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.