Hotel Alysia Athens

... With a loud crack followed by plastic pieces falling on the ground another clip off another pannier broke. Wonderful! Two broken bags - both right sides, so we can’t even make a set. Parts are bought, but missed the plane to Egypt by one day. When we’ll ever see them again…I’m not sure. Either way, they’re no good to us now!

Found the tram and were on our way after about a 15 minute wait. However, the line ...

... Boo.

We headed across the street to the
newly minted Acropolis Museum, opened in June with all the original
pieces from the Acropolis. Very cool. Got to see the real Caryatids
up close. We kinda zipped through the museum; we've seen a lot of
carved heads and ancient pottery on this trip.

Once through, we walked through the
Plaka, the oldest part of Athens; another tourist trap of shops and
restaurants with guys standing ...

... of the best preserved statues and are now in England at a museum. And the Greeks sure make mention of that fact in the video and on a few other explanations around the museum. Long story short, they built the museum because the Brits excuse was that they couldn't give the statues back because they didn't have a proper place to put them in Athens. Now the the Greeks do and the fight will begin now for the statues!

Tomorrow I head to climb Mt Olympus.

... relief) as well as my favorite pictures.

I guess this wraps things up for our 3 weeks away from the States but I am ready to come home. If anyone has any questions or would like some better quality pictures from the trip please let me know (I've been told the pictures are not always very clear because they are low quality for email posting). If you can ever get away like this do it...life is short and the world is amazing.

Peace out from Greece
Joanna

My 16 hour flight to Athens was. Well, it was an adventure. I had not flown since I was 10 years old, now being 20. So needless to say I was a little nervous- not remembering what it was like to take off and land. The day before I was scheduled to leave I had to work :( I got off at 4:30 and immediately went and got a pedicure, had my legs waxed and then went to pick up my good friend Sascha and we went out for dinner to a great Italian restaurant. Sascha came back to my ...

... to offer a sacrifice to Athena - and then there it was before us: The Parthenon. Although covered in scaffolding, it was awesome to see it, the greatest, most dramatic Doric temple ever built. On the way back down, we passed the Erechtheion, and its famous "Porch of the Maidens", with six draped female figures as supporting columns. It was dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon, who had the battle for ...

... and writes down it's name and the street it's on for us. The cab arrives and the driver has never heard of the place, but says he'll call in and get the address. On the way into town, he tells us he's a former seaman and has visited ports all over the world, including San Francisco, Vancouver, the Great Lakes, Odessa and Leningrad. By the time we get to town he's forgotten where he's taking us. We give him the name of the restaurant and he calls ...

... dinners were always under 30€ including beer and sodas)...we ate very well. Oh, we bought the BEST steaks ever from our butcher, grilled them on our rinky dink bbq, with real charcoal...mouth watering! I'm so glad for Daan, he really got a chance to relax, reconnect with the children and I, and eat some decent food! Thanks for reading about our travels, that's all from Lesvos...well, I could go on for days, but I shouldn't exagerate! Love to all, Mylene

... lunch. After lunch we headed back to the campsite where I had a little afternoon Siesta (well we are in Greece so as the old saying goes when in Greece do as the Greeks do - or something like that) We went into town and had a lovely seafood dinner at this little taverna - we actually were taken into the kitchen to chose our fish for dinner, I can say that the kitchen was spotless. The Club across the way was pumping again during the night but I think that we ...

... surprisingly! The next day was a lot more productive because we had booked a day trip to the Saronic Islands. We had an early start and caught the bus to Piraus and the boat from there. THe first island was Hydra which was quite pretty and from the clock tower at the top of the island you can see right over the natural harbour. Next was Poros, which we renamed "Cat Town". There are no vehicles on Poros but thousands of cats and donkeys. It was a nice place with heaps of ...