Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Lots of Traveling

In the Airport waiting for our flight to leave for Istanbul.

Luckily there was another family with kids, so the girls had friends to play with.  And so did Ky.

First leg of our trip.

We drove from Thessaloniki to Athens with numerous stops in between, so we spent a lot of time on a bus.  The kids played a lot of games and ate a lot of snacks.

They also listened to a lot of books.

And Mckayla told anyone who would listen about Greek Mythology.

City wall

City wall and towers of ancient Thessaloniki.

Thessaloniki is on the Aegean Sea.


The view from the city wall of the Aegean Sea and Thessaloniki.

Greek Orthodox Church in Thessaloniki

Very large candles.

Mosaic in the church.

Chairs that someone sits in.  Apparently we were not paying attention to our tour guide when she explained this part.  But they are beautiful.


A relic of some sort, again we did not pay much attention to this part of the tour.  The girls had been traveling all day and were not about to sit and listen to some lady talk.

The wood work in the church was amazing.

Silver Icon.

The Lion of Amphipolis

We had several stops along our tour that were only for five or ten minutes, but well worth the stop.  This is the Lion of Amphipolis.  It is made entirely of marble and the British tried to take it back to England by ship.

Phillipi

Ruins of one of the churches in Phillipi.



Ruins of the Acropolis and church in Phillipi

Touring ruins in December was a bit cold, but we did not have to fight the crowds anywhere.

80% of Greece is mountains.  Phillipi is surrounded by them.


This is where the apostle Paul was supposed to have be imprisoned while in Phillipi.


The girls were so good on this trip.  Even though it was cold, the food wasn't very good and we saw a whole lot for ruins they were troopers.

Public Latrines


These are the ruins of the 42 seat public latrine.  Apparently it was a social hot spot.

Baptismal font

This is the place where Lydia from the New Testament was supposed to have been baptized by the apostle Paul.

Greek Food

So, I probably should not admit this, but I thought all sour cream and onion chips were the same.  They are not!  I have had the Lays brand chips from Turkey and Greece and they are both very different from the ones we get in the States.  I like the ones from Turkey the best, so far.

Ky's can of Coke Light in Greek.

Musteka (not sure if this is spelled correctly)  It was an appetizer with potatoes, ground beef, egg plant and who knows what on top.  Not too bad.  I definitely like Turkish food better.

We got essentially the same food everywhere we went.  This is the cabbage and carrot salad smothered in olive oil.  We also got roasted potatoes drowning in olive oil at every meal as well.

The kids didn't much care for the food.  They ate a lot of bread and fruit and the snacks that we brought with us.  McKayla, who is always adventurous with her food, tried a bite of everything.

These are the only cookies we found that we liked.  They had chocolate in the center of them.

McKayla with her appetizer that did not get eaten.

Monasteries

We visited a monastery and a nunnery in Meteora.  The girls were required to wear skirts in order to abide by the monastic customs (fortunately we could just put them on over our jeans).


The views from Meteora were the most spectacular we saw on the entire trip.




A long time ago, in order to enter the monastery, a net was lowered from the balcony pictured here and then hoisted with a windlass to lift people and goods into the sanctuary.  Now there are bridges and stairways built to make entrance easier and less treacherous.

Thermopyle

The area surrounding Thermopyle.  There were tons of hot springs that I wish we had time to visit.

The monument to the battle of Thermopyles.  They made the movie 300 about this battle.



Delphi


Kids waiting to go into the Delphi museum.

Statues excavated from Delphi.


The View was beautiful.

Our camera batteries died shortly after we got here, so this is the only pictures we have from the ruins of Delphi.  Luckily friends took pictures for us with their camera, will blog them when I get them.  Delphi was on my top three of the sights we saw in Greece.  It was very impressive.

Thanks for looking

Our Growing Girls!

Lilypie Next Birthday Ticker