Landing in Athens, we hopped onto the Metro and emerged at the Acropolis – a beautiful, ruined mass of granite and marble pillars on a steep slope overlooking the plaka – Athens' old town – and our hotel, aptly named “Acropolis View.” Mom and son duo Susan and Liam (my and Colin's good buddies from Seattle) would be arriving a few hours behind us for a two week vacation to celebrate her 50th birthday.
In the meantime, we set out to explore the neighborhood and find a place for lunch. The hotel recommended a taverna near the New Archeaological Museum, which had great people watching from its outdoor cafe tables strewn along a busy cobblestone pedestrian street, but the food was a bust (fortunately, it turned out to be our only meal in Greece to merit that complaint). Wandering back to our hotel along the base of the Acropolis, we found Susan and Liam right on schedule, but with an unfortunate tale of a taxi rip-off (at 5X the going rate) to kick off their trip. We were getting all the bad stuff out of the way on Day 1, so we could all enjoy the rest of our visit!
Waking in the morning, we wandered through the neighborhood, settled at a cafe table (for coffee and gelato) next door to the disappointing lunch cafe of the day before, and waited for George – Susan's ex-husband's college buddy - who had offered to help us get oriented to Athens and Greece. He arrived with a sack of goodies, including a local cell phone, GPS unit for our rental car, and handful of maps to help guide us on our way.
Together, we wandered the back alleys of the old town, explored the Sunday flea market, passed dozens of partially-excavated ruins (the old city is dotted with them) and had a lovely lunch on a view terrace tucked into a steep and narrow sidestreet – the first of many stellar Greek meals to come!
In the morning, Susan and the kids and I scrambled up the hill to the Acropolis to tour the Parthenon and assorted temples before wandering down the street to pick up our rental car for the next week. We were headed to Delphi and the Peleponese Penninsula for Susan's 50th, and to immerse the boys in the places that inspired the tales of Homer's Odyssey, which they had been reading for the past few months. After a two hour delay, we ditched the agency (Hertz) where we had originally booked our car (they wanted to give us a different car from the one ordered, and one too small to actually carry our luggage), grabbed a substitute from a neighboring competitor, and finally hit the road.
Stopping in a cozy fantasy-themed coffee house along the way, we made it to Galaxidi as the full moon rose over the neighboring bay and snuggled into our cozy Bed and Breakfast in a beautiful old villa, feasting the next morning on the hostesses homemade jams, chutneys, pastries, eggs and bacon in the morning – a perfect start to the big '5-0' birth-day itself.
Somewhere around the lazy hour of noon, after a moms' walk around Galaxidi harbor, we headed back up the mountain road we had descended the eve before, climbing to the current town and ancient ruins of Delphi. We stocked up on picnic supplies in town, tasting and selecting a mix of cheeses, salamis, bread, cured fish, fruit, veggies and vino, before spending the afternoon wandering around the ancient city.
In Greek mythology, Delphi is considered to be the center of the world, where heaven and earth meet. It was also the home of the Delphic “oracle” - a priestess channeling the god Apollo, who thousands pilgramaged to visit to seek advice. Though the famous ampitheater at the site was closed due to falling rocks, the rest of the site was intriguing and we enjoyed stunning views over the slopes of Mount Parnasus and down to the sparkling blue of the Corinthian Gulf.
For the next several days, we made our way around the Peleponese Peninsula, visiting Olympia and the site of the first Olympic games (incredible! Colin and Liam ran the length of the games field – a pretty cool experience, especially since Colin's great-grandfather won a gold medal in the 1936 Olympics).
We also visited Pylos, Sparta and the Mani Peninsula.
My personal favorite was Mystras – the ruins of a castle outside of Sparta – built upon an impossibly steep mountain, designed to ensure that it was an impenetrable fortress. We were also fortunate to see the Good Friday ceremony while overnighting in Kardamili – a bizarre event involving fireworks, a religious procession, and the burning of a hanging-man effigy by the seawall after dark (when the burning wasn't progressing fast enough, the crowd dowsed the figure in fuel, causing the top to burn so quickly that the head fell off and rolled into the sea – a very bizarre sight).
We returned to Athens at the end of the week to meet Tom - arriving from home on Easter Sunday. Since noone was traveling that day in Greece, we made record time driving back to the city and had no trouble finding him when we disembarked the metro at Syntagma Square, in the heart of the Plaka. We caught the day's only ferry to Santorini Island, arriving after midnight and heading straight to bed in Thira, where we would spend the next week.
Santorini is best described in photos, and since I am soooo far behind on this blog, I am going to let them speak for themselves.....
Suffice it to say, we hiked, ate, explored, ate, watched sunsets, ate, and chilled out, big time. Magical place.
We returned to Athens a day before Susan and Liam's departure, with a vague idea of how we would move on to Italy. In the end, we spent a few more lovely days exploring Athens with Tom, then flew to Milan for the start of our Italy adventure.
Up Next: Italy: Vistas & Vino
