Eric & Autumn's World Roll Up: Monemvasia

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Monemvasia

This morning, in typical Greek fashion, we awoke to strikes! We went down to the hotel lobby and ran into the front desk lady advising another American couple that ALL archaeological sites in Greece were closed today. We had planned on visiting the Temple of Apollo today, but we readjusted our GPS and made our way south to our destination of Monemvasia. In addition to the archaeologists, the gas companies were also on strike, so although gas stations were open, they were in danger of running out of gas at any second. Needless to say, we filled up whenever an opportunity presented itself.

After another terrifying day of hermit-y little villages and one-lane mountain passes, we made out way to Sparta for lunch. While we did not have high culinary expectations for a city that was the progeny of a militaristic society, we DID expect that they would have basic menu items. In fact, they were out of everything that we ordered, and we were given Greek salads, bread and water. We grabbed some snacks at a corner store and continued onward.

Monemvasia was a cute little ancient town on a huge, rocky peninsula that had been converted into hotels, restaurants and shops. The upper town / acropolis was all ruins with spectacular views of the Aegean Sea and the mountains. The town was cool, but it left us wanting more in the "something to do" department. We browsed the junk stores for a bit, grabbed lunch, and tried to buy a game or two. Once we made our selections, we had to search the town for the store owner in order to actually pay. While Autumn was stuck in bed, I ran up to the acropolis to take some photos at sunset. We spent the night in, watching CNN and BBC blaming the Greeks for all of the Euro-Zone problems, which the Greeks probably went on strike about as soon as they heard about it.

Autumn said that she felt like Rapunzel trapped in our little stone tower of a hotel room, so we skipped dinner and went to bed early, hoping that Autumn's previous encounter with "Traditional Greek Food" would pass.