May 17, 2005
Greece, part two
On Saturday we slept in a little which was nice. Our driver for the day, George, picked us up in a 9 passenger van. It was nice because we were able to use Brooke's car seat. George isn't a licensed tour guide, so he couldn't take us into historical sites, but it was significantly cheaper to have him as a driver than to hire an official tour guide.
George first took us to the Corinth canal. It is a 4 mile long canal that separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the rest of Greece. It was built in the late 1800s to allow ships to go between the Aegean and Adriatic seas without going almost 200 miles around the Peloponnesian peninsula. We took the picture below from the pedestrian bridge across the canal. You can see the railroad bridge a little farther on. Tyler was very disappointed that we couldn't go across on that bridge.
Corinth canalNext we went to a place where they make reproductions of ancient Greek pottery. Of course we had to buy a small piece. Tiffany loved the Santorini pottery because it is blue. It was fun to see all of the museum quality reproductions, especially some of the more famous pottery pieces that Tiffany had studied in a Greek Mythology class at BYU. Nearby was the city of ancient Corinth. We went to a museum and wandered around the streets and ruins where Paul once taught. We also enjoyed seeing actual Corinthian columns.
CorinthMycenae was probably our favorite place of the day. It is a fortified city on a hill, which reminded us of Nimrod's fortress in northern Israel. The museum there has amazing intact artifacts discovered there. Mycenae played a large role in Greek mythology. Helen, the sister-in-law of the king of Mycenae, was the cause of the Trojan war.
Acropolis of MycenaeWe picked a flower on the hilltop and Brooke surprised us by trying to smell it.
Brooke smelling a flower at Mycenae
Here is Tyler in a cutout next to the famous Lion gate of Mycenae.
Lion Gate at MycenaeAfter Mycenae, we had lunch at a tourist restaurant. It had pictures on the wall of all the famous people that had eaten there. We were pretty sure that our driver got a free lunch for bringing us there. Oh well, it was decent, but not great.
Tyler and Brooke fell asleep on the way to our next stop, Epidaurus. Epidaurus was known in the ancient world as a healing center. Tyler, who claimed that he was too tired to walk, somehow managed to climb to the top of the theater there. The theater is in the Greek style with a round stage, which is unusual because most of the round stages were turned to semi-circles by the Romans. The theater is very well preserved and has excellent acoustics.
Theater at EpidaurusAfter Epidaurus, we took a scenic drive home along the Greek coast and passed the port where Paul arrived in Greece. We got to the hotel late, but not too late to go out for ice cream.
On Sunday morning, we went to the Archaeological Museum of Athens, which is where many of the best preserved artifacts from all over Greece are kept. We spent the morning there and then ate gyros again for lunch. Below, Tyler is standing in front of a mosaic of Medusa at the museum.
Tyler and MedusaAfter lunch we went to the Monastiraki market area. We bought fresh cherries, strawberries and bananas and wandered around the shops until James and Heidi had to leave to catch their flight home. Our flight didn't leave until late at night, so we spent more time in Athens. We took a funicular to the top of Lycabettus hill, which had a beautiful view of Athens. Tyler enjoyed the funicular more than the view.
Lycabettus hillHere is a picture of the Acropolis from the top of Lycabettus hill.
AcropolisWe then wandered around Athens. We saw a lot of high end shops, closed on Sunday, which Tiffany was sad that we had missed. We even saw Tiffany's favorite French clothing store, Alain Manoukian. Tyler was thrilled to see a toy shop full of toy cars. We then returned to the hotel and had dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was relaxing. We bought some more souvenirs from the hotel gift shop, including a necklace for Tiffany and a toy car for Tyler. The shopkeepper thought Brooke was so cute that she gave Brooke a stuffed Olympic mascot doll.
Several hours before the flight we took a taxi to the airport. We had so much time to kill that we watched "The Incredibles" outside an airport toy store and then let Brooke and Tyler play on the play structure at McDonalds. We then blew the rest of our Euros on candy and toys in the duty free shops.
Tyler fell asleep in the stroller before we boarded our flight. He slept through security, boarding, the flight and then passport control in Israel. He woke up as we were waiting for our baggage. He was mad at us for picking up the luggage. He was very concerned that we were going to miss our flight. It took us a little while to convince him that he had slept through the whole thing.
Tyler-isms:
"I dead the bug" - Tyler killed a bug in our hotel room all by himself.
"Heaterator" - Air conditioner. As in "Brooke got a heaterator thing stuck in the heaterator."
"Is it the Easter bunny?" - about a statue of a horse.
"Basement" - the base of a Kinder Egg toy.
Brooke-isms:
"Boo" - a general exclamation, we aren't sure exactly what it means.