Photographs from Greece

As of this writing I am still working on going through my photographs from Greece. I've got most of them done. I'm going to include a link here to those pics. It is amazing to look at the pics and see things you missed when you were standing right there. I believe that is because there is SO much to take in, that you can't possibly grasp it all while you are there. That's one of the great things about photographs. Hope you enjoy them. (click the pic)

Day 8: Athens & Sounion, Greece

So our last full day in Greece began with a few of us getting up and going on a tour of the meat and seafood markets. (The rest slept in this morning). We go to see some crazy stuff while in these markets. We also went through the fruit and vegetable market area...and I bought a kilo of golden raisins, a kilo of pistachios, and a 1/4 kilo of cranberries...all were DELICIOUS! I took them home with me.

We then went to the flea market area again for a little while. After that we met up with the rest of our group and hopped a bus to Sounion, Greece (about an hour outside of Athens on the coast). It was beautiful! Everyone loved the drive there and back because it was such a great view of the coastline.

We went to Sounion to visit the Temple of Poseidon, which literally hung over the Aegean Sea on a cliff. It was an amazing view. It was the last chance for some good photo opts.

We headed back to Athens, freshened up for a couple of hours and then headed out to our last meal in Greece. The food was good, but we felt we didn't get enough to eat (EF set this meal up.)
But the entertainment was lots of fun. It was traditional Greek dancing from the different parts of Greece. It included audience participation, and the kids loved it and had a great time. (Most of the adults, including yours truly made it to the stage as well to break a few plates and make a few kicks...I was lucky I didn't pull anything!)

The next morning began our journey home, with a good flight out of Athens to New York. Then we had a delay in New York due to crazy weather in Atlanta. Many in our group were sure we wouldn't make our connection from Atlanta to Nashville (the last flight out of Atlanta that night), but my charmed life came through again and after a "Home Alone" run through the Atlanta airport...we made our flight and arrived home in Nashville just a handful of minutes later than planned.

The group was fantastic on this trip, and all of them are welcome to travel with me in the future!

Day Seven: Delphi & Athens at night

So we finished our cruise, and returned to Athens. We jumped on a bus and headed toward Delphi. This was about a 3.5 hour drive. It is the home of the Temple of Apollo, and where the Oracle of Delphi made her predictions. (Btw, the Greeks pronounce this "Del-FEE.")

Delphi is way up in the top of the mountains. It was strange going up into an alpine area after being on the islands for the past few days. The temple was originally looking out over the Aegean Sea, but over the past 3,000 years it has filled in with silt, dirt...etc. You can catch a slight glimpse of the sea through a couple of the mountains. It was very far from where we were.

It was amazing once we got there. The temple and the grounds surrounding it are pretty extensive, and they are only 15% of the total place back when it was in it's heyday. It was a good hike, up to the amphitheater and then up to the race track, but well worth it. The views were outstanding.

On the way back to Athens we stopped in this small little ski resort town, and got out of the bus for a few minutes, because the one road through the town was blocked by a cement truck. So we jumped off and walked through the town. On the other side of the town we met up with the bus and drove out of town just a little bit, and stopped again to take a group photo in the mountains.
We then drove a few more miles and had lunch at yet another fantastic place. The food there was outstanding, and of course was more than we could eat. The guys running this place were really delightful and everyone enjoyed it.

We headed back to Athens, almost everyone was asleep on the drive. It has been a long trip.
We return, check in to our new hotel, and rest up for a couple of hours. We then meet Shemy our tour director and she takes us on an evening walk through Athens to see the Acropolis lit up at night...etc. We also ended up walking right in front of the Parliament building and right through the middle of the protests that have been going on there. It was very crowded, but everything was very peaceful. When we returned to the hotel, a handful of us went to the roof of the hotel and took in the view of the Acropolis from there. It was outstanding.

Day 6: Heraklion, Crete & Santorini

As we arrived at the island of Crete, day six was a day where the group decided to do a number of different things. We had a small group get up early and go on a "Taste of Crete" excursion. The group had a chance to try the food and drink of the island as well as be entertained by the various folk dances of Crete. They loved the tour!

Another group stayed on the ship for the day and slept in, catching up on some much needed rest and relaxation.

Then our tour director Shemy took several of us into the town of Heraklion. We caught a shuttle bus to the city, and spent the morning just walking through the streets of Heraklion. The small port was nice, as well as the fortress that sat at the end of the port. Crete has many influences due to all the various empires that have controlled it. The Turkish/Islamic influence is seen in the architecture of the church that is located in the city...it was once a mosque. There are also signs of Venetian architecture throughout the city as a result of Crete being controlled by the Venetians in the 11th and 12th centuries AD.

We all agreed that this wasn't the best city to visit in Crete, but we managed to find some interesting things while there. It was a nice morning, and the weather was slightly cooler...which is always welcomed.

Next we made our way back to the ship and had lunch out by the pool while we made our way to the island of Santorini. Once we made it there, we once again had to take a tender boat to get to the island. We were lucky, there were only 3 cruise ships docked while we were there. So not too many people to have to work around while on the island. Some of us took donkeys up to the city above, some took the sky lift and others made the walk by foot. This is a gorgeous island, and we were there right as the sun started going down. Most of us walked around the city and tried to get as many photographs as possible, since we only had a few hours on the island. Most of our group ended up at the same little cafe that was hanging over the ocean. It had an amazing view of the cauldron below. Santorini is an inactive volcano. But it is very easy to see what happened to the island once the volcano blew. It was once a circular island, and now there is a huge part missing..and has left what they call a cauldron.

Dinner was amazing, if rushed. It was very peaceful and we were all smiles as we watched the sun going down. We made it back to our ship for the sunset. Everyone was very happy with Santorini. It lived up to what we had hoped for.

Day 5: Rhodes and Lindos

So day 5 we headed to the island of Rhodes. There we walked around the Medieval fortifications found there. It was quite different from all the ancient Greek ruins we had been around the previous days... The fortification there was built by the knights of St. John, they were known as the hostlers. The fortification had a double moat that never had any water, because it was above sea level. The knights of St. John had gun powder stored in the fortification and a large part of it blew up when the Turks attacked with canon.

We then headed to Lindos, and visited the ruins there, on top of this huge cliff. It was a slow climb up and down because of all the people. It was also a very hot visit because we were on top of this cliff with no shade. We managed to still love the view...and took a great group shot there!

The kids and most of the rest of the group went to a beach in Rhodes after the morning. The beach had a big platform about 100 yards off shore and many from the group took some dives off the 30 ft platform into the ocean...including Mike Patton, Marshall Crenshaw...some real daredevils!
Cyd Daniel and myself walked around Old Town after the tour and had a great time visiting the various markets, and finding various hidden alleys.

Day 4: Turkey (June 21)

So we woke up to our ship docked at the port town of Kusadasi, Turkey on this morning. Had breakfast on the deck of the ship overlooking the view pictured here (left). We were now on mainland Turkey.

Some of our group went on a tour of the Chapel of St. Mary, and then went on to Ephesus, while others went straight to Ancient Ephesus. I did the latter. Ephesus is so impressive. The most memorable part of it is the facade to the library there. Just stunning. (I used that word a lot on this trip.) It was not so hot, since we got up early and got out there before the real heat of the day set in.

We all returned to the ship, and it took off for the island of Patmos. This is the island where John wrote the book of Revelation. We all loved Patmos. It was a great little port town. Most of the group headed to the beach to lay out. Marshall and John Crenshaw, and Ethan Knoch and myself found a mo-ped rental place and for ten Euros we rented bikes and rode around the island. We took of to the top of the mountain where the monastery is located...and where you get a fantastic view of the port and water below. Amazing. We also took a run over to the other side of the island...where there were more beautiful beaches. Finally most of the group ended the night walking around after a great Greek dinner once again.

We jumped on our tender boats that took us back to the ship...and we were in for the night.

Day 3: The Cruise (June 20)

So we boarded our cruise ship without any problems. Most everyone was pleased with the size of the cabins on the cruise ship. I've never taken a cruise before, so had no way to measure if they were big or not... but everyone seemed happy with that part of the cruise. The food on the cruise ship left a bit to be desired, but we usually just grabbed breakfast there, and headed out to the islands to eat the REAL Greek food! SO GOOD! We have been eating some great stuff.

The kids (and Tim Doty...oh yea and Marshall as well) enjoyed playing out by the pool, and playing the different games that the cruise directors set up for the guests (our group pretty much dominated that stuff...Tim especially (he had to kiss more women in 1 minute than the guy running the show...it was no competition...they were basically lining up to kiss "Apollo"...our 60 something year old tour guide in Athens, was talking about Apollo and reached out and started stroking Tim's hair as she talked about the perfection of Apollo...like he needed THAT to make that ego grow! ha ha). So they had a blast out by the pool each day they had time for it.

Everyone cleaned up and got ready for our first island visit. The first island was Mykonos. We arrived just in time to sit down and have a nice dinner, take a few photographs and enjoy a gorgeous sunset. By the time we returned to the ship, it was night...and walking through the little town there at night was magical to say the least.

Everyone returned to the ship and headed to the lounge that had Kereoke... needless to say...the room went crazy when I pulled out "Dude Looks Like A Lady" by Aerosmith...the boat was rockin'! I think there will be video/photos of that to show up at some point...sheeeesh. Ha ha. But our whole group was there, and we had a blast doing the Kereoke. Tim, Hittle and I believe Steve and Mike made it to the casino on the ship. Tim and Andrea did pretty well. I was already in bed by this time. We had many more islands to visit over the following three days...not to mention...we were headed to the country (mainland) of Turkey the next morning!