The travels of Tim and Megan: March 2008

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Santorini, Greece

Monday

Monday dawned bright and clear for our first morning in the islands. After a solid breakfast in the Costa Marina Villas (our accommodation), we made the most of the stunning day by setting off to explore the town of Fira, the main settlement on Santorini and our home for the next three days. Fira is a thriving collection of cobbled streets, bars, restaurants, ice cream parlours and souvenir shops...some of our favourite things! But Fira’s main attractions are its fabulous caldera (a cliff formed by collapse of land following a volcano) and the views across the sea to the volcano itself.

After weaving our way through the dozens of narrow winding streets of Fira and enjoying some great (and very cheap) souvlakis for lunch, we made our way down the 589 steps to the port at the bottom of the cliff. It was so quiet and peaceful down at the port and the sun glistening on the water was spectacular. Rather than walk back up the 589 steps (or hire a mule), we took the cable car back up to Fira Town. We spent the late afternoon / evening enjoying a couple of cold drinks and watching the sun slowly sink behind the volcano to the west of Santorini; not a bad way to spend a lazy afternoon.

Tuesday

We woke up to gale force winds on our second day on the island, but nothing was going to deter us from our mission to conquer the island on a four wheeler. Nothing that is, apart from the Archangel Gabriel who apparently chose 25 March to let Mary in on the virgin birth secret and therefore marked the date as a religious holiday in Greece. So it took a bit of time to find a hire shop that was open, but once we were on our yellow beast it was worth the effort.

We motored up to Oia, Santorini's second biggest town in the north-western corner of the island. We say motored, but due to the hills, the head wind, and the fact that our little beast was carrying two passengers, in truth we were moving at around 15 -30 kph most of the time. Thanks to some "interesting" sign-posting around Santorini, we took the scenic route to Oia, about twice the distance and more exposed to the coastal wind!

Oia was very pretty, but resembled a ghost town. We were not sure whether this was due to the fact that tourist season does not start in Santorini for a good few weeks yet, meaning many shops were still closed for winter, or whether it was down to the religious holiday, but there were very few people around. So we took some snaps and had some lunch at the only food establishment open for business in town, named something weird like Thomas Grill. Then we were on or merry way on the yellow beast.

We headed for the south-eastern beaches, which in peak season are packed to the rafters with tourists. Monolithos Beach was really average. The beach was filthy, with rubbish everywhere and it was pretty much surrounded by factories. A little further south we found Kamari Beach, which, while also deserted, looked beautiful. There are dozens of streets full of bars, restaurants and hotels, many overlooking the beautiful beach. If we were to return to Santorini, Kamari Beach would be an ideal spot to stay.

On the way back, we hit some much higher speeds on the four wheeler, getting up to a crazy 54kph with a tail wind and going downhill. Back in Fira, we enjoyed another beautiful sunset over the volcano, although this one was indoors due to the ever increasing winds. We had a fantastic dinner in "Stamna" restaurant - great service, fully recommended.

Wednesday

Our final day in Santorini was a very relaxing one. We enjoyed wandering the shops again (including trying to out-do each other by finding the most tacky souvenir that 4 euros can buy). Megan got Tim a lovely snow globe with two blue dolphins inside and in return Tim bought Megan a mobile phone fridge magnet. Nice.

We sat in the sunny streets of Fira, ate ice cream, sipped a few beers and watched the world go by. We took an evening flight back to Athens and stayed in the very plush Holiday Inn hotel near the airport, in readiness for our early morning flight to Istanbul!

Costa Marina
Villas

Megan on
the main
street

Tim in
Fira

Crazy
statues

Mules

Fira's
port

Oia

Church in
Oia

Oia's sea
view

Fira again

Megan on
our beast

Kamari
Beach

Sunset over
the volcano

Ditto

Another church

Fira

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Athens, Greece Part 2

Sunday

After a stunning day of blue skies and sunshine the day before, we were greeted on Easter Sunday by the hazy, smoggy skies that Athens is renowned for. We had decided to visit some of the sights we had seen from our bus window the day before. After a well earned sleep in, we bought breakfast from a cafe on the way to the train station (so much better than the hotel breakfast of the day before).

First stop was Constitution Square. Apparently this is a very popular spot for Athenians to hang out, especially since its face lift for the 2004 Olynpics. There are a few cafes and restaurants around the edge of the square and one side of the square is lined with huge (and rather expensive looking) luxury hotels! Across the road are the Parliament buildings, with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front. There were two guards marching (rather oddly) back and forth in front of the building, which kept the swarm of tourists, ourselves included, amused for a while!

We then walked a few blocks to the nearby university and library. The old university building is only used for graduation ceremonies these days. It is a beautiful building with pillars at the front, carvings of Greek gods above the main entrance and larger statues of Plato and Socrates in front of the building. The library, next to the university, is equally beautiful, with two winding staircases leading up to the entrance.

Athens was much more alive on Sunday than previous days, as it seemed that many more Greeks were out and about in their Sunday best, many carrying rosary beads. However, most of the shops were closed on Sunday - not so good for the tourists! We thought we had earned a coffee so we stopped at what turned out to be the finest cafe in Athens - very large and very posh. Tim had a hot chocolate, which was pretty much just melted chocolate, thick and extremely rich. Yum! Megan, after discovering that Greek coffee is NOT served with milk, had an espresso, also very rich. We would definitely go back.

As most of the shops were closed, we made our way through the maze of city streets towards Plaka for some lunch, stopping in at two Greek Orthodox churches on the way (one being the 11th century Kapnikarea Church in the centre of Athens). Both were small and very dark inside - basically no natural light inside! Rather than having a central point like an alter, there are pictures of various saints all around the walls. The Greek people walk around the church and pray in front of each picture and then kiss the picture before moving on to the next. Very interesting.

On Sunday evening we flew from Athens to Santorini in the Greek Islands. Apart from a very bumpy landing, all went smoothly. We checked in to our accommodation (which was very nice) and grabbed some dinner (yes, Tim had pork gyros again) before calling it a day.

Plazia
Kotzia

They do love
their flags

Plaka

Parliament
Buildings

Parliament
Guard

Old

University

Zeus and co

Library -
Megan on the
balcony

Kapnikarea
Church

Monday, March 24, 2008

Athens, Greece Part 1

Fans,

Friday

After Tim had been pumped at work for 11 consecutive days with very little sleep, and Megan had not faired much better, finally good news came as we heard on Thursday afternoon that we were actually going to Greece and not working Easter weekend.

Megan got home from work about 1am Friday morning and we set off for Heathrow at 5am (sleep is over-rated anyway) bound for Athens. Heathrow was a three ring circus - worse than usual. What a Good Friday! A not-very-Christian woman accused us of queue jumping and told us to get back in the other (much longer) line. We ignored her.

We managed to get some sleep on the plane, which made us ever so slightly less zombie like when we arrived in a drizzly Athens. After checking in to the Epidavros Hotel (not recommended - pretty average) we wandered the streets exploring the central city. We stopped in a tiny souvlaki bar and were presented with probably the finest food that 3.50 euros can buy on this planet: the most perfect chicken souvlakis (with chips stuffed in the middle as they like to do in Greece). As we walked the city streets, making our way to the Plaka district (the old town), the skies gradually cleared and made way for a very nice evening. After one beer and a light dinner, we were ready for bed...at about 7pm. We had a big day planned for Saturday, so the 11 hours sleep on Friday night was more than welcome!!!

Saturday

We had a very early start on Saturday morning as we were booked in to a half day tour of the main attractions of Athens. We went to our complimentary breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was so rubbish it was bordering on offensive. The toast was burnt, the "juice" was watered down raro, the bread rolls were stale and the only choice of cereal was corn flakes. We quickly realised they were taking the piss and returned to our room and ate chocolate.

We hopped on our tour bus at 7.30am and enjoyed seeing some more of the city as we drove around picking up other tour-goers from various hotels (all of which looked like they had decent breakfasts). The official tour began at 8.45am and we drove by the Parliament Buildings, Constitution Square (the main town square in Athens), the university, the library and the National Gardens before making our first stop at the Panathinaic Stadium, the site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. The stadium was pretty impressive although the seats didn't look overly comfortable. Every four years the Olympic torch comes from Olympia and makes its first stop at this stadium before heading around the globe prior to the Olympic Games.

The next stop was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Construction of the temple of Olympian Zeus was originally started by the tyrant, Pisistratos, in 515BC to honour Zeus but after he was overthrown, the people refused to complete the temple, as they saw it as a symbol of tyranny. However, centuries later the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, saw its potential and had the temple finished in seven years, complete with a gigantic gold and ivory statue of Zeus, and one of himself for good measure. There were originally 104 columns in the entire temple, each 17 metres high. Athenians used to bring gifts of food and precious stones etc to worship both Zeus and the Emperor Hadrian, and would leave their gifts all around the enormous temple. Today only 15 columns remain, plus one that fell during a fierce storm in 1852, which now lies in pieces on the ground.

Perhaps the most hilarious moment of our holiday happened as we were leaving the Temple of Olympian Zeus. We remember hearing hundreds of times during our childhood from parents, teachers, and everyone else, to never ever accept sweets from a man in a car. Never in our lives had either of us been offered sweets from a man in a car, so we wondered why all the fuss. However, on 22 March 2008, at the age of 27, a man in a car, a taxi to be precise, pulled over alongside us while we were waiting to cross the road and held out 2 lollies in coloured wrappings to us and, speaking in Greek, tried to lure us in to his car. Megan was off in a day dream and missed most of it, while Tim, rather confused shook his head, but then upon realising what was actually happening, started laughing at the guy, which made him promptly drive off. We are not sure if he was just a hard working cab driver trying to get a few euro out of some tourists or if he had more deviant plans, but we would both like to thank our parents and teachers for the countless warnings about this man; it was worth it in the end!!!

Next stop was what we had been waiting for, the Acropolis. We got out of the bus and walked the rest of the way up the hill (along with several thousand other tourists) to the top. There are several temples / monuments on the Acropolis hill. The first we saw was the Odeon of Herodes Atticus theatre. This magnificent theatre is set on a steep hill with a stage at the bottom, with massive arches behind it and seats arranged in a semi circle around the stage back up the hill. Back in the day there were magnificent statues in each of the arches behind the stage and a wooden roof covered the arena. The ruins of this theatre are still used today for concerts in summer time and seat around 6,000 people!

Next was the Temple of Athena Nike. This temple was in a pretty bad state of affairs, covered in scaffolding while it is being repaired and strengthened. There was once a statue of Nike (goddess of victory) in the temple, which had wings, however the Athenians cut the wings off the statue so that victory would never fly away and leave them!!!

Further up the hill we saw the breath-taking Parthenon. The Parthenon has scaffolding all down one side, as it is also undergoing repair and strengthening work. These temples are around 2,500 years old, so a little scaffolding can be forgiven. The Parthenon was constructed between 447BC and 438BC as a temple of worship for the goddess Athena.

Its actual construction is intriguing in itself. There are actually no straight lines on the temple. Each of the columns (there are 8 wide and 17 long) are slightly fatter at the bottom than the top and bulge slightly in the middle, however they give the impression of being straight up and down. Likewise, each edge of the temple bows outwards slightly by around 15cm, but looks to the human eye as though it is straight. Not only is the physical act of carrying the huge slabs of marble up the hill, carving them into beautiful pieces and fitting them together to make the temple to be admired, but the mathematical skill and precision that went into the design is equally impressive.

Next to the Parthenon is the smaller but also very impressive Erechtheum Temple. This temple was completed in 406BC on the spot where Athena and Poseidon are said to have battled for the city of Athens. It has six statues of ladies holding up the roof as pillars on one side and it has an olive tree in front, just as it did at the time of its construction. Unfortunately the Acropolis Museum, behind the Parthenon was closed when we visited.

The views from the top of the Acropolis hill are superb. You can see right to the edges of the city of Athens in every direction and down to the port to the south. Just down from the Acropolis is a beautiful untouched green hill. This hill was the birthplace of democracy and has been named (appropriately) Democracy Hill.

It was a beautiful day on Saturday (we actually got a little sunburnt) and we were definitely ready for a cold drink and some shade as we descended the Acropolis and into the Plaka district. We found a brilliant restaurant without outdoor dining under the cover of sun umbrellas and we had a fantatsic lunch of pork and chicken gyros (like a souvlaki) and olives and feta, while looking out at a view of the Acropolis we had just explored. The vibrant streets of Plaka were filled with street vendors, musicians and hundreds of tourists enjoying delicious food and cold beer.

After walking a few blocks we stumbled across the Ancient Agora, which is the ruins of the old market place and central meeting point for Athenians. It now houses a ceramics museum - sounds boring, but we saw pots from 3,000BC!!! Sadly we needed an afternoon nap before venturing back into Plaka for a few drinks and yet another beautiful dinner. Tim has decided that he could get very very fat in Greece, but he would be a very happy fat man!!!