Greece Trip

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

My 15 hour labour-of-love, enjoy!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

After being back for a few days from the trip, I thought I'd kinda sum it all up and make some observations. I think Claire will do the same.

Favorite moments, lots but a few stand out

The first walk up the Acropolis and discovering things along the way like Pan's cave without anyone else around

The Thermopylae "You Are Here" sign.

Hiking up the mountain at Delphi and thinking "hey, it's the middle of the night back home..."

Observations:

Greeks are not the happy people I thought they'd be. There's always exceptions, we met some really helpful nice people. In general though, they seemed sourly, no smiles, or laughs without extreme prompting. Maybe they're are sick of tourists.

Greek drivers are just as bad as I'd read. Encountered two 10 year olds driving a truck at one intersection. Speed limits mean nothing. I'd written earlier they go at least 20k faster than speed limits, I hadn't driven much at that point. They go at least 40+ over the limit if traffic isn't holding them back. Doesn't seem to be any enforcement of any traffic laws. They pass each other in the middle of town over double lines. They are statistically the most dangerous european country to drive in for a reason!
Here is a map of the route we took (in green). Click to enlarge

The greek food we encountered wasn't that great except for the bread and greek salad. Very few veggie options. No simple rice/potato dishes like I thought. Even stuffed grape leaves were a rarity without meat in them.

The ruins we visited had way fewer tourists than I'd feared. This is good and bad, good for our visit, but less money for the site for improvements. For instance ancient Sparta was virtually empty, it was free to enter, but there was no signs anywhere to tell you what you were looking at like many sites.

If using the Tube (subway) in London to get to your flight, add an extra hour just for the tube ride as delays are common! it took us 2hrs on the tube.

What would I change? not much, but...

Get a better GPS if possible, definately bring a good road map to supplement the GPS. If our GPS would have broken in the middle of a drive, we'd have been in trouble.
Pack even less clothes. I packed extremely light, but I coulda gotten by with less.

ebook reader - for Claire at least! she ran out of books, and books are heavy when you have to carry luggage around like we did. They cost around $350 but I'm sure they last for years.

Things I'm glad we did. These are tips are for anyone doing anything remotely similar

bought a small netbook for the trip. This allowed us to back up photos and write the blog easily.
brought a GPS, invaluable when driving, even one that makes mistakes
packed really light. Who needs 2 pairs of shoes? This left room for souvenirs too.
used a credit card that covers car rentals. this saved us about $20-$25 per day, over $300 total.
most importantly, timed it right, I went when I really wanted to go.
and here's the souvenirs I brought back for myself

Whats next?
I don't think I'll ever travel again like I did to africa and greece. I consider myself lucky to have 2 places I've wanted to see as much as I did these. It makes travelling so much better than going "just for the hell of it". I've travelled to many places, and its nice, but it can't compare to travelling somewhere you REALLY want to see. Travelling just to get away and experience something new is still a good enough reason. I hope to make it to north africa, tanzania (for 3rd time), and italy some day for this reason... with stops at Nick & Vivs (london) of course.

The whole trip was like a dream in a way because everything I did happened in the middle of night back home. Who's to say I didn't dream the whole thing? :]

Marathon

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

So our last historical site was the site of the Battle of Marathon. This is where the Athenians fought off the Persian 10 years prior to Thermopylae. The Athenians won decisively.

They discovered the burial mound where the slain athenians were buried. A small park surrounds this and the battle field.

The general Miltiades (above) whose helmet from this very battle we saw in the Olympia museum, he had offered it up to Zeus in Olympia:

Gates of Fire!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Finally we made it to Thermopylae (Greek for Gates of Fire)!

This was harder than it should have been to find, all the guide books give vague directions like "it's on the Athens road" and even google maps had it wrong. It took an extra 20km of driving and 2 stops for directions from locals but we found it!

Now the story of Thermopylae is really what started my whole venture into Greek history, so this stop was momentous for me. It's a great feeling to get somewhere that you REALLY wanted to get to, similar to what I felt when I made it to Africa the first time. I think a key to travelling is timing it right when you want to go the most, the urge to get to Greece had been festering for over 2 years. Part of me wanted to wait another year so I could plan it "just right" but I didn't want to risk losing the feeling I had. Like some military guy said: "a good plan executed today is superior to a great plan executed tomorrow".

We ended up planning a great trip anyway, but getting here now was important.

Being on the very spot I'd read and seen so much about was simply awesome.

Here's what the battlefield looks like today (taken from the very hill of their last stand)

Here's what this area used to look like :)

(from the great movie "300")

Ancient Plataea

First here is the bridge we crossed to get to mainland Greece. I think it's the nicest bridge I've seen:
The Plataeans have got to be just about my favorite of ancient peoples, they were there in Marathon, Thermopylae, the Battle of Plataea (of course) and were a player in the Peloponnesian War.

Here's me on the ruins of Plataea, so glad we made it as its really out of the way and no tour group goes to it. There are no markers or anything, we just had google maps and ancient maps to go by,
Not much to see unless you're a history buff like myself...
We went to Thebes on the same day but it was a disappointment, the museum has been closed for renovations for 2 years and counting...

Celebrity Sighting!

Friday, July 17, 2009

In a quick stop in Nafpaktos on the way to Delphi we spotted Duran Duran!
Friggin A! I loved those guys in the 80's. They still got it.

Olympia!

Today we saw where the ancient Greeks started the Olympic Games. It was amazing to walk in the same footsteps of all the elite of Greek society who did so for over a thousand years. There weren’t many events (5 or so) so winning was a BIG deal when there’s only a handful of winners every 4 years. Winners were celebrated in their home cities as heroes. They would earn free meals and not have to pay taxes for life! No women allowed either, just being caught watching the events was punishable by death for a woman.

Here's what it used to look like:

Here's what it looks like today:

Here's an impressive statue of "Hermes" which is in the museum.

The javelin area, with me showing how it's done.
The original track! I didn't break any records like I did in Nemea.

And here's the World's Most Expensive Slurpie! Next time we ask for the price before buying! ($6.50 for it)