in the National Library of Canada. "Le Petit Jaguar Solitaire"..look for it ;)
We also saw the Acropolis, which were a set of temples on top of this giant hill overlooking the city of Athens. Quite impressive. We chatted it up with lots of australians that day, probably because Shane was wearing his yellow t-shirt that said "australia". That´s a "Hello, I´m a tourist" target alright :) They were all super friendly though, of course. Canadians and Aussies just seem to be made out of the same mold.
After our very long climb up (it was very hot that day and climbing so much made me a lil dizzy) we walked back down and wandered the little sidestreets for a bit...we had been wanting to eat dinner later that day at a place that had live greek music, and lo and behold...we find a perfect place and Shane has the brilliant idea of reserving us a table later for that night. The restaurant was EXCELLENT, and I had greek salad (of course), a slice of spinache and cheese pie and Moussaka. Shane had lamb with potatoes (we both shared the salad). For dessert we shared Baklava...and oh my GOD was it ever delicious. A generous portion, too. The ambience was terrific...good food, good conversation, good ambience....
On Sunday we went to a little town called Nafplio, which is a cute little town that has lots of little tourist shops and cafes...the little streets were really precious with the vines enlacing the buildings and the beautiful flowers blooming all within it. We saw a giant fort built on this big hill overlooking the town, so we decided to climb all the way to the top to get a good look of the Aegean Sea and Nafplio from above...and of course, to see what the fort looked like from the inside. 800 steps sure is a lot. My legs were trembling on the way down...quite the exercise!
I love this picture. It´s just the view from the side of the fort. It was very misty and gray that day, but we were counting our blessings since we were sweating and panting anyway from the climb...extreme sunshine would have made the climb much slower, I´m sure.
Just look at all that cacti! I just love to stare at the sea...I stood there for a while, with my hands supporting my face, just dreaming away and soaking in the view. Everything was so quiet and peaceful up there...just like everything once was, a very long time ago. This is when you start to realize how noise pollution can cause so much stress in our world. Ugh.
Here´s a tourist street from Nafplio...notice the vines and the pink flowers poking out here and there. It looks much better when you are there in person, but I still think this photo is not to so bad, eh? It rained a little, later on during the day (while we were at a Haagen Dasz restaurant!!!MMMMM) but we didn´t get wet at all since we stayed under giant umbrellas (while I ate my banana ice cream) and watched a soccer match. It feels weird saying soccer now..I´m so used to saying football like the rest of Europe. But I used the term so that all you Canucks reading this would understand...well, just in case. :P
Athena, the mighty! This statue was located (in what we belived to be) the town hall, close to the library. This picture was taken on Monday, on our last day in Athens together, and we wandered around a bit around the Parliament (unspectacular) and shimmied our way to the botanical garden, where there were lots of live animals (as in donkeys, ducks, rabbits, roosters, etc)...even a turtle that was making its way through a path where people walked! I like turtles. If I had a turtle I´d call it Iggy. I would also use this name for a Frog. Tee-hee.
The temple of Zeus! Not much remaining, but hey, still a sight to see, no? There was one pillar that looked like it had fallen recently (not pictured) but we didn´t know the exact year...Shane thought that he had seen it in his LonelyPlanet book, but couldn´t quite remember the date. That´s ok, I forgive ya....this time ;)Athens and Nafplio was well worth seeing...it was the perfect little trip before Shane and I had to part ways again. 4 days certainly seemed enough in order to see the most important sights...I didn´t feel rushed at all (as I did when we went to London, but still...was a great trip as well).
Now Shane is in Egypt, where I hope to be able to see him sometime early December...Oh, and I already bought my ticket to Canada for Dec. 22nd....see you all during Xmas and New Year´s! xoxoxooxox love you all and miss you Heidi
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