Day 3 Part 1 Day Trip to the Hill Towns Tour of Veneto

Any Excuse to Travel

*Beware : Ultra Long Picture Post*

A long, long time ago, I started a post on the day three(and final day) of our Venice Trip. It languished in my drafts for months, before I remembered. That too, just because daughter and I were going through the old pictures of the times when the three of us had so much fun.

Given that the year is coming to an end, the least I can do is do the post, before the year ends. Next year’s holidays can be chronicled the next year 🙂 without a backlog. Talking of holidays, this has been the longest time for us without a proper holiday. India trips never counted as holidays in that sense – they are just to replenish our souls, staying with parents and enjoying the cosy, warmth of being with them. For our holiday souls, we needed other holidays, like the ones…

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With my media space running out here, I was forced to think of other ways of doing my travel posts – which have the most pictures. After a lot of thought, I decided to section it off into a separate travel blog. Hoping though that I do end up traveling enough to justify the new blog 🙂

Any Excuse to Travel

After half a day of walking around in the Murano and Burano, we decided to head back to Venice. Do read the previous parts of the travelogue here and here if you haven’t read them yet.

We had a day trip planned to the hill towns of Veneto for the whole of the third and last day, so wanted to experience as much of Venice as we could that evening.

So I had read of the Bridge of Sighs in loads of books. Silly as I am, I hadn’t checked out how it looked. I had asked the receptionist at the hotel, where it was, and she had indicated it on the map. Now, Venice has just too many bridges, each one as pretty as the other. We couldn’t figure out which one was the Bridge of Sighs. We took pictures of every bridge – just in case, asked lots…

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Venice Day 2 – Part 1 Murano and Burano

We had a late, leisurely start on the second day in Venice.

We lazed around, had a nice huge breakfast. Did I mention the coffee in Venice? I must have, but delicious as it was, it is certainly worth mentioning again. Such delicious, flavour-full coffee!

The plan was to visit the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello. There are tours from Venice but all the reviews and traveogues I read recommended using the public transport to get the real feel of the place. So we decided to use the public transport instead. We went back to the vaporetto station and took a 12 hour ticket which allowed us to use any water bus for 12 hours. Later we realized that we should have gone in for the 36 hour ticket – would have been far cheaper in the long run, but at that point, both of us missed it.

On route to the vaporetto station, we stopped at a church. Check out the ceiling!

We decided to go to Murano first. Murano is the island famous for the glass factories. The water bus that we took, actually felt like a ‘bus’ in the real sense. Check out the crowd. Clearly loads of tourists had read the same travelogues as me 🙂

The sights we passed enroute to Murano..

The wooden pilings apparently show the route that the waterbuses have to take. We saw these sort of pilings on the way from the airport as well. Apparently the whole of Venice stands on millions of pilings like these. The wood came from Slovenia, which now has barren regions because of all the wood that was cut and used to keep Venice afloat.

As soon as we landed on Murano, we were directed to the glass factory, which would close at noon. We hurried towards the factory, along with all the tourists from our water bus. In the factory, we were treated to a wonderful exhibition of glass blowing, and the art of making glass artifacts. He made a glass horse in minutes! It was breath-taking to watch.

And he blows it out!

Look at him fashioning a horse from molten glass!

And within minutes the horse is ready! What expertise!

After the session at the glass factory, we refused to get seduced by the charming salespeople at the glass exhibitions, and decided to walk the streets of Murano instead.

Fodder for the boats – a filling station for boat.

I loved the look of this boat, full of vegetables! I couldn’t help wonder if it were a vegetable shop or just the way the restaurants get their veggies delivered.

Murano has glass everywhere.. Glass Flowers..

Glass gardens…

As I browse through my pictures, I realize that we have loads of lovely pics, but all of them with us in them, so I’ll just skip ahead to our next destination – Burano. I found the way the Italians pronounced the word, so very charming! So off we went, back to the water bus station, and got on the water bus to Burano.

We saw some abandoned islands with ruins of houses on them.. Doesn’t it make you wonder who lived there, in the middle of the sea, all alone on an island? I’m not surprised that whoever lived there decided to abandon it..

Burano, I understood from what I had read was famous for it’s lace and its coloured houses. Here’s a picture that captured both.

Another thing that struck me about Burano was the greenery. It was the greenest among the islands we visited. May be it just was not as populated as the others..

The multi-coloured houses of Burano.

When daughter was little, she used to watch a programme on Cbeebies, and it had coloured houses(to teach the little ones colours), and the houses in Burano reminded me of that!

And soon it was food time. Hitchy, finally some food pics, that can be posted 🙂

That was one of the most delicious meal we had in Venice. The bread was oh-so-delicious! Dipped in Olive Oil – yum!

Grilled veggies – we polished off a few before we remembered to take pictures!

The pasta I fell in love with. I don’t remember the name, the menu was in Italian, all I knew while ordering was that it was a vegetarian spaghetti, but the taste! It was amazing! I think it was spaghetti in pesto. I came home and tried to replicate it with basil pesto, and the taste was quite similar. Delicious! The thought of it makes me drool!

And the pizza.

We also had a delicious dessert, a local biscuit and ice-cream, drenched with chocolate sauce! I can’t find any pictures of it. Clearly, both of us were more interested in attacking it rather than waste time taking pictures 🙂

Tummy satisfied, we walked around the little island. Colours everywhere! Such a lively, cheerful looking place it was!

The plan was to visit Murano, Burano and Torcello, but it was almost 3 in the afternoon by the time we were done with lunch, so we decided to skip Torcello and return to Venice. We had booked a day tour to the Hill Towns of Veneto for the third and final day in Venice, so we really wanted to experience more of Venice. Torcello seemed less attractive than Venice.

So off we went, back to Venice, and what we did there, shall be fodder for the next post 🙂

PS: Remember me moaning about not being able to select pics to post? Well, WP decided it for me – no more pics. Apparently I am the limits of my media capacity, so I had to delete all my headers, and ran to Hitchy in tears, thanks so much, Hitchy, for all your help 🙂 So has any of you faced this problem? Any option, apart from using Flickr?

Venice – Day 1

As usual, I had big plans of going completely prepared to Venice. This time, in my defence, I did read up, I did plan well.

I even had all our stuff packed in time. Husband arrived at 10 in the night from Glasgow, and everything was in place. Eat, sleep, wake up and fly was all we needed to do. Despite all the hoping and wishing, the weather forecast did forecast showers and thunderstorms. The weather here was not great either. It ensured that we got wet in the short walk from the taxi to the airport terminal.

After a long, long queue for the security checkin( we always seem to be in queues at airports), we managed to reach the gates, just in time for boarding. Flying a low cost airline  has in it’s disadvantages, the fact that no meals are served in flight. So, me being, super-planner for a change, had brought along lovely buttery croissants from Waitrose. Why worry about butter and fat, when on holiday, eh?

So we took off, even the cramped seating couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm. Daughter insisted on reading the in-flight magazine end to end, while I tried to grab a nap.

And now the time for the mandatory, in the air pics. No matter how much I travel, I can’t stop behaving like a woman on her first flight 😦

If you look very closely, you’d see a green lake nestled between the mountains.

And finally after two hours in the air, we landed in Venice. It looked clear, and gorgeous! Daughter always complained that she never gets to see the blue sky in England, well, she certainly couldn’t complain here. Clear, gorgeous blue sky! Thunderstorms, rain showers seemed a lifetime away. Of course, none of this meant anything because the weather changes in Venice in minutes, guidebooks told us.

At the airport, it dawned on me that I had forgotten to take a printout of the map of where the hotel was. We went to an information desk, where we were told to take the water bus(vaporetto – doesn’t it sound wonderful? Everything sounds wonderful in an Italian accent, me thinks :)) get off at Fondamenta Nouve and then walk 10 mins to the hotel. Sounded easy enough. Couldn’t be more difficult than our trek in Greece, could it?

We were told the direction to follow to reach the water bus. There was a long tunnel like passage way, and we walked for about five minutes before we reached the water bus station. We were accosted by a young man, waving pamphlets and telling us that the water taxi would take us to our hotel in 20 minutes for 110 euros. For a minute, we were confused, but then realised that most people were walking towards the next stop. On checking realized that the water bus was the public transport, while the water taxi was like the taxi we use – private, and more than double the cost of the waterbus -both ways. So we decided to take a chance with the water bus. Most people seemed to make the same choice, which reassured us  and had us worried. After all, it’s called a bus! What if we have to stand all the way to Venice? Thankfully, we did not.

A water bus getting loaded with it’s passengers.

Finally after about 30 minutes, and some whining by daughter about how hot it was(she did not sleep on the flight, and was tired, sleepy and hungry by then), we reached our destination. Getting off, we checked at a trattoria, the directions to our hotel. The fragrance of food, made me long to just sit there and eat! We went the direction he told us to, only to get a confused and asked someone else. He directed us in another direction, and we went off again, in search of our hotel. Now, just to give you an idea, this is what that area looked like.

Now, Venice is a lot of islands(118, to be precise), connected by bridges. So each time you cross a bridge, you are crossing over to the next island. In search of our hotel, we ended up crossing about 10 bridges, until we finally found it. In reality, it was just 2 bridges away – 5 mins walk, at max, but we had to get lost! I read in some guides that the best way to see Venice is to get lost in Venice. Well, we started off doing that 🙂

I have to say, the happiness at reaching your destination is amplified when you have to go to such lengths to reach it. Husband had to haul our big suitcase over all those bridges. And all of us were very, very hungry. The hotel room was a huge relief. Although we had checked out the reviews in Expedia and Tripadvisor, we were not expecting very spacious rooms, because almost everybody mentioned how rooms are small in Venice. Ours was a  welcome change – nice, spacious, and such lovely staff! We checked in, and then ran out to grab some food.

There was this nice main street that we had passed, while searching for our hotel, and we went back there. We had the most delicious ravioli, and spinach and ricotta cannelloni. We practically inhaled it – hungry as we were. All we wanted after that was a nice nap. Bliss!

A nap was just what we needed. The hotel had a complimentary tea spread from 2pm onwards, and we did full justice to it. Well, not full, but we had the best coffee I have had in recent times. The spread of cakes, pastries and biscuits made us wish we had the space for it all 🙂 Never mind, we had 2 more days to try out everything on the buffet.

So off we went. To get lost again, but this time it was much more fun.

A Campo(square). Apparently, we went at a time when the mad rush of tourists hadn’t quite started.

The first sighting of the Grand Canal from under the Rialto Bridge.

Someone walking up the bridge for a better view.

And the view from up there…

And we meander through bridges, and squares and little lanes… watch gondoliers parked, waiting for their customers…

.. to finally reach San Marco, and the Campanile, from where we took these pics. We went up the Campanile, and had the most wonderful view of Venice.

Basilica San Marco, doesn’t it look gorgeous?

The Grand Canal adjacent to San Marco. Gondoloas, anybody?

The famous Bridge of Sighs! Yes, we did kiss under the Bridge of Sighs in a gondola 🙂

By then, our tummies were rumbling again. Walking is tough work, so is taking pictures of every single thing. We take way too many pictures! I’m having such a tough time selecting pictures. We got lost again, in search of food this time.

I can’t help wondering if these are houses, and who gets to live in them! Must be such a romantic existence!

Isn’t Venice gorgeous at night? I could live there forever! And eat in all those lovely trattorias every single day!

Food time again, delicious risotto and pizza this time. No pictures, because husband did not take pictures! He’s got us eating it, and no pictures of the actual food! Time to get back in bed, but not before we tasted some of the delicious chocolate mousse cake that was still waiting for us back at the hotel. Husband stuck to gelattos. He loves gelatto. Last time we were in Italy, he practically lived on gelatto, and he did not want to make an exception this time 🙂

The first day went off so well, with no sign of thunderstorms and rain showers – we couldn’t believe our luck! Needless to say with all the walking we did, we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows!

(to be continued..)

Back-from-Holiday Blues..

..is in full swing around here. Made worse by the fact that we had to come back to this cold wet place after a few days in glorious, cheerful sunshine.

We couldn’t help look enviously at people who had just arrived in Venice. They have a few more days of fun..

We also had a change of luck with the weather. Remember how I lament about bad weather following us? This time, despite predictions of rain, we had the best weather! Holiday luck changing for the good? I certainly hope so!

The food! The food was to die for! I’ve come back a few kilos heavier, but I was beyond caring. Stuffed to the gills with pasta, risotto and pizza.

And the place… It was gorgeous. There is a reason why Venice is called the ‘Queen of the Adriatic’. What an elegant queen she is!

Wishing I was there is all I can do now. I could have stayed there for a week and not run out of things to do..Husband says he could have lived there forever… Hopefully one day, we’ll be back there..

So how have all of you been? I will start blog hopping tomorrow, today is the ‘clear-up-after-holiday’ day 🙂

Holiday Tales Post 8 The Last Day

It’s been more than a month since we got back from Greece, and high time that I put an end to these holiday tales, don’t you think?

The last day was a lazy, lazy day. We had nothing on the agenda, apart from soaking in the atmosphere, eating good food, and lazing around. Starting with a delicious breakfast(it was a relief to not have to hunt for breakfast places), at a table with a view.

We had a great time at the windmill, but to be honest, I had a million mini heart attacks every time daughter moved around. I was constantly worried that she would fall down those stairs. So we had decided to ask our hotel manager if he could transfer us into one of the cave houses. After breakfast, the first thing we did was this, and he was so understanding, and showed us to our new accommodation, a traditional cave house. It might have helped that the windmill cost more than the cave house, but anyway!

The view from the cave house.. We planned to spend the evening watching the sunset from here..

The insides.. See the roof?

By the way, the place we stayed at also claims this – check out the little board. Too bad we came here 11 years too late 🙂

After settling in, we set off once again to walk the streets of Oia. One of the things I loved were the flowers everywhere.. Doesn’t this hibiscus transport you to India? And I love the colour!

And the Bougainvillea, it was everywhere, and it looked so gorgeous!

See those caves towards the right of the picture? I was told that all the caves looked like that before there were converted into houses.. I wonder if the people who first settled here, ever imagined that their adaptation to the environment, would result in a beautiful tourist destination in the years to come…

Some of the traditional blue domed churches that this place is famous for..

The little port, that we did not go down to. I told you, we were after a relaxing day. Going down might have been easy, but coming back up might have been a different story 🙂

The majestic cliffs that plunge down into the sea…

They do take good care of their buildings…

Aren’t these trees cute?

After all the walking around, our tummies called for lunch. After a huge lunch, at a restaurant with a view(it is impossible to find one, without :)), we headed back to our cave house. The rest of the afternoon, we planned to sit around, and wait for the sunset..

Of course, nothing goes as per plan. The sky that had been clear all morning suddenly had all the clouds in the world, crowding our view!

So what if there were clouds, we were determined to capture what we could.. and torture you guys by putting it up here 🙂

We could actually see the clouds moving. One minute our hopes would rise, that maybe the clouds would move away, in time for a perfect sunset, the next minute they would be dashed by the sun getting covered completely..

I love the way, we can see the rays of the sun filtering through the clouds…

One of the rising hopes moments…

If it looked like this with the clouds, I wonder how beautiful it would have been when the sky was clear?

With the sun gone, it’s time for some night time splendor.. Did I mention that our cave house was just below the windmill?

We ended the holiday with another delicious dinner.. Fitting end, don’t you think?

Holiday Tales Part 7 First Day in Oia

As I browsed through pictures, I realized that I had forgotten all about posting the last leg of our holiday.

After the our experience in the Ghost Town, we were braced for all eventualities. We had met an Indian family in Fira, who mentioned that Oia(where we were headed to), was very quiet in comparison to Fira. That was enough to get us worried. Then again, we decided that we are sure to find something to do there. We also decided to return our rental car before heading for Oia. We had to return the car in Fira, and we did not want to come back  to Fira, just for that. Our plan was to walk around Oia village and just relax, enjoy the sunset.. basically, do nothing.

After a heavy breakfast at a beach hotel, we got ready and checked out of our ghost hotel. This was one time when there was staff at the reception when we needed them. Guess they did not want us taking off with the keys!

We wanted to go to a beach, drop off the car, and then set off for Oia. We had slight change of schedule based on what our tour guide on the volcano trip told us. He recommended going to the other tip of Santorini, which had the light house. Given that we were close by, we decided to drive there first, and then head off to the beach.

The view on our way to the lighthouse. The islands in the middle are the volcanic islands, and the white bit on the other side is Oia – our final destination for the rest of the holiday. Santorini is crescent shaped.

Some ruins enroute..

And finally the lighthouse. There were other tourists like us, snapping away 🙂

Next stop, Monolithos beach. It was recommended to be a shallow beach, suitable for children. Most of the beaches in Santorini are quite deep, so quite scary for young children.  It was a nice beach, almost empty, as the season was almost over. No pictures, because we were too busy having fun 🙂 Just one picture that shows us where we were – on the other side of the mountain that was visible from our hotel.

Beach sorted, lunch sorted, we set off to Oia. Full of trepidation and worry. What if it were just like Perivolos? What if we landed up in another ghost town?

The drive to Oia was gorgeous, but we decided to just let our eyes and our minds capture the pictures, for a change. We had planned to call the hotel in advance, but we managed to forget in the middle of everything else.

Finally we reached Oia village. It was just like the pictures – gorgeous, cute and so very different. We had heard about some hotels being difficult to reach, with little steps and everything – but we were lucky, our hotel was easy to spot, and easy to reach from where the taxi left us.

The reception was locked, once again! But this time, there was a bell to be rung. Up bounded a warm, cheerful man, who was the manager, and he took us to our accommodation. Unlike our previous hotel manager/caretaker(or whatever he might have been), he was wonderful, and made us feel welcome.

That’s where we stayed – the windmill that is in the distance. I ought to mention here, that husband was super excited about living in the Windmill. He was the one who booked it. Normally, I do booking and stuff, but while we were doing the research, husband got fascinated by the idea of living in a windmill, and decided to book it. He couldn’t wait to get there.

It used to be a working windmill(used for grinding flour) some years ago. The wind speed near the windmill validates that. We could hear the roaring wind the whole time.It was a totally different experience. One that we wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

It is converted into a 2 bedroom apartment. The Kitchenette. My heart sank when I saw those steps. Look at the size of them! And no railings! Husband loved the character features of the windmill – I did too, to be honest, it was just that I was a little worried about Daughter taking a tumble from those steps.

Look at the bedrooms!

And those tiny windows!

The view from our window..

And the view from our bed..

After settling in, we went off to explore the streets of Oia. Oia is famous for it’s gorgeous sunsets, and loads of tourists from the rest of the island come over, just to see the sunset. See the crowd of people at Oia Castle, waiting for the sunset? Unfortunately, we did not get to see a proper sunset that day – it was too cloudy.

The streets of Oia had a charm of their own..

Quaint shops selling all sorts of stuff.. From souvenirs to paintings to beads to pumice stones.

Oia at night time…

There was something about the place, that was magical. We walked around aimlessly, and yet did not get bored. After a delicious dinner, and finally exhausted, we retraced our steps back to our windmill house..

I had planned to complete the travelogue with this post, but that would make it unbearably long.. So the rest in the next 🙂

Holiday Tales Part 5 Living in a ghost town

*Long post alert*

Some time back, during our trip to America, we had been to a ghost town. Well, we needn’t have bothered. We were to have an opportunity to live in one, not just visit one.

As I mentioned here, we decided on Greece based on a friend’s holiday pictures until then we had been debating between Turkey and Greece. So while planning it out, I spoke to my friend, and he advised us on the best places to stay. A beach and a sunset point. Two nights at each, we decided. Our first place of stay was near a beach. Our friend had said that we would not need to rent a car, there is enough to do in one place. So at the airport, we took a taxi to our hotel. Please note, we did not even bother asking the locals this time 🙂 We could not possibly handle lugging suitcases once more.

It was a scenic drive. Cliffs on one side, the sea on the other. Gorgeous! We could see those cute blue domed churches around us. Some of them had miniature replicas of themselves built near the road. I never managed to take a picture of them, though.

We reached the hotel within 20 minutes. Our taxi dropped us off, and drove off. It was only when we walked towards the entrance of the hotel that we realized that it was shut. We got a little confused. Were we at the wrong hotel?  Rechecked our booking, and it looked and sounded like the place we booked. I asked husband and daughter to wait while I walked around the building to figure out if I could find the staff. As I walked around, it just grew more eerie. Not a single soul around. All doors locked. It looked empty. Then I thought, may be everybody must be sunning themselves at the beach – it was a glorious, sunny day, when I reached the pool, which was drained! Oh my god! Did our booking get cancelled? Did we miss an email from them? Has the hotel shut shop? What were we going to do now?

I got back to where husband and daughter were waiting, worried, and tensed. I would have preferred lugging suitcases to being shut out of our hotel room anytime! Finally, we happened  to notice a paper with emergency contacts jotted down, stuck to the reception door. So we decided to call the mobile number that was mentioned there.

Thankfully someone picked up. He said he would be there when I mentioned that we had a booking at their hotel. He sounded as if it were a totally normal situation of hotel guests landing up at a shut down hotel, with not a soul in sight. And just to clarify, this was not a tiny B&B or a low-priced hotel. This was supposed to be a ‘Boutique and Spa’! And it looked grand too – only with no staff or guests.

As I said, 5 minutes meant more than 15 minutes here. Our guy here was no different. Finally he arrived with a lady. Turned out he did not know much English, nor was he very friendly. It almost felt as if he were resentful that we landed up here and spoiled his vacation. It was a change after all those wonderfully friendly Greeks we came across in Athens.

While we were waiting husband had made plans to spend the afternoon at the beach. It was a gorgeous day, just perfect to be at the beach. So as soon as our hotel manager(I assume, I still don’t know), turned up, husband was eager to know about the beach. The hotel had advertised a private beach, and we just wanted to get there.

As soon as we mentioned beach, he said, ‘Beach closed, No beach’.

‘Beach closed?’, we asked, ‘ You mean, the beach is closed? Why’?

‘Season finished’, came the answer!

‘If the season is ‘finished’, why on earth did you take our bookings??’, is what I wanted to ask, but was so flustered by this, that neither of us knew what to think or say.

‘You want car?’, he asked. We said no, because our friend had said that it wouldn’t be required.

‘Breakfast, yes or no’, he asked. I said no, because it was not included in the room tariff, and after what we had seen, I wasn’t too sure of what they would provide. He and his colleague spent about 15 minutes locating the room key. Finally he took us to our room, which was not too bad. It was quite good, to be honest. Although I could not locate a kettle, and by the time we tried to ask them, they had left the hotel – again. And we were the only guests in the hotel. Spooky, is what it felt. All alone in a big hotel with nobody else on the premises.

The view from our room.

As soon as we freshened up, we decided to step out for lunch. By then doubts and worry had started to set in. If the beach was ‘closed’, then what would we do here? And how on earth can a beach be ‘closed’? That too, when the weather was so gorgeous! We would be lucky to have such lovely weather in summer, in the UK!

We set off on the road, hoping to find a decent place to eat. We crossed a bakery, and a super market, and our hopes rose. I went into the super market and asked a lady where we could find a restaurant. She indicated the direction in which we should go. So we walked on. We found a few restaurants which had menus hung outside, but were closed. It looked weird to say the least. It was as if people had abandoned them abruptly. Some even had ‘Today’s Menu’ written in chalk, and closed. I wish I had taken pictures, but at that point in time, we just wanted to find a place to eat. It was hot, and tiring to walk down an empty road, in a place where beaches were closed. We kept going, and kept finding these abandoned restaurants. Finally, we decided to turn back and go to that bakery we saw. Hopefully we would get something in the form of lunch.

The bakery had some food. Some pies, and being extra hungry, we even bought some baklava, which were delicious, but a tad too sweet for me. The biggest bonus was the owner of the bakery who was such a wonderful person! He told us that the season was drawing to a close and most of the restaurants and hotels shut shop during this time. Apparently in November, all the hotels and restaurants in this area would shut shop. He told us to rent a car, as that would be the easiest mode of transportation. The local buses were hourly and would go only to the capital, Fira. The best thing he told us was that the beaches were most certainly not ‘closed’. In fact according to him, this is the best time to come to the beach, as it would not be jostling with tourists. Nice and peaceful – his words. Needless to say, we felt less disheartened now. All we needed was a car, and lunch, of course.

So we went back to the hotel, to relax and have our lunch. Daughter did not like the pie too much, but husband and I ate what we could. After lunch we decided to go and rent a car.

We had been told that rental cars are available, the agency was about 1km away.

So off we went, the three of us. The only people on the road was us! We craved to see one tourist. One little proof that we were not the only crazy ones 😦 Whoever said that it is nice to be away from touristy places, was certainly not us. I have never wanted to see people so much before this. People and open, functioning restaurants.

Every second shop on that road was a restaurant(closed, albeit with their menus out there, for us to see, and maybe come back to, in summer?) or a car rental place(again, closed). Oh, I forgot to mention that the hotel manager had given us pamphlets of car rentals, with their numbers on them, but none of them picked up the calls. All in hibernation, I guess.

Finally we walked, and walked until we reached the one shop that was open, and busy – the Tattoo shop! The lady in the tattoo shop had no idea if the car rentals next to her place would open or not. Nor did she have their numbers to try to call them. By then we had reached the beginning of the beach.

See that mountain? We were right there. The road ended at the mountain, and a little road led us to this beach. One thing that was in plenty were directions to the beach. All roads to the right( from the main road), apparently led to the beach.

Given that we were so close to the beach, we decided to make the most of it, and forget about cars and rentals, and just enjoy the beach. As you can see, finally, we managed to see some tourists 🙂 Most of the beach was empty, for us to relax and enjoy.

See the boarded up shops/restaurants..

Finally, we managed to find a few open restaurants, buzzing with activity, music and tourists further on the beach. We also managed to get the numbers of one car rental, that everybody said is open. It was such a relief to find people! I think it gave us a perspective of how it would be to be far away from civilization.

Getting a rental car, still took some time. The owner of the car rental told us he would be there in 10 mins, but as expected, it took him over half an hour – but we were just delighted to get our freedom 🙂 Now we could go somewhere, drive around, find a place to eat! Yay! Armed with the car, and a map, we set off! After ages, it was different driving around in an unknown place, without a GPS, but as our friend, the baker said, it was impossible to get lost there.

We stayed in our ghost hotel for another day, but it was much better because we managed to get away and explore the rest of the island. It was a little spooky coming back to an huge, empty hotel. I just hoped that no cats or bats would jump out to scare the wits out of us 🙂

We did have a tough time finding a place that was open for breakfast, but our trusty little bakery saved the day.

Thankfully, we had a fun time, despite the initial hiccups. It will be something that we will always remember. In a way, because it was so empty, we ended up driving around and seeing the rest of the island. I am quite sure that we would not have bothered had the place been buzzing with activity. Silver lining, and all that.. Certainly made sense to us that day!

Edited to add: Husband read this and reminded me of how he tried to spook me out. He wanted to tell me the story of the movie ‘The Shining’. I did not let him tell me though 🙂 

Holiday Tales – Part 4 The Streets of Athens

Our trips always used to be meticulously planned – by me. Husband couldn’t care less. We visited cities like Paris and Rome before Poohi was born, and it was a different type of schedule.

Armed with a map, and guide books, we would get on the local transportation, walk through little alleys, following our instincts, and sometimes other tourists, or sometimes just the road. We would reach cute localities, or little alley ways where we would actually get lost. But it used to be so much fun! Both of us were in agreement that we could not go with guided tours, because we love doing our own thing.

It had been a while since we last did a European city. The last was Switzerland, when daughter had just turned two, and it was not exactly city sightseeing, and she was happy to be in her buggy, so we were free to go wherever we wanted to, to some extent, at least.

I was in two minds if Athens was a good idea or not. I did not want her getting bored with all the archeological stuff, but as I mentioned here, she loved it! The other part that I was worried about how much she would enjoy the aimless walking through the city, that both of us loved so much.

Well, all I can say is, she sure is a daughter of ours 🙂 She had just as much fun as we had on the streets of Athens. Even on the first day, on that torturous trek to the hotel, she was in her element. She was cheerful, delighted by all the cats and kittens that she saw on the road, pointing out whatever caught her eye. That just meant that we had the kind of holiday that we all love!

We ended up in a place called Plaka, where the souvenir shops enthralled me. I love these shops, there is something about souvenir shops that I love 🙂

That’s me making a beeline to those gorgeous pots!

Look how pretty they are? They have events from Greek mythology painted on them. I could not afford to buy them, so brought back pictures instead 🙂

Daughter, proving that she has indeed, inherited my genes 🙂

Daughter did get a little tired. So we got on one of these.

Tourist transportation of a different kind..

One of the domed churches of Athens

All roads lead to the Acropolis. See the Acropolis shining up on the hill ahead?

More ruins, much to daughter’s delight 🙂 We came back here in the daylight to see it properly.

Isn’t this cute?

The streets of Athens is full of cats..

of all kinds 🙂

Trees flanking roads, full of oranges!

Aren’t these the cutest? We stumbled across a market place, which had the cutest of things! Most were handmade and so very creative.

Remember those balconies full of greenery that I was so enthused about?

And as I said earlier, all roads lead to the Acropolis.. There it is , all lit up at night..

Two days of Athens, and we were looking forward to Santorini. We were all excited, and waiting to get to the island. Little did we know that a ghost town awaited us…..
to be continued…

Holiday Tales – Acropolis Part 3

Thought I would let the pictures do the talking..

Our first view of Athens from our hotel balcony. Tell me, couldn’t this be just about anywhere in India? I loved some of the balconies I saw there – full of greenery. Full of pots overflowing with plants! How I love those!

Then we set off to see the sights. First stop – Acropolis. Do refer to the link for more information. I love the history behind the ruins, but do no want to bore all of you by going into it 🙂

Our first view of the Acropolis

The first monument we saw was the Theatre of Herodes Atticus. It used to be an amphitheatre, with a roof. 

The view from the top. Doesn’t it look majestic? It has been renovated, is even used as an auditorium now. I think the only historical monument that is in use in Greece.

This is the Propylea. The link shows what it might have looked when intact. We had a guide who explained all this to us. It would have been ‘Greek and Latin’ to us otherwise 😉

The temple of Athena Nike – it has been reconstructed to give a fair idea of what it looked like.

The Erechtheum. This was a temple dedicated to the Greek hero Ericthonius. Check out the Porch of the Caryatids. The supports in the form of women. We got to see the originals at the New Acropolis Museum, and they were exquisite. The figures here are apparently replicas. We could not take the pics of the originals, because cameras are not allowed inside the museum. If you happen to go there, do not miss the museum – it is totally, totally worth it!

And Finally, the Parthenon. The Parthenon was a Temple dedicated to the Goddess Athena, who was the patron goddess of Athens. The Parthenon has a amazing history. Originally, a temple, it was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and then was mosque during the Ottoman period.

The Theatre of Dionysus.

And among things so old, we found something so incredibly young 🙂

And another young one tryng to catch the view of Athens from the Acropolis..

I am exhausted with all the uploading, so I guess you must be bored with the pics, but I wanted to make a quick mention of the New Acropolis Museum. It is built on top of the ruins of an old Christian settlement. The ground floor of the museum has glass floors which allows us to see the ruins. It was fascinating, to say the last. A few pictures that we managed to click from outside.

The view of the Acropolis from the top of the New Acropolis Museum..

And that covers the main part of Ancient Athens. I was surprised to see how much Daughter enjoyed the whole day. She loved hearing about the legends, tried her best to understand what these ruins stood for. At the end of the day, she told me that she wanted to show her friends what she saw. She put away her map in her backpack, and yesterday, she took it to school and told her class all about the story of the Athena and how Athens came to be named after her 🙂 To think that I was worried if she would get bored during this part of the trip.