So what do you do in Athens? Why, go to the Acropolis! Of course, this is THE acropolis and it's dedicated to the Greek gods, in general.
Interesting, listening to Greek opinion of the financial crisis that they recently faced. A little grifiti about the subject:
It seems as though they didn't see any crisis until the banks were closed. Then they raised hell about the banks. Once the banks were opened again, they didn't see any crisis anymore. We kind of got that in general, they don't have any concern about the condition or politics of the country or its neighbors. We began to understand why they call these countries "Club Med". Don't worry, drink wine. One thing they are concerned about and can't let go. The carvings from the top of the Acropolis are still in the British Museum, having been "stolen" a long time ago. Greece wants their carvings back, yesterday, period. Good luck with that.
After Athens, we visited two other islands: the G place and the Z place. Most of us couldn't remember either of the names.
At the G place (Gythion), we visited the Diros caves, with a quick pit stop at a little village on the way.
The Diros caves are alive and wet. In fact, the floor has anywhere from a foot to maybe six feet of water over it. They were explored between 1900 and 1960 and fossilized bones of panthers, hyenas, lions, deer and hippopotamus bones were found, along with pottery near the entrance, indicating the presence of man. Opened to the public in 1967, the tour was conducted in a little boat and the driver pushed or paddled us through the cave. Beautiful!
At the end of the tour, we strolled around Gythion's waterfront and found a bakery. The biggest and best Baklava ever, brought back to the ship and enjoyed with a cup of coffee from the bar.
Onward to the Z place (Zakynthos). It's another waterfront village and we decided to make a sea day of it, so we did not go into town. This would give us two sea days, one of which took us through the very narrow Messina Straight at the toe of the Italian boot. We viewed Mt. Etna, which constantly steams, the straight itself, and another volcano called Stromboli that also steams constantly. We even thought that we could occasionally see a bit of red glow. Believe it or not, people have built houses on the volcano. What???
Buongiorno, Italy! Next stop is Civitavecchia, and unlike some of our fellow passengers, let's not slaughter the name, it's pronounced "chee-vee-ta-vek-ya". The word means "old city".
