Tuesday Travel Talk

Greece!
In 2003, I went on an amazing art history study abroad trip through Europe. I adored it! Europe is so incredible. I'll start in this post by talking about the first place we toured... Greece! I apologize for the picture quality. These were taken before I had a digital camera and scanned into the computer. Scanned pictures are not so good.

Athens is a crowded, not so pretty city overall with terrible traffic and lots of architecture that hails from the lovely 70's. But you forget all about that when you see the Acropolis with the amazing Parthenon and the old Agora. The Acropolis rises on a large hill overlooking the entire city, and at night they light it up so you can see it shining above everything. It's really breathtaking! When I saw the Parthenon for the first time, all the Greek architecture terms I had learned like ionic and doric columns really came together for me.

Delphi is an old ruined city set in the most gorgeous setting in the mountains. The vegetation in the area reminded me very much of southern California, but with bigger mountains and wider valleys. I didn't have any scanned pictures of all the ruins in Delphi, just this one of the mountains. But it was one of my favorite places we went to in Greece.

Olympia was a fun place to go, to see the place of the original Olympic games. We loved these columns that were left in their fallen state. We saw lots more amazing ruins there. I remember being really allergic to some of the plants or pollen in the air in Olympia, and I wasn't the only one in our group who had problems with it!

I didn't get to go to Santorini or any of the exotic Greek islands, but we did hop on a boat and made the short trip to Aegina, the closest little island to Athens. It was fun to see a Greek island and the water was so clear and such beautiful colors!

In every European country I have traveled in, I've never met such friendly people as I did in Greece. All through the markets and the streets, people would smile and talk to us and were truly interested in where we were from and if we were enjoying their country. I felt so welcomed there! I definitely discovered why the Greeks are known for their hospitality. I also loved the gyros you could buy for super cheap on the streets and eat while you were browsing through the markets. Greece is unforgettable!