Saronic Islands and Athens

Saronic Islands and Athens

Sailing was awesome, I would love to come back to the islands on another trip.

Each day we would find breakfast in town, sail for a few hours, wait for the engine to break + be fixed sometime that day, go swimming and then explore a town each night (Aegina, Poros, Hydra, Ermione). Hydra was my favorite island (and also the most touristy).

We walked around the island through winding streets that all look like they should be on postcards. I bought a oil painting to decorate my new apartment. We walked to the church on top of the hill where I rang the bells. (The ropes were left where you could easily reach them, I took that as an open invitation). There are a significant number of cats on Hydra (Alex, our skipper, told us its because "Greece has lots of mouses") so we saw a few cat fights and many dogs chasing cats. On Porous we made friends with a dog (which we named Franklin Hercules) at dinner and she then waited at our boat for us to come back later that night.  We had a barbeque on Ermione, and playing frisbee on the beach of Aegina after taking the dingy to shore to get gyros was also a good time.

Back in Athens, we spent the evening near the coast and had one last night on the boat before returning to the Pagration hostel we stayed at a week ago (the guy who works at reception is from Royal Oak).

We had quite a bit of trouble finding a cab back from the marina, but at least cabs in Greece are really cheap. I was not especially impressed with Athens once we returned. It was big and dirty, and had a very different atmosphere from the islands. Our first day in Athens, we hiked to the top of Lykavittos hill for a view of the entire city.

 (The rest of that day was spent getting wrong directions from the bus stop to the hostel and accidentally finding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where I watched the changing of the guard)

This time we visited the Acropolis. Its interesting to imagine what Athens looked like originally, and a neat contrast to see the marble ruins with modern architecture in the background. 

It would have been nice to sail the boat for another week and arrive in Italy, but we had to settle for a plane to Rome instead.

Hydra, Greece

Everything in Hydra looks like it belongs on a postcard.

Greece

June 5

Hello from Poros, Greece! After Lugano, I flew into Athens this week, where I met up with the rest of the group. We are currently sailing in the Saronic islands and they are beautiful.  Everyone on the islands have been especially friendly to us. We've had a little bad luck with the boat though. Yesterday as we left Aegina, the engine on the boat broke. There wasn't any wind that day, so we slowly drifted back towards port for several hours while waiting for Vardis to come from Athens to meet us and fix it.  In the meantime we swam in the Aegean sea. The water is clear enough to see all the way to the bottom! We also saw some dolphins in the morning. After some repairs, we set sail again and even found some wind. We're all learning how to crew the boat and I got to steer for a while.  Today we are in Poros, hopefully we make it to Hydra tonight!

Lugano, Switzerland

June 1
Bonjourno from Lugano! Or hello. Or guten Tag. I can't figure out what language to speak here. On the positive side, that means I can communicate and read all the tourism signs because they are in 4 languages. I've had several successful German conversations here, but most of the time its a combination of Italian words, German, and English, since Italian is still the most commonly used language in this region.
Lugano is a charming little vacation town in a valley on the lake. My hostel is surrounded by palm trees and other tropical plants. Its very nice, there are several families staying here (one of the younger boys, maybe 3 or 4 came up to me several times yesterday and showed me his drawings. He didnt seem to mind too much that I had no idea what he was saying), and also a very large group of loud middle school girls. I'm glad I'm not 13 anymore. The weather however, has not been as nice, its a little cold and wet. Yesterday I explored some shops in Lugano and attemped to visit Cattedrale di San Lorenzo (which is mostly closed for renovations, but they put in windows so you can still see it as they work).

 I then decided to walk to Gandria, because I had read about it and the quaint trails along the coast through the city with no cars sounded nice. (Most people go by boat, few walk from Lugano). The walk through Castagnola was very pretty, as was the Sentiero di Gandria. Part of the trail is along the coastline (cliff), then you end up in parts of town with gorgeous houses, then you go through olive groves, then tunnels  (repeat all of those several times) and eventually many stories of stairs + hills to get back to the road at the top of the cliff.

I thought I was near the end of the trail when it started raining harder. I was only about halfway. It was pouring before I reached the road to catch a bus back to Lugano. After some food and a hot shower, I felt much better, and the hike was certainly worth it.

It was raining again this morning. I decided against the hike up the mountain, and so what does one do on a rainy day in Switzerland? Go to the chocolate factory of course! Lots of samples :)  Did you know the fruit on a cacao tree grows on the trunk, not the branches? At each stop in the factory, a sign explained what was happening at each station, and another listed all the technical details of the machine (make, model, year, capacity, how much power it draws). Just in case you're in the market to buy your own chocolate machinery.

It cleared up quite a bit in the afternoon, so I took the Funicolore to the top of Monte San Salvador. The view from the roof of the church was awesome, I could see all of Ticino.

 I found Lugano quite charming, even in the rain.
Now off to catch a flight to Greece!

Time + trains

June 1

Express trains from Switzerland are neither fast nor on time.  I expected better of the country famous for Swiss time pieces. Italian workers in train stations take as much time as they feel like, resulting in a ticket line that takes just under 2 hours to get through. I'm starting to doubt if the rail pass is actually worth it, since nearly everything needs a reservation anyway, resulting in seemingly unavoidable long lines and spending more money (not like I was trying to avoid those or anything). The best part of traveling by train so far has been eating chocolata azteca with frutti di bosco gelato (dark chocolate gelato!) in the Milano station the other day.

Torino, Italia

I've learned that international travel is much nicer when there is no one sitting next to you on the 8 hour flight so you can sleep. However laying down on the seat so your head is completely horizontal at several thousand feet can make your ears hurt if you're not careful. After arriving in Paris, AirFrance gives you complimentary newspapers, so I read the Frankfurter Allegemeine. My somewhat random selection of topics of German classes prepared me to understand most sections of the paper; sports, politics, travel, and even science. One random fact I read was that Uwe Krupp is the only German to ever win a Stanley Cup (with Detroit in 96) but there is a German playing on each of the teams in the finals right now. I slept through most of the flight from Paris to Torino, but woke up to an awesome view of the Alps.

Fabio met me at the bus stop (I got off at the wrong one). He was nice enough to let me stay with him in Torino. (Thanks Fabio!) After a delicious lunch and learning to make coffee in an Italian coffee pot (the water goes under the grounds and then filters up when it is ready- the opposite of coffee pots I've ever used, I thought this was really neat), I went to the Mole Antoinella. From the terrace you can see all of Torino, its beautiful.

Inside is the Museo di Cinema. I liked this museum. They had exhibits about how cameras work and the history of films, and then themed sets where you could watch films and other movie history. They even remembered to put my name in.

In the evening I met some of Fabio's friends at dinner. They taught me how Italians speak with their hands and some new words. For example, "nu-flah" (I don't know how to spell it) is used in Colombia to mean "I have something stuck in my teeth". At the restaurant you payed for a drink and then could have an all you can eat appetizer buffet. Apparently this is common for bars to do in the evening, I think its a great idea. We also got ice cream at Grom. Normally i dont like whipped cream, but it tastes sooo much better here than in the States. After dinner they showed me many places in the city and told me stories about them. I iked learning about Torino, I wouldn't have been able to learn this much on my own reading the signs which are mostly in Italian (of which I only know a few words and phrases).
On my second day in Torino I went exploring on my own while Fabio was at work. Torino is mostly laid out as a grid. At least that's what the map says. This didn't stop me from ending up in the opposite direction I intended to go several times, after wandering to look at something and forgetting which direction i came from. Many of the museums are closed on Monday, so I visited the medival part of the city and Castello Valentino in Parc Valentino.

 I discoved carrying a pen and paper makes buying train tickets easier. I wandered more for the rest of the day + saw many plazas, statues, fountains, and Italian flags (they're everywhere), a church, and the Roman gate to the city. After walking all day, I met up with Fabio, Roberta and Ana again for dinner. Perhaps there will be more BMIC reunions in the future?
I liked Torino very much, it was a great place to start my trip. Now I am on the train to Lugano, Switzerland. Ciao Italia, I'll be back to visit again soon!

Be back soon, Michigan

A few weeks ago, I decided to take advantage of my summer vacation (because who knows the next time I'll have three months off) and go backpacking in Europe. I'll be starting in Italy, ending in England, making a few stops in the middle along the way. This blog is to keep all of you updated on my travels and adventures this summer, as requested. And maybe, if you're lucky (or unlucky), this will become a habit and I'll keep writing regularly after I'm back in the States.

Next stop is good old DTW. I'll be spending the rest of the day/night flying (and eating chocolate donuts), then arriving in Torino, Italy on Sunday morning! I'm excited. And terrified. But mostly excited. And also not quite finished packing (bet you're surprised about that one), so I should probably go finish that.