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Showing posts from June, 2011

In Memory of Panagiotis Carvouniaris, Hotel Saronis, Palea Epidaurus

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The Carvouniaris family and the friendly giant Our hotel in Epidaurus was very good with 3 younger girls running around attending to everything. We seemed to be one of their only guests though. Now I’m not going to do a hotel review, let’s just say, we’re fussy, and they were great. The most important part of the story here is only in part the hotel, because it was the realization of a lifelong dream. You see Panagiotis served onboard Greek Cruise Ships of his era and saved enough money to buy and work hard at refurbishing this 30yr old hotel. The hotel has just completed its refurbishment, but Panagiotis passed away last fall 2010 before seeing his dream realized. He and his wife raised at least 3 daughters of which 2 are twins, and we met Katerina his eldest daughter who has studied Tourism at University to help the family business as well as her younger sister and a younger still cousin (in the middle). As we were checking out Sandra asked if tourism was slower and Katerina

Monemvasia

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Monemvasia the Gibraltor of Greece, view from our room As we drove into Monemvasia we were surprised at how small this little seaside resort is. We drove the waterfront and as we returned a woman who was on her front balcony motioned to us if we needed a room. We waved and came over, she showed us a front room with a view of the ancient Monemvasia and we took this place not even looking further for the selection we had made through research. We can’t gove you the names of many of these places because we don’t have access to a Greek alphabet to spell them. Here we shared the place with an Italian riding a Varadero 1000 and some Germans who want to ride but are afraid, so they tent instead (??). You can see both our bikes in the above picture. Town’s name comes from Moni (Single) Emvasia (entrance) Its upper town was founded in 6th Century by refugees fleeing Slavic raids into the Peloponnese and this area of the fortress is now being refurbished, quite well, into boutique hotels.

Ancient Mythology in Greece

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Iraqi students and us Our next place to visit was the ancient Greek mythology site of Delphi, the site of Apollo and Athena Gods. They were supposed to be twins, male and female. Not ever having much interest in this I was a bit disinterested until we followed a tour guide at the museum site of Apollo who was doing a tour for English speaking Iraqi high school kids from Kurdistan. She really juiced it up to where I learned a lot. The museum has many really interesting artifacts and the site was interesting as well. Temple of Apollo Story Treasury at Apollos Temple View from the Temple All the stones having writing for what happened, if you can't read click on the image for larger version Probably what we enjoyed just as much was Delphi as a mountain town in view of the Mediterranean. The hotel Sandra had selected was very good and reasonable and we asked and got a room with a view of the mountain valley that Apollo’s site is part of. Then we went out for supp

Monasteries of Meteora

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St Barbara Monastery in Distance The Greek Orthodox church is a m ore traditional form of church to the Roman Catholic church and uses the Greek language as its form of communication, whereas the RC church used latin and eventually in the 60’s converted to the language of the country. Practices are the differentiation between the churches, not beliefs. My apologies to the Greek Orthodox church if I have over-simplified the comparison. It is due to a matter of space in this blog. Interestingly there is a tablet there called the King of Glory that indicates the number of  philosophers of the early 8th century BC including Homer, Socrates, Aristotle and Pythagoras that all forecast the birth of a God made man (Christ) and even by pure and virgin mother (Mary) 800 years before it actually happened. Click on Image to enlarge to read The most stunning part of the monasteries is not their existence but their location and the work to construct them. The rock formations of the Kal

Venice

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Our drive from Levanto to Venice was a quick cross country one. I had picked a mountain pass Passo di Centro and it was fantastic, all backroads, then lunch in Navaro de Taro, and later we drove by a walled village that we haven’t seen mentioned anywhere. We’ll find the name and add it. We stayed at the Villa Gasparini , a hotel near Dolo 20 kms from Venice, right on a canal that empties into the Venezia lagoon. It is an excellent location and the hotel nice; but the owners not really friendly. That didn’t matter to us much and we visited with different guests, a lady that was just like Jim’s mom Elsie, and a couple of IT guys from New Delhi India. That night we walked down 200 meters east to a wonderful restaurant right on the canal that had great food. The breakfast at our hotel is worth mentioning since it was exceptional with muesli, peaches, yogurt, excellent coffee, buns and meats and cheese, Italian pastries and the list could go on. Well worth the bit of a splurge we put o

Morocco Epilogue

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Morocco is an incredibly diverse country both geographically and ethnically with Berbers occupying the east and south and the more Arabic/Islamic culture occupying the north and west.  Morocco is in a different time zone from Spain measured in both centuries and hours and that adds to the interest. As our muslim guide in Fes said, the berbers tolerate the Arabs (muslims) and go their own way. The principal language is Arabic with French as a 2nd language. Rarely do you find English speaking Moroccans.  Morocco is for experienced travellers and a very nimble motorcycle is necessary to navigate the roads, passes, and dirt. We hardly saw another moto except a Vstrom 650 -2up ,a few GS’s and the Kawasaki KLR600’s, a few new Yamaha 660XT’s and a couple of Africa Twins which Sandra refers to as Africa Queens. Too much Bogart I think. A Hamburg based R 1200RT was at the ferry terminal but they drove the motorways to Marrakesh and back, the easy stuff.  Scooters are everywhere and ½ of

Essaouira

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See our Dades Gorge video on the right side of the page. Ibis Pool Essaouira is a coastal village of 40000 people and is also listed as a UNESCO site for its intact medina and sea fortress. The drive from Marrakesh was simple, the road is virtually dead straight, very prairie-like and you start to see more European road markings such as double solid lines and passing on one side while prohibiting on the other. The 174 kms clicks by pretty quick  and the last section is actually 4 lane divided and we arrive to a beautiful setting at the new Ibis hotel here. Another Oasis. Pic is from our room. Medina Walls and Mineret Sandra’s stomach is giving her a bit of a problem again and we are trying to figure out what she’s eating that I’m not that is affecting her. We sit out and use the gorgeous pool and even though we’ve had many days in the sun, the sun here 800 kms south of the top of Africa is apparently a lot more powerful because we get sunburnt, not bad, but warm.The next da