Back on the bus

We have had our last bus excursion, and we know we are not alone with our relief. It has been wonderful to see most of this stuff, but we are delighted to have two days at sea and will probably be delighted to get off the boat. Enough already!

Yesterday, the bus drove over Mykanos. Very beautiful beaches on the Agean and lots of windmills-some old for grinding grain, and some modern for generating electricity.

I spent the morning in the port town shopping. Marcia's knee did the twist right before we were going to take off for town, so she decided to give it the ice treatment and I went on. The shopping is now quite predictable, but I was in search of labrys pendants. They probably come from the same labrys pendant factory and are shipped all over the world, but I bought ours in Greece! I also picked up a couple of shirts. I have noticed several women enjoying these lightweight cotton shirts, and now I will enjoy them as well.

Time for a seaside lunch. I had my favorite chargrilled octopus and Tziki with a beer. Very yummy. I chatted with a family from New Zealand. Since I have been thinking about RVing in New Zealand as recommended by a fellow traveler in Vienna, I quized the guy and complimented him on New Zealand's fine wines. I have been chatting up our fellow travelers who are also RVing Women, so I planted the idea in hopes it will take seed.

I continue to work on the idea of renting a yacht for the next trip to Greece. Probably it would take a lottery winning to do so, but the idea of actually being able to take a day for each thing we want to see-a day to climb to the top and a day to recover-perhaps floating in whatever sea is beneath us, is so appealing.

So, we did our Mykanos bus, came back to the ship, had a lovely dinner on the aft deck with the other bottle of Italian wine and our friends Lori and Cheryl, went to the evening show and laughed till we couldn't breathe, and donned our Venician masks for a short stay at the masquerade party. This party started at 10:30, and our bedtimes have been moved up on this trip to about 8:30, so we were quite tired. The photo is of our towell sculpture (a seal, I think) wearing my mask. It is not winking. It's eyes were not wide enough to see out of the mask eyeholes, so it had to choose one.

We were still quite tired when we docked in Pyreaus-the port of Athens this morning, but we got out of bed for that final bus trip. It rained on us a couple of times; it is like Florida summer rains that just squeeze the moisture out of the air for awhile and stop.

The acropolis is way up high. That's what it means-way up high. So, we photograph it from the base or a distance. There are also way too many of us tourists, and we are told from those who are able to climb it way up high, that once there, one walks around shoulder to shoulder with all those tourists and hopes to not be knocked over the side. Particularly today, climbing up wet marble was not appealing.

Perhaps we are getting really jaded, but the city of Athens itself had little appeal. Venice and Budapest, and Vienna are charming, but Athens is just metropolis.

We stopped at the tomb of the unknown soldier, guarded, of course, by Greek soldiers. They were doing the guard changing thing that requires them to march around a bit. I particularly liked their marching. Perhaps it comes in handy on the hillsides around here.

I'd like to point out that there is not a curtain in front of Hadrian's Arch unless you happen to be photographing from the bus. I personally would have liked a stop at the arch and Zeus's temple behind the arch, but that wasn't happening today.

There was a stop at the original Olympic stadium. This is where the games were held in ancient times, but they had wooden seats. This is also the place where the original marathon runner came with the news of the Greek victory over the Persians at Marathon-then dropped dead. This stadium was built here in the late 19th century when the games were reinitiated. It is made of marble-the only one in the world made entirely of marble. Since it is too small for modern track and field games, it is used for concerts.

Our plan for the rest of the day includes the hot tub. We are looking forward to BINGO at sea tomorrow.

KG