Marius & Gina (+Tascha)

As you've probably seen already, "travel" is one of the big words in our tagcloud This time we've teamed up with Marius & Andreea and went by car to Greece. 3 main reasons : It's close, it's nice, and we know our way around there already.

First stop in Greece: Sidirokastro
A small, non-touristict village right after the Greek border at Promachonas, where we always stop in order to get a glimpse of Greek life (the true one, and not the one shown in tourist resorts). People don't know English, and in general it's quite tough to order some food under these conditions, but the experience is very nice and authentic. This time was impossible, as all Sidirokastro inhabitants were at .. church. It was Sunday morning Anyway, we managed to eat some appetizers, and off we went towards Serres, and then to Thessaloniki.

First days spent at: City of East Olympos / Platamonas.
Right in the middle of the road from Thessaloniki and Larissa, there is an incredible sight: mountain on the right, houses built on the mountain in perfect balance with the nature, then a nice big castle on the left and the Aegean Sea. These guys have it all: landmark, mountain (Olympus!!), beach, tourist resorts (Panteleimon and Platamonas), etc.
Found a great hotel right on the beach (40euro / 4 persons), with incredible view over the Aegean with a nice, cozy room.
Spent there from Sunday to Tuesday noon, mostly sleeping on the balcony, bathing in the sea and doing what tourists do: spend money on ... not much

Then starts the adventure: reaching Santorini
Left the nice City of East Olympos behind, passed Larissa, Volos, reached Athens at around 7PM and moved directly to Pireas harbor. First thing: looked for a boat trip to Santorini (our desired destination) and got extremely lucky : there was a boat leaving at 10PM. a SLOW boat. VERY slow, we'd say.
Fine! Got some food right there and parked the car in Piraeus underground parking (god damn machine costs 200 euro to transport to Santorini and then back)
The lady at the desk said "I recommend econonmy tickets" (25 eur/person), and we did. What she didn't mention is that we would have to sleep OUTSIDE and ON the boat whole 12 hours of this ride to Santorini. Lucky it wasn't too cold, but we slept tried to sleep on a ... refrigerator
Anyway, as the morning came, we forgot about sleeping and took tonz of pictures while passing Paros, Naxos and Ios islands. Got some spirits back

10AM - entering the Thira / Santorini island.

There are not many words to explain this, but try to imagine why Greeks call this their most beautiful island (out of about 200). Used to be a big island. Volcano turned it into 3 islands with a HUGE whole/crater (now full of sea water) and then gave something back after 150 years (another eruption made a small island in the middle. Cities are located 400 - 500 m above sea level, on the crater's edges and are made only with white houses. If you can't imagine... check out the pictures (Priceless)

We spent the New Year in Herculane, even if we actually wanted to go to Tanzania. But... No tickets on the last minute, unfortunately.

But it was nice. We went in an adventure at the Corcoaia Gorges (aka "the keys of Corcoaia") and then at the Tasna Canyon. In the last adventure there are rumors saying that there was this bear chasing us or maybe a buck but no one actually saw anything. Just some noises. Might been a dog as well... who knows. We like to think it was a bear to have stories to tell to our grandchildren.

Don't forget to check the great pictures..

You have to go !

You just have to go and check on the mosques, the Topkapi palace with the Harem . The Roman Tanks are great as well. You can find out there about Medusa, the beautiful girl who fell in love with Zeus son and Athena got jealous an cursed her and transformed her hair in snakes and whenever she would see someone she would transform the person in stone. In the tanks you can see two heads of Medusa: one placed upside down and the other on a part of the face. No one knows why...

The mosques are one of the most impressive things you can see there. And the prayers in the morning , in the middle of the day and in the evening just make you think that your life has a soundtrack, just like in the movies. Very very impressive.

And of course we couldn't miss the bazaar. Where it is impossible not to get hoaxed, even if you work there . We managed to negotiate an Aladdin's lamp and the shop's assistant got in a real fight with his boss because he gave it to us just too cheap.
Well this is life... or maybe this is what they wanted us to think. I'm saying this because when we bought a narghile, there were two kinds of: one with handmade designs on the top and one just of fine metal. And the handmade one was 40 lira and the normal one was 25 lira. And the guy tried to sell us the 40 lira narghile and when we negotiated until 25 he just put his nervous face and said OK, but he got the 25 lira one and packed it and gave it to us. You just cannot imagine how happy we were for such a good negotiation... but that only until we found out that, unfortunately, we payed its normal price, because it wasn't the handmade one but the metal one. WE GOT SO PISSED !!!!

That's it for now. We will put some very nice pics with the mosques and enjoy !

This weekend, our friend Doru took us in his super 4x4 car to the mountains, deep in the Jiu river valley (where most of Romania's coal is extracted). We've spent a great weekend in a nice house on top of the Parang mountain, with GREAT view of the valley.

Also, we managed to enter a cavern, and walked its whole length (including through the underground river which got our boots full of water). Creepy but also nice, the cave is very interesting, especially when you have someone to tell you what everything is (Doru knows so many about caves).

see the pictures...

All in all... we want again!

During 2005 we have been to London 2 times: one to spend New Year's Eve with our friends there and the second time (duuring the summer), as Marius had some business event to attend there. Did some great pictures and uploaded them here, as follows:
Piccadilly, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, Parliament and Bridge Tower, the British Museum, the Tube and more..
Got a very good city guide too. Thanks William!