Greece

Home again

Oh, what a lovely trip that was! We saw lots of beautiful places and ate lots of beautiful food.

Beth and the birthday girl

This is me and Margie, the Birthday Girl, in front of a very old fountain in Heraklion/Iraklion/Iraklio

Things I learned in Greece:

  • There are at least three ways to spell anything in Greek.  Heraklion, Iraklion, and Iraklio are all the same thing.  Road signs are no exception.
  • Yogurt, cheese, bread, tomatoes and olive oil are all better there than here.  Way. Like, no comparison. Who knew?  Must be the soil, because the ingredients are all the same.  Their restaurant tomatoes were all better than my homegrown.  I didn’t know that was even possible.
  • Goats and sheep can climb trees.
  • Locals like to play chicken on the one lane roads with the tourists.
  • The Mediterranean Sea is not bathtub warm but it’s so beautiful it doesn’t matter.
  • Greeks always drink a shot of Raki after dinner.  It’s AWFUL.  Made of grape leavings, reminds me of grocery store vodka.  If you eat a lot of rich Greek food and then have MORE than one shot of raki, you will probably be hurling/yakking/spewing at 3 a.m.  Bob can personally verify this.
  • The spiders on Crete make the largest of spiders here seem small and slow.  Eeeek!
  • Rock walls can be works of art.  That was, I think, my favorite part of the trip.  All the beautiful stone walls, old and new.  The really great ones look like they are fitted together with no mortar.  Seriously, they were works of art.
  • Greek people don’t seem to care too much about coffee.  We couldn’t find a coffee maker.  The restaurants and stores all featured NesCafe like it was something good.  Bleah.  I missed my Seattle’s Best for sure.
  • Greek restaurants overcook just about everything but it doesn’t seem to really matter.  Rare meat is not an option there.  Crisp tender vegetables do not exist.

rockwall3

Gorgeous rock walls.  One side of the island has this red colored rock, the other has a gray color.  Two tectonic plates met up here.

Here are some of the eight gazillion pics.  Bob took the bulk of them – if it’s scenery and beautiful, he took it:

Beaches  http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/BeachesCrete#
Samarian Gorge Hike http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/SamarianGorgeHikeCrete2009#
Heraklion  http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/IraklionFountainAndPort#
Knossos  (birthplace of the Minoan labyrinth myth) http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/KnossosPalaceCrete2009#
People http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/PeopleShotsCrete2009#
Sailboat trip  http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/SailboatTripSoudaBayCrete#
Glass factory in our village http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/GlassFactoryKokkinoChorio#
Various architectural shots  http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/OldBuildingsWallsInterestingArchitectureCrete#
Flora and Fauna http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/FloraAndFaunaCrete#
A few villa shots   http://picasaweb.google.com/bcamero/Villas#

But what about the food?

Exploring Old Rome Without Air (or Time) Travel
New York Times (11/13/08) P. C11; Povoledo, Elisabetta

Google Earth’s Ancient Rome 3D is a simulation of Rome circa 320 A.D. that can be explored in three dimensions. It consists of about 7,000 buildings reconstructed through the efforts of Bernard Frischer, director of the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities.

The project involved the collaboration of Google Earth, the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, and Past Perfect Productions, a company whose specialty is 3D cultural heritage models. The simulation was initially based on Frischer’s Rome Reborn 1.0 project, which was fine-tuned over the years as technology improved. Experiencing Ancient Rome 3D requires users to install the Google Earth software at earth.google.com and then access the simulation from the Gallery folder.

The mayor of Rome said at a Nov. 12 news conference that Ancient Rome 3D could satisfy tourists who are disappointed to find the city’s ancient structures in a state of decay, which “may not be enough to involve the tourist in the experience of Roman civilization.” Frischer says that he hopes Ancient Rome 3D will be an ongoing scholarly work that is updated as new knowledge is contributed.