Posts tagged ‘Greece’
Great Ancient Sites???
We got up quite early and headed down to breakfast, we grabbed as much as we could as there wasn’t much left. Same stuff, boiled eggs and toast. Filled me up though. We went down to the supermarket that we found on Sunday and had a look around – we bought some snack bars and some Orange juice – we’d come back later for lunch/dinner stuff. We then headed to Acropolis which is the large mountain in Athens and on top is some very old and impressive structures such as the Parthenon. We found the entrance and were unlucky and failed at getting student discounts so we paid full price 12 Euro’s each and hiked up the mountain to see Acropolis.
The first structure you hit is called Propylaea and you walk through to get up the top, not much is left of the temple – a few walls and columns but it’s massive – you feel small looking up at the large columns. When you get through this temple – that’s when it hits you… not the wow sensation but the WHAT? You hear the bobcats beeping, the loud drilling from all over the place and then you see the Parthenon… Covered in METAL. There is scaffolding all on one side, a large crane next to it and all throughout the Parthenon is Metal… as you keep walking around the structure on one side there are all these “short-term” buildings with one saying started in 1983… You look up at the Parthenon now and you see they have a crane inside of it… you keep walking round and there’s a train track leading to the Parthenon.. The back side of the structure is the only side not with metal on it but you can see the crane nicely in the middle.. That’s all I saw was metal and all I heard was drilling/beeping and noise.
We kept walking around and the views were amazing, there are soo many houses packed into Athens – It’s insane to see how many houses there are all the way to the horizon. We kept walking till we saw the Erechtheion, which is a smaller structure to the Parthenon… and then I saw the beauty – It was lovely, the detail in the columns, and to one side they have these women columns and the detail in them is unbelievable.
Overall, I am very disappointed and annoyed about Acropolis, I can understand that a country would want to keep their history alive and the importance of it, but when it’s and ANCIENT site and you have to pour millions of money into making sure it doesn’t fall down – too me its a waste. You can’t go there and say – It’s wonderful and it’s lasted all this time.. It’s only lasted all this time because they’ve ruined it with metal. I’d rather go there and see only a handful of columns still up and see what it was like – not what it is – a construction site. I don’t mind them doing some work on it… but since 1983?? Come on. Greece’s GDP is apparently millions in the red, since we’ve been here there have been 2 demonstrations in front of parliament building… Surely they should focus on the present and make their current civilisation something worthy of the history books and not living in their ancestors pockets gleaming as much money as possible from them. (I believe it’s the same in Egypt as well, Sure Egyptian were amazing and ahead of there time back in the BC and early AD… but what are they now?) They should make their country great now – and not live in the past. I’d compare it to Scotland, England, France – They have a lot of history there too, and yet they don’t bog themselves in the past but are looking to the future. Enough of my ranting.
We walked down the hill and saw the theatres (Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus) – and that was good to see. We then went into a little camera shop and put our disposable cameras in to be developed and put it on CD. We then walked back to the hostel and had a rest, after that we headed to the supermarket to grab stuff for lunch. We got some ham and bread and I got some other Greek beer to try. We had lunch and some fruit at the hostel and then we headed to the Temple of Zeus. This was awesome! It’s like in the middle of a park so it’s surrounded by trees, and it looked amazing, the was one column on the ground but you could see all the pieces of the marble they had used to make the one column. (they are like the Egyptians who used one piece of whatever to make what they made). It was still great. Much better than the Parthenon even though it’s much smaller. We made a friend here too – this random cat ran over to us and started jumping and crawling all over us… quite cute. After this we decided we’d walk and find Olympic Stadium which was the first stadium for the Olympics… As we were walking there we see these big blue police buses (the riot proof ones with the windows all caged) out hop these cops with bullet proof vests, body armour and a helmet and their plastic see through shield… it was quite intimidating.. they closed down the road.. and we kept walking very briskly. We found the stadium and it was really cool they had marble stones that had engraved on all the Olympics started in 1896 was the first stone there. After that we walked back the way we came – we thought we go check out the info centre. Going there… the traffic was building up because of the road closures… and up the hill (where we were going) you could see more big blue vans and LOTS of cops all wearing the riot gear. Then you saw the Protesters… Who knows what they were protesting… they had massive Greek banners and yelling in Greek.. they didn’t look too happy… So they were there and the cops – didn’t look to alarmed as they still had there helmets off… We found the info centre again and headed into it… It didn’t really have any pamphlets or anything… just people.. so we didn’t have any questions – I was just hoping to get some brochures of things to do around Athens We headed back to the hostel.
We’ve decided we’re going to get a ferry from Patra to Bari in Italy after our stay in Athens. The weather isn’t that good in the Greek islands and it’s quite pricey to go there and it rain. The ferry to Italy is quite pricey too, but it goes overnight and we get a 25% winter discount. Our plan is to get the ferry to Bari, then stay a night in Bari – then bus to Napoli and stay 2 nights there. We will do a day trip to Pompeii from there.
So that’s the last day and what we’re planning on doing. Today we’re going to go book our ferry tickets and find out how to get to Patras from here.
Hope all is well.
We got up quite early and headed down to breakfast, we grabbed as much as we could as there wasn’t much left. Same stuff, boiled eggs and toast. Filled me up though. We went down to the supermarket that we found on Sunday and had a look around – we bought some snack bars and some Orange juice – we’d come back later for lunch/dinner stuff. We then headed to Acropolis which is the large mountain in Athens and on top is some very old and impressive structures such as the Parthenon. We found the entrance and were unlucky and failed at getting student discounts so we paid full price 12 Euro’s each and hiked up the mountain to see Acropolis.
The first structure you hit is called Ionic temple (?) and you walk through to get up the top, not much is left of the temple – a few walls and columns but it’s massive – you feel small looking up at the large columns. When you get through this temple – that’s when it hits you… not the wow sensation but the WHAT? You hear the bobcats beeping, the loud drilling from all over the place and then you see the Parthenon… Covered in METAL. There is scaffolding all on one side, a large crane next to it and all throughout the Parthenon is Metal… as you keep walking around the structure on one side there are all these “short-term” buildings with one saying started in 1983… You look up at the Parthenon now and you see they have a crane inside of it… you keep walking round and there’s a train track leading to the Parthenon.. The back side of the structure is the only side not with metal on it but you can see the crane nicely in the middle.. That’s all I saw was metal and all I heard was drilling/beeping and noise.
We kept walking around and the views were amazing, there are soo many houses packed into Athens – It’s insane to see how many houses there are all the way to the horizon. We kept walking till we saw the Erechtheion, which is a smaller structure to the Parthenon… and then I saw the beauty – It was lovely, the detail in the columns, and to one side they have these women columns and the detail in them is unbelievable.
Overall, I am very disappointed and annoyed about Acropolis, I can understand that a country would want to keep their history alive and the importance of it, but when it’s and ANCIENT site and you have to pour millions of money into making sure it doesn’t fall down – too me its a waste. You can’t go there and say – It’s wonderful and it’s lasted all this time.. It’s only lasted all this time because they’ve ruined it with metal. I’d rather go there and see only a handful of columns still up and see what it was like – not what it is – a construction site. I don’t mind them doing some work on it… but since 1983?? Come on. Greece’s GDP is apparently millions in the red, since we’ve been here there have been 2 demonstrations in front of parliament building… Surely they should focus on the present and make their current civilisation something worthy of the history books and not living in their ancestors pockets gleaming as much money as possible from them. (I believe it’s the same in Egypt as well, Sure Egyptian were amazing and ahead of there time back in the BC and early AD… but what are they now?) They should make their country great now – and not live in the past. I’d compare it to Scotland, England, France – They have a lot of history there too, and yet they don’t bog themselves in the past but are looking to the future. Enough of my ranting.
We walked down the hill and saw the theatres – and that was good to see. We then went into a little camera shop and put our disposable cameras in to be developed and put it on CD. We then walked back to the hostel and had a rest, after that we headed to the supermarket to grab stuff for lunch. We got some ham and bread and I got some other Greek beer to try. We had lunch and some fruit at the hostel and then we headed to the Temple of Zeus. This was awesome! It’s like in the middle of a park so it’s surrounded by trees, and it looked amazing, the was one column on the ground but you could see all the pieces of the marble they had used to make the one column. (they are like the Egyptians who used one piece of whatever to make what they made). It was still great. Much better than the Parthenon even though it’s much smaller. We made a friend here too – this random cat ran over to us and started jumping and crawling all over us… quite cute. After this we decided we’d walk and find Olympic Stadium which was the first stadium for the Olympics… As we were walking there we see these big blue police buses (the riot proof ones with the windows all caged) out hop these cops with bullet proof vests, body armour and a helmet and their plastic see through shield… it was quite intimidating.. they closed down the road.. and we kept walking very briskly. We found the stadium and it was really cool they had marble stones that had engraved on all the Olympics started in 1896 was the first stone there. After that we walked back the way we came – we thought we go check out the info centre. Going there… the traffic was building up because of the road closures… and up the hill (where we were going) you could see more big blue vans and LOTS of cops all wearing the riot gear. Then you saw the Protesters… Who knows what they were protesting… they had massive Greek banners and yelling in Greek.. they didn’t look too happy… So they were there and the cops – didn’t look to alarmed as they still had there helmets off… We found the info centre again and headed into it… It didn’t really have any pamphlets or anything… just people.. so we didn’t have any questions – I was just hoping to get some brochures of things to do around Athens We headed back to the hostel.
We’ve decided we’re going to get a ferry from Patra to Bari in Italy after our stay in Athens. The weather isn’t that good in the Greek islands and it’s quite pricey to go there and it rain. The ferry to Italy is quite pricey too, but it goes overnight and we get a 25% winter discount. Our plan is to get the ferry to Bari, then stay a night in Bari – then bus to Napoli and stay 2 nights there. We will do a day trip to Pompeii from there.
So that’s the last day and what we’re planning on doing. Today we’re going to go book our ferry tickets and find out how to get to Patras from here.
Hope all is well.
Athens Sports Bar, Smile Restaurant and Sunday
We headed out to the pub last night, hoping for a drink and a good hearty meal. We walked around for about an hour before we finally found the pub. The pub was tiny, there were only 4 tables in the place and they only had 2 beers on tap. Kath had a Greek Beer, Mythanos and I had a flat lemonade! As they only served pizza, and only one type was available,we decided to try and find a nice Greek restaurant. We found one down the road from the pub called Smilie’s Restaurant. We went in and were served right away by a nice older Greek lady. We had some garlic bread as a starter and I had Cabonara Spaghetti and Kath had a “Special Pizza”. My cabonara was delicious it was a huge bowl full, I only ate half of it, it was that big. Kath only had 3 pieces of her pizza before she was full. She finished off my cabonara too, it was soo good, we couldn’t leave any behind. We got the rest of the pizza takeaway. We then wandered back to our hostel (much easier to get back to then to get to the pub!). We then had a fairly early night, we watched a movie and Kath fell asleep on my bed, I told her to go to bed when she started snoring and I couldn’t hear the movie haha (well she wasn’t quite that bad!). We both had a great sleep.
We checked outside at the weather, saw it was looking pretty grim, so decided we would go to some museums, so we stayed dry. We pulled out our “Snow” jackets as well as it was quite cold outside. We headed back to the sports bar for our brekky, which was really disappointing. (The kitchen is closed in the hostel, so brekky is in a completely different building, and we can’t cook any meals!). We had some toast and boiled eggs, and we had to pay for some orange juice – we weren’t impressed. After our breakky we walked back to Syntagma Square to get a “trolley” to the National Archeology Museum. We jumped on a tram, thinking it may have been the “trolley”. When the doors were closing, we realised we didn’t want to be on the tram so we jumped off quickly! It’s good that Greek Transport is really cheap! We headed over the road to ask someone about the trolley. A trolley is pretty much a bus, but with big antennas sticking out the top of it, running along wires (using electricity perhaps) – I’m sure there is something similar at home (just not sure where). A guy in what looked like a ticket box helped us out and told us which trolley to catch and where to get it from and where to buy tickets. He also told us to watch out for pick-pocketers. We got our tickets and jumped onto the next trolley that turned up. We realised as soon as we got on why you are told to be careful, you are pushed on in a big rush and you get pushed up against so many people and everyone is moving everywhere. So we both instantly put our hands on our wallets. When the trolley emptied a bit I stood against a rail and Kath stood in front of me. After what seemed like forever we reached the museum. We headed inside to buy our tickets to find a big sign that said Free Entry. We thought that it couldn’t be true, so we read the sign closer and saw that every Sunday from November to March is free. So we put our bags into the cloak room and headed inside – for FREE!!! We saw lots of pots and jewelry from the ancient Greek times. We found some really cool statues that were really big and very detailed. It was funny to see in the different eras how a mans lower region went from small to large. We found a whole section on Ancient Egypt, so we had a look in there and saw some of the same statues we saw in Egypt, but it was not very impressive compared to what we saw in Egypt. After we looked around the museum we headed back to pick up our bags and find a trolley. We got onto a trolley and headed back to Syntagma Square to try and find a supermarket. We followed a crowd of people to see where they were all going. In a street we walked down there were lots of African people selling fake louis vutton bags and other knock offs. There was even 2 stalls selling pirated dvd’s… All of the shops were closed as there is no Sunday trading in local shops, only the ones that sell tourist stuff. We wandered around the town for ages looking in shops and stumbling across some ancient sites, not much left of them… We finally got back to the hostel and went over the road to the “international market”. We got some fruit and water (no vegemite!). We had our fruit for lunch, then headed out in our local area to try and find a supermarket, we didn’t realise supermarkets would be closed on a Sunday too.
We then decided to go to the Acropolis Museum. We showed our International Youth Cards and told them we were students, so we got in half price. We had to leave my bag at the cloak room. Kath went through the entrance first, swiped her barcoded ticket and walked in, apparently you aren’t meant to do it yourself, because when I went to go through the lady came running up and snatched my ticket off me and swiped it herself and gave me back the ticket. Very odd! The museum was built in top of the ruins of an old city, so through the floor you could see the ancient town. The museum was quite disappointing – Sure some of the statues were really nice – but overall it just didn’t compare to Egypt’s sculptures that even predates the Greek ones. The Greeks seemed to put more detail in clothes and animals and stuff. There was an entire floor dedicated to a gift shop and coffee shop. There were some really big statues that were very detailed in the facial expressions and clothes. You could see a really good view of the Parthenon from one side of the museum. You weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, which was a shame. The Archeological Museum was much better.
We left there and headed back to the hostel to do some research on our trip to the Greek Islands. After a fair bit f research we built up quite an appetite, so we headed out to get some dinner. We walked down one of the main streets in our area, and a few restaurants had people out the front trying to get us to go in. Finally we reached the end and was looking at one menu and the guy offered us a free dessert, so we went in there. We sat down and they bought out some bread. We then ordered our meal, Kath had “chicken and pasta” and I tried to order cabonara, but apparently they were out of it, so I had the spaghetti bolognese instead. I thought is was a little odd that they had run out of cabonara. When I was looking around the restaurant, I saw in the kitchen the cook putting pre-cooked food onto a plate. I realised then that we had made a big mistake choosing that place. Our meals came out and Kath had 2 pieces of chicken and “pasta” which looked like rice, and my spaghetti didn’t look very nice. Kath ate her chicken and tasted her rice pasta and didn’t like it. I ate maybe 5 mouthfuls of my spaghetti then couldn’t eat anymore, it tasted like a bowl of salt. We then just got up and went to pay and the man said you still have free dessert and we just said don’t bother about it and paid and walked out. Kath was feeling a bit unwell from her meal. We walked past one of the other places we were going to eat at and it was completely full, not like the place we had just come from which had 4 people in it. We came back to the hostel and we have both showered and are getting ready for an early night, as we have a lot to fit in tomorrow and lots of walking to do. It is meant to be cloudy, but no rain tomorrow.
Fingers crossed it is maybe a little sunny – we’re going up to the Acropolis to see all the sights up on the mountain! Should be good!
Egypt comes to an end…
Thursday Night
On Thursday night we headed out for our “last” dinner with the group. Everyone was really tired from the hike and noone was really in the mood to go out. But we all went and had dinner in a restaurant called Same Same, but Different. We got free bruchetta for a starter and free pankcakes for dessert. For dinner Kath had a chicken Fajita and I had grilled fish. The fish wasn’t that great. After dinner we went to the pub, some of the group had some beers, Kath and I just hung out and chatted. After one drink everyone was pretty knackered and we went back to the hotel for bed.
Friday
The next morning, I was not too keen to get up, I was still so sleepy from the night before. Kath got up pretty early and headed to the restaurant for breakfast, while I slept. We then got ready to go snorkeling. We headed to a new spot called Three Holes. It was not as good at the Blue Hole, but still had some cool fish alot of Nemo’s and parrotfish. A group of us had hired a digital camera that we could take out into the water, It only lasted about 30 minutes before the batteries died and it didn’t take many photos… so we were quite annoyed… Yasser said he’d try get us our money back….
I (kath) went back out for another snorkel with the two guys and we went past the three pools – there were a few more fish but the same type. We headed in to get some lunch and drinks and we all just hung out and chatted while giving sanctuary to this poor cat that was getting tormented by some Italian kids next to us. (the kids weren’t happy that we had saved it!). After lunch, Yasser took us further down to another spot – more a scuba diving spot but still good for snorkelling. Only me and Damien went in this time and there were so many different fish. We came across a lion fish (kind of like a stone fish)… it was kinda scary looking. We went a bit further out and Damien points at this thing further out … We swim closer and what is it – a Barracuda… not a big big one but still big enough to give me a little caution at getting too close… he saw Damien approaching and opened his mouth (like a yawn) and the Teeth… you could see them from so far away… we decided to leave him alone… there were fish eating jelly fish and so many fish feeding on something… The fish with the nose… and little fish… so good… After a while we got out and all piled back into the bus and went back to the resort for a couple of hours for showers/packing etc.
We went out to the town to shop and get some dinner. I got Cindy a good deal on a shot glass – got it from 35 to 20 for this nice metal shot glass. We also got some other small things. Dinner was niceish… very filling we got free starters and desert again. After dinner we headed back to the resort and checked out and got ready to jump on the bus.
I went to sleep quite early on… but about an hour in the bus pulled over because it was overheated… the driver didn’t check the water.. so it downed about 6ltrs of water and after about an hour and a half we were back on the road… we drove about another hour and a bit to tapa and found out the road was closed from here to Cairo… We weren’t too impressed, our flight was getting quite close… so we had to drive back through dahab, then to sharm es sheik to go from that… so that added another 2 hours onto the trip length… so we went meant to get to cairo at 8, and our flight was at 10… so it was pushing it.
Saturday
OMG our driver… he must have driven 100-150km the whole way… and he was quite scary weaving in and out of trucks/cars anything in the way even if there was only a few metres of space. If the driver hadn’t of been so insane and fearless… we probably would have missed our plane. We got to Cairo airport at 7:45am… so he drove really fast.
We said goodbye to everyone and went through security – who didn’t care about liquids (even our 1.5ltr bottle of water) or anything metal… we then got our tickets and went through immigration to get stamped out… had some feral breakfast at burger king and then went through another lot of security to get to our gate who also failed to care about liquids or metallic items on us…
The plane ride was pretty uneventful – I slept and woke up for the food… which was pretty gross so I just had the chocolate cake and some lemonade.
We touched in at Athens, and had to queue for ages to get through immigration – I didn’t have to but I waited with Cindy. Cindy went to the toilets and I went to the luggage collection.. I saw Cindy’s bag and ran over and got it to see mine at the end of the conveyor belt and had to wait for it to come out again.
We then just walked straight through a non-existent customs… and went to find the public buses… we found the ticket place and bought two tickets and jumped on the bus… I remembered reading about validating your ticket so we did that we got on, and sat on the bus for awhile until the driver came and off we went. It was quite a nice trip… long though and parts were so busy with traffic. We didn’t know where to get off ( well we knew the name, but that was it). A girl next to us told us it was the last stop. Saw lots of embassies and it looked like a march had just finished because there were people with banners and lots of police and big police vans. We got off at Syntagma Square – which looked like the middle of town and walked around till we found the metro. Got our tickets and validated them and down we went – very nice sub system. Quite clean but very busy… We jumped on and got off one stop later… we found the hostel quite easily and now we’ve just unpacked alot of our crap because we’re here for 4 nights in a 6 bed female dorm, looks like there’s only 1 other girl in the room so far. Free wi-fi which is good. We’re heading down to their pub at 7 for their happy hour. Cindy’s hoping for some Cider and food.
Well thats us updated. It’s apparently going to rain tomorrow… Great! So we’ll see what we do tomorrow when we wake up.
Hope everyone is good. Talk later.
The last few days in Glasgow…
On Sunday it was a nice sunny day, so Kath and I decided to start our training for the Santa Dash (better late then never I say haha)… We walked the 5km loop near the house, it took us around 40mins.. not bad I say.
When we returned from our walk Ellen took us to the New Lanark World Heritage site. Which is an 18th Century Cotton Mill Village, based near the Clyde (the main river in Glasgow) Falls. Since it is Christmas time they had all Christmas activities and an Annie McLeod Christmas experience ride (which was like a ghost train ride, but not scary!), which showed a young girl working in the Cotton Mill and how people celebrate Christmas over the world. My favourite bit was when the Christmas fairy said “and some people even have really hot Christmas days” haha. The ride “capsule/seat” generally held 2 young children and 1 adult… but we all insisted on sitting in the one carriage, it was very cosy!!
After the ride we wandered around the village, went into the old school and through the mills and houses. Kids started work at 10 years old and worked for 10hours a day then went to school in the evening… Gee kids these days just have it so easy haha.
After we saw the village we went on a hike to the Clyde Falls. The path along the river was blocked off from all the rain that we had the days before, so we had to take a long walk up the hills.. I took lots of photos and spent most of the time running to catch up to Ellen and Kath, I was extremely exhausted! The falls were amazing, they were running really fast and gushing over the drop! That is apparently not even at its fullest, as some of the water is diverted at the top of the falls to be used elsewhere.
The hike back to the car was very tiring, especially the last hike up to the car…But we all made it back in one piece.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we pretty much did the same thing. We went for a walk on our loop and then headed to the shops to get various things. I have new shoe laces, new insoles and Kath got some soft drink. We also got a really cool torch (apparently we are going to need torches on our Egypt night hike).
We booked our flights on Monday night to Egypt.. So have a way of getting there.. We are going from Glasgow to London, London to Athens and from Athens to Cairo. After our tour we will head back to Athens and start our next big adventure!
Today is Reece’s Birthday (Happy Birthday Reece!!). So I have spoken to everyone on Skype and missed out, yet again on Birthday cake.. I think when we get home I will have to have a super cake for my birthday to make up for all the cake I have been missing out on 
.
We are really excited about our fun run on Sunday.
It is 1degree here today… The frost was really cool this morning, still some around the backyard and in the paddock.
At least we will not get hot on our run!!
I’ll put up some pics of the last few days..
We hope everyone is going well.
Love Cindy and Kath
kathcatch
cbmiddl
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