OhMyKarin: Summer 2014: Part 3

I'm going to try and post every Tuesday and Thursday, which I've already failed at, but I think having another, seemingly stronger ear infection is a good excuse to be a little late.

Anyway, in the course of three days I went from a party-house in Lake Placid to a hotel room in Athens, Greece. (You can say I was a bit busy) I went on a Globus (all tour details here) tour with my Mom from August 22 to September 3. We went to Athens, Corinth, Mycenae, Epidaurus, Nauplia, Olympia, Delphi, Meteora, Thermopylae, and Piraeus and then went on a three day cruise to Mykonos, Kusadasi and Ephesus in Turkey, Patmos, Herkalion and Knossos in Crete, and Santorini. To say we saw a lot would be an understatement.

So we arrived at the hotel in Athens and were told that our tour group would be having a meeting in a few hours. These would be the people I would be spending the next two weeks with. The people from all over the world, who by some chance, was going on vacation to the same place, time and tour company that we had chosen. It was a one in a million chance, just like meeting anyone, and even though I was the youngest person in the group (by at least ten years) we all got along well.

We went to the changing of the guards

the Olympic Stadium from 1896

Hadrian's Arch

Amphitheater on the Acropolis

The Parthenon

And then we went to Corinth, where we walked across a bridge over the man built canal, separating the Peloponnese from mainland Greece. It was pretty snazzy. There was also an archeological site that we toured (we went to a lot of them).

Next we went to Mycenae, once thought to only be a myth, people were shocked that it actually existed because of its link to mythology of Perseus.

look, rocks!

Let me add that I climbed this mountain in a dress and sandals in 100 degree weather.

It was worth it.

more rocks

(rocks are a reoccurring theme here in Greece)

Then we made a stop in Epidaurus, to see their Amphitheater. And I, being the youthful, adventurous teenager that I am decided that I had to run to the top of said amphitheater, in a dress, after hiking up a small mountain. Some of the great ideas of Karin.

We then stayed the night in the gulf town of Nauplia. I've never seen water so turquoise.

who wouldn't want a panoramic view of the sea from jail?

We then traveled across the Peloponnese to Olympia, and saw the ruins of the original Olympic complex.

Olympia, land of the columns

This is what is left of the original stadium

no worries guys, I smiled for the picture

We then returned to the mainland and went into the mountains to Delphi. Delphi is famous for its oracle and the naval of the earth, which is said to have been where two eagles landed after Zeus released them on the other side of the world.

the naval

all of the blocks of stone had writing continuous writing on them to keep records

Being me, I traveled to the highest point of the town, which is where the stadium was. ( getting up there was an olympic event in itself) I being one of four people out of about 20 in my group who decided to venture to the top.

Literally all that was in Thermopylae.

Anyway, Meteora was the last place we went on land before getting to Athens to go on the cruise, and if you've ever been to Sedona, Arizona Meteora is like the Greek version of it. We went to two monasteries here that were built into cliffs and the tops of stand alone rock pillars.