Here Comes the Bride, Wedding Guests . . . and Tourists

Just like kittens, wine glasses and sunsets, I can’t pass up a good wedding photo. Can you? It doesn’t even have to be anyone I know, as evidenced by this post. And I am seldom alone in my efforts –  other tourists seem to be as taken with the scene unfolding before them as I am.

I should have this shutter-finger reaction because I am a romantic and love weddings. But I don't. We simply enjoy watching the drama surrounding those perfectly posed wedding photos. Those images that will lock the day’s events into picture-perfect history.

Destination weddings have become big ticket tourism in the United States.  Gone are the days of the traditional church wedding with the couple jetting off alone for a honeymoon destination – nowadays the wedding, the guests and honeymoon merge into one far-away affair.

Undeveloped lagoon at KoOlina; the alter for a wedding in the photo on the right

Hawaii is one of the destination that attracts thousands to its sandy shores for the all-inclusive wedding and honeymoon events. A research manager for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, quoted in an on-line news article, reported that 27,000 Japanese couples married in Hawaii in 2010.

That’s not surprising based on what we’ve seen there recently. At KoOlina, the resort on O’ahu’s west coast where we spend several weeks each winter, there’s a steady stream of limousines bringing wedding parties to the small wedding chapels strategically located throughout the development. Each chapel just footsteps from one of the four lagoons that are on the property. Often times the wedding photos include backdrops of semi-naked sun-basking tourists like the one below. It was taken front of the wedding chapel located next to Disney’s Aulani Resort (that high rise building in the background is the former JW Marriott Ihilani, soon to be Four Seasons).

KoOlina Wedding

 

Depending on number of guests and amenities (like bridal bouquets, chairs for guests and photographers) the prices quoted on the KoOlina Weddings web site range from $5,600 to $9,000.  Not bad when compared to the average cost of a wedding alone in the United States being somewhere in the range of $28,000 to $30,000 (depending on the source of your statistics).

 

KoOlina wedding

We’ve been spotting destination (and a few local) weddings almost everywhere we’ve been in recent years. Like our cruise ship stop in Catania, Italy where the wedding party dog stole the show from the bride and groom:

 

In Greece we happened upon weddings in small villages as well as the big city.

View of Kardamyli's Historic old town - Peloponnese, Greece

From our hotel room in Kardamyli a small town in the Mani region of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece we overlooked the old town section with its newly renovated tower.  One day while admiring the view we couldn’t help but notice a flurry of activity among the historic buildings.  A closer look, showed us what was happening: wedding photos.

Kardamyli, Greece

During a stop in Athens, we  headed to the Acropolis – one of our favorite strolling places in town.

Athen's Acropolis

As we strolled its perimeter and approached the nearby Areopagus or Mars Hill, we noticed far more tourists clamoring on it than we’d seen on earlier visits.

Areopagus is the hill from which St. Paul preached about the identify of the “Unknown God” to the Athenians in 52 A.C; a time Athens was occupied by the Romans. It is named for Ares, the god of war, (known to the Romans as Mars). Ares, as the story goes, was tried on this marble hill for the murder of Poseidon’s son who had violated his daughter.

Areopagus, or Mars Hill, Athens, Greece

Zooming in on the beehive of activity, I realized we were witnessing yet another ‘destination wedding’ photo shoot – this one a stumbling, bumbling affair as groomsmen swayed back and forth trying to get a foothold on the uneven surface. Several times they rescued the bride and her dress as they jockeyed for a position in front of the camera and out of the way of other tourists.

 

Ooops, almost. . .

 

Not quite ready for that photographer (hidden behind the bush to the left) to snap some photos. . .

No, not yet. . .enough! We couldn’t watch anymore. We continued our stroll.

As interesting as it sounds, I don’t think we could have done a destination wedding, way back when we married. How about you? Destination wedding? If so, where was it? Or where would it be?

That’s it for today from us.  We’re still busy with projects at The Stone House on the Hill and will tell you more about it and our cruise in future posts. But with June being the 'wedding month' I thought I'd share some of these wedding moments with you. Thanks for your time and welcome to all of our new followers!! Happy Travels to you.

This week if the internet gods are with us, we are linking up with:
Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox  
Our World Tuesday
Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route

Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

A Bit of Wine and Watching in the Afternoon in the Village

We’ve been a bit preoccupied with ‘house things’ since arriving in our part of Greece’s Mani two weeks ago today. 

Inside and outside - projects. 
Errands and deliveries.
Repairmen and installers.

Yes, turning that daydream of ours into what we envisioned for The Stone House on the Hill required some focus. But we’ve seen the proverbial  ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ and are slowing our pace on projects.

For a treat every so often after chores are done, we’ve headed to our village, Agios Nikolaos (St. Nicholas) to join the cafe culture ritual of ‘watching’.

‘Watching’ isn’t limited to people, but includes cars, buses, bikes and the like. What ever passes by is fair game for ‘watching’.

(That is ‘Ag. Nik’ in the distance - 4k away – our closer village, Ag. Dimitrios doesn’t have a cafe or taverna.




In our case, we sip a bit of wine as after all it is usually 6 p.m. or later – the time of day we consider evening, but considered by locals to be afternoon. The sun doesn’t set until about 8:45.

Main Street in Agios Nikolaos

I wanted to have you join us on one of these outings. So I picked an afternoon/evening at our newest bistro in town, Bistrot Rock Cafe. Run by a lady named Ellie (who runs a restaurant, Ellie’s, two doors down) it offers inside seating but we prefer outside seating on either side of the main road that runs along the water’s edge. A perfect spot for watching:

Settled in for 'watching'

We order our wine here by the pitcher, a miso kilo of krasi to be exact, or a half liter of wine. These are our some of our favorite Greek wines – served from a barrel or, these days, a cardboard box – and they usually cost no more than 4 euros.

Bus from Kalamata

We instinctively pull our feet back as the bus from Kalamata eases past us on the southbound run at 7:10. And if we are still there, pull back again as he returns heading north to Kalamata a half hour later.

Bus stop in Ag. Nik

The bus stop is right across the street from where we are sitting and is marked by the KTEA blue sign right under the word Gregg’s on the cafe canopy. We watch arrivals and departures.

We watch the 'watchers'

From our spot we can also watch the town locals gather in those blue chairs right at the edge of the port so that they can watch the fishermen prepare their boats and set out for a night of fishing. (In the morning, they sit in those same places and watch as the night’s catch is sold.) Now if you look closely, between the third and fourth post from the left you will see our Stone House on the Hill. Okay, so I admit, I often remark, “Can you believe that is OUR house up there?!?!?”

A quick visit

Now some of you might be rolling your eyes and thinking, “How boring could that be?” But it is a great way to get to know schedules, and people, like the little old man who rides his bike to the port every night about 7 and is called “El Capitan” by the locals. We are beginning to recognize the three boys who ‘Drag the Ave’ on this stretch of road; their bike chains clanking as they pedal past time and time again. We watch the motorcycle pull up so that the waitress can hug and kiss the wee ones riding on it (yes, they do stack them on it without helmets; just don’t think about it).

This ritual of ‘watching’ is one of the enchantments of Greece as far as we are concerned. It drew us here. And it will keep us coming back, time and time again.  Glad you could join us! Thanks for the time you spend with us – and happy travels to you and yours! Have you had similar Greek or other European village experiences?

Note: I just learned that it wasn’t our travels that knocked me off Live Writer, it was a system-wide glitch that has just been corrected by the techno whiz kids at Microsoft and Google.  So this is a test run to see if the glitch is gone. Hopefully, I’ll be able to start posting photos from the Far and Middle East ports of call we visited prior to coming here.  Please do come back soon!

Linking up this week with:
Travel Photo Thursday
Weekend Travel Inspirations

Easter ~ Here and There

“For those of you who celebrate, Happy Easter and Happy Passover,”

-- from our Facebook feed

 

As Easter Sunday has progressed, other similarly softened social media greetings have been received. How odd they seem, I remarked to The Scout. “Why haven’t I noticed those politically-correct softened greetings before?”

We are ‘here’ this Easter holiday; the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States.

It is the first time in three years that we’ve been ‘here’ and not ‘there’ in Greece for this sacred springtime celebration.  That’s probably why I’d not noticed.

Our Easter celebration tradition has been to be on Crete’s southern coast in the small village of Loutro, – a place where internet can be sporadic so we didn’t see those Easter postings – and where, just like the rest of Greece, Easter is a really big deal. Really. Big Deal.

Wishes of ‘Happy Easter’ there ring out  with gusto and conviction.







That’s the kind of thing you notice when you see holidays from the perspective of ‘here’ and ‘there’. On the flip side, we were in Greece for Christmas and were surprised at how December 25th pales in comparison to their January’s Three Kings Day, which pretty much goes unnoticed in our U.S. part of the world. And how it comes nowhere near the holiday hoopla that takes place in the U.S.

Loutro, Crete - Easter Saturday 2014

'Here’ the clerk at the local convenience store said Saturday had been ‘nuts’ with parents buying last minute chocolate candies and goodies for Easter baskets.  Saturdays before Easter in Loutro were been pretty laid back as families start gathering early in the day so they can attend church that night, watch the ‘burning of Judas’ and then head to the tavernas that line the waterfront. There they will feast on those slow-roasting lambs that have tantalized passersby all day. Feasting will last until midnight or later.

Easter lamb roasting at a Loutro, Crete tavern 2014

In recent years the celebration of ‘our’ Easter has fallen on the same day as the Greek Orthodox celebration. This year Greece will be celebrating ‘their’ Easter next Sunday, a week later than ‘ours’. Next Sunday though we will be in Bangkok, Thailand preparing for that cruise we’ll be starting the following week. While we will miss Easter in Loutro we will get to celebrate the Thai Songkran (New Year) that spans two days, April 13 – 15.

Loutro Crete - Church candles

‘Here’ and ‘there’.  It’s a good way to live. It enriches the celebrations. It changes the perspectives.

 

Happy Easter!

Happy Passover!

Happy Songkran!

Happy Springtime!

Safe Travels and Lovely Journeys to you all!

And, as always, thanks so much for stopping by~~

 

We are linking up this week with:

 

Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox  
Our World Tuesday

Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route 

Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

‘Twas the Season in Kalamata ~ The Olive Oil Season

Trees and buildings were decked out for Christmas, but it was the mountains of olives that gave a real seasonal feel to the place. Our mid-December arrival in The Mani put us smack dab in the middle of olive harvest and The Olive Oil Season. 

Decorated tree surrounded by olives - Village of Nomitsis

The home we were there to purchase in Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula is an hour’s drive south of the city of Kalamata.

“Kalamata, isn’t that an olive?” we are asked.

“You bet – the olive!” we answer.

Lots of olives. . . tons of olives . . .and their oil.

Kalamata olives

Seems everyone is familiar with the table variety called the “Kalamata olive”.
In this area of Greece the olive varietals are far more specific: a Myrtoya (hearty in areas of drought), Mavroya (early maturing), Kalamon (the classic table variety) and Mastoides (local oil variety of medium-sized with a pointy shape). That middle photo is one of our olives which I suspect is the Mastoides type.*

In everyday conversation around here olives are simply referred to as ‘oil’ or ‘salade’ varietals.

Oil containers on sale at Katerina's Supermarket

Olive oil is serious business in the Messinia region, with some 15 million trees producing 60,000 tons of oil annually.*  Oil storage containers are for sale far and wide. The photos above are of those for sale at our local supermarket.

Bags of olives awaiting pressing at one of the village presses

By day, the olive groves that carpet this part of The Mani were alive with harvest activities. Many of the workers come from neighboring Albania; the country providing agricultural labor much as Mexican laborers do in the United States.  Messinia has some 300 olive presses and more than 40,000 are employed in the olive oil industry.*

Saturday Night at Takis

While we love the idea of growing olives and producing olive oil we had no clue how it was done, we told our friend Giannis’ while dining at his taverna, just below our house on the hill. Turned out the olive press nearest us is owned and operated by his uncle, Takis.

So, Giannis encouraged us to stop by and visit the operation any time. . .

Saturday night at the olive oil press

Unlike in America, where security would likely have stopped us at some distant gate, we walked into the production facility one Saturday night to find the place a beehive of activity: as one pickup load of olives was emptied another would pull up to unload.  The brain-rattling loud machinery didn’t make for conversation, but it did make for photo-taking.

It wasn’t until we were leaving that we met Takis.  I started to explain who we were and why we were there but he stopped me,

“But. . .of course, Giannis told me. You are the Americans. Come. Come with me where we can talk.”

(“But. . .of course. . .” is how so many sentences begin in Greece.)

A feast for the soul

He led us into a side room that served as a kitchen and break room with a small enclosed office in one corner. There he told us to sit and proceeded to pour us glasses of rose wine and cut thick slices of bread which he served smothered in olive oil . 

“This is old oil,” he said as he handed us the plate.“It is three days old.” He then zipped back to the press room, leaving us alone to savor the taste and moment. That thick emerald green liquid was simply an elixir for the soul. Absolutely unmatched by any oil we’ve ever tasted in Tuscany or Spain or France . . .

Bread smothered in extra virgin olive oil

We’d cleaned the plate and emptied our glasses by the time he returned. So the glasses were refilled and this time a large chunk of Feta cheese was put on the plate with two more slices of bread.  He took the plate into the press room, and returned with oil that was minutes old.

Minutes old olive oil

He then poured himeself a glass of wine, raised it toward us and said, “Welcome to my country! I hope you will be very happy here!”

“But. . .of course!” we thought, “We will be happy here. . .we already are!”

Note: Facts referenced with an asterik * in this post come from a report issued by the University of California’s Cooperative Extension Service in Sonoma County.  The map below shows the areas in Greece where olives are grown.  As always the time you’ve spent with us is appreciated.  Hope you’ll come back soon and until then Happy Travels.

(Crete – that large island at the bottom of the map – in the 1990’s was producing 30% of Greece’s olive oil, followed by the Peloponnese, the land mass that looks like an open hand, at 26%.*)








This week we are linking up with the fine bloggers at:
Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox 
Our World Tuesday

Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route 

Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

 

Say “Poppy” ~ Think “Peloponnese Springtime”

Regulars here know I lust for the lemons.
I’ve burbled about the orange groves that in full bloom make the air heady with their seductive scent.  But each spring my greatest delight is seeing the wild poppies that along with other wildflowers carpet Greece’s Peloponnese.

It has been a long, chilly, wet winter but signs of spring on this peninsula to the south of Athens are appearing in olive and orange groves, along highways and empty lots. Mother Nature has again sprinkled her fairy dust to create floral scenes fit for Monet’s brush.

Peloponnese wildflowers

The wildflowers are blooming in The Mani -- in great profusion -- according to our neighbors and friends there. The wildflower season usually begins in March and continues through mid-May, depending on weather conditions. It is well underway and wouldn’t you know it? This year we won’t be there until late May, so will likely miss these sprawling bouquets!

I’ll have to resign myself to looking at photos that I have taken on previous visits (and time next year’s return a bit better).  But I’ve also devised a way to keep those poppies blooming year round – I’ll show you later in this post! But first, here’s a look at some of those flowers. . .

Fokianos Beach - Peloponnese Greece

On our first visit, two years ago, to the Peloponnese we were tipped off to the beach pictured above by our hotel keeper. ( Finding Fokianos ) He’d said it would be memorable and well worth our trip to find this place and as with most of his recommendations, he was absolutely correct.  What he hadn’t prepared us for were the poppy carpets that framed the views at every turn on the winding road to the beach.

This delicate flower commonly known as “The Red Poppy,”  is an annual that grows about 12- to 14-inches high and has blooms from 2- to 3-inches wide. It is sometimes called "Shirley Poppy" (after an English vicar named Shirley who studied the species), "Flanders Poppy," "American Legion Poppy", and in England, "Corn Poppy." It is native to most all of Eurasia and North Africa.

The name “American Legion Poppy” brings to mind those of small paper fundraising remembrance poppies that are patterned after these flowers.

And the “Flanders Field” refers to the place in western Belgium, where during World War I battles raged for four years. Flanders Field, before the war, was covered with the red poppies each spring and summer. Following the war the blooms returned and grow among the soldiers graves there.

 
Despite their rather somber associations, I simply think of sunshine and springtime in Greece when I see them.

So how do I plan to keep the poppies blooming all year long? Well. . .

. . .those of you who follow our stories on Facebook know that while we were in Hawaii I found dishware that would be perfect for our Greek house and I ordered sets of six plates and salad plates, a serving platter and two small bowls. Shipping costs are staggering, so we'll take them over as space in our suitcases allows.

We got a good laugh last week when the items were delivered to our Pacific Northwest home in two boxes so large the delivery man had to make two trips to the door . . .so it may be awhile before we get them over there. But they are the key to how my poppies will keep blooming:

Dinner plate on the left; salad plate on the right

That’s it for this week. Thanks for being with us and as always we appreciate your sharing our blog with those you know by word-of-mouth or by 'sharing' on Facebook. Hope to see you again soon and safe travels until we do!

Of note:

Wildflower tours: A number of tours can be found by Googling ‘wild flower tours in the Peloponnese’ – we aren’t recommending any particular tour.  In fact, it might be more fun to rent a car and do it on-your-own. (If you need tips on a route, just let us know.)

The dishes:  Are found at Pier 1, a popular import store in the United States.  They can be ordered on-line if you don’t have a store near you.  (For those who like lemon or olive motifs, they are also available -- and tempting!)

Linking Up this week with. . .
Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox 

Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route 

Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

10 Days and nearly 10,000 miles later. . .

Our Stone House on the Hill - Greece

We covered furniture, packed up clothing, shuttered the windows, locked the doors and said goodbye to our Greek Stone House on the Hill for a few months.

Then we hopped a plane and traveled nearly 8,000 miles, back to our Pacific Northwest home where we emptied and repacked our suitcases. Ten days and another 2,000 air miles later, we arrived in Hawaii – our ‘other’ getaway home for the next five weeks of winter.

Lagoon at KoOlina, O'ahu, Hawaii

Yes, that’s the way life goes for us these days. . .travel is our lifestyle. . .and home is more a state-of-mind than a place in the world. I am reminded of the old cliche’ “Home is where the Heart is. . .” In our case, “home is where the suitcase is. . .”

Hale Kona - Marriott Beach Club - KoOlina from Hale Moana where we are

We’ve gone from residing in our the small stone house in an olive grove on a Greek hillside to our current place of residence, in one of three high-rise condominium buildings overlooking a Hawaiian beach. Here instead of being the sole owners, we are among 28,000 people who own a piece of this rock. We are back at our Marriott Vacation Club (interval ownership by the week) at KoOlina on the island of O’ahu.

Those of you who’ve followed our blog, know that we love this carefree interval life. We’ve gradually built up our weeks and now can stay here as long as six weeks each year or we can use portions of our time here and trade for other places in the world.

Sunset at KoOlina

As tempting as it is just to stay here, we’ve already tapped into our 2016 stash and traded a week here for a week in Bangkok, Thailand which will give us a chance to visit that city prior to hopping our cruise ship to Istanbul, Turkey later this spring.

Hibiscus blooms cover the KoOlina landscape

Speaking of cruises: Remember that Amazon River cruise we had planned to take over the Christmas holidays? We’d booked it and were ready to go until in late November the cruise line offered us a deal we couldn’t pass up – we traded that cruise for the one we will be taking from Bangkok. Turns out that once again the travel gods were looking out for us because. . .

We were set to sail from Miami for the Amazon River on Dec. 17th aboard Oceania’s Insignia ship. It turns out that the (newly refurbished just last spring) ship caught fire on Dec.15th as it was completing a cruise and returning to Miami.  While the fire was contained in the engine room and no passengers injured, sadly, three people were killed.  The ship, at last report, is still in dry dock awaiting repairs.  So, we wouldn’t have sailed to the Amazon River even if we hadn’t switched course. . .

Sunset over Messinian Gulf from Stoupa, Greece 

In our next post I’ll take you back to our place in Greece for a quick tour of the neighborhood and take you to some of our favorite places to eat and drink in the neighboring villages.  Then we’ll head back to Hawaii for a tour of this tropical paradise. I’ve also got some packing tips and want to talk about the business of Business Class flying in future posts so hope you’ll come back soon because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover!

Mahalo, Thanks, for the time you spent with us today! Safe travels to you and yours~ and E Komo Mai, Welcome, to our new followers this week, so glad to have you with us!

The Stone House on the Hill ~ Welcome!

While we were in Greece we speculated on who might actually visit us there in the future. We’ve begun honing that list now that we are back in the States based on some of the responses we’ve had to our Stone House on the Hill.

Some wrinkle their noses, not quite sure what would draw us there – let alone, bring them to visit. Others furrow their brows, they still aren’t quite sure where ‘there’ is.

Yet, others brighten at the news. They tell us of their Greek travel memories or of their dreams to visit the country.

Some haven’t remarked at all. We are definitely getting a feel from the varied responses, for who may - one day - be walking across our bright red ‘Welcome’ mat!

One friend, who’s owned a second home in a sunny climate for a few years, remarked, “You don’t really want people to visit, do you?” She’s had some, shall I say, less-than-pleasant experiences.

At about the same time, an American blogger buddy of mine, Karen McCann, who with her husband lives most of the year in Seville, Spain, wrote a post entitled, 7 Habits of a Considerate Houseguest (she’s had a few and some who weren’t).

On the flip side, we've had two friends tell us that if they come, to provide them a list of needed items, and they'll pack an extra suitcase for us.

For now, we have the welcome mat out. The area is just too darn nice not to share with others!

The Questions

So many who are pondering the possibilities of a visit have asked us logistics and cost questions about getting to The Mani in the Greek Peloponnese where our home is located, that I thought today I’d answer some of them.

Where do you fly to? What is your routing?

We fly to Athens, about a  4.5 hour-drive from our home in Greece. We fly out of Sea-Tac Airport near Seattle, Washington in the US Pacific Northwest. We shop around and choose the routing by 1) cheapest price, 2) with least amount of layovers and plane changes. The trip from Seattle  – with those layovers and plane changes – usually takes in the neighborhood of 20+ hours. The good news it is usually an over-night flight and you can sleep most of your way to Europe. And with the time zone changes, you arrive in Europe in early to mid-morning the next day.

Two routing examples: In spring 2014 The Scout nabbed us a ‘steal of a deal’ with a round-trip via Istanbul, Turkey for $608, round-trip, per-person. We flew Lufthansa Airlines from Seattle, with a plane change in Germany. After spending the night (hotel points) at the Courtyard by Marriott, in Istanbul, we caught the morning commuter flight  (Aegean and Olympic Airlines both have them) to Athens the next morning. Those flights of less than two-hours were about $180 round trip. And this routing allowed us a stay in amazing Istanbul on our return. We plan to do that on future trips, no matter which European ‘hub’ we fly in to: Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Istanbul  – are all possibilities depending on the airline.

This last December we adjusted our travel to avoid the horrendous ‘holiday hike’ that hits in the middle of the month.  We used Alaska Airline frequent flyer miles to get us to Chicago and then flew Delta round-trip from there to Athens for a bit more than $800 round trip. It was a reasonable price considering we were hovering at 'holiday season'. We changed planes in Paris, then flew to Athens, rented a car and set out for The Mani.
 

Flights on European low-cost carriers to the city of Kalamata, just over an hour’s drive from our house, originate in any number of European cities. Flying into Kalamata would certainly simplify getting there, in terms of times and price.

We found an Easy Jet flight in June from Kalamata to Vienna for just over $100US, for example.  We aren’t sure how useful those flights will be as our time at the house will likely be in the early spring and late fall – after those seasonal flights have quit operating. They’ve extended the season this year and everyone is hopeful they keep extending it. Who knows? Might be year-round one day!

2. Do you rent a car?

Yes. Major rental car companies (Hertz, Sixt, Avis, etc.) are represented at the rental car lot at the Athens Airport. It is a short walk to that lot from the arrivals terminal. Then a right turn out of the lot, a right turn and you are on the freeway – heading to The Mani. You will not end up in the middle of Athens in a traffic jam. (If you are seriously coming to visit, I have more detailed directions). 

The drive from Athens to Kalamata is on a modern freeway. It is a toll road, so plan on paying about 15-euros in tolls total along the way. Get some euros from the bank machines at the airport if you didn’t bring some with you. The amount of each toll is flashed on a screen as you approach the teller window and you must pay in cash - they do have change for bills.

Like in Italy, the Greek roadside comfort stations are worth stopping at because they are so incredibly nice. Bathrooms are clean, restaurants are amazingly large, and most have souvenirs for sale.

It is easy to pull off and on the freeway, unlike the Costa del Sol in Spain where you say a prayer and take your life in your hands with each entry. Here the exit and reentry ramps are long and easy to use.





Car rental prices vary, so it is best to shop around.  Figure 20 – 25 euros a day. (We have heard rentals can be had for as little as 11-euros a day but we haven't yet found that.)  Small cars here really are small. Two roll-aboard sized suitcases will stuff the backseat. Either pack light or book a larger car.  US citizens do not need an International Driver’s license. And yes, for those who’ve asked about ‘automatics’ they do rent them. I have pictured an automatic shift to the side. It requires shifting from first to second but it is done with the hand lever - no feet pedals for shifting.


A stop in Kalamata
The modern freeway ends at Kalamata , about three hours from Athens, and becomes a scenic, but curving two-lane road into The Mani.  For that reason – and the fact that we’ve been up for some 24-hours with cat-naps and airplane food keeping us alive – we have spent the night in Kalamata.  We’ve stayed at a waterfront hotel - Phaerae Palace -- that has one of the best European buffet breakfasts we’ve ever eaten included in the rate, for about $100  (depending on the season) a night in a room with balcony and view of the water. The breakfast is served in the rooftop restaurant (photo on the right).  Then we head out refreshed the next morning.


If you spend the night there, the town’s Archeological Museum in its historic district and the open air Municipal Market are worth visiting before setting out on the final leg of your journey.

The last leg of the journey takes about an hour and a half, especially if you get behind a large truck as we did when I took this photo.

That’s another reason to complete the journey in the morning’s daylight – when wide awake!









3.  Do you have to have a rental car? Couldn’t we take a bus?

You probably will want a car while you are in The Mani, but you could wait and rent one after you get out of Athens or Kalamata. There are rental car companies in Stoupa, the small village very near our home.

And yes, there are long distance buses that run to and from the villages and Athens -they connect in Kalamata.

In Athens there is an express bus (5-euros) will take you to and from the arrivals/departure terminal at the airport and the bus station where buses leave for Kalamata and other destinations.  We took the bus from Kalamata on our return home and it was a modern, Mercedes Benz, and the driver was great. This express bus from Kalamata took three hours and 15 minutes to reach Athens and the tickets were 22-euro per person. It would cost a bit more from the villages near our house.

 

4.  Does anyone there speak English?

Yes, nearly everyone we’ve encountered speaks English and on the occasion we are in a situation of no-English, they always find someone nearby who does speak the language and will help out. That’s not an excuse not to visit!

We’ll tell you about our neighborhood and the foods – the nearby cafes and tavernas and the markets – in a future post.  Thanks again for stopping by as always we appreciate the time you spend with us. Hope you'll recommend our blog to others you know ~ thanks to those who've done just that!

Linking up this week:
Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox  
Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route  
Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening