Greece!

Late Aug/Early Sept 2011.

At the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramandan there is a holiday called Eid... I made sure I took the extra extra long weekend out of Egypt and at the last minute bought a ticket to Athens... Basically what I did was just book a few tours and dove in head first!

This post will be more pictures and less text... At the end of the day its a photo blog more than anything... At the end of the post is a link to the album of all the pictures.

Remember all the pics are clickable and if you press Ctrl and click on the pic it will open in the background in a new tab (If you use Google Chrome, and if you are not you should be!!)


The 1st days city tour started off at the 1st ever Olympic Stadium!

After driving around the city we walked over to the New Acropolis Museum at the base of the Acropolis. Unfortunately photos inside the museum are not allowed.

After the museum we started the climb up to the Acropolis! Most people thought it was really hot, but coming from Egypt it was the coolest its been for me in the last 6 months!

Temple of Nike Athena

Acropolis in restoration and maintenance.

Monastiraki Square

Temple of Zeus

On this day I left Athens for a 2 day tour of Delphi and Meteora, was a total of 800km by bus.

Here we are at the temple complex of Delphi

Museum at Delphi... I was not suppose to see this, i mistakenly went with the half day group instead of the 2 day group... The 2 day group ended up waiting for me 45 min in the bus while I was in the museum... Opps!

Here we have arrived at Meteora, these are monasteries.

This was my last full day in Greece and I went on a cruise of three islands; Hydra, Poros and Aegina

I purposely did not go to Santorini or any of the other super popular islands... Just did not want to go alone.... But it turned out I would end up having great company. Turns out that one of my mothers very good school friends from her high school has a sister who is married to a Greek. And their daughter Vanessa, who lives in Colombia... Happened to be in Athens for vacation. So besides meeting up a few times to go out at night we ended up going on the cruise together!

Here is a pic of one of the night we went out...

Here we are arriving at Hydra... For a second I felt like I was in like a mini Monaco.

Here is Vanessa climbing up the stairs as we explored the island!

We went swimming... Very nice! I really miss the ocean!

Here we are arriving at the port of Poros.

This is the island of Aegina. Its one of the large islands and the main source of pistachios for Greece.

Some guy who happened to be in front of the temple when the pic was taken... What a dork!

After visiting the temple we went to a pistachio plantation and factory... But there was not much to take pictures of... They tasted good tho!

Link to Album

Twin continental city...

Spending 18 days in the only city on two continents! Have a few city tours planed and a 2 day tour at The World Heritage Site of Cappadocia!

Part 6: 100% private show at the Temple of Karnak... Oh and the guy with the machine gun!

This ended up being a very cool night... After the felluca ride and getting dinner at the cruise ship we got in our "limousine" and headed toward the Karnak temple Complex to watch that evenings last Light and Sound Show.

But we ran into a little problem... But first about this Light and Sound show in particular. To my knowledge there are three L&SS in Egypt, the Pyramids/Sphynx, Abu Simbel and Karnak and out of all of them Karnak is the best because its interactive. At the other two you just sit and "listen" to the show/story and see the lights/lasers/projections. But at Karnak you walk though the whole temple and then just sit like the last 20 min of the 45min show. Walking though the temple at night and seeing all the lights is very cool...

So back to the problem.... We were at the last of 3 shows that evening and due to the very low # of tourist in Egypt we ended up being the only people there to see the show.... Major bummer since it was the best of all the L&SS and I knew Angelina would really like it (very cool and a awesome photo op) and I knew she was prob never going to see it if it was not that night or at least any time soon.... It was out last night in Luxor.

 For those of you who know me... Know IDTS and I make it happen...lol. So I asked what the minimum number of people needed to do the show... and bought out the show. Lets just say it was double digits.

Ill let you decide from the pics if it was worth it or not... It ended up being Angelina, the guy who ran the show, myself and a guy or two with machine guns.....

Here is a satellite picture and 3D rendering of the temple so you get an idea... Click for a better view.

Next blog entry will be pictures of Karnak during the day and the rest of the Upper Egypt portion of the trip!

Here are the links to the other "Parts" of the trip so far.

• Blast from the past... Egyptian Adventure with AC....
• Part 2: Blast from the past... Egyptian Adventure ...
• Part 3: Blast from the past... Egyptian Adventure ... 
• Part 4: Blast from the past... Egyptian Adventure ... 
• Part 5: Hot air balloon ride over Luxor+....