DAY 20: Since when has the Pantheon been a basilica???

Upon waking in our lovely, naturally lit room in the Little Italy B&B, JJ and I stumbled in to the kitchen for breakfast. The lack of people in the B&B the night before led to our assumption that we were the only guests for the night, so needless to say we were caught off guard by the middle aged couple sitting at the table eating their cereal and casually chatting in another language. We sat down at the opposite side of the table and proceeded to indulge in the granola (with chocolate!) in silence, listening to what seemed to be a slight variant of German. To compound our confusion (and the awkwardness) further, an older couple, who spoke yet another language, entered the kitchen to begin breakfast. The other four guests were having a lovely conversation, and I continued to munch on my cereal.

just wanted to share the joy of a sunlit room!

Only when René returned to the kitchen was the awkwardness relieved—he turned to JJ and made a joke about the variety of languages flying about the room, and said that now would be a good time for a first Deutsch lesson! Only after asking the first couple what part of Germany they were from (since we will be visiting Germany in a week) did I come to find out that he had actually said 'Dutch' lesson, not 'Deutsch' (oops).The lady seemed a bit offended, but proceeded to answer my question about where they lived in Holland (as if I was familiar with the country). Not that she was even ACTUALLY Dutch, apparently she grew up in New Zealand...

Her husband, on the other hand, seemed much more eager for conversation, and we discussed our previous Greek and Irish adventures. As the conversation turned to the activities for the day, I had to admit that I didn't have a clue, that I had done the planning for Ireland ('OH, so you're the one with the nose for pubs?'). Only so much can be said about visiting the Roman Forum prior to actually visiting it, and the conversation died off when the husband made a joke about American politics, followed by a few faked laughs on our behalf and then silence. Awkward.

Seeing as the awkward circle had been completed, we set off to find the least popular entrance to the Forum, which was de facto the fastest way in. We seem to enjoy circles so much that we decided (or really, ended up with no choice) to circle the forum prior to entering. An hour's walk later, we entered the forum and thus began my Roman history lesson for the day, and JJ's review session for her exams. Despite the noisy flocks of school children (and by school I mean all ages of non-collegiate students), the ruins were quite impressive, but there were too many to even begin to describe, so I will let you have a look at the pictures (there are a lot, brace yourself).

Our cardio for the day (up and down the steps of the Colosseum) was followed by a kebab break before wandering north to find the castle and the Ara Pacis, amongst other various buildings of importance (Pantheon, etc.). The castle was pretty much bland as far as castles go, but JJ's hand gestures at the Ara Pacis a few minutes later made up for it. We entered the Ara Pacis museum at the bottom level, where a crisply uniformed woman let us in.

'Do you have your tickets?'

'No, but <insert strange hand gestures to mean 'we are looking to get upstairs'>'

'Oh ok, you are with a group up stairs?'

'Yes.' JJ's confident answer left me befuddled, and she began to search for the stairs to the actual Ara Pacis as I was still caught completely off guard by what had just happened.

Turns out the only stairs between levels are outdoors, but the bathrooms downstairs weren't half bad! Following our (incredibly) brief visit, we found our way back to the B&B and put together and incredible meal. JJ and I are dangerously good with a bit of hot water and a plastic knife; a pile of refrigerated goods turned into a gourmet salad, which we dined on casually to the beat of Frank Sinatra streaming online with the occasional stir of a car down the street below.

To conclude a quite satisfying day, we decided that we hadn't walked enough (over eight miles, not including our thorough investigations of the forum) so we went down the street to find a gelato shop. Lucky for our poor (and severely blistered in JJ's case) feet, the nearest shop was only a 5 minute walk away. We had made a deal earlier that day to try as many of the gelato flavours as possible before leaving Italy, and thus far we are making good progress. The trial runs are as follows:

JJ—fior de leche, mango, strawberry, zabaione, some strange fruit mix, pineapple, pistachio, and chocolate

K—lemon, strawberry, creme, stracciotella, fior de latte (potentially the same as de leche?), cherry, nutella, and mint.

Baskin' Robbins has nothing on these gelato shops... so many flavors, so little time!

GELATO!!!

In a similar fashion to many of the Greek monuments in Epidavros, they are currently reconstructing much of ancient Rome, including one of the emperor's houses.

Septus Severus' Arch, along with a random church

Trajan's  Arch

Rome and the Colosseum from the Temple of Roma

Someone else's arch

The view of the forum from the Colosseum

You know, THAT building...

lame castle

If you didn't know THAT building, surely you are familiar with THIS building...

The copied poses of the day:

 

JJ, making peace with the dogs she thoroughly insulted from a distance.

DAY 19: Roma, Roma, Rooomaa = love, love, looovee

Even if all things weren't relative, this would have to be one of the best places ever. Our morning started extremely early, due mostly to all of the things that Katie described in the previous blog. To add to it, I definitely saw a hooker snorting drugs off a table that a man—presumably her pimp, maybe just a helpful fellow—was providing for her. Also, I take 100% of the blame for choosing the place without properly looking at the reviews, a combination of excitement at only 8 euros per bed (should've known), relative nearness to our previous hotel, which had gotten good reviews for being in the non-touristy part, and just a wee bit of stupidity. So thank god nothing worse happened. And like I said, no one actually accosted us, though I was definitely planning our getaway and back up plan when we stood outside with our luggage whilst waiting for someone to buzz us in.

So, early morning. Don't think either of us got more than 2 hours straight sleep, and we both froze to death from lack of blankets. Result: very keen to go. We were attempting to get out by half 7 anyway for our 10:45 flight, and all things considered, it was a good move. After dropping the keys at the front desk after no manage person could seen, save a sleeping body snoring on a hastily made cot in the corner of the main entrance “room”, we bolted and made it through the relatively quiet streets (druggies are late risers; makes sense) unscathed and took the metro to Syntagma, where we awaited the connection to the airport. Sadly, we could not fit with our luggage onto the one that arrived concurrently with us, so we decided to wait for the next one. The message board said the next train in 5 minutes was to a different place, so we waited for the one after that...which was also to that other place. Waiting another 5 minutes to see if the next train would be the one to the airport, we were foiled again. And again. Basically, we watched about 4 or 5 trains come, all on the same track as the airport one, but none of them going there. So, we decided to push our way onto this other one, which we found out (after cleverly looking at the Metro map) stopped two stations before the airport on the same line.

So off we went, cutting it a little close. We had shoveled down some Museli (literally) in the station, but had no real food in our haste to flee the den of iniquity and were getting fairly hungry. However, by the time we made it to the station, it was 10:00 and we just got our tickets. We meandered towards the gate, passing the lovely breakfast and coffee stations with tears in our eyes. The security was on the other side of a plastic border from our gate and we could see the line forming at the opening, but no one was moving though. Timing was clearly perfecto. We ended up waiting about 15 minutes (could've gotten food!) before boarding. Because of this, we both caved and got breakfast/lunch on the plane. And Oreos, because we could. And, I must say, they were three of the most fantastic Oreos that I have ever had. And that's saying a lot for generically processed junk food.

I got the window seat and made the most of it, not even sleepy for the flight. We flew over the top of the Peloponnese and I got to see the canal and the Acrocorinth from the SKY—ridiculously excited, though I managed to keep it inside. We crossed the various islands in the Adriatic and flew over Italy, which looks like...any other place with fertile valleys between hill/mountains. But blue skies made it even more lovely.

Touching down, we high-fived (a tradition of ours after anything done particularly successfully well—i.e. surviving mental drivers, mountain roads with sheer drops, and unexpected druggie riff-raff encounters in this case. Deserved of a high five, at the very least)) and went to get the Metro train from the airport to the bellissima Roma. After a depressing result of 14 euro each, we were on the train and off! We reached the bed and breakfast in short order and lugged our suitcases up the stairs of this apartment complex with a very rickety, minute elevator (the kind where you can see all the mechanics of as you walk up the stairs. I do not want to see the ancient winding part; I want it to work and be blissfully ignorant that it might kill me). We met Rene, a (we've surmised) French man living here with his family, who speaks English very well, is definitely not Italian, and a relatively lax guy. He was very helpful and gave us a map and suggestions and led us to our room, which looked like Nirvana after the night before. (Sidenote: it still looks gorgeous today also).

I hadn't planned anything in our itinerary for the afternoon, not quite sure how to plan for post-travelling. But, both of us were ready to go out and about, which we did around 4. We used our handy map and began wandering the streets. The whole time we've been here, we've been referencing how much better Rome is than Athens, and we marvelled in the fact that we felt completely safe wandering around here. Of course I managed to stumble upon the sketch part, but that is an unavoidable personal talent, and even this version of sketchy is nothing compared to the night before. So we wandered until dinner, me attempting to keep us away from the Forum area, where we would be going the next day. We ate at a little restaurant on the sidewalk outside and enjoyed the evening warmth, which was amazing. I had pizza with pineapple (thin crust was amazing) and Katie had some fantastic ravioli. Post this, we treated ourselves to waffle cones with 3 types of gelato in them each (we kept excusing going out AND getting dessert by saying it was making up for the last Athens night): I had strawberry, mango, and flori de leche (flower of milk-obvs-which is cream like) and it was fantastic, while Katie had lemon, strawberry, and cream-flavors with whipped cream on top, which she also scarfed down. We walked while we munched/slurped and actually came out next to the forum, which was so so so cool and overwhelming. We saw Trajan's forum and column too, and continued up into the old city part to find the Trevi fountain, which took awhile since I refused the map and tried to do it by previous Google mapping sessions. Overshooting slightly, we stumbled upon the Spanish steps and the Keats and Shelley house/museum (another really cool thing!) and wandered back after taking pictures, following a slight panic when Katie moved away (she's says I moved; movement is relative I say) and I couldn't find her for a couple seconds. We basically spiralled around the street the Trevi fountain was on (I KNEW it was in that little square area) and once we found it, we each duly threw a coin into the fountain, also stopping to mock the other tourists by imitating their ridiculous picture, as demonstrated by Katie.

And there's the pose..

This accomplished, we returned to our rooms, pleased with how the day had turned out. Having already showered in the afternoon, Katie sat down to blog and I to rest (this being 9 pm). I passed out and Katie, as is seen in the previous blog, was nice enough not to wake me when she finished writing. All in all, one of the best first days in a new country that we have ever had (of all three so far).

Eeexcellent ravioli

nom nom nommmm

our gelato selections

Trajan's column...I did a seminar on this!!

Spray paint art...Katie decided he was high from the fumes.

The Spanish Steps....not so impressive...

"Rawr," said the horse, trying to fit in.

Trevi fountain!

You can already see the sunburn starting.

The view from our dinner table. Not a green screen, promise.

DAY 18: All €24 worth, and then some

After the last week or so worth of cloud cover and occasional showers (plus a downpour here and there), you can imagine my surprise at opening the balcony doors to a (nearly) clear sky and blinding sunlight in the morning! Great timing, considering that we planned to spend the entire day driving back to Athens (and by entire day, I mean a few hours). Baby Splash had to be returned to the airport by two that afternoon and we were in no mood to pay extra, so off we went to the glorious metropolis of Athens.

As we discovered a week before, the drive between the Peloponnese and Athens is a bit costly via the 'National Road', so our main goal for the drive was to avoid tolls at all costs—mission accomplished! We managed to find a road that paralleled the national road, but with better views of the coastline and no tolls! Even better, we ended up taking a detour to picnic on the beach, as our overzealous planning had resulted in an extra hour and a half to kill! Our views of the coast included the Salamini Islands (Salami Islands, as I preferred to call them), which made JJ super-duper excited about something to do with Persian wars in that part of the bay.

Also, I would like to take a moment to vindicate myself from the anti-classical connotations that have been bestowed upon me through the graces of JJ's blogging—I really do think that most historical sites and ruins are cool (or at least educational...slightly), but Mycenae literally looks like a pile of rocks...more so than any other ruins I've been to. I just find it difficult to be very interested in rock piles (or other historical sites, for that matter) that I am utterly unfamiliar with. And I've been to more than my fair share of historical sites (here's looking at you, Dad).

Anyways, a bit further down the road, we made our way towards Marco Polo (ok, it's really Markopoulo, but my names for Greek towns are more amusing. So far we've been through Purgatory, seen the Salami and Diaper Islands, and nearly been to Marco Polo). Making our way through the eternal spiral of the airport parking lots, we eventually checked the car back in (covered in dirt) and hopped on the metro to get to the Athens Hotel/Hostel. We got off the metro at Omonoia Square and walked up the stairs in to the glorious sunlight of the heart of Athens—which just so happens to be a not so friendly place.

As we did our best to follow the poorly labelled streets towards the Athens Hotel, the streets didn't seem terribly different to those surrounding our Athens hotel the week before (which weren't too bad, but weren't the best...people wise, that is.). The last few blocks of the walk, however, shed light on a new situation. Not only had we taken a scenic route on our way to the heart of the Athens ghetto, but our hostel apparently came flanked by prostitutes and druggies. Schweet. Good neighborhood. (for obvious reasons, I don't have pictures). I was a bit unnerved by the general environment, and after being buzzed into the building, we still had five floors worth of poorly lit marble stairs to ascend before reaching the hostel.

Quick clarification: there were no prostitutes or druggies IN the hostel, simply AROUND the hostel.

Check in was an adventure in itself. After JJ somehow communicated to the man at the desk that yes, we had reserved online, and no, we weren't expecting to pay in cash, and yes, we had reserved a private room, he led us down the hallway to our quarters for the night 'to clean it' and let us set our stuff down. Thinking he meant we needed to make the bed (typical of many hostels), this was normal. Except that when he opened the door, the linens hadn't been taken off the bed from the previous occupants...who so kindly left the room smelling of stale body odor. JJ and I awkwardly watched as the man took off the linens, conducted a unique 'cleaning' method to ensure the bed was 'clean' (does beating the mattress with dirty linens count as cleaning?), and put new sheets on the bed. I thought, alright, this is a bit weird that it was dirty, but it's cleaner now, we'll deal with it.

That thought lasted until he opened the closet to put the comforter on the bed. No, strange dead creatures didn't fall out of the closet. But he did do a smell test to see which of the two comforters was cleanest. Which means neither was clean... I should have known something strange was going on when he tried to convince me that the United States had 53 states, now that they had bought Guam...

After he put the finishing touches on the room (that is, tripping and knocking over the lamp and closing the sheer drapes to our fantastic window view), he left us to settle in, the first step of which was taking off the stained comforter (key detail for later that evening). We were still both a little shell shocked at what we had gotten ourselves into, but it was only for one night. JJ started to wash her face, only to find out that we had no hot water (no big deal, just unexpected).

Moving on, we set out a game plan to find a cash point (to pay for our five star accommodation) and a restaurant with authentic gyros for dinner. We had long before planned on eating out that night, but thought it best to be back in our room before dark given the surroundings. Being a Sunday in Greece, all of the grocery stores were closed by the time we made it out the doors (past the new man at the front desk, our personal Greek Elvis impersonator—I kid you not), which meant eating take out in our room. After stumbling upon a cash point, we beelined towards a restaurant we had passed along the way and picked up two delicious bundles of greasy, authentically Athenian gyros before heading back to our room.

An astute observation on JJ's behalf, the street crowd around our hostel could have been worse—at least they didn't approach us. I love friendly hookers, don't you? We shut ourselves up in the room for the night and the gravity of our situation turned into amusement, as we read online reviews of the Athens House Hostel, which clearly hadn't been done prior to booking (do it, it's a good laugh). The evening turned into a movie night, as we had little else to do and had both forgotten how cheesy 'When in Rome' truly was. The film almost masked the sounds of the back alley outside our window, and to quote JJ at the end of the film, 'I almost forgot where we were.' With only a sheet for warmth and quite a racket in the common room, our last night in Athens was most certainly the longest of our trip, but we survived. JJ is asleep right now (trying to make up for it, presumably), but her comments and editing will be added in the morning (if we aren't too busy frolicking around Rome!).

'A room with a view'

the ominous marble staricase

the entrance to an alternate level within the building...

the street entrance (the next morning, before anyone wanted to be awake)

Gyros!

cozy restaurant, not so cozy neighbourhood

Day 17: "Well that's a nice pile of rocks"

We woke up to once again ominous skies, though this time the rain wasn't actually falling, which was a nice change, though it threatened the whole morning.  We drove out to Mycenae—via a scenic route that required throwing Baby into reverse a couple times—which was one of the ancient places that I had to cross off the list, seeing as the Athens was the only place so far that we had seen actual classical ruins.

Short side note that I have told Katie so that she could appreciate the “pile of rocks” we went to see, Mycenae was the hub of an entire civilization that took over from the Minoans (based in Crete, ending 1600ish—rough rough date) and ended around 1250 b.c. due to mysterious natural and human created incidents.

Okay, so it's really really old and basically, as Katie eloquently put it, it was the Washington D.C. of the excessively ancient world, pre-dating the Classical period by 600ish years, and causing the entire region to fall into a Dark Age period of illiteracy when it declined.  Really important, and impressive seeing as the palace and complex were smaller than the castle above Nafplio that we had climbed the previous day.

So we reach the site for Mycenae and pull up...just as a thousand school kids clearly on a weekend field trip to the ancient sites tumble out of their giant purple buses.  No joke, thousands.  Or more like 200. But still.  We had already been annoyed by their antics at the castle above Nafplio and Katie's temper was definitely above simmering.  Compounded with the fact that the site only looks impressive to Classics people.

We got in for free again, making things a little less grey seeing as we have yet to pay for any site here save our visit to the caves.  We sped through the Lion Gates while the small children (high schoolers, more entertained with each other, smoking (!), and flirting than the ruins or tour guide's explanation) grouped around them and made it to the very back of the palace complex in search of the ancient cistern that went down into the rock itself. We found it, but my cell plus flashes from the camera weren't enough to light our way, so we abandoned that and made our way back, looking at the very clear outlines of artisans' quarters, bath areas, and the quarters that made up the palace complex.  Most impressive of all were the Cyclopean walls—hug slabs of stone that would take days to make now, even with our machines.  We snapped a few pictures of the Lion's Gate on the way out as we passed the Grave Circles (that are so cool).

We then walked quickly down the road to the Tholos tomb (called that because it looks like a beehive—there is absolutely no mortar used, just each rock layer is moved in slightly to create an eventual dome shape) which Katie definitely appreciated, and we were pleased especially because we got it to ourselves before the kids could get there.  Once done, we drove across the valley (barely 10 miles away) to Argos (another place with really cool history—and mythology) where we drove up to the top of the hill (not walked for once!) to the Larissa—another Turkish castle.  We were very impressed driving towards it, as the sun illuminated the hill with the storm clouds behind, but as soon as we got there the rain moved in and proceeded to spit on us.   We wandered around it for awhile and did our ritual inspection of all the rampart edges we could find.

After this, and eating lunch in the car, I made a casual suggestion that we go in search for Epidavros—the famous center to to the doctor-god Asklepious that included a well preserved theater.  We were wary of driving through mountains again, but the map clearly lied to us again as we made our way through relatively flat valleys between rolling hills rather than any sheer mountains again.  And, we found the site easily enough, completely free of obnoxious school children! Definite plus on all accounts.

It turned out to be one of our best spontaneous decisions yet.  The theatre was INCREDIBLE, very well preserved with the bench like seats in their original semi-circle around the theater floor in the middle, where you could just kick the ground and hear it echoing around the entire amphitheatre as the acoustics were perfect for everyone to hear. 

After the theater, we went over to the remains that included the much later Roman baths in between Classical columns from the centuries before.  Among these were the columns of the various buildings that were being restored by some Classical society...it was amazing to see the recreation and the fact that they were casting the molds of the actual column pieces right there.  Seeing it half completed gave such a sense of how the ruins were now, but also how part of the complex would have looked thousands of years ago.

We left as the ominous purple buses were pulling into the parking lot, lucky that we had just missed the annoyances again and headed back to Nafplio.  We went out again in search of dinner—our one meal out in the town—and found one of the little restaurants on the main marina walkway .  Katie had a mixed seafood linguine and I had shrimp spaghetti, to which we both added one of the most amazing parmesan cheeses we have ever had, though neither of us could finish our giant meals.  I did, however, find entertainment with the shrimp who were gracing my and Katie's plates, which she definitely did NOT endorse, though was slightly entertained by my antics.  They were the type with the eyes and legs still in tact and I created a re-enactment of the Last Supper with them, their poor little tail parts hidden away to lessen their shame.

After lingering for awhile, we walked back to the hotel (Katie's personal space being invaded by an over-eager waiter) and promptly fell asleep, satisfied with our time in Nafplio, though annoyed at the limiting nature of the precipitation that had lasted the whole time.

Grave Circle A or B

Secret cistern

Mycenae ruins

Lion Gates

Tholos Tomb of Atreus

Larissa in the sun

Inside Larissa Castle

Amphitheater

The columns of the shrine to Asklepious, half reconstruction, half original.

SUPER K

Dinner.

DAY 16: We ran around a castle. Again.

'...8,9—10. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9—20.1,2,3...' As a human abacus, JJ and I made the ascent to the top of the lofty castle in Naflpio. There are nine hundred and ninety-five steps to the top of the first bastion. Congratulations to me, I can count to almost one thousand. Why is this important? Because the guide book told us that there was no accurate count for how many steps there were to reach the top of the castle, so I accepted the challenge to count every step (not that I can guarantee full accuracy of my count either—there were a few debated steps, as we didn't use them but someone else may find them necessary). Thus began our third Turkish castle exploration and the sixteenth day of our Eurotrip.

Protocol must be followed in castle explorations, and JJ and I have developed quite a thorough method for touring castle ruins. The primary mentality of this protocol is as follows:

If you can see your next step, keep going. If not, find one.

We have even managed to develop a defensive strategy against our foremost castle foe, the stinging nettle. JJ has politely demonstrated our hands-on-head approach to avoiding these pests, which (of course) were abundantly gracing the castle grounds in Nafplio.

Even better, following our footwear faux pax(s) and run ins with other castle residents, we donned our knee high boots and jeans boldly as we dashed along the edges of the ramparts and through the tangles of the courtyards. The castle in Nafplio has multiple bastions and chambers, thus we made sure we were prepared to overtake any obstacles that would prevent us from viewing every area of the former Turkish fortress.

Aside from the mobs of highly irritating Greek students swarming through the main areas of the castle and screeching loudly in foreign tongues (apparently their preferred form of communication...?), our goal was accomplished. All ramparts were explored, all chambers discovered, all creepy tunnels entered (ok, maybe that last part is a lie... we didn't have a flashlight so certain tunnels were left alone. We did look into all of them though). No cliff edge was left unturned, as ensured by JJ, and no Byzantine look out posts were left unoccupied, as ensured by myself.

huthut

And...I'm not sure what else to say about the castle, except that it was big. Really, really big. And we got in for free, thanks to our student cards and the nice lady at the front desk! It was a bit difficult to find something more spectacular than castle explorations, thus we walked along a scenic beach front path (closed to pedestrians due to falling rock off the cliff face...oops) and wandered the 'old town' area to kill time in the afternoon, where we replenished our then empty stock of oranges. We proceeded to revitalise ourselves afterwards by relaxing our eyelids. Our evening consisted of even less interesting activities, such as finding a grocery store, buying bread, and eating sandwiches and oranges in the hotel room.

The fiercest of all castle residents. To quote JJ, 'He nearly bit my toe off!'

A chamber of the castle accessible only via unlit passsageway.

JJ 'Danger' Edge

The full extent of the cliff edge doesn't fit in one picture...

The view of the castle from the pier

Because one castle was not enough...a town this big needed three! (There is another that isn't worth taking a picture of...mostly because it has a hotel in the middle of it now.)

stinging nettles--WATCH OUT!!!