In mid January, I traveled to Greece with Noelle. We flew into Athens, then immediately took a bus to the port and caught a ferry to the island of Aegina. The trip was only about an hour via our high speed 'flying dolphin,' and we arrived just in time to find a cheap beachside room at what translated to 'Hotel Virtue.' Aegina town has a pretty harbor lined with laid back cafes.
We stayed only five minutes from the ruins of Ancient Aegina, which contain extensive remains from the 6th century BC (even earlier than the Parthenon in Athens)! The ruins center around the Temple to Apollo.
We took a bus about 12km to the Temple of Aphea, which was built around 500 BC and is one of the most complete and complex buildings of ancient Greece. Although it was a cloudy and rainy day, we could see Athens from atop the hill.
Noelle, drying her socks after a rainy day at the Temple.
A shot of the Aegina waterfront, below. Aegina is famous for its pistachio orchards, and we consumed many of these delicious pistachios during our two days here.
We walked about 8km down the west coast of the island to a town called Marathon (no, not the original Marathon).
Along the way we encountered some stunning beaches, many Millenium plants (shown below), many sea urchins, and an amazing sunset!
Next, we took a ferry to the Island of Poros, which also had an impressive waterfront. We spent only a few hours here wandering the city and enjoying the narrow stone streets and Greek architecture.
We also learned that, despite how appealing the oranges on the trees looked, they were incredibly sour!
Our next ferry took us to the island of Hydra, which allows no motorized vehicles. We were met at the port by a couple dozen of the thousands of cats that live on the island, and many friendly people, eager to help us find our way around.
Seriously, I've never seen so many cats!
We set off on the next day to attempt a hike we had read about on a travel blog. This hike didn't come with an accompanying map, but there were pictures, and the descriptions were such that we thought we could easily follow in the footsteps of this previous traveler. Besides, it's an island... who can get lost on an island? Well, it turns out a map would have been helpful. After about three hours of hiking, we decided that we had absolutely no chance of discovering the path we were hoping for, so we aimed ourselves towards the highest point on the island and started scrambling!
Looking down on Hydra town,
Noelle, swearing she sees a path up ahead... or not.
The scrambling was tough, but the views were worth it!
Around 1pm, after just struggling up a long rock field, we sat down for some lunch and contemplated our next move. Suddenly, we heard voices in the distance. We had been sure we were the only ones crazy enough to scramble our way to our current position, so we went to investigate. We found a couple guys laying rocks for a foundation. Then we found a path! And not just a path... more like a rock sidewalk! Confused and curious, we followed the path up and up, then finally found some stairs which led to a gorgeous Abbey on top of the mountain! The front door,
And one of the churches inside. It turns out that there was no need for our laborious climbing- there was a sidewalk which led the entire way up the mountain! Feeling rather tired and a bit silly, we took the sidewalk back down towards the city.
We came across ruins of an old church situated above the city,
and we even found a ruin-dwelling stick-bug!
Looking back up the path- can you believe this?
On the next day we caught a ferry back to Athens, where we stayed in a hostel in the city center, only a ten minute walk from the Acropolis. This is looking up towards the Acropolis, which sits on a flat rock in the middle of Athens, 150m above the city.
Here is the Parthenon, complete with a Parthenon coloured crane (renovations). It was built in 490 BC, after the Battle at Marathon
The Theatre of Dionysis, below.
The history of the Acropolis is incredibly interesting, and we spent almost an entire day walking around the Acropolis museum. The few pictures below are from atop the Acropolis, looking out onto the city of Athens. It goes on forever...
This is the remains of the temple of Zeus, built around 45o BC, not far from the Acropolis.
The two pictures below show the remains of the Temple of Zeus on the left and the Acropolis in the background.
We then made our way to the very first stadium of the modern Olympics,
and then to the Greek State building, where I had a staring contest with the guard. In the end he won, but only because I was distracted by the puff balls on his shoes.
Our stroll through Athens ended in the beautiful National Gardens. We stopped to admire the poses of some turtles sunning themselves.
We decided this was the winning pose,
We even learned about the reproductive process of frogs. Look closely here. There are two frogs in the lower right, and the trail coming them is a string of (fertilized) eggs. And we thought the Acropolis was cool!
We ate a lot of delicious Greek food, and our three days in Athens were not complete without a cup of Greek coffee. This shot is after Noelle dared me to drink the inch of sludge that exists at the bottom of every cup of Greek coffee.
While it was an incredibly fun trip, I was excited to return home and back to the world of Americanos, sans sludge!
We crashed with Brooks, who was at Balliol last year and is now teaching at the American School in London. This is Alex and I scheming how to jointly blow out the candles of our birthday cake.
In other party news, Balliol recently had its last BOP of the year, which was themed 'Seven Deadly Sins.' Since I couldn't decide which sin would best suit me for the evening, I decided to join a group which was taking a more open interpretation of the theme. He we are as seven deadly (road) signs. Well six at least... our seventh was off grabbing us another drink.
Oxford: all work and no play :)
