More Greece and Some Lebanon

Last day on MYKONOS ISLAND, GREECE

Mykonos is famous for its windmills and white walled streets and buildings.

 

Leaving the island to go back to Athens for a couple nights...

 
ATHENS, GREECE

After beach time, snorkling, and exploring Mykonos island we headed back to Athens to see some of the archeological sites.

Acropolis, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and Ancient Agora in Athens are the most beautiful archeological sites that we've seen.  Acropolis and the Parthenon towers over us and the ancient market place in this photo.

Nut market along the streets of Athens as well as olives by the kilo and seafood markets.

From Acropolis looking out over Athens to the north.

Temple of Olympian Zeus, we got lucky with beautiful weather and clouds.

BEIRUT, LEBANON

Getting away from Athens turned out to be difficult as there was a transportation strike conveniently on the day we left (no bus, no train, no taxi, no subway).  We managed to arrange a private ride to the airport and after a delayed flight were did get out and made it to Beirut, Lebanon. 

Friday happy hour with the teachers at Gera's school

Turkish coffee and musical instruments with this guy in a castle.

Late night dancing at the "Hole in the Wall" bar

Thanks so much for showing us a really fun weekend in Lebanon Gera! We had such a good time with you and your friends in Beirut.  Thanks for great tour of places around Beirut... Beiteddine Palace, Jeita Grotto caves, Byblos beach and market, and of course our late nights were highlights. We hope to see you at some point again on our trip!

Spice, tea, and potpourri shop in Byblos

We played Beirut (beer pong) in Beirut, ha, and then we made a pyramid, really random... also, Rob is part ghost.

Byblos beach in Beirut

  

Sorry, no cave pictures were allowed in Jeita Grotto, but check out this link for an idea of this amazing cave that may be voted one of the 7 natural wonders of the world... http://www.jeitagrotto.com/

Off to Egypt for two weeks!!!

Croatia to Greece

Last couple days in BASKA, CROATIA 

A couple more days in Baska before getting back on the road to Italy...

  



Great hikes around Baska overlooking the Adriatic beaches. 







VENICE, ITALY



On the "road" to Venice from our bungalow campsite in Fusina



Venice is beautiful, and also very bright...

Famous seafood market along the alleys of Venice

This is the closest thing to a town square that Venice has as it's mostly small alleyways and very little vegetation, almost all green things are potted plants.

Rob was a little miserable in Venice with some unknown bug bites that showed up shortly after we left Baska ... maybe sand fleas from that secluded beach we found, mabye it's secluded for a reason.  Apparently they did not like Cass as she did not have a single bite, thankfully.  The bites were only bad for a couple days so Rob's all better now :)



Bologna, Italy

We had a few hours to kill in Bologna, Italy before we caught our overnight train to Paris.  We decided to climb this hot tower with 498 steps to get a nice view... little did we know Rob misread the train accommodations section and we did not have a shower on the train and were crammed in a 6 person couchette.  Very fun, glad that one is behind us :)



PARIS, FRANCE

Fresh off the overnight train

Feeling like the hunchback at the Notre Dame Cathedral

Paris was brief, but very nice and allowed us to get some mileage out of that Eurail pass

ROME, ITALY

Rome was our favorite city so far.  Lots to see, easy to get around, amazing history, great food!



Coliseum

Vatican Museum is absolutely incredible, by far the most amazing collection of art and history that we've ever seen.  It would take days or weeks to really see all the art and take it all in.  We had a great morning there ending with the Cistene Chapel. 

No pictures allowed in the Cistene Chapel, but this is the hall leading up to it.

Square in front of Saint Peter's Basilica where the pope speaks to his flock.

Off to Greece via overnight ferry...

The ferry was included in our Eurail pass but you only get a seat.  Thanks Kim and Dustin for the silk travel sacks and Sheila for the pillow, it made our night :)



Straight to the Greek islands... this is one of the main beaches on Mykonos Island.  Thankfully its still hot here and we've been enjoying some beach time!  We heard that in a couple weeks the weather is expected to change and virtually all tourism will vanish.




Mykonos town





"Cass you should definitely take my picture on this thing." 

We rented a quad for the day to get around to several different beaches on Mykonos. Very fun, but we had to push it up steep hills and had trouble starting it a few times, haha.  



mmm, greek salad!

and, medetaranian food!

Night out in Mykonos town...

We're spending one more night on the island and then heading back to Athens for a day before we leave for Beruit, Lebanon!  Gera, here we come, can't wait to see you!!!

Germany to Croatia

RHINE VALLEY, GERMANY

Leaving the Netherlands we headed southeast to Mainz, Germany to tilt a pint where the Frankenberger ancestors lived.  However, Mainz was more of a staging point for our trip down the Rhine Valley to Bacharach and St. Goar.  We combined a few modes of transportation around the Rhine Valley, including ferry, train, bike and hike. This is a beautiful area and we'd highly recommend staying in the small town of Bacharach for a nice relaxing long weekend in wine country.

Overlooking the Rhine river from a castle on the hill in Bacharach...

We biked to St. Goar for a self guided tour of an impressive old Castle.

Town of Bacharach, Germany

Hiked through the vineyards above the town...

we got to drink this wine later, awesome!

After a long day of hiking and biking around the Rhine Valley, we had an amazing  German meal including wine grown locally, beer brewed in town, schnitzel, and salad :)

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

Only in Prague for one night... we're finding that the City's are nice to see, but we generally have more fun in the smaller towns or rural areas.  We moved to Cesky Kromlov, Czech the next night and then on to Melk, Austria...

St Charles bridge in Prague, Czech Republic

Cesky Kromlov, Czech Republic

Castle that overlooks the town...

town of cesky kromlov

The palace gardens were amazing, we got there at 8am when the gardens opened and had them pretty much to our selves.  They were painstakingly manicured, but really hard to capture in a picture.  

Moving through Europe quick... only one night in Cesky Kromlov

This was our connecting train station from Czech to Austria... don't know how we almost missed our stop!

Melk, Austria

Tired from being on the move a lot, we stayed a night in Melk, Austria at a place that was  a bit nicer than our other hostels.  It was a welcomed night in a nice room!

Monks have been living on this hill in Austria since the 12th century.  We had a nice walk in the morning before catching a train to Budapest...

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

We found a cool hostel in Buda and met several interesting travelers.  One guy was starting a dive shop in Thailand so we exchanged info to possibly meet up in January or February.  Below are some pics from our walk around Budapest and our half day at the thermal pools.

Hero's square at central park in Budapest

We got to the thermal pools in the morning and they were already busy as it was Saturday.  This picture was taken when we left in the afternoon and it was getting ridiculous... too many banana hammocks haha.  However the steam sauna followed by freezing cold water will definitely change your day.     

We visited the "house of terror" in Budapest, a chilling museum about the Hungarian Nazis and communism. 

Bridge between Buda and Pest 

Cass reading in a hammock at our hostel in Budapest.  There's a little girl in this picture (who's parents were staying in the hostel) who came over to give Cass a push and then ran away giggling... even the little ones can tell we're foreigners

Cass keeping in good spirits as we make our way from Hungary to Croatia

Rob going a little crazy on the slow trains through Croatia

The train just stopped in the woods for a minute so we snapped this pic

Baska, Croatia

We make a diversion in our plans... the trains were slow and hot in Croatia so we decided to stay in further north along the Adriatic sea in Baska, Croatia instead of heading south to Split... oh well, this will do :)

Self timer on our hike this morning...

These walls were all over the plateau on our hike, we think built by sheppards for their sheep, but we cant read any signs here so that's a guess.

Gelato by the beach!

We're tired of train rides so we're going to stay in Baska for a few nights before moving on to Venice, Italy on Friday!