The sun sets on our trip

The central island is a volcano which we hiked up the day before. All
of Santorini was formed by the volcano, hence the ring shape of the
island, the black sand beaches, and the (luke warm) hot springs that
we swam in.

From here, it was a bus to an overnight ferry to Athens. Then some
hiking to kill the day. Then a flight to London and we just spent the
night at Heathrow. Actually not as bad as it sounds. The plan is to
see some sights before our afternoon flight to Chicago.

I

Finally, the beach!

We made it to a (empty -- did i mention that people dont go to greece
in the winter?) black sand beach on our last day. While the
temperature wasn't really inviting us to take a dip, we got in some
good time on the sand. I even managed a sunburn -- not hard for me.

I

Santorini is just like the postcard

Greek island with little white buildings on the side of the hill and
some blue roofs. And that's pretty much the whole town and ALL the
towns on the island. Of course 80% of the island was closed for
winter, but it made for a very quiet and relaxing last stop.

I

Cretan food

So since we are in a large island in the Mediterranean, we thought
seafood was a necessary part of our diet. We found a decent
restaurant and took a look at the menu. There was basic stuff like
fish spaghetti, shrimp and mussells. But we thought, let's go crazy,
we're in Crete. So we ordered octopus (previous post) and something
called "Atherian". I figured it must be some kind of fish and I'd get
a nice filet of something I'd never tried. Not quite. It was fish,
all right, but not as delectable-looking as I'd hoped. I'm still not
sure how you are supposed to eat them but we picked most of them apart
and they weren't terrible. I ate a couple whole--I don't recommend it.

I

Octopus grilled over charcoal

See next chronological post.

Just kinda funny

The Minoans loved them some longhorns.

--Knossos, Crete

Traveling in Greece

Sucks. I promise a long rant you may tire of reading once we are
home, but there is no way I can do it from the iPhone. So let the
post card posts continue! Here is the ferry we took from Athens to
Crete. It was only delayed four hours (hint: not the worst of our
travels). It did offer nine cruising hours of a room full of people
snoring and the lights on. Luxurious!

I

Acropolis now

Sorry we forgot to take the phone up with us, but here's our view from
breakfast, courtesy of the Adrian hotel in Athens. Speaking of
breakfast, it's been awesome the entire trip. Every day we wake up to
tables covered with bread, cheese, juice, eggs, croissants, ham, good
coffee just to start.

Breakfast at our hotels has saved us a lot of cash as we never have to
buy lunch.

T

R-Rated post

Pompeii. They liked their brothel. And in case the patrons are of the
unimaginitive (inexperienced?) type, the pictures above the door to
each room have some...suggestions.

Il Collosseo

Thanks to the Metro we're able to find our way to all the major sights in Rome
with ease. The Colloseum is massive, and probably better engineered than
a lot of stadiums today at least for flow in and out. It has eighty
exits. That sounds a lot easier than the 25ish in memorial stadium. We
followed up with a walk through the ruins at the Forum, Palatine Hill,
Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps-- all way cooler than I had
imagined.

Pisa

Since it was only an hour away by train, we thought we should see the
tower. We seriously got off the train, walked as fast as we could to
the tower (opposite end of town from the train), took pictures, and
hustled back to the train station (more art to see in Florence).

Time spent
Train: 2 hours
Walking: 45 minutes
Gawking at tower: 10 minutes
Trying to get good picture of us holding up the tower: 30 minutes

Pisa seemed nice as we ran through it though.

Tour di Tuscany

Ok, not really a tour - only 12 miles. But Tessa was looking forward
to this day for months and it didn't disappoint. There is a reason
bike rides are numbers 1 thru 7 on the list of things to do in
Florence. We had a great winery tour, lunch, and not so easy bike
ride through scenery like the picture. Of course, Tessa kicked my ass
in the biking part.

Doge's palace

Venice was a prominent force in the world for a while after the fall
of Rome and the Doge was the man in charge. Between the rain and
rules against photos, our pictures are a little lacking. But here is a
decent one of the giant stairs where each new Doge was crowned - right
between Neptune and mars, and below the ubiquitous Venetian flying
lion. Then of course he would retire to his palace. It's good to be
the king.

Venice is wet

It's been raining here the entire time but there's stillplenty of
people around. This morning the water was so high we had to walk on
platforms except a few who brought their galoshes.

Grand Canal

Although it's easy to get lost we could always find our way back here
to the Rialto bridge. Off to the right are the gondolas we rode and
some over priced restaurants where we did not eat, but wished we could
borrow their heat lamps.

Eating Italian

After our super long travel day, we had to find some good food.
Apparently the thing to do in Venice is get lost. It's both easy and
fun. We excelled at it. But eventually we found our place and ate too
much. Here is Tessa's spaghetti with oil, garlic, and hot peppers.
Very good.

Starting from our beginning

We'll kick this blog off with a couple pictures from the wedding. Posts for the next few weeks will be all honeymoon-related.


Wedding Party on their best behavior:

Wedding Party on their not-so-best behavior: