Darrell and I decided to get a last gasp of summer warmth in Greece before returning to Switzerland for the next two months. We flew into Athens on October 18th and used the
metro and our feet to get us to our Airbnb near Syntagma (Constitution) Square.
It was warm but hazy, perhaps because Athens has high levels of air pollution
from the traffic and functions of a very crowded city.
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| View from Likovittos Hill towards the Acropolis |
We had a 6
th floor Airbnb with a good, though
long-distance, view of the Parthenon lit up at night. We shared a nice bottle
of wine left by our hosts as we enjoyed the city from the balcony.
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| The Parthenon, lit up in the background, from our 6th floor view |
The next morning we took a 3-hour city tour by bike
through the well-recommended “
Athens by Bike” company. We met our "superguide" Sapfo and the three other
couples on our tour. Sapfo is an energetic and knowledgeable tour guide with a bit of sauciness that draws you in and reveals some personal insights into the city she loves. Sapfo first took us up a quiet hill in a park that sees few people and provided a good overview of the areas we would tour.
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| Superguide Sapfo Tavouti of Athens by Bike |
She showed us numerous sites, both ancient and modern, and also gave us a short lesson in Greek. Using an ancient tablet she taught us some basic Greek so we wouldn't be able to say “That’s Greek to me” anymore.
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| Sapfo helping us read Greek from an ancient marble message |
With perfect timing, we were able to watch the changing of the guards in front of the Presidential mansion. The young
Greek soldiers selected for this honor make only 8.6 euros (less than 10 dollars) a month for
this service to their country. Thank goodness they get food and housing for the 9 months of mandatory service. If you are curious what this ceremony looks like, there are numerous videos online.
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| The changing of the guards involves ritualized movements |
After our great tour, we wandered the impressive museum by the
Acropolis, and returned to some other sites Sapfo had pointed out
that we wanted to see more closely. We hiked up a side trail to get this view of the Panathenaic Stadium that was
built entirely in marble around 344 AD and had a 50,000 seat capacity. It has
hosted numerous games including the opening and closing ceremonies of the first
modern Olympics in 1896.
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| The all-marble Panathenaic Stadium in Athens |
On the way back to our apartment, Darrell took a photo of two ubiquitous aspects of life in Athens - motorcycles and cats. There are many, many cats - presumably mostly feral - all over the areas of Greece we saw...
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| Motorcycles and cats are common sights - not always together! |
From Athens, we used our feet, the
metro, a bus, and a taxi to get us to the start of our planned 6-day bicycle
ride on the Peloponnese Peninsula. While many travelers may just spring for a
taxi, we like the challenge of finding our way new places using public
transportation. Plus we are more imbedded in the local experience and save some
euros.
We met Dimitris, the representative
from
Arcas Travel, in Vytina, a traditional village in the mountains outside of
Tripoli. He brought our bicycles, panniers, first aid kit, repair kit and GPS
for our trip. We got “sorted” quickly and then went out to eat to load up on
the wonderful local food before beginning our trip the next morning.
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| Darrell on our first day of biking in the mountains north of Tripoli |
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I won’t detail every day, but
suffice to say we saw a lot of archaeological sites, many museums, orange
groves, olive trees, a cave, some woods, small villages, larger towns, the
Argolic coast, and some serious hills! We started off with gray skies and rain
for the first three days, but had nice sun for the last three. This self-guided tour was well-organized and we would recommend it to others who like a little exercise in their excursions.
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| Harvesting walnuts for a snack by the ancient wall of Mantinea (460 BC) Photo by DK |
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| Lonely beach in Paralion Astros after the summer season has ended (Photo by DK) |
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| Our guide reading to us in English (phew!) on our tour of the Kapsia Cave |
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| Water from the Kapsia cave/sinkholes and Argolic plains emerges in an underwater spring off this semi-circular enclosure |
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| Mosaic in the wonderful museum in Argo |
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| Marble block "storage" outside of Argo |
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| Water running down the Argolic plain leaves high water mark trash on the banks |
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| Stone Circle A in Mycenae used for royal burials in the 16th Century BC |
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| Water supply at Mycenae accessed from inside the walls to deep underground outside the walls |
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| Testing the acoustics in the theater at Epidaurus |
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| Bench seats in the 3rd C BC theater |
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For those of you interested in more "environmentally friendly" travel we found Arcas Travel through a consortium company called
Responsible Travel. Both companies provided good communication and excellent service.
After our bike tour ended,
we took a 2-hour morning boat ride to the island of Hydra, which has almost no
motorized vehicles on it. We stayed in another Airbnb with an amazing view
looking down on the main town and the harbor.
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| View of the main village on the island |
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| Hydra cats waiting for a fish handout |
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| Loading olive oil on the four-legged transport available on Hydra |
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| The steep, narrow, stone streets of Hydra are easy to get lost in! |
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| Darrell and Mindy at the top of Mount Eros on Hydra |
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You can see we had a grand time in the small bit of Greece we were able to see in two weeks. The history and culture and scenery and food are all amazing - and the Greek people are some of the most authentically friendly people we've ever met. Thank you all for sharing your country with us.
