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