Slovenia to Greece

Well, the last week or so has been an adventure. We stayed a couple of nights in Lake Bled, Slovenia, where we enjoyed the view of yet another castle, walked around the lake, rented a row boat and headed out to an island, and enjoyed the hospitality of the hostel owners. Damien drove us into town and back, and they had an amazing 6 euro dinner which turned out to be a four course meal! After leaving Lake Bled, we spent one night in the capital, Ljubljana (pronounced Lubliana, although I called it Libblejibble before I knew that...)

After reviewing several options on getting to Greece, we finally decided on taking the train from Slovenia back into Croatia, then on through Serbia, Macedonia, and then into Greece. That meant we had to go through immigration eight times...each time we left a country and each time we entered another one. That gets really annoying! We had about four hours in Serbia during which time we visited a local fast food restaurant and got some delicious burgers. After that we met a guy named Marco who we chatted with for a while before finding our beds. (It was an overnight train, so we got beds...fortunately for us, we had the little room to ourselves.) Marco was an interesting character. Our train car didn't open up until right before we left, so we sat in another part of the train talking about things like jobs and politics. Ugh...I'm sick of people asking me about U.S. politics! Anyway, he was pretty nice, but in Serbia there aren't really any non-smoking areas so after a while we had to politely excuse ourselves from the small cabin with limited air flow where he was continually blowing smoke in our faces. I tried to put up with it as long as I could, but I already had a headache and I do have my limits...

After the very long train ride to Thessaloniki, we arrived at our hotel and went out around the city for a few hours before bed. The next day we took a bus to Mount Olympus where we hiked for a while. It was a beautiful area and again, nice to be out of the city...oh, and lots of cats for Rebecca to play with!

From Thessaloniki we took an overnight train to Athens...and for anyone who might consider doing such a thing in the future, don't! Or at least, take the later train and make sure to get a bed or couchette! It would have been worth paying a little extra. That was the most miserable train ride ever! But that's enough of that...we don't wish to discuss miserable things!

Athens...Athens...well, our hostel was really nice. After the miserable train ride, they kindly let us check in really early (7 am) and we slept until noon before heading out into the city. As for the city...it's a city! The ruins are amazing and the area is great for its historical importance, but overall, I didn't love Athens. It's huge, dirty, and a typical big city I guess. Anyway, we spent three full days in the area, but the second day we took a day trip to Delphi where we saw more ancient ruins. This time, though, they were away from the city. It was really nice. Most of our last day in Athens was spent making arrangements for our ferry travel and ultimate arrival in Turkey. We will be visiting a few islands before taking a ferry to Turkey.

Picture Explanations...

1. Temple of Athena in Delphi.

2. The stadium in Delphi.

3. Parthenon

4. This is a panoramic view of the sprawling city of Athens. We were at the Acropolis when I took this photo.

5. Mount Olympus (or around there)

6. The White Tower in Thessaloniki.

7. This is the island in the middle of Lake Bled.

8. And this is the Bled castle, up on the hill, overlooking the lake.