Athens

Marble is plentiful. Our tour guide told us that it is cheaper than wood!

The Parthenon. Fun fact - the running of the eternal Olympic flame business was started by a Mr A. Hitler.

This is a underground station built for the 2004 Olympics. An actual archeological site in a train station! There is a skeleton from 4th century BC there.

Not the Acropolis but still cool.

The Hotel Grand Bretagne. This was used as a headquarters by the Nazis in WW2. When the Allies gained Athens they then used it as a headquarters. There is a gold plaque inside it referencing it as being used as Greek army headquarters in WW2 from 1939-41. But no mention of what it was used for after that..

The changing of the guards. With the greatest respect this is a bit Monty Pythonesque with madly exaggerated walking styles, a kind of kilt uniform and pom poms on shoes.

Serious Police man. There are a lot of Police on the streets of Athens, none scarier than this dude.

Acropolis Now

The view from the balcony on our hotel. Michelle chooses good places!

16,500 blocks. 9 years to build. A further 6 decorating including a 13m tall statue inside.

A small amphitheater beside the Acropolis. You have to be doing pretty well in life when your name is carved into your seat.

At night from the roof of our hotel. It towers over the city. Amazing.

Santorini by Boat

Santorini

Santorini. This is the view part way up the hill from the port. It's a series of hairpins followed by more hairpins. The taxi (mini bus) drivers don't muck around.

From a distance the buildings look like ice caps on the islands. Then you get closer and realize it's just the standard Greek building colour pallet.

For something fun we decided to hike down to the port. We ignored the much quicker and easier cable car. This is the bottom looking up.

This is the path down we hiked. Very hard work.

Our donkey friend Max. The well behaved donkey's go down on their own. Others are connected by rope. This guy, who we christened Max was wondering up when we were ascending. He would walk beside us, sometimes stopping for a tasty bit of afternoon tea.

White everywhere. Amazing views. Tip: The better the view the worse the food.

The volcano. We took a sailing trip around a few of the Islands. This is an active volcano. There was lots of rocks and not much else. We did see some steam providing evidence of something warmer underneath.

Paros

Typical housing layout with many amazing twisty paths. If your house isn't white it must be because it hasn't finished being built.

This place must have had some trouble with the local council - painting the door & windows green instead of blue!

Home made mojitos on the beach.

The bus stop. JH sitting on a rock.

We decided that Austria and Bratislava were too cold and brought our trip to Greece forward, starting with the island of Paros.

Vienna Royal Palace

The Vienna palace.

Fantastic garden with lots of paths. Would be ace for hide & seek.

Part of this was destroyed in 1945. Apparently there was a bit of a thing going on in Europe about that time. James finds it fascinating that is possible (if you're old enough) to have lived in parts of Europe in the one house all your life and is been part of 3 different countries.

Pretty garden, in appropriate colour scheme.

Vienna Random Stuff

Vienne was pretty but cold. 12 degrees and lower. JH not built for that weather!

These were very common. Honesty system for newspapers. Fantastic.

We took a trip out to a country town for wine & cheese.

This place. Yumbo. We took the remnants of our cheese home with us. And then left it at the hotel!