Trip of a Lifetime

Would you believe that it has been almost ten years since we were married?  Sometimes it seems like just that long, but then other times it amazes me that it's already been a decade.  To celebrate, Geoff surprised me with a cruise to the Greek Isles- he told me just after he booked the trip because he was too excited to keep it to himself.  Greece has always been number one on my travel list and just as we were set to go last time we lived here, Geoff got orders to move to Virginia.  It was well worth the wait, though, and I am already planning my next trip.  Our cruise left from Venice, Italy so we drove down a couple of days before so that we could start our travels early and so that Geoff could see Italy.  

Here is Geoff driving internationally with his international driver's licence- I know, I am a dork.

 Driving down a steep 16% grade in Austria

 There were many old castles and ruins as we drove through Italy.

Our hotel in Vicenza, Italy

Our hotel bathroom

 The hotel had a restaurant/pizzeria. I had seafood with homemade pasta.

 Geoff had pizza, of course.

A statue of Gandhi

 Downtown Vicenza 

Lunch appetizer of local meats and cheeses

 Bolognese with homemade spaghetti 

 Tortellini 

 Taking it all in with my Italian gelato 

 A pedestrian street we drove down...oops.

Driving to Venice to meet our boat!

 Crazy roundabout driving into Venice

 Our ship!

Geoff in our room

 Our porthole

View of Venice from the ship

Geoff discovered a new fascination with tugboats.

Sunset our first day

For dinner the first night we ate sushi.

 Geoff being a goof

Our ship had a huge checker board.  I beat Geoff, as usual.

 We went to sleep and the water looked like this:

We woke up and it looked like this:

The tug boat that brought us into Corfu.  I told you he's obsessed.

Corfu, Greece

Fresh off the boat in Corfu

For our time in Corfu, we went on a 4x4 tour through the city and up a mountain.

In various spots throughout Corfu there was this wonderful smell in the air that reminded me of maple syrup.  Later, our tour guide told us it was the olive trees- seen below.

Little shrines like this were all over Greece:

We stopped at a restaurant and had a small Greek lunch of feta, stuffed grape leaves, bread, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, and olives.  I hate olives, but I tried them anyway.  I still didn't like them, but i will say they were better than any other olive I've had. 

Then, we went shopping in this little village:

Our tour also took us to a distillery where they make Kumquat liqueur.  

Geoff with kumquat liqueur, made from the peels of the fruit.

Here I am with mine... one made from the peels, and the clear one, made from the juice.

And it was not good.  Somehow it tasted like Ozo-which tastes like black licorice.  Bleh.

And finally, no trip to Greece would be complete without a gyro.  It was so good!

Last photo of Corfu as our ship sailed back out to sea.

Santorini, Greece

This island has been on my list of places I wanted to travel to for a very long time.  It far exceeded my expectations and it's actually one of the few places I would like to go back to, even over going someplace new.  

There are three ways you can get from the port -at the bottom of the mountain- to the top (588 steps): by foot, by donkey, or by cable car.

We disembarked our ship and stepped onto a small sailboat that took us to an active volcano.  Santorini used to be one big island but volcano eruptions in 1650 BB created five islands.  This eruption killed off a very advanced civilization and is rumored to be the Lost City of Atlantis.  Surprisingly, lizards, rabbits, and rats can be found on this island.

Places on the island seep carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane. This is one of those places.  It was very smelly and about 10 degrees hotter.

Look at the water and the fish!

Our sailboat

After our hike we sailed over to a small island and were able to jump into the cool Aegean Sea.  From our boat we swam to a 78 degree spring.  It smelled and tasted horribly like sulfur.  It burned my noes and stained everything orange.  This island is inhabited by one person who keeps watch over the island and a tiny church-middle left.

As I mentioned, there are three ways to get to the top of Thira.  We of course chose donkeys.  We found the donkey station and hopped on.  I was surprised that this was not a guided tour; we simply hopped on and off our donkeys went.

This is the donkey station in which Greek men sat and ate clams.

My donkey took off so these are the only pictures Geoff was able to get of me.

And this was the only photo I got of Geoff as his donkey passed me.

A really  nice English woman asked if I wanted her to take my picture.

View over the edge-  The donkeys were great tour guides, ensuring you got all the best views.  I had scrapes on my knees from getting too close to the wall.

This was my donkey.  I thought of Reef all of the way up.

I had a lot of guilt riding this donkey up to the top of the mountain but I rubbed its neck and let him take his time to the top. He walked very slowly until his herder came up behind us.  I was glad to see that he didn't hit the donkeys, he only used voice commands to get them to work.  This was by far the greatest experience of the entire trip.  

When we made it to the top, we had dinner at a beautiful restaurant seated along the edge of the mountain just in time for sunset.  

Bread with olive spread-bleh

Tzatziki dip

Moussaka-Greece's national dish of eggplant, ground beef, cheese, tomatoes, and onions.

Pork Suflaki

View from the restaurant: 

Sunset

Next up: Mykonos