Greece

Hey blog fans. It is been a while we know. We've been busy ya know. Lots to say so lets get started.

We left Rome for Sorrento, Italy. Sorrento is sort of like the Banff of Alberta - really touristy, but beautiful. Sorrento was our base for exploring the area.

Our first stop was Pompeii. Pompeii is (or was) an ancient city from more than 2000 years ago. The nearby volcano named Versuvius (no idea how to spell that) erupted in 64AD and covered the entire town in between 2 and 5 meters of volcanic ash. In the 1740s excavations began to uncover the town. Excavations have continued non-stop ever since. What we have been left with is one of the best preserved Roman cities in the world. We toured the excavated part of town - saw many houses, bakeries, temples, stores, and even fast-food joints. The town has two theatres, a few sports arenas, and a stadium. One of the highlights of the visits were the castings of real human bodies. People were caught off-gaurd by the volcano errupting and were thus burried alive. Their bodies decomposed in the ash leaving 'holes' where the bodies were. When excavations take place, the 'holes' are filled with plaster and allowed to dry, then when the ash is dug up, a perfect cast of the bodies is left behind. Some of the casts are haunting: you can see facial expressions and even the folds of the peoples clothes.

From Sorrento, we also took a cruise to the island of Capri and along the Almafi coastline. Highlights here included jumping off the top of our cruise ship into the emerald green and blue water on the coast of Capri. We sat in the sun on the top of the boat while the Almafi coastline went by, spent the afternoon in the town of Almafi. We took another boat to the Green Grotto. This is a dark cave full of water, but the light from an underwater passage illuminates the cave. Pretty cool, but maybe not worth the money it took to get there.

We made our way to Bari to catch a ferry to Greece. Our ferry ride was only 20Euro each, but that meant that all we had was a plastic lawn chair and a piece of floor for the 16 hour, overnight ferry. So we slept on the floor, with our bags as pillows. Arrived in Patras, Greece and caught a train to Athens.

Athens was fun - things are cheaper there. We saw the famous Parthenon and other Greek and Roman ruins. We climbed a few hills, took alot of pictures and took it easy. I went to the Greek Musical Instrument Museum while Greg took care of laundry!! Actually, we paid some guy to do it for us.

You may or may not have heard that there has been a heat wave in Greece. It is true. It has been around 44 degrees celcius. One day in Athens everything was closed due to heat. Heat waves are hot. It is like putting your face over the oven door when you open it. Normally wind cools you off, but this wind burned your skin. It was hot. But we are alive. Luckily we had AC in our Room in Athens.

Next Greek stop: Kalambaka/Metora. This is the home of the famous hill-top monastaries. There are 21, gravity defying monastaries perched on the tops of cliffs. They were built starting in the 11C, and 6 are still in use today. We toured Grand Metora Monastary. The highlight other than the incredible views was surely the ossuary. This is the room where the skulls of previous monks are kept on shelves. We did alot of climbing and hiking in the area, took a poop-load of pictures and got really hot and sweaty. The sight of monastaries on the tops of cliffs is quite nifty.

We are now in Thesenolika, Greece and we are departing tonight for Bucaresti, Romania. It is a 19 hour train trip through Bulgaria. Should be interesting.

Sorry no pics this time - this computer isn't cooperating, and the majority of our pics are in a locker at the train station anyways. Until Romania, that is the koop-scoop!!!