Greece

My trip to Greece was divided into three sections. I spent a couple of days roaming around Athens (which is located near the "A" in "Attica" on the map), a week on an 18-meter sailboat cruising the Cyclades Islands, and another four days driving around the Peloponnese Peninsula, just to the west of Athens.

	Athens. Not one of my favorite cities of the world, I'm afraid. Though the smog was not much of a factor when I was there, I can see how it could be awful. Unlike any other big city I can think of, there is no river flowing through it, and there are few parks - most of the open spaces were the sites of ancient ruins which were rather dusty and weed-infested (though I must say the weeds added a lot to the atmosphere). Most famous of these ancient places, of course, is the Acropolis, which true to its name (acro is Greek for "high" and polis means "city") is visible from just about everywhere in the Athens. This view is from the Filopappas Hill, a singularly peaceful and un-touristed spot not too far from where all the tourist buses for the Acropolis park. Back behind the Parthenon you can see another hill, topped by the lovely little church of St George, which I also visited.

	Here is an example of the weeds being atmospheric in the ancient Agora in Athens.
	One of the high points of my visit to Athens was Friday Market. They simply cordon off a few of blocks of residential streets, and make room for vendors of all sorts to set up and sell their wares - everything from fish to laundry products to strawberries to zucchini (with the blossoms still attached) to this guy, who sold nothing but olives.
	The first stop on our sea voyage was the little fishing town of Perdika on the island of Aegina. It's only a couple of hours from Athens by boat, but light years away from the hustle and bustle of the city. It was the first place we were introduced to the "real" Greece - where the restaurants open at 10:00 for breakfast, and the whitewashed buildings and morning sun inspire such "post card photos" (PCPs) as this.
	We stayed the second night in another little fishing village on the island of Kéa, and then set sail for Mykonos, perhaps the most touristed of the Cyclades. According to a couple of my shipmates who had been there in in the 70's it's grown enormously, but still retains a "small town" feel, especially wandering the spotless back streets on a sunny day, turning a corner and seeing this PCP. I took plenty more of these, but you get the idea, and I'm going to try and keep them to a minimum from now on.
	Delos may have been my favorite island of those we visited. It is the holy island which is the center of the ring of the Cyclades Island (kyklos, of course, being the Greek word for "circle"). There are no hotels on the island - the only way to visit is to take a day trip on a ferry from Mykonos. It was one of the few ancient places I visited where you could almost picture people actully living. The streets and buildings were well-defined, there were still some mosaic floors intact, and there were cisterns and even covered gutters in the streets. I wandered about for hours. I found this statue of a headless woman (a great many of the statues everywhere were headless) near the façade of the House of Hermes (I think).
	I celebrated my 48th(!) birthday on the island of Paros, which had a dreadfully cheesy-touristy harborside, but if you walked a couple of blocks beyond it, there was an "old town" which had as many PCP possibilities as you could want. Here is a man and his donkey selling fresh produce to the natives. We had our best dinner of the trip in a little taverna on a patio covered with grape vines.
	This is one of the few pictures I actually took of our boat, the Haris, here moored in the lovely little town of Kamares on the island of Sifnos. We liked the place so much we stayed for two days. The first day, as you can see, we were pretty much alone. The next day the dock was crowded with some very large power yachts. The harbormaster was a very personable fellow who joined us for cocktails one evening.
	Sifnos is noted for its ceramics. The piece shown here (on the left) is a chimney cover unique to the island. On the right is one of the many cats we came upon during the trip (usually begging in restaurants). The owner of this particular pottery shop invited several of our party one evening to visit his apartment, where another of his cats had just had kittens.
	We have now left the islands and are on the Peloponese Peninsula. The first set of ancient ruins I visited was at Mikines (Mycenae), supposedly the home of Agamemnon, Electra, Clytemnestra, Orestes and all the other people involved in Strauss' opera. This is a picture of the Lion's Gate through which you enter the city.
	That night I stayed in the lovely little port town of Nafplio. In the 1700s the Venetians built three fortresses to defend it. I climbed to the top of the tallest one (999 steps by someone's count) and took this picture. The second fortress (now a state-run hotel) is in the left foreground, and the third is on the island in the harbor.
	Epidavrus is known for its astoundingly well-preserved theater. There's a medalion marking the "sweet spot" on the stage (around where all the people are standing). If you stand there and speak in a normal voice you can be heard from every seat in the auditorium. And to you it sounds like you're standing inside a bell. Amazing.
	The Byzantine fortress of Mistras was built into a hillside (what Greek city wasn't, I wonder), above an idyllic little farming community. From the hillside you could hear the bells of the sheep in the countryside - just like the last act of Tosca. There is an active Abbey here (obviously in better condition than this bit) which had some beautiful gardens.
	Olympia was the site of the first Olympic games, and also one of the few flat places I found in Greece. It also served as a kind of spa, where people came to "take the waters", and, indeed, it was quite tranquil and idyllic there. I think there were also more erect columns here than anywhere else I visited.
	After an extremely crowded ferry ride across the Gulf of Corinth to the mainland, I ended up in the little seaside town of Glaxidi, which provided a relaxing evening. Kostos, the proprietor of the Poseidon Hotel, provided a Greek Salad and ouzo on a little balcony overlooking the "Main Street" of the town, where we sat and watched the world go by.
	The final ancient stop was the ancient city of Delphi, where the Oracle lived. Once again, the city had been built into a hillside, but this one overlooked a stunning valley and there were these lovely Cedars of Lebanon everywhere.