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| Views from out the front window on our travels through Greece were forever changing, often spectacular and different from what we have so far seen. |
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| The Sikia Peninsula was breathtaking - even in the dead of winter with only cats for company, we loved it. |
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| Stereotyping at its finest. |
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| This little grey kitten became part of the family during our stay at Sikia. He even made it into the van for lots of cuddles (something we weren't going to allow). |
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| How cute is this photo. There were 4 of these little kittens in total, pretty skittish until the cat bikkies came out! |
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| Yes - we even had cats waiting on our doorstep for us to return each day. |
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| Still at Sikia, we were the only ones camped here and so the 25 resident (stray) cats swarmed around us. Tilly really enjoyed our 6 days here. |
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| A novel way to collect firewood - very Greek. |
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| The majestic rocks of Meteora as seen from the town square. Can you spot Swifty in the bottom corner - we took a wrong turn and had to reverse back onto the main road. Still a great opp for a photo stop. |
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| Our camp in Meteora. |
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| The view from Swifty's kitchen window. |
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| Two of the Monastaries perched up on thier towers of rock. Such an incredibly beautiful, serene, spiritual place. |
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| We always love reading local restaurant menu boards. This one was outside a Tavern in Meteora. If anyone could tell us what Grass hill tastes like we'd love to know! |
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| This guy crossed the road right in front of us whilst we were on a green light! Another great photo opp though. |
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| We hit this dense fog on a mountain pass that wasn't even on the map! You literally couldn't see 10 feet infront of the van. Very slow going that morning. |
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| The famous Sea of Olives in Delphi. Millions of olive trees making their way from the mountains to the sea. It was spectacular. |
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| The streets of Delphi were very steep. This one was just one of the many we climbed - the difference being that at the top ot this one we found a delicious local bakery that we visited a couple of times. |
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| The girls at the Temple of Apollo. |
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| The view from the top of the theatre at the Delphi ruins. |
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| The Temple of Athena, Delphi. |
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| The wonderful Schumacher family from Germany - Klaus, Gudrun, Vera and Eva. We met them at Camping Apollon in Delphi where we all hit it off straight away. The kids were rapt to meet other (English speaking) kids. The following day we met them at the Temple of Apollo where we said our goodbyes. They will be heading to NZ in February where we know they will have a fantastic holiday - we only wish we could be there to show them our little corner of the world. |
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| Athens main street all decked out for Christmas. |
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| This little girls had gotten hold of her Dad's newspaper and was doing the suduko. |
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| The amazing Athens Flea Market. |
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| We sat and watched these guys on a side street in Athens whilst we ate local souvlaki. This card game was a total scam but guys kept coming over and betting 20 euro notes on the flip of a card. The man on the right in the leather jacket was the dealer - having watched him for 30 mins we believe the guy on his right was his partner in crime - laying false bets and drawing people in. Great to watch though. |
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| The view of a little bit of Athens on the way up to the Pathenon. |
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| These cats were loving the warm leather of these motorbike seats. |
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| The footpath we followed up to the top of the Acropolis. We weren't sure if this was an official path with it's handpainted signs and arrows drawn in chalk on the walls but it sure was an interesting path leading us almost through peoples homes. We later found out that we had walked through some of Athens most expensive real estate. |
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| The view from the top. |
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| The girls beside the Pathenon. |
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| Athens is HUGE. With so many apartments, houses and buildings built on top of each other for as far as you can see and not a tree in sight. |
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| Just one of the switchbacks we encountered on our travels through Greece. Tom Tom always let us know what was ahead (for the most part he was correct). Check out our speed in the bottom left hand corner - no wonder it takes so long to get anywhere. How anyone is expected to go at 90kmhr on Greek roads is a mystery to us. |
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| The actual switchback Tom Tom was showing us above. Pretty cool roads really - and the views were amazing. |
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| Camped amoungst the orange trees in Mystras near Sparta. |
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| The Mystras valley only a short walk up from town. |
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| At the very top of the castle in Mystras. It was a hell of a climb from the valley floor to here - you can see how far we walked from how high up we were - but it was well worth it! |
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| The beautiful Pristouri family - Christos, Lianna, Kostis and little Zaki. Coming to Greece I couldn't pass up the opportunity of seeing Lianna again. We've known each other since we were 4yrs old but she left Australia when she was 13. Now we are both 40 (shhhh). After 27yrs we had alot to catch up on! Her family are wonderful and we all got along so well. Hopefully it won't be another 27yrs before we catch up again. |
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| A switchback that took us from Sparta, over a stunning mountain pass and to the sea. |
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| An unexpected natural rock cave we found ourselves having to drive through. No wonder Lianna called us that night to make sure we had arrived safely. |
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| Greece has been the first country we have found ourselves in with Autumn colours in abundance. It makes for beautiful drives. |
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| Tilly pretends to be a column at the Olympos Ruins - the prettiest ruins we have come across, set in park like grounds with lots of greenery. |
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| The columns at Olympia must have been enormous. Here Taashi stands next to the base of one. |
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| You can't come to the Olympos ruins and not run the original 97m running track (even if it's teeming down with rain!). |
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| The Olympia Archeological Museum is by far our favourite museum yet. |
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| Parked beside the sea in Patras (after finding our campsite for the night permanently closed) we found ourselves in the middle of a hurricane. Worried Swifty was about to be picked up and thrown about we scoffed down our sandwiches and headed anywhere we could find out of the wind. |
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| Free camping (of sorts) in Kato Alissos - we found ourselves befriended by Theo, a local, who told us about the 1400yr old olive tree we were camped next to. That night he walked over with the first tasting of his home brew and some olives his wife Maria had pickled. For the record his dogs name was Romeo! |
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| After the hurricane winds passed during the night we woke to snow on the hills surrounding Patras. The big red ship in the photo is our passage to Italy. |
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| On the boat headed for Bari, Italy. The waters were as calm as calm can be. Until midnight when we hit really rough waters. |
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| The sunset from the ship before we left Patras. |
