As usual, it's a pain to post a bunch of pictures on the blog in a coherent order that looks good, but here goes. I can only hope that the captions are somewhere near the pictures they're describing.We went to a Greek Orthodox church service on the first Sunday we were in Athens. It's part of our ongoing religious tourism tour which has already included a synagogue in Budapest and a mass in a 300 year old church in Tucson. This was an interesting service with all the ritual and all the singing. One thing that struck me was that the priest mixed the wine with the bread and spooned a chunk of the sodden mass in the mouth each of the participants. (Hey, maybe that's why mass is called mass!)
Athens had an interesting way of encouraging people to recycle. Here's a recycling booth where people would put in their bottles or cans or whatever, and get cash back! A reverse vending machine.
Here we are on the peak of some monolith in Meteora. Fortunately we were able to drive to most of the monasteries. Only a couple of them required a somewhat strenuous climb.
These monks did some fabulous stone and brick work. I'm assuming they did most of the work themselves, but whoever did it had some talent.
I loved these patterns in the brick. Maybe it will inspire Hal with the arched grottos he has under construction at the GaragemaHal.
It was a long way to haul up food and supplies. Here's the winch system they used in one of them.
It looks like they stuck timbers in the base of the winch and walked around in circles for a while.
The insides of the chapels in the monasteries were quite ornate. I don't know if the monks were artists as well. In any case a lot of time and effort and manpower went into these structures. In the little bit of reading I did about Meteora, it wasn't clear who paid for or supported their construction. I think the original monks were like hermits living in caves, but I don't know how the transition to the much more ornate structures was done.
A figure of Jesus was at the peak of the interior of all the domes.
These monks were true cliff-dwellers. Today they have a cable car to get up there, but back in the day, they had a hell of a climb.
Enough of Meteora for a while. Here we are at the end of the road to Mount Olympus. They've got quite a trail and hut system up there. You can treck from hut to hut or you can go all the way to the top. Apparently the 2,917m peak is relatively easy to climb with the only tough part being the final scramble to the top.
This is the view from our balcony at the town nearest the base of the mountain.
But we weren't only in the mountains. We did have some beach time to work on our tans. Megan looks pretty relaxed, doesn't she?
We spent most of the second week on the water. On Saturday afternoon we were checked out on the boat, and since there were still several hours of daylight left, we left the marina and motored (there was no wind) for a couple of hours to an anchorage at the north end of Paros. The next day, we sailed in moderate winds to a bay on the southeast corner of Schinhousa. The wind was rising all day, but we had a pretty good anchorage that protected us from the waves, even though we were exposed to the wind. The next day we were going to Ios, but the winds were in excess of 20 knots, and I wasn't comfortable with the two of us sailing in those conditions. So we motored, but soon we weren't comfortable motoring either. Not because of any danger, but because the wind kept building, it was really uncomfortable! Every minute or two the spray coming across the bow would drench me from head to toe. I could not have been any wetter if I had been swimming alongside the boat. The one thing that surprised me was how cold I got. Even in 80 degree temperatures with 70 degree water, the constant wind had me shivering pretty badly by the time we got to the refuge of the brand-new, but unused marina at the south end of Naxos.
The marina was gorgeous and well-equipped, but not quite finished. The light standards were up, and all the power and water outlets were installed, but in spite of the fact that the lights worked, there was no power or water available at the dock. Speculation among the Brits we met there who were also hiding out from the wind, was that the EU put up 75% of the money to build the marina, with the Greeks putting up 25%. But they never put in their share, so the marina was never quite finished. There only "business" there was Dimitri's cantina. He could supply water to the boats and beer and home-brewed wine to the passengers. For a fee, he'd go to the nearest town, 22km away and buy groceries or whatever else you ordered. And at night, he and his lovely wife would feed you lamb or pork or whatever they had on hand. The first night we were there, we ate a lamb that had arrived live in the back of his pickup around noon that day. As far as I was concerned, it was the best meal I'd had at a restaurant in Greece. But that's not actually as much praise as it appears to be. We had some really crappy meals in various tavernas around the country.
Here's six of us that evening. Dave and Pat and Rob and Pat and Megan and me. Rob's the photographer.
For two days we had consistent winds over 30 knots, with gusts well over 40. I was glad we were tied up at a dock and not hoping our anchor would hold in some bay.
The Brits were pretty good folk. Forty years after they met in college, three friend got together and built the catamaran you see here. It took them four years to build the boat, which they then sailed to the Mediterranean. So every summer, two or three of them and their wives sail for a month or two. Next year, they are planning on taking the boat back to England.
This picture gives you a bit of an idea of how much rocking and rolling was going on, even in the shelter of the marina.
When the winds finally died down below 20 knots, we headed up to the northern end of Naxos. We anchored in the bay and took the dinghy to shore for explorations during the day. It's quite a lovely island, with lots of mountains, marble quarries, and interesting small towns. And they had lots of marble. The breakwater was built from marble boulders!
Further inland, we stopped at a marble cutting shop. We even got a tour from the very friendly East Indian workers. Who would have thought that Greeks would import people to cut marble!?
Actually, the best meal I had in Greece was at this cafe in a town in the interior of Naxos. The fresh-made sausages from a shop down the street were excellent!
When we left Naxos, we had our best day sailing. The winds were 12-15 knots on our beam. Perfect! We headed back to our home port of Paros, spending the night there before heading back to the mainland on Sunday.
Somehow it appears that the construction and engineering skills of the ancient Greeks did not survive to the present day.
By the time we got back to Pireaus, we were about ready to head home. We'd had a great time, but Pireaus is a dirty, gritty, and pretty ugly city. But rather than heading back to Athens, we decided we may as well head to the airport directly from Pireaus. Our hotel was nice enough, but as you can see, the view from our window was less than inspiring.
Athens had an interesting way of encouraging people to recycle. Here's a recycling booth where people would put in their bottles or cans or whatever, and get cash back! A reverse vending machine.
Here we are on the peak of some monolith in Meteora. Fortunately we were able to drive to most of the monasteries. Only a couple of them required a somewhat strenuous climb.
These monks did some fabulous stone and brick work. I'm assuming they did most of the work themselves, but whoever did it had some talent.
I loved these patterns in the brick. Maybe it will inspire Hal with the arched grottos he has under construction at the GaragemaHal.
It was a long way to haul up food and supplies. Here's the winch system they used in one of them.
It looks like they stuck timbers in the base of the winch and walked around in circles for a while.
The insides of the chapels in the monasteries were quite ornate. I don't know if the monks were artists as well. In any case a lot of time and effort and manpower went into these structures. In the little bit of reading I did about Meteora, it wasn't clear who paid for or supported their construction. I think the original monks were like hermits living in caves, but I don't know how the transition to the much more ornate structures was done.
A figure of Jesus was at the peak of the interior of all the domes.
These monks were true cliff-dwellers. Today they have a cable car to get up there, but back in the day, they had a hell of a climb.
Enough of Meteora for a while. Here we are at the end of the road to Mount Olympus. They've got quite a trail and hut system up there. You can treck from hut to hut or you can go all the way to the top. Apparently the 2,917m peak is relatively easy to climb with the only tough part being the final scramble to the top.
This is the view from our balcony at the town nearest the base of the mountain.
But we weren't only in the mountains. We did have some beach time to work on our tans. Megan looks pretty relaxed, doesn't she?
We spent most of the second week on the water. On Saturday afternoon we were checked out on the boat, and since there were still several hours of daylight left, we left the marina and motored (there was no wind) for a couple of hours to an anchorage at the north end of Paros. The next day, we sailed in moderate winds to a bay on the southeast corner of Schinhousa. The wind was rising all day, but we had a pretty good anchorage that protected us from the waves, even though we were exposed to the wind. The next day we were going to Ios, but the winds were in excess of 20 knots, and I wasn't comfortable with the two of us sailing in those conditions. So we motored, but soon we weren't comfortable motoring either. Not because of any danger, but because the wind kept building, it was really uncomfortable! Every minute or two the spray coming across the bow would drench me from head to toe. I could not have been any wetter if I had been swimming alongside the boat. The one thing that surprised me was how cold I got. Even in 80 degree temperatures with 70 degree water, the constant wind had me shivering pretty badly by the time we got to the refuge of the brand-new, but unused marina at the south end of Naxos.
The marina was gorgeous and well-equipped, but not quite finished. The light standards were up, and all the power and water outlets were installed, but in spite of the fact that the lights worked, there was no power or water available at the dock. Speculation among the Brits we met there who were also hiding out from the wind, was that the EU put up 75% of the money to build the marina, with the Greeks putting up 25%. But they never put in their share, so the marina was never quite finished. There only "business" there was Dimitri's cantina. He could supply water to the boats and beer and home-brewed wine to the passengers. For a fee, he'd go to the nearest town, 22km away and buy groceries or whatever else you ordered. And at night, he and his lovely wife would feed you lamb or pork or whatever they had on hand. The first night we were there, we ate a lamb that had arrived live in the back of his pickup around noon that day. As far as I was concerned, it was the best meal I'd had at a restaurant in Greece. But that's not actually as much praise as it appears to be. We had some really crappy meals in various tavernas around the country.
Here's six of us that evening. Dave and Pat and Rob and Pat and Megan and me. Rob's the photographer.
For two days we had consistent winds over 30 knots, with gusts well over 40. I was glad we were tied up at a dock and not hoping our anchor would hold in some bay.
The Brits were pretty good folk. Forty years after they met in college, three friend got together and built the catamaran you see here. It took them four years to build the boat, which they then sailed to the Mediterranean. So every summer, two or three of them and their wives sail for a month or two. Next year, they are planning on taking the boat back to England.
This picture gives you a bit of an idea of how much rocking and rolling was going on, even in the shelter of the marina.
When the winds finally died down below 20 knots, we headed up to the northern end of Naxos. We anchored in the bay and took the dinghy to shore for explorations during the day. It's quite a lovely island, with lots of mountains, marble quarries, and interesting small towns. And they had lots of marble. The breakwater was built from marble boulders!
Further inland, we stopped at a marble cutting shop. We even got a tour from the very friendly East Indian workers. Who would have thought that Greeks would import people to cut marble!?
Actually, the best meal I had in Greece was at this cafe in a town in the interior of Naxos. The fresh-made sausages from a shop down the street were excellent!
We stopped at a small chapel on a mountain top during out island tour. Even the smallest chapel had at least a token image of blood and gore. Here's John the Baptist's head being presented to Salome. Note the bloody body at the bottom of the picture.
When we left Naxos, we had our best day sailing. The winds were 12-15 knots on our beam. Perfect! We headed back to our home port of Paros, spending the night there before heading back to the mainland on Sunday.
Somehow it appears that the construction and engineering skills of the ancient Greeks did not survive to the present day.
By the time we got back to Pireaus, we were about ready to head home. We'd had a great time, but Pireaus is a dirty, gritty, and pretty ugly city. But rather than heading back to Athens, we decided we may as well head to the airport directly from Pireaus. Our hotel was nice enough, but as you can see, the view from our window was less than inspiring.All in all, we had a good trip and a great time. We saw a lot of the country and the usual tourist sites, but we also saw stuff that most tourists don't see. Neither Megan nor I had ever heard of Meteora before going there. Other than a couple of days of high wind, we had good weather. We had good sailing for the half of the time that we could sail. Even waiting out the Meltemi winds in an odd little marina wasn't so bad.
I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.
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