Greece and Italy Trip - March 20-31 2008

Apologies to all that the blog hasn't been updated in a while. Chuck's been good at updating it for our first year of our assignment so I guess I better start pitching in a little.

Our first big trip for 2008 was 11 days in Greece and Italy. This was our first trip to Greece and our 3rd trip to Italy. I know -- what a hard life!! Our friend Jim from Binghamton joined us on this trip. The first day was a whole lot of fun trying to meet up at Athens airport. As is typical for the Europeans -- a strike was being held our day of arrival in Athens. And as luck would have it the air traffic controllers decided to be part of the strike. So our flight from London was delayed about 4hrs, but our friend Jim was supposed to get in to Athens at 4pm didn't end up getting in until midnight. Poor guy -- and that's after taking the red eye from the US.

Below is a picture of me and Jim at the Parthenon. You can't go to Athens without seeing the Parthenon!! In the usual fashion it was all covered in scaffolding - just like many of the other historic buildings we see on these trips.


One thing I remember about Athens -- is that right around the major tourist attractions was very nice, but the neighborhoods quickly turned ugly within maybe a mile or two radius. Eating was very frustrating as well. We couldn't even look at a menu without the owner or whoever hounding us to come in. But I'm sure it's just their culture.

Our first two days in Athens we hung out at the major tourist attractions in the heart of the city. On the third day we took a day cruise to three islands off the coast of Athens. Because I waited so long to post -- I only remember that one of the islands' name was Hydra. Here's a picture from that day.
The three of us enjoyed the Greek Islands the most (more than Athens). If I were to return to Greece the islands are where I'd go.

After three days and a half days in Greece we shuffled over to Italy on EasyJet. We flew in to Milan in the early evening. It was Easter Sunday so everything was pretty much closed. Milan looked pretty dumpy anyway so I'm glad we only stayed there over night.

From Milan we took Trenitalia over to Venice. The train ride was interesting - there was this Italian grandmother and grandson sitting next to me. She kept looking over my shoulder as I was going through Venice information on my laptop that I had downloaded. She kept translating for her grandson. Again -- I attribute it to a cultural difference. For the amount of times we were to Venice we actually did manage to do some new things that we hadn't done on our first two trips. This time we climbed to the top of St. Marks Basillica -- not a high climb -- but again something we didn't do before. We also went into Doges palace. Doges palace was essentially the seat of the governnment in Venice in the early days. Very interesting tour through it -- was glad we did it.
From Venice we made our way to Florence -- my favorite of all the Italian cities. Again we did the usual stuff in Florence -- the Duomo (Chuck and Jim climbed to the top), The David, Piazza di Signorina. We managed to do the Uffizi gallery this time. We had done the Uffizi on our first tour of Italy but not last summer when we went. And of course we climbed to the top of the hill overlooking the city (Piazza di Michaelangelo) for one of the greatest views of Florence.


This Italy trip we also managed to do a quick 1/2 day side trip to Pisa. Again - we saw Pisa on our first trip to Italy but not our second. Chuck wanted to climb to the top of the leaning tower but you needed reservations ahead of time and the time they had available was just too late in the day. We only planned to stay late morning to early afternoon so it wouldn't have been worth it. Plus they ripped you off on the price they charged to get to the top. We did manage to into the cathedral and baptistry this time on our trip to Pisa. Last time we just saw the outside sites and didn't bother to go in.


After Florence we travelled to Rome for our last stop of the trip. Our first full day in Rome was all about the Vatican. Learning from our last trip to Italy we decided to join a tour of the Vatican since as usual the line stretched for a good 1/4-1/2 a mile. We paid around $60 per person for the tour. Chuck got his wish of climbing to the top of the Basillica. It was a great tour -- lasted 4 hours and learned a great deal about the Vatican. Our last day we spent touring ancient Rome -- the colleseum (of course), the forum, and the circus maximus.