Magic Jewball

Finishing up the “month of vacation blogging,” we have this look at my short time in Athens and in the post just below, some final thoughts. About my vacation, not this blog. And a surprise!

Remember those packs of stray dogs that made Athens so much fun for me? Here’s a bunch, in Syntagma Square, on the steps leading up to Parliament. If I were a dog, I’m sure I’d hang out around politicians too.

Here’s something to go along with my famous “Barzini’s butter display” photo. It’s world o’feta!

PS, I hate feta.

But that’s not what I came to Athens to see! No, it was this, the Acropolis. On the first day, I took one look at it and decided to climb it… some other day.

The next day, I set out early, got lost (I mean, you can see it from everywhere, but how do you get there?), decided to just get on the subway, and finally found it. I believe that’s how Thucydides always got there too.

Once again, I took a large bottle of water plus my backpack of guidebooks, three kinds of currency, and electronics I didn’t want the hotel housekeeping staff to steal. Midway up, I started to get very hot. And tired. And mindful of the fact that I had forgotten sunscreen. The stone “steps” were also incredibly slippery and clogged with tourists from every country you can imagine plus some others. I stopped to rest at this lovely theater, also because I never did get to that one in Epidavros. I think Blue Oyster Cult played here in ‘73.

But then I reached the Parthenon and it was all worth it. This was the highlight of my trip, I have to say. It totally blew me away, not literally, luckily, because we were pretty high up. I thought I’d be all “yeah, yeah, looks just like the coffee cup” but it wasn’t like that at all. It’s overwhelming in its beauty, scale, magnitude, and classicism. I could really have stayed there all day, except for that whole lack of sunscreen thing not to mention the “plane to Israel” thing.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. Except the Parthenon, they’re still working on keeping it upright, as you can see. But my time in Greece did. Check out the post below for an exciting, actual picture of Becca in Greece, though!

This goes with the Athens post and is the last post about my vacation, I swear!

Here’s the pathway up to our apartment. It’s far less pretty at 5am with a big suitcase after a tour through Jerusalem on a sherut. But let’s think of it this way, shall we?

Here’s the entry to the shuk, or market. It’s a fun place, but Niece1 and I were on our way to the Central Bus Station and their food court of Kosher fun. It was a Friday afternoon, things were winding down, and we moved along. Niece1, who is eighteen and studying in Jerusalem for the year, pretended she didn’t know me while I snapped this.

This was the very last shot on my camera, the view out the window of our kitchen. The lady downstairs had just taken down her sukkah. She’s not at all religious, she just likes to entertain there. This is Israel in a nutshell. In the US, many Jews don’t know what a sukkah is. In Israel you have one even if you’re not religious, kind of like that “I don’t believe in Jesus but the kids like their tree” thing.

But the most beautiful thing I saw the whole time, was this one. Home. I really missed New York. Sometimes it’s good to get away and realize the places and people you miss.

This is actually the wallpaper on my work PC. Brother1 took it a while back.

Oh right! I promised you that exciting reveal. Here I am, in a little temple-looking thing in the Acronafplia fortress in Nafplio. Hot! And I mean that literally.

And there you have it! My vacation. Just a year or so till the next one. Phew.

Midway through my stay in Nafplio, I decided to finally climb the Big Hill and visit one of the fortresses. The lower one, naturally. This one was called Acronafplia, acro being the prefix for heights, naflpia meaning hot, tiring climb. But I grabbed my bucket hat and a bottle of water and set out.

It wasn’t just the blazing sun and steepness that made it difficult. I also was faced with “steps” like these. Safe!

And this is the view back from where I had just come. Yes, those steps above were exactly what I wanted to be faced with.

Finally, I reached the gate. I was tempted to steal the motorcycle parked in front but I staggered onwards.

This must have been a fun look-out job. Or maybe it was to push out people you didn’t like (I think that safety gate is new). Even more fun!

Most of the fortress was in ruins. Probably because there is a higher hill and some other conquerer built an even better fortress. Whoops.

But the views from Acronafplia were so nice that I’m giving them their own post, just below this one.

As promised a mere minute ago, here are the shots from the top of the Acronafplia Fortress in Nafplio. Ooooh, aaaah.

Town, harbor, tree branch.

Nafplio doesn’t have a lot of bathing beaches but this one’s purty enough.

Requisite arty shot.

Here’s the Palimidi Fortress which spelled doom for Acronafplia. It has 999 steps to reach the top. I decided to trust them on that and not count for myself.

:: sigh ::

I mean, really, what else can I say?

Moving on in our pictorial…

Here is Syntagma Square where I drank my Nescafé frappés (now that I’m on my regular keyboard, I can do the accents). Later, I found out that it’s made from concentrate with tap water added. I found this out the hard way.

You can see one of the fortresses that mark Nafplio above the buildings on the right. I climbed the lower one… more on this tomorrow.

This is the church with the marching band, sans marching band.

In case you were thinking Nafplio wasn’t strategic enough, this is yet a third fortress, on an island in the harbor. It’s called Bourtzi and was built by the Venetians in the 15th Century. They also brought all the gelato.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

Can you believe I came home?