Music and Trick Fountains

Monday, June 28th, 2010

This morning we left the hotel around 10:00 a.m. Our agenda for the day was to see the Mozart museums in the morning and then tour Schloss Hellbrunn in the afternoon. We went first to Mozart’s Wohnhaus or residence. Mozart lived in Salzburg until 1780, when he was 24 years of age, and it was this location where he lived with his parents and sister for the later part of his years in Salzburg. Again, we were not allowed to take photographs in the museum, but I will tell you a couple of things regarding the museum. First of all, I managed to resist the urge to touch Mozart’s harpsichord unlike my father and thus avoided scolding (thanks for the warning Mom). Secondly, my favorite pieces were the whimsical targets, over which Mozart and his father competed to come up with the most hysterical scenes to portray on the targets, and let’s just say there were some funny ones. From Mozart’s Wohnhaus we made our way over to Mozart’s Geburtshaus, or birthplace, where he, his parents, and his sister spent their earlier years in Salzburg. Here I learned some interesting things about Mozart and his family. Mozart may have lived in Salzburg until he was 24, but he spent almost a third of his life traveling, 3720 days to be exact, and his 35 years he composed 600 works, 22 of which were operas. Interestingly enough, Mozart considered himself to be primarily a composer of operas. Mozart worked with the best singers of his time, but they were often difficult, not much different from the famous actors of today. The audiences of the 18th century however were very different from those of today. Audiences typically would talk, receive guests, and even eat food throughout the 6 to 8 hour performances. Principals about medicine were also unique in those days. The Mozart family supposedly washed daily, which was uncommon in the 18th century, as most people still believed that water if applied externally caused diseases. The primary medicines of the day were primarily laxatives, as it was believed that illnesses must be excreted from the body, which is also the reasoning for frequent blood-lettings of the day.

After touring the Mozart museums we walked over to a plaza, which was said to have fast food stands based on what our guidebook stated. We found the plaza, and sure enough it was filled with Würstelstands and fruit vendors and more. For lunch Tim had a bürenwurst and I had a käsekrainer, and they were delicious. After finishing our lunch we bought some fruit to have for a snack and for breakfast in the morning as well as a “Salzburger Brezen” or pretzel, which was very unique in that it had a very strong fennel taste to it. After lunch we walked back to the hotel to have a short rest.

After a rest we headed to the train station to pick up a bus to take us to Schloss Hellbrunn. It was a short bus ride out to the Palace. When we arrived we first headed to do a guided tour of Schloss Hellbrunn’s famous trick fountains. The most famous of these is the Prince’s table. At the Prince’s table, the Archbishop who built the castle and its trick fountains 400 years ago would seat his guests and enjoy a meal together, but when he gave the signal, one of his servants would flip a switch and suddenly water would come gushing out of the guests seats and from around the table, drenching them all. This was particularly funny because there were very strict court rules which stated that no one may stand before the archbishop, and of course his seat was completely dry. Other trick fountains included a “rain grotto” in which the archbishop would entertain his guests and again at the flip of a switch rain would pour down upon them. There are also little “Disney-like” scenes along the walkways depicting various Greek Mythology with moving characters as well as a large stage with multiple levels that plays music and you can watch the characters move about the town and at the end on-lookers get a surprise in the way of a blast of water from behind. The amazing thing about all of these contraptions is that they are all water powered, as there was no electricity back in those days. After touring the trick fountains we took a quick tour of the interior of the Palace before walking back to the bus stop and catching a ride back in to town.

Once back in town we headed back to the hotel once again to rest and clean up for dinner. For dinner we walked back down into the “Old Town” to a restaurant called Wilder Mann, which was recommended in our guidebook. The food was good and drinks were cheap, and we ended our meal with a desert that didn’t taste like wet dog smells this time, a pancake filled with ice cream and covered with chocolate sauce….YUM!

Tomorrow we have a long travel day as we head to Switzerland. We had to switch our order up a bit because of accommodations, so we will be taking the 6:00 train to Zurich, catching the 11:35 train to Luzern, and then the 12:55 train to Interlaken. We should be at our destination by around 3:00 in the afternoon, so for now. Goodnight!

The Hills, or at Least the Streets, are Definitely Alive with the Sound of Music

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

Today we were out of the hotel by around 8:30 and walked across the street (this was extremely convenient) to the U-Station and made our way to the main international train station in Vienna for our 9:20 train to Salzburg. I must say I have been pleased with house easy the train stations have been to navigate, after a couple of trains now, we seem to be able to find our way pretty well without assistance.

We arrived in Salzburg about mid-day and after picking up a proper map of the area were able to navigate our way to the Holiday Inn Salzburg City, which was approximately a 15 minute walk from the train station. When we arrived, our room was not ready, so we checked our luggage with the hotel staff and made our way towards the “Old Town” of Salzburg. We made our way through quiet pedestrian shop lined streets to Residenzplatz, the plaza off which, the Dom cathedral is located. The three bronze doors of the Dom represent faith, hope, and love, and the dates 774, 1628, and 1959 represent the year the cathedral was first built, the year the cathedral was rebuilt after it was destroyed by fire, and the year the dome was rebuilt yet again after being destroyed by an aerial bomb.

From Residenzplatz we made our way towards the funicular Festungsbahn and caught a ride up to the top of the castle-fortress Festung Hohensalzburg. Festung Hohensalzburg was built in 1077 and was home to many archbishop-princes who ruled Salzburg from 798 A.D. Inside the fortress there are staterooms, torture chambers, and two museums all of which we toured. The best part of the tour in my opinion was the viewing deck from the top of one of the fortress’s towers from which you could get a 360 degree view of Salzburg and the surround areas. After walking around the fortress, we started the walk down, taking a small detour to go see Stift Nonnberg, Nonnberg Abbey, where The Sound of Music first finds Maria.

Once back in the center of the “Old Town” we made our way to St. Peterskirche and walked among the lovingly tended graves which cover the abbey’s grounds. From here we wandered the streets of the “Old Town” and followed the sound of music, pun intended, to Franziskanerkirche where a group of school children were performing a choral concert. After listening in for a while we continued our leisurely stroll through the “Old Town”, across the river, and back to our hotel to check in and freshen up after a day of travel before heading back into town for dinner.

We took a different route into town that led us to Mirabellplatz, the plaza adjacent to the Schloss Mirabell. The palace was built by the prince-archbishop Wolf Dietrich for his mistress in 1606, but the formal gardens, with their tulips, crocuses, and Greek statues, are the main draw at this palace. After a stroll through the gardens, we made our way to the pedestrian bridge and crossed over the river back into the “Old Town” once again. We made our way through passageways and pedestrian streets back to the base of the Festung Hohensalzburg to Stiegl Biergarten, which we had seen on our walk down from the fortress. Here we found a table outside overlooking the “Old Town”. The setting was perfection, and the meal was one of the best, if not the best that I have had so far in Europe. Tim had another Wiener schnitzel and I had “Ofenfrischer Schweinsbraten” which is roast pork with dumpling and sauerkraut, and is absolutely DELICIOUS! Tim of course had a beer and I had a glass of the house red. It still amazes me how inexpensive beer and wine are in Europe. A half liter of beer or a quarter liter of house wine is usually under 4 Euros a piece. As we were finishing our meals the most ridiculous desert I have ever seen was brought out to an adjacent table. It was on an oval platter about 12 inches in length and contained three GIANT mounds of what looked like meringue or cream. We called the waiter over and asked what it was, he told us “Salzburger Nockerl”. Tim decided we had to have it, despite the fact that there was no chance in hell that we would finish it and it cost 12 Euros, which was more than either of our meals. The desert took about 20 minutes to prepare, so we relaxed and enjoyed the sunset until the desert arrived. I will never forget Tim’s description after his first taste. “It tastes like wet dog smells!” he said. Needless to say, when we left to walk back to the hotel, there was a lot of Salzburger nockerl still on our plate.

A Day in the Life of Royalty

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

This morning we took the U-line out to Schloss Schönbrunn, the Habsburgs’ 1441-room summer palace, of which we toured 40 rooms. It was a quick and easy journey out to the palace, and once off the train there was no need to determine which way to go, you just follow the herds of people all going to the same place. Once inside, we purchased a ticket that included an audio-guided tour of 40 rooms of the palace’s first floor, entry to the Privy Gardens, entry to the Gloriette, and entry to the Labyrinth and Maze. We had about 45 minutes until we could start the tour of the palace, so we headed to the Privy Gardens, which were directly adjacent to the palace. The Privy Gardens in and of its self was nothing spectacular, beautiful yes, but not all that much more spectacular than the rest of the grounds of the palace. The one nice feature of the Privy Gardens was a viewing platform they had added from which you could take a really nice photograph of the side of the palace with the Gardens in the foreground. I think the ONLY thing Tim enjoyed about the Privy Gardens were the GIGANTIC lemons. The garden featured numerous lemon and orange trees, and I have NEVER seen lemons of this size, they were half the size of Tim’s head (you will see in the picture if you click into our photo gallery at the top of the blog and go to the Vienna pictures). Tim concluded from this that we need a lemon tree. We will see how that goes.

After the Privy Gardens we head for the entrance to the Palace tour and picked up our audio guides. No photography was allowed inside the Palace, so unfortunately I have no photographs to show you its splendor, only my words. The Imperial bedrooms and private living quarters, to my surprise, were grand yes, but were not overly lavish or ornate in design. The Emperor’s office for example was extremely understated and was full of portraits of his wife, children, and grandchildren. Some of the more formal gathering rooms where the Imperial family would have received guests however were much more ornate. There are three rooms in particular that come to mind, a long rectangular hall that had two small octagonal rooms at either end of the hall. The two small rooms in particular were very ornate. They featured some of the most beautiful wood floors I have ever seen with detailed designs highlighted with various types and shades of hard woods. In addition there was an elaborately designed “Chinese Room”, as I understand all of the Imperial Palaces of the time had a “Chinese Room” as the fabrics and designs were considered to be very “regal”.

After completing the tour of the inside of the Palace, we made our way back outside through the grounds and up the hill at the back to the Gloriette. Honestly, I am unsure of the original purpose of the Gloriette, it had a small interior building which now houses a café and two long arched open hallways on either side. It was a beautiful structure looking down on the Imperial Palace and grounds. The ticket we purchased also allowed for us to take a winding staircase to a viewing platform at the top of the structure which again provided an amazing photo op with spectacular views of Schloss Schönbrunn and modern day Vienna, which I’m sure would’ve seemed very far away in the Imperial days. From the Gloriette we headed back down the hill to tackle one of several mazes on the Palace grounds. After successfully defeating the maze, which took longer than I anticipated I must add, we walked back to the U-line station and caught a train back to the center of Vienna.

Upon our arrival in Vienna we set out to find a restaurant that was recommended in our guide book as being a classic Biesl, traditional Viennese pub serving solid Viennese fare. After switching trains and a 10 minute walk, we arrived at our destination, a bit out of the “touristy” part of Vienna we were pleased with the atmosphere and were looking forward to our first true Austrian meal. Zu den 2 Leiserln has been serving enormous schnitzels, and when they say enormous they mean ENORMOUS, to politicians, blue-collar workers, and everyone in between for 100 years, so of course we ordered the “Wiener Schnitzel”. A note to anyone who might find themselves in Vienna and want to order a Schnitzel at Leiserln, one schnitzel was PLENTY for the two of us. As Tim has already explained, Wiener schnitzel is NOT sausage, but in fact a giant piece of meat (traditionally veal, but Pork is the most common) pounded thin, breaded and fried. I found Wiener schnitzel to be very much like the pork tenderloins you find so often back home in Indiana. It was good, but not really my type of food, but I feel very strongly about sampling local cuisine. Now the potato salad that came with the schnitzel on the other hand was amazing, and incredibly unlike anything I had ever tasted. I don’t even know how to describe it other than to say that it didn’t have a mustard or mayonnaise or any sort of cream base, and it had almost a vinegar taste….YUM! After lunch we went back to the hotel for a short rest.

After a break we took the train back up to Stelphensplatz, the plaza along the pedestrian Kärntner Stausse near the Stephensdom Cathedral. From here we made our way to Zwölf Apostekeller, a heurigen, or wine tavern, located in the city. Heurigens sell “new” wine that they often produce on the premises, and it is thus usually very inexpensive, less than €2.50 a viertel (250ml). The majority of the heurigens in the area are located in the wine-growing suburbs to the north, northeast, south and west of the city, but we found this gem in the city, thanks to our guide book, and sat down in this atmospheric cellar for a glass of wine.

After the heurigen we took a casual stroll back to Flanagans again, to have dinner and watch the soccer. Tomorrow we move on to Salzburg!

"Wiener"

Tim here blogging for the first time, which I'm sure is shocking to the tens of thousands of people who clearly are following along on a daily basis!
This will just be a quick note as I'm sure the real "detailed" Christine blog will follow, but I just wanted to share my learning experience for the day. I feel really quite stupid about this so I am sort of hoping that I am not alone In my lack of "wiener" understanding. Now remember where we are at the present time (Vienna) and do not confuse "wiener" with a certain aspect of the male anatomy!! Anyway for lunch today we had our first taste of Wiener Schnitzel. Now for the moment of potential stupidity. After finishing our delicious lunch I asked Christine why the "Wiener Schnitzel" wasn't sausage. You see I had absolutely no idea what wiener schnitzel was and just assumed it was some sort of sausage since that is obviously what Austrian and German people eat for breakfast lunch and dinner ;-) Now the learning part.... Vienna in German is called "Wien," for some bizarre reason the English language likes to rename cities instead of just calling them by their real local name. So the term "Wiener" is basically just saying that it is from Vienna or "Wien." Well I think I've learnt enough for the day and it is time to shut off my brain for a little while. We'd love to see some comments posted here on the blog to reassure us that there may actually be some people reading this thing!
Lastly,
There is nothing wrong with a male eating a doughnut covered in pink frosting!!! Just saying.

And just like that we are in Vienna

We were sad to be leaving Budapest this morning, after such an amazing time, but it was time to move on. We left the hotel around 8:00 a.m. and walked with our luggage to the closest metro stations which took us out to the main international train station in Budapest. While the metro lines and train stations really aren’t too difficult to figure out, it is nice that most everyone speaks some English if to do nothing else, just to reaffirm your conclusions about what you need to do and where you need to go, because let’s be honest the last thing you would want is to get on a train going in the wrong direction. Luckily that didn’t happen to us. We validated our Eurail Pass and boarded the train to Vienna, which left at about 20 past 9:00. The train was actually incredibly comfortable, and the just over three hour journey went incredibly smooth, while on the train we located the train station on our map as well as our hotel and concluded that it would be fairly simple to get from point A to point B with the metro, or U-lines, as they call them in Vienna. But, of course, there always has to be a wrench thrown in somewhere. We had intended to get off at Wien (Vienna) Westbahnhof station, but as we approached the Wien (Vienna) Meidling station, the conductor came over the intercom and said that all passengers going to Wien must exit the train at Meidling, glad we did all that planning based on Westbahnhof! But again, as it turned out if was just as easy, if not easier to get to where we were going from this train station, just a short journey on the U-line with one train change and we were there, the InterContinental in Vienna is literally write across the street from the U-line. So we crossed the street and were checked into the hotel, less than 30 minutes after our arrival in Vienna.

After checking in and dropping our bags, we headed back out to make our way to the Naschmarkt (market) for a cheap kebab lunch. On our way we passed the baroque Karlskirche (St. Charles’ Church) and stopped for a quick photo op. The Naschmarkt was amazing, spanning at least two city blocks and a couple of isles of restaurants, butchers, produce stands, dried fruits, nuts, spices, and much more. We found an inexpensive Kebab place on the far end of the Naschmarkt with outdoor tables. We both ordered sandwiches, Tim the döner sandwich and I ordered the falafel sandwich, both were humungous and both were delicious. The two sandwiches and two sodas cost us just over 10 Euro. From the Naschmarkt we made our way to Kärnter Strasse, a pedestrian only street lined with shops and restaurants. We stopped at the Café Sacher to savor a slice of their world-famous chocolate cake, the Sacher Torte, baked at this location since 1832. After that small indulgence we continued our walking tour of Vienna which included sites such as the Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), a 13th century Gothic masterpiece complete with geometric patterned tiles on the roof; the Hofburg, the history city-centre home of the Habsburgs; the Greek-Revival –style Parliament building; the 19th century Burgtheater; and the neo-Gothic Rathaus, or town hall. Walking around Vienna today, you can really understand why they call its city center an open air museum as you pass one beautiful building after another.

After this we took the U-line back to our hotel, although first we ended up on the wrong side of the tracks for the second time! We will figure it out eventually. We then relaxed for a bit before heading to Flanagan’s, an Irish pub, to eat some grub and watch the soccer. Tomorrow we have another full day in Vienna, but for now we are off to bed!

Good Food, Good Drinks, Good Company

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

After a couple 3 Euro 1 liter beers and a long day yesterday in general, we slept in a bit before heading out of the hotel a little after 10 o’clock this morning. Our first stop today was the House of Terror. In 1944, during the domination of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, the building at Andrassy Utca 60, now the museum was once known as the “House of Loyalty” and was the party headquarters of the Hungarian Nazis. Then between 1945 and 1956, the infamous communist terror organizations, the AVO and its successor, the AVH, took up residence in the building. The museum commemorates the victims of terror and serves as a memento, reminding its patrons of the dreadful acts of terrorist dictatorships.

After an educational but depressing morning, we sought the comfort of familiarity and had lunch at Burger King. After lunch we headed on to the St. Stephen’s Basilica. Plans for the Basilica started in 1845 but the building was not complete until 1889. The Basilica is home to “the holy right hand”, which is the 1000 year old remains of the right hand of Saint Stephen, the Basilica’s namesake. Not to undermine the importance of this relic to this Church and its followers, but I found it a bit creepy, and then ridiculous when in the middle of taking a picture of the little shrine in which the hand is laid, the light illuminating it turned off and there was a sign saying that you had to pay 200 Hungarian Forints in order to illuminate the hand, no thank-you. From the Basilica we made our way to the riverfront and made our way down to the Parliament House, which was even more impressive up close than it was from the top of Castle Hill in Buda. After walking around the Parliament building we made our way back down the Danube to our hotel and had a bit of a rest.

After a short rest and a cup of coffee we were on our way to Gellert Hill to go to the Gellert Baths and the Citadel. Unfortunately we did not make it to the Citadel or to the top of Gellert Hill as we spent a little too long in the Baths. The Baths were interesting. The building is architecturally the most pleasant of the Baths in Budapest, so I’ve been told, but only has one cold and one thermal pool indoors and one cold and one thermal pool outdoors. We visited both the indoor and outdoor thermal pools which were very relaxing before heading back again to the hotel to clean up before meeting Jören and Živka for dinner.

We met Jören and Živka outside their hotel around 7:00 p.m. and Živka recommended that we try to find a pub/bar that she had been taken to once before near Blaha Luza Ter on a previous visit to Budapest. The pub was a “dive-bar” type pub with a great atmosphere and cheap drinks. I raved about the less than 2 US dollar wine I had last night, but tonight I had wine that cost 200 Hungarian Forints or approximately 90 cents US, pretty outrageous deal, and it was good as well! The food was also extremely inexpensive. Last night we paid 8500 Hungarian Forints for 2 entrees, a beer, and 2 glasses of wine, which is approximately 38 US dollars, but tonight we had 2 entrees for 3200 Hungarian Forints or about $14 dollars. Tim had what he said may have been the best chicken sandwich he has ever had, and I had a Serbian dish called Lescovich (SP?). After a couple rounds of drinks and our meals we walked around the corner to a “supposed” bar, but I was a bit worried that Jören and Živka had just been buttering us up and were taking us to their own version of the House of Terror because the bar had no sign and you just walked into this building that look closed and had graffiti all over the walls and then the elevator opened and there was a guy in tails in the elevator with a dirty looking cooler full of little liquor bottles he would sell to you on your way up. Even once the elevator opened up it appeared that we were entering an abandoned building, but then we turned the corner and saw the first forms of life and a stairwell leading to an amazing rooftop terrace bar. It was amazing, a night we will never forget and an opportunity we would have never had if we hadn’t met this amazing couple. At this unnamed bar we enjoyed another couple rounds of drinks, and quite possibly the biggest glasses of wine I have ever seen, the first glass came in a juice glass, which we thought was big, but then the second round of wine came in beer mugs, yep, beer mugs (don’t worry I took a picture!). Good food, good drinks, good company, all in all we had an amazing time in Budapest, if this is any indication, I think we have some great times ahead of us

On the River Danube

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

I don’t recall ever waking up at 2:15 in the morning, but we had to leave the hotel this morning at 2:45 a.m. to head to the Athens Airport for our 4:25 a.m. flight to Budapest. We stayed at the Holiday Inn by the airport in Athens last night, to save some time, unfortunately for us they do not operate their shuttle at that time of day, so instead of free transportation to the airport we had to take a taxi, which because of the hour cost us nearly 30 Euro. It did save some time and money over traveling from the center of Athens however, and even more so for Sue and Granddad who both were headed home later today. We had a short connection in Warsaw, Poland on our way to Budapest. We arrived in Budapest around 8:40 a.m. From there we took the airport mini bus (about which I read in our Lonely Planet book) directly to our hotel, the Intercontinental (got to love those employee rates!). It was more expensive than taking the buses/metro, but still only cost about $20 American, and was definitely worth saving ourselves the hassle of having to figure out the busses/metro and locate our hotel on our own.

Luckily when we arrived at the hotel at about half past nine they had a room ready for us already, and let’s just say that I couldn’t have been happier with the accommodations. We had a third floor room with a king size bed (a luxury we haven’t had often thus far on the trip), a proper shower (I am not going to miss the showers in Greece), and a million dollar view overlooking the Danube and over to central Buda. But we didn’t want to waste any time, so we were out the door shortly after 10:00.

There seemed to be a lot of sites clustered on Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube, so we decided to make this our first stop. It was a beautiful walk over the Danube to the Buda side of town. We weaved up through beautiful European streets to the top of Castle Hill. Once atop Castle Hill we found the Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church. The Fisherman’s Bastion was built in the early 20th century and is host to in my humble opinion some of the best views of Pest, especially its sprawling Parliament building, which is gothic in style, and is the largest building in Hungary. Adjacent to the Fisherman’s Bastion is Matthias Church, which is under constant restoration both inside and out, but features a spectacular colored tile roof.

After touring the inside of the Church we walked towards the other end of Castle Hill, stopping to grab a quick lunch. For lunch Tim had a hot dog and soda and I had a sandwich and soda which cost us 1300 Hungarian Forints, which converted is less than 6 US Dollars. It’s impossible not to love the prices in Eastern Europe.
After lunch we went to the House of Royal Wines. Our main intentions for going here was to taste some wines, but we decided to tour the “museum” which I will go ahead and say right now, I would definitely recommend giving a pass should you ever visit Budapest. It was definitely not worth the money, but we did learn that at least in the past, wine was one of Hungary’s biggest exports (we didn’t even know Hungary produced wine!). We also got to see some restored royal wine cellars from the 15th and 16th centuries, and got thoroughly freaked out by the creepy medieval wax statues that were lurking around every corner. After completing our tour of the museum, we decided that the tastings were too expensive, which was later affirmed when the wine at dinner was less than two dollars American per glass. From the House of Royal Wines we walked over to the Royal Palace, which is home to a couple of museums, we did not enter the museums, we only admired the Palace from the exterior. After a bit of a walk we headed back towards Pest and our hotel.

We stopped just briefly at the hotel before heading to the Central Market. At the Central Market we ate a strudel and purchased some fruit to eat for breakfast the next couple of days at the hotel. Leaving the Market we walked down Vaci Utca, a pedestrian street lined with restaurants and touristy shops to try and locate a place to have dinner and watch the soccer games later. We identified a couple of options before we headed back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we turned on the soccer and I promptly fell asleep, as did Tim. We were completely exhausted having been up since 2 o’clock this morning and having walked the equivalent of several miles throughout the day site-seeing. After the afternoon soccer games were over we headed back out and down Vaci Utca to find some dinner. Along this touristy strip the restaurateurs essentially attack you offering you all sorts of incentives to dine with them, I found it a bit overwhelming, and honestly if a restaurant has to mug and bribe people on the streets in order to get patrons, I’m not really interested. We finally sat down at a restaurant that we had passed where no one came and attacked us as we passed by and where there were plenty of people eating and where the food on the table looked and smelled amazing. I ordered the traditional beef gulyas (goulash), which was delicious, and had a couple of glasses of the house red, which cost as I mentioned before less than 2 US dollars per glass.

After we finished dinner we walked down to a sidewalk café that we had spotted earlier that had multiple TVs out, that we were certain would play both of the soccer matches that were on tonight (Germany vs. Ghana and Australia vs. Serbia). We joined a couple at a table and conversation ensued. Jören is from Germany, and his girlfriend, Živka, is from Macedonia, but they are currently living in Bratislava and she was visiting Budapest for a conference. We watched the soccer games together, they were glad Germany won, and we were glad Australia won even though the still will not advance and talked about all sorts of things, we just thoroughly enjoyed each others' company. After the game we went for a stroll together before heading back to our respective hotels, but made plans to meet tomorrow at 7:00 for dinner.

Views from the Top

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

After breakfast we got back on the bus for our last day in Greece. Today we are visiting the site of the geological wonders of Meteora, on top of many of which are perched monasteries or convents. The site of Meteora falls between two mountain ranges, between which was once a deep ravine, where a river once ran depositing silt, mud, etc. The plains that now exist adjacent to the mountain ranges were in fact once a lake, which coincides with the accounts of Herodotus who described the area as unsurpassable in the 5th century B.C. Then when the water withdrew, the lime dissolved and compact masses were formed which over time were shaped by the winds and the rain into the amazing geological formations we see today. The name Kalambaka was given to the area by the Turks and means “Wow, the fortress!” because when they came to the area the rock faces looked like great fortresses. The name Meteora comes from a Greek word meaning “suspended” which accurately describes the site of the once 24 monasteries that stood atop the rocky peaks. Currently there are only 7 visible monasteries (and the ruins of several others), only 2 of which are working monasteries. Several of the monasteries have been converted into convents. We visited two such convents, Saint Stephens and another.

After touring the two convents and multiple photo opportunities we headed back down to the town of Kalambaka where we had our lunch. We had lunch in a restaurant called “Restaurant Meteora”. This was one of my favorite meals in all of Greece. When we arrived they shuffled us all back into the kitchen where there were giant pots full of amazing smelling food and “Mama Kate” told us all about her cooking and then dished it up on to your plate. I must admit, there was something nice about getting a home cooked meal from “Mama Kate”, even though she may not be my “Mama Kate”.

After a delicious meal we got back on the bus for our long journey back to Athens. We arrived in Athens between 6 and 7 and luckily, Irini, our tour guide had informed us that we could take the bus and it would drop us directly opposite the Holiday Inn at the Airport for only 3.20 Euros each. This was good news as the metro was on strike yet again today, and a taxi would have cost us close to 50 Euros. So we arrived at the Holiday Inn near the airport around 8:00 and had dinner. I have to admit it is so nice to stay at a Holiday Inn, and I must say it is by far the nicest hotel we have stayed in thus far, they even have electrically operated curtains (don’t worry, being the hotel nerd that I am, I photographed them as proof!). It’s a shame we won’t enjoy this hotel for long as we will be leaving tomorrow at 2:45 a.m. to head for the airport for our 4:25 a.m. flight to Budapest.

Visiting the Oracle

Monday, June 21st, 2010

We left the hotel this morning around 9 o’clock to make our way to the ruins of Delphi. Delphi was in my opinion was one of the most spectacular archeological sites we have seen thus far. I’d say Pergamum is the only other sight that compared when it came to the number and quality of the ruins and location. Ancient Delphi is located high up in the mountain side between what was referred to in ancient times as the shining rocks. In more recent legends, Greeks say that the divide in the rocks at Delphi is where Noah’s ark struck. Delphi was home to the sanctuary of Apollo, where in ancient times people would travel great distances to come make offerings to Apollo and receive advice from the oracle of Delphi, perhaps one of the most famous oracles of ancient times. People would approach the city and walk by the Temple of Athena, and then they would cleanse themselves in the Kastalia spring, and paid a set tribute (tax or fee) before making their way into the upper terraces of the city. Along the route there were hundreds of statues and treasure houses from all the great civilizations (i.e. the Athenians, Kings of Argos, the Sicyonians, etc.) and wealthy prominent individuals from the time. Once individuals reached the Temple, they would wait for the Priest to bring the 12 goats. The Priest would then wash the goats in the Sacred Well to prepare them for sacrifice, and if the goats shivered it was taken as a sign that the God was present, but if the goats made no motion, it was taken to mean that the God was elsewhere. Then if the God was present the individual posed their question to the Priest who went into the Temple and down to the level where the Pythia, the priestess of the shrine, dwelled, who had been inhaling various gasses and was in a high state of elation. The Priest then posed the individuals question to the Pythia who mumbled words which the Priests interpreted and returned to the individual waiting outside to deliver them the oracle. The advice of the oracle was always cryptic. For example, one recorded oracle to a Spartan warrior was “you will go you will come back not in the war you will die”. The oracles were almost always continuous speech without pauses or punctuation. So this could be interpreted two ways, “You will go, you will come back, not in the war you will die” or it could also be interpreted as “You will go, you will come back not, in the war you will die”, two very different interpretations.

After touring Delphi we headed into the town to have lunch around mid-day before heading on to Kalambaka, where we stay tonight before seeing the monasteries of Meteora tomorrow. On our way to Kalambaka we stopped briefly at Thermopyles, site of the Battle of Thermopyles between the Greeks and the Persians. We arrived at our hotel in Kalambaka around 6:00pm and had a quick swim in the pool before dinner, and then off to bed. Tomorrow will be our last day in Greece.

Ancient Home of the Olympic Games

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

We had only a short drive across town from our hotel to the archeological site of Olympia this morning where we began our tour. The ancient town of Olympia was built on the Southern slope of Chronos Hill and was buried in 7-50 meters of sand before it was excavated by the Germans. The ancient town of Olympia has two main sections, a religious section containing the Temple of Zeus, the Temple Hera, and other similar structures, and a secular section which included buildings such as the gymnasium where athletes practiced for foot races, javelin, and discus throw, as well as the Palestra, where athletes were oiled and massaged before entering the gymnasium, and where they were powdered and bathed after they completed their training, and the Bouleuterion which was the meeting building of the Olympic Council, where athletes and judges took the sacred oath before each Olympic games. Olympia’s most famous site however, is of course its stadium, site of the first Olympic Games. The stadium at Olympia was constructed in the 5th century B.C., and did not have seats, other than those for the judges, spectators simply sat along the banks of the stadium. The stadium’s capacity is about 45,000 and the stadium is approximately 193 meters long. Free men of any nation were allowed to watch the games, but only free Greek men were allowed to participate in the ancient Olympic Games, the priestess of the Goddess Hera was the only woman allowed to watch the games. All of the events were held at the stadium at Olympia with the exception of horse and chariot racing, which were held at the hippodrome, which has yet to be discovered. Later, women started their own games in honor of the Goddess Hera; the women’s game had only one event, a foot race of half the length of the stadium.

There are three legends around the starting of the Olympics. The first legend states that King Eramos was told by the oracle at Delphi that he would be killed by his son-in-law. So in order to prevent this fate, the King decided to find a way to get rid of any man who may marry his daughter. He did so by challenging each of her suitors to a chariot race, with the catch that the loser must end his life. Eramos always won. That is until Prince Pelops, son of Poseidon, came to vie for the princess’s hand. Pelops arrived with his golden chariot with four winged horses and defeated the King, took the princess as his bride and inherited the Kingdom, and then in order to give thanks to the Gods, he organized a foot race, which turned into the Olympic Games.

The next legend goes that Chronos and Rhea had 11 kids, but each time Rhea gave birth, Chronos swallowed the child. Finally, when Rhea was about to give birth to her 12th child, she decided to trick Chronos, and handed him a rock swaddled in cloth instead of the child. Chronos swallowed what he thought was the child and laid down for his nap. Rhea then delivered the child and presented him to two sailors who took the child to Crete to raise him. Zeus grew up and confronted his father, asking him to give back his brothers and sisters, and Chronos complied, thus Zeus is considered the father of all Gods since he gave re-birth to his brothers and sisters. Zeus chose Mount Olympus as his dwelling, but would descend to Earth to watch the games that the two sailors had organized to thank Zeus for the re-birth of the Gods.

The final legend says that Hercules had been asked by Hera to measure the length for the stadium. Hercules’s feet are bigger than any other feet. Hence why the stadium at Olympia is bigger than any other such stadiums. So, when asked to measure the stadium, Hercules arranged a foot race in order to do so. This foot race then turned into the Olympic Games.

The ancient games ceased with Christian Rule in the 4th century A.D. The games were not restarted until 1896. Then in 1936 Berlin was hosting the Olympics, and because of their close ties to Olympia in Greece, wanted to create a link between the site of Olympia and the Olympic Games in their country. Thus started the tradition of the Olympic torch, which is lit each year at Hera’s Alter in Olympia, then taken to the stadium at Olympia where the runners are waiting to escort it first all over Greece, and then all over the World.

After touring the rest of the archeological site we walked over to the museum of Olympia where we saw many of the statues, pottery, and other findings from the site before our lunch break.

After lunch we got back on the bus for a few hours trip to Delphi. Upon our arrival in Delphi we toured the museum before turning in for the night at our hotel. Tomorrow we explore the ruins of Delphi.

Across the Corinth Canal

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

Today our tour of mainland Greece was to leave from a hotel near Syntagama Square in Athens at half past eight, so we rose early, had a quick breakfast, and were out the door. Surprisingly we were able to hail a taxi going towards town within just a couple of minutes. We shortly realized that it was Saturday, and that this phenomenon must have been due to this fact. We arrived at the hotel in plenty of time and our tour departed promptly at 8:30, unfortunately we were about 15 minutes into our drive out of Athens when our tour guide’s phone rang in the middle of her talk, she excused herself to take the call. I find it funny how while someone can be speaking another language you can often figure things out from their tone and body language. I had no idea what she was saying, but I knew we were going back to the hotel, and sure enough as soon as she got off the phone she asked if anyone on the bus was there for the one day tour and sure enough two people raised their hands, not sure how they hadn’t spoken up as she had been going on about our itinerary for the next four days, they must have been a bit dense I suppose. So we turned around dropped them off and were back on our way by 9:00.

We drove about an hour and a half outside of Athens towards the Peloponnese Peninsula of Greece. We made our first stop for coffee and a photo opportunity near Corinth just across the Corinth Canal. The Corinth Canal is 25 meters wide, 6 kilometers long, and 9 meters deep, it took 10 years to build and opened in 1893 and was an ancient dream finally realized. The area of Corinth has been occupied since ancient times and throughout its history, its rulers have tried and failed to build a canal connecting the Aegean Sea on the East of the Peninsula with the Ionian Sea on the West. In ancient times and throughout antiquity when attempts to build a canal failed, the path was paved and rails added and the Corinthians literally dragged ships and their cargo from one side to the other.

After our short stop in Corinth we continued for about an hour to the ancient side of Epidaurus. Epidaurus was a healing center in ancient times, a sanctuary to Asclepius, son of Apollo. The archeological site of Epidaurus has uncovered the ruins of a stadium which show that athletics, or exercise was used in Epidaurus as a means of healing. Additionally, Epidaurus’s most famous ruin is that of its one of a kind theater, used for mental stimulation and healing. The theater dates to the 4th century B.C. and is made entirely of limestone with the exception of the front row of seats, which were reserved for dignitaries, and were made of lyguno marble which is of a pinkish color and is quarried in the surrounding area. The theater can hold 12-15,000 people and has not only the best acoustics of the ancient theaters but is also the only Greek theater that remained unchanged by the Romans. The Romans often altered Greek theaters, adding stage buildings, etc. However, in the case of the theater at Epidaurus, the Romans were too afraid of ruining its unique acoustics, and only added to column gates at either side of the theater.

From Epidaurus we drove a short distance to the Venetian inspired port town of Nafplios. Nafplios was in fact Greece’s first capitol when it gained its independence from the Ottoman Turks in the early 1830’s, however by the mid 1830’s the capitol was moved to Athens. In the hills surrounding Nafplios can be found two fortresses, the older of which dates back to the crusades, and the newer Fortress was used throughout numerous Greek wars and is famous for its 999 steps. Another familiar site in Nafplios is the “castle in the sea” which had been used as a prison in the past, and is now a nightclub and bar.

After our brief photo op in Nafplios we continued on to the ancient city of Mycenae. The city of Mycenae dates to 1600 B.C., and means “mushrooms”. The story of its founding is as follows. A warlord was traveling around looking for a place to build his palace. The warlord stopped when he came upon a natural spring and asked his servant to fetch his gold cup so that he might have a drink of fresh water. The servant was so embarrassed when he discovered that he had forgotten his master’s golden cup, so he looked around frantically for a solution. The servant saw around him hundreds of mushrooms, so he took one of the mushrooms, removed its stem and filled the cap with water and presented it to his master. The warlord was pleased, and said that there was no need to go any further that he would make his palace here, on this site with all the mushrooms. The two main archeological sites in Mycenae are the Treasury of Atreus and the Citadel. The Treasury of Atreus is in fact a large above ground family grave, the latest type, which imitated a pyramid and took the shape of a beehive. From the outside the grave appeared just as a hill as the entrance was filled in, unless they were burying someone. 9 such graves have been discovered in the area, all have been emptied and plundered, but this one was the nicest of them all, thus why archeologists believe that it belonged to Atreus, father of Agamemnon. Mycenae’s other famous site, the Citadel, is home to infamous Grave Circle A, Grave Circle B, and the Lion’s Gate. Famous archeologist, Schliemann (about whom we had heard of first in Troy), had been looking for Mycenae because of the Homeric poems which described it as covered in Gold, and as we know from Troy, Schliemann was very interested in the treasure’s of ancient times, Schliemann did not know that Homer was referring not to the gold of “treasure” but of the golden color of the landscape. Schliemann got lucky however, when he finally did uncover gold within the walls of the citadel and the famous Lions’ Gate (1240 B.C.) in what is now referred to as Grave Circle A which dates to the 16th century B.C. Schliemann uncovered 5 of the 6 grave shafts in 1876. Many of the treasures from Grave Circle A and Grave Circle B (located outside the wall dating to 1600 B.C.) can now be seen at the National Archeology Museum and are shown in our pictures from our visit there just yesterday.

After some time to explore Mycenae on our own we went into town to have a late lunch (around 3:00pm). After lunch we got back on the bus for a 4-5 hour drive to Olympia. Upon arrival at our hotel in Olympia, we settled into our room before grabbing dinner and heading off to bed.

Ready, Set, Go!

I started out my morning with some Greek yogurt and honey, a breakfast I am definitely going to start repeating back at home. After breakfast we had much better luck getting a taxi this morning, the key I believe is that all of the empty cabs are going in the opposite direction, so by simply crossing the street we were able to get one within the first five minutes, a big improvement on yesterday.

We started our day at the Theater of Dionysos. The site had been used as a theater since the 5th century B.C. although in those early years it may not have been more than a gathering of people on the hillside, it wasn't until the 4th century B.C. when a more structured theater was built. The Theater of Dionysos where the famous tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were first performed as well as the comedies of Aristophanes. There were several other ruins near the Theater of Dionysos including three Temples or Sanctuaries dedicated to Dionysos, the Stoa of Eumenes II, The Sanctuary of Asclepios, and the Choregic Monument of Thrasyllos.

After the Theater of Dionysos we strolled down past Hadrian's Arch to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The Temple of Olympian Zeus was started in 515 B.C. by Peistratos but came to a halt when he was overthrown. Construction of the Temple did not resume until 175 B.C. when Antioch IV Epiphanes started work on the Temple once again. Work was continued by Augustus and then finally completed by Hadrian in 131-132 B.C. Hadrian constructed a statue of himself adjacent to a statue of Zeus at the Temple, both were worshiped as equals. The Temple of Olympian Zeus is one of the largest in the ancient world, consisting of two rows of 20 columns on each side and 8 columns on each end.

Our final stop of the morning was to the Panathenaic Stadium. The Panathenaic Stadium was the site of the first modern Olympics held in 1896. The Stadium was build on the site of an ancient Athenian stadium that had been previously excavated. The modern stadium was built in its model and was near completion at the time of the 1896 Olympics. The stadium is the only one built entirely of pentelic marble and can seat 68,000 spectators.

After our tour of the Panathenaic Stadium we spend about 20-30 minutes trying again to catch a taxi, I swear I have never been anywhere where it is so hard to hail a taxi. When we finally got a taxi, our driver didn't speak a lick of English and apparently was new, so he had to look at our map in order to figure out how to get to the National Archeology Museum, which was our next destination, but he did get us there and upon our arrival we stopped first at a cafe outside of the museum for a quick lunch.

After lunch we spent a couple of hours perusing the National Archeology Museum, which held an amazing collection of ancient pottery, gold, jewelry, sculptures, bronze, etc.

When we finished at the museum, luckily we were close enough to our apartment to walk back, because I must admit I was not looking forward to trying to get another taxi. Once home, we again enjoyed a leisurely evening watching the soccer and relaxing. Tomorrow we leave Athens and begin our tour of the rest of mainland Greece. Highlights over the next several days include: Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae, Meteora, etc.

An Adventure in Athens

It was nice to sleep in a bit this morning and have breakfast in our own apartment before heading out to make our way to some of the ancient Greek sites. The metro was on strike yesterday and today, so the underground lines were to be closed all day and the train was only to be running before 11 a.m. and after 4 p.m. After calculating things out, we determined that it may be cheaper, and easier to simply take a taxi to the Akropolis area since there were four of us that to purchase metro tickets. So we walked out of our apartment and set out to get a taxi. Unfortunately it seemed every taxi either was occupied or going the wrong way, we were about to give up and just take the metro when I finally flagged one down on the opposite side of the street and we were on our way. I was a bit concerned about the location of our apartment, but the taxi to the Akropolis area only cost us 5 Euros with tip.

When we arrived in the area to the North of the Akropolis we set out to Hadrian's Library. Hadrian's Library was built in the 1st century A.D. and mainly consisted of a large courtyard, which housed a church, a library to the East, several smaller rooms, and auditoriums for lectures/text readings. From Hadrian's Library we walked over to the Roman Agora. The Roman Agora was built between 19-11 B.C. It housed commercial activities after the Ancient Athenian Agora was overtaken by large buildings and there was no space remaining for commercial activities. The exact date of destruction of the Roman Agora is unknown, but the area was in use for various purposes into the 19th century. After the Roman Agora we headed to the more prominent Ancient or Greek Agora. The Ancient Agora was the center of civic and social life in ancient Athens. The main monuments are the well-preserved Temple of Hephaistos and the reconstructed Stoa of Attalos.

After touring some of the ancient sites around Athens, we stopped for a late lunch before heading to the Akropolis Museum. We had walked by the Akropolis Museum the previous day with Steve but had gone by it after touring the Akropolis itself. In order to get to the Akropolis we had to climb heaps of stairs along the North-Western side of the Acropolis, and we were hoping to avoid those today as it was again a 95 plus degree day and Granddad really shouldn't be climbing stairs at all let alone in this heat. So we weaved our way around and got ourselves thoroughly lost before my mad skills with a map saved us and I found our way to museum. The Akropolis museum is unique in that when construction began on it, they discovered the ruins of an ancient remains of a neighborhood containing streets, houses, baths, and workshops ranging in age from the 5th century B.C. to the 9th century A.D. So the architects re-did the design for the museum to include glass floors on the main level where patrons can view the ongoing excavations below. My favorite piece in the museum, although silly, was a plaque of a hoplite-race, an athlete who wears armor, which bore the inscription "Megakles kalos" or "Megakles is good looking", however, his name had been scratched out and replaced with the name "Glauketes". It appears Athenians have had a thing for graffiti since at least the 5th century B.C.

After the museum we spent about a hour trying to hail a stinking taxi, probably worse than usually due to it being rush-hour and with the metro-strikes going on, but we finally made it back to apartment and enjoyed another relaxing evening having dinner in our apartment and watching the soccer. Tomorrow will be our last day in Athens, and it looks to be another hot one!

A Stinking Hot Day in Athens

This morning we met our Fez travel group and Steve, our tour guide, in the lobby of our hotel in Athens. Even though our tour officially had ended this morning and was not meant to include any tours of Athens, Steve had offered to give us a quick day tour of some of the sights and to provide us with a bit of history.

The area now known as Athens has been occupied as far back as 6000 B.C. The early Greeks however were not unified but divided into several tribal areas around the Akropolis. The tribes weren't unified until Theseus. Theseus was the son of Aegeas, the Mycenaean King, who had been worried as he had no children as his heirs, so he slept with a woman called Aethra who walked across the bay and gave birth to Theseus. When Theseus was born Aegeas decided to return to Athens but before he went he buried his sandals and his sword under a huge rock and told Aethra that when Theseus was grown if he were hero enough he could bring the items back to Athens as proof of his birthright. To get to Athens Theseus could go by sea (the easy way) or by land. By land Theseus would have to pass six entrances to the underworld which were guarded by various bandits. Theseus being young and brave chose the difficult path and defeated the six bandits. When Theseus returned to Athens he learned that after King Minos of Crete defeated the Athenians that he demanded that in 9 year intervals 7 girls and 7 boys be sent to Crete to face the Minotaur. Theseus thought this was wrong and volunteered to go slay the Minotaur. Aegeas tried to convince him not to go, but Theseus prevailed, but promised his father that if successful he would return with a white sail on his ship. Once in Crete, Theseus's love (who happened to be King Minos's daughter) gave him a ball of string so he could find his way out of the maze. Theseus then successfully slayed the Minotaur and saved all of the children and returned to Athens. But in his excitement Theseus forgot to put up his white sail, thus when he returned to Athens the black sail was still up and Aegeas fraught with grief threw himself off his balcony. Theseus then as King decided to unify the tribes and held games to determine which tribe the city would take on as its name. Poseidon put his sword into the earth and out sprung a horse. The people of Athens were impressed but thought the horse was too war-like. Athena then put her sword into the ground and out sprung an olive tree. The people of Athens were impressed and thought there was no better symbol for their city, and hence the city of Athens, or Athena, was born. Athenians claim that the olive tree found next to the Temple of Athena atop the Akropolis is the original olive tree that sprung out when Athena thrust her sword into the earth

After our brief history/mythology lesson we walked to the Akropolis. It was a bit of a hike, as unfortunately the metro was not operating due to strikes. On our way to the Akropolis we passed the Roman Agora, the Ancient Greek Agora, Hadrian's Library, and other impressive ruins. From there we made our way up to the Akropolis, past the Theater of Dionysis, and through the Propylaeum (entrance) past the Temple of Athena Nike (Goddess of Victory) and then the most recognizable site in the world, the Parthenon comes into view. It really is quite impressive, despite its being masked in scaffolding. To the left of the Parthenon is the Temple of Athena and the olive tree mentioned in the legend above. It was quite interesting to see all of the work going on. They believe that early reconstruction in the 1800s was inaccurate which led to some problems with the structures in recent history, so they have been working to reconstruct the buildings properly, trying to find as many original pieces as possible and matching them up using computer technology and making filler pieces to fit perfectly between the original pieces in any gaps.

After the Akropolis Steve took us to the prison of Socrates where Socrates was imprisoned for 30 days before he was forced to choose between an excruciating death or suicide by drinking Hemlock, as you may recall, he chose the Hemlock. Socrates was imprisoned for his forward thinking, some of which included his believe in only one god in an age of polytheism and his believe in an after life. Plato and Socrates's other followers joined him in his final hours after he drank the Hemlock to record his words. All of what we have written by Socrates was transcribed to his followers between the time he drank the Hemlock and death.

From Socrates's prison we strolled over to the Hill of the Pinks, passing the Dipylon Gates on our way. The Dipylon Gates were part of the 8 meter high wall that surrounded the city of Athens and all the way to its port. The wall was why Athens was so hard to take during the Spartan War. Typically, the Spartans took cities by surrounding it and starving out the city, but since Athens was protected by the wall all the way to its port, this did not work for the Spartans. It wasn't until the Spartans decided to move into Athens by Sea that they were finally able to overtake it. The Hill of the Pinks was home to a platform where Pericles, Socrates, and other influential Athenians gave their speeches. Much business was also done on the Hill of the Pinks. At the back of the hall there was a place where citizens could place their chip that every official citizen of Athens received and when there were 6000 chips there was a quorum and business could be done.

After Steve gave us his own rendition of an ancient Athenian speech, we headed in the direction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to watch the changing of the guards. We finished our day tour with Steve around mid-day after the changing of the guards and said our goodbyes. The remainder of our time in Athens, two more days, will be spent on our own. It was nice to have a guide to help us get oriented before we were on our own. After leaving Steve, we leisurely made our way back to the hotel Fez had arranged for us to pick up our bags and head to the apartment Sue had booked for us for the next three nights. After a long day in the summer heat of Athens, we enjoyed a leisurely evening relaxing at the Apartment, tomorrow we will hit the sights again!

Goodbye Greek Islands

We had to return our quad bikes by 10:00 this morning. After that I spent a bit of time getting some of my summer pre-work done before we walked along the cliffs and into town to explore the shops and grab a bite to eat. After lunch Tim and I wondered off and explored the winding streets of Santorini a bit more before heading back to the hotel to take final advantage of the internet.

Our ferry for Athens left Santorini around 5:00 and when we arrive we will pretty much go straight to our hotel and to bed. Tomorrow we will rise early and Steve will give us a quick day tour of Athens before we are on our own.

The Perfect Day in Paradise

Today was by far both Tim’s and my favorite day of the trip so far. Per Steve’s recommendation he gave us a guided tour of the island on quad bikes. We headed out around 10:00 and picked up the quad bikes, Sue rode with me and Granddad with Tim. Our first stop was a look-out where we had a gorgeous view of the buildings on the cliffs. After a quick photo op we continued on to Red Beach. Red Beach is named such because of the red volcanic rock formations and red color of its beach. The walk down to this beach was a bit steep and on unsteady terrain so we didn’t swim here, only stopped for a quick photo opportunity. The next bit of driving was some of the best as we weaved our way up to the peak where ancient ruins of Thira were. The views as we climbed higher and higher were simply breathtaking. Unfortunately when we reached the top we remembered it was Monday and the ruins were closed, but the view was entirely worth it. We then weaved our way back down and to Kamari Beach where we enjoyed a gyro, have I mentioned that the Greek gyros come with fries actually INSIDE the gyros, strange, but delicious. After lunch we walked down towards the cliffs and found a nice spot on the extremely hot black “sand” beach. I say “sand” because there was absolutely no actual sand just rocks. Other than being difficult to walk on it was amazing. Gorgeous scenery and refreshingly cool crystal clear water. After we were thoroughly cooked we got back on our bikes and headed to the hotel for a quick snack, shower, and sleep. We met back up at around 7 to drive to the other end of the island where we could watch the sun set on the Mediterranean. The drive up to the other side was shockingly beautiful as well. We drove along the cliffs and could see the fields sloping down to the sea below. The township we arrived in, was adorable, more of the blue and white and narrow shop lined streets we had seen in all of the islands. Steve led the way to the perfect location to photograph the famous blue domes of Santorini. This is when it pays to have a guide, I heard others say that had been looking for days for this spot, which is the spot from which all of the photos you see of the domes is taken. From there we grabbed a few drinks from a market and headed for our sunset viewing spot. The setting was perfect. Perched up on a wall we enjoyed our drinks as the sun sank lower and lower. Unfortunately the sunset ended up being pretty crap, but a few dedicated tourists applauded nonetheless and I can’t say that I would’ve rather ended my day any other way.

Snow Capped Island

After breakfast we had a bit of time to kill before our evening ferry so we walked down into the port village to have a bit of a walk around. Sue, Granddad, Tim and I shared a great lunch together at a little harbor side restaurant that had what many of us thought were the best gyros yet. Gyros are the way to go in Greece as they are amazing and cost usually 2-3 Euros, can’t beat that. We just have to hope we can find something similar in all our other destinations.

After lunch Sue and Granddad walked back up to the hotel to have relax a bit and Tim and I headed to Yialos Beach where we enjoyed free lounges (such luxuries!) while Tim read the paper and I listened to music. After a while we headed back up to the hotel and I went for a quick dip while Tim watched the soccer up in the reception area.

We almost had a big hiccup as the Flying Cat 4 was cancelled due to mechanical reasons and the next boat to Santorini wasn’t until midday the following day, but by the grace of God the Greeks actually re-routed a boat (which Steve says NEVER happens) and we actually got off 15 minutes earlier (which was still 15-30 minutes late).

Just a short 30 minute ferry ride later we arrived in spectacular Santorini with its cliff top buildings which look like snow on the top of a mountain. We arrived in the new port which meant we had transportation up to the top. Before the new port all visitors to Santorini had to take donkeys or cable cars to the top, and on Granddad’s first trip to the island it was only donkeys! The cruise ships still arrive at the old port so its passengers still utilize the donkeys are cable cars.
We dropped our bags at the hotel and headed into town for a meal at another restaurant with a beautiful rooftop terrace. Here I enjoyed my second helping of Mousakka, not as good as the first, but still delicious and some more local wine. The owner was kind enough to carry his own personal TV up to the terrace for our group to watch the Aussies play Germany in the World Cup. As it turns out it may not have been worth his while, but we certainly appreciated the effort.

Off to Ios

Our ferry wasn’t to leave Mykonos until mid afternoon so after breakfast Tim and I caught a bus to the beach just up the road, Stefanos. While, not quite as nice as Platy Gialos in my opinion, it was a nice beach and plenty of space to lay down our towels, we were going to pay 10 Euros for a lounge again. After an hour or so at the beach we decided it would be best to head back to the hotel, we had forgotten our sun cream, and didn’t want to fry. We walked back instead of taking the bus, it wasn’t a long walk, but there wasn’t much of a footpath, so it was a bit dodgy. Back at the hotel we just lounged around the pool and had a swim before heading to the port to catch our ferry to Ios.

We arrived in Ios and dropped our bags at the hotel before meeting back up to take the bus up to town. Ios’s township was adorable as well. It had much more of a community feeling than Ios, children could be seen playing in the Plaza, etc. However, up in the town it had the same charming narrow streets, white washed buildings, and blue shutters that could be found in Mykonos. Steve led us to another of his favorite restaurants that had a beautiful outdoor terrace. Steve recommended the lamb in the oven, and of course everyone ordered it, unfortunately, or as it turned out fortunately, they only had three servings left. So some of us obligingly agreed to have chicken in the oven instead, we of course ended up being the lucky once, as when the lamb came out it was hard as rock and was more bone than anything else. I was one of the lucky ones who had chicken, and I must say my meal was delicious, but poor Steve, all those with lamb could do was complain about how awful it was, and I must say it was beginning to be a bit of a down, until they brought out the EZ towels. For those of you that don’t know what an EZ Towel is, it is apparently a product of New Zealand, and our fellow tour member Robin Worthington, just so happened to be a representative for the product back home. She was so excited that they had EZ Towels in Greece that she practically gave us a full on infomercial telling us of all of its amazing uses, much like Bubba and his shrimp in Forest Gump. Anyway it provided for a good laugh (both for us and for our fellow diners on the terrace), saved the meal, and turned into a long running inside joke for the remainder of our tour.

After Dinner we headed to a pub to watch the USA vs. England game. I headed back to the hotel with Sue and Granddad a bit earlier than the rest to try and get a bit of work done. Sunday we would have almost a full day in Ios before leaving early evening for our final Greek island destination, Santorini.

The Birthplace of Sun and Soaking up Sun

After breakfast at our hotel, Tim, Granddad, Sue, and I took the bus into town to catch the ferry to Delos. After a short ferry ride we arrived in Delos, a completely uninhabited island, and met our tour guide to begin our explorations.
While one of the smallest of the Greek islands, Delos is one of the most sacred as it was the birth place of Apollo and his sister Artemis. As the birthplace of Apollo, Delos is also the birthplace of sun, and is historically one of the sunniest places on Earth. Zeus was the father of Apollo and Artemis, but their mother was Zeus’s mistress, and Zeus’s wife was very jealous and feared by many and for that reason, no one would accept Zeus’s mistress into their port except for Delos.

In addition to its importance in Greek mythology, Delos also thrived as a commercial center under Roman rule because the Romans declared it a tax free port. Despite its small size, approximately 1 square kilometer, Delos’s population at the end of the 2nd century B.C. was approximately 20-30,000. Delos was also a very diverse city with people from many different nations/religions co-existing. Citizens of Delos were free to worship their own Gods; others often assumed that their neighbor’s God may likely be the same God as their own, just with a different name. Evidence of this is found in the fact that Delos was home to the first Synagogue and that temples exist not only to Greek gods but to Egyptian ones as well. Delos was destroyed once in 88 B.C. by the Miltradetes and once more in 69 B.C. by Pirates. Delos was never fortified because they believed they were protected by the Gods, so when destruction occurred, its business and people moved on elsewhere and neighboring islands further decimated the city, re-using its structures for their own building materials. Today only 1/7th of excavations are complete.

After arriving back in Mykonos we stopped in town for gyros before Tim and I headed to the bus stop to catch a bus to Platy Gialos, a beach recommended to us both by Steve and the locals. The beach was nice, although we did have to pay 10 Euros for a couple of beach chairs and an umbrella, the beach was so packed with them you couldn’t lay a towel down between them anyway. The water in the Mediterranean is very cool, but refreshing on a hot day. After a couple of hours blobbing at the beach we headed back to our hotel to freshen up real quick before meeting the group to head to dinner.

We had dinner with the group at a little Greek Taverna just up the street from our hotel, I had the stuffed tomatoes which were very nice. After dinner, Tim, Steve, and I headed into town to watch a bit of the soccer. We enjoyed a few beers, or in my case more of that ridiculously cheap wine, and in no time the game was over. Somehow I managed to drag Tim into a dance club where I had another couple glasses of wine, although as Steve and Tim both informed me very little ended up in my mouth, most of it ended up on them or on the floor. What can I say it’s hard to dance with a full glass of wine! Needless to say I laid off the wine for the next couple of days.

A Maze of Blue and White

Our ferry arrived in Mykonos early afternoon and we were much to the relief of our fellow passengers transported to our hotel. After a long travel day we had a couple of free hours to rest and relax, which Tim and I spent poolside enjoying a light lunch before heading into town for an early dinner. Steve introduced us to a great restaurant or “creperie” rather where I had a Greek crepe with ham, cheese, tomatoes, peppers, olives, and feta, so far Greek food has been divine. Along with the crepe I enjoyed a nice Greek frappe, which is essentially iced coffee, but as with all coffee I have come across in Europe thus far, extremely strong and delicious.

After our light dinner Tim and I spent some time strolling through the charming streets, if you can even call them that, of Mykonos. Code in Mykonos states that everyone must white wash their building and paint their trim once per year. Citizens of Mykonos can only paint their trim blue, red, green, or yellow, and although blue is the most common, you do see some of each, and in a variety of shades. Mykonos is also famous for its 21 windmills. All of which contributes to Mykonos’ pristine charm.

Later Tim had his first of many gyros in Greece before we headed back to the hotel and to bed, Friday we planned to head first thing to the neighboring island of Delos to explore its ruins, so we needed our rest.

Flying Carpets and Ancient Ruins

After a quick breakfast in Kusadasi, we packed our bags and loaded into the bus for a short ride to a Turkish carpet factory, where we were going to learn about Turkish carpets, the different types, how they are made, etc.

The gentleman at the Turkish carpet factory was called Mehmet, as are 95% of Turkish men he joked. Mehmet gave us a brief history of Turkish carpets. He explained that the Turkish people were nomads in their early days and therefore had to produce a multi-purpose item that could be easily transported, much like the Native American Indians. In Turkey, these nomadic people were born on, slept on, played on, and prayed on carpets. The carpets were made by taking the wool from animals, washing and cleaning it, using vegetable dyes to color it and then weaving the wool on a loom to make the carpets. The quality of the carpet is not determined by its thickness but by the number of knots per square centimeter. There are three main types of carpets. The first is wool on wool which done with wool thread on a wool stringed loom, these are the carpets traditional of the nomads. The second is the wool on cotton which is done with wool thread on a cotton stringed loom which allows for more knots per cubic centimeter which lends to a more durable carpet and allows for more intricate designs. The final type of carpet is the silk carpet. The silk carpet has 100 knots per square centimeter compared to 10 for a standard carpet. Carpet factories hand select girls to make the silk carpets because of the high level of skill required, and errors cannot be afforded due to the expensive nature of the silk. Also, unlike in the other types, the weavers cannot merely do the design by eye but must follow what are called millimetric papers. The average silk weaver works about an hour and a half during a working day and can do about 2000 knots maximum in that time, at this rate it would take 500 working days to complete a silk carpet 1 square meter in size, which may have something to do with why they are so stinking expensive.

After learning about the carpets and seeing all of the different types, a few of our group purchased carpets, although we did not as the one I liked most was 7000 US dollars. What can I say? I have expensive taste. So while the others completed their shopping, we enjoyed a nice cup of Turkish apple tea, which I am going to dearly miss once out of Turkey, before heading on to Ephesus.
Ephesus was amazing, much busier than the other ancient cities we have visited thus far. It was nearly impossible to take a photo without someone walking into it. Settlements in the area of Ephesus date back to 6000 B.C., however, the earliest settlements were 60 kilometers from the site we visited and in those days were called Asaba. The city of Ephesus spanned many eras and had throughout history been occupied by among others the Hittites, Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The escavations started in 1825 and while only 50% complete, much of the ruins are very well preserved/restored. With all the tourists walking down the ancient streets of Ephesus it was almost easy to picture the way it would have been when it was a living breathing city as we made our way from ancient site to ancient site. I would love to go back to Ephesus and spend more time, one of the down sides of these organized tours is that they run on a schedule, but the nice thing is you get to see so much in so few days.

After touring Ephesus we stopped for lunch at an adorable open air restaurant where you took your shoes off and sat on big cushions on the floor, something I’m sure designed for tourists to think they are getting an “authentic Turkish experience”, although I must say the only Turkish looking people I saw were sitting at tables. At lunch we all tried guzleme, or Turkish pancakes. Tim had the honey guzleme and I had the spinach and feta ones. The guzleme was quite good, in fact perhaps my favorite Turkish meal, the drink however was a slightly different story. Iyran is a yogurt drink, which essentially tastes like cold frothy sour milk. I drank most of it, and it did get better the more I drank, but overall I would give it a pass if ever I came across it again. When in Rome!

After lunch we stopped at a leather shop, which I must say was not nearly as interesting as the carpet factory and was mostly pushy salesmen trying to get you to buy extremely expensive leather jackets. The one and only thing worth mentioning about the leather factory is the fashion show. While mostly horrendous, the glimmer in the show was when my husband got pulled up on stage and walked the catwalk in a slick leather jacket. Don’t worry! I got the whole thing on video!

After that it was time for us to wish Turkey farewell. Gurkan, our Turkish guide dropped us at the port where we met Steve, our Greek speaking Aussie tour guide, who was going to take us through the Greek Islands. We had originally been meant to depart on Thursday, but as we learned, Greek ferries sort of do their own thing, and if we didn’t leave on Wednesday we wouldn’t be able to leave until Friday. So we boarded our ferry and had a short stop in Samos where I had the absolute best Mousakka I have ever had, although I haven’t had many, at a little restaurant that Steve said was his favorite in all of Greece. I also discovered that wine in Greece is as cheap as water, a discovery I would soon regret. But for the mean time I enjoyed a nice bottle of Fokianos a local wine found only in Samos. After dinner we boarded a ferry to Syros where we hauled our bags up winding streets and stairs before crashing at our hotel at nearly five o’clock in the morning, Thursday we had to rise again and be aboard our next ferry by around 10:00 a.m. Easy to say, we didn’t get much sleep.

That's a Bloody Big Horse!

Tuesday we woke up and had breakfast in Cannakale before taking a short trip to the ancient ruins of Troy. Troy is of course famous for the tale of the Trojan horse, in which the Greeks take Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse and then emerging to attack once the horse had been brought inside the supposedly impermeable fortress walls by the curious Trojans. Exactly how the Greeks were able to conquer Troy is unknown, but the incredibly tacky yet fun replica wooden horse tourists can climb inside aside, Troy is a fascinating ancient site.

While unique, Troy is not one of the better preserved of the 2000 ancient city ruins in Turkey. There are many reasons for this, earthquakes, the Greek/Troy war, bugs/botanicals, and most interestingly, German Schliemann, who began excavations in the 19th century was interested in one thing, and it wasn’t preserving the city, it was treasure. Schliemann signed an agreement with the Ottomans before beginning excavations that any treasure he found would be split 50/50 with the Sultan. However, when he finally found the treasure he cleverly gave his workers the day off stating it was his wife’s birthday and wrapped off the treasure and left. The treasure was taken to Russia, but Schliemann had written an agreement with them that one day the treasure would go to his homeland, Germany. Unfortunately in the process of finding his treasure, Schliemann damaged man of the ruins.

Troy was a wealthy city in its day, which may explain why it thrived for so many centuries. Troy was wealthy because of its location. From the top of Troy one can see the Dardanelles, the South of the peninsula, and the Aegean Sea. The Aegean Sea, although now quite far from the ruins of Troy was once right at its door, and in these ancient times Troy collected taxes from boats waiting to pass through the Dardanelles. Throughout history civilizations would have to leave Troy for various reasons, such as war, and others would come along and find the existing structures and decide to build upon it, which is why in the ruins at Troy you can find various structures dating from 9 different centuries.

From Troy we had a couple hours on the bus before we arrived at Pergamum. Pergamum civilization dates back to 3000 B.C., but early civilization was not on the hilltop where the ruins still stand, but in the valley closer to where the ocean used to lie. One of Pergamum’s most famous ruins is the Great Alter which was dedicated to Zeus and Athena by Eumenes II in the 2nd century B.C. The Great Alter was built on the edge of the upper city so that all those inhabiting the lower city could see it as well. Unfortunately the Great Alter ruins can no longer be seen in Pergamum as they were taken by the Germans and reconstructed and the Great Alter is now on display in the Berlin Museum. Pergamum is also unique for a few other reasons. First, Pergamum was home to the first hospital in Roman times. Secondly, Pergamum produced the first parchment paper for the Roman Empire. Thirdly, Pergamum had the 2nd biggest library. Finally, this ancient city is home to the steepest amphitheatre of the ancient cities. Pergamum’s amphitheatre dates back to the 3rd century B.C. and could accommodate some 10,000 people.

After leaving Pergamum we had another couple of hours on the bus before we arrived in Kusadasi for our final overnight stay in Turkey.

A little bit of Aussie history in Gallipoli

Monday we left Istanbul at around seven in the morning to head for the Gallipoli Peninsula, it was about a five or six hour drive. We arrived at Eceabat (correct pronunciation sounds an awful lot like "itchy butt" which gave our guide a good laugh when I explained this) around midday and had lunch at a little restaurant right on the coast of the Dardanelles. After lunch we headed for the first of many stops on our tour of Gallipoli, the Gallipoli Museum, where we got a brief history lesson on all the sites we were about to see.

The first world war for Turkey started on March 18th, 1915. Modern Turkey did not yet exist, it was still ruled by the Ottomans and the Ottomans did not get along with the Brittish or the Russians for various political reasons, so the Ottomans had no choice but to join the Germans and the Hungarians in the first world war. When the war was headed to what is now Turkey, Winston Churchill had said that it would be easy to beat the Ottomans, but he was wrong. The Ottomans had put mine lines across the narrows of the Dardanelles to protect against enemy ships which might try to sail up the Dardanelles to try to take Kilitbair. If the Brittish could take Kilitbair it would be very easy for them to continue up the Dardanelles and take Constantinople the capital of the Ottoman empire. Fortunately for the Ottomans mine lines worked and the 103 ships that entered the Dardanelles were unsuccessful, several of them sunk, and hundreds of lives were lost. This is when the campaign to take Gallipoli by land began.

On the 25th of April, 1915 ANZACs (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) landed at North Beach and a little further South at Ari Burnu, which is now called Anzac Cove. This was the first mistake, the ANZACs were supposed to have landed at Brighton Beach which was a bit further South and was relatively flat and an easy crossing to Kilitbair. Instead they faced steep cliffs and the difficult task of taking Chunuk Bair, the highest point on the Peninsula. By April 27th the two groups of ANZAC troops met at the Nek. The Ottomans had only one division present and tricked the ANZAC troops by ceasing fire and lying down in their trenches. The ANZAC troops thought Ottoman reinforcements were about to arrive so they did not proceed. If the ANZACs had pressed onwards at that point, they would have easily taken the Ottoman forces, but instead the Ottomans bought time for reinforcements to arrive. Then on May 8th, the ANZAC troops were ordered forward and 1800 ANZACs lost their lives. The Turks then advanced, defending their homeland on the 19th of May, but were driven back in a battle that took 160 ANZACs and some 3000 Turks. With both sides lying down in their trenches and bodies rotting around them, the two sides called a truce on the 24th of May to bury their dead. Then a couple months later Brittish troops landed at Sulva Bay along with additional ANZAC troops just to the South of that to attempt to take Chinuk Bair once again. ANZAC troops took Chunuk Bair around shortly thereafter but it was soon regained by the Ottomans and the Gallipoli campaign was considered a failure and the following December and January troops embarked from Sulva Bay.

Every year Australians, New Zealanders, and many others visit Gallipoli to visit this historic site and pay their respects to those that gave their lives for a battle that wasn't even their own. On our tour of Gallipoli we visited the North Beach and saw where the troops landed and the difficult route that was laid before them. We also saw Ataturk's "Monument to the Mothers" where Ataturk, father of modern Turkey, offers his condolances to the mothers whose sons gave their lives and were buried on this land they did not know and assure them that this land now holds them to its bosom as if they were its own. From there we visit ANZAC cove and saw the location where additional ANZAC troops landed and paid our respects at the memorial honoring many of those who gave their lives, including Australian John Simpson. John Simpson carried more than 200 wounded out of the battlefields to receive medical attention giving them at least a chance of life between the 25th of April and the 19th of May before he gave his own life to the cause. I find it amazing that two groups of people with no history of conflict between them found themselves in such a brutal battle. It is evident in the historical stories as well as today that there is and was no hard feelings between these people. A monument stands in Gallipoli called "Respect the Soldier" which illustrates an Ottoman soldier holding a wounded Brittish soldier. The story goes that both sides put up their white flags and that the Ottoman soldier came out of his trench and carried the Brittish soldier to his own trench so that he could receive medical treatment. We visit these trenches, which were the only place that offered any refuge to the soldiers. We also visited the Turkish memorial honoring all those on the Ottoman front lines that gave their lives defending their home country. Finally, we visited Chunuk Bari itself, which both sides fought so hard to take and defend.

It was amazing to be in Gallipoli with so many Australians and New Zealanders, many of whom may have had ancestors who fought or gave their lives on the very ground we stood on.

"...Istanbul, not Constantinople..."

We arrived in Istanbul yesterday mid afternoon. We were picked up After a hectic couple days of travel, we were pretty tired and weren't up for much site seeing. We were picked up from the airport by a representative of our tour company who dropped us at our Istanbul accommodation. Sue and Granddad were waiting for us when we arrived, so after dropping our bags we went for a short stroll and grabbed a bite to eat at a place called "Kofte" which means "meatball" in Turkish. Dinner was good and we finished it with some Turkish tea, which we later learned is often offered as a sign of friendship, and we have had a lot of it since. The tea is served in a small handle-less glass, which is very hard to hold when it contains hot tea, so that in and of itself was quite the adventure. After dinner we stopped into a corner store to buy a couple of bottles of water, which cost one Turkish Lira, or about 65 cents American. Wee then went back to the hotel, and after an exhausting trip, collapsed into bed.

Today was a jam packed day full of sight seeing. After a quick breakfast at the hotel we left on our tour bus for the sultan ahmed area of Istanbul which is home to many of Istanbul's greatest attractions. The first stop was the Blue Mosque. The Blue Mosque was built by the 16th Sultan and is called the Blue Mosque because of the blue colored tiles that plaster the inner walls of the mosque. The color turquoise originated when the color featured on these tiles began to be referred to as the "color of the Turks". The Blue Mosque is surrounded by 6 minarets. The Sultan had originally asked for a minaret made entirely of gold, or "altin" but mistakenly the constructors thought he had said "altu" or six, hence the six minarets. The Blue Mosque is still a fully functional mosque and can accommodate up to 10,000 people praying at once.

After the Blue Mosque, we headed to the Basilica Cistern. The Basilica Cistern dates back to 532 A.D. and is the largest such cistern. There are more that 360 columns. The water in the cistern was brought into the cistern by aqua ducts from a forest approximately 20 kilometers away. The cistern took more than 2000 slaves to build and 76 of those slaves lost their lives during its construction. The water from the cistern was piped out and used for a variety of purposes throughout the city.

Next we went to the Hagia Sofia. The Hagia Sofia was completed in 537 AD and was originally constructed as a church and was operated as such for over 900 years. Then after the 15th century when the Ottomans conquered the region, the Hagia Sofia was converted to a mosque and the Christian frescoes which date back as far as the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries, and which depicted Jesus, the virgin Mary, and various other Christian icons and symbols were covered as according to the Muslim faith these types depictions were considered to be distractions from prayer and thus they were covered with the more traditional geometric tiles. The Hagia Sofia was operated as a mosque for some 600 years before Ataturk turned the facility into a museum in 1934. Because of its Christian roots, the Hagia Sofia is very different from other mosques such as the Blue Mosque. For example, unlike the Blue Mosque which had more than 200 windows, the Hagia Sofia has very few windows. The Hagia Sofia however has more than 116 columns which have been brought in from various areas and from various famous structures via the Aegean Sea. The marble on the floors and walls came from Marmara Island, where marble got its name. The dome of the mosque itself has actually collapsed three times.

Finally, we went to the Topkapi Palace, the Sultan's domain. Topkapi Palace was established in 1478. The Ottoman Empire was in its prime from 1299 to 1699 and modern Turkey was established in 1923. The second courtyard was only entered by the Sultan during festivals, while the third courtyard is where the Sultan greeted his guests. The Topkapi Palace has an excellent collection of the Sultan's clothing and prize possessions, most of which are richly adorned in diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. The most interesting piece was a diamond, 86 Karats to be exact. The diamond was found in a trash dumpster and purchased by a peddler for 3 spoons. Later upon the discovery that the gem was indeed a diamond, it was turned into a ring and worn by the Sultan. Some people have all the luck! I have never found a diamond digging through the trash! In addition to the Sultan's possessions, Topkapi Palace is also home to some very important Islamic articles, some of which are also of importance to those of the Christian faith. The Topkapi Palace is allegedly home to such articles as the Prophet David's sword, the Prophet Moses staff, the turbin of the Prophet Joseph, and the arm and scull of the Prophet John the Baptist. While in the rooms feature the Islamic artifacts we were quickly rushed out of the room as some VERY important looking people were coming in from behind us. When we returned to our guide, we were informed that the gentleman was a famous politician and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

After a busy day of touring we had a rest before walking to find some place to have dinner. One of my favorite things about traveling is when you come across a place where no one speaks a word of English and you obviously don't speak a word of their language and some how having to work it out. Granddad was trying to find out what kind of soup their soup was and they had no idea what he was asking, finally they just brought him some to taste. Then Granddad wanted some bread and they brought us everything but bread including a bottle of what looked like vegetable oil (what they thought we wanted that for was beyond me), but finally we got some pida bread. It wasn't the best food, but it was just the type of adventure I enjoy so much.

Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for Gallipoli!