No Day

Happy "Ohi" Day! "Ohi" is Greek for "no." The biggest manifestation of the "no" for us today was no buses run on a public holiday, but we learned something too. (We have been doing a lot of learning on our tour of Europe.)

On October 28, 1940, after an all-night party at the German embassy in Athens, the Italian ambassador approached the Greek prime minister at 4am to offer this suggestion: "How about the Axis powers get to use Greece for their purposes in the war?"

The answer? One word: "Ohi"-- NO.

An hour and a half later, Italian troops attacked Greek borders.

As our hotel clerk put it, "every year we celebrate the start of war."

Dog Party

Athens, the birthplace of western philosophy, modern education, and baklava, is a big dog slumber party.

Large stray dogs are passed out everywhere.

It's unclear if they are tired from inventing democracy, or from eating too many gyros.

The Knights that say "Neh!"

Our room overlooks what Forrest says is the Ionian Sea here in Kardymili-- spelled a host of different ways in English and in symbols we can't discern in Greek.

The room is in the home of a lady that is very welcoming, accommodating and answers every question with a high pitched "Neh!", Greek for "yes". I wonder if she was a knight in Monty Python?

Her next door neighbor keeps songbirds hanging in cages on the outside walls of his house. Every ten minutes he walks outside in shiny bright blue shoes, stands below their cage, and whistles up at them. Always the same tune. They whistle back.

Location:X. Kostea,Kardamyli,Greece

Fairy Toes, Italy. Hello, Greece

We took a so-called "Superfast" 25 hour ferry full of German high school students, and dogs and kittens on leashes from Ancona, Italy to Patras, Greece.
The boat was like a cruise ship: multiple restaurants, a casino, a disco & even a swimming pool that they didn't fill because it's "winter" at 80 degrees.
When we arrived, we found that everything is written in fraternity letters and bus schedules are state secrets. This made getting to the next town a challenge, but over the course of 2 days, we managed.
We have now eaten Kalamata olives in the town of Kalamata and are even learning to say "thank you." It sounds like "fairy toes".

Location:X. Kostea,Kardamyli,Greece

Biking in Tuscany

Have you ever bicycled 40 miles in one day? Probably not. People that do this on a regular basis require blood transfusions. However, we managed a once-off and pedaled that far from Siena to Montalcino. It was only supposed to be 38 miles, but we got lost once. Montalcino was just full of wine snobby tourists, so we limped out first thing in the morning.




We hired bikes from a dark, old bike shop in Siena from a man that spoke no English and required no payment or collateral. After 40-mile day one, Forrest reassessed our plans and curtailed the route.

Nonetheless, over 4 days, we pedaled more than 200 kilometers, including most of the "L'Eroica" bike race course. Our roads were paved and dirt, through olive groves and vineyards. Our beds were in rooms above wine shops in small medieval towns-- always on the tops of hills. These Tuscans have got hills down.

Slowing our roll to 20-30 miles days was a vast improvement. We survived without transfusions and will definitely travel this way again.