Days 20-25: Athens, Greece

Sorry for the delay folks! We have been meeting with a lot of friends and family since we got to Athens, and I couldn't keep up the pace of near-daily updates. Hopefully I can catch up soon!

In Athens we met up with Sierra's brother, Aaron, and his girlfriend Célinie. It was great to have some traveling companions for a while, and nice to finally meet them!  They were on a 1-week vacation to Athens, so it was a nice chance to slow our pace and stay in the same place for a while. 

Our air BnB didn't work out too smoothly upon arrival, but the owner of the restaurant (Adonis) next door helped us in a full-on scavenger hunt for the key.  He was a funny guy, and as the first person we met in Athens, we were excited to find him so accommodating. As a shout out to Air BnB: they gave us a few free nights after a mishap with the room, so we ended up moving to a nice boutique hotel one block from Aaron and Célinie. 

Our time with Aaron and Célinie was mostly filled with great wine and good food. Célinie really knows her wine, so a lot of the time three of us would follow her around and let her lead us to the best wine menu. 

The meatballs were delicious and usually the grape leaves. I love the grilled Haloumi cheese (squeaky) but I'm not sure the rest did. We hit up a restaurant 

recommended by my sister, Daphne's, and had an awesome dinner. They advertised that Brangelina had been there...which is kind of humorous since apparently they have been to half of the hotels and restaurants in Europe.  We hit up a place called "Yard" that was a little modern place that had great wine and great food. We loved it so much we went back later in the week. A few doors down, we followed the urging of a very rotund man (looked a little like Humpty Dumpty or maybe tweedle dee) to sit down and have him sommelier for us. He didn't disappoint, and again we went back to this restaurant. 

We had some hits and some missed food-wise, by all in all it was good food and great wine...thanks to our wine guide Célinie!

The first full day, we did a hop-on/hop-off tour and saw a cool museum which taught us about Ancient Greece, the Panathenaen Stadium (pictured below) and made a failed attempt to see the Acropolis. 

Sierra and I don't often do tons of museums, but this one was well done and had some color-coded charts to explain all of the different time periods, different empires, and which artifacts were associated with each. It tied in well with our recently-obtained knowledge of the Roman Empire, and it was neat to learn about the migration of early humans over time. 

I celebrate winning first place at the March 9, 2015 Olympiad. 

The stadium looked more modern than some we'd seen, and we rented headsets and got some cool history. Man, did the Greeks like naked men.  Apparently all Olympians were naked.  There was a two-headed statue of a young man looking towards the emperor and an old man looking at the games. The creepy part was that they both had some detailed manscaping and the old man was very aroused by the games...if you know what I mean.  All of the statues of men in Greece are nude, unless they are a philosopher...and all of the women statues are clothed. 

We learned that the word "stadium" comes from the fact that the one lap around the track was called a stade. We also learned that "gymnasium" came from where the nude men trained for the games. My guess is that they also manscaped each other at that location. 

After this we took the bus to the Acropolis, but it was closed for the day. Seems like everything closes at three around here. Anyway we would just try again the next day, as we have quite a lot of time left in Athens. 

A shot of the beautiful theatre--I believe they still have shows here, and there was an Elton John concert here a few years ago. 

We hit up the Acropolis museum the next day, and then the Acropolis itself. Most of the buildings were destroyed when Athens was overthrown, but the Acropolis (including the Parthenon) was left standing. It looks beautiful from all over Athens, towering over the city and illuminated for us modern-day visitors to ogle at. We also took in a few sunsets with the Acropolis watching over us. 

Sierra and I chillin out at the Acropolis 

Aaron and Célinie looking happy from their viewpoint over Athens

On the 4th day we took in Delphi - which is where the oracle was, and which was a lost city for years until Archeologists were able to find it and escavate. It was probably the most impressive thing I saw in Greece, even though the stadium area was closed for the winter. We had a tour guide on this one, but Aaron and I thought she might have been a bit biased. She looked a bit like one of the characters in "my big fat Greek Wedding," and much like the Greeks in that movie, she seemed to portray them as wonderful and infallible and the creators of everything. But it was in a fun way. For instance, she said that the leaders of fueding nations or city-states would meet here in person to talk out their differences and prevent war. She said they basically created diplomacy and were super duper nice guys. She also said the reason they had a theatre and a stadium were because teamwork is the most important thing in life since it shows you can get along. I'm pretty sure they just had a theatre and a stadium as an offering to entertain the gods...but whatevs. Oh and she also said that everyone believed the world to be flat except the Greeks...and they let two birds go on opposite sides of the planet and they met here...which made it the center of the earth and meant that the world is round. She was really good though, and spoke French and English the whole time so we were happy.  

After the tour we had lunch at a nearby restaurant, and our tour guide took us for one last stop in the hometown of the famous Greek doctor who invented the Pap smear. Check that off my bucket list! 😃

We rode back to Athens and had another chill night of dinner and a bottle of wine :)

Enjoying the view of the valley

The wall to the right had the names of everyone who worked on construction and everyone who acted here. The script was incredible...especially when you consider that it was carved into stone. 

Apparently the Delfinians got really good cell phone reception. No wait. Apparently Verizon built these pillars. I dunno...insert cell phone joke here.

More pillars

Same pillars, different angle

The four of us posing at the oracle of Delphi

A hill...from the days of yore

Our funny tour guide 

Back in Athens, we went to a nice bar on Aaron and Celenie's rooftop for a drink at sunset, then to Yard again and had a lovely dinner. 

We had free rose brandy. Most of the restaurants here give a glass of brandy free for dessert, but this place gave some great rose Brandy and just left us the bottle for a bit. We liked the Rose flavor the best I think. 

I think this was the Temple of Zeus...The pillar you see here toppled about 200 years ago in a major windstorm. 

On our last day we saw some local ruins in town. Then we decided to just have a chill night and go see a movie, which was kind of funny: We walked around near the theatre looking for food, and stopped at 5-7 cafes. They all served only drinks and seemed to think we were strangé for wanting food. So we found some acceptable fast-food sandwich place and then went to our movie. The theatre felt like a ghost town...as though it was built to be a fancy mall before the Greek economy crashed. Here are a couple pictures:

You can see the "villa cinemas" sign...this is the actual entrance to a modern theatre. Note the graffiti, which is present on every wall in Athens. 

This is the "3D game room" area of the theatre 

One other thing to note was how many cute dogs were just chilling in Athens. They looked so relaxed...which is reflective of the people in Greece I suppose. Here are a few of of furry buddies:

At the Acropolis museum

Maxin' relaxin' at the plaza

At the Acropolis footsteps

We also saw quite a few felines at Delphi:

All in all, Athens may not have been our top city but it was a good place to slow down after about three weeks of fast-paced travel. It was wonderful to spend time with Aaron and Célinie too!  Our only regret was that we never rode the "Happy Train...a small train that drives kids (and adults with a sense of humor) around the main parts of town. We did learn that A&C were able to ride it the day we left for Crete.  

On to the island!

Days 18-19: Belgrade, Serbia

I've fallen a little behind after 3.5 days with friends and family...which has meant more wine and less typing :) I thought I'd sum up Belgrade in one post, and do so by topic instead of as a chronological storyline...

Sierra doing her best "blue steel" as we wait for a taxi

First...our departure from Kotor on Sunday morning:

We wake up early to catch an 8:15am flight and find the weather to be much improved, so I'm able to snap a few shots of the hotel location. We get to the airport 1:45 before the international flight, and find that they don't open ticketing until 90 min ahead, and security until 60 min. Thanks for telling us to be here 2 hrs early, Montenegro air. Don't worry, you didn't charge for bags and we ain't mad atcha. We take off a bit late and have a bumpy ride, but we're off to Belgrade. 

View from our room, to the Bay of Kotor

View from the pier, some beautiful mountains nearby!

Our quaint little hotel

The view of the bay from the air. There are the two islands below!

Belgrade city and architecture:

We meet up with David (aka Davor), a co-worker of Sierra's who is taking a month to visit home. He tours us around the city, and has arranged for us to see a couple of concerts and to try some Serbian food. We get his input on the war, and it is definitely educational to hear another side of the story. His hometown is far to the East, near Romania, so they weren't directly involved in the war...but they of course were affected, and were stereotyped by Americans when they came to the states. It seems Americans thought Serbs were "the bad guys" in a war where there really was no bad or good. 

Here are some sights from the walking tour... 

St. Mark's Church...it was mostly empty inside while going through renovations. 

The walls of Kalemegdan. This fortress/castle was very large and expansive (and impressive). Maybe it was because of the weather, but I felt like we were at a Scottish castle. The pics don't capture it well, but here are a few. 

The wooden bricks on a bridge over the moat. A tree or something appears to have pushed these up into a big lump. 

A closer look at the bricks. We didn't realize they were made of wood at first. Cool huh?

This is the bohemian, artists street called Skadarlija in Belgrade. Great food and cool artwork on the buildings...and as you can see a pretty street to stroll along. 

A view of Skadarlija facing the other direction.  That's our wonderful friend and guide, David, showing us the city. 

The historic Hotel Mockba (Moscow), where visiting dignitaries often stay in the main part of town. 

St. Sava - it was also empty inside. I asked David why they were both empty and he explained that Sava was started in the 1930's and had to be stopped for WWII. Under communist rule, it was not continued.  In the 80's it restarted, then was stopped for the war in the Balkans. Now it is once again under construction. Good things come to those who wait I hope!

The food of Belgrade:

Our first stop with David was a little pastry and pizza shop. When we walked in, everything looked amazing.  David ordered us something I couldn't pronounce in several tries, but basically it's a flaky pastry full of meat, which he says is usually good for the end of a night of drinking (or 4th meal as some may call it). He gets us each a drinkable greek yogurt and tells us that we need to drink the yogurt while we eat. Although I wanted to order everything, we just had these pastries and loved them.  

That thing on the top is what we ate. Multiple times. 

It was rainy and chilly in Belgrade, so we spent a lot of time drinking Cappucino or Raki (sounds like "rrrah-KEE-yuh"), which is flavored brandy. David had some good quince brandy, but we also tried raspberry, plum, apricot, pear and walnut. Some were good, some tasted like fruit juice, some warmed your insides like a strong whisky, and some tasted like cough syrup. Two days of it did start to take its toll though, as we were essentially sipping 80-proof liquor after noon each day. We were good sports and tried many flavors...and may need a couple of days off ;)

Our first dinner at "tri sesira" (three hats) on Skadarlija. We try some more delicious food I can't pronounce. One was cheese and meat rolled and then fried. One was just some kind of delicious sausage, and the last was a meat and cabbage dish.

At Tri Sesira, David coached us on what to order, but he could apparently sense our apprehension about the dish he described as pig fat jello with meat chunks in it...so he didn't order that. At the next table over, a large man sat alone with two huge beers, and summoned the Serbian version of mariachis to his table to play romantic songs. Our guess is that he was heartbroken. He was pretty fuhshnickered, and sang along with the musicians who were a bit out of their element. 

After dinner we went back to David's place to have a drink and get ready for some "Turbo Folk" at his cousin Ivana's favorite bar. 

Before turbo folk music we stopped for some upscale fusion-type dining. It was delicious, and featured a live band playing some old-school Serbian music. We drank Raki apricot, walnut and raspberry.  I liked the walnut, but we all loved the raspberry because it tasted like fruit juice. That could cause some trouble!

After the concert we would go to the pastry shop and order more meat pastries, greek yogurt and delicious pizza slices. On our last morning we tried more traditional Serbian comfort food and I had a glass of Raki with David before heading to the airport. 

The music of Belgrade:

We hit up a local bar with David and his cousin, Ivana, who had arranged for the table right in front. The place was very smoky, but once the music picked up people put out their cigarettes to start dancing.  The music was awesome, the singers were talented and we had a blast! We have several videos to share, but essentially turbo folk sounds a bit like Mediterranean style music with fast keyboard/accordion music and impressive vocals that we couldn't understand but all the patrons sang along with. 

Night two, we see "S.A.R.S" with David and his other cousin. They are more like Serbian reggae-alternative and are really good. They sound like Slightly Stoopid and have quite a following. We had a blast, witnessed a proposal during a slow song and sang along to the only song we kind of knew...which was about a guy who wants to eat but all he has in his apartment is moldy bread (nom nom nom).

All in all we had a blast in Belgrade. It was a different visit than our past several cities: our first real party nights and sleeping in late.  David was a fantastic host and it was nice to see a city with a local. Thanks David!  On to Greece :)

Day 17 - a rainy day in the fjord

Sierra and I were happy to be in the warm, dry bus and out of the rain!

Day 17 wasn't much walking and I forgot to capture the miles walked...but it wasn't much. Some new metrics:

Umbrellas destroyed in five minutes: 2

Articles of clothing soaked in 5 minutes: all

Rainfall before 11am: a billionty cm 

So I opened the door to see what all the noise was, and it was a river running down the stairs. I made the mistake of saying the rain wasn't too bad...but in fact the rain was bad and the wind was worse. We only had maybe 1/4 mile to the bus stop, but by the time we were at the end of the alley we were toast. Thankfully a lot of our clothes are in ziplock bags and our backpacks provide a small amount of insulation. 

We saw 10' waves crashing into the fortress and into each other, rivers rushing down hotel steps, and people frantically running with umbrellas in a futile attempt to not get absolutely drenched.  

We take the city bus to the main station, where supposedly there was an 11am bus. Since our scheduled bus in Split didn't exist, I was adamant that we be there before 10 even though our bus was at 11. When we arrived the bus time was correct but my master plan to use the time for breakfast backfired since we wouldn't dare leave the station in this downpour. The station had a smoky waiting room, but then we found a caffe. Unfortunately the caffe had no food and was a closed off room with smokers.  The magazine stand had just candy bars.  I used the wifi to message the hotel asking for a restaurant recommendation for a place with a fireplace :) 

At 11:20 our bus arrives, and the driver shows his lack of concern for the rivers across the highways. 

The recurring wave coming from our bus onto houses nearby. 

Tough to get good pics of the bay of Kotor when the window is covered in rain. I could see how this would be beautiful on a sunny day!  That's one of two little islands in the bay, complete with a little church. 

Upon arrival in Kotor, we look for a bevy of taxis and there was none. We see many driving by but can't flag one. We're getting soaked. Sierra gets a guy at a hot dog stand to call a cab and I hail one a few seconds later. The cab that was phoned also immediately shows up, honking and yelling, but we're getting soaked so not in the mood for a cabbie argument and proceed to get into the first cab and go to the hotel. 

We check into our hotel and it was warm and the towel heater and room heater were on. Our host was very nice, and says that for dinner just go to the water (about 50 yards) and turn right to find a restaurant. We find the first one:  Caffe del mare. It was somewhat warm and cozy and had views of the beautiful bay, but it was still too wet to go out and enjoy it. What we did enjoy was the hits of the 80's. 

Think of this as one of those old TV commercials for a 1980's consolation CD. "We've combined our favorite epic movie soundtrack hits from the 80's, combined with a few Yugoslavian hits from the 80's as well!  You'll receive such hits as:

Bonnie Tyler - I need a hero

Yes - Owner of a lonely heart

Laura Brannigan - Gloria

Donna Summer - on the radio

Terence Trent D'arby - sign your name 

Chris Rea - the road to hell Pt. 2

Depeche Mode - Just can't get enough

U2 - in the name of love

Kenny Loggins -  footloose theme song

***PLUS! YOU'LL RECEIVE TOP YUGOSLAVIAN HITS OF THE 80's, such as...

Boris Novkovic - Kuda Idu Izgubljene DJEvojke

Novi Fasili - Ja sam za ples"

So Sierra and I enjoyed these amazing jams, and she had a strange hot chocolate...

Basically warmed pudding that tasted like unsweetened bakers chocolate. But it says "hot chocolate" on the glass so it must be the right thing!

We had some rich pasta dishes then did what you do after rich cheesy pasta on a rainy day: we want back to the hotel for a warm winter's nap. It was fantastic. 

We were cozy in our room and had the only English TV we could find (and first TV of the trip): the Food network.  I now want to try calamari with spicy Piri Piri sauce, but may have to figure out how to get to Mozambique.  After our nap and slowness to wake up, we go to a cheesy bar for dinner and it was another one that was similar to our Bosnian experience: very much like an Applebee's or BJ's or some other american chain. Only with lots of male chain smokers. We wonder if there are women in Kotor, until a group of three walks in. I'm sure the fellas were pumped. 

We head back to the hotel and arrange for a taxi to pick us up at 6:15 am for the airport tomorrow, and got all packed and then went to bed. :)

Day 16 - Exploring the old city of Dubronik

18,055 steps, 7.85 miles, 52 floors

The views from the top of the mountain overlooking Dubrovnik

The door to our place. The alley was about 200 steps up, covered in foliage, but right inside the walls near the Main inner Street. 

We woke up and had omelettes for brekky right next to our room, then brought the car back to Avis, which is about 2.5 miles away. Thankfully they gave us no trouble with the fact that we weren't able to return last night, and also refunded money for putting extra fuel in the car. That's a first! 

The walk back was a nice way to see part of the city outside of the walls. Most of the walk was the super high-end resorts and swanky restaurants, but we did see some sweeping views of the coastline. 

These are now everywhere...and have really lost their uniqueness. Nowadays you just grab a padlock, write your initials and your sweetheart's, and then lock it onto any man-made material near a body of water. 

When we get back, we pay for a ticket to walk the walls, and make a loop around town. There were two other couples that we saw the whole time...otherwise it was empty but for 4-5 construction workers. This man of apparently asian descent was dressed in what I would describe as a combination of "ridiculous" and "awesome" and maybe a little "omg."  Once again I snapped no picture despite my eagerness to do so. He had a baseball cap that said "so fresh", some cool 80's sunglasses, straight-line bangs, and some funky red starter jacket. It was a nice pick-me-up to start the day. 

The view just outside the old town walls

For those of you too young to have used a phone booth, this is what they looked like before the dawn of cell phones. 

There were cats everywhere in Dubrovnik, milling about like they own the place. Here are a few pictures, out of about 300 we could have captured:

A black and white cat saying "Oh hello, I didn't see you there. Care to provide me with some milk or perhaps a pile of wet meat? In return I would be most obliged to let you share this seat with me...if only but for the moment to enjoy these sweeping views of the Dalmation coast."

An orange cat trolls through our breakfast spot...

Then...blast off!!!  The Croatian space program is doing quite a lot of research on putting cats into a lower-earth orbit. 

I took a picture through a hole. In the days of yore, archers could fire flaming arrows from here into the yachts of celebrities who were attempting to pillage and plunder the town...for great deals on designer clothing and Dubrovnik-shaped magnets. 

Some Croatian youngsters showing their stuff on the pitch. Pretty sweet place to play if  you ask me!  Basketball hoops are all over the country, providing clever decorative accent to places where people play soccer. 

After seeing the walls we have some much-needed and rare downtime to relax and maybe plan a bit for the next few days. But mostly relax. By the time we motivated again, we caught the very last tram to the top of the hill at 4:30pm. It didn't give us much time to go to the museum, but despite the ticket lady's discouragement I bought two tickets to the war museum at the top. Up we go!

The panoramic views from the top of the museum. 

A door. 

The museum was pretty interesting. It was all about the battle in Dubrovnik in the early 1990's. Few expected an attack on what is probably the crown jewel of the Adriatic, however the Yugoslav army (fighting for the Serbian side, under Slobodan Milosevič) began to pound Dubrovnic with air strikes, bombs, etc. the townspeople banded together and fought back, and used this hill as a strategic point to defend their city. It was, I believe, the only time that Dubrovnik's centuries-old fortress was ever attacked. Originally they didn't have many weapons but some brave souls snuck out into the night with hunting rifles and surprised Serbian forces. 

Not everything in the museum was in English, and we ran through very fast...so we didn't gather an holistic understanding of the battle, but the Croatians lost many lives yet in the end kept their city. Today you notice that some roofs are a brighter red, which typically means they were replaced after being destroyed in the 90's. 

The phrase above is a catholic statement made famous by St. Francis, which in Latin means "peace and good," or sometimes translated as "peace and salvation." 

We took some pictures from here, and took in the sweeping views of the beauty while also imagining this as a military position. Crazy to think of this one spot in two very distinctly different ways. 

When we went back to town we stopped into a place for a glass of wine and some appetizers, but they only had seafood to eat so we just stuck with wine. I have occasionally tried some local fish, but Sierra isn't a seafood lover and the seafood here isn't the kind for someone who isn't a seafood lover (lots of heads, skin, bones and they like the fishy flavors).  We would later learn that we missed out on an epic fresh seafood platter at this place.  After leaving there we search for Taj Mahal, a Bosnian restaurant we saw earlier and both thought sounded fun to try.  

After some searching, we find Taj Mahal and go inside, and it has six tables and a total of 6 other people inside. The waiter is in a traditional black vest and everything inside seems pretty old school. We spoke to our neighbors who are from Minnesota and own a Spirit Halloween store and are traveling toe Czech Republic and Transylvania after the Balkans. We try to figure out what language the two blonde girls near us are speaking...it's very unique...and we ultimately decide they are Finnish. But we never bothered to ask. Another American-sounding, hipster-looking young guy rolls in and sits where the English couple had been. I ask why it's Taj Mahal if it's Bosnian, and the waiter says that the Taj Mahal was built as a gift for a man's love, and the owner built this restaurant for their love of Bosnian food. It's his/their "Taj Mahal."  

The food was nothing short of fantastic, and everything was in traditional-looking plates and bowls. We each had a fantastic soup and then shared a couple of dishes, including the house specialty, which was meat wrapped in a fluffy croissant-like dough, and topped with a tzatsiki-like topping. It was incredible (the next day we would be told by a friend to try Taj Mahal, and to specifically try the house specialty...glad we did)!

Our soups and the house specialty in the middle. 

We went to bed and set our alarms for a morning bus departure to Kotor.