More Greece from Chianti

Good afternoon folks. Sorry to put up that last post so late. I had actually forgotten that I had not posted it. Did it in draft and it just sat there waiting for me to click the button. Hahaha. So read fast cause you gotta catch up now.
We are back in Italy, in Chianti. Symbolized by the black rooster. We are in search of some good wine that we can cart back to Canada with us.

First a few more delights from Greece.
Katakolon, Olympia, home of the Olympics.

The gymnasium at Mount Olympia

Yes, this is the place every four years where they light the flame that goes onto the Olympic Games

There was a museum on the site as well, that had many of the statues from the ruins of the ancient city. Some are original dating back to the founding of the city and then showing the Roman influence on Greece. Here are a few that struck me.

From Olympia on to Santorini

Not snow, that is the houses up on the cliffs. Santorini is a rim of a volcano that sunk back into the sea

There goes Lena!

Houses glued to the top of the cliffs. Burrow is your best friend here.

The volcano in the sea, dormant now.

 Next Stop was Mykonos. That's our ride right up there. We decide no tour buses or taxis this time around. We rented this little Suzuki. Was a gas. And Mykonos is a rugged little island that is relatively spread out. No central village with great attraction. The key to this location is renting a little villa close to the sea and just kicking back and relaxing.

Happy Birthday Lena

Rent one of these

Next stop is Athens
The first group of pictures is taken from on top of the Acropolis looking back out over the city. And then some shots of the Acropolis itself .

Enjoy these pics folks.
I will try to update you on our travel status in the next blog. More about Chianti and pics of the surroundings.

Ciao

Our cruise has taken us down the coast of Greece. Corfu, Katakolon (Olympia), Santorini, Mykonos, now into Athens.
We arrived here pretty tired. Kinda late night, Lena's birhtday and all and then we had to pack our bags before we went to sleep because they come to remove then from the passage ways on the ship at 3 am. Then the want you out of the cabin by 8:30 so they can clean up and get ready for the next load of passengers to arrive that afternoon. The traffic into Athens was bad, then we came to the old city or Plaka and there is a demonstration, right down the street where our hotel is. So the driver took 35 minutes to get us around to the back side of the hotel. It still was a four block schlep up the street to find our hotel. And don't forget we packed for a 45 day tour. Each of our big bags checks in at 30 kg. Not fun I will tell you right now.

We did get to see a lot of the little places along the Greek coast. Not for long in each place but still a glance to see what it may be about. And did I mention at any time, either during Italy or here that it was cold. Well it has been. You can see here Deeds let her hair grow out to help with the cool temps.

A lane way in Corfu

Good local beer.

 In Santorini you have to go all the way up to the top of the cliffs to get to the village. Lena decided the way to do it was via burrow. Was actually faster then the cable car that Deeds and I took.

When in Greece you oughta look a little Greek, right? I might have taken it a bit too far here though

It's just like you see in the postcards folks. They white wash all the buildings. But I will tell you that you have to be part billy goat. It is always up and down hill and path.

We ended up in Athens. At the outset we did not know how long we were going to stay here so no further plans had been made. That was perfect. We enjoyed Athens very much and stayed on for another day. Seeing the sites, museums galour. And of course the Acropolis.
Here is some of what we saw in those two days. And a lot of good Greek food. Like gyros, and greek wine and greek yogurt, wow.

 We have hundreds of pics of Acropolis and a favourite site for all of us was anything to do with the Olympics. We went to the original site when we stopped at Katakolon, up to Mount Olympia. In Athens there is the original stadium that held the first Olympics of the modern era, in 1896. This stadium has be refurbished twice over the last century. It holds 66,000 spectators The Panathenaic Stadium. It is an awesome site to walk around as you think about the games held here in 1896!

Yeah we climbed to the top for this pic. 107 rows up. In the 2004 Athens Olympics the Panathenaic Stadium hosted the archery event and the finish to the marathon.

From Athens we flew back to Rome to continue our Italian journey. Lena pulled on her backpack and headed out for a week of hostels and meeting people. Diane and I left Rome that day and headed back to Florence. Spent a night there and rented a car in the morning and headed out into Chianti, looking for a comfortable place and some good wine and food.
That is the symbol of the Chianti wine region you see now at the top of the blog. More to come very soon.
Ciao

On the Road Again

Well we are one travelling gang of picture snapping, language bumbling tourista.

Going to all of these different countries has you stumbling to figure out how to say good morning.

We never did catch on in VietNam, of course we got Bonjouno in Italy. Nothing in Dubrovnik where we were yesterday and today we move on to Greece, the island of Corfu. No idea how to say hello here either.

So far so good. We don’t hate each other yet. Some strain on issues but generally we are working them out. Plans remain relatively the same. Finish this cruise in Athens and stay for at least one night to see some of the city. From there it is all vague plans. Back to Italy – Chianti, maybe pop over to Rome for a day. Lena should be back packing by herself throughout Italy. Has her university room mate coming to Vienna and she is trying to talk her into a trip to Venice so they can meet up for a day or two. We may have a new wrinkle thrown in at the end but I will wait for final confirmation until I let that new cat out of the bag.

No pictures for now as it is very expensive to use the Internet off the boat.  I am actually draft blogging now and will log in and quickly upload to the website later today. We land in Corfu at 2 pm. Have 5 hours to get around and see what we want to see then back on the boat.

I am still under the weather. Can’t figure out what it is that I have picked up but it sure is discouraging. I guess I get to see an Italian doctor when I get back to Italy in  a week.

And because of no Internet, no hockey knowledge either. Looked kinda grim for the Canucks down 0-3 and Ottawa was also down a game. Most surprising though had to be Phillie and Pittsburgh. Wow. Pens were supposed to be a factor. Getting to look more and more like a Rangers cup. Beat St Louis in 6.

Sorry for no pictures. As soon as we get a decent internet connection I will put a million up on Picasa for you all to view.

Off to load this up to the blog now.

Ciao

Where are we now

Well folks, we have left OZ and headed back to Asia. Saigon, more specifically. Viet Nam. But first a bit of a rap up on Oz. We had some fun the last few days in Oz, well mostly Deeds and Lena as the “Surfing” pics below show. Wow, they just had a gas.

Deeds ready to hang ten on the left and Lena ready to go for a flip on right!

Day before we went on a bit of a bush walk out to Tamborine Mountain. Was great to see the countryside and talk to a real funny live Aussie. Our tour guide Darren. He told us a story about his Dad, who was a rough and tumble guy. Real mans man. Anyway his birthday was coming up and Darren decided to give his dad a special gift for his birthday. Went to a souvenir store and bought him one of those collector spoons, told a few of his friends about it and he got a hand full of spoons for his that birthday. Well it appears that there are a lot of sentimental people in Oz. It caught on. People who went on the tour heard about it on the web and they started presenting him with spoons. His mother in law gave him her full collection for Christmas one year. Now his collection is a little over 200 spoons.

A water fall and creek in the park we had our bush walk

A rain forest in Queensland, Australia

And any good turn deserves another. His dad repaid the favour. Darren now has an ongoing collection of miniature thimbles that is growing weekly as well.

He was a great tour guide and a lot of fun.

Then it was on to VietNam.

We had wanted to go to Viet Nam all the while that we were in Thailand but never seemed to get around to it. Our reasons to go were mostly food driven. You see we have a great Pho restaurant up the street that we frequent for take out. Great dry noodles with shredded pork and egg roll, #47 I believe. Myself I am a Pho guy, pronounced “fer” it means soup. They specialize in beef soup but a chicken is also available, which is my favourite. Big ol bowl of noodles with all kinds of greens to put in like basil, lemon grass, bean sprouts and mint. Makes an awesome lunch.

Many military pieces in front of the museums and memorials around Saigon

The Old Court House. Architecture shows the French influence on early Viet Nam

So we find ourselves in Saigon. Staying at the Rex Hotel. Why the Rex. Well my hotel research had told me that this was the place that the news reporters hung out during the war. There is a famous roof top bar originally called the “Five O’clock Follies" where all the reporters would gather and drink bourbon, smoke cigarettes and talk about the war before they filed their reports for papers back in the States and other major papers across the world. We had to go. Turned out it was a great place to see District 1 of Saigon. The only part of Ho Chi Minh City that is still referred to by the locals as Saigon as well. HCMC is about 6 million people and spreading fast, like a lot of major cities in SEAsia.

We went to a few war museums here but frankly it was too depressing. It was an ugly war for Viet Nam and the world for that matter. Reliving what the Yanks and others did to this country was not fun and we cut that part of our Saigon visit way shorter then most. No apologies, just the brutal truth. Nearly 40 years later the country still suffers immensely for that war. What we didn't cut short was our distaste for war as a family, we do not understand the need for it or can we come to grips with anyone justifying it.

While in Saigon we did a little touring around the city looking at some of the great architecture. They have a huge market open all day and all night. Took us about 7 minutes to go through it. After BKK, been there done that and have many many tee shirts to prove it. It’ll take you two full years before you see me wear all of them because I now have that many. And yes I did buy one in Saigon.

One day was spent on a tour to the Mekong Delta. Cool for us since we had seen the Mekong up at the Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand, Laos). The delta is a thriving place. Many communities and different ways of life. Fishing of course, but also fruit farms, coconut plantations and one of the islands in the delta has a city on it that is 1.8 million people.

We have had some issues this trip that I need to tell you about and the impact of same.

Somehow I got a bug of some kind the last week in BKK. I was suffering from flu like symptoms. Spent the weekend of Mar 16 in bed and running to the loo. It seemed to pass later in the week so I did nothing about it doctor-wise thinking it was a common flu bug. Well it came back just as we were packing to leave. In Oz I made it to see a doc thinking I may have food poisoning but because we weren’t in one spot long enough to go through any kind of treatment program we had to take a shot at a med that might work. Hehehe, it didn’t. So it was very frustrating for me as well as boring. Travel on 8 and 9 hour plane flights was not much fun at the best of times. I would actually go the day before a flight not eating so I could manage my time on the plane. Knowing we had the return flight to Saigon from Oz, 13 hours in total with lay over in Kuala Lumpur we tried to get a resolution while in Australia. Well it was a good try but no success.

With this physical dilemma staring at me when we arrived in Saigon we decided it was best to forgo another 9 hour flight to Bejing at which point we would turn around and then fly 18 hours to Italy. Looking at flying to Bejing and not having a medical solution was too scary for me.

So we changed our Bejing flight to Rome Italy. If we don't get a resolution in Saigon I will be in Italy long enough to go through a treatment plan to resolve the issue. So we arrived in Italy on April 11, rather than 14. And as I write this blog note we are on a train from Rome Central station to Firenzi.

No final diagnosis is available but I am feeling a lot better with the meds that I got in Saigon for what is now diagnosed as a bout of Giardiasis. Hopefully this will be the end of it. Imagine, no alcohol now for three weeks because of the different antibiotics I have been taking. Ok, stop the weeping, I am ok with no alcohol for a time as some of you may know.

It is Wednesday. All seems well and I hope to be able to raise a glass of Italian red wine with Deeds on her birthday celebration this Saturday evening. I would think that Lena and I will take her to one of the nicest restaurants in Florence for her birthday.  The BIG birthday present is a cruise on the Adriatic starting on April 16, her birthday. Lena will also celebrate her birthday on the cruise. 21. Anyone besides me remember how turning 21 was such a big deal!. You could finally legally purchase liquor. Yes that's right. 21 before you could drink. Ohh how times have changed.

So a long 18 hour journey to Italy, nearly 3 hours on a train and we are in Florence. Firenza as the Italians call it. I am finishing off this post here in Florence. It is 9 pm our time. 3 in the afternoon back home. Maybe I will rouse the girls and see if we are going out for dinner. Or just sleep? We went down to a local restaurant for lunch. Three plates of pasta all round. Some nice local vino rosa, not for me, and we were happy as clams. Feels great to be here.

Tomorrow we go into the city and see some of what we saw back when I worked for Celestica and we took a family vacation here. I think that was 2001. Lots of museums, actually some of the best. The Palace of Uffizi perhaps the most famous with Michelangelo's David, the best of Renaissance Italian and European art. The museum itself dates back to 1581.

It's cool to see this old world.

Many places in Asia you see temples dating back to 1300. Mostly just stone buildings or ruins. Here in Italy, you can walk in the footsteps of Ceasar in Rome dating back 2100 years. See paintings and sculpture from the 13th century housed in buildings that are still used everyday. Too amazing. We love it. When you go to see the painting of the Last Supper in Milan, the street where Leonardo walked on his way to the chapel is the same as it was 500 years ago. You walk in his steps to go to see the painting!

Ciao Bella

Loving Australia...and they like us too!

Hello to all,

Now that I am officially on vacation, it is time for me to pick up the slack and do some of the blogging and talk to our friends.  

We are great and having a wonderful time in Australia….REALLY like this place!  And our lungs thank us every day for coming here.  It is just so great to breath in clean, clear sea air.

Our first couple of days on the Gold Coast (Surfers Paradise is the actual area) included a lot of swimming, boogie boarding, long walks on the beach, and reading.  We hit a Casino one night (a first time for Lena) and played roulette (my favourite), some slots and Jerry and Lena played poker (actually it was pretty cool to see the two of them sitting at a Black Jack table).   I’m not a very swift or clever card player….so opt not to look like a dummy in front of strangers.  ‘You’ I might play with…but not strangers.

We had heard about a Billabong discount/warehouse store nearby so one day we hopped on a bus (actually turned out to be a couple and nearly an hour away) and spent the afternoon in the boonies….at a strip mall of discount stores.  Billabong,, Quicksilver….that kind of stuff.  Felt a bit like we were at 400 & 89 at the Cookstown discount mall.  And as some of you know well….NOT my best day. 

 

But soon it was all fun again.

We then headed about an hour north to Brisbane via train, and took a ferry to a nearby sand island (insert interesting fact here:  Moreton Island is actually the 3^rd largest ‘sand’ island in the world) where we spent 3 days snorkeling, ATV’ing, and fed wild blue-nose dolphins!!  That was very cool.

When we had told people here that we were going to Moreton Island, several had said.…’oh yeah, I know the place, Tangaloona Resort….great place, really laid back’.  After the third time hearing this I had to laugh.  Seriously, Surfers Paradise is not exactly a hustling, bustling metropolis.  I simply could not imagine MORE laid back that what we were already experiencing.  But as it turns out, Tangaloona Resort (maybe better described as a ‘cottage’ or ‘camp’ rather than a ‘resort’ was truly, truly laid back.  Just sun, beach and ocean and just about every kind of ‘fun’ activity that can be had…..with the sun, beach and ocean.

Because the resort is on the west side of the island, facing in towards Brisbane, the waters are calm and clear aqua - just magnificent – and very unlike the huge and constant waves along the rest of the coast.  But both are beautiful and Jerry and I think that the beaches here on the Gold Coast – 100 feel wide and longer than we could possibly walk, with so soft and clean sand, are the best we have ever seen.

So we are back again at Surfers Paradise and today we spent the morning on an outback tour and hiked in the mountain rainforest…was awesome.  Also stopped for tea and scones with jam & cream, and then later for a wine tasting at one of the local vineyard shops.  So as you can see…there was something for everyone!

And tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon Lena and I are taking a 2 hour surfing lesson!  Yippee.  We are sooo looking forward to this.

On Friday we depart and head to Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh/previously Saigon) for 4 days…then to Beijing for 4 days.

Don’t know who is still out there in the blog world reading this…. …but it was fun to think I was talking to some of you. 

Lots of love,  D