The Verbose Traveller

We had a great time, but how good it is to be home! And how good it is to be blogging on my laptop and not on the iPad!! I'm not sure what it is, but just between you and me I don't think iPad and Blogger (a Google blogging platform) like each other very much. Writing wasn't a problem, but as soon as I tried to upload photos into a post, Blogger started to behave very badly. Or maybe it was the iPad that was behaving badly, I really couldn't tell. Whatever it was, it made getting a post ready to upload so much harder and longer than it should have been. Every time I enlarged a photo, or swapped out a photo, or deleted a photo, the post would freeze and I would have to save it, close it and reopen it to do anything further. It was incredibly frustrating at times, so it's a joy to be back using a laptop! Now let's wrap up Israel, the first part of our trip, and the main reason we did the trip at all. Obviously I’m no expert on Israel, we spent just shy of 1

Athens turned on the sunniest day so far, for our last few hours of exploring. Once we were all packed up and ready to go, we headed out into the blue sunshine-y day. First we walked south-west from our apartment, to the Koukaki area, where we hadn’t been before. It’s “Big Friday” here in Greece, so we weren’t sure what would be open, given that 99% of Greeks adhere to the Greek Orthodox faith, but there was plenty open as it turned out. The Greeks do love their tourists! We did hear a few church bells during the morning, and then we came across a mass in one of the churches we passed by, so we popped in out of curiosity. Everyone was standing (no chairs), the priest was intoning and occasionally singing, there were periodic repetitions of three phrases in Greek after which the gathered crossed themselves, and otherwise there was some kissing of the displayed photos of icons in the foyer. We assumed it was some kind of Easter Friday mass. Last night, in fact, as we walked bac

Reminded me a bit of someone I love (but is most likely Sauromates II, King of the Kimmerian Bosporus from 2 AD) I know, we’re fairly pushing the museums, but it was worth it. This morning we headed just up the street to the Acropolis Museum. We got going relatively early, and were thankful we did, as the crowds were minimal at that time and we were able to enjoy browsing “jostle-free” through this museum (but they were starting to pour in as we left). The museum was founded to exhibit all the significant finds from the “sacred rock” and its foothills, and is new and modern, being only 10 years old. The architectural form of the museum maintains visual contact with the monuments of the Acropolis, and is designed to exhibit the Parthenon sculptures in their entirety and displayed as they would have been originally located on the site. The building is also adapted to accommodate the archeological excavation that extends across its foundations, and that can be seen through glass f