Sevilla

We flew from Santiago de Compostella to Sevilla Sunday very late. There is only one airport bus every thirty minutes. When we got to the bus stop it was mobbed and it only got busier as we waited. We were almost the very last to board and at least an entire bus load was left behind.

We got into town and started looking for lodging. To our surprise the first five hostels we tried were full. The fifth hostel kindly called around a bit for us and after several more tries found us a room at a good price.

Denise found a flyer for a Lippizaner dancing Stallion show. Denise has always wanted to see them so we took a taxi out only to find there was no show until Tuesday. The people were super nice though, they got some stallions out of their stalls and had them do a trick or two for us.

We decided to wait so we mostly just relaxed Monday. It turned out to be Spains independence day so we enjoyed listening to brass bands in the park and walking along the river.

As it turned out . . . the "show" consisted of 4 stallions and a mare ranging from completely untrained to in the process of learning one of the airs above ground . . .it was interesting more from a training perspective than the horses doing anything especially amazing.

The best jump this horse (their most highly trained) produced . . .he managed two similar to this while being hit with the whip as he leaped forward to encourage him to kick behind at the same time. I dont think that the handlers liked that the other two times he had some sideways kick aimed their direction as well as directly behind. They took him out of the ring after just a few minutes.



Everyone was super nice and they provided great snacks . . .but I think I still need to see the REAL Lippizaner stallions . . .

Rome

One of many many fountains.

On to Rome

We went overland through Delphi and then caught an overnight ferry from Patra Greece to Barri Italy. The ferry was about 600 feet long and had 4 separate car decks! We only had deck passage (which was very cheap) but the ferry wasn´t very full and they let us sleep in the airline seats.

We had supposed we would take a morning train from Bari to Rome but it turned out we were to late for everything except the expensive fast trains. Ultimately we hung out a few hours and then caught a bus to Naples, from there we took a regional train to Sorrento to spend the night.

The next day we walked through the city of Pompeii. Pompeii is about 1st or 2nd century Rome and was covered completly in ashes by Vesuvious which killed everything but preserved the town itself.

The site at delphi is pretty spectacular, with cliffs behind it and overlooking a deep valley.

Athen´s offering at delphi (we think!)

delphi . . .spectacular!

delphi theatre

Athens

John may well end up adding a few names and dates . . .but the short story of Athens is that we got there in the afternoon . . .scared ourselves up a little apartment with a kitchen after some hiking around and then proceeded to walk almost a million miles on concrete looking at old things with lots of marble columns. The acropolis is on the highest hill on town, so we hiked up that and looked around (best memory: tour guide telling group of Japenese tourists that he was about to show them the temple of Athena and all of them gasping "oooooohhhh" in unison :) ) and then hiked up the other two tall hills in town and looked around from there as well. What I liked best about Athens was how all of the old ruins are just here and there throughout the town . . .columns and letters on stone tablets just here and about . . .so common that they don´t even have little fences or anything around most of them it seemed.

We went to see the changing of the guards at the palace on the first day and were surprised to see hordes of policemen with riot shields and guns. After we looked around a bit we spotted the real "guards" in their vivid outfits and over-large pompoms on their boots doing some high stepping and realized that the more serious looking policeman were for real, and that the large crowd with banners were not there to watch the guards change but to protest something. We left . . .but an hour or two later there were traffic jams left over from the protest still sorting themselves out. I think it was all pretty peaceful . . at least we never heard anything otherwise.




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Pireas, The port town of Athens.

Pireas again, it is just like any harbor, just proportionately larger for larger boats.

The Acropolis in Athens.

The theater below the acropolis.

Athena´s temple.

The Acropolis again.

Another shot of the acropolis.

Ancient Roman Forum

Water Tower. Its hard to see but the lines scratched into the top act as a sun dial and the statues on the top represent the eight winds.

Zeus´s temple completed by Hadrin.

Column head.

Acropolis yet again.

Naxos, Greece

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The ferry arrived late in the day, but we bumped into the owner of a nice hostel with good rates at a bookstore (where we found the hiking maps that we wanted) so he gave us a ride to his place and it was all very easy.

The busses to the hiking trails weren´t running the next day (Sunday) so we hiked to a couple of the ruins near town and tried some of the nearby trails on our new map. They turned out to mostly be goat trails or even less distinct wending their way through goat pastures. We saw lots of cute baby goats and sheep and discovered how many spiny plants we hadn´t noticed in Greece, having mostly stayed on paths up until now. Later we hiked along the beach with my snorkel gear looking for a likely place to take a swim even though it was chilly enough we were walking in our jackets. A good portion of the water in the first big bay was a flourescent green color that came, we discovered further along, from a good sized river feeding into that was a vile, semi flourescent green soup. It looked like toxic waste . . .but it didn´t smell bad. I suspect it came from farming products (fertilizers etc) as the river was running through many miles of farming land. We eventually got to an area with clear calm water, so I popped into my mask and snorkel and swam along for about 20 minutes or so until I got too cold. I saw a few good sized fish that blended in well with the sandy bottom, but mostly a little sea grass here and there. The water was cold enough that it took me about five separate tries before I could breath (without gasping from cold) through the snorkel . . .but it actually felt great once I got used to it.


The next day we hiked to the top of Mt. Zeus and poked our noses into his birthplace (a cave) partway down the mountain. We´d forgotten flashlights, so we couldn´t venture in too far. The clouds parted perfectly when we were on the top and we had wonderful views of the ravens playing in the updrafts. We saw Ravens grabbing each others feet and free falling hundreds of feet before breaking apart not far from the rocks to fly up and do it all over again. I don´t know if that is mating protocol for ravens or not . . .it certainly looked like a rush regardless - bungee jumping for birds.

We took a Blue Star ferry from Santorinni to Naxos

Remains of a temple to Appolo in Naxos.

We hiked to the top of Mt Zeus.

More cool Greek goats.

This is one of many caves where Zeus is perported to have been born.

We had a little Kitchen in our appartment in Naxos which we enjoyed.

Santorini Greece

We were eager to leave Iraclion. We were in accomodations strangly remeniscent of Central America. The ferry was supposed to leave at about 430 am so we got up at 3. We the ferry left at about 6 am we were glad to be off but wishing we had gotten a little more sleep.

The ferry dropped us off on Thira in the volcanic island group of Santorini. The main attraction here is the gigantic valcanic caldera. It is submerged in the ocean and the ferry actualy sails through the middle of it to get to port. As it turns out the island is almost totally empty this time of year, which means we found a great room at a great price!

Octopus in the grocery store.

Fira is a very pretty white washed town perched on the edge of the caldera.

The ferry sailing into the Caldera to get to the port.

Our second day on Thira was very stormy. The ferries weren´t even running.

A big low pressure zone moved through so the ferries didn't run for two or three days. We got out a bit on the second day but mostly hid at an internet cafe. The third day was better and we climbed to the high point on the island in strong winds, blowing rain and fog.

We hiked to the pretty beach town of Perissa which happened to have a large number of bolted rock climbs next to it.

We found that there were a large number of well bolted routes on the far side of the island.

These burros, with the funky pack saddles, were hauling bags of concrete down steep narrow stairs to new hotel construction.

Our ferry was scheduled to leave a little after noon . . . we accepted the offer of a ride to the ferry a half hour before departure from our hosts, and spent the morning wandering around town admiring the views.

A last look at Sanatorini.