As the hotel Wi-Fi in Nafplion has decided I’m unwelcome, I’m typing up the account of the day in a word document and hoping I can simply cut and paste to the blog in Corinth - so here goes!

The hotel outside of Epidaurus’ theater suited us well – Peter took a picture of our humble abode:

 (Only kidding – this was behind the hotel but he couldn’t resist)

Due to pouring rain in the early morning the guides presented us with Plan B for today – we would forego biking to Nafplion (36K) in the thought that wet roads and the threat of storms were a safety issue:

The skies of Plan B

  

It was a lot of extra work for them, but bikes were roof-mounted and bags were stowed, and the extra van from last night’s dinner shuttle was kept to take us via the bike route to our next destination:

 Bikes at rest – and bikers too

We stopped first to get a close-up view of pistachio trees:

Peter and group in pistachio orchard

Pistachios “on the hoof” (apologies for mixed metaphors)

Guide Manoulis doing an imitation of ancient Greek shelling pistachios with stone tools

Our next adventure stop was at a marble processing plant – an amazing sight to see huge blocks being cut on the way to being finished product:

Powerful circular saw blade cutting block into slices

The yard of finished goods and work in progress

At noon the van delivered us to the lovely Ippoliti Hotel in the heart of Nafplion.  Our “alternative exercise” was to be guided by Patricia up the 900+ steps that lead to the Fort of Palamidi, finished in 1714 but the Venetians to defend the port town.  Here are the views:

The entering ascent

Amazing vistas on the way up

More amazing vistas on the way up and up and up

Nearing the summit overlooking Nafplion – Fort Bourtzi in the distant harbor

Topping out the 900+ steps – in the fort

The construction and condition were fascinating – each space and level offered a new experience:

Interior of fort

We spent the better part of an hour wandering about the many layers and levels of the fort, and to save our creaky knees, we chose to take the 3k hike on the road route to return to our hotel:

The long and gentler descent

The payoff was entering the old city center with its charming pedestrian walks and wonderful square:

Nafplion charm...

The real payoff however was indulging in the world’s greatest (in my humble opinion) lunch – the ultimate dessert food – Loukounades!  They are balls of light, airy pastry dough deep-fried so that the outside is delicately crispy while the innards are light and moist.  UNREAL.  I had mine with a delicious chocolate sauce and almond topping; Peter had his with honey, hazelnuts AND goat cheese ice cream.  Not kidding about the ice cream.  It was completely awesome!!!:

Loukounades – not just for dessert anymore!

The rest of the afternoon was spent at R & R – Peter did a lovely sketch:

Hillside neighborhood church

We had a convivial gathering at 6:30 PM to taste two local wines, then went off to dinner with our friends Bill and Nancy, and were delighted with our choices and the ambience:

Happy bikers – eating tomorrow’s fuel!

This may get posted later than normal but stayed tuned – more ancient ruins and biking adventures await us!

Bike Tour Day 2 - Climbing from Poros to Epidaurus

We gathered for breakfast at 8 AM and jumped on an 8:45 ferry for exactly 6 minutes from Poros to the mainland of the Peleponnesus.  Peter got a great photo right from the window of our sweet, airy room:

Poros window...early morning light

We bid farewell to Poros wishing we had more time to enjoy its charms:

Poros from the ferry

The biking, while strenuous, was very rewarding - as we rode along the coastline and climbed, the views were spectacular:

Paradise, at least scenically speaking

We rode, over "rolling" (read flat to STEEP) terrain to the 20K mark where we stopped for coffee and juice at a very rural, peaceful general store in a tiny village:

June(obscured left), Jeff, Linda, Jeff, Zia and guide Patricia just hanging out

The goal for the day was to reach the Theater of Epidaurus - an amazingly intact Greek theater from approxiamtely 400 BC.  We arrived there about 2 PM and greatly enjoying touring the ruins, musuem and theater. The site was actually best know in ancient times as a "health spa" where the sick,lame and halt (and I think we all qualified under lame at that point) came for "the water cure".  It soon became the cradle of all Greek medicine and much of what was practiced there still holds true today (read - diet and exercise!).

Views to enjoy:

Spectacular view of the theater from the "cheap seats" top row-

And you absolutely can hear everything on the stage from here

June in the cheap seats - 100 steps up!

The intrepid tourers enjoy the view-

Peter (in red), Nancy and Bill

Detail of the seating, including the premium seats

(far left - they have backs!)

We are now enjoying a relaxing sit on the veranda of our hotel, just 2K outside of the theater site.  Beer tastes VERY good.  Total for the day - 61K with about 3,500 feet of climbing.  Our legs are tired, to say the least!  Toto, we're not in Minnesota anymore...we will see what tomorrow brings, but for right now it's off to dinner and everyone is starving!  Until later....





 





A Day on the Acropolis - and the Bike Tour Begins!

Note to self - do NOT take a day off of blogging again!  So much has happened since Monday morning that my head is swimming just trying to review the action.  Thank goodness for photographs to keep it all straight.

Monday morning Peter and I set the alarm for 7:00 AM and after breakfast we set off for the Acropolis - it opens at 8 AM and our Rick Steves Athens guidebook (worth its weight in gold) recommended entering the site either early or after 4 PM - otherwise, at around 10 AM, the tour buses disgorge an incredible number of people all heading as a group to the entry gate.  The wait to enter can be as long as 45 minutes at the peak time.  But as we approached the ticket window at 8:10 AM we thought it was not yet open - nary a soul was there!  We bought our passes and climbed up the hill and steps to the incredible entry, called the Propylaea - this is what it looks like from below, when the hoardes had ascended and we had descended:

Note the scale of the people!!! Only thing missing is the togas.

We spent almost 2 hours wandering around the ancient site - it is overwhelming.  Those of you who had the chance to study some Greek history might recognize the the Erechtheum and the Caryatids' balcony (aka women with a building on their heads):

Note the Athenian city sprawl in the background...

Here are some views "up close" of the amazing monuments:

Detail of the Erechtheum

East Pediment of the Parthenon - detail (great zoom Peter!)

SE corner of the Parthenon

You just cannot appreciate just how MONUMENTAL this monument really is until you are there standing in front of it.  Takes your breath away.

We spent the rest of the morning into the afternoon touring around the various sites associated with the Acropolis.  We greatly enjoyed visiting the Ancient Agora (market) site just northwest of the Acropolis.  There we ran into our touring buddies Nancy and Bill, who were sketching and enjoying the wonderful statuary that line the reproduction of the Stoa of Attalos, built in the 1950's and housing a small museum of site artifacts:

Nancy, June and Bill - travel buddies

There was a wonderful restored temple on the site, the Temple of Hephaestus.  However, we were floored by the signs of seismic activity which is a constant threat to restorations and ruins alike:

Ouch!

We decided we were getting hot and tired so it was time to find food and rest - which was such fun, as we wandered right into the old market area of Athens called the Plaka - a feast for the senses!

Shop til' you drop

After finding some wonderful junk snack (think giant donuts) we visited the Roman Agora, Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus and the Odeon of Pericles (aka Yanni's Theater due to his PBS concert special...)!  The walk through the old neighborhoods directly below the east end of the Acropolis were enchanting:

Charm beyond belief

We rested briefly before our 6:30 PM bike tour kickoff meeting, then as a group we went off to have an absolutely lovely and delicious dinner of savoy soup, salads, fried zucchini, potatoes, lamb, chicken and the most amazing baklava I've ever eaten.  Got to get on that bike!

Tuesday - let the tour begin!

We started our last morning in Athens by meeting our guide Patricia in the lobby - we hiked up to a wonderful and underutilized park called Lycavittos Hill.  The views were spectacular and it was a great farewell to a fascinating city:

Peter takes in the sprawl of Athens to the south and west

The hill also has one of the best views of the Acropolis site as it is actually higher:

Amazing view - including the Odeon below the Acropolis walls

Peter got in another nice sketching session while I prowled around the market before our 12 noon departure for the ferry (Flying Dolphin), heading for Poros where we would be fitting our bikes and taking our first ride:

Hydrofoil boat - 1 hour to Poros

By the time we got into our rooms, had our meeting to review the bike safety rules of the Experience Plus! tour guides (always a good thing) and got fitted to our bikes, it was 4 PM when we set out on our first ride - a short but very hilly 16K loop of the island.  The views were spectacular and a preview of the beauty to come:

We're not in Minnesota any more!

Rick, Jeff, June and Linda look at the spectacular scene

The Pines of Poros - like a Thomas Hart Benton painting!

Got back at 5:30 PM, cleaned up and started the blog - but dinner called and now it is WAY past my bedtime with a big climbing day tomorrow - only 37 miles but lots of "terrain" - yippee, I can burn some stored calories!  I will report in (hopefully) either tomorrow or Thursday with our further adventures - thanks for following along...







A Day of Total Travel - and a Day of Ancient Greece

Saturday (10/2) was a blur of multi-modal travel. We left our beloved Paris hotel at 9:15 AM and walked the short distance to the RER to return to CDG airport, but....MON DIEUX! No direct service to CDG on 10/2 and 10/3 due to construction, yikes!  But we survived the detour (and got a bus ride to boot) and made it to the gate with a goodly 45 minutes of waiting time before our 12:35 PM flight to Athens.   Kudos to Air France, they were on time and we even got fed on the plane!  Funny how even mediocre food is a treat now that most U.S.airlines don't even give you peanuts.

The X95 express bus took us to Athens city center through some very uninspired landscapes - think West L.A. - but we arrived at Syntagma Square in about an hour's time and grabbed a taxi for the last few blocks to the hotel.  The Hotel Philipos is a stone's throw from the Acropolis and and new Acropolis Museum - great location and nice spot.

Best of all we did a perfect rendezvous with our friends Bill and Nancy Hull from Santa Barbara, CA, who have been on 2 other European bike adventures with us - the first was in Northern Spain in 2002 followed by Provence in 2007.  They had been up for about 24 hours but rallied enough to join us for dinner.  All in all, from hotel in Paris to hotel in Athens it was about 9 hours of transit.  There goes Saturday!

In deference to our jet-lagged friends we started Sunday morning at 10 AM with a subway ride to the National Museum of Greece - and what luck!  It is the first Sunday of the month so all national facilities are free!  So we spent a lovely morning looking at the amazing antiquities of Mycenae (1600-1100 BC) onwards.  Some of the artifacts dated back to Greek "pre-history", meaning 6800 BC!  Puts your time on earth in perspective to look at a fossilized fig from +/- 6000 BC.

A glimpse at some notable bronzes housed at the National Museum:

149 BC

400 BC



As we are gluttons for museum punishment, and because we feared the new Acropolis Museum might not be open again during our short stay, we decided to tour this amazing facility (http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/). It houses all the decorative elements of the Parthenon and surrounding temples still found at the Acropolis - not to mention leaving space for the Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles that they have requested be returned by the British, currently housed at the British Museum. It is a fantastic facility with amazing views of the Acropolis itself - here is a close-up of the small "entry temple" from the window of the Acropolis Museum:

 Temple of Athena Nike

Tomorrow (Monday) we will tour the entire Acropolis site, and imagine that will eat up the entirety of the day.  In the evening, our biking tour begins with an introductory meeting and dinner at the hotel, and Tuesday at noon we will leave on a ferry for our first destination of the bike segment - the island of Poros.  Hoping to post again Tuesday night having actually biked!!!

Au Revoir to Paris - On to Biking in Greece

We had a full but mellow day, our last full day before heading to CDG-Paris airport tomorrow morning for our flight to Athens.  We actually slept in, which is highly unusual for us!  After breakfast we strolled to the Orangerie, which sits west of the Louvre at the far corner of the Tuileries Garden.

The Orangerie is best know for its Monet installation - eight panels of epic proportions of the Nympheas (Water Lillies), housed in two oval galleries as "surround" murals. They took Monet 7 years to complete, and he did not live to see them installed in the Orangerie.  What a bummer.

(This panel is 2 meters high!)

Truth be told, we were most excited about the galleries of post-impressionist painters, particularly the artist Modigliani, Peter's favorite.  Peter particularly loved this portrait:



Inspired by the greats, Peter decided to take an "art break" and we enjoyed some repose at the east end of the Tuilleries.  Nothing like taking on the Louvre as a sketching subject:

He did a sweet job.

After having my last banana-nutella crepe for lunch (don't gag, they are SO good), we returned to the hotel briefly to enjoy a quick Skype session with Wendell and friends at Dunn Bros. coffee in St. Paul - enjoyed the wonders of Wi-fi and the Internet, saw familiar faces and spaces and felt the warmth of connecting with home! Technology is incredible.

Our last museum was the Cluny - full of wondrous treasures of the Middle Ages, including the famed Unicorn Tapestries.  The museum is actually an old monastery that was built upon the ruins of the Roman Baths that survived through the centuries - amazing place:

(That's me on the right doing a feeble monk imitation at the well)

We closed the place down at 5:45 PM and went back to the hotel for a bit of R & R before dinner...and what a great meal!  The hotel serves wonderful food - Peter had lamb and I had salmon, with wonderful salads and apple tartine for dessert.  I'm approching blimp stage!

So, tomorrow we wing to Athens just in time to save me from eating oblivion - bring on the biking and the Mediterranean diet!  The blog will likely go on short hiatus until Sunday evening - we plan on touring the Parthenon Sunday and the tour group meets for dinner Monday evening - Tuesday we are on the bikes!!!!  Thanks for reading....