Ancient Greece with friends!

The best days of all are the ones we spend with friends!

Today we woke up early and hurried out the door.  Very unlike us for this vacation. But we had a good reason!  Today we had a date with our friends from Colorado.  The kids were bouncing off the walls, and I am pretty sure they didn't stop talking the entire time.  Christine, Amy, and Michael all worked together at Peabody for a while and we love them. Amy was both Luke and Isa's speech pathologist before she moved to a different school and we've spent lots of time with Christine both at school and out at the barn while the kids ride her horse, Taco.

The most beautiful faces we saw in Greece today!

Side view of the Parthenon

I think we were so accustomed to ruins at this point the kids barely noticed the Parthenon!  Sad, but true!  The scaffolding and the crane took away from the ancient effect, but things have to be maintained.

It is a magnificent building.

After a long hot hike through the

Acropolis, the Theatre of Dionysus, 

the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and an Athens market, 

we grabbed some gelato on our way to lunch.  

Because that is how we do things in our family.

Christine and Amy had a restaurant that they really wanted to go back to, so we trudged around Athens until we found it.  It was delicious, and we were all so full!  I have fallen in love with Greek food.  I must figure out how to cook some of it.

We were so thrilled to have a day with our friends, seeing them made us so happy.  They were our last link to Colorado for the year, and leaving them made my heart feel heavy.

We have had such a wonderful trip.  We have experienced so many different things, seen new places, marvelled over the beauty of the earth and sea, and eaten new and creative dishes.  I am so thankful that we were able to take the kids on this adventure and that life cooperated so that we could do it.

Tomorrow we will head to the airport to fly home via Norway.  We have a very long day ahead of us - Michael figured out that we have 12 hours of flying tomorrow and 3 or 4 of layover time.  When you add in the hours we are there before the flight tomorrow and time we expect to take to get through customs, we by the time we get to JFK we will have been travelling for the better part of a day.

Sunday - A much needed rest

The first words I heard this morning, before my eyes were even open, were:  "Mom, can we stay home today?"  My kids are officially tired.

So that settled it, the only venture we were going to do today was to church and home again.  Michael found a English speaking branch that started at 1:30, so we lounged around the apartment and had a lazy morning.  Around 12:40 we meandered down to the metro and headed to the Acropolis exit, which is where the church building was.  We knew we were there before we saw the sign because there were at least eight missionaries outside the building.

One of them took our picture!  Most of the missionaries serving in the area are from Europe.

The church's name is written in Greek on the glass door.  You see what I mean that I don't have any idea what anything says.  NO CLUE.  The gold plate to the left of the door has the name written in Greek again and the English translation below it.  I realized that the word for "of" in Greek is spelled "TOY"  that's the extent of my reading of Greek.

Everyone in the branch was really kind and wonderful to us - we stayed for the entire service, which is only 2 1/2 hours here.  There is another family visiting here in Athens from Australia and their children and our children were delighted to have each other to talk to.  Yay for other children to talk to!

This is the way the rest of our day looked.  We are well rested and ready for tomorrow!

Tomorrow is our last day of fun in Europe!  I can't believe its almost been a month already! 

Ancient Greece Part One

Temple of Hephaestus

Today we stepped back in time again and continued our exploration of Ancient Greece.  We started with Ancient Agora, then wandered on to the Roman Agora, then to Hadrian's Library, and then finally over to Kerameikos, the very old cemetery.   It was fascinating.

Temple of Hephaestus other side

Gabi did a report on Sea turtles in First Grade, and since then she has a fascination with turtles and tortoises.  Imagine her delight when we happened upon this wild tortoise munching on a plant as we wandered through the Ancient Agora ruins!

Ancient Agora

Another view of Ancient Agora. The Acropolis overlooks the city.

Arch in the Roman Agora

The Roman Agora is right by the Ancient Agora.  An agora is an open marketplace.

Hadrian's Library in its time was a lecture hall of sorts with classrooms near the back.  It was definitely a place of learning,  We were also able to see a relatively recent discovery of a giant statue of a Nike.

Hadrian's Library outer walls.  Have to be honest and say I touched one of those columns to reassure myself that I wasn't dreaming and in order to connect myself with the ancient past.

Inside Hadrian's Library

To get to our next spot, we hiked about 20 minutes from Hadrian's Library.  The walk took us into some interesting parts of town.  Graffiti seems to be an art form of sorts in Greece too, and there were large graffiti murals all over the place!  When we finished our hike we were at the ancient cemetery Kerameikos.  There we a lot of ancient burial stones and statues (though we saw a lot in the museum yesterday that were taken from Kerameikos, so there really aren't all that many left!)

Kerameikos

We saved the best part of the visit, the Acropolis, for Monday when we meet up with our friends Christine and Amy to get in the exciting view of the Parthenon.  I have been waiting to see the Parthenon since I first became interested in Greek mythology in high school.  We also will see the Theatre of Dionysis on Monday, which is where Medea and Agamemnon would have been first performed.  It boggles my mind.  But this whole trip has been mind blowing, so my brain is getting accustomed to it. 

We are on the final stretch of our vacation!  Michael and I decided that the amount of exercise that we are all getting is wearing us down.  The kids have been really amazing - some days we have walked 8 + miles in the heat and they have done it with us.  I don't claim that they have done it without complaint, but gelato or ice cream cones have always been enough to renew their spirits and get them moving with gusto again.  My legs are tired so I have to give the kids a lot of credit.

Tomorrow we are going to use Sunday the way it was designed for, as a day of REST!

Athens

We made it!  We left Naxos bright and early on the 25th and took the Blue Star Ferry for 5 and a half hours to Athens. It was a long ride, but it was beautiful!  We arrived and went looking for the metro to get to our place. Up to this point Greece had been a laid back, peaceful experience.  Athens certainly changed that!  Dealing with the Greek language for the first time without subtitles (the Islands had lots of English everywhere) was overwhelming.  We had no idea which train to get on since the labels were in Greek. 



We have no idea what is in the shops unless there are pictures.  We got to the apartment and used the Greek spelling to match up the bell to ring.  It was like a pictograph.

This morning we woke up and after a breakfast to go from the bakery we headed over to the National Archaelogical Museum.  After all, it is Greece.  We saw some really amazing artifacts today. 

We saw the Antikythera Mecahnism today - its essentially an astrological analog computer from between 200 and 100 BC!  Blew our minds.

Click here for more information on the Antikythera Mechanism

Antikythera Mechanism - AMAZING!!!

I couldn't believe the similarity in the jewelry from so long ago and from today. 

 These are dress pins!  I have always wondered how those toga dresses stayed up!

Aphrodite

The kids did really fantastic for the first two hours of our visit, but the third hour the girls started getting a bit restless.  We made it through  the whole museum without issue though and headed back to the apartment.  Its just a short walk, and we managed to find a nice sized market to buy supplies for dinner tonight.  Nice sized in Europe as far as we can tell seems to mean about 5 short aisles, produce, dairy, and frozen food.  So tonight we are back to turkey and gouda sandwiches.  We then went out in search of some pizza and gyros.  About ten minutes later we were back in the apartment, watching National Geographic on cable and relaxing. 

We are resting up because tomorrow we are heading out to start seeing the sites of Ancient Greece!

Naxos

Restaurant we ate in - built in the ruins of an old farm.

Isa and I playing in the sea.  We are sitting because it is so shallow!

Greece.  I still love it here. Today we found the best beach yet for the kids - Agios Georgios.  The entry into the sea was so gradual it was still knee high about 50 meters out, and 100 meters out Michael and I could still touch the bottom.  That meant for great family time playing in the ocean.  And that is pretty much all we did today.  We rented beach umbrellas again, sipped sparkling mineral water, ate gyros and fried potatoes (they grow potatoes in Naxos), played, and napped.  No sightseeing, no buses, nothing.  When we finally rallied enough to leave the beach we headed back to the hotel and got in the pool.  Now we are all exhausted and happy.

Can't remember the last time any of them took a nap. And now here they are, all at once.

I have discovered that the Greek people love children.  More than I have ever seen anyone love children.  My kids are pampered and loved on more than they would be anywhere else - by complete strangers.  And Luke is the most adored of them all.  This is actually quite unusual - the girls usually get all the attention and Luke is generally happy about that, but roles are reversed in this situation.  Why you might ask?

When I told Luke we were coming to Greece after I booked the tickets back in January, I told him that Greek was going to be very difficult to understand and impossible to read because they use their own alphabet.  Luke, being who he is, decided that he should learn some Greek so that we could function while we were there.  Michael and I didn't do anything, but Luke learned to say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, thank you, thank you very much, and bathroom.  And he learned it well enough that they actually understand him.  And they think he's amazing and polite and that it is wonderful that he learned to say whatever he just said. Usually he gets big cheers of "Bravo" from any women in the room.  And snuggles and kisses on his head and pinches of his cheeks.   The men just are stunned and laugh and say something back to him.  I guess not many foreigners try to say anything in Greek.  (As evidenced by the fact that the adults in this family can't say anything - though Luke is trying to teach us. Doesn't have the same effect though.  I tried to say thank you at the bakery today and the guy just looked at me with a confused look on his face.  Obviously my accent stinks.)

Luke has also amazed every waiter since Rome with his choices for dinner.  On Santorini he had swordfish one day and fried sole the next day.  Last night he split a meat platter with Michael and they had marinated chicken, beef burgers, sausages, pork chops, lamb chops, and goat chops.  And they loved it all.  Today he chowed down on a pork gyro.  Bummer for him that he is going back to my cooking in a couple weeks!

We work hard all year so that we can see moments like these!

We have one more day here on Naxos and then we have a five and a half hour ferry ride to Athens.  That should be interesting!

Santorini

Greece is breathtaking.  The beauty of the sea, the architecture, and the amazing people - it all just about moves me to tears.  There isn't much to say to describe it, you have to see it to believe it.  Perissa Beach is where we were stayed on Santorini.  It has the most amazing black sand beaches.  We rented a cabana with an umbrella and two beach beds for 8 euro for the entire day.  And we stayed all day.

There is a hiking trail from Thira to Oia, and for Father's Day we decided we would try it.  In order to do that, Michael rented us a car.  Driving in Greece is really crazy.  Take a ten foot wide road and try to drive two directions on it.  Now add tourists walking on the side plus ATVs and scooters weaving in and out of traffic.  Now just for kicks, there isn't a shoulder on either side, just the walls of houses or perhaps a cliff.  That is driving in Greece.  So miracle of miracles I let  Michael drive because I flat out refused to do it.   We drove through Thira to a town just north so we could cut a couple miles out of the hike.  (I can't spell the town, it starts with an I in English)  The hike took us about 9 km along the caldera over the mountainous terrain of northern Santorini.  And past gorgeous views.

Its the most beautiful place I have ever been.

We left Santorini this afternoon and took the Blue Star Ferry to Naxos, where we look forward to starting a new adventure in the morning!

Leaving Rome

Piazza Navona

Okay, Rome is a very lovely city.  Beautiful ruins.  Kind people.  Terrible to get in and out of though.  Our journey into Rome was fraught with problems, and I am unhappy to say that our journey out wasn't easy either.  We had a lovely morning - cleaned up and packed and got ready to check out of the apartment.  When our host and hostess arrived they were gracious enough to allow us to leave our luggage their until 5 pm so that we wouldn't have to go pay to have it watched at Termini Train Station.  So very nice of them.  So we left it all there and headed off to Piazza Navona.  We had a great lunch at a bar just outside the Piazza and then wandered around until we found some gelato and a couple trinkets to take home.  All was well.

Wandering the streets of Rome.

We ran out of steam and out of ideas of what to do around 4, so we headed back to the apartment and got our luggage, and caught the metro to Termini.  We managed to navigate the self service train ticket machine and bought tickets for the fast train to Fiumicino airport.  Our train wasn't assigned a platform, and then it said "soppresso."  We stood there wondering for a couple minutes, then went and asked what that meant.  Soppresso = Cancelled.  Grrrr.  Why was I able to purchase tickets at 4:40 for a cancelled train that was supposed to leave less than 1/2 an hour later?  They had to know it was cancelled by then!  

So the agent told us to go find the bus to Fiumicino-there was a replacement bus for the train and it was free.  We ended up with two college kids from CU Boulder who were trying to get to the airport too and we all wandered around for about 20 minutes trying to find this bus.  Nope, no bus.  But we did find a different bus that would only charge us 4 euro per person to take their bus to the airport.  Why did I just spend over 40 euro on a train if I could have gotten us there for half that?  Instead I spent 40 on the train AND 20 on a bus.  Hopefully I can call the credit card company and get that fixed.

I sat with a Englishman who was trying to get home to London.  He was very late because of the train issue and I was actually concerned he might give himself some type of cardiac event because he was really freaking out.  I really couldn't blame him much, he got to the airport with only about 35 minutes to catch an international flight.  Yikes.

We on the other hand arrived around 6:45 for a 11:55 flight - so we had 5 hours to leisurely stroll through the airport, play our electronic devices, and eat more gelato, which we did.

The flight eventually left last night, 45 minutes late, and most of us dozed off at least for a little bit of the two hour flight.  Gabi and Isa were asleep before take off.  We arrived just before 4 am this morning in Santorini and immediately fell in love with it.  And then fell fast asleep.

Ancient Rome

We have really enjoyed the sights of Rome, however I think I may like the food as much as I do the sights. We had a fantastic dinner last night at a restaurant right by the apartment. I had ravioli unlike any I have ever had before. Luke had the house specialty, which our host told us was pasta with fish. We were thinking pasta with little sardines or some white fish of some kind. Nope. Pasta with mussels, clams, and a whole gigantic crawfish complete with eyeballs. Luke devoured his dinner with a gigantic smile on his face. The girls and Michael each had spaghetti. We had bread and antipasto and water that we bought by the glass bottle. We felt very fancy.

Today we lost ourselves in the past. We left the apartment early and headed over to find the Roman Forum. Julius Cesear was stabbed in the Forum on the way to the Senate.  The ruins are amazing. We saw so many bits and pieces of the past we walked down the Via Sacra (Sacred Way) which is the oldest street in Rome and as we walked on that street on which feet trod thousands of years ago we saw the Temple of Romulus, the Temple of Saturn, the House of the Vestal Virgins, the Arch of Titus and many more. Michael, Luke and I were fascinated. The girls were more interested in the intricate carvings than the history, but I was thankful they found something to be interested in. There is construction happening all along the ruins – they are putting in a new subway line. The thought process behind installing a new subway under the ground next to 2000 year old ruins befuddles me, so I am glad I saw them now before they all wobble to the ground!

Next we walked up Palatine Hill – where the Imperial rulers of Ancient Rome lived. It was interesting to walk through those ruins, and the views were great!

After Palatine we headed over to the Colosseum. We had read online and in guidebooks that one should purchase the triple ticket for Forum/Palatine/Colosseum at the Forum entrance to avoid the line at the Colosseum. And we had done that and had only waited about five minutes to buy tickets. The line at the Colosseum to buy tickets was painfully long – I would guess it would have taken 3-4 hours to get through that line – but we just showed our tickets on the other side of the line and walked through. Only had to stop for a bag check and to go one by one through the turnstile. Oh sad, sad uniformed people. The Colosseum was amazing and revolting all at the same time. Explaining it to the girls was pretty awful – Isa couldn't believe that people were made to fight animals or each other to the death. Pretty horrified. She kept asking “What kind of people would think that is fun to watch? That's awful. What was wrong with them?” Aahh, child after my own heart…..

Luke and Michael, on the other hand, thought the visit was awesome. The sheer scope of the building just blew them away (it was pretty amazing.) Its just as big as you expect it to be, unlike other monuments that are smaller in person. It sat up to 73,000 people. We managed to get onto the arena floor and were just above the underground cages and cells where they would keep the animals and the gladiators before fights. The actual floor is gone, but there is still a pathway and some viewing areas so there is a ground level for perspective.

After we finished at the Colosseum we headed off to find lunch. The wrong way. We walked about ¾ of a mile the wrong way, asked one of the gazillion Rome police officers (really, they are everywhere) who googled the place we were going and told us it was a 30-40 minute walk back the way we'd just come. UGGH. Whoops. So we scratched that idea, headed up the street and went to the first pizza place we found. Pizza and soda for everyone. Took our pizza slices and headed to the nearest Piazza and plopped on a bench to eat.

Pantheon

After a rest we happily discovered that although we had walked away from our planned lunch spot, we had walked ourselves within half a mile of our next destination, the Pantheon. So off we went again through the narrow winding streets of Rome hoping that we would have better fortune. And we did. The Pantheon is the best preserved ruin of Ancient Rome, and honestly, its amazing! It was rebuilt after a fire in 80 AD – sometime between 117 and 138 AD, I haven't been able to figure out when. It was converted into a church in 609, which protected it from being stripped too badly, though it wasn't completely unscathed.

Inside of the Pantheon

Spanish Steps

Next we headed for Trevi Fountain, and the guidebook's suggestion for Gelato. We had gelato at II Gelato di San Crispino. It was really, really good. Trevi Fountain, alas, was under construction and not in operation. Bummer! On to the Spanish Steps we went, took a couple pictures, and then lo and behold, there was a metro stop just a little ways off. We jumped on the metro and headed for home.

This last part of the trip things got a little ugly. The train car we were in had a pickpocket team in play and Michael watched
someone have their wallet lifted on the platform outside the train. Not much he could do about it, especially not without endangering our kids since the pickpocket's buddies were still in the car with us. Made me want to go home. That and the really “snuggly” guy who was right up on my backside in the train. Amazing how much room was available behind him, yet he felt he needed to be so very close for stability. Yeah, I don't think so. I scooted the kids over on the bench and sat down with them, putting Gabi on my lap. I didn't want to freak the kids out by slapping some stranger on the train. Perhaps he was with the pickpockets. I just think he was a creep.

After a dinner at home tonight we headed out to find a chemist/pharmacy since Michael and caught colds from the plane ride over from the US. There was a a very coughy little kid on that flight, and we both have some kind of crud now. Trying to get cold medicine is complicated when you can't tell the pharmacist what is wrong with you. All we wanted was cough drops. Try describing a cough drop using just your hands. However, she was smart enough to read between the lines and get us some kind of effervescent tablet for the cold symptoms and a medicated cough drop. Renewed faith in the Italian people – and I really needed it after that awful train ride.

Tomorrow we have one more partial day here in Rome and then we get on a plane for Santorini! We are so excited!

Our Day at the Vatican - By Isa and Gabi

Our day at the Vatican

By Isa and Gabi

Here we are with our audioguides.

  

Today we went on the subway to get to the vatican. We walked a bit to get there and had about 30 minutes to wait. Luckily for us, they let us in early! We went and got our kids' audioguides. They said it was like a treasure hunt. For masterpieces. We went to look for a lot of different paintings and sculptures. We also went to the Egyptian section and saw a real dead woman. She was a mummy and had been dead for more than 1,000 years. We could see her toes. Mom didn't take a picture. It was gross!

This is Mercury.

This is Perseus after he killed Medusa. She has snakes for hair!

We saw a lot of animal sculptures and paintings. We also saw many paintings of Jesus Christ. He was a baby in a lot of them. We saw so many naked statues! We noticed how well they were carved – they looked like real people, we just didn't like that they were naked!

 

The ceilings were decorated all over.

One of the many paintings of Jesus that we saw.

St. Peter's square.  We saw the window the Pope talks from.

This is the hall of maps.

Mom was super excited to see the Sistine Chapel because she had wanted to go there since she was a little girl. The paintings were amazing. No one can take pictures in there though.  It took Michelango four years to paint the ceiling and four more years to paint the big mural on the wall. Our audioguide taught us lots of things. It also told us that Michelangelo was mad at someone while he was painting the ceiling and he painted that guy with giant donkey ears surrounded by devils on the ceiling somewhere. We didn't find it, but its up there!

By the time we got to the Sistine Chapel our feet were REALLY tired, but mom made us go to Saint Peter's Basilica anyway! It was really big. There were more statues and more paintings in there. It also had La Pieta by Michelangelo.  We then got to see the Papal Swiss Guard. He didn't move a muscle. Creepy.

In St. Peter's Basilica

La Pieta

After we left we got some yummy gelato. Isa had coconut and mint. Gabi and Dad had mint and caramel. Luke had mint and chocolate. Mom had pistachio and chocolate (and the pistachio was the right color, Mr. Hayden.) We love gelato. On the way home dad found a place where we each bought two bracelets. We are very happy and very tired!