ATHENS:

I just didn’t realize how high up the Parthenon was towering above the city. Wow.
As we get closer, we find the Acropolis is a very unique geographical anomaly in the center of Athens. Central to Greek culture. The Parthenon was started in 447 B.C. dedicated to the goddess Athena.
The huge Archeological Museum in Athens had thousands of pieces of art from antiquity. I don’t think we were suppose to take pictures right here. Ooops.
This is the theatre of Dionysus. I’m waiting for the show to start. It is said that they are very wild and risque. Someone just clued me in that I’m a couple dozen centuries late for the show.
The Odeon of Herodes Atticus. Completed in 161 A.D. Renovated in 1950. They have lots of summer shows here. We missed Jethro Tull who performed earlier in the summer.
Finely preserved statues. When the Parthenon was destroyed by invaders, the Greeks could have rebuilt but left it as a reminder.
The Temple of Olympian Zeus. Picture taken from the Acropolis. This was completed by a Roman emperor Hadrian, but it was started centuries earlier in the sixth century B.C.
This very well preserved building stands to the northwest of the Acropolis. We took the picture from the Acropolis. The Temple of Hephaestus completed in 415 B.C.
A really good find in Athens. It is right next to a very good health food store, 4 Seasons.

PARALIO ASTROS

On the way down the coast of Greece many of the coastal high ground places had old castles or ancient military outposts.
Our AirBnB host in Greece. Dimitris. He and his mother gave us a very warm welcome when we reached our destination of Paralio Astros. Later he tried to help us get some professional assistance with caring for our wonderful neighborhood dog, Hercules.
When we got to our AirBnB apartment, Dimitris’s mother had baked us a month supply of treats. The darker ones on the left are made with the grape pulp that is left over from making wine.
This is the north view from our balcony here in Paralio Astros. See the ruins of the castle up on the hill? Looking south from the balcony we see part of the sea as we are right on the edge of town.
Near the old lighthouse here there is an outdoor theater much like the ones that were used three thousand years ago.
We got to meet our neighbor, George. He gave us some walnuts he had gathered.
George also gave us a bunch of chestnuts he picked up. I had never worked with chestnuts before. I boiled them for about a half hour, peeled them and let them dry out. Really tasty and somewhat sweet. Not only has George given us these nuts, he gave us a bigger batch the next week. And not only that, he gave us some very good local olive oil made by his friend and some small apples, limes, olives and oranges. And even more – he invited us to lunch and made an amazing baked eggplant and cheese dish with bread and salad and cheese. It was all wonderful. (We also drank a good bit of wine.)
George took us on an afternoon sightseeing adventure in his car and this was one of the stops. This olive tree is two thousand, five hundred years old. About 10 years ago an organization tried digging it up and moving it out of the country. The local residents said absolutely not and got rid of that group.
This is us with our friend, George. We are in the shade of that very old olive tree. George also took us to a wildlife area with a lot of bird varieties and some big fresh water fish. George has also helped us with the Tripoli Animal Shelter trying to get them to help Hercules get a better home and healthcare.
Here are a couple olives from the twenty-five century old olive tree. Just think, it has been here growing since the time of Buddha as well as Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. We later each ate part of those olives just to get some of that DNA in us. TIP: Olives are basically inedible without processing.
We also visited an old monastery in the mountains. We got a private tour. The interior walls of this church are covered in very old religious art.
The entrance to the monastery.
Just outside the monastery was this old viaduct that use to bring water from the mountain. Minerals in the water made those stalactites.
From on top of the viaduct, this is the old pipe that use to carry the water. It almost looked hand made.
We have beautiful sunrises here. The sun sets in back of the mountains behind us.
This is the old lighthouse. It was in use for about a hundred years. Recently it has been replaced by a solar powered light house just north of here.
Anti-fascist graffiti near the lighthouse on the back wall of the open air theater.
Ok. Here’s a little quiz. You can see by the symbol that this is Greek recycling. But what do you recycle in the red bins? Is is plastic? metal? glass? or paper? How good is your Greek? There are 24 characters in upper and lower cases.
Ok. Quiz continues. What do you recycle in the green containers? Paper, plastic, glass or metal?
This one looks easy or is it? What do you recycle in the yellow containers? Maybe plastic by the looks of that water bottle next to it. But it could be paper, metal or glass too.
And finally the blue containers. Paper, plastic, metal or glass? The answers in the next picture caption.
Wow. Look at all those catamarans! About thirty of them just sailed into harbor here. It’s the Catamarans Cup. The boats are leased to wealthy people mostly from Russia and eastern Europe. Not really a race. More of a fun diversion for the super rich. Oh. Almost forgot. The answer to the quiz. Red=plastic, Green=glass, Yellow=metal, Blue=paper.
This is our buddy Hercules. People say he is about twenty years old. His home is about a six block area of our neighborhood. Charlotte has taken the lead in trying to get him better healthcare and more stable living arrangements. We’ve been keeping him well fed and watered and have made a nice bed for him in our apartment complex. He is a very sweet guy.
After about a week of getting settled in, we made the trek up the mountain to the old castle. It is about a thousand years old and was most recently defended by three brothers who lived within the walls a couple centuries ago.
A look back at Paralios Astros from a window in the castle. That’s about 80% of the town right there. We live in the very far back right of the picture. The population of the city is under two thousand.
More castle.
Near the back end of the castle is a cool circular tower. Just to the left of this picture there is an underground room.
One of the subterranean rooms. Way in the back there is a window to the outside.
More circular tower.
We found three entrances like this to rooms that were below surface. The one we could see into the best showed still colorfully painted walls.
A couple former windows, it appears.
We have had decent internet everywhere we have lived. We try to Skype with our daughter and grandson every week. Here is Maya and Jude coming to us from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
We try to have one night a week where we go out to a restaurant and just have fun and pretend we aren’t on a tight budget. There are quite a few decent restaurants here along the water but many of them are closed for the season. Some just open on the weekend.
It’s olive harvesting time! These guys use an electronic shaker to get the olives to fall onto the tarps. We also saw the lower tech method which is a sort of hand held plastic rake to knock the olives off the tree onto the tarps. Nearly all the thousands and thousands of olive trees in the area are harvested to make olive oil – not table olives.
Me in my usual running gear. Introducing people to Bernie Sanders.
This is what most olives on the tree look like. There are some trees where the olives are darker.
A really cool cactus plant on the road to Astros which is a couple miles south. We ran it once to check out three grocery stores there, one of which is a coop.
The road sign as you come into town. Greek above and the English version below.
This is the new solar powered lighthouse.
The mountains in the distance to the south of us.
The doors to the main church up on the hill by the castle.
Some old building window shutters.
This is our neighbor, George and his wife. They were headed up to the mountains as there is an annual ceremony bringing an icon down from very high elevations to a lower village.
Another view of your not traditional looking lighthouse. I guess it’s a light tower. Solar panels, batteries, light. No need for living quarters or other fuel storage. It was a remote foot path to get out here.
We didn’t see anyone on the long trek out to the solar light house – I take that back. A big Mr. Tortuga was coming up the path to greet us on the way back.
This wall is about all that remains of the earliest settlement out here by the solar light house.
The ancient city of Nisi (which means ‘island’) is the rock wall we just showed. Earlier than the twelfth century.
One of the most beautiful trash bins we’ve seen anywhere.
Our host, Dimitris as we get ready to go on an adventure.
This is the entrance to a small church we visited in Nafplion, the first capitol of Greece – only about an hours drive north of where we were living. The Church of Agios Spyridon in Nafplio is located in the Old Town and was built in 1702 during the Venetian occupation. The church has a dome and bell tower and its interior is plain and dark and not as decorative as other Orthodox churches I have visited. The wall painting on the interior dome was done in 1902. The historical significance of the church is that it was the location of the assassination of the first governor of the newly-established Greek state. Ioannis Kapodistrias’ political opponents killed him when he went to the church to attend mass on September 27, 1831. There is a plaque on the outside of the church marking the spot where bullet hit. (that small frame on the wall in the lower right).
Out in the port of Nafplio is this prison. Remind you of Alcatraz?
Going down a short tunnel to the sea walk we had this sight in Nafplio.
Now we are way up above the city of Nafplio. This is a huge fortress. There are steps leading up from the city – 999 steps in all. Every year they have a race up these steps. I think it happened this weekend. We came up here in a car. No, our bodies would not be happy after 999 steps.
Another view of part of the fortress above the city of Nafplio.
Here you get a little sense of how high above the city of Nafplio we are.
The Ottomans held this fortress for a long time, but a Greek hero of the liberation, stormed the place with 350 top notch soldiers and took the fort with no losses. Got the whole garrison to surrender.
Dimitris’ mother up at the fortress in Nafplio.
For over a hundred years this fortress in Nafpllio was used as a jail (this is a cell area) for life sentences.
The entrance to some of the jail cells in the Nafplio fortress.
More Nafplio fortress.
These were some of the recovered cannon balls ready to be used to defend the fortress at Nafplio.
These are the five ducks of Paralio Astros. There is a guy who comes by on a bicycle every day and gives them food and water.
Now we are on another field trip. This time up to Tripoli in the mountains. We took about a one hour bus trip here. This is where Dimitris and his mother live. Here Dimitris is taking us higher up into the mountains to a ski resort.
A lodge up above Tripoli where we stopped for a warm beverage.
This is that lodge. The snows start in about a month and then this place becomes very busy.
Now this is really strange. When there is a lot of water in the valley, the water flows toward this mountain. They have built this wall around the place where the river disappears down inside the mountain. It helps regulate the flow.
Behind that wall is this deep pit that the water falls into and disappears into an underground river that empties out far away closer to the sea.
There was a place where we could enter into the huge caves (Kapsia Cave) of this mountain where the river disappears.
Charlotte thought this looked a bit like Buddha. Later we learned that the guides in the caves call him Santa Claus.
Several more cave pics.
It takes centuries to grow these stalactites even an inch.
Wow.
Ok. See the bones? Human bones. 40 some people died in this cave years ago when they were either living back in here or in here to worship their got, Pan, and the water rose and blocked off their exit. The high water lasted for about a year and they all died in here.
The Greek Unorthodox Church. An architect/civil engineer built this in the 1970’s. People like to get married here – I guess because it is so unorthodox.
An out building at the Greek Unorthodox Church near Tripoli, Greece.
Some of the interior of the Greek Unorthodox Church.
More interior and the alter. It is a small church.
Douglas Adams would love this place. The Church at the End of the Universe.
Oh, Ioanna. You are an amazing cook. These honey saturated Greek treats are really good. Kataifi. I think they have brandy in them too.
Here we are with that master chef, Ioanna, in her balcony greenhouse.
Looking up at the main cathedral in Tripoli, Greece. Huge amount of marble used to build this one.
this is a huge monument at the end of the huge square in the center of Tripoli, Greece. It is a local hero, Theodoros Kolokotronis. He was a general and leader of the Greek war for independence in the 1820’s.
Interior of the cathedral..
Facing the monument you just saw is this judiciary building on the other side of the square. This huge square was actually built be be part of a palace for some medieval ruler but as construction was going on, he decided the climate was not to his liking and decided to build the palace elsewhere.
A pretty church just off to the side of the main square in Tripoli.
Another one of Ioanna’s creations. They call these ‘great or giant beans’. What makes it excellent is the sauce. Wish I knew the secret.
You get this idea. Ioanna really does some marvelous cooking. These are stuffed tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash with some potatoes. She gave us enough to take home for another meal. Wow.
Once again, this is our buddy, Hercules. We hang out with him every day and keep him fed and full of good water. He has been living on the street on this end of town for nearly twenty years, they say. He is so sweet and just loves affection and returns more than you can give him. When the jackals come down from the mountain and do their wolf howling, he stands next to our apartment in the moonlight and yells back at them to keep them at bay. Love this guy.
Here we are going out for a restaurant meal. We do this just once a week to stay inside our budget.
Banana tree in our yard. We also have lime and orange trees in the yard. There were some nice ‘pick your own’ pomegranate trees just across the street.
A triple cat nap.
At the marina, the Greek flag and the province flag.
We were cleaning out all our food the day before we left and I was going to finish off the almond milk. Charlotte warned me that it had been in the frig a while and I should check to make sure it was still good. That’s when I read the carton. Charlotte was right, it was nasty.
The cat on the left was lucky enough to catch a real cute blue and multicolored tropical bird. He had a lot of friends hoping to get a bite.
This is the main (pedestrian) street of Paralio Astros. We jog and walk the full length of it usually at least twice a day.
Paint peeling. Charlotte loves to take pictures of different textures. I haven’t kept up with posting them, but I intend to catch up. They are really interesting.
Ktista is the grocer at the corner of our block where we often shopped. She taught us how to say ‘Thank you’ in Greek. It is pronounced like efhalisol.