(Back to photos from our vacation, though we’re back 2 weeks now!) After a day of great food, we were ready to walk some of it off, so we had arranged a hike this time with local hiker George, from the village of Chania to the village of Portaria. Pronunciations are tricky – that’s really like Khan-YA to Port-are-YA. One of the surprising things about Greece is how green and lush it has been. I (John) always imagined it being a little more barren, but we were really able to enjoy green pine trees and the colors of fall changing.…

After a long day of hiking and visiting monasteries, we had another full but very different day in the Thessaly region of Greece. Here’s a map showing the town of Kalambaka, which is the closest town to Meteora and very geared toward tourism. We stayed in the nearby city of Kastraki, which is really nestled in the rocks, as seen from the last photo in the Meteora post. The region is called Thessaly, and in addition to the rocks and monasteries, the land is very abundant and the food and wine are excellent. We are branching out a bit this…

Thought we’d post this today, since it’s a food holiday in the US! Back to Pelion, it was really nice to get a good night sleep after our long, foggy drive to Pelion, but we woke up to a view from our hotel in Makrinitsa, a town that’s been called “the balcony of the Mediterranean.” We got off to a slow start and didn’t really do anything until that afternoon, when we went to a local farm that also runs a farm to table restaurant. There, we took a cooking class where we were able to pick local produce and…

After Delphi, we drove through long, windy, mountainous roads, made worse by dense fog, but in the end it was worth it, as we ended up in the town of Kastraki, nestled in the spectacular landscape of the Meteora mountains, which literally means “mountains floating in the air” and is where we get the name “meteor.” But if the landscape, wasn’t enough, we also had an opportunity to hike around and visit the monasteries and convents of Meteora, which as you can see are all perched high above on these amazing geologic formations. If this looks familiar, its because the…

Monday morning we rented a car and drove to Delphi, which was about a 2 hour drive. The drive was fairly uneventful but we did note after paying a number of tolls in the cash lane that the toll takers we encountered were so attractive we wondered if there’s some overlap between modeling and tool booth personnel in Greece! At Delphi, we had a lovely guide named Georgia give us a tour. We started in the museum to see a recreation of the site and artifacts found at the site. This drawing shows the site as it would have looked…

We arrived in Athens on Saturday late afternoon, just in time to see the sun go down (quickly!) and runners still out on a 10k run that was part of the weekend-long marathon events. Our hotel is right on the race course, so it was really exciting to see them and hear the music – we even had to walk the last block to our hotel because of street closures, and do one of those dashes across the road between runners! We met up with Miles for dinner last night. I’m sure this will become a recurring theme, but the…

More on the Nana and Grandpa moving front! Their super nice neighbors Bonnie and Eddie put up this sign in the front yard, letting Nana and Grandpa knowing how much they will be missed! I had the chance to be at the lakefront near Navy Pier last week, and noticed that the nice thing about this time of year is that sunrise isn’t too early and you can really see the sun hitting the city as it rises without getting up at, oh, 5am like one would have to in summer. This view really shows the buildings along the lakefront…

Miles has had the interesting experience over the last week of coming home to a place that was only recently home-like. The group’s trip to Lesbos ended and they flew back home to Athens, into a neighborhood and apartments that only recently had seemed very unfamiliar! The weekend Miles arrived back in Athens, he went to a festival and saw these murals along the way. We’re picking up on Mona Lisa and Last Supper iconography, but not sure of the full story either are telling. Last week, the group went on their last trip, to Delphi and Meteora north of…

I’m going to do a few shorter posts to get some important photos out there – Miles in Lesbos! He spent 3 weeks in Athens, then went to Lesbos for 3 weeks. He’s going back to Athens tomorrow. More on the program Miles is on can be read here, and I’ll pepper in a few quotes below. From L&C: The Lesvos portion of the program (October) will be based in the village of Thermi. The Lesbos sojourn will include hands-on archaeological experience and guided anthropological projects with home visits with local families.  Lesbos is a large island very close to…

I’ll start with the big news event, Miles has arrived in Greece! He flew into Chicago on Friday evening (right smack into a very humid and hot spell, which we are very glad to say broke today). Saturday evening we invited Liam and Kat over to send Miles off with a nice dinner and Greece-related activities. The menu: ribs with a paprika rub, spinach salad with almonds and dates, corn on the cob, and poached peaches with hibiscus flowers, vanilla ice cream and a crunch topping. Once the ribs went on the smoker, we had a lot of down time.…