Ahh, New Year’s Eve…I’ve realized that the older I get, the less I want to celebrate this changing of the calendar in the confines of a club, bar, or other establishment meant for partying. However, I also feel pressured to do something “fun”, or at least with the appearance of fun. So, when we heard that people in Paris celebrate New Year’s Eve by walking around the Champs Elysees and basically just, well, walking around, that sounded right up our alley, so we booked the train and headed off!
As the past couple of trips have pointed out, we’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors walking around cities in the freezing cold. Well, since we don’t have any muse
ums in Paris we’re aching to see at this point, the itinerary lent itself to continuing the subzero-walking thing we’re getting so good at. This time we armed ourselves with maps of a handful of restaurants, a smattering of bakeries, and more Asian grocery stores than you can shake a red pepper at, and headed out on our “random neighborhood” tour of Paris!
Let me just say, we hit some gold mines. Paris just has so much to offer; you can find virtually anything you want. Need a new frying pan, and don’t want to pay Geneva prices? Go to Paris! Need some Korean fish sauce, and can’t find it in Geneva? Go to Paris! Want some organic wines from up-and-coming producers in the Loire Valley? You get the idea…but as a result, we had one of our best city trips, without seeing any of the real sights.
This type of travel is fun, as it lends itself to weird occurrences. My favorite was while we were walking through one of the markets, just south of the Eiffel Tower. One of the stands had some freshly-cooked chicken wings, and as Soph and I hadn’t had chicken wings in over a year, nor had we eaten breakfast yet, we decided to buy a little bag of them and scarf them down. Finding a park bench off to the side, we ravenously dug into them, breaking the all-important French rule of not eating with your hands. As we were doing this, an old woman walked up to this pile of boxes on our left, which were clearly trash, and started digging through them. Within a minute she had found a raw chicken breast, and she picked it up and put it in her bag! I can’t make this stuff up;
anyway, as she looked normal enough, I couldn’t tell if it was an issue of her not having enough money to buy a chicken from the vendor, or if she was simply thinking “hey – free chicken!”
The true funny part of this story, however, is that as this was going on, one of the vendors saw us sitting on the bench, eating our chicken wings (which were awesome, by the way). He then yelled over to us, half-mockingly, half-friendly, “bon appetit!” We smiled and yelled “merci” back, at which point the five Parisians standing in his line slowly turned their heads to us, and in succession, either sneered or completely ignored us, then turned back. Not even a smile at the ingenuity we were showing by eating the chicken wings right there, rather than waiting to take them home and eat them. No issues with a woman going through the garbage and taking out raw chicken breasts, but don’t eat chicken wings until you’re out of the confines of the actual market! Guess they’re afraid the tourists are going to invade their market, which is a reasonable enough fear, because that market ruled! I mean seriously – they had awesome croissants, specialty cheeses, and chicken wings – where else on earth can you find all three of those in the same place?
One thing I would advise against visiting in Paris are the sidewalk cafes. I know it sounds sacrilegious to skip these, but at the end of the day they don’t serve a quality product, and virtually all of them charge exorbitant prices. The coffee you’ll get will be decent, but the hot chocolates are often just cocoa packets with water, and the wines are below average at best. The only bright spot of these is that you’ll get to sit down for as long as you want, which is good for people watching in the summer, and escaping the cold in the winter, but they’re not the cultural experience they should be. That said, if you look hard enough, you ca
n find some stellar wine bars that serve great stuff. Same goes for restaurants – we found a couple of fantastic, moderately-priced bistrots that were simply phenomenal. Have a couple more we didn’t get to, so guess we have to go back to Paris in a few months!
So yet again, Paris has proven itself to be a fantastic city, offering up everything we were looking for. And New Years? Well, after walking around the Champs Elysees (with our open containers; the American in us just can’t get used to that, so we kept hiding them whenever we’d see police!), we headed to a bridge over the Seine, where we had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. No fireworks or anything, but it did light up at midnight, and everyone cheered, then went home. More or less uneventful, but really, it’s probably more fun that way. 2009 is looking like it’s going to be a good year!
Next week: Sitting around doing nothing!
New Years in Paris!
Ducks from Divonne
Today Tyler and I decided to take the Mobility car out and venture over to Divonne, France, where purportedly, there is a great food market. If not for having previously visited Ferney-Voltaire’s market a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have freaked out and slobbered all over this market and spent like 200 Euros. But, having gone to Ferney’s and fallen in love with that one (dude you can buy whole, unplucked geese and rabbit…not that I would), we merely splurged on a duck roast, marinated in honey, rosemary, and figs; some great cheeses; as well as some very nice bottles of wine that are a little more difficult to find in Switzerland (and much more expensive). So of course we had to sneak those wines in. Funny note on the wine shop we went to; Tyler broke out some pretty impressive French and asked the owner what wine she would recommend from the Loire Valley. She proceeded to answer us in English, which made us give each other the knowing look - the secret glance of “Wow that pisses me off, but at the same time, I‘m so glad” look. Hence our slow slow progression with the French language. Anyways, she recommended a few wines and we bought four, two of them being Chinons, to taste and prepare ourselves for our Easter trip to the Loire Valley, where the cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc grapes reign.
I was very excited about this duck roast, as I had never really cooked duck before. I love peking duck, but have not really tried it any other way. Apparently duck meat is darker because ducks are more active than chickens, which results in more blood pumping through their muscles, and therefore darker meat. The vendor told us all we had to do was to roast it in the oven for about a half hour, turning it over midway through. So that’s what I did. And I watched as the fat just melted around it. It’s amazing how much fat a duck breast has, but I guess it needs a lot in order to float and survive in winter! It finished roasting and I cut it open to find the figs and half cooked meat, which was a little disconcerting so I decided to put it back into the oven, which of course led to me forgetting about it, and the duck coming out a little dry. But better that than raw duck meat! Normally, we cut away all the fat that is present with the meat, but this dish was definitely enhanced by the crispy deliciousness of the fat. It mellowed the gaminess of the actual meat itself. No wonder they tell you to only eat duck maybe once a month at most! Tyler decided to open a St. Joseph wine that we had purchased earlier in Divonne, and after decanting for about a half hour, it matched wonderfully with the dinner. The turnip mash I fixed on the other hand was dismal. Sometimes I feel like a really good cook, and other times I feel so incompetent! On the whole it was a great day, French markets, new food, great wine, and relaxing on the sofa with a movie with the Christmas tree softly glowing in the corner. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Christmas in Geneva
As many of you know, this year we decided to spend the holidays in Geneva, rather than flying back to the US. Obviously we would have liked to have come back and catch up with friends and family – but we didn’t, so there’s no use dwelling on it. Hey – if you want sappiness, you’re gonna have to talk to Sophia!
Anyway, the original plan was to spend a couple days with our Christmas tree, sitting around and reflecting on how great a year it’s been. And, of course, watching tv. In fact, the whole reflecting thing was never gonna happen, especially considering we have like fifteen shows we need to catch up on. We also were going to spend a day or two skiing, but since the seemingly minor injury I sustained last weekend has yet to heal, I thought it best not to push my luck just yet. Sophia, of course, needed no convincing to stay in the apartment in lieu of hitting the slopes, so it was an easy decision.
A really quick 
note on the Christmas tree: it was a debacle getting that thing. As we don’t have a car here in Geneva, getting a Christmas tree involves either A) renting a car B) taking the tree on the public tram C) carrying the tree all the way across town. Since B and C sounded kind of silly, we opted for A. On the bright side, we can rent a car for short periods of time, such as two hours, making it relatively inexpensive to use a car for an errand such as this. On the other hand, we still had to rent a car to pick up a Christmas tree, which seems somehow ridiculous. But, that’s what we did. It wasn’t until after purchasing the tree that we realized we didn’t have anything to tie it to the top of the car with, since we normally don’t have a car in which to tie things to the top of. That, and I’m not even sure if it’s legal to do this in Switzerland. Thus, in true improvisational style, we folded down the seat of the compact car and chauffered the tree through Geneva in the front. On the bright side, it was a much quieter passenger than Sophia normally is, and it smelled like pine, rather than Asian food. Sorry honey – but that’s what you get for making yet another batch of kimchi!
We did take the opportunity on one of these days to drive over to the outdoor market in Divonne, France. Once again, we rented a car for a couple of hours (actually turned out to be the same car, and with no trace of pine needles!) and drove across the unmanned French-Swiss border to buy way more scarce necessities (such as red meat and wine) than we are legally allowed to bring back into Switzerland. This was yet another good market, and even after seeing so many of them, we still think that markets are awesome.
One quick shout-out to the city of Geneva: somebody did an amazing job decorating the downtown area! Colors all over the place, one of the churches has a cascade of white light pouring from it, there’s a nice Christmas tree in one of the squares…it really makes the city look great! I normally feel Geneva doesn’t go the extra mile when it comes to decorations, but this year they did really well on the Christmas lights. Not sure if the pictures will do them justice, but I braved the sub-zero temperatures to go out at night and take these, so I’m posting them regardless!
Other than that, we did some nice relaxing, a lot of good eating, and some more relaxing – so it turned out well. Even got to see “A Christmas Story”, which is pretty much the all-time greatest Christmas movie, a fact verified by TBS each year as it runs it in a 24-hour loop. TBS rules!
Next week: New Year’s in Paris!
Ski Weekend: Year 2, Version 1
I probably should change the title of these to “snowboard weekends”, since I’m switching away from skiing this year. After a lot of soul-searching, I realized I just wasn’t very good at skiing, and it was going to involve a lot of pain and gut-wrenching falls before I would begin to get any better. So I thought, why not try snowboarding? I then took the plunge, and rented a snowboard for the season.
This weekend, we ended up going with a couple of friends to the mountain resort of Flaine. I’m a huge fan of Flaine, although it’s probably the ugliest group of buildings ever built. Seriously – it seems that any architect who comes to the French Alps just completely loses their ability to design anything that doesn’t look like a Siberian prison. I think the Russians actually send their students to Flaine in order to get ideas on how to build more oppressive structures. That said, the skiing is fantastic, and the mountains are beautiful, so it more than outweighs having to see the communist housing blocks that function as a resort (especially considering we don’t actually stay in the resort).
For those of you who are wondering whether skiing or snowboarding is better, it’s a matter of opinion at the end of the day. For me, the things I hated about skiing were 1) the terribly uncomfortable boots 2) carrying the skis 3) the fact that I sucked at it. Snowboarding solves all of those dilemmas, as 1) snowboard boots are actually quite comfortable 2) the snowboard is easy to carry 3) yeah, I might still suck at it, but at least I look a little bit cooler. Plus, chicks dig snowboarders.
Of course, it’s not all peaches and cream. If there’s one bad thing about snowboarding, it’s the j-bar lifts. These are where you grab a squiggly pole with a little thing on the bottom, and it drags you up the mountain, while you’re holding onto it. On skis, these are relatively uncomfortable nuisances that you’re faced with when going on the wussy slopes, which is kind of where I spend the majority of my time. On a snowboard, these are minions of evil who’s sole objective is to embarrass you in front of little children, who seem to have no problems whatsoever in using them. I saw multiple snowboarders wipe out on them, and I don’t mean they just wiped out on them, I mean they wiped out and looked really stupid as they were wiping out. I would know, because I was right there with them looking really stupid as I wiped out. Makes me want to find the guy that invented this devil-machine, and punch him in the nose.
That said, I find snowboarding to be otherwise vastly superior to skiing, much like a Japanese car versus an American car. Note, however, that Sophia is keeping up with the skiing, which is probably a wise decision. She’s becoming a pretty decent skier, in the sense that she can go down a mild run and not fall down or lose control, and look cute doing it – and at the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Instead of ski pictures, here are some Christmas cookies...
Next weekend: Christmas in Geneva!
Christmas Markets
Last weekend, we decided to make the most of December by visiting some of Europe’s storied Christmas markets. As such, we made the trek out to France’s Alsace region, and hit a couple of the cities there.
W
e started off at Colmar, and headed straight towards a booth selling hot chocolate. Hey – it’s winter, and it’s cold! We then spent the next 6 hours walking around in aforementioned cold, either looking at the markets or exploring the city. Colmar isn’t overly large, and it’s quite a cute place – the architecture has that mountain lodge-look and is well cared for, but it’s beat up just enough to appear as if it’s functional, rather than a façade put up to draw tourists. After a few hours of walking, we stopped at a café, which was noteworthy due to this old dog they had there. It muddled over to us, and of course I started petting it, and every time I would stop it would whine to get more petting - my kind of dog! Anyway, I ended up spending a good half-hour nursing a coffee and petting this dog, just to avoid going back out in the cold. When we did brave the cold, we went straight to a local restaurant that Soph had picked out, which was great, as Alsatian food combines the richness of French food, with the heartiness of German food. Nothing beats eating well after a cold day outside.
The next day we hit Strasbourg, and somehow lucked out and had beautiful weather. Beautiful meaning, still very cold, but with sun. Once again, we spent a good six or more 
hours walking around the city and looking at markets, but as Strasbourg is quite big, there wasn’t a lot of backtracking. Strasbourg has a monstrously large city center, which is great as you can explore it for hours and not get bored (unless you get bored walking around looking at old buildings, in which case you’d get bored really fast). It’s also a very pretty city, and the center is completely encircled by a river / canal, which more or less cordons a lot of the traffic away and makes it very pedestrian-friendly. The market stalls here tended to have more food items, specifically pretzels with Munster cheese; good stuff! We also went on an ornament-buying rampage, so our Christmas trees should be set for years to come with cute French crafts.
At the end of the day, that’s kind of the fun of the Christmas markets. You’re walking around in the cold, buying hot foods and drinks from the vendors, looking at handcrafts, and trying to avoid the group of Native Americans playing flute-instruments and trying to sell cd’s. You seriously can’t go anywhere in the world without running into those guys!
On Sunday we took the train back to Geneva, which is always great because any direction around Geneva, at any time of year, has beautiful scenery. This time, we were able to go through some of the Swiss mountains after a fresh snowfall, and were consequently greeted with miles and miles of unspoiled snow-covered pine trees. It was the kind of scenery that makes you take stock of your life, and think about your place here on earth, and how you could contribute to making it a better place. It also made me think about the truckload of Belgian beer I smuggled into the country, and how life as a professional beer smuggler would probably allow me to see more of the beautiful scenery.
Next weekend: Ski Season Begins!
Edinburgh!
This past weekend, we hopped a Friday flight to one of the most interesting cities in Europe: Edinburgh, Scotland. Soph and I have officially mastered the whole “wearing the same clothes f
or three days so that you can stuff a giant camera and some toiletries into a single backpack” thing, so it was easy packing and a quick flight out.
Edinburgh is one of those places that doesn’t necessarily get a lot of press, but almost everyone we know who’s gone there has ranked it among their top cities. It’s got a wonderful Old Town, built on a giant hill with tons of hidden streets and narrow alleys (as well as a broad thoroughfare). There’s a bustling student population, which keeps the city fresh and the art scene alive. Lastly, there’s a huge castle sitting at the top of a giant rock in the center of the city, overlooking everything. And to top it off – the castle is pretty cool-looking - so it’s an easy city to like.
The downside of visiting Edinburgh in November is that sunset falls ominously close to 4:00 p.m., which means you don’t have nearly as much time as you would like to sightsee. We walked for probably 6 hours straight, breaking only for stoplights, and sometimes not even those (but since cars come from the opposite direction, you had to be a little careful when jaywalking). We were able to manage having time for a walking tour, which I still think is on
e of the best ways to get to know a city - because how else would you know which café was the one where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter series? Well, maybe the one with the giant “Harry Potter’s birthplace” sign, but that’s beside the point.
While I know everyone has heard of kilts and thinks they’re kind of funny, I was surprised at how many people we saw who were actually wearing them. I mean, it’s one thing to joke about it, or to be watching a movie where somebody moons their adversary by lifting up the kilt and shouting an insult; but to actually wear one on an ordinary Saturday, simply when walking around town? In November? Seriously? After a day of seeing them, though, I had to admit that they are kind of fashionable – especially if you have a rugby shirt on.
That being said, Scotland is known for more than just kilts and the Loch Ness Monster (although those two are arguably the coolest). Famous staples of culinary greatness such as Angus Beef, haggis, and Scottish brews, are also known the world over – or at least, they popped up on Google when we were researching “what is Scotland famous for”. For those of you who have never had haggis, I highly recommend it. Haggis is essentially all the throwaway parts of the sheep, such as the heart, liver, lungs, etc. These are then put into the she
ep’s intestine / stomach, and then boiled for awhile. Finally, they open it up and serve it to you. Terrible as it sounds, the haggis we had was really good – much better than the “cow tongue” and “veal face” we tried in Paris! The Angus beef was probably a bit overrated, as I’m learning I still prefer Oklahoma, hormone-fed cattle – the kind where you can taste the steroids. As far as Scottish beers – well, we had quite a few misses, a couple of which bordered on undrinkable, but we did find two excellent ones which I’m sad to say I’ll probably never get to drink again.
All in all, Edinburgh was a great weekend trip, and is worth a stop if you’re traveling through Europe. Although you might want to steer clear if you have an aversion to bagpipe music, because it’s everywhere, and it sounds like the same song being played over, and over, and over…kind of like listening to a top 40 station.
London
I had the chance to go see the Chargers / Saints football game in London this past weekend, which was pretty cool. As some of you know, I had done a semester in London a long, long time ago, and had always wanted to go back and re-explore my old stomping grounds. That said, this was not the weekend in which to do that, as we were there for one thing and one thing only: to show the British what true football is! And also because one of my friends hooked me up with a VIP corporate package - I never get those things! Anyway – the football thing was great – but I’m not going to spend time talking about that, because this is, after all, a travel blog, not a sports blog.
So, London…one of the major cities of the world, a center of the arts, literature, finance, and late-night stabbings. London wasn’t nearly as nice as I remember it – but maybe I just didn’t notice all the commercialism ten years ago. That said, it still has its’ charms. One of the great things
about this city is the pub culture – sort of a staple of the UK, I guess. We went into a pub for lunch, and it’s just a great atmosphere for eating a little food and drinking a little beer. Also, a little-known fact: pubs are baby-friendly! Sure enough, I looked down on not only one occasion, but two separate times, only to see a baby crawling on the floor beneath my table, staring up at me and smiling. Ok, I made the smiling part up – but the babies were crawling all over the place. I haven’t yet decided if that’s really cool, or if it’s really terrible.
The other thing I noticed about London was that the public transport system, while seemingly efficient and easy to navigate, was pretty much under construction at every point I needed to use it. What should have been an easy cross-town jaunt turned into a 2.5 hour combination of tubes, overgrounds, and bus rides down streets that should not have had buses driven down them. Disastrous, would be the correct word. I also got to live my lifelong dream of waking up in a foreign country, not being able to find a cab, walking to an airport to catch my flight, and still arriving at work that same morning. Gotta love being centrally located in Europe!
All transportation problems aside, though, it was a fun weekend. We did see Big Ben / Parliament, and I did say “look kids – Big Ben / Parliament”, even though there were no kids around (I had left the pub at that point). Got to eat some fish and chips, and realized there was a good reason I hadn’t had fish and chips since the last time I had been to London. But most of all, I got to see a crowd of proud British citizens stand and put their hats across their chests while Old Glory whipped in the wind and our great national anthem played. It was at this point where I couldn’t help think inspiring thoughts, such as “no taxation without representation”, and it took all my resolve not to act on the impulse that all strong-hearted Americans have in a moment such as this.
That impulse being, of course, to streak the field.
Next week: Edinburgh!
Munich!
When you come to Munich, there are a couple of things you have to do. First and foremost, you have to drink some German beer. I mean seriously - it’s the beer capital of the world! Second, you have to eat some sausage. I mean seriously - it’s the sausage capital of the world! Third, you have to…shop? Seriously - it may not be the shopping capital of the world, but it's pretty good, and considering the fall season is fast approaching (and God knows we can’t afford to shop in Geneva), it was a small bonus to the trip.
The city of Munich is consistently ranked as one of the world’s greatest places to live. It’s a center for the arts, has a rich (and dark) history, and its’ inhabitants enjoy a very high standard of living. There are restaurants of all kinds, a great public transit system, a wide range of museums, and pretty much anything else you could imagine that would make a city great. We got to see a small taste of this during last year’s Oktoberfest, but not enough to say we really saw the city. As such, we decided to come back this year, and spend some time exploring Munich itself, as well as some of the surrounding countryside.
One thing we’ve found when visiting cities is that walking tours are among the best ways of getting to see a lot of things, while understanding their significance. We s
tarted with one of these, but so did 102 other people, so the group was a bit large. As luck would have it, they split us up into 3 groups, and we were lucky that we didn’t get the annoying tour guide, so our day was looking up. After the walking tour, we did some shopping, because like I said, the shopping is good, then got ready to go on the Munich Beer Challenge, which was basically the same tour group who did the walking tour, but they took you to beer halls instead of historical sites (although in one instance it was a historic beer hall). While it was kind of useless, it did give us an opportunity to meet a bunch of other people who wanted to see the beer halls, so that was fun.
The next day we decided to get out of town and visit the Neuschwanstein castle (I’m pretty sure I spelled that correctly). The Neuschwanstein castle is known as “the fairy-tale castle”, as it was 
the inspiration for the Walt Disney castle that most girls dream about being a princess in (and most boys dream about pillaging and setting fire to, so that their enemies know they have been crushed). All kidding aside, this castle is impressive in that it’s set in one of the most beautiful spots in the Bavarian Alps, and therefore has a truly magical feel to it. As we’ve seen tons of castles over the past year, we didn’t feel the need to go inside, so instead we hiked through some of the mountains around it, and ended up with some of the best vistas I’ve seen anywhere. To finish, we took a horse-drawn carriage down the road leading up to the castle, which was kind of fun, although I don’t think I’ll ever see the appeal of those things. I think an even better idea would have been to let people fire a catapult from one of the ramparts, but that’s just me…
On Friday, we decided to brave the masses and go to the actual Oktoberfest festival. What we didn’t know was that Friday was a German holiday, meaning Germans were getting their drink on and attending the festival instead of working. The resulting huge mass of people made it almost impossible to get inside any of the tents. That being said, after about 3 hours of waiting around, Soph sweet-talked a security guard into letting us in, and we were able to join the party inside. I think it was because she was wearing a drindl; it looked pretty cute on her.
A quick aside about Germans; they are known the world over for many things, but missed in all of that is their love of John Denver. I had forgotten how at o
ur previous Oktoberfest, and Stuttgart, that the crowd knew all the words to “Country Roads”. While this is not necessarily odd in that they know the words, it is somewhat surreal to see thousands of people, many of whom don’t speak English, flip out and join arms while reciting the lyrics to a song that champions the positives of being a redneck. I have trouble describing the utter weirdness of seeing a foreign culture break out in a John Denver homage, and even more trouble understanding why; I mean really, John Denver? That said, it will probably remain a mystery, as psychologists the world over will continue to focus on the more pressing question of the Germans’ love of David Hasselhoff before looking into the John Denver phenomena.
Anyway - the festival was great, and it really is something everyone should do at some point in their lives - if you like massively large groups of people drinking and screaming. In a good way, though - everyone is friendly, and not in that normal irritating-drunk way. Or maybe I was friendly in the irritating-drunk way, and didn’t realize it. I guess we’ll never know…but it’s fun.
Finally, on Saturday, we went back to the festival, but just to walk around and do some of the 
rides and eat sausages. The one thing that’s lost among Oktoberfest is that at it’s heart, it’s a German family festival where you can take your children and have a good time. There are roller-coasters, games, haunted houses, and all sorts of things that you can find at Six Flags, except I didn’t notice any skee-ball, which is too bad, although I wouldn’t have played anyway because I’m not really into skee-ball. For those of you who are, though, maybe Oktoberfest isn’t for you.
To summarize - Munich is an awesome city. There’s a lot to see and do, it’s beautiful and has some great architecture, but most of all, it’s just a fun place. It has a really nice vibe to it that not many other cities possess, and it’s probably one of our favorites so far. And besides - you know you want an excuse to wear some Lederhosen…
Next weekend: Football in London, American style!
Greece Part II
We split our
As much as I hate driving, the back country of
That said, the driving in
One thing that really struck us about 
aw was friendly and eager to make conversation. For instance, we spoke at length with one of the ladies who ran our hotel in Meteora, who explained that the reason their homemade morello cherry jam was so amazing was that “it was made with love”. Another conversation brought us to the understanding that in
Our first stop was at Meteora. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Meteora is one of those places that seems lost in time. Basically, a long time ago a bunch of monks wanted to get away from civilization, and so they climbed up into these oddly-shaped cliffs and built monasteries. Check the pictures to get a sense of how crazy this must have been. I thought Meteora was one of the coolest places ever, although if you don’t like monasteries on cliffs, then you might disagree.
We also hit the area around Lefkada, which is
The only downside to going cross-country through
One thing you can have for every meal, though, is the Greek
coffee. What makes it “Greek coffee” is that the grounds are actually served in the cup when you drink it; scary at first, but once you get past that, it’s awesome. Best thing to come out of
Finally, we made it to
In summary –
# of pictures taken: 901
# of dishes eaten with lamb in them, per person: 9
# of times we stopped on the side of the road to buy something from a farmer: 5
# of Greek coffees I had: 28
# of times the phrase “it’s all Greek to me” was uttered: 15
# of times I yelled “This…is…
Next: Munich!
Santorini!
Santorini is one of the most picturesque places in the world. You’ve probably seen the whitewashed churches with blue tops, looking out over the sea (if you haven’t, I’ve put one right above this sentence, so no excuses!) Santorini was formed when one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history blew the island apart, sunk it, spewed ash into the air, left a couple pieces to survive, and then forced some new chunks of land above the sea. Anyway - I’m not here to discuss geology - I’m here to talk about jacuzzis overlooking the Mediterranean! We had one of those…it was awesome…and we sat in it a lot and watched the sunsets from there. Good stuff.
Speaking of sunsets, Santorini is known for having some of the best sunset vantages anywhere. Hard to disagree with that, seeing as you’re on a cliffside overlooking the sea, with a volcano a little ways up, and nothing but blue water on the horizon. Most of the resorts are set within the side of a cliff, so that you have an unobstructed view. So while it’s the same sun as anywhere else in the world, the fact you’re a couple hundred feet above sea level, and there’s no ground beneath you, makes it that much better.
Santorini also has very interesting beaches. Black sand, red sand, white pebbles, cliffs…there are a handful of cool places where the volcanic rock meets the Mediterranean in a unique mixture of color. We first hit Red Beach, which is true to its’ name in that the sand is red. The beach is a thirty-foot swath between the Mediterranean and a giant, lava-formed cliff, and you have to go on a short hike to get there. It was a great place to sit for awhile, and although the water was kind of cold, we still braved it and went swimming, because you can’t go to a red-sand beach and not get in the water! The other noteworthy beach in Santorini is Black Beach, which is laid out more like a regular beach in that there’s a mini-boardwalk with shops and everything, the difference being that the sand is black. I thought this beach looked awesome, but unfortunately it was raining like crazy so we just walked around it a little.
As mentioned before, it wouldn’t be a true Wintermeyer vacation wit
hout something freaky happening. In this case, I’m referring to the monsoon that hit Santorini while we were there. Apparently, they hadn’t had a drop of rain since March, which may or may not be true, but I’m going to assume the locals know what they’re talking about. While we were out walking around one night, the skies completely opened and gave them a storm the likes of which haven’t been seen since, well, probably March. Still – it was crazy. We were essentially trapped in a café, as the pathways turned into raging torrents of water, and the outside roof started leaking like it weren’t even there. As I like rainstorms, I thought this was awesome. Everyone else, however, fled as far inside as possible.
For the most part, we stayed on our balcony/porch/vista, and just relaxed and enjoyed the views. I also went crazy taking pictures, and we walked through the various towns quite a bit, but this was supposed to be the relaxing part of the trip. Because next, we hit the mainland of Greece! But I’ll save that for the next entry…
Next: Greece II!
