swimming in the Aegean Sea and other adventures in Greece

swimming in the Aegean Sea
Originally uploaded by Wanderings

Happy fourth of July to the U.S. folks! It's 8:30pm here in Athens - this is the final night of our week in Greece. It has flown by too quickly.

Stacy will fill you in on most of the particulars, so I'm going to focus on a few of my favorite memories in an attempt to avoid duplicate stories. :)

Athens:
Highlights include an evening walk/self-tour (thank you, Rick Steves) passing some of the major sites. It was wonderful to enjoy the cooler temperatures, to watch the lighting change as the sun finished its descent (and to experiment with a variety of camera settings as we tried to capture the ancient "piles of stone" in the fading light), and to wander past the cafes and bars filled with people relaxing over their evening meals. We finished the day with a long meal of our own. Tasty.

Nafplio:
I slept in until 11am our first day here. It was WONDERFUL and necessary to keep Stacy and I friends, I think. I had been horribly cranky until then. That was when I finally beat the jet lag. WAHOO!!! Three awesome memories from Nafplio: (1)a spontaneous swim in the Aegean Sea (who needs a swimsuit?) ; (2)Felicia, the friendly shop owner who told us all about worry beads (komboloi) and (3)watching Sophocles' Antigone in (modern) Greek at the ancient Epidavros theater (WOW!).

Kastraki:
Tiny, tiny little town nestled up against the monasteries of Meteora. Angelo, our B&B owner who has spent most of his adult life living in Australia, rescued us from the train station and the €50 fare the local cab driver was offering for the 3km drive (that's less than 2 miles, people). We love Angelo!!! We spent the next morning hiking around the monasteries in blazing heat, but it was worth it. Can't wait to show you some of those pictures. The cafe next door had AMAZING food and great prices ... an entire (filling) meal for two people for less than €15. Awesome.

And now we are back in Athens, spent most of the day shopping (met some great artisan shop owners while we were at it - Stratos, you rock!), and after we are done here will settle in for another 2-hour Grecian meal.

I have LOVED the Greek food. Loved the late and leisurely meals. Loved the people ... some of my favorite memories are our conversations with the different people we've met. And I love being mistaken for a national (I've been spoken to in Greek a couple of times or told straight out that I look Greek). So cool, huh? Now if I could only speak the language ... ;)