Can't help getting on the net and posting new stuff for the blog. Lei, Johnno and I have all been spending lots of time on internet lately - trying to organise accommodation, do up job applications, and find out about sites in the areas we're travelling between.

We arrived last night in Thessaloniki and found a very dodgy room with a leaky toilet, leaky water heater and very little hot water - but it was cheap. And the beds were good.

Today, spent the morning in Thessaloniki - it truly is a great town! The 'white tower' - some old Byzantine tower that was part of the city walls and fort - was a huge let-down. But nearby there was a big puddle with lots of pigeons having baths, looking very bedgraggled but having a great time! They were very entertaining... Ahem, moving right along... Johnno and I headed to the Achaeological museum and Lei went to the Byzantine museum. We were all in a bit of a rush as we are due in Istanbul on the 28th Nov and we wanted to get part of the 560km today. The museum was fantastic - so much gold and lots of REALLY ancient stuff, like a skull from the Petralona caves where the oldest human skull in Europe was found (the skull from a Archanthropus (a human-type that lived 200,000 yrs ago and is the transitional form between Homo erectus & Homo sapiens).

At these caves, they also found fossils of extinct animals like lions, hyenas, bears, elephants, panthers, rhinos and 25 different species of birds we also found here. SO now I can can report that one of my biggest questions since we entered Greece (and saw so many references to lions and lion hunts/attacks) has been answered. YES, there were lions in Greece!!!!! They were either a branch of the asiatic lion or there own species - the European Lion (Wikipedia ref here).

Also since I'm into reporting at the moment, please note that Northern Greece is fascinating. Lonely Planet does an absolutely abysmal job and I am highly disappointed at their lack of info on the region. PLEASE check out Macedonia here - if you're thinking of visiting Greece, I recommend you visit this region. Macedonian tombs, Byzantine castles, Roman ruins, sites of significant battles...

The White Tower, closed for renovations

Bathing pigeon

Gold jewellry from a female burial late 6th C BC (Thessaloniki Archaelogical Museum). I loved the detail on the beads (a bit hard to see here).

Gold myrtle wreath, indication of higher social status, worn at public events and went with the dead to the grave (as all valuables did).

After the museum I went for a wander past a few of the old churches. I really wanted to see the Roman Forum and Roman baths that are in town (Thessaloniki was made the main city of the Roman Empire's Macedonia) but ran out of time so will have to do it next time. Ok, now about Thessaloniki being a cool town: it is bustling but fresh-feeling; there are heaps of cafes; lots of trendy people; quite a few interesting landmarks to see (but particularly in the region around); it's cheap; the shopping is cheap; there is nothing touristy about the town (although there is one tourist office). Apart from about 6 people I saw at the museum, I did not see one other obvious traveller - I was the only one out with a map and a camera (& I got some weird looks for it :)). Oh, there were some others out with cameras taking photos of this huge iguana thing that some guy had out on some wall (right next to some Roman ruins, funnily enough - to me it's like the ancient stuff in these cities just blends in with the modern life of the locals, like once you've seen it you just live with it). The iguana was adorable... (Am I easily amused?? pigeons and an iguana and I'm happy??) Anyway, both Lei and Johnno also thought Thessaloniki is brilliant - so there.

Cutey :)

Church of Panagia Chalkeon, right in amongst all the traffic bustle and apartment blocks (built 1028 by the (Byzantine official) Christophoros. Converted to a mosque in 1430, by the Turks who conquered Thessaloniki, but became a Christian church again, with the liberation of the city, in 1912. )

We are now in this absolutely fantastic town of Kavala (abot 160km down the road from Thessaloniki). IT IS GREAT!!! Cheap accommodation; great food; a Byzantine Castle on the hill nearby; an aquaduct; beaches; and a fantastic tourist office :) We'll check out some of these sights tomorrow. Right now, I'm knackered for some reason.

Take care all. Can't believe it's less than a month till Christmas. I'm missing home and going through a reflective time at the moment, but this is an experience that I may never get the chance to have again - although I like to think that if I want to travel again for extended periods, I will. Life is truly too short to not be happy. I am definitely realising some the things I value and miss about home, even simple things like: clean bathrooms; shower curtains; English-language movies; hearing my favourite music; clean/non-smoky air. And of course and most notably, I miss family terribly and you guys, my mates. Even if I haven't seen some of you for a while, I do think about you often and I hope we can catch up again sometime soon in this big, wide world.

Signing off.

We are now in Thessaloniki (late at night in a huge internet cafe) on which might be our last night in Greece before we hit Istanbul, Turkey. Finally got to the Athens Archaeological Museum on Saturday and saw some of the great items, that we've heard about. Things there from Mycenae, which were cool to see since we've visited the site. I really liked seeing all the gold stuff including jewellry, pieces for clothing, cups, bowls and funeral masks (prehistoric examples here). The FAMOUS 'mask of Agamemnon' (which isn't actually him because the mask is like 500 yrs older than him) was ok, but there is so much other amazing gold stuff (Mum would definitely go mad!) that it didn't really seem extra special.
Mask of Agamemnon - these masks were secured over the bodies of those buried (Athens Archaeological Museum).
Gold decorations as well as 2 examples of gold coverings for the bodies of children in their graves.

Bronze statue of Zeus (about to throw an invisible thunderbolt).

They couldn't figure out if this guy was Poseidon or Zeus - Lei, any ideas???

Ahhh so that's where the old pita bread goes!!!!!

After leaving Athens Saturday lunch time (after stocking up on donuts) we made it to Kastraki, a tiny town near Meteora. Stayed the night in a great hotel (although the receptionist was very lack-lustre) called the Sydney Hotel - yes it is owned by an Australian and passionately furnished with tacky Aussie souveniers and plastic kangaroos.
Mmmmm donut

The flashy Sydney Hotel sign (room 45euro for 3 BTW incl bfast)

This morning I got up early and went for a walk around the town. No-one about except for the bakers and a few shop-owners (and chooks & cats). Was amazed to see how close some of the houses in Kastraki are to the rocks of Meteora - they are literally in their backyards!
Now that is backyard art...

Meteora is famous for its monasteries on top of rocky outcrops. There are 6 monasteries visible (and visitable) from the road, yet there used to be 24. When reading the stories about why these monastaries exist, I cannot help but think that the people who started these places were nutcases. Basically some guy turns up and climbs to the top of a rock in the 11th Century AD and decides to live there, in the name of God of course.

So then him and his monastry get well-known and so the emporers start giving over lots of presents like gold and jewels... Now the tourists hand over the presents (with entry fees) therefore enabling installation of mod-cons like air-conditioning and flushing toilets. The old monastaries have been re-built a few times but the winch systems used to lift the monks and supplies (in rope nets) to the tops of the rocks are still in use. (A really good site with some nice b&w pics here and another here.)
In front of Varlaam monastery, note small bridge across from one rock to the other.

One of the frequent road-stops for photos.

One of the souvenier-sellers, she has family in Melbourne (as so many Greeks we've met do!)

Cats everywhere... Here's a rockclimbing one :)

After picking up some tiropita (cheese pie) from a lovely, old, cross-eyed lady (Johnno pointed this out a few times throughout the rest of the day), we then left Meteora aiming for Thessaloniki via Mt Olympus (2917m highest peak). Johnno really wanted to go for a drive past/up it and I'm glad he did, it is spectacular. Check out the snow!!!

There are hiking paths that take about 5 hours to the top from about 1000m elevation. The walk to the top of Olympus is definitely on my list of 'hikes to do' (just to let you know Dad, in case you want to join :)).

Andio/goodbye (for now). Claire

Sunset over Mt Olympus and thankfully the clouds dropped for a bit...

Revealing... LOTS OF SNOW :)


NX Tally (yes it's back). Now VII as saw the following:
16/11 Grey NX: Itea, a town near (ferry town) Patras
17/11 White NX in Athens (body kit)

Hello, back again in Athens now after two days in Santorini.
It was an interesting experience being in Santorini in late-November. It is a place of stunning scenery as the whole island is in fact the caldera of a massive volcano and the houses are built up the slope.
Uve (a German bloke we met & hung out with for the few days), Johnno and Lei with the view out to Thirassia, the island in the middle of the caldera that was part of the main body of the volcano before the eruption.

Wouldn't say it was the best time I've had so far for quite a few reasons... But here's a summary: Highlights: hiring a car and seeing the sheer cliffs of the volcano and the different layers of rock, pumice and basalt; riding a mule up the 600 stairs that lead from the old port up to the main town of Fira; very good gyros; friendly dogs and; unique lava stone jewellry.
The very picturesque (when not in zoom) view of the houses/hotels/shops on Santorini, caldera-side of the island.

Johnno and Uve with some of the very friendly doggies.

Lowlights: windy & cold weather; lack of people being very depressing - the tumbleweeds blowing down the road were the only traffic (human or otherwise) at some points; the VERY dodgy accommodation operator (more about that later); early buses.

It was an ok time, I'm glad I've seen Santorini but I would only go back at a good time - not high-season but a season with at least some people and good weather.

We arrived on the ferry from Pireaus about 3:30pm on Thursday and were greeted by people trying to sell their accommodation... We took a few brochures then caught the bus up to the main town for some lunch and hopefully some scoping of places to stay. That idea didn't work too well - very little open!! Maybe 1 in 15 hotels?? Johnno checked out one guy's place, which was really cheap, but the guy was a bit dodgy, so we kept trying.

No luck - so in the end we rang one of the guys from the port. He came up and gave us a room for 30 euro. Sure, it was cheap but it turned out that it stank of concrete and was wet and cold inside, all the blankets and sheets and walls were wet, and there was no shower curtain (one of our pet hates because water ends up going everywhere)!! So basically, overnight we all froze and none of our towels dried! Luckily I had a sleeping bag, I warmed up but Johnno and Lei really suffered. It was basically a hole-of-a-room. (DO NOT STAY at Villa Maria - if you go to Santorini!!!)

Despite the lack of quality sleep and the mould we'd accumulated on our feet through the night (:P), the next day we had a great time, hiring a car and driving around the island with Uve, the German guy we'd met the night before. It was fun - even with the hirer's warnings to hold onto the doors if we opened them in the wind, playing on our minds. We checked out the beaches which are allegedly great - but really have nothing on the Sunshine Coast (except one was red from the volcanic earth). The view from the top of the caldera, to the middle of the volcano with the old lava core visible, was spectacular however.

In the afternoon, I had quite an animated discussion with the room owner, trying to check out early and get a refund, or at least get the air-conditioning remote, without paying an extra 10euro, so we could sleep warmly and maybe dry out the room for the 2nd nigh. He wanted money for the remote control and wouldn't give us a refund and he was, quite frankly, an asshole!! I told him his room wasn't fit for humans (really wanted to say something about 'maybe you could house your donkey but not paying customers' but I didn't)... In the end he gave me the air-con remote and said that if we left the next day he'd give us 5 euro back (as his two-night rate was 40euro per room & since we'd paid 90 for 3 nights AND now we were using the air-con, he would only give us back 5). So anyway... we actually slept quite well with heating and the next day we went for the famous donkey ride up the 600 stairs from the old port. The weather was still pretty crap so in the end we decided to catch the arvo ferry and for-go our few euros.
That's right, we're on our way to the donkey station!!

Me, Lei and Uve on our mules (not pure donkeys these ones)

The 'donkey man', he was great & seemed to enjoy his job (particularly the hugging of the girls??), nah he was truly lovely.

Sorry, couldn't help it, this is what you won't see on the Santorini postcards (along with the tiny little farms with rubbish everywhere, the numerous dogs, the half-built and seeminly abandonded houses).

After our great donkey ride I went off to find a phone then met up with Lei, Johnno and Uve to catch the bus up to the town of Oia for a bit of shopping/coffees. We were on our way to the bus stop (early, mind you) and we saw the bus to Oia going up the main street. Quickly hailing it, we jumped on and thanked our stars we'd managed to catch this wayward, early bus...

Oia is a really cute town. If I was going back to Santorini I would stay there for sure. We went for a wander (still amazed at how dead the place was) and the boys went for coffee while Lei and I went for a shop. Lei and I did a dash for the bus stop about 10min before it was due, just to be on the safe side. Well we still weren't - the bus left a full 10mins early from Oia to go back to Fira. The boys made it but we were high and dry, all alone, with no transport and only tumbleweeds and dogs for company. The next bus was not for an hour and that would mean we'd be in Fira too late for the bus to the ferry!!! Lei got the phone number for a taxi but I convinced her that we should try and hitch a lift. She agreed and after a few weird looks, beeping horns and people pulling over only to say 'no', we finally got a lift with a lovely couple. I think we ended up getting in to Fira 2 mins after the bus!!! To those lovely people - I send you goodwill through cyberspace.

So back to the room to get the bags that we'd left in Uve's room for the day. The owner of Villa Maria was around and he decided to give us a real hard time about the bags and tried to make us pay extra for them. In the end, some forceful verbal conversation (& probably the fact he was outnumbered 1:4 by big blokes and angry girls), he gave in and gave us our 5 euro back. Ferry was quite late so we didn't get into Piraeus till about 1pm. No way we were going to stay there, drove straight back to Athens!

So that was Santorini. I can see that it would be absolutely awesome in Summer and the shoulder seasons!! Beautiful views and in hot weather the beaches would be fun. I am glad I saw it though and I now definitely know what it's like to travel in Greece in the off-season. Amazing that a country with 10 million people shuts down so much in the winter months. I think it's true that many leave the islands and head back to Athens (where 1/4 of the population lives).

Hello from the ferry terminal (Pireaus) before our ferry to Santorini.
We have had a brilliant and surreal few days really. Left Athens on Monday (20/11) to drive towards Olympia (on the west coast of the Peloponnese), via Mycenae. Got to Mycenae in the middle of the day and visited the ruins of a fortress area that has been inhabited since the 14th C BC or so. The ruined buildings there date back to about the 7th Century. The city is in an amazing setting on a hill with a big wall where there isn't natural cliff. It was a quite advanced community with 2-storey houses and there is an ancient cistern. It's basically a tunnel dug down to a natural spring, but this is pretty amazing stuff for so long ago. The lady at the entrance mentioned something about a tunnel we could enter if we had flashlights. Well we had one good one (on Johnno's head) so we walked down the tunnel that has been used for hundreds of years ago and found where they got the water from. Was an amazing experience - there is still water at the bottom (& there was even a bat)! Now would this ever ever be allowed in litigation-conscious Australia??!!
View of the ruins from the road - a bit hard to see but it's a big fortressed city.

View over part of the ruins and surrounding Argos Plain.

Johnno and I searching for debris in the ancient spring at the bottom of the tunnel that is 18m below the surface of the ground inside the fortress (and outside the fortress wall).

The entrance to one of the amazing tombs (called 'thollos' or 'beehive tombs') built in this area. Lei and I were struck by the Egyptian feel to them!

So after BRILLIANT Mycenae (& feeling on top of the world) we needed to get to Olympia that night. It was only a few 100 km but because of the scale of the roadmap we didn't realise the windy-ness of the road. We drove and drove for ages through pokey little towns up and around mountains (apparently there are ski resorts in this area). Until... we spotted a huge sign beside the road saying 'STOP, road closed'. So we hooked a left turn over a bridge thinking it was a detour and ended up in a little town with 3 people in a cafe. We asked them for directions to Olympia and they were adament that you could drive the road with the Stop sign. Johnno asked about fuel, because we were getting low, and they said Olympia - about 20km. Johnno was fine about that distance. So off we went (by this time it was about 9:30pm). Anyway, we were driving for about 1 km and the car decided to turn itself off... We had run out of fuel. In the middle of farming land, no houses, no street lights, no moon. With fuel can in hand we walked back to the little town with our tails between our legs, hoping that someone would help. Luckily for us there was a bar full of about 15 farmer men, worry beads and drinks in hand - most of whom owned tractors/trucks that took diesel and therefore had hundreds of litres in their sheds... After lots of very mesmerisingly fast Greek conversation backwards and forwards, Johnno was directed to a ute with one guy (who couldn't speak one word of English) and Lei and I got a lift in a sexy Subaru WRX, back to the Mondeo. The donator of diesel provided about 25 litres worth, which was amazing, and neither men would take any $$ for it! We truly felt that the gods of the region were looking out for us (thank you Hera and Apollo).
The car getting a drink (& the two top blokes who helped out)

We finally arrived in Olympia about 10:30pm and found a fantastic hotel (50 euro incl break). After a big sleep-in (we deserved it!) we visited the Olympia ruins - the place where they've lit the Olympic flame for its journey around the world, since the 1936 Berlin Olympics (thanks Hitler, for the idea). We ran some races (again) in honour of the Olympic Games and checked out the Temple of Zeus. There wasn't really much left, just foundations pretty well, as some conqueror decided that it should all be destroyed. Interestingly, the artefacts collected from the site are a bit different to those found in Mycenae as there is a lot more evidence of Asian/Syrian influences - a lot more griffins and lion feet for cauldrons cast/hammered of bronze. Of course lots of little bronze figurines, which are very cute.
Lei and I getting into the spirit of lighting the Olympic flame

The great Olympic footrace, this time Claireus is victorious. Leilanidite Persistentus the Bright tried gallantly.

One of the fallen columns in the temple for Zeus - no columns survive standing due to earthquakes. The top of the temple was 20m heigh and housed a huge ivory and gold statue of Zeus noted as one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Historians think it was taken by Constantine to Constantinople (Istanbul) and it was destroyed by fire in the end.

So many little horsies, dogs, birds, cows...

So after the Olympia site we wanted to drive to Pireaus to stay there the night before the ferry to Santorini at 7:25am the next day. Was a nice drive and was quite enjoyable due to having sunlight, despite some major delays due to road-relaxing (allegedly roadWORKS but leaning on a shovel, dancing around or smoking cigarettes hardly counts as work in my book). Anyway, staying in Pireaus was a BIG MISTAKE!! Pireaus is a HOLE of a place. Don't stay there if you can possibly avoid it (smelly, annoying touts, expensive rooms for what you get, and noisy traffic).
More Pelopponese traffic :) We liked it though.

Ahhh Athens - I truly love this place. Don't know why but I'll try and summarise. I think it's the: awesome ANCIENT monuments easily-visited; the vibrant main streets; fresh Greek salads and fantastic calamari; cheap-as gyros (mini doner kebabs); huge yummy, doughy, sugared donuts from the street stall for 60c; accomodating male shop-keepers; the traditional music often heard blaring from street stalls and passing Peugeots; the warm weather. It's a fantastic place.

The only complaint I have is about the sleazy, old men that like to blow kisses and whistle way too often... But I guess that's just life as a 20-something female traveller :)

But first I should update on Delphi - a great place! We visited the ruins on Friday morning - in a fantastic position on the side of a mountain (Mt Parnassos) overlooking a valley and with views to the sea. Delphi is the area that was believed to be the naval of the world and was Apollo's sanctuary (hence the temple). The myth is that there was an oracle there for many centuries before Apollo took over in around the 6th Century BC. He made the oracle his and since then pilgrims visited the temple and brought gifts to ask the oracle a question. With the eventual invasion of the Romans and then Christianity, Delphi became an outlawed area and the oracle was no longer worshipped from about 350AD. Anyway, it is a gorgeous area and we even used the old stadium that was used for the Pythian Games (diff. to Olympics that were held for Zeus but still run every 4 yrs) for our own running race. Johnno won, but he's a boy with long legs so I wasn't surprised. We also checked out the Temple of Athena which is down the road and the museum also. So cool to see original
Me in front of Temple of Apollo, oracle was in a room to the right of this photo (below ground)

The resurrection of the great Pythian Games... Johnnus Goateeus Long-leggedness and Claireus Stunningite the Great.

Temple of Athena

Original sculptures found in Delphi, 6th Century BC, 'twins of Argos'

We arrived on Friday night from Delphi - a very crazy drive really with lots of strange sights along the less than impressive 'past National Highway' that was a single-lane road most of the way with many trucks (avoiding the toll-roads like us???). Popped out near Omonia Square and managed to drive straight past our hotel! This place is great (see it here)!! Recommend it to anyone - 10 Euro each for a 4-bed room with en-suite and breakfast.
A Greek hillbilly?

So Saturday we walked into town and it was, sadly, Dan's last day travelling with our merry little band. Lei, Johnno and Dan went up to the Acropolis & were impressed with the heights at which someone could fall to their death. But disappointed with the endless scaffolding (grrrr, worse than when I was here). I checked out the Ancient Agora and witnessed a very happy band of 'Clean Up Ancient Agora Day' participants. There is not many buildings left in the Agora area, but the little museum on site is very good. I am constantly amazed at looking at little figurines from the 14th Cent BC and there was even a grave of a girl, with partial skeleton from about 900BC.

Girls' skeleton - some bones still preserved

Later we caught up for dinner and had a brilliant time at a cafe near the Agora - was quite cheap and delicious food. Lei and I had very pokey-out bellies after eating such great food (she: mousaka & greek salad; me: veal in red sauce with pasta & greek salad. We all shared fresh bread and local red wine). The boys loved their dinners too - particularly Dan who had some fantastic calamari - which I originally thought was cold and boring.. I'd cut up a piece of bread and was munching on that instead of the calamari, which was, in fact very tasty!!!

Today - after saying farewells to Dr Silver (aka Dan) we three checked out the Temple of Olympic Zeus. Third time I've been there now and I still love it!!!! DON'T miss it if you come to Athens. I then wandered around the Plaka for hours and bought various touristy things :)

Spotted some very bad fashion sights but generally the Greek people are insanely fashionable!! Lei and I have decided though, that the patterned stockings are so NOT COOL. Otherwise, a big thumbs-up that makes me want to buy lots of stuff... ** whimper.

Clean Up Ancient Agora Day

Some birds out the front of a pet store in Athens

South American Indian performing group that attracted some weirdo who wanted to dance with no clothes on. Note, his bike packed to the hilt (it included bongos on the front)

Pit-stop for snacks and photos of the coastline

Yiasas!! We are now in Greece after a 16 hour ferry ride (from Bari in Italy - Patras). We left Amalfi at 10am yesterday (15th) and on the way to the port, visited the town of Matera with the cave houses carved out of the mountain (for the movie-buffs, where some of the Passion of the Christ was filmed). Weird to look at really but very unique. Apparently people were still living there in the 1950s? as a way of actually being able to live near the town...

The view of a few houses - the exteriors are done of brick but inside, they are dug into the mountain (see below)

The interior of one of the houses - dug into the rock.

We then made it to Bari about 3:30pm armed with 'internet special' prices to hit up some ferry companies. Anyway, we went to the office on the port and were told REALLY cheap prices to cross. We chose Agoudimous and got across for 29 euro each & 45 euro for the car (so about 40 euro each). Considering some of the other ferry trips I've done, that was great value for 16 hours of transport. Wasn't the best sleep - we received a massive serve in Greek from a fiesty bar lady for moving some of the resort-style cane furniture but in the end we slept in reclining chairs or the hard floor in sleeping bags... I didn't feel too bad really, but pretty tired now :) And now - we are in Delphi! We drove up here via a swanky new bridge that cost us 10.50 euro to cross, and a beautiful road along the coast. It is soooooooo dead in this part of Greece right now!! We've seen all of two tourists in Delphi. But we've got a cute little room (55 euro) and we're about to head off for some dinner.

The port in Greece - big boat!

Love to you all! I am starting to miss home now. 3 months tomorrow from departing Australia. Also hearing about the summery Qld weather and my parents' plans to head to Noosa is also entering my psyche :) We will see where and when the journey ends...