Greece - Kos & Patmos

From Santorini, we were suppose to take a ferry to the island of Samos, the birth place of mathematician Pythagoras, the 'A2 + B2 = C2 in a right triangle' guy. But there were high winds for three days. Ferries got cancelled and people were getting hysterical as they were missing their flights back home. Long story short, we ended up in the island of Kos, the birth place of Hippocrates, the father of medicine.

This is me on the ferry to Kos. You'd be lying down at the ferry restaurant too (the only place with a couch) if you had a total of twelve hour ferry ride: The Tree of Hippocrates in Kos, under which he taught his pupils according to legends. You can buy a copy of the Hippocratic Oath in nine different languages at the gift shop next door:
Bill took a day trip to the island of Patmos, where St. John had his vision and wrote the Book of Revelation. I didn't go - I couldn't stomach any more ferry rides. This is the monastery on the hill where St. John wrote the apocalypse:

Random Witnessing of a Good Fight in Hania, Crete (in Bill words, copied and pasted here): "we were in an internet cafe back in Hania, when all of a sudden this commotion started behind us. We proceeded to watch the owner (an older guy in his forties) put some college kid in a headlock and wrestle him to the ground. Whole thing lasted like 5 minutes, and finally the cops came. Man, that was the most excitement we've had in a while."

We don't have a picture of the fight, but here is a picture of the pretty Hania harbour:

Dinner - fish:

Sorry, we were too hungry to take a picture before eating. The scraps were fed to the street cats such as these:

We take a ferry over to Bodrum, Turkey tomorrow.

Greece - Santorini

Many of the coffee shops I used to frequent in college in Seoul had on their walls a picture or a painting of Santorini, showing a view of the blue ocean through its white houses. This probably explains why I met more fellow Koreans here in Santorini than all the rest of Greece put together.

Santorini refers to the partially submerged volcano, poking above the ocean as five different islands. We are staying in the biggest island Thira, in the town of Ia. Ia is impossibly pretty - white buildings clustered on a cliff overlooking the ocean, exactly like the coffee shop posters.

Understandably, Ia is very popular with tourists, and we were much discouraged with the expensive hotel prices when we got here, walking around all over town with our backpacks. We were about to give up and go sleep in the dormitory at the youth hostel when Bill asked the seventh place for its price - only 35 euros per night! (Hostel dormitory would have been 28 euros for the two of us.) The hotel even has a tiny pool, and our studio comes with a functional kitchen. I almost hugged the old lady owner. In fact, I suspect that she lives in our studio during the off-season, because it has a very 'grandma's house' feel to it; for example, this china cabinet filled with flower patterned plates and photographs:I made two batches of chicken soup with rice (dak-baek-sook!) in the kitchen.

Bonus Items:

1. Santorini's romantic sunset:

2. Tourists watching the sunset:

3. Canine appreciation of the romantic sunset:

Greece - Elafonissi, Crete

We took a seven hour ferry over from mainland Greece to the island of Crete:

We stayed at the port town of Kissamos for couple days to figure out where in Crete we wanted to go. The young man that sold tickets at the bus station told us that we had to go to Elafonissi, that it is the #2 best beach in the world. Made us wonder where #1 beach was - maybe in Brazil?; at any rate, we took his advice and got on the bus to Elafonissi.

Elafonissi is beautiful. It may be the best beach I have been to. The water is different shades of aqua and crystal clear and it stays shallow forever. When it does get deep enough where an adult can just touch the bottom, there are corals for snorkeling and tiny fishes swimming. Thank you, Young Man at the Bus Station!

Our hotel, one of the only two buildings around the area, was on a steep hill. This is Bill walking up to the hotel:

In and around Elafonissi, we saw many shrines on the side of the road and in front of houses. They are built to look like tiny churches and have a painting of a saint, a candle and maybe some holy water inside. I love them!

This is the shrine in front of our Elafonissi hotel:

Dinner - grilled octopus for me, rabbit stew for Bill:

Greece - Kardamili

We spent four days in Kardamili, a small beach town of six hundred people in the Mani peninsula:

The Greek owner of the small beach cafe we went to had lived in Riverside, Orange County until she was ten years old. So we got the kind of welcome reserved for distant cousins and she sat down with us to tell us about Greece, her family and the superiority of Greek olive oil to its Italian counterpart (too much chemicals in the Italian ones).

This is the archway to our room - those are grape vines in the top!:
This is a fortification tower house in Kardamili old town. Bill took this picture - I chose to sleep rather than see this 18th century architecture. I think I am getting travel fatigue:

We bought this inflatable floatie. Along with portable speakers for the Ipod and a queen-size fitted sheet, it will be another non-essential luxury item that we lug around with us:
The national Greek drink - ouzo. It is clear when served but you pour a bit of water in it before drinking, which turns it milky white:

Greece - Athens & Olympia

Athens:

Athens wasn't a particularly attractive city. That being said, it has been inhibited continuously for over seven thousand years and the Acropolis was a magnificent sight.

The Parthenon in the Acropolis:

That's Athens behind us:

Olympia:

Olympia was the venue for the first Olympic Games in 776 BC.
This is where they practiced wrestling - its this kind of moves that won Bill sixth place in the Washington State High School Wrestling Tournament in 1992 (141 lbs class). Ah, the glory:
This is the original start line to the 200 meters track in the stadium:

Spain - Basque Country

Pamplona:

Question - what do you do when you drive into Pamplona at nine o'clock at night, mistakenly park the car twenty blocks away from the old part of the city that you want to stay at and cannot find a hotel because they are either full, expensive or dirty?

Bill - Walk back to the car and drive to another town, hating life.

Jeeheon - Get the expensive hotel room and immediately start eating tapas and drinking wine to forget the fact that the car and all your stuff are half way across the town and you will be sleeping in the same clothes you wore all day.

We wisely went with my answer. What great tapas bars they have in the Basque Country! Rows and rows of tapas are displayed on top of the counter; and you toss the napkins and cigarette butts on the floor when you are done:

My goal was to have one tapas and one drink at ten different places, but after eating shrimps, anchovies, the longest clam I have ever seen (size of an asparagus) and octopus, with a churros & chocolate break in the middle, I got queasy and had to go back to the hotel room to lay down.

The Basques have their own language. All signs are in both Spanish and Basque - how cute! In the main city square, we saw people spontaneously dancing to traditional Basque music - how cute!

Cafe Iruna, where Hemingway used to frequent:

San Sebastian - a pretty resort town set around a U-shaped beach:

Our Side Trip to France - On our drive from Catalonia to the Basque region, we took a side trip into France, where we went to see the famous grotto in Lourdes. The grotto is a Catholic pilgrimage sight, hosting over six million people per year. It is said that in the 1800's, a fourteen year old girl had visions of the Virgin Mary at the grotto and miraculous healings of the sick at the sight have been reported thereafter:

We had crepes for lunch since we were in France. I am not sure why but every time Bill tried to speak French (i.e. "merci beaucoup!"), I would dissolve into a fit of giggles.

Spain - Catalonia Region

The most famous city in the Catalonia region of Spain is Barcelona. We only spent couple days there, however. It seems that everyone in Europe decided to visit Barcelona at the same time we did. We did manage to see the Antoni Gaudi buildings, built in the late 1800´s to early 1900´s, such as -

La Sagrada Familia church:
Parc Guell entrance:

La Pedrera building:

This is the Christopher Columbus monument by the waterfront:

We rented a car for ten days. I love having a car because it gives us so much more flexibility (and I don´t have to lug my backpack around). From Barcelona, we drove northwest to Valle D´Aran, in the Pyrenees mountains that separate Spain from the rest of Europe. Beautiful mountains and meadows abound, where we hiked to small mountain villages. In Spain, even the smallest of villages has at least a medieval outhouse.