Greece

By Rob and AshleyMay 27, 2018

Athens

The Byzantine Churches of Athens

Sprinkled all around the city of Athens are very small churches from the Byzantine Empire. The first thing that stood out to me was their size. Our tour guide explained that during the time of the Byzantine Empire (approximately 330 AD to 1453 AD) Athens was considered a small unimportant town, especially compared to the capital Constantinople. Since the population was small, so were the churches. They were community based and visited by the people in the near vicinity. Another thing that makes these churches unique is their age. The church that we visited, Ayioi Theodoroi, was built in approximately 1049, and is still in use!

You can see it pictured below (photo of exterior from Trip Advisor). A small church surrounded by newer modern buildings.

Here are some photos we took of the interior.

The Acropolis

The Parthenon

The Dimotiki Agora- Athens Meat and Fish Market and Food Tour

We went on a fantastic food tour of Athens, trying multiple “local” foods. Ashley’s favorite was a cream filled pastry called bougatsa. Here is a link to the recipe if you are curious.

The National Garden

The National Garden is a huge 38 acre park in the heart of Athens. It used to be a royal garden commission by Queen Amalia in 1838 but in 1920 the park became public and was renamed. Henry Miller said of the park “It remains in my memory like no other park I have known. It is the quintessence of a park, the thing one feels sometimes in looking at a canvas or dreaming of a place one would like to be in and never finds.” Turtles were everywhere, just wandering around.

Santorini & Ferry Ride

Santorini is a volcanic island located in the Southern Aegan Sea. It’s a semi-circle shape and has a sunken caldera from a huge volcanic eruption in 1,645 BC. We took a ferry from Athens.

IA (Oia)

Santorini’s Animals

The view from our caldera apartment…

Our balcony view…

I’m kicking myself for not taking a picture of the interior, as it was so neat. It was carved into the cliff and took 180 stairs to get to. Here is an image of the room borrowed from their website: