The Vatican and Borghese Gallery

This day was probably our busiest day, as far as trying to get from place to place.

To enter the Vatican museum and see the Sistine Chapel you have to make a reservation, and as we weren't too sure how long travel would take, how long lines would be, or how much time we would need, it made things a little rushed.

We made a reservation at the Vatican for 10:30, and arrived on time, but we didn't know if that reservation was for the Vatican Museum or for St. Peter's Basilica, so we just lined up to see St. Peter's and hoped that was what our reservation was for.  We waited in line maybe 30 minutes to get into the Basilica, only to find out the reservation was not for the Basilica, but for the museum.  However, after waiting in line we decided to go into the church and hope that our tickets to the Vatican would still be valid even if we weren't there on time.

The Basilica was amazing! The sheer size is impressive, but all the statues, mosaics, and decorations make it awe inspiring. It is the largest church in the world, two football fields long and the dome is 448' high.

We decided to also go up to the top of the dome. Lindsay doesn't remember having to pay to go up ten years ago, but it now costs 7 euro per person. It was very crowded at the top, but the view of Rome was great.

From here we made our way to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, which they let us in to even though we were technically 2 hours late; however, as we had also made reservations for the Borghese Gallery at 3pm, we only had 1 hour to make our way through this massive building and see the sites (not to mention listen to our Rick Steves tour on the Sistine Chapel!)

After quickly going through the Museum we hopped back on the Metro towards the Gallery, and eventually arrived there, checked our bags, and purchased an audio tour.  The Gallery was neat; it was a collection of art from one family, the Borghese family, that was eventually purchased by the Country of Italy so it would stay in Italy.  The patriarch, Borghese himself, was a cardinal for the Pope, and was very rich and very manipulative, doing almost anything to acquire pieces he wanted.

When we finished around 5pm we went back to the B&B to relax, rest our feet, and get ready to head our for a late dinner.  We had dinner at a place that was highly recommended on TripAdvisor, but unfortunately our experience there was not so great.  After being relocated from our original table to one at the back near the bathrooms, we had some chewy calamari, and then waited 30 minutes for our carbonara to arrive.  That was really good, actually, but then after waiting another hour for our mediocre meatballs to come, the memory of the food we had just had was long gone.  They did apologize for the wait (as one of the cooks went home sick, mid-service, and did bring us a free dessert, but it was late, we were tired, and did not expect our dinner to become a 2-hour affair.

We made it back to the B&B around 12:30 and quickly slipped into bed, trying to rest before another day of adventures.

Our First Full Day in Rome

We started our first full day in Rome off with a bang and were some of the first in line to see the Colosseum.

What an amazing structure with an amazing history!  It would have really been something to be part of the some 50,000 Roman citizens sitting there watching themselves kill each other and exotic animals!  ...well, maybe not the killing part, but wow - to see something like that in its prime would have been amazing!

When we left the Colosseum around 10, it was already hot and well on its way to being another 36 degree day, so Lindsay bought a tourist parasol, as she had already broken her second set of sunglasses, and "needed shade from the sun".

We used that parasol, however, right away as we moved next door to the Colosseum to Roman Forum, an ancient Roman meeting place and market and place of business (the main city centre).  We purchased a "Roma Pass" when we arrived at the train station the day before, which gave us free transportation for 3 days, and free entrance into two of Rome's museums or archaeological sites (which we planned on using for the Colosseum/Roman Forum and the Bourghese Gallery).

The Roman Forum is a large site with a lot of neat history, including temples, ruins, The Arch of Titus, and the place of Julius Caesar's assassination and cremation.  Again, we had Rick Steves to lead us through it, and saved us lots of money as we didn't feel as though we needed to pay for other tour guides...oh yes, once again, Lindsay wants to remind everyone how hot it was...

From the Roman Forum we wanted to go to a pizza lunch in Trastevere, which is just across the Tiber river, at one of the highest-rated places in all of Rome.  After wandering around, we eventually found "Ghiottoni!!" and sat down for a quick pizza lunch, which was really good.

As we were already in Trastevere, and Rick Steves had an audio tour for it, we decided we better do it!  It was in the heat of the day, around 3pm, so after finishing the tour, which lead us through many neat old buildings, condos, cobblestone streets, and buildings with greenery growing all over them, we made our way back to the B&B to relax and sleep until dinner time.

For dinner, again, we went with a TripAdvisor recommendation, of "La Fata Ignorante", which we had to catch a metro to, as it was a ways away from where we were staying.  The food, once again, was very good.  We each had an appy, a pasta, and a dessert, and it was very nice, although we did have to sit outside as we didn't have reservations, which is normally fine, but in this area of town there were lots of mosquitoes, or something at least that was biting us.

The next day we planned on going to the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica, so we were back in bed around 11pm.

Welcome to Rome!

Our first day in Rome was packed!

We left our hotel in Mykonos at 8:30am, and caught a 2 hour flight that landed in Rome at 11:30am, Rome time.  After a train and metro ride we eventually ended up 400m from our B&B, just a 10 minute walk from the Colosseum (you can actually see the Colosseum from the front door).

Andrea, a boy Andrea, met us and introduced himself as our host.  We got settled, rested for a bit, as it was the heat of the day, and decided a plan for the late afternoon/evening.

We decided to walk down to the Colosseum, and on our way we picked up some decent pizza and Coke, and cooled off a bit, as it was around 36 degrees.  From here, we followed our map towards through some of the neat streets and touristy areas, taking pictures of some of the fascinating architecture and neat old buildings (these buildings are the things about Rome that I appreciate the most).

We eventually end up near the Pantheon (shown in the 2 photos above) and explored the piazza around it, and the inside of it.  Thankfully, Rick Steves, our ever-faithful audio-tour-guide had a tour on the Pantheon, so we were able to understand it more and appreciate it better.

It is a really neat building as it has a large hole in the top of the dome, which is the only source of light.  Obviously then, when it rains, it gets wet inside, but the floor has been sloped to the edges, and also has holes for drainage.  This building is also the best preserved ancient Roman building as it has always been in use, first, as a temple to "all gods", ("pan" meaning all, and "theos" meaning gods) and then it was converted to a church as a basilica.  It has the remains of Raphael in it and other important Romans, so very cool.

From here we made a quick 10 minute walk to Piazza Novona, which is the biggest and most famous piazza (or square or meeting place) in Rome.  There are probably hundreds of street performers, artists, vendors, and restaurants clamoring around trying to entice you into the most touristy of artwork, food, and entertainment, but it is wonderful!  Lindsay is very interested in having a charictature portrait done of the two of us as she wants to know which prominent facial features of mine they will accentuate...I have not been persuaded yet as I know my facial flaws already :)

We then walked around a bit more, exploring, and then found a mediocre restaurant to eat at (we ate their mostly because it was cheap and included wine for Lindsay) and then walked to the Trevi Fountain.  We then walked around a bit more, and slowly made our way back to our hotel for the evening.

We also came across a very talented street performer, who played the trumpet, so Mark, this video is for you!

Mykonos

 With our time in Paros done, we left for Mykonos the next day, and Mykonos has been wonderful. We weren't to sure what to expect. We heard it was a party island and very crowded, and although it is both of those, we are loving it. The town core is gorgeous. There are so many wonderful alleyways to get lost down.

There is also a portion of the town called "Little Venice", which has buildings that are right on the edge of the ocean. Mike is off trying to take a night time shot of it right now, which is why I am writing the blog post instead.

Anyways, our first day on Mykonos was July 28th. We arrived around 1pm. The owners of our hotel came to pick us up and brought us back to the hotel and our room, which is beautiful...which it should be at 99 euro a night (it was hard for us to find a place at this time of year for any less). The doors are yellow and blue and so cutesy.

After we arrived we showered off and then went for a walk around town. We ate at a tavern called Nikos, which our hotel recommended. The restaurant was beautiful. I decided to try a traditional Mykonian appy that kind of sounded like bruschetta, but had cheese (apparently the Mykonains are known for their cheeses). Unfortunately we were not prepared for the strong cheese. It was sorta like a blue cheese, but so much stronger. It almost felt like it was burning your mouth.

Mike is back now. He wants to take over because I'm too slow.

We then spent the rest of the day just wandering around Mykonos Town, and then went back to our hotel to watch the sunset with a bottle of wine (Mike had water), and then went to bed as we had planned a beach day for our only full day in Mykonos.

We woke up earlier than normal (around 7:30) and pulled together our stuff for the day.  After a quick FaceTime call with Heather, we left the hotel and made our way to the city centre for breakfast and to rent an ATV (no more hot, overcrowded buses!)

We decided that since we had the quad we could go to a few beaches, so we checked TripAdvisor and chose to go to the top 3 beaches, Panormos, Agios Stefanos, and Agios Sostis.  Each of the beaches were nice in their own way, and we enjoyed them all.  Lindsay wants me to mention that every time I go to fast, or don't "slow down for the corners" quick enough I get poked in the ribs...somehow this doesn't seem to be a wise decision...you know...distracting and harming the driver of the vehicle...

The first beach, Agios Stefanos, was a "natural" (not nudist...although there were some...) that has no amenities (no umbrellas, showers, restaurants, etc.)  We stayed here for maybe an hour and half, until 11:30.

The second beach, Panormos, was much more populated, as the first beach we had almost to ourselves.  This beach was very nice, however, as the swimming seemed a bit better, and it had less nudists.  It also had some cool rocks to take pictures on, that were in the water, but gently broke the surf as it came in.

The third beach we got to around 2pm, after stopping at our hotel on the way there to cool down for 30 minutes.  Here we rented beach chairs and an umbrella, although at 12 euros, this was the most we have had to pay for them anywhere in Greece.

We left around 6:45, and then went back to the hotel to shower, change, and drop the ATV off at the rental place.  We then made our way into the town to take some pictures, eat, and wander the streets a bit and see what the night is like in Mykonos.

Tomorrow we will be out the door around 8:30, on our way to the airport, and on our way to Rome!  We have loved Greece and will hopefully return one day.

Days 14 - 16 - Paros

When you spend 3 days on the beach it makes sense to just group everything together or else you would have 3 almost identical blog posts.

We left Santorini around noon on day 14 (July 25), and arrived in Parikia, on the island of Paros, around 2:30.  We went to our hotel, which was only 400m from the port, settled in, and grabbed our swimsuits to head to the beach across the road.  The beach was fine, with decent sand, but a very rocky shoreline, so we decided that the next few days we would go to other beaches on the island with not as much rock.

That night we went out for dinner at a restaurant on the beach, and enjoyed a good meal of rabbit stew and a mixed appy plate.  Lindsay didn't like the rabbit, but Mike thought it was nice (having never had it before and not knowing if it was cooked properly or not).

The next day we rented a scooter and took the 60km trip around the island, stopping at 2 different beaches, Santa Maria, and Golden Beach.  Most of the day we spent at Santa Maria, which is more of a clubbing beach, complete with pumping music, which we determined we were too old for.

It was a very busy beach, with hundreds of people on it.  This must be one of the top beaches on the island based on the amount of people there.  The sand was nice, and the waves relatively calm, so at least we enjoyed the 4-5 hours we spent there.

On our way back to the hotel we then stopped at Golden Beach for the sunset, walked in the rolling waves, and talked to one of the windsurfing shops to find out about lessons and the cost, as we determined we would come back to Golden Beach the next day.  We then made the 20 minute scooter ride back to the hotel, had a cheap meal of hamburgers at a local restaurant, and went to bed.

On our last full day in Paros we caught the 11:40 bus to Golden Beach, as we missed the 10:30 bus writing our blog post :)

The bus ride was horrible...they took the long route to Golden Beach, which was about an hour, and it was in a VERY full (standing room only) hot bus, without working Air Conditioning.  By the time we arrived at Golden Beach, Mike was feeling awful, so he had 2 Gravol, we ate lunch, and then found some beach chairs to sleep in.  The restaurant that we went to for lunch was actually part of a resort, and as we were finishing lunch we noticed that there were beach chairs on their nicely manicured lawn, so we quietly slipped over to them, plopped our stuff down, and pretended that we were guests of the hotel :)

Honestly, these were the best beach chairs we have found.  They were well built of wood, with well made cushions, and having grass below you instead of sand was fantastic.  It was much cooler, and to add to that, we found some in the shade of one of those large pineapple trees; it was awesome!  We stayed here for the day, and after a few games of Ticket to Ride Europe on the iPad, Lindsay talked Mike into paying for windsurfing lessons together.

Windsurfing was a lot of fun, but hard to learn and get used to.  We do think that if we had more time and practice, we might be able to get the hang of it, but in the short hour we had to learn we did OK and there are promises of an exciting career in windsurfing.  We wanted to get photos, but unfortunately as we were both out at the same time we were unable to :(

For the bus ride home it was much nicer - we were sitting closer to the front of the bus, had a bus with higher backs to rest our heads, with working AC, and as it was later in the day it was not as hot.  Mike also got drugged up before we left so he slept most of the way back to Parikia.

We had a later dinner, around 9pm, and then went back to the hotel to watch Bruce Willis in "The Kid", and went to bed.

Another Long Hike - Santorini, Part 3

We started our day a bit later than we originally planned, but after sleeping in a bit, finding breakfast, and preparing for a 3 hour hike, we got going around 11:30am.

The hike started with us at Fira (which is where we went to get breakfast), and took us around to Oia, which is at the most North-Western point of the Island, about 11kms.  We followed this "walking path", which really isn't much of a path, but more of trail.  It took us along the Caldera side of the Island, past many of the resorts and hotels with a Caldera View, and into Oia.

The trail was very hot.  We went in the hottest part of the day, and there was no shade.  Although there was a breeze, it wasn't a very cold breeze, as the hot volcanic rock we were hiking on heated it up before it ever touched our bodies.  At 2 points along the trail we came to small churches where we were able to find a bit of shade from the building, and took the time to relieve our backs of the packs we were carrying and air out our armpits.

Around 2:30 we arrived in Oia, and took the chance to eat some lunch, walk the streets, and explore some neat shops like Atlantis Books, which is famous for its decor, witty writings on the wall, and having a great selection of books.

We stayed only until about 5pm, as Oia doesn't have much in the way of "shady places" to cool down, and caught the bus back to Ferostephi, our hotel, and a chance to quickly cool down and shower before going to an outdoor movie in Kamari.

We caught the 8:15pm bus to Kamari, and as the bus was very full, we had to stand in different parts of it, separated.  Well, what happened was Mike got off the bus at the correct stop, and as Lindsay was a few people behind she didn't see him get off the bus, and stayed on.  She had assumed that he wouldn't get off the bus without her, and he (I) assumed she would have heard the guy yell out "Cinema", twice, notice that a dozen other people got off, and have seen him standing on the sidewalk looking into the bus motioning for her to get off.  In any case, the bus took off, Mike tried to follow it to the next stop, and as he forgot to start in his fast position, he wasn't able to catch the bus, so he went to a nearby hotel and asked where the return bus stop was, and waited there.

Lindsay, on the other hand, got to the end of the line and realized that Mike had already gotten off.  With no money and no phone, and not knowing Mike's Greece cell phone number, she had to charm her way back on to the bus.  The guy collecting fares let her come back on, and thankfully, for Mike, it stopped at the point he was waiting at...however...this was wasn't the stop Lindsay got out on; she stayed on the bus, and Mike didn't know if she was actually on the bus, or if she had gotten off at the end of the line and was now walking to the Theatre.

Anyways, to make a long story short, Mike was given the wrong directions to the theatre by a local, walked a few extra kms, asked another person, got the right directions, and met up with Lindsay at the theatre 45 minutes later.  Thankfully, Lindsay had been dropped out RIGHT outside the theatre and was waiting there for Mike.

The movie playing was Mamma Mia, which Lindsay loved.  It was a really neat theatre, with a big screen, a bar, and stadium seating in nice outdoor chairs.  We grabbed a couple drinks to help relax, Lindsay grabbed a hotdog, and we settled in.  After the movie we caught the bus - together - back to Fira, walked to our hotel, and were in bed by 12:30am.

Day 12 - Santorini, Part 2

As opposed to sitting around the pool or beach, the next 2 days in Santorini we took to exploring the island (truth be told, part of the reason is that we had to switch hotels, and the new hotel we stayed at did not have a Caldera view).

On the first day of adventure it took a while for us to wake up, eat breakfast, check out of hotel 1, and check into hotel 2, so we didn't get going until about 1pm. The first thing we did was try to go to one of the museums in Fira, but as it was a Tuesday, it was closed (who knows why they close on Tuesday...)

From here, we hopped on a bus and went to Akrotiri, which is an ancient Minoan Archeaological site. Akrotiri dates back to 1600BC, but even a bit further than that, because it was actually built on top of other Minoan ruins, spanning back even further, as there were 2 earthquakes that decimated the settlement twice previously. The site, thankfully, was under cover, so we were sheltered from the sun. That being said, it was VERY stale, hot air in there, so after an hour and nearly passing out, we left.  We probably would have stayed longer if we were able to get a tour, but the unmotivated tour guides were not able to gather up enough people to make it worth their while, so we were left to the poor signage to guide us.

We went back to Fira, taking pictures throughout the city. For dinner we stopped at an Asian place and had some noodles, and then went back to the hotel and watched a movie and prepared for our long hike the next day.