The Janssen Family World Travels: Greece

We arrived in Athens without a hitch and with all of our luggage after a brief layover in Budapest, Hungary. Only saw the airport but enough to make the kids do a country report and add another country to the list! It is interesting that we currently have an amount of luggage that if very skillfully packed creates 3 airport luggage carts full of luggage. As we have approximately three children, we are fortunate that the kids love to schlep these carts to and from the curb.

Athens is a big, hot, dirty, smoggy city with crazy drivers, graffiti and litter everywhere. Soon after our arrival, I broke down and smoked three cigarettes; not directly but solely from secondhand smoke. All that being said, the magic of the first view of the Acropolis, Parthenon, and the other ancient relics far outweighs the negatives. When in Africa we visited a coastal town called Lamu which was founded in the mid 1300’s. Here you view ruins that date from over 2500 B.C. I tried drawing a timeline for the kids to explain B.C. and A.D. and it was shocking to think of time as far before Christ as after his death. We stayed at a quaint little hotel a few blocks from the Acropolis and enjoyed a great walk and dinner before retiring to our hotel.

Day 2 was devoted to touring the Acropolis and Parthenon, as well as spending several hours in the incredible Acropolis museum. We had a great guide named Catherine who is Greek but spent many years in the UK and she spoke flawless English. She was very pregnant and not at the same energy level as our gang but her knowledge and her kid friendliness were awesome. It was super-interesting to learn about the history of Athens. This place has just been a proverbial whipping post for its entire existence. Greeks, Persians, Greeks, Persians, Turks, Greeks, Venetians, Spartans, Greeks, Turks, British, Germans (WWII), Turks and finally the Greeks. I’m sure that is not the correct order but you get the picture. Throughout invasion after invasion the amazing relics were plundered and re-plundered and it is shocking that so much remains. The British absolutely defaced the Parthenon and much of what would still remain is in the British Museum because the governor who looted it couldn’t afford to keep it as it cost him so much to ship it to Britain and the Brits now won't give it back. To the victors go the spoils.

Day 3 we headed out of town to Corinth and its canal (which creates the Island of Peloponnese) and we visited the ruins of Mycenae (2500 B.C.+) which is where it was believed that King Agamemnon of the Iliad fame ruled. Unfortunately for the German guy who found the site in the late 1800’s and upon digging up a grave said “I have seen Agamemnon’s face”, it seems that modern archeologists have dated the site to about 400 years prior to the good king’s time.

We next ventured to the small port town of Nafplio which was the first capital of Greece around 1830. There is a huge castle here called Palamidi which was built by the Venetians about 500 years ago. You can drive up part way or take a famous walk up the 1000 steps. We opted for the latter even though we were baking in the sun and it was about 100 degrees. Kids were once again troopers. If you can make a game out of any adventure for kids, they will forget about the difficulty. In this case it was counting the steps with the promise of a swim and gelato afterwards. They could have done 10,000 steps. After a tour of the castle which was pretty open and the kids were able to run wild, we descended and they made their initial foray into the Aegean Sea.

Day 4 we returned to Athens after a stop at Epidarus and its famous amphitheater. This holds about 14,500 people and the acoustics are phenomenal. We next drove past Athens to Marathon and the start of the famous journey. After a victorious battle with the Persians, the soldier and runner Pelipides ran 26 miles in full armor to Athens to let the people know that the Athenians were victorious. He then promptly dropped dead. We enjoyed a brief race from the start of the Olympic marathon race (Hayden won) and then visited the Marathon graveyard where the 192 soldiers who died in the battle are entombed. Kids were roasting so as savvy parents we drove to the beach at Marathon and all had a swim with about 5,000 of our best Greek friends. Beautiful water, very alkaline and a person (especially one like me) floats like a bobber.

Day 5 we said a very early goodbye to Athens and laughably carried our ginormous load of luggage onto a high speed ferry destined for the Cycladic Islands, and our next destination Santorini. This was a huge catamaran about 10x the size of the Victoria Clipper and it must have cruised at about 40 knots. A wonderful 5 hours to just read and relax.

Santorini was absolutely stunning. Santorini is essentially what remains of an enormous volcanic explosion about 3,600 years ago. This created the caldera (the surviving perimeter of the volcano) and the giant central lagoon that is about 8 x 4 miles. The caldera consists of almost 1000 foot cliffs on 3 three sides. The villages are all situated on this surviving perimeter and will be enjoyed for generations to come or at least until the next earthquake when many will likely topple to the lagoon. We had a super cool cave hotel in a village called Ia which is at the northern tip of the main crescent shaped island.

We focused on starting “road school” and in the afternoons did a little exploring and a lot of swimming and hiking. At the bottom of the cliff our hotel was perched on, there was a small swimming area with some great cliffs for jumping and diving. A small island called St. Nicolas with about a 20’ leap off the base of an old lighthouse provided for several incredibly fun afternoons.

After an incredible short week, we bid adieu to Santorini and caught a small ferry to Ios, a much smaller and quieter island about 20 miles north of Santorini. This morning was a much focused, organized morning of homework. In fact my scholars are studying now so I am able to write. We are looking forward to mornings of studying and afternoons of adventures in search of the perfect cliffs.