Last day in Greece!

This morning we made our way back to Athens for our final night with V&S. It was so great to see them, and super-nice of them to let us borrow their car for our Greeky road trip. Today's strike of the day...drumroll please...

GARBAGE MEN!

Athens was filling up with garbage the whole week that we were gone, and was getting a little stinky. Luckily our flight was leaving early the next morning. 

We had a quiet night-in with the Borderopoli and resumed our addiction to Modern Family before packing up.

Hmm...isn't that the sandwich I threw away last Tuesday?

Nafplio(n)

This morning we woke up early, and no one was on strike! Oh wait, yes they were...

Autumn, still wasn't feeling well, and decided that we would also go on strike against the ruins and sites and stay in the room today. We had breakfast at the hotel, and I went out for a swim from the old town gate and took a few photos before we left Monemvasia.

The drive up to Nafplio/Navplion/who-the-hell-cares was uneventful, and we got to drive on the freeway! It was joyous to return to civilization without winding our way though one lane mountain roads. Nafplio was a cute town with a large fortress and some other ruins since it had previously been the capital of Greece. We checked into our hotel, grabbed some gelato, and I tucked Autumn in for an afternoon of rest and CNN / BBC World News.

While she was resting, I trekked up the 999+ stairs to the top of the fortress, even though it was closed due to striking archaeologists. The views from the top were nice, and then I walked all the way back down again. I grabbed a snack and wandered around the rest of town. Highlights included a cactus forest, a treacherous path along the bottom of the cliff that threatened falling cactus paddles, and a beautiful sunset. We ordered room service and went to bed early. Note on the room service, I ordered the Pear and Cheese "Salad" that was one tiny pear stewed in wine, no lettuce and about 1 1/2 pounds of Greek cheeses. Note on Greek "cheeses", there is only one...feta.

 Good morning sunshine!

 Good morning sad little tuckerton!

 More views of Monemvasia

 Swimming at the sea gate!

Que refreshing!

 Help! I'm trapped in an M.C. Escher drawing!

 The tiny fortress of Nafplio

 Checking into the Amphitrion Hotel

 Our beautiful swimming pool! Just kidding, you thought we'd been Greeked!

Gelato-mania!

 Nafplio town square and the big fortress

 What a surprise! The fortress is on strike! Oh well, Greeked again!

 I think that our vacation went wrong somewhere when walking up 1000 stairs was the highlight of my day...

 View of Nafplio from the top of the fortress

 More views...it was a really nice day, and very pretty from up there.

At least the bartenders union wasn't on strike today! Whew!

 Gratuitous cactus collage!

 Hmm...maybe I should have taken the torn down barbed-wire fence, defaced warning signs and smashed cactus bits as a sign that this was a forbidden path!

Goodbye Greece!

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. 

 

A Greek rest area!

Kalimera (good morning) sheep!

 The restaurant with nothing...

 Entering the city walls in Monemvasia

 "Main Street"

 To the hotel...

 Our "Rapunzel" window

View from the room

 Church in the main square

 Lunch cats!

 View from the acropolis

 Church windows

 View from the top

 Ooh! Mountain-y!

 A shubbery!

 Wildflowers

 The nearby town of Gefyra across the bridge

 More mountain and sea views

 Ancient arch!

 Peek-a-boo!

 Wild onions

 Monemvasia nestled into the cliff

 Cactus!

 Moonlight on the water...

...did I mention that we were bored?

Olympia

Did we go to Washington's capital today? No! We went to Ancient Olympia! After about 1,000,000 hours in the car on windy, mountain roads and guided by our trusty GPS, we arrived in Olympia. We were very concerned about whether it would be open or not (see Our Misadventure to Delphi) since we had seen a rag-tag group of Greeks on strike in Athens that morning, AND since our guidebook provided very questionable hours of "it may close at 3:00 or 8:00 pm". Luckily, the archaeologists were NOT on strike today, and it was a day that it was open late.

The ruins were amazing! The site was by far the largest one that we've been to (excluding Mexico). We saw all of the original Olympic Village and Stadium, including the athletes' training areas, judging box, treasuries and the track. Apparently, the Germans helped do some reconstruction of the site in before the Athens Olympics, and all the other tourists there were German! We also visited the site museum which mainly had a bunch of headless statues?!?

After the site, we walked around the town and shopped the crap-a-rias for a while before sitting down to dinner at the illustriously named "Traditional Greek Food." We really should have known better since we would never go anywhere that was named "Traditional Mexican Food" as it would most definitely lead to at least a day's worth of gastrointestinal distress, which it did. Autumn and I debated about whether the "salad" that was accompanying her souvlaki was a lettuce-based salad, which she hates, or a regular Greek salad. I mistakenly assured her that "of course it's a Greek salad, what other kinds do they have here?" Unfortunately, it was lettuce, and Zeus's Revenge ensued for the rest of the trip! (sad face) Autumn was a trooper, kept up a smile, and on we went on our road trip through the Peloponnese villages of Greece.

 Strike of the day...not sure who was striking, but it was not archeologists, waiters, hotel workers, gas station attendants or toll-booth operators, so we were safe!

 One of the better roads we took today...

 Which way do we go?

 Reconstruction of the "Philppeion" (with a little help from the Germans)

 Starting blocks for track and field events

One arch of the "Krypti Tunnel"...aka the ancient red carpet!

 It's all Greek to me!

(...and no, this joke never got old)

 Time to get the weed-whacker

OΛYMπIΩI?...No!

OLYMPIA!  We were really getting our Greek-language skills on today! Parakalo!

Autumn and a fallen Greek column.

Corinthian capitals from the unlabeled part of the map

So many ruins!

 Limestone with visible shells!

Yeah geology! (which the Greeks invented by the way!)

 Say "fallen column sections"!

The original Olympic pool aka the "Leonideion"

 Another off the map find!

Autumn hypothesized (which the Greeks also invented doing) that this was most definitely an ancient pyramid which the Greeks also probably invented.

The "Workshop of Pheidias" which really looked like a Christian Church, what with the crosses everywhere!

El gymnasium

Oak leaves!

Oakleys!

The soon-to-be dreaded "Traditional Greek Food"

The fact that everything was only in English should have been a sign that this restaurant did not, in fact, have traditional nor sanitary Greek food!

 

Autumn in her own private twin bed at Hotel Pelops.

Unfortunately the evil eye didn't help her at dinner!