Acropolis

The road to the Acropolis.

Day 2 Athens

We love Athens. We hiked up the big mountain today to see the Acropolis. It is absolutely beautiful up there. We walked back down through the Agora and wandered through the vendors in the Plaka. On the way we found two Starbucks, a TGI fridays, a Subway, and of course a Mcdonalds. We stopped in none of them though and instead hit a café for greek french fries and frappes. Then a double espresso. We practically ran home with all the caffeine. If the roads in Rome were hills, these are mountains. Basically its a 90 degree angle to our hotel. So far all of the toilets have seats. All of the people are very nice. Our greek is working so well people keep talking to us back as if we understand everything. One of the funny things is where the locals think we are from. We've gotten Australian and American but the really strange one is Spain. More than anything else people have thought we are from spain and they try to talk to us in Spanish. Ryan has begun to tell people his last name is Banderas. Hasta luego!

Look closely....

Yep, that's a Starbucks. This is just one of the many reasons we love...LOVE...Athens.

In the Agora

This is a stoa that houses the Agora museum. Inside was a Trojan Shield from the 5th century BC. The shield was almost as wide as Ryan's arm span! Unfortunately no pictures were allowed.

View from the top.

High up on the Acropoli.

Parthenon

Southern point.

Parthenon

Larger than you would ever believe.

Just hanging around.

These capitals were just sitting around on the side of the road. We would have taken them home but we couldn't figure out how to get them through customs.

On the way to the Acropolis

Saw this as we were walking.

Coloseum

Coloseum

Acropolis at night

All lit up.

Hello from Greece!

Kalispera! We've made it to Athens. Lets take a look at our last few days in Italy first. Thursday we hiked over to the Coloseum, through the forum, up the palatine hill and down onto the capitol hill. Sounds like an easy day but that was a heck of a lot of exercise. On top of that we hiked it back over to Via Veneto to see the crypt of the capuchin monks. The monks arranged the bones of their dead in decoration on the walls and in scenes. Very creepy but also one of the best and most unique things we've seen yet. Unfortunately they would not allow any pictures to be taken. The Coloseum was huge and amazing. The forum was overwhelming and would probably take you a week itself to make sure you don't miss anything. That is one of the things you don't get from guide books or history books. The effect of the scale that the ancient Romans were able to build on was amazing, and they were not exactly large people. After, we headed to a small café in via veneto for paninis and spaghetti. Then went home. That pretty much wiped us out for the day. Friday we headed out to shop by the Spanish steps and via veneto again which again wiped us out. Today we were up early to head to the airport. Athens is amazing and unlike the Italians every one has been extremely nice. Of course our hotel is our favorite place so far. Two reasons, american tv shows and a small gym. We've used both already. This is the taking it easy portion of our trip. Tomorrow we head out to the acropolis but that's pretty much our only plan. Talk to you later....Kelly and Ryan

Acropolis - Athens

This view is from the balcony of our room in Athens. The camera does not do it credit, we are so close we can see details.

Forum

Forum...these are...um...ancient ruins. Ok you caught us, we forgot which ones.

Folgers Temple

This is an actual working coffee machine that we found in a little café in via veneto. Ryan has now set up a small tent in front of it and has begun to worship. So far no signs from the great java yet.

Palatine Hill

Palatine hill right next to the forum.

Roman Forum

Temple of Augustus and Trajans market in the background.

Arch of Septimius

Like Constantines arch but a bit smaller.

Arch of Constantine

Triumphant arch. Constantine actually stole some many of the reliefs on this arch from

Coloseum

Not bad for a cell phone camera.

Coloseum

Walking towards it.

Coloseum

Coloseum.

Victor Emmanuel Monument

This was created in the late 1800's to honor the first King of unified Italy. It is huge and hides most of the palatine and capitol hills behind it. You can probably see it in the photos from the top of Saint Angelos.

Not so LA DOLCE VIDA afterall

Hello,

 

Yesterday we walked literally all over the city and have plenty more photos and stories to share.  Unfortunately our hotel, although quite good at everything else, is completely inept at anything related to the Internet. "Modern" has a very different meaning here :).  Currently Ryan is sitting at a pay terminal, Kelly is sleeping.  We are having a wonderful time and can't wait to see what Athens has to offer tomorrow.  Today (Friday here) we are heading out to do some shopping.  Yesterday Ryan bought some ties and Kelly purchased some scarfs (actually they have a much fancier name but I have no idea how to spell that) and it placed the bug in us.  Everything seems to be on "Saldi" here, which probably means its on sale :).  Tomorrow off to Athens and hopefully a laundry mat as we are starting to sweat through all of our clothes.  We'll try to post pictures again from their.

 

Miss you all,

 

Ryan

Bernini's Rome

Today we got up early and followed one of the tours in our guide book titled Bernini's Rome. We passed the spanish steps again and headed for the church of Santa Maria Della past the pictures below and onto the Pantheon. We had iced cappuccinos in piazza navona and then toured the castel sant' angelo. We had paninis (sorry but this word is not in our spell check) for lunch and were shocked at how cheap they were. We'll be having more paninis. Right now its nap time so that we can do a few more sites later tonight. We are getting really good at reading maps and even better about navigating trafic considering we did over 5 miles already today...up hill, in the snow, both ways. We'll try to blog again soon so keep checking back.

Keeping with our toilet themes

This was a private bathroom of one of the popes inside castle saint angelo. There is no seat on this one either.

Via of the city

Top of Castel Sant' Angelo.

Pantheon

Hidden in busy streets.

Column of Marcus Aurelius

Some one was trying to make a point.

Trevi Fountain

It might not look like it here but this thing is huge and relatively new. It was built in 1762 on the site of an aqueduct from 19 BC.

San carlo alle quattro

facade

Fontana del Tritone

This guy is thirsty.

Santa Maria Della Vittoria

Inside the church.

Santa Maria Della Vittoria

The churches ceiling.

Buona Notte

Tonight we hiked back over to investigate more restaurants around the Spanish steps. The food so far has been excellent. Kelly has been sticking to pastas and even tried veal yesterday. Sorry to all the vegetarians but those little fat baby cows are so darn tasty! Ryan is on a seafood kick and we both had pizza and antipasti in Vatican city today. The gelatto is good but really just a lot like ice-cream. No matter how we've ordered it the coffee always comes in a tiny little cup and the water comes with or without "gas". So far all the waiters have laughed at Ryan's Italian.

Buona Notte

Eating dinner in the piazza di spagna.

Buona Notte

Eating out at the piazza di spagna.

Risoto con Pescado y Penne Pasta

Va bene! Dinner for two.

Non lo so

Apparently our toilet has a friend. We have been told that the water in Rome is some of the cleanest in the world but...you get our drift. In case your wondering the answer is no, neither of us is brave enough to try this out. This room though has become one of the favorites here. Not because we spend a lot of time in it but simply that the toilet has a seat. All others in Rome have suspiciously disappeared. We are not joking, the public bathrooms, even those in expensive restaurants do not have toilet seats. Its either a really cruel joke by the natives or a deterrent from people actually using them. Kelly has come to believe though that it explains how Italian women stay in shape, mandatory squatting exercise.

is it VatiCAN or VatiCAN'T

Today we woke up nice and early and stood inline in horrible heat for the vatican museums. We sweated a lot and people smelled really bad but it was worth it. The collections are amazing, we even rented and audio tour so that we would know what we were looking at. The sistine chapel is unbeleivably beautiful and calming (of course there are armed guards making sure you stay quiet) and no words could describe how amazing it really is. After the museums we headed over to St Peters. The lines were much shorter and again the inside was amazing. The climb to the top was quite an exercise but again well worth the hard work. We've sweated out most of the "american" breakfast that we ate and ended up at an airconditioned pizza place where we had some antipasta, pizza and espresso. Now its time for a well deserved nap.

Vatican

Fresco inside St. Peters

Vatican

Inside St. Peters

Vatican

The square

Time to eat.

The area around the Spanish steps also has a lot of shops and plenty of restaurants. We stopped at a little place off the main drag for pasta. Spaghetti for Kelly and Ravioli for Ryan as well as an espresso.

More from the restaurant

Another view.

Spanish Steps

One of the first things we did (after taking a nap) was head over to the spanish steps which is about a 15 minute walk from us. Lots of people and also home to one of romes only Mcdonalds. We are pretty sure this Mcdonalds is run by the same management as the one that probably exists in hell as it took us almost an hour to get two waters and a very warm coca cola light. I swear we did not eat here though, we only purchased water and pop.

The bees knees

Our flight to Milan was exceptional except of course for the leg room which you can see above. By the way those are Ryans ugly legs incase your wondering. The food was surprisingly edible as well. After a brief layover we had a 45 minute flight to Rome and then possibly the scariest taxi ride ever to our hotel. Drivers here act pretty much like the natives walk...im here your there now get out of my way. Its truly insane. We've learned very quickly that the worst thing to do is stop walking. Just keep on going, right into fast trafic with zooming little scooter and magically you'll make it to the otherside. We think that chicken joke came from here.

Not quite how planned it.

Ok, good news first. We are in Rome and we are having a good time. Bad news is that the fantastic wifi advertised by the hotel online is not so fantastic and not included in our stay. So there will be less posts then previously hoped considering we just paid 17 Euro for a 24 hour pass. We will be posting at least today and tomorrow (which might be just 1 day American - we're still working out these conversions) so stay tuned. Also the bank thought someone stole our ATM card and placed a lock on our account. A quick call later helped to avert that from becoming a huge problem instead of a small scary moment.

The picture above is from the top of the St Peters Basilica which we braved today.

It beggins...sort of.

We are through security and in the terminal! The check-in folks were kind enough to give us VIP LOUNGE tickets, so right now we're hanging out in style. Ryans afraid to take pictures though so unless you have VIP access you'll have to just dream about how cool it is to us.

No worm but we are early.

Ok...perhaps we were a little anxious.

I come with baggage

So its Friday night and Ryan is still packing. So far the above picture is all he has managed. We did head to target though and picked up some sodoku books to play with on the plane. That should be agravating enough to take our minds off the flight.