Santornini Day 4 -5 Favorites

The last of the honeymoon pictures... oh so memorable!

Santorini Day 5 - Museums, wine tasting, our last day in Greece

Saturday, our last day in Greece, we decided to visit the museums that we'd missed due to their crazy hours and strikes.  We started out with another excellent self-catered breakfast out on the terrace.  Then we headed down the familiar foot path to Fira.  It was another nice day, so we took it leisurely, and stopped to take in the views and take a lot of photos along the way.

The first museum we went to is the fairly lackluster old Archaeological Museum.  I'm not even sure this one is worth going to...  It's just a single hall with mostly pre-historic ceramics, nothing much to look at, and poor presentation at that.  As one of the guidebooks said, it really is no match for the newer state of the art Museum of Prehistoric Thera, where we headed next.  The Museum of Prehistoric Thera is really awesome by comparison. Here, the layout here is well done, and the descriptions and explanations are well written and compelling.  Just about anyone can find themselves engrossed in the story told by the exhibits.  There are a number of the ancient wall paintings here, lots of household items, and a gold ibex figurine.

After the museum, we headed to Nikolas Tavern were we had another excellent Greek salad and some fried cod for lunch.  After lunch, we headed to the bus depot again to catch a bus to Santo Wines, a sort of consortium of wine growers on the island.  The facility at Santo wines is really something, they have a huge terrace built up with amazing views of both the caldera and Fira.  We ordered a sampler platter with cheese and breads.  Though the cheese cubes were good, we didn't quite understand the toasts. They were were rock hard, break your teeth hard.  There were six wines to sample and our favorite was the Vinsanto, a dessert wine, for which Santorini is famous (it is made with sun dried grapes/raisins).

We took the bus back to Fira and then set out on a quest to pick up a few more souvenirs before dinner.  We got to do one more walk through of the streets of Fira and stopped for a crepe as well.  There are not too many dessert type places, but we were able to find a few. The place we got the crepe didn't have lemon, so we got chocolate instead.

We bounced around through various souvenir shops, looking for a couple of items that we'd been eying since we'd been in Santorini but just hadn't picked up yet.  One thing we found was a lovely silk pillow cover, which we'd put off buying until we found the lowest price.  Many if not most of the souvenir shops share a good chunk of their inventory, but not necessarily their prices.  So if you shop around, you can often find the same item for cheaper at another shop.  Other items are a little more one of kind.  We decided to buy some sponges (real sponges) for my nieces and nephew, since we'd seen them play with the synthetic kind back home.  Kids toys are hard to come by where most stuff sold is jewelry.  We got the sponges from a guy who had a bunch of baskets of sponges out on a terrace that we'd seen many times.  He tried to sell us on some "top quality" sponges that would "last forever."  Once we noticed the bargain bin of cheaper, smaller sponges, we knew what we wanted, and I tried to explain to him that the intended recipients, kids, wouldn't know or care the difference.

We thought it fitting to have dinner at the place nearby our hotel that served us our first Santorini dinner.  But Aktaion doesn't open until 7pm, after the sunset, so we got to watch another brilliant sunset, this time from Firostephani.  Lots of other people showed up to take pictures as well and we helped several people take family photos and the like.  Just as the sunset was finishing, we took a table outside at Aktaion, which proved to be a bit chilly once the wind picked up.  We ordered their Santorini salad, pasta, and a piece of lemon cake for dessert.

We headed back to the hotel to rest up for our early 6:55am flight the next day.  24 hours (from 6:55am) of flights and layovers back home to Salt Lake!

Thanks everyone for following our blog for our honeymoon! We will have one last post of favorite pictures and then on to more adventure!

Santorini Day 4 - Ancient Thira, Sunset in Oia

The weather in the morning on Friday was finally good enough to utilize our terraces for breakfast.  I made my typical bread/feta/oil/oregano combo, and we both had cereal.  We also had orange juice and mini chocolate filled croissants.  The terrace was comfy, and quiet, and had nice views of the sea.

Having missed the cutoff time for the ruins the day before, we headed down early to the bus depot.  After the typical confusion at the bus station, we found the right bus and were on our way to Kamari.  From the bus stop in Kamari, there are excursion mini-buses that take you up to the ruins of Ancient Thira.  You can walk as well, but it's a very long and steep way up.  The 10 euros for the mini-bus was well worth it.  The mini-bus driver was very funny and it was always amusing when we passed tourists in rental cars on their way down.  The road is more of a sidewalk in both construction and width, so you can imagine what passing is like.  Luckily the cars and mini-buses are very small.

Ancient Thira is the number two attraction on the island, right behind Ancient Akrotiri, but Ancient Akrotiri has been closed for several years now following a fatal roof collapse in 2005.  Ancient Thira dates from the 9th century B.C. with most buildings dating from the 4th century (B.C.).  This is in contrast to the much older bronze age ruins at Ancient Akrotiri, the settlement that was abandoned and destroyed/preserved by the volcanic eruption between 1600-1500 B.C., the eruption that made the island the shape that it is today.  Back to Ancient Thira... this location, at the very top of the hill at the south east part of the island, must have been a great defense point, along with having a fantastic view, but all we could think about is the 1+ hour hike up (or down) that the inhabitants must have had to get food and water.  These folks must have been in top notch shape and been excellent hikers.  The ruins themselves are much like many of the others we've seen.  There is evidence of plumbing, always amazing, and the number of buildings is always amazing.  There are some well preserved frescos even.  The view from Ancient Thira is wonderful and at this point, we were very glad to have been delayed by a day in coming here, because we would have seen nothing but clouds and fog on the previous day.  Today however, the visibility was great.  We could see islands that we couldn't see on previous days.  It was best day for weather so far.

We took the mini-bus down the mountain, saving us time and wear on our feet.  At Kamira, there is a lovely black sand beach.  Being a volcanic island, most of the beaches here are black sand.  The black sand gets very hot in the sun.  Again, we were glad to be here on such a nice day.  Before heading to the beach, we tried to find one of the guidebook recommended lunch spots and we ended up at a place called Amalthia.  At Amalthia, we got a nice Santorini salad and then ordered the mixed grill.  The mixed grill, took forever and a half to make and when it arrived, we were greeted by way too much meat, just way too much, and most of it, not even that good.  When we left, through a different entry, we saw the signs for the seafood grill, and another special, both of which appealed more to us, but weren't posted at the entrance we'd come through!  Grrr.....

After lunch, we headed down to the beach.  The water here was decent, temperature wise, but was quite rocky, hard on the feet, and not as clear as we'd found on Rhodes.  Santorini isn't known for its beaches, but they are ok.  The waves here were much stronger than the two beaches we'd been to on Rhodes.  We found ourselves being tossed by big waves after going in only a little bit.  It was pretty fun.  Anyway, after getting out of the water, we dried off in the sun for a bit on our hotel-borrowed towels.  And after drying off, we headed back to the bus station to catch the bus back to Fira, and then took another bus that heads to Oia and got off at the stop about 100 feet from our hotel in Firostephani.

After showering to get the ocean and ocean bits off of us, we took a late afternoon break and then got dressed for our fancy sunset dinner in Oia, where the sunsets are supposed to be the most spectacular, and this being the best day for visibility so far, we were extra excited to see it.  We'd had our hotel make reservations for us at a nice place that they recommended.  So we went out and caught the bus to Oia.

We arrived in Oia (pronounced "ee-uh") about an hour before our reservation and spent some time walking through it.  Oia is most picturesque town on the island, and probably the most photographed, but it's not much different from Fira and Firostephani.  At the point of the town/island, there's an old castle, and dozens of people, many with mountains of camera equipment were already setting up shop to watch

We went up to our restaurant, Kastro, a little before our reservation time, and sat down to look at the menu.  This was our sunset dinner in place of a sunset dinner cruise that we didn't go for on account of the weather and wind.  The food here was excellent, and the view even better.  For dinner, we had an appetizer of stuffed olives, deep fried, so so good.  Then a very good Greek salad, very nice.  For the main dish, we were disappointed to not find any seafood on the menu (strange here on an island in the sea), so we ordered a beef steak, which was pretty good, but which I can do better. :)  For dessert, we had baklava, very nice, very sweet, served warm with ice cream.

The sunset here was definitely amazing, and the crowds of people who turned up for it were at times overwhelming.  A guy 30 feet away from us with a giant camera and giant tripod was taking about 30 shots (auto-fire) every 1-20 minutes.  People come from all over the world to take pictures of this sunset.  There were some boats down in the sea, and we could see them taking pictures of us (since we could see their flashes!).

After dinner, we headed back to the bus depot and waited (and waited) for the bus to finally come.  I don't know if they were 20 minutes late, or if they'd changed the schedule again, but we did finally make it on the bus and made it back to our stop right by our hotel.

Rhodes Day 4 - Santorini Day 3 Favorites

Yippee! More pics! We only have a couple more posts and then we are all caught up. :)

Santorini Day 3

Thursday morning was quite windy. We had to eat our breakfast inside rather than out on the terrace as we'd planned. It was both windy and foggy, with small periods of rain, so we decided to relax for a bit in our hotel room. Once the weather improved, we headed down to Fira to walk around for a bit to check things out.

We decided to head to the bus station to catch a bus to Kamira to see the ruins of Ancient Thira. But before doing so, headed to find lunch at Nikolas Tavern in Fira. For lunch we had a greek salad and some unexpectedly good chicken souvlaki. Then we rushed off to catch the bus to Kamira only to hear the station operator tell us that Ancient Thira closes at 2pm (we should have noticed that our guidebook says the same thing).

So we headed back towards Firostefani, climing all the steps for the second or third time of many to come. Along the way we stopped at the Nomikos Conference Center where the current exhibit is the "Wall Paintings of Thera" (http://www.santonet.gr/exhibitions/nomikos.htm).

This exhibit houses sophisicated 3d replicas of the wall paintings found at Akrotiri, the pre 1600 b.c. eruption city of the island of Santorini. We had seen a few of the originals in the Archeological Museum in Athens, and some others are in the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Fira, but one of the neat things about the exhibition is that you can see them all in one place and there are replicas of several that are not available to the public anywhere. The method used to replicate the wall paintings is very cool; they take stereo images and create a topography of the painting so that they can recreate every bump and crack. Then they construct the canvas based on this and transfer photographic emulsions onto this synthetic substrate.

After leaving the exhibition, we headed back up toward Firostefani for dinner. We stopped in at Mama Thira again and were well pleased with their Santorini salad and sea bass.

Santorini Day 2

The weather continued to be cold, foggy, and down right weird on our second day in Santorini. We were socked in and it was so sad because we knew that the blue waters were there surrounding us. We were both a bit tired so we spent the morning and early afternoon just hanging out in the room, downloading pictures, and writing post cards.

We finally emerged long enough to walk around a bit and grab a bite at Mama Thira's. We found reviews for a place called Mama's so we thought this was it. They don't have formal addresses in Santorini so we found it a bit difficult at first to find anything. It is a small enough town/island though that we figured it out quick enough.

Mama Thira's was a quiet place with great food. The Santorini salad (a bit of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, croutons, and big capers) was the best salad of the entire trip! We also had a nice pork dish, a tasty sauce with peppers. The decor is simple but nice, they have 3 wreaths hanging on their wall. These are the wreaths that they wrap the wine grapes in to protect them from the wind. We saw the grapes wrapped up all over the island. They are really beautiful.

We walked around more. The wind whipped around us and the fog clung to the steep cliff walls. We decided to go to a restaurant for dinner that was in our guide book. Naoussa is the name. This place was packed and we have no idea why. The noise was awful, the food was also bad, and there was no view, just walls. Bleck! Even the reviews online were ok for this place. Very strange.

Santorini Day 1

Early morning Tuesday, Kevin and Laurel flew back from Rhodes.  Their flight was so early (7am) that they didn't even have time for breakfast.  Misty and I slept in a bit and had a leisurely breakfast, since our flight wasn't until the afternoon.  Taking a late breakfast meant that everyone else in the hotel was there, so it was a bit annoying.  After breakfast, we packed up our luggage and then strolled through Old Town to take care of a few errands such as buying some stamps, going to the ATM.  Then we headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and made the trek to the bus station to save some money vs. taxi or the hotel's driver.  The bus station was a little more difficult to find that we had hoped, and we went passed it by quite a ways and had to double back.

We flew from Rhodes to Athens, with a couple hour layover in Athens, and then from Athens to Santorini.  Each flight was about an hour and they both went quickly.  Security at both Rhodes and Athens (yes, you have to go through again), was a joke as usual.  The flights went fine, and quick.

When we got to Santorini, there was thick fog everywhere.  We heard from other people staying at the hotel that later flights were having trouble landing and were potentially going to have to turn back to Athens.  By the time we got to our hotel and got situated, it was completely socked in with no visibility, and with fog so thick that we could see the power lines sparking with the moisture.  We headed out for a late dinner and found a great meal at a little place called Aktaion.  They had one of the best Greek salads we had on the entire trip.  For the main dish we had pasta.

Rhodes Day 3 Favorites

Another round of pics! We are still going through more so stick around:

Rhodes Day 4 - West Coast, Ebonas

Monday morning in Rhodes we had another excellent early breakfast and then set out in the rental car toward the west coast of the Island.  Our first stop was the ruins at Kamiros, one of the best preserved Classical Greek cities.  The ruins are quite extensive and provide an excellent view of the Aegean.  There were several tour groups here and each leader had their trademark umbrella.  A small child crossed over the ropes into an prohibited area and we heard a tour guide yelling at him from afar.

After touring the ruins, we dropped back down to the coast and went to the nearby beach across the road.  This beach wasn't nearly as good as the one from the previous day.  The water wasn't quite as warm and it wasn't nearly as sandy or clear/shallow.  It did, however, have free sunbeds, which we took advantage of to lay out in the sun for a bit to dry off and warm up.

Next up, we continued along the East coast of the Island making our way to Embonas, stopping first at Baki's Brothers for lunch.  Lunch here was ok, but not as good as expected (it was another recommendation from Patrick at the hotel).  After we finished lunch, we wandered back to car and found ourselves being led by a local dog.  The dog seemed to want to lead us wherever we wanted to go, and also made sure to scare off any cats along the way.

Here in town Misty and Laurel bought some locally made table runners before we headed to a honey, olive and wine tasting stand at the edge of town.  They had the most interesting drink made with homemade souma and pomegranate infused honey.  After the stand, we also headed for a tasting at Emery.

Our next stop was the honey producing village of Siana, though we didn't find much here worth stopping for besides the picturesque church in the center of town.  Instead we found honey, nuts, and some olives from a stand along the road from here to Monolithos.  The nuts were good but we found them all over Greece. The olives were not edible and in retrospect, we probably shouldn't have bought olives sold in a plastic water bottle, at least not without tasting them first.

Continuing on, we stopped in at the Castle of Monolithos, a short hike up from the parking lot.  From the top, there are nice views south from the island.  We also drove down to the nearby beach at Fourni to hang out for a bit.

From Fourni we drove all the way back to Rhodes City, dropped the car off at St. John's gate, and then had dinner at Romeo's, where we had eaten lunch day two.

Rhodes Day 1 & 2 Favorites

Here is another couple days of our favorite photos. More posts to finish up the wonderful honeymoon are on there way. Stay tuned!

Rhodes Day 3 - East Coast, Lindos

Our second full day in Rhodes, we all decided to rent a tiny car (Fiat Panda) to go explore the island.  After another lovely breakfast (excellent breads, feta, olive oil, yogurt, honey, fruit salad).  To begin with we headed down the East coast toward Lindos.  Along the way, we stopped at a wonderful beach at Tsampika.  This beach was very sandy, not rocky at all, very easy to walk out into the water.  The water was pretty warm, and very shallow for quite a ways.  We had to walk out 100 feet or more before it got deep enough to really swim.  The water was so clear that we could see our toenails.  Back on the beach, we each made sand castle/towers/minarets, and built defenses against the tide, which slowly destroyed the towers.

Continuing on towards Lindos, we stopped in another town, Archangelos, to walk around for a bit and check things out.  Misty and I bought some overpriced sunscreen and lotion from a pharmacy, and we got some Greek pastries and enjoyed them on a bench near the beach at Stegna.  At the beach here, we also saw octopus drying on a clothesline.

Once we reached Lindos, we were ready for lunch and went to a place recommended by Patrick called Taverna Palestra.  A very friendly lady who was very confused about our nationalities took good care of us.  She thought we were two Spaniards, one French, and one English, not sure how that happened, but the waiter was very confused since he knew we were all Americans, and she kept telling him to take stuff to the table with the French, English, and Spaniards.  We had some good seafood here including an excellent sea bass.

After lunch, we made the trek up to the Acropolis of Lindos.  Donkeys are available to get you up most of the way, but we didn't find it too difficult to go on foot.  The town is very cute and a small wedding was taking place along the busy touristy streets.  We meandered through the streets following the few arrows and such pointing the way to the acropolis.  The streets are mostly cobblestone, but every once in a while there is a very decorative mosaic in the ground.

At the top is a large complex of ruins, some reconstructed, but the best thing here is the view, what an excellent view.  From the top, you can see a lot of the island including several beaches and coves and miles of water.  You can also see why this was used as a fortress as it would be an excellent lookout and would be easily defended as it sits on a giant monolith.  The acropolis ruins are quite extensive and rival even the acropolis in Athens.  There's an entire length of a building, some 276 feet long, a stoa, that has the foundation intact with side buildings partially reconstructed with columns put back together.

After the return trip, we left the car at St. John's gate, and walked back to the hotel.  For dinner, we went out to a very old, very traditional, family run place called Yianni's.  We got a Greek platter (butter beans, calamari, etc), pork souvlaki, salad and stuffed eggplant. There was a nice woman dressed in very pretty, ebroidered clothes. The man who waited on us was very short and stern, he didn't care for the beggar cats that tried to join us for dinner.

Rhodes Day 2 - Old Town

 After a wonderful breakfast and orientation from our host Patrick at Hotel Andreas, we decided to take a stroll around old town. This is the first time any of us have hung out in a medievial town. It is one of the oldest in existence in Europe. The streets are so tiny and yet small cars and scooters zoom around us. You can only have a car or scooter if you live in old town so it isn't too many.

Most of the streets are quiet in the morning and we watched as the tourist shops with souveniors set up their wares. The weather was pretty nice. We spent time catching up as we meandered. We haven't seen K&L since last October when we visited them in Barcelona. Now they live on a beach in a town outside of Barcelona.

There is a nice port along the outside of the walled city. We snapped some shots and then headed to the Archeological Museum. Here they had nice rooms, a peaceful garden, and even a house with Turkish-style rooms. The crowds were very light here so it was quiet and pleasant. Once we exited, we walked the Street of the Knights up to the Palace of the Grand Masters. This is basically the center of the old town. The Knights of St. John arrived in 1309 and built up all this stuff. The city is believed to have been built in 408 BC.

After the palace, we were starving so we headed to a restaurant recommended by Patrick at our hotel, Romeo's. We ordered a Greek platter, pita, pork slouvaki, butter beans, grilled octopus, grilled halumi, avocado salad, and it was all tasty. The grilled octopus is interesting because they let it dry outside on a clothes line in the sun before they grill it. It is not chewy at all. I enjoyed it! Romeo's also had the tastiest baklava, super tall, very light, and oozing with goodness.

After the refreshing lunch, we headed out of the walled city again to Mandraki Harbor where statues of a doe and stag sit on tall pedestals where some believe the feet of the Colossus of Rhodes stood.  On our way back into Old Town, we went in search of gelato. Earlier, we had come across a tiny truck and the guy was really nice so we went to find him. When we found him, a bride and groom were getting gelato and their pictures taken at the truck. It was very funny to watch them. Once they moved on, we ordered. I ordered melon, Alan mint chocolate chip, Laurel ordered strawberry and straichetella, and for the life of me, I can't remember what Kevin ordered.

After our sweet treat, we wandered some more. The Street of Knights was deserted, probably because all the tourists had to be back on their cruise ships. At one point we came across the smallest truck and some guys arguing. Turns out that you can understand a lot more about language and people if you just think about the context. The guys were arguing because the driver of the truck had hit the wall and made a mark about 1 inch wide by 3 inches long. The guy who lived at this particular section of the wall was really angry about it. Mind you, a mark is a mark but these walls have seen invasion and cannonballs, a ding from a truck is barely noticeable. We moved along and let them argue.

We wandered through more of Old Town and then trekked to the Acropolis of Rhodes. We left the quiet smallness of the walled city for the bustling activity of the new city. Buses, cars, and people were all around as we walked up and up. We finally reached the site and caught the end of a kids birthday party. How strange it must be to have your birthday in ruins from so long ago.

After watching the sun start to descend, we headed back and wandered around old town so more and then headed back to our hotel for refreshments before dinner. We had talked about pizza earlier in the day so it was on all of our minds. We asked our hotel for a recommendation for Greek pizza and then sent us to the Walk Inn. It was a hopping place and the music was very good (80s!). We had a Greek salad, a Neopolitan pizza, and much fun with our charming waitress. A great day with friends! I was so tired I can't even remember going to sleep.

Day 3 & 4 Favorite Pictures

Here are the last of our favorites from Athens!

From Athens to Rhodes

Friday was our last day in Athens, and first day in Rhodes.  In the morning we set out for the olympic stadium (panathenaic stadium), which was built and rebuild many times over the centuries, most recently for the first modern olympics in 1896.  They also used it as the grand finish to the marathon in the 2004 summer olympics in Athens.  On our way, we picked up some donut balls on a stick.

We wandered from the stadium back through the plaka to look for some souvenirs, and then back to the hotel before checkout.  Then it was off to the airport via metro to catch out flight to Rhodes.  The Athens airport was upgraded for the 2004 Olympics and is in good shape in general.  But, they have some kinks to work out with their security procedures.  They seem very disorganized and confused and don't have procedure in place for much of anything.  If you are unfortunate enough to be stuck in a line with a stickler of an x-ray technician, you will be there a long time, for each and every person that goes through, the staff will have to pick through your bags to find random items and then they will discuss it amongst themselves for a while, argue about it, have one person put it back in your bag (usually in a different place), then another person will take it back out, and examine it.  They will tell you that cameras are ok, then get angry that you didn't take your camera out, so they will send your bag through again and again.  This slows down the line even more because they don't pull people to the side when they check your bags, they just stop the entire line in place.  This is all compounded by travellers who seemingly have never flown before.  They don't separate out liquids, they bring 5-6 plastic shopping bags full of stuff (clothes, etc), and of course have to go through the metal detector 3-4 times, each time removing another large obvious metal item.  In any case, we made it through and on our flight.

The flight was extremely short, and a big plane (3 and 3), but they still managed to serve beverages and even croissants with chocolate in the center, for those that the cart made it to (flight was so short they couldn't finish).  There was some drama as an old guy got sick and they asked for a doctor on board.  An ambulance met the plane on the runway.

A charming English fellow met us at the airplane and whisked us to Old Town Rhodes in a tiny vehicle.  The vehicle had to be tiny to navigate the small streets of Old Town.  After getting settled, we wandered around Old Town until Kevin and Laurel's flight got in and when they did, we all went out to dinner at a nearby Greek restaurant.

Athens - Day 4

Day 4 was a bit overcast so we decided that it would be our inside-the-museum day. We started at the Christian and Byzantine Museum. We hopped on the metro and rode it to our destination, got turned around when we got off and went the wrong way. It didn't take us long to figure out that we went the wrong way. It turns out that the metro stops are not on the exact size of the street that the maps says they are... The metro is super cheap if you buy a week pass for 10 Euros each. You buy it, validate it, and then all week you just hop on and off.

The museum was nice outside. They have a courtyard with palm trees. And it turns out we picked a great day to go to the museums. Some of the museums were free. There was also some event focused on the theme of "water" but we never really figured out what it meant so we didn't participate by leaving a drawing of what water and the museum meant to us.

The museum collection is housed in a very up-to-date space and when we arrived it was practically empty. We had the place to ourselves up until the end... when a boat load of kids arrived for a school field trip. NOISY! I don't think they even bothered looking at any thing. Such a collection is wasted on youth. ;) Alan's favorite piece here was a piece that was large but cut into 9 pieces and stolen in 1976 from a church. It was recovered and has been repaired. It is about Prophet Elijah and his life.

We then walked a block away to the Museum of Cycladic Art. This museum was not free. It is a small but lavish house with chandeliers and marble floors. The collection is on 4 floors and each floor is unique. On some of the pieces they have a picture of the object in use hanging behind. It gave it a very different perspective. There was also a video projected on the wall, the part I watched showed an ancient marriage ritual. The male drank something and the female ate an apple or some fruit. Then they walked in front of a bench and that was it.

After this small but lovely museum, we headed to the Benaki Museum. This place was fancy. It was free! This housed a very nice collection, including clothing on dummies so you could see how it was worn. Some of the clothes were very colorful and elaborate. They also had some really ornate jewelry. The earring looked really heavy and were longer than 3 inches. Yikes! My favorite piece was a vase. I saw it immediately in the case from a far. It was short but perfectly shaped and had the prettiest pearlescent shine. It amazes me that there are such old pieces intact. They had some gold leaves from what looked like an olive head wreath and they were as thin as paper. How did they not crumble?

From here we wandered back past the Parliment building on our way back to Syntagma Square and guess what we ran into? Riot police! It was nice because the stopped traffic through that part of town so there were no scary cars when we crossed the streets. It was bad because it was scary and because it meant a strike. There were buses and buses of police with their riot gear. The museum we went to, the Museum of Popular Instruments, was closed due to the strike. A bit defeated we wandered in search of lunch and found it at Restaurant Hermion. We ordered a mix of hot appetizers and a kebab plate.

Refreshed and a bit more energetic, we wandered in search of the Museum of the City of Athens. We got a bit lost again but eventually found it. It is in a house where King Otto and Queen Amalia lived. It was a bit run down. Not as nice as the other museums. The collection was small. They did have some nice pieces of furniture.

From there we headed back to the hotel room for a bit of rest. Our hotel, Hotel Hera, was pretty centrally located and provided a nice home base and bathroom break when we were out and about in the city. It was also nice that there was a metro stop a block away.

For dinner we headed back to Taverna o Thespis. Let this be a lesson. Just because a place is nice and gives you extras one day doesn't mean that happens every time. The second visit to this place was not a nice as the first. We ordered olives, which were good, a green salad, which was actually wilted spinach (yuck), and Bekri meze (pork in a spiced sauce, good). No extra drinks or dessert. It was still windy and chilly out so we ate inside. It wasn't nearly as pleasant.

After dinner we wandered a bit below the Acropolis on Dionysiou Areopagitou and Apostolou Pavlou streets but then headed back to the hotel and called it a day.