Greece

We had a wonderful 9 days in Greece, filled with sunshine, baklava, swimming, and dancing. We flew into Thessaloniki and spent 2 days there exploring the bustling city. Liv said, “This place is a mixture of old buildings and new buildings, loud people and cars, smoke, water…but it all seems to fit together.” Part of the reason for our trip was to attend the wedding of Christina Vlahou (a former student of mine, who returned home to Greece after earning her PhD) and Chris (her Greek fiancé who attended Georgia Tech). We had a wonderful dinner with the lovely Vlahous (see picture) and the next morning everyone drove to Litohoro, the village where the wedding would take place.

Litohoro is a cute little village nestled in the foothills of Mount Olympus, home to Zeus. One of the highlights was when we met two of Christina’s friends at a café, and they were introduced to us as “Nick and Nick”. We had recently watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding and flashed back to the scene when half of the wedding party was introduced as “Nick.” The day before the wedding, we hiked in the Mount Olympus National Park, and the kids and I had an intense and prolonged pine cone battle on the rocks along and across a small river.

The wedding was held in the mountains at a tiny adorable church. If you looked up you could see snow-capped mountains and the view down went to sea. It was quite a spot. The wedding was all in Greek with a sort of chanting like rhythm. The ceremony was a blast and the dancing was wild, partly helped by the pitchers of Ouzo on the tables. Some of the traditional Greek circle dances came easy to Rachelle and me who had danced a Jewish Hora or two. The best man told me that after our dancing we could officially be called “Cohenopolis”. In addition to the traditional Greek music and dancing, the DJ spun some excellent 70s and 80s tunes.

The next morning around 10:30 we popped into our rental, turned on Emily, and dialed in our destination in Volos to catch the one-a-day 12:00 ferry to Volos. Our mouths dropped when we saw that our trusty GPS Emily estimated our arrival at 12:17. Emily is incredibly accurate. As I took off and joined the other crazy Greek drivers, Rachelle repeatedly said that we could just sleep in Volos for a night. I was determined to make the ferry and before too long Emily’s ETA was 12:16 and then 12:15! Rather than say I was driving like a maniac, I will simply comment that I was driving like the average Greek driver. They are total whackos behind the wheel and take all laws, such as red lights and speed limits, as mere suggestions. Go Greece Lightning Go! We pulled into the ferry place at 11:58. I jumped out to the booth the purchase the tickets and the woman told me that they did not take credit cards and the ferry was leaving. I high-tailed it to an ATM across the street and back and she honestly thought I had not moved and had just pulled out the cash. We spun over to the ferry and the guys waved us on and the ramp closed just as we pulled off of it and into the ferry. Phew.

The ferry ride was beautiful as we cruised through the blue Mediterranean and among the island. We found a great little bungalow in Skiathos with a huge deck that looked out over the beach and sea, and allowed the kids to be able to monitor the deterioration of their sandcastle in the evening. Each day we either stayed at our beach and swam, snorkeled, climbed the rocks around to other coves (Liv and me), relaxed in our chairs under the big umbrellas, and played in the sand. Some days we explored other beaches on the island, which varied from secluded coves to larger beach stretches with taverns. There are supposedly 61 beaches on the 19 square-mile island. One day we took a boat cruise, which allowed us to visit some of the coves that are not accessible by foot as well as some nearby small islands. The island is lush and green and quite hilly, and we spent one afternoon hiking and exploring the ruins of the village, which was the town center when repeated pirate attacks sent the Greeks into the hills. Another day we visited a hilltop monastery, and enjoyed watching the chickens and roosters run around within the stone walls. We also spent some time in the downtown area, especially at one café that had WIFI. The owner, Yannis, was sweet and we enjoyed talking with him. We had several great dinners, with one being memorable for the view over the sea and another for the tunes from the Greek musicians. at restaurants that overlooked the sea

The trip home was a bit harrowing because we arrived back at our hotel in Thessaloniki around midnight in order to leave the hotel at 3 to catch our 4:30 flight. If paying the hotel for 3 hours wasn’t annoying enough, they had an incredibly loud and smoky wedding that was in full swing when we arrived and when we left in our taxi a few hours later. We did catch some zzz’s on the flight to Heathrow and then on the bus back to bath. Of course, a Sunday afternoon back in our own beds didn’t hurt.