The Greco-Roman Tour

After our expensive but visually amazing soujourn in Santorini, we were still looking for the non-touristy Greek experience we’d always wanted.  We jumped a ferry to another island named Naxos.

So I’m here to tell you that unless you go to some little tiny island that nobody’s ever heard of (or you happen to own one!) that there’s no such thing as a non-touristy Greek Island.  There are just different levels of touristy starting with Santorini at the top as the most over-touristed.

Naxos is probably about a 5 on the scale and we found a nice little apartment not far from the beach (once again did the “find accommodation when we get there” – it’s starting to become the norm to do it that way.  It’s a pain but it’s way easier to try and get a better price than over the internet.

Anyway, we spent 3 days playing on the beach and watching The Nanny reruns (ok – it was the first English language TV we’d seen in ages!!).  Our local shop was run by a mother and daughter who didn’t speak a lot of English but insisted on giving us freebies every time we set foot in the place.

We also finally gave away the gyros when we found the traditional Greek restaurant we’d been craving.  We tucked into moussaka, pastitsio and lamb with grilled vegetables like we hadn’t eaten in months.  The owner, also a Michael, was shocked that we had only eaten gyros since we’d been in Greece.  He never eats it – “never know what’s in that stuff!” he said..

Michael and his lovely wife stuffed us with massive servings and free bread, olives and roast potatoes for 3 amazing nights until we decided we had to leave or we would never fit into our clothes!

Acropolis now… actually - no..

Paul had been to Athens 20 years ago and all he could remember was that it was hot and dusty.  Apparently nothing has changed! 

That’s probably a little unfair – we weren’t there long enough to give an opinion.  The best reasonably priced accommodation we could find still cost €65 per double and you literally could not swing a cat.   The only affordable food was heading back down the gyros track, so we decided we would check out the Acropolis and keep on moving.

Paul went out to firm up the ferry tickets to Italy but came back to tell us to hurry up and pack because the only available ferry for the next week was leaving that night!  The ferry was leaving from Patras which is a 2.5 hour bus trip from Athens.  That left us with about an hour to see the Acropolis – the whole reason for coming here in the first place.

So we grabbed the kids and hassled and prodded and ran them up the hill in the 40C heat to the entry gate.  It was shut.  I looked around at the other tourists all crowding around the gate – they were looking as confused as we were.  I checked the guide map.  No – definately was supposed to be open..  A girl appeard on the other side of the gate and said that they would open about 2pm.  We had no idea why it was closed but we would be on our way to the bus stop by 2pm, so there was no way we were going to see the Acropolis close up..

If the kids had’ve had the energy to cheer, I’m sure they would have jumped up and down.  They were completely over the whole thing.  So we took a couple of photos of what we could see and off we went.  Farewell Athens..

Benvenuto Italia

We like ferries.  The ones we’d been on in Greece had been great.  The international one we went to Italy on was run by Superfast and it was massive – I think with 3 garage levels.  Unfortunately, the cabins weren’t quite as spacious as the Greek ferries but still very well appointed and we settled in for the night without any problems.

We arrived on the Italian coast at the port cityof Bari.  We had trouble finding afordable food and ended up in McDonalds.  Little did we know this would be an ongoing problem in Italy – not something you think would be a problem in the land of spaghetti bolognese, the most budget meal ever invented after baked beans on toast!   But alas for a family of 6, unless we were prepared to pay €40-50 for a meal –  spaghetti or pasta or anything besides pizza stayed off the menu! 

Pompeii defeated..

Naples was absolutely boiling.  We had a few people tell us that Italy was experiencing some sort of heat wave never experienced before.  We had survived 46/47C in India – Italy should’ve been a piece of cake!  No – the humidity was crazy, the hotel’s air conditioning was not working and if Naples most famous export is it’s pizza, well let’s just say they should find something else to be famous for.  Enter Pompeii.

Unfortunately, the weather beat us in Pompeii.  We wandered among the ruins of the city and some of it was truly amazing but the heat was killing us.  It didn’t take long before the kids rebelled.  Ruins, no matter how interesting, on a hot day is not most kids idea of a great day.

Rome is burning

Unfortunately, Rome was no better.  The heat was debilitating and the crowds suffocating.  Air conditioning (where it existed) was terrible.  We set off to see the sights on our own Roman marathon. 

 The queue for tickets for the Vatican ran at about 1km.  Once we had sweated it out with our fellow travellers for nearly 2 hours, we moved en masse as a continuous, seething crowd through each gallery.  Some of the galleries, including the Raphael rooms were amazing but attempting to look at artwork when you can’t stop and are completely encompassed in a crowd is near on impossible.

I could probably get charged with herecy but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Sistine Chapel is completely overrated.  There.. I said it.  Perhaps it was the standing up close against people I didn’t know.  Perhaps it was the “bouncers” who ran around loudly telling everyone “sssssshhhhhh” because talking is banned.  Either way, it was an anticlimax.

We went from the Vatican Museum to St Peter’s Square.  The queue for tickets to the church was not as long as the museum but there was nothing that was going to make us line up again, so we didn’t see it.  We did however, throw coins into the Trevi Fountain, sit in the shade at Piazza Verona and look at the remains of the market at Campo di Fiori.  By the time we got to the Colosseum; we took a photo and kept walking.   Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we sure saw it’s biggest sights in one!

Unfortunately, due to our hard drive having a bit of an accident, we currently have no photos from a lot of places in Italy.  Hopefully when we get home we’ll be able to recover them..