Greece (Final part!..... finally :P)

Day 6 (15th of April)

After breakfast, we dashed off to begin our sight seeing again. The place we're about to visit today is a truly amazing one. We're going to visit 2 monasteries on top of the gigantic rocks, Meteora.

See if you can spot 3 monasteries in the picture above! :P And in the picture below, beside my sister, there's this big hole in the rock. That's the prison for monks who lived in the monasteries. Monks who wanted to think over his wrongdoings or maybe receive the word of God will climb and stay in that hole for a long time. The hole is actually quite high and the way there is very steep. So if they slip and fall, that's be the end for them la.

Its really quite amazing how they could build these on top of these rocks.

The 1st monastery, Varlaam.

Before the stairs and walkway were built, they use to lift things up from the bottom using a lift from the balcony. They lift up food, building materials and even human!

Girls are not allowed to wear pants into the monasteries. They failed to inform us earlier to bring skirts, so we had to wear some wrap-around skirts provided by them.

Inside the monastery, the walls were painted with beautiful pictures all over - Jesus' picture, the judgement day and some other famous ones too. But we weren't allowed any photo shots. Too bad!

Our next stop, Holy Monastery of Saint Stephen.

More paintings inside. No photos allowed again. Well, we got at least a bit.

That's all for Meteora Monastery. We headed down, and journeyed our way back to Athens. A statue of Leonidas on the way to remember his bravery during war times.

That night we went up some hill (argh! I forgot its name!) overlooking Athens. It was beautiful. And we could see Acropolis far away.

Day 7 (16th of April)

Its cruising day! We visited 3 islands today boarding on Anna Maru.

A nice comfy cruise ship. Well, quite crowded too.

Our 1st stop island is Paros. We were only given 30 minutes on this island. Pretty short for some curious tourist I would say, but the purpose was to let us go up to its clock tower for the views.

Pretty nice heh.

After that, we had lunch on board and they had some stage performance. There were greek dance and greek music... pretty entertaining. The greek singer even sang 2 mandarin songs! That, certainly impressed all chinese on board.

Our next stop was Mikonos. A very beautiful town, with lots of cute cats! Yeah, cats. I don't know why, but there are just so many cats around, and they are really cute, fluffy and cuddly! Some sitting around, some playing and chasing each other around the harbour, some sleeping on couches and even flower pots! Oo... I love this place :D

Other than cats, donkeys are also a common animal around here. Not stray donkeys of course :P They use donkeys as transportation.

The islands are famous for the beauty of the buildings. There's a beauty in the way they paint them, in the narrow lanes. Indescribable.

They were selling these pictures everywhere. I really wanted to get one for myself. But they're just expensive! Forget it, I'll just snap a photo of it! :P

The 3rd island is more commercialized, more shops, more people. We were to spend one and a half hours here. The cruise also offers sight seeing packages on the island. However, we decided on it too late, and the tour was already fulling booked. So we just went around on our own. The island was famous for their pistachio nuts, and of course, we went to scout around for the cheapest pistachio nuts around town.... Typical Malaysian chinese huh.

We got off the cruise and headed straight for dinner... Chinese food, requested by most of our group members, coz too sick of Greek food! haha :P Well, can't blame us, we had that for the past 5 days.

We went back to stay at Hotel Ariston and mom fell sick :( She caught Greece flu! Poor thing.

Day 8 (17th of April)

Today we will head home! :( Head back to work... :(( The trip seemed so short now. Too short!

But before that, we visited around Athens, the tour we missed on day 1. The Olympic stadium in Athens!

On the bus ride, we saw...

A non-moving guard that stands outside the House of Parliament. Too bad we didn't get to snap photos with them or disturb them :P

Nice buildings...

Our next stop would be the long awaited Acropolis! In Greek, 'acro' means top and 'polis' means city. So Acropolis basically meant 'on top of the city'. Unfortunately, when we arrived, they were in the process of restoring the buildings. So there are quite a lot of construction frames around. Not exactly a very pretty sight la.

I'm touching the Temple of Athina!

A theatre beside the temple.

And we could see the remains of Temple of Zeus not far away.

Erechtheion, a building beside Temple of Athina, which was built for Goddess worshipping.

Well, a picture of how Acropolis looks like now from above. Very nice. Very expensive. *click* I have the picture now! hehe

This is how Acropolis is suppose to be.

We headed down to town to do some last minute shopping, and had our lunch at a Greece famous fast food chain, Goodys. Its not bad at all. They should open a chain here :P

And that's the end of our trip! :( I'll miss Greece....

Hmm.. where shall I go next? kekeke...

Greece Trip (Part 2)

Day 4 (13th of April)

Look at that scenery! Don't you just love spring? Beautiful trees, lovely weather... This was actually taken in the ancient Olympic Stadium in Olympia (not Athens), our 1st destination that day.

This very place is where the first Olympic games ever started. Olympic games, at ancient times are only for Greek men. No women were ever allow to take part or even step into the stadium. Why? That's because all men at the games were supposed to be naked! Ew... men are weird.

There are lots of beliefs and myths in Greek history, therefore, there are temples in most of the places that we visited. In this Olympic stadium, they have a huge temple of Zeus. Again, due to earthquakes, war and flood, its pretty much broken down now. Well... out of more than 20 columns, they only did restore one.

Isn't that huge compared to the tiny me??

And my sister is actually holding it! Gasp!

This is how it looks like when the columns fall to the ground. That shows us how its actually been made up too.

In the photo above, its the runway.... or whatever its called :P They don't have an oval-shape runway like what we have nowadays. The line you see behind us, its the starting line. One interesting thing is, our tour guide told us that in ancient times, they don't had the tradition to lit any Olympic games fire before the game. It was during the modern Olympic games that they started doing it.

Next, we headed down to the Olympic museum where they preserved most of the monuments. Photos without camera flash were allowed, however, they don't allow us to pose in front of the camera with the monument.... well... with no apparent reason it seems. A very weird rule indeed. Even our tour guide who didn't agree with it, went on to scold the museum people. haha.. our tour guide is cool.

Then, we went on to food. Greek food, I wouldn't say I like it that much actually. Their normal course meal would always have Greek salad with Olive oil and vinegar. For starters, they would have musaka (eggplant, mince meat and cream), cheese pie or spinach pie which are all quite creamy and slimy.

Their main course meal would usually be Kebab (pork on a skew), or grilled chicken, which can be quite dry, with vege fried rice as a side dish. In our 9 day trip, we were served this meal for more than 5 times! The truth is, most of us are pretty glad that we won't be having it anymore.

We drove on.... for another 5 hours.... On the way...

We stopped near this huge church for a cup of hot chocolate. hmm~~ *thumbs up* for both the smooth creamy hot chocolate and the church.

A fortress at the Town of Nafpactos.

Ahh~ finally after the long bus ride, we arrived at our destination! A nice little town called Delphi where we stayed the night at a very nice Hotel, in an attic room with sky view! hehe! Ain't that cool?!

I really liked Delphi. This town, located halfway up the mountains, has a very cooling temperature. Serene and peaceful, it has a beautiful view too.

The sky is so clear, its filled with stars at night. The people here are friendly too! And not to mention, Greeks are mostly good looking! :P

Day 5 (14th of April)

Today, our main agenda is to visit the Temple of Apollo. So we packed our luggage early in the morning and left our nice little attic room. hmmm... I'll miss it.

First, we went to the museum where they preserved all the statues and monuments.

Here, we could see that some of their statues actually looked like the sphinx or mummy. I don't know about you, but it gave me the Scorpian King kinda feel. I know I watched too much tv. Anyway tour guide said that's actually because sometime in history, some Egyptians migrated to Greece and brought along their art.

This is our tour guide, a very knowledgable person. He's an artist actually, working only part time as a tour guide.

And this is where we're heading to later. The temple of Apollo had a myth. It was said that long long time ago, there hid a snake in a bush which kills anything that passes its way. One day Apollo's mother went to rest near the bush and was attacked by the snake. Upon hearing the screams of his mother, he came and slew the snake. And that's the foundation where temple of Apollo is built on.

In this place, other than just worshipping Apollo, they held other events too. They have a theatre and a stadium, too. The picture above shows one of the treasury that had been restored. People from different areas that came to take part in the games brought along treasures and gifts, and places it at their respective treasuries.

That's temple of Apollo behind us. And yes, that's all that's left.

That's the theatre behind me.

Not far away from the temple of Apollo, this is where atheletes do their training. Overlooking the lush scenery.... Just lovely!

After yet another Kebab meal, we journey on for another 5 hours drive to our next stop for the night, Kalambaka, a small town situated at the foot of Meteora, gigantic rocks.

Although tired from the bus ride, we still came out for a walk around town. The amazing thing about these rocks, people here actually believed that these rocks are meteors from long long time ago, hence its name, Meteora. History or myth? We have no idea.

Take a look at in between my sister's fingers. That's a monastery built on top of the rocks! That's where we're going to visit the next day. haha.. if you can't really see it, no worries, don't tire your eyes, there are more photos coming up!

We went on to explore the town, bought some Greece chocolates and snap some photos. Although the town was quite small, it is quite happening with quite a number of pubs around. Before going back to our hotel, we stopped by at an ice cream shop for Greek yoghurt, which my sister claimed was really good.

Now, doesn't that make your mouth watery? :P~