Italy und Innsbruck.

WiFi has been spotty at the hotels and pricey elsewhere, so I have a bit to catch up on.  The Cinque Terre were beautiful and mostly restful.  As it turns that chapel at the top of the hill is always MUCH further away than it appears.  We were hoping to snorkel but woke each day to the waves crashing spectacularly on the rocks in precisely the way we do not want to dash. Our ample free time also allowed us to perfect our Wine Pong. The rules are the same as ping pong and wine drinking, only observed simultaneously.  Also, whoever is ahead when you begin forgetting to keep score wins.
We were sad to leave, even sadder when we got to Florence and discovered that our 'guesthouse' was very much a random apartment building with no one to let us in and a conveniently disconnected phone number.  Equally worrying was the fact that every room in the city was booked for the night.  This was probably due to the presence of Paulie D and the Situation of Jersey Shore fame, whom we saw huffing it down a narrow cobbled street with their camera crew apparently in search of a laundromat.
We had to stay in Pisa instead, which we found much more pleasant on account of it not being an oven full of grumpy tourists.  No one spends longer in Pisa than is needed to photograph the leaning tower, so we had it ourselves by late afternoon.
Venice was nice, but the climate is a bit sticky this time of year and we choose mostly to walk after seeing the official $140/hr rate for Gondola rides.  We did take a lovely moonlight cruise but that didn't leave much in budget other than several lemon slushes a day to keep cool.
We were very relieved to reach the more rarefied atmosphere of Innsbruck, Austrian which advertises itself as 'The Capitol of the Alps'. Not that I've ever visited the Alps before, but so far it has my vote.  Our first day we took the tram from town up to just above tree-line and hiked down.  The mountain ie dotted with little cottages which spend the summer serving beer and delicious homemade traditional Tyrolean dishes to hikers. How civilized. Time to catch up, Sandias.
Today we went Canyoning, which is basically hiking down a narrow mountain stream.  Of course the water is glacially cold so you've got to wear a wetsuit. And its a bit steep so you have to rappel and/or slide down waterfalls.  Oh, and you start by being lowered by rope from a bridge into a raging ice-cold stream.  Scary, but very, very fun. And beautiful, this is the Alps after all.

Santorini, Rome, and the Cinque Terrestrial

The pictures took so long to upload last time that I didn't manage to write anything.  Our stay in Santorini was lovely, the islands were beautiful and the food was delicious.  We took the place on headlong.  Our first full day involved several stomach twisting rides across the island's sinuous roads, snorkelling, high-speed water tubing, and parasailing. We were well exhausted by the time that we had returned to the hotel. The snorkelling was surprisingly good given the rather chilly water in the caldera. I'm not sure if tubing really describes our second activity, but it's my best guess.  Essentially we held onto a giant inflatable sofa while it was dragged across the ocean behind a motorboat, thus being made to do its best Brahma bull impression. Despite the deathly grip I felt I was maintaining, at one point I noticed that I was up in the air, sofa nowhere to be seen. Shortly thereafter I landed in the ocean. A good time was had by all.  Undeterred by our epic day we undertook even more the second day, climbing a volcano, a harrowing donkey ride, swimming to a hot spring, and probably most difficult of all, the sunset viewing.  The tourist life of Santorini centers around sunset. Every restaurant, gyros stand and souvenir shop advertises the magnificence of its sunset view. A dozen different sunset cruises and tours cqn be booked on any given day.  So we were determined to experience the ultimate Santorini sunset, and the town of Oia, we were told, is the place to do it. Unfortunately, our boat dropped us off, already hot and tired, about 3 hours early at which time the sun is still very much the enemy. We were also a bit over budget and couldn't afford to stake out in one of the many sunset themed cafes of Oia, known for their 9€ Orange juices and we had to scurry from one patch of shade to another for what seemed like days.  The sunset ultimately was beautiful but we were mostly just glad to be rid of the sun. We also learned a valuable lesson, that this is a honeymoon, not The Amazing Race, and we get to keep going even if we do not complete every possible activity before returning to the hotel.
Our Santorini-Rome flight gave us one last taste of the chaos that is modern day Greece. At the airport we were dismayed to see a fairly long line spilling out onto the curb. Naturally, I went in and established that yes, this the line for our flight.  The line showed very little sign of moving and our neighbors all seemed think it was a different flight, so I went to check again, only to discover that, while the tail had stayed in place, the head had moved and we were now in line for a completely different flight that none of us wanted. Luckily we managed to catch the flight. I have been in many lines in many places on earth and so far I have been able to count on the principle that however slowly and erratically it may move, once get into the right line, you will continue to move towards your goal, but Greece has proved me wrong.
Rome. Our time in Rome was probably about equally divided between eating Italian food, waiting for public transit and viewing old buildings.  Of course there is a lot of variation within each category. Some sights are fantastic, some meals make us wonder whether the Boyardee family is Roman, some trains are air conditioned, etc.  The colliseum for instance, is a bit run down given that for 85% of its life its major purpose was as a combination stone quarry/stocky. The pantheon has, rather ironically, been kept in good repair by the Church. Our favorite was probably St. Peter's.  It simply is amazing what you can do with all the money and power in the world. But that's a bit trite.  The harmony that the half-dozen lead architects were somehow able to maintain is dare-I-say miraculous?  The food was good, but frankly not quite our style. Romans seem to enjoy sweet tomato sauces and thin pizzas that neither Kathy nor I prefer.
Onward to the Cinque Terre.  These five ultra-quaint, once-rustic villages hang off precipitous slopes running into the gulf of Liguria, also called Golfo de las Poetas, for the leaders of its first wave of tourists, Keats and Byron.  The whole area is a national park now, but not a barren wilderness park, a suntanning and souvenirs and charming little restaurants park. We've opted to stay 4 days to really get to know it. Sadly, the most picturesque of the picturesque, the foot path from Vernazza to Manerola, which is generally listed in the top 10 walks in the world is closed due to a landslide.  We've had to console ourselves with too much foccacia and gelato.

Adio Greece, Ciao Roma

First kathy pose


















church at mt. lycabetta


















view from the hotel in Santorini

Santorini Sunset

The town of Fira.












In the volcano.













In Europe, even the lizards smoke.













I'm ready for my donkey ride!

Obligatory colloseum photo.

Kathy bursting with divine glory, or perhaps flames.

Greece

It's been a while, went to Turkey, but skipped the blog, went on some other little trips too. Oh, and I got MARRIED.  The honeymoon is a simple 5-week tour of Europe.  We're starting off in Greece.
Athens is an interesting city, but I would say we missed the best time to go by about 2 months, give or take 2000 years.  The humidity and the long flight force me to coin a new term to describe our stay there: sweat-lag.  That's when you're not sure if you're exhausted because of the nine timezones you just crossed or because all of the water is leaving your body.
Greece has had some hard times and the amount of unemployment, graffiti and general unrest give Athens a pre-riot Los Angeles vibe. When things turn around someone is going to be spending years erasing political slogans from marble. The upside is that its cheaper than expected.
The acropolis and the Parthenon are nice, or will be in about 20 years when the reconstruction is completed, as it stands you can't find an angle without a crane in your view.  Our favorite part was actually climbing a hill up to a little church above the town.  Great views and great relief to be above the chaotic snarl of traffic that is day-to-day Athens.
An even greater relief to reach idyllic Santorini.  Originally Santorini was a mid-sized island in the south Aegean but around 600 BC it blew up Mt. St. Helens style and became 5 smallish islands.  The main island, where we're staying is composed mostly of the rim of the crater left by the eruption and is shaped more or less like a crescent.  This means that about half of the real-estate is cliff-front, or just the side of a cliff.  A forbidding place to live, but the perfect spot for a sunset-view cafe.  This being the Greek Islands the architecture is very blue and white.  From the air I imagine the island looks like a giant basalt croissant frosted with bright white hotels and gelato stands.  From the ground it looks like someone made it up for a spectacular movie. Pictures later.