More of Greece

FG has gone off to Birmingham for a miniature gamesday, to play with all the other geeks and to have several of his books signed...and I am at home, lazing about, planning some serious writing and various other boring things like catching up on some dvd's and reading.

I am also looking at which of our pics we took on our recent holiday I should copy across to CD so we can go have them printed off to carry on our giant collage. And here are some of them.

Parthenon at night.

Temple of Poseidon - Cape Sounion

Stunning bronze statue recovered from an ancient shipwreck. It is assumed that it represents Paris, holding out the apple of strive, to the three goddesses, which of course, was the cause (or the popular legend alludes to it being the cause) of the start of the war of Troy.

Shattered war helm from the museum.

Incredibly long, winding, mountaineous road to Sparta. The scenic route. Please note the miniscule monastery built on the side of the mountain - naturally, it is much bigger in real life, this is merely and indication of the size of these mountains.

One of the many shrines we saw on our travels - these are kept up by the local community, with either a figure or picture representation of a saint which they feel closest to. And most of them are roadside shrines.

The deserted city of Mistra - outside of Sparta. Beautiful and remote and exceedingly eerie. Because of the high threat of fires in the region, they had closed down the site, so we couldn't actually go wander around there. We did however have superb cameras and got some excellent shots.

So, instead of being able to see Mistra, we went toAncient Sparta instead - this rather camp statue of the Spartan King Leonidas stands a few hundred metres from the entrance to the ancient city. According to the concierge at our hotel, not many tourists visit Sparta. But a lot of Greek fathers bring their sons out for the day to walk around the ancient city and pay respects to Leonidas - to them, he still represents the way to deport yourself in the face of adversity. We thought was incredibly cool.

Theatre in Ancient Sparta.

On Zakynthos. The blue caves. I didn't actually believe water could be this colour...but it is. Amazing, or what?

Please vote for me!

A few weeks, maybe a month ago, I entered an online blog competition.

"Write a diary entry in order to win a book" etc. etc.

So I polished up an entry I had created for a young character called Summer Crowe. And I posted it onto the website in question.

This is the link to it:

Finding Adam


Please go read it and vote for it! I think all you need to do is sign in as a blogger or a visitor and vote.

Thank you!

Athens - The First Day

The Olympic stadium built in the 18th Century when the Games were reinstated.

Theatre of Dionysis at the foot of the Acropolis.

Statue of diskus thrower outside the site of the Olympic stadium.

Walking through a small section of Athens on our walking tour.

Rather large burly Greek lads in hobnailed shoes with big guns. These guys are all over six foot tall and the one chap was tall enough to make FG look small. It is one of the prerequisites to be in the Guard. They guard the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Houses of parliament. We were lucky enough to see the changing of the Guard.

FG and smee infront of the impressive columns to the Temple of Zeus in Athens.

Lone man playing music outside of the temple.

Arty shot of the Parthenon.

Moon over the Acropolis.

We were amazed by a few things regarding Athens - how clean it was, compared to London, how easily navigational it was, both to walk and take the Metro. We were extremely fortunate in that the wind was blowing so we had some good clear blue skies.

The visit to the Acropolis and seeing the Parthenon was stonking - it was both what I expected and not. It was bigger than I could have imagined - possitively huge and beautiful but the scaffolding detracted from it quite a lot. Also the fact that you couldn't go near it. Unlike in Egypt where you could clamber in and around and on things. Scary locals with whistles warned you to shrilly "Do not touch" "Stand back". And boy, was it hot. The glare from the stone all around was mesmerising. I made me dizzy and I had to go sit in the shade and drink around 2 litres of water just to find myself again. It's never happened, not even in Egypt - but was we loved was the fact that the fountains you drank from on the Acropolis is pure spring water. Which made the site such a fantastic fortress.

Our guide for the first day, Geoff was a lovely, intelligent ancient history scholar and very passionate about his studies, the sites and his knowledge was vast and he held forth eloquently and we look forward to meeting him here in London when he gets here for a brief visit.

We strolled around ancient sites, had lunch in a taverna, went back to our hotel and freshened up before taking the metro again and walking all around the Acropolis again, at night. We had dinner at the foot of it and that is where we took the picture of the moon rising. Needless to say both FG and I have fallen into smitteness with Athens. I mentioned this before, I think. We went back to the hotel at around midnight and couldn't stop smiling for the sheer thrill of being in this ancient city.

Athens

FG and I are whiling away the last hour of our afternoon in Athens at our hotel - pic above - before taking the train to the airport.

We've come to fall in love with Athens, the tiny side streets, the people, the markets, bazaars and flea markets. But most of all, with the tavernas and coffee shops. You get served your drink and you can sit there, the entire afternoon, shooting the breeze, sipping your drink, ordering another one as the world whirrs past.

Let me assure you - it is NOT just the tourists doing this. It is probably more the locals than tourists taking the lazy way. Oh, and did I mention the tiny bakeries that seem to be everywhere serving baklava and tiny ice cream cones and mouthwatering fruit pastries and croissants. It is another world, yet very close to home.

Our entire holiday has been an experience, but more on that one later.

We should be home tomorrow, Friday, and after picking up the pup from the kennels, we will be able to download our 600 odd photos to make some sense out of them, before posting them on here and downloading them onto disk to print off.

Yai Su!