Greece - Santorini

Still haunted by my driving experience in Ireland, I was hesitant to rent a car in Santorini, and in my mind, I pictured navigating tight, undulating roads while enduring the screams of my passengers.  Thankfully, I’m married to a practical girl equipped with the right amount of optimism and well-rehearsed at talking me down from the ledges of life. Other than my compelling visage and chiseled physique, I don’t know how she puts up with me at times.  Our Ryanair flight left Athens at 7:00 AM and landed in Fira, Santorini thirty eight minutes later.  Our brains were in the throes of a heavy fog induced by a 4:00 AM wake up and the tiring machinations of traveling by air, but the car rental process was easy, and I tentatively pulled out of the airport in our seasoned Nissan Micra.  After driving just a few kilometers, I felt a sense of relief due to the excellent condtion of the wide roads, and thanks to the offseason, there were few fellow motorists with which to contend.

On the way to the village of Perissa, we pulled into the parking lot of a bakery hoping for breakfast supplies, and sensing our state of exhaustion, the no-nonsense ladies behind the counter hooked us up Greek style.  While one got busy brewing a double espresso for me, the other loaded a bag with buttery pastries for breakfast and an assortment of sandwiches for lunch, and we drove the rest of the way to Perissa already enjoying the look of the landscape with the contrast of the deep blue Aegean.  GPS navigation on Santorini is partially helpful, but only in finding the general area, and we got a bit lost trying to find our host, Despoina, but she met us at a central landmark, and we followed her to our villa located behind the Perissa cathedral at the base of a towering mountain.  After stowing our bags, Joseph and Deveny immediately went to bed while Deena and I sat on the porch with Despoina and her precious two-month-old baby girl, Maria.  She spent a lot of time with us marking important locations with on a map and praised our decision to rent a car due to unreliable bus schedules during the offseason.  Flush with all the information we needed for a fun stay on Santorini, Deena and I also went to bed, and thanks to the double espresso, I stared at the freshly painted ceiling of our villa for two hours, contemplating two thousand years of Greek history while my bride slept peacefully beside me.

After centuries of volcanic eruptions including a big one that initiated the decline of the Minoan civilization, Santorini consists of a caldera left over from all that thermal activity.  We polled numerous people and spent a good amount of time researching the Greek islands before choosing Santorini as our destination in the Aegean, and boy did we make the right call.  This place is spectacular with its unique geology, sweeping views of the sea, and picturesque cube-constructed villages clinging to the high cliffs and coated with whitewash made from volcanic ash.  Since it’s the offseason, over half the businesses are closed, but there are more than enough places open to keep us in supplies for three days.

We decided to stay close to home for the afternoon, and walked out to the black sand beach where we relaxed on comfy lounge chairs and listened to the sound of the surf.  The sunsets on Santorini are legendary, and we wanted to experience one on our first evening, so we drove the Santo Winery located high on the rim of the caldera; a location recommended by our host as the number one spot to spend an eventide.  In addition to tourism, the economy on Santorini is supported by the wine industry, and the indigenous grapes grown in the volcanic soil produce quality, world-class wines.  Despoina told us there were vines all over the island, and having glimpsed nary a vine so far, we figured we just weren’t looking hard enough.  Turns out the vines are all over the place, but they’re trained to grow in low, basket-style rings in order to absorb dew, so they don’t have the towering, graceful look of traditional trellised vineyards.  

The vines on Santorini

The Santo Winery has a cliffside restaurant with a breathtaking view of the Aegean, and we practically had the place to ourselves as the sun neared its descent.  Deena and I sampled flights of excellent wine, and we all enjoyed a tray full of cheeses, crusty bread, puree made from sun-dried tomatoes, and intensely flavored olives glistening with rich oil.  We briefly left our table to walk outside and take pictures of the molten sun as it neared the horizon coloring  the clouds with pink and purple before melting into the sea.  We walked back to our table in a glory-induced trance for which the only cure was chocolate souffle and raspberry cheesecake.  What a fun evening—our repast was surprisingly inexpensive, and we experienced a memorable sunset together in a truly unique setting.

The next morning I got up early and prepared our favorite breakfast of eggs-in-a-basket using thick crusty bread from the bakery down the street, and we had a long, lazy start to the day.  Our main mission was to drive to the village of Oia at the northern tip of the caldera, but we also needed to find a place to print boarding passes and a laundromat since we didn’t have time to wash clothes in Athens.  We drove back to the main town of Fira and found both places quickly, and soon we had fresh boarding passes and left our clothes to be washed at the laundry since the cost was the same as self-service.  Without having to babysit our clothes, we were free to spend all afternoon in Oia, which is the town featured on all the postcards with the gleaming white buildings dotted with blue-domed churches.
 

After an easy drive with great views, we arrived in Oia and found quick parking due to the low tourist census.  There are paths of volcanic stone which traverse the hills around town, and we started our journey through the village stopping occasionally to give right of way to donkeys loaded with construction materials as they slowly walked to jobsites.  Near the center of town, the volcanic stone paths end and the marble pavers begin marking the main pedestrian thoroughfares, and it’s impossible to be in a hurry here as every step brings another perfect photo opportunity.  With the combination of volcanic cliffs, otherworldly white buildings, and the dominating surround of the Aegean, this place is incredibly beautiful, and we’re thankful we got to enjoy it peacefully without the crush of a tourist crowd.  The sun was bright, and the temperature was in the low 70s during our time in Oia, and after strolling through town for several hours, we had lunch in a small cafe overlooking the sea.  We were the only diners in the place, and the owner cheerfully brought us steaming plates of roast chicken and beef with potatoes, and we enjoyed a salad with cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives.  Again, we were pleasantly surprised at the low cost of the meal, and we slowly walked back to the car after a relaxing afternoon.

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On the way back into Perissa, we stopped to see our friend the baker, and while the rest of the crew worked on some dinnerplate-sized donuts, I had an espresso to keep me going through the evening.  We rested at the villa for a while before striking out in search of another sunset.  Despoina recommended a family-owned restaurant called the Good Heart for a traditional Greek dinner during our time on Santorini, and she said their caldera-rim location was her number two spot for viewing the sunset.  Anna, the owner of the Good Heart, greeted us at the side of the road as we pulled in, and since we were the only ones in the restaurant, we chose the best table in the house for our sunset dining.  Along with our starters of fried cheese and yogurt with garlic, oil, and capers, Anna gave us a complimentary tray of sundried tomato puree and marinated cucumbers with crusty bread.  We split plates of roast pork and lamb with herbs and potatoes, and we dipped the chunks of meat in the yogurt dressing—these Greeks do it right.  We wrapped up our dinner with complimentary honey cakes, and while a bit of cloud cover resulted in a slightly less spectacular sunset than the day before, we hardly noticed since the food and family atmosphere of the Good Heart were so rich.

We got back in the history mode for our final day on Santorini and visited Akrotiri, the site of an ancient civilization populated between 5000 and 1500 BC.  The excavation was completely covered by an elaborate roof system and wooden boardwalks circled the entire area allowing for easy viewing, and other than a couple of small tour groups, we had the place to ourselves.  Some of the frescos we saw in the archaeological museum in Athens came from this site, and while I understand the need for their preservation, it would have been great to have seen them in their original location.  The site was still fascinating, and we learned how earthquakes kept the Minoans here in a constant state of rebuilding, but their success with the copper trade made them wealthy, and they designed intricate water and sewer systems for their settlement.  The good life came to a screeching halt with the devastating volcanic eruption around 1500 BC, and the settlement was covered by pumice stone and ash until excavations began in the late 1960s.  It only cost twelve euro for our visit to this amazing site, and we considered it to be a real bargain.

The next stop of the day was the nearby Red Beach so named for the ruddy volcanic rock of the one hundred meter high cliffs and crushed stone beach sand.  We parked our car in the nearly empty lot and enjoyed a short hike along the rough stone trail, and were amazed as the beach came into view.  The surf is strong here, and the sight of the blue green water of the ocean in front of the ancient red cinder cone with the deep blue backdrop of sky is stunning.  We didn’t venture far out onto the beach due to the strong waves, but we sat for a while on the red rocks and just enjoyed being there with each other.  Lunch was tasty sandwiches and baklava from a nearby bakery, and we drove back to the villa for a nap in preparation for one more sunset.

With several sunset-viewing options from which to choose, we elected to return to the Santo Winery since it was close and the view was so amazing.  This time we just stayed in the car and watched the sun go down in multilayered display of color and fire.  Every sunset on this island provides a different show, each one spectacular in its own way.  After an intense few days in Athens, Santorini was the perfect place to unwind, enjoy nature like we’ve never seen, and experience some incredible cuisine.  Even with the rental car and eating out a couple of times a day, we’re still under budget and rested up for the upcoming week in the Peloponnese.  While the Greek Islands offer many benefits during the main season in the summer months, the November offseason in Santorini provided everything we needed for a fun, relaxing, and memorable time together.

Last meal on Santorini

Greece - Athens

“So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.”        Acts 17:22

Most Americans of legal age are familiar with standing in line at the DMV or some other government facility waiting endlessly as the few, often surly, staff members try to serve the needs of a large, impatient queue of citizens.  I would wager that most people are not familiar with standing in line in the cramped office of the consular division of the Chinese embassy in Greece trying to obtain a Chinese visa with an American passport amidst an angry crowd shouting multi-lingual curses at the one clerk on duty.  Fair warning:  if you should ever complain to me about standing in line at the DMV, I will at best grant you a three-second sympathetic nod before dismissing anything else you have to say about your experience.  

We overslept a bit after a long travel day from Rome, Italy, to Athens, Greece, that involved planes, trains, and automobiles.  Since the Chinese embassy is open only from 9:00-12:00 we needed to be there to start the process of securing visas for our trip to China in January.  Obtaining one of these visas in a foreign country is difficult, but Greece offers decent fees compared to other countries, and with only three days in Athens, the clock was ticking.  We threw on some clothes and rushed out the door to find a taxi and grab a few pastries at a nearby bakery on the way to the neighborhood square.  We saw an open taxi and showed the driver the address, and he smiled and nodded for us to get in.  The driver’s name was George, and once he found out my first name is George and my son’s first name is George, and my father's first name was George, we became instant friends, and we had a driver for our entire time in Athens.  We used the metro a few times to get around, but for most destinations we called George who was always ten minutes away, with rates not much higher than the metro, a warm smile, and good advice delivered in decent English.

George dropped us off at the Chinese embassy, and seeing no one around, I pushed the button on the security panel, and an austere Chinese lady opened the door and told us we were in the wrong place.  She made walking gestures with her fingers, and we ascertained that we needed to walk somewhere else, and with the help of Google maps, we were soon entering our second home in Athens, the Chinese consular office a few blocks away.  We had done a lot of homework on the visa application process, but some of the instructions for filling out the forms were ambiguous, so we knew we were in for a struggle.  My handwriting is illegible, so Deena spent hours the day before filling out a four-page form for each one of us, and they looked good...but not good enough.  We spent all morning in the office going back and forth from the work desk to the visa window receiving layers of instructions until everyone in the cramped room began calling us “the people with the American passports.”  Finally, we realized that we were up against closing time, and the clerk told us to come back the next day and gave us our homework assignments.  We left the office dejected, but a delicious lunch of roast turkey and potatoes from a nearby bistro cheered us up, and we called our buddy George for a ride back to the apartment.  

We all took showers and settled in a bit more, and I tried to sleep off a splitting headache to no avail, so Deena and I walked to a nearby internet point to print some documents needed for the visa applications.  We sat at a workstation behind two guys who were viewing some naughty websites on their monitors, and we did our best to ignore the world around us and focus on our task.  With reams of documents in hand, we went back to our apartment and spent the rest of the afternoon working on our applications, stopping only for a brief dinner at a restaurant around the corner.  The kitchen in our apartment was not very well equipped, so we ended up spending more money on food than we have in a while, but we enjoyed going out to eat for a change.  

Next day we were up early again, and after a quick continental breakfast, George picked us up and delivered us to the Chinese consular office ready for another round with the clerk.  So far we had seen nothing interesting or historical in Athens, and just driving around the busy streets packed with insane Greek drivers offered no inspiration at all.  The city looks a lot like a Florida beach town except bigger, older, and dirtier.  Most of the buildings are four story concrete blocks with balconies crowned by rows of antennas and satellite dishes and anchored with graffiti covered first story walls.  Many apartment dwellers have filled their balconies with plants which soften the edges of the buildings a bit, and clusters of orange and palm trees on street corners add color to an otherwise drab cityscape.  Athens does have the Acropolis going for it, though, and occasional glimpses of this legendary landmark from the taxi windows fueled our inspiration to get the government red tape behind us.

The office was crowded again, and we resigned ourselves to another long morning of bureaucracy, but we smiled a lot and tried to be as gracious as possible when dealing with the clerk and our fellow visa hopefuls.  To our utter frustration, the clerk would start shifting through our paperwork and then stop and accept a handful of applications from someone else behind us while we were swept out of the queue.  We would make our way back to the front of the line, and the process would repeat.  We just kept smiling behind clenched teeth and hoped our calm, appreciateive demeanor would somehow turn the tide in our favor.  At one point, a supervisor was prepared to deny our whole procedure until we could definitively prove where we had entered Europe. By furtively flipping through our passports to the faded ink stamp of Ireland, we offered the proof she needed.  With that hurdle crossed, the clerk finally accepted our applications and gave us a pink slip which had to be delivered to the National Bank of Greece, where we would then deposit our application fees directly to the account of the Chinese Embassy.  We walked two kilometers to the bank and went through another rigamarole to deposit the money, and while I won’t divulge the amount with which we parted for an expedited process, I will say that all that cash would have kept us in beef chow mein for a long time.  After another long morning, we rewarded ourselves with some more homestyle Greek food from the bistro knowing that we had to make one more trip to the consular office the next day with our visa status still in limbo.

Heavy storms were predicted for the afternoon, so we chose to stay indoors and finally dive into some ancient Greek history through two museum visits:  the Acropolis Museum first, followed by the National Archeology Museum of Athens.  The Acropolis Museum is located at the bottom of the famous Athenian hill and is built over an extensive archeological site which visitors can view through thick plexiglass walkways.  The exhibits inside are statues, friezes, and many types of architectural elements from the Parthenon and the other temples located on the Acropolis, and they are fabulous.  We saw many artifacts from the Parthenon in the British Museum during our time in London, and the Greeks make sure that their museum visitors understand how their historical treasures were looted by the dastardly Lord Elgin in the early 1800s—it was fascinating to see both sides of this centuries-old acrimony.  The museum presents the entire history of the Acropolis through multimedia exhibits and excellent restorative work on original pieces that left us with full understanding of the history and power of ancient Greece and the city-state of Athens.  The museum tour wraps up on the third level on a large balcony which looks out to the Acropolis, and we got some good pictures of the Parthenon with dark storm clouds approaching.  

We hoofed it to the nearby metro station and made it underground before the clouds opened, hoping to get to the next museum with enough time for a fruitful visit.  The pedestrians we encountered after ascending the metro escalator were soaked with a shell-shocked look in their eyes, and we later learned that we had escaped a terrifying thunderstorm accompanied by falafel-sized hail.  Counting our blessings, we climbed the marble steps and entered the vast foyer of the National Archaeological Museum.  It was 3:00, and to our dismay, we discovered that the museum closed at 4:00 that day.  Undaunted, we boldly paid our admission fee and began a whirlwind tour that was hugely productive and satisfying.  We were aided by the fact that the museum’s content is 15% mind-blowing, ancient treasure and 85% old painted pots.  No disrespect to archeologists that dig (so to speak) two-thousand-year-old amphorae with depictions of Hercules and other naked Greek heroes with big muscles, but that’s not our thing.  We had plenty of time to learn about the ancient Mycenaeans and saw some of their incredible three-thousand-year-old frescos.  We saw delicately crafted solid gold chalices and the famous Mask of Agamemnon along with ancient bronze sculptures of Zeus and Poseidon.  The marble statues were graceful and showed the skill and precision associated with ancient Greece during its classical period.  We seriously made up for lost time on this fun afternoon, and with one more Chinese consular visit looming, we were still excited about our plans to visit the Acropolis the next day.

The following morning George drove us to the Chinese consular office one more time and waited for us down the block in anticipation of what we hoped would be a quick visit.  There was no one in line at the cashier’s window, a normal sight because very few make it that far in the process, and we handed over our bank deposit receipt like it was a fragile copy of an ancient document.  The cashier looked it over, pulled our passports from an organized box of multicolored documents, looked them over, and passed them through the window.  We gingerly opened them up and beheld glorious, full-page visas allowing us to visit the mysterious land of China for a few days in January.  We walked over to the visa clerk’s window and pushed our way to the front of the line so we could thank her.  With a wide, surprised smile, she wished us a good trip—it was obvious that she doesn’t get thanked much.  We burst from the confines of the cramped office like calves leaping from the stall, and George, seeing the look of joy on our faces, raised his arms and exclaimed, “We win!”

George drove us to the area near the Acropolis, and I noticed that he was sipping a coffee-type beverage, and being a fellow connoisseur, I enquired about its composition.  “Ees frappe” he said reverently.  “Greek coffee, very strong.  You drink, you want to fight.”  I’m not much of a fighter, but I love good coffee and told him I would give it a try later that day.  “Good,” he exclaimed with a grin, “You drink, we fight.”  On the way through town he told us about an attack on the French embassy in Athens that morning, and described how men on bicycles lobbed a grenade into the compound injuring a security guard.  We secured George’s services for an airport transfer the next day, and after he dropped us off at a store we needed to visit, we were finally making our way to the Acropolis.  Along the way we passed a large building blocked with high walls and a metal gate painted green like the ones we had seen at the Chinese embassy, and there was a flock of men carrying cameras milling about.  We realized it was the French embassy, and we noted the fresh bullet holes in the guard shack glass as we got the heck out of there.  We walked through Constitution Square and watched the uniquely uniformed guards march back and forth in front of the capitol building and stopped for while to admire Hadrian’s Arch near the ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.  

As we made our way through the Athenian streets, we caught glimpses of the approaching Acropolis surrounded by a blue sky full of fluffy clouds.  The storm the day before had flushed out all the humidity, and the air felt crisp and fresh.  I love living in North Carolina, and my home state has some pretty cool places within its borders...not Acropolis cool though.  School children in my neck of the woods back home go on field trips to the bank or the strawberry patch which are fun outings, but school children in Athens spend a day visiting the Parthenon for crying out loud, and there were a bunch of them in the area, with chaperones at their wits’ end trying to rein them in.  

We felt the need to fortify ourselves before ascending the hill, so we walked around the area known as the Plaka looking for inexpensive food, and at last we stumbled upon a little hole-in-the-wall cafe.  I can’t remember its name, but we christened it, The Greek Lunch Counter From Heaven.  Oh my goodness—we had souvlaki with roast pork and chicken wrapped up in hot pita bread with fresh vegetables and herbs and served steaming in a paper cone.  I asked the man at the counter to hold the onions on my order, and he looked perplexed and said, “Ok, no onions, you want potatoes?”  I tried to peer around his shoulders to see if he had angel wings restrained by the strap of his apron.  Deveny wanted to try the falafel, and it was a savory delight also served in a hot pita with tomatoes and crunchy cucumbers.  We shared a giant Greek salad of which even Joseph, the carnivore, sang the praises—it was an herb-flecked masterpiece loaded with ripe tomatoes, olives, feta cheese and drenched in rich olive oil.  The entire meal set us back about twelve bucks.

Considering the amount of historical wonder we received in return, the admission fee was a pittance, and we began our long ascent to the top of the Acropolis on wide crushed-stone switchbacks.  We stopped for a while and sat in the Theater of Dionysus where Greek tragedy was born and made our way past the much larger and magnificent Odeon of Herodes Atticus where Led Zepplinikus and the Rolling Stonicles must have played back in the day.  At the top of the hill, the views of Athens were intense, and we could see the ocean past the mountains with the houses in the valley sweeping up the sides.  

We climbed the final section of marble stairs and for the next couple of hours, we wandered around the ancient buildings as the winds blew through the temples like they have for many centuries.  There is perpetual restoration work going on in the complex, but the sight of modern cranes and scaffolding does nothing to take away from the power of these ruins, and no number of pictures can fully recreate the memory of the Acropolis.  In addition to the mammoth Parthenon, there are other buildings there, including the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike—so the Greeks invented branding strategies along with democracy and a bunch of other stuff.  Finally sensing it was time to leave, we made our way down from the Acropolis using a different route in order to see one more place near the entrance to the complex.  With the help of a friendly docent, we found Mars Hill, or the Areopagus where the Apostle Paul delivered his powerful sermon to the men of Athens recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Acts.  Though many of his listeners were skeptical after hearing Paul’s words,  there were some who believed him, and his words carry no less power and hope today.  We climbed the slippery rocks to the top of the hill and sat for a while in the sunshine completely given over to the history and significance of the place of our respite.

The Areopagus - Paul preached here

With the daylight diminishing, we walked back down to the streets of Athens, passing through the ancient Agora lined with orange trees and tufted evergreens where lime green parrots darted in and out of the dense foliage of the trees.  We stopped for a while in a cafe to recover from the historical assault with ice cream, and I finally got to try a frappe.  This type of coffee is served cold—not my thing, but due to the excellent preparation by the barista, I found myself enjoying it immensely.  Even though George is at least twenty years my junior, I could have fought him and won after ingesting this caffeine bomb.  The metro carried us back to our neighborhood where we enjoyed a simple pasta dinner at the corner restaurant before heading home to pack.  George was set to pick us up in the square at 5:15 the next morning, and it was time to move on.

After a 4:00 wake up, we left our apartment at 5:00 and per the instructions from our host, locked the keys inside to be retrieved by the cleaners.  After exiting the building, we discovered that the four-foot tall, pointed metal gate was locked and the key to open it and gain entry to the street was fastened to the ring secured within our locked apartment.  We had no choice but to complete a family team-building exercise, which involved a technical scaling operation that ended with us and our luggage standing safely in the street suffering only a few minor scratches.  George picked us up right on time, and we spent the thirty-minute taxi ride to the airport soaking up his advice on Santorini and the Peloponnese, the next places on our itinerary.  After helping us with our bags, George bid us goodbye with handshakes and his warm, toothy grin.  He was a good friend who helped us during challenging and fun times, and we were glad we could help him support his family—it was hard to leave another friend, and we felt another unavoidable sting underneath the reward and fond memories of world travel.

Italy - Pompeii

Mount Vesuvius over the Pompeii Forum

Ryanair has a nifty new mobile app similar to the ones all the other airlines have now that make checking in a breeze for upcoming flights.  These apps all generate a mobile boarding pass that allows for quick scanning at security, and there’s no hassle with trying to find a library or internet cafe in which to print a boarding pass.  Ryanair has this mobile boarding pass feature on their app, and we thought we were in the clear for our next flight until we found out that it’s only for EU citizens, and Americans still have to print a pass.  Ryanair will kindly print a boarding pass at the airport for a desperate traveler who can’t locate a printer, but it costs $45…per boarding pass…that’s $180 for our family…that $60 more than the dang tickets cost.  We fly to Greece tomorrow, and since we've been living on the side of a mountain for five day with a killer view of the Mediterranean but nary a printer in sight, the boarding pass dilemma was hanging over our heads as we sped down the twisting highway toward the ruins of Pompeii.  

Our host, Michele had agreed to take us to Pompeii for a reasonable fee, and as he handled the sharp the curves like only Italians can, he was also texting and talking on his phone trying to locate an internet cafe for us on the way.  At one point he handed the phone to Deena so she could talk to his buddy Mario who speaks decent English, and he started out with, “You are not in USA, you are in southern Italy on Sunday.”  No kidding.  His point was that it was going to be difficult to find a place with a printer, but to their credit, he and Michele tried their hardest to find a solution for us, but it was not to be, and now we’re hoping we can find a place to print our passes before our bus departs Naples for the airport in Rome tomorrow.  We’ve had difficulty finding an up-to-date computer and printer in most of the places we’ve been so far on this trip, a concept which is hard to comprehend coming from a land where most people have at least three printers in their homes and five or six devices with the latest technology.  Michele made a quick pit stop at his favorite cafe on the way down to Pompeii and bought me a cup of the best espresso I’ve ever had, so I was able to shift my focus to something pleasurable before checking out some ancient ruins with my family.

Michele deposited us right at the front gate of the ancient city where we breezed right by the ticket counter since visits to Pompeii on the first Sunday of the month are FREE.  Just past the entrance in two long glass enclosures resembling greenhouses, lie the plaster casts of about twenty citizens of Pompeii in various throes of death.  These were the ones who managed to die indoors while the rest were vaporized during blasts of intense heat during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD.  The date provided by one of only two eyewitnesses is recorded as August 24, but evidence gathered in recent years suggests that the eruption occurred in November.  That little discrepancy will keep the smart people debating and the grant money flowing for many years to come, but for now, Pompeii is an amazing and harrowing place to visit.  We started our self-guided tour in the well-preserved colosseum, and I was surprised to discover that Vesuvius can’t be seen in this spot, and as we discovered later, the mountain can only be viewed on the far end of town at the back of the Forum.  Every movie and documentary I’ve seen about Pompeii has at least one scene where the gladiators in the colosseum all stop the killing for a second to glance up at the fire and smoke shooting up from Vesuvius before running for their lives.  I guess producers and directors are free to use as much dramatic license as they want in order to get the right effect. From the colosseum, we walked under the canopy of huge umbrella pines that looked like they were pulled from an illustration in a Dr. Seuss book, and continued to the main avenue of ancient Pompeii.

Most of the hotshot archaeologists agree that in 79 AD, Pompeii was still in a period of rebuilding about ten years after a major earthquake.  People settled in the area as far back as 700 BC, and the Romans took control of the city around 300 BC eventually committing a lot of money and effort toward making Pompeii a wealthy resort town.  All of that effort came to a screeching halt when Vesuvius blew up and covered the city with twenty meters of pumice and ash, wiping it out of sight and memory for 1500 years. After five hundred years of excavations, the ruins of this ancient city are captivating in their completeness and detail and haunting in the wonder that these vacant streets and buildings come from the horror of one of the most infamous natural disasters in history.  

We took our time wandering down the stone streets cut with deep grooves from chariot wheels and walked in and out of shops indicated by hand lettering with red paint.  Entire homes of wealthy merchants and politicians were open for touring, and we saw intricate mosaic floors made with millions of quarter-inch stone pieces.  There were frescos still brilliant with color intact, decorating the walls of restaurants, which still displayed the marble inlaid countertops in perfect condition ready for customers two thousand years later.  We sat on the steps of the Forum with a view of huge columns, the ruins of temples, and Mt. Vesuvius ever looming in the near distance.  As we ate our Snickers bars, I studied a marble structure in front of us that had a molding base that looked similar to crown molding that many Americans have in their homes.  The lines and details in the stone were perfect, and I wondered how the Romans could produce the same perfection in antiquity that we produce in mass today.  After a walk around the Forum, we strolled down a few more side streets of the classic Roman grid and made our way back through the umbrella pines.  We agreed that Pompeii was one of the most fascinating and creepy places we’ve been so far, and we were thankful that we had the opportunity to visit a place of legend to which travel is challenging.

We took a taxi back up into the hills, and I kept my eyes on Vesuvius until its summit disappeared into the clouds.  I could see all of the homes and businesses and highways of Naples and the surrounding villages around the base of the mountain, and I wondered why all those people would continue to build and live so close to another potential natural disaster.  The theme of Man vs. Nature is one that spans the centuries of thought and literature, and even though Nature always wins, man is valiant in defeat and resilient in recovery, and the dream of a mountain villa overlooking the Bay of Naples is quite compelling for southern Italians I suppose.  Much like the pull of the San Francisco Bay or the Hollywood Hills back home.  There is now a modern town of Pompei (spelled with one i) that surrounds the ancient ruins with a population of twenty-three thousand, double that of its predecessor.  The primary means of support for its citizens is the tourism industry generated by the demise of the city destroyed by an ominous mountain that still fills the horizon and sleeps for now.

We spent our last night in Furore packing and cleaning the villa as we prepared to leave the Amalfi Coast the next day.  We spent twenty three days in Italy, and we rose the next morning with a long travel day ahead of an arrival in Athens, Greece.  We said goodbye to Anna as we left with Michele who was dropping us off at the bus station in Naples on the way to his work as a mechanic.  Remembering my joy from the excellent espresso the other morning, he insisted on stopping and buying me another round, and we left Deena and the kids in the car and entered the coffee shop where his good time buddies gave us a cheerful greeting.  As the barista placed small saucers all down the bar for the guys and began his artistry on the espresso machine, I felt like one of the boys until the helper tossed a sugar packet into my saucer - an act which drew several snickers from my new friends.  The small cup of espresso with a rich layer of natural crema on top made up for any fun at my expense, and I remembered how disappointed I was when I was served my first thimbleful of coffee at the airport in Milan.  Since then I’ve learned that with the right roast and the right pressure and the right people, it’s enough.  Michele again masterfully navigated the Neapolitan streets full of angry drivers hopped up on espresso and kissed us all on both cheeks when he dropped us off at the statzione with an internet cafe right across the street - thank you Lord.  We said goodbye to a good friend who we’ll likely never see again, and as I leave Italy for the second time in my life, I’m thankful for the memories that include my family walking on narrow streets marveling at the history of a country that’s still terraced and full of vineyards and trees bearing olives and lemons.

October Budget Report

October budget report

It’s Deena and I'm here to talk numbers again.  October turned out to be a good month for us coming in at $108 per day.  Now remember, we earned a $500 credit for travel purposes from a credit card sign up bonus to add to our lodging expenses, and that money helped out a good bit in keeping our daily costs low.  We are finishing up our time in Italy and will be heading to Greece for about fourteen days.  I have kept our city-to-city transportation expenses out of our daily budget, but they are low, and I still keep track of it.

We arrived in Italy from Budapest on a Wizz Air flight - Michael came up with all kinds of jokes about Wizz Air, but I won’t include them here.  The flight was $17 per person—yep, you read that right.  We then traveled from Milan to Venice, Venice to Florence, Florence to La Spezia, La Spezia to Rome, and Rome to Naples using a mix of buses and trains.  The trains were a bit more expensive than the buses, but our average cost per person per trip was still only $20.

I have previously discussed our long haul flight from the US to Ireland to get this trip going, and I was able to book it for practically free due to a credit card sign up bonus.  There are many more flights to come in this trip that were free as well, but I will cover them as they come up.  Here’s a tease:  our January trip from Jordan to Thailand which costs thousands under normal circumstances was free—more on that later. We most definitely would not have been able to take this trip if it had not been for the free flights that saved us tens of thousands of dollars through travel hacking.  If you are interested in travel hacking, here are some links to a few of my favorite sites:   Mommy Points , The Points Guy, and The Frugal Travel Guy.  All sites have good newbie sections—I would go there first.

We have been invited by friends to visit them in Beijing China in January, and because we have been under budget this month, we are going to go for it.   Airline tickets have been purchased, and we are now trying to get visas.  Off to the Great Wall we go!!!

Italy - The Path of the Gods

The town of Agerola is about a twenty-minute walk from our villa, and the journey is a decent cardiovascular workout complete with a constant ascent and periods of intense exertion from the steep steps.  Thankfully, the surrounding views help take the focus away from all the work, and once the summit is reached, the streets of Agerola are mostly level but narrow and full of careening cars.  In my permanent position at the rear of our family walking line, I’ve attempted to give my fears over to the Lord as I’ve time and again watched speeding side mirrors and bus walls come within inches of my wife and children as we walk along and hug the stucco buildings.  Trekking to the markets in this area has been more difficult than any other place we’ve stayed so far, and we try to make each trip count by planning every meal and making comprehensive lists, but we still manage to forget things.  All of that careful planning is useless if the whole town shuts down on Friday afternoons and hapless visitors are unaware of this local tradition, as was our case yesterday, when we wandered into the empty square.

Bomerano, which is a small sub-community of Agerola, borders the main square in town, and it contains the trailhead of the Path of the Gods, a section of which we had planned to hike that day, followed by grocery shopping before returning home.  The Path of the Gods or, Il Sentiero degli Dei as they say in these parts, is an internationally famous nine-kilometer hiking trail that connects the towns of Agerola and Positano with scenery worthy of...well, the gods, I guess.

We filled our water bottles at the community fountain and followed the arrows down narrow cobblestone streets winding through old two-story stucco villas, small vineyards, and vegetable gardens until we left the town limits behind and entered the realm of the gods.  A local guy told us that the markets would open again for an hour before sunset, so Deena hiked with us for about a kilometer or so and decided to turn back fearing we would miss our opportunity for food.  The kids and I hiked for a few more kilometers staring at one natural wonder after another, and we probably could have gone a little farther, but we kept stopping to take pictures.  Rather than do an injustice to the views to which we were treated on that special afternoon, maybe these pictures will help tell the tale better than my narrative:

We met up with Deena back in the town square and told her all the tales from our adventures on the Path of the Gods.  She had managed to find one open market, but it didn’t stock many of the items we needed.  The kids and I took a few minutes to recover from the hike, and we all walked back out of town and found one more market that was open and purchased a few more items on our list.  With careful planning and eating bread for a couple of meals, we should be able to make it to Monday morning without starving, but hey, whatever keeps us under budget is all good.