Yasas from Athens, Greece!

Since it´s been nearly two weeks since our last update, I´ll try to
minimize the tedious minutae of our every move since Venice.

To summarize, we left Venice after two nights there, traveling on to
Florence with a couple of women from Atlanta who´d been rescued in
Venice by the very same Texans who had give us shelter our first night
there. We met more fellow travelers in Florence as well, joining
forces with Brian, a Norwegian met in the train station, to find a
hostel upon our arrival, where we found Daniel, an Israeli traveler.
Chris took some time out from sightseeing during the days to practice
his guitar and write, having seen Florence a few years ago. I toured
around with our new friends, seeing the Accademia (where
Michelangelo´s David and a host of other sculptures are kept, as well
as some bad 14th century religious art), the enormous cathedral known
as the Duomo, and another cathedral (Santa Cruce, I think) where many
famous dead italians are buried (well, mostly just boxed), including
Michelangelo, and Leonardo, and Galileo. Other than the museums, I
found Florence to be rather dirty and certainly the smog was quite
thick, detracting from the view when we scaled the hill to Piazza dei
Michelangelo.

We moved on to Rome after three nights, finding another hostel near
the train station and heading out to explore the city. We were both
impressed with Rome, with its monumental ruins at every turn and
impressive museums. Here´s a list of the main attractions we saw: the
Colosseum (I was amazed to discover how little arena design has
changed over the millenium - for a minute I thought I was in Enron
Field...); the Forum ruins (a virtual city of buildings still being
uncovered, with Roman brickwork and columns everywhere) the Pantheon
(remarkably intact and quite an engineering feat for it´s time -
apparently the dome was done in a single pour of concrete), Villa
Bourguese (a huge and well kempt park in the middle of Rome), Trevi
Fountain (an elaborately sculptured 19th century fountain), the
Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel (we unfortunately only had an
hour for all of this, and it was quite crowded. They do move people
through efficiently, however, popping you right back into the streets
of Rome at the end, and we were wondering if perhaps the Pope had
brought in Disney to run the place), and the Capitoline Museums
(impressive collection of ancient Roman statuary and other art).
Having blown our budget for Italy, we forced ourselves to cook our own
meals while in Rome (thankfully, the hostel had a kitchen), whipping
up serviceable pasta, soups, and even some scrambled eggs for
breakfast (a rarity in Europe).

Bailing out of Rome after three nights, we took a train to Brindisi in
hopes of catching the night ferry to Corfu, Greece. Turned out, the
ferry was not running that night, so we had to burn a day in this
forgetable little port town. It wasn´t a total loss, however, because
we met a number of fun people in the hostel there, joining two of them
(Joe and Kate, recent U. of Vermont grads traveling around Europe
prior to diving into the 9 to 5 rat race) on the ferry ride to Corfu,
the northernmost Ionian Island off Greece´s west coast, and the Pink
Palace, which is an enormous resort that holds 900 guests in the peak
season. We arrived on Halloween and the resort staff held a costume
party for the guests (about 50 or so), who got very creative in
scraping together costumes with whatever they had in their backpacks.
Chris wore his longjohns beneath a pair of boxers, fashioned a cape
from a trashbag, and called himself a Superhero ("Bedtimeman", since
it looked like he was wearing pajamas). I fashioned a hat of
cardboard, twist-ties, and flashlights and just wore my khakis,
presenting myself as a lighthouse. The first two days, it rained
almost constantly, so we were cooped up inside and passed the time
playing cards with Joe, Kate, and some of the others we´d met there.
The last day, we joined the "car safari", taking a 6 hour driving tour
of the island, including a lunch stop in a 500 year old Greek ghost town.

We left the next day, catching a bus to Athens, passing on winding
roads along the mountainous Greek coast and through the relatively
desolate Greek countryside (reminiscent of New Mexico, though slightly
more vegetated). We arrived late last night and slept in this morning.
Tomorrow we plan to see the Acropolis and a few other sites before
heading off to the Greek Isles for two or three days. Then it´s on to
Istambul and finally out of Europe altogether as we travel into Anatolia.

Andio,
Than & Chris