Meteora

Rocks with monasteries

We took a bus ride from Delphi to Meteora. Meteora is from the Greek word meteoros which means "suspended from air". I think it is called Meteora because there are tall rocks that are so high in the sky and when it is foggy it seems like you are in the clouds.

On top of the rocks there are monasteries. The monasteries were built in the 1300s and some are on rocks that are 1000 feet tall. The reason they built so high up is because they wanted to be safe from the Turkish people who were invading Greece. The monks got up to the monasteries by going into a net and getting pulled up or climbing up a ladder.

We got up to the  monasteries in a taxi then we hiked down a nice trail. When we were up there we noticed the monasteries were being built onto and were becoming fancier.

Town Of Nafplio

One of the fortresses

After we left Athens we went to Nafplio and spent 3 nights there. Nafplio is on the Peloponnese Isthmus in the Argolic Gulf. It was the first capital of Greece after Independence (1833-1834). Because of its location it had three fortresses. We visited two of the fortresses and one of them, the Palamidi, was 45 floors of stairs but when we got to the top it was closed because of a strike (we actually knew that it was closed, we just wanted to see the view). The next day we went to see the other fortress, Akronafplia. It had lots of cannons and it was on top of a hill but not as tall as the Palamidi. We did not visit the other fortress because it was on a little island but we did see it.

Streets of Athens

We were in Athens for 6 days and explored the streets and walked 30 miles. There were some things that I saw a lot of and they were Smart Cars, cats, caterpillars, street art, and ruins. Here are some pictures we took on our walks.

ruins

The Acropolis & Parthenon

Today we went to the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon and temples for Athena and Poseidon. It was kind of fun but we had to do lots of walking. The Parthenon is a big deal because it was considered to be the most perfect Greek temple. There were lots of temples for Athena and lots of statues of Athena because she is the goddess of Athens. She became the goddess of Athens because she offered the people olive trees and her competitor Poseidon offered the people a salt water spring. But the people chose Athena's gift of the OLIVE TREE!!!

view of the Acropolis

I'm in greece

It was a long flight to Greece but I finally landed in Athens. It is hard to get used to the time change and jet lag. We have been waking up at weird times and going to bed at weird times. One night we did not go to bed till 2:37 am we also woke up at 12:41 pm. The apartment that we are staying is close to a town square and in a pretty good neighborhood but most of the time there are a group of young men hanging out on our door step. One other thing about our neighborhood is there is a lot of graffiti (lots of graffiti on door). We are going to spend a week in Athens and explore the city.

Door to apartment