Hydra and Spetsos

It's 6am and we're waiting for the ferry  back to  At  hens after 2 beautiful. days on a couple of the thousands of Greece's islands. Hydra is a little like Mackinac Island in that there are almost no motor vehicles, just horses and donkeys. No bicycles either. Not with these hills. The whole darn town is nearly vertical. Here, see for yourself.

Oops, ferry's here. More later. 

Tired feet

We've been tromping the hills of Athens for 3 days now. My smartphone's stepcounter is delighted with me as it's been logging 8 miles or so a day. Each morning we set out from our wonderful hostess's apartment (Liz found her at Airbnb, an excellent service. If you plan to travel to Athens I highly recommend her. Fotini Balogianni has a beautiful 5th floor apartment with a magnificent view of the Parthenon.) and take a 20 minute walk through quiet streets. Athenians are friendly to strangers and most have at least a smattering of English. A good thing, we get lost with regularity. Not so bad on the way there, not as though you can't find the big pile of marble on the hill in the middle of town, much more interesting coming back.

Fotini and Liz. I managed to cover the entire Parthenon with Liz's head.

When you enter the Acropilis (the entire hilltop that contains the Parthenon and a bunch of other temples) you buy a ticket for a mere 12 Euros that also gets you into 6 other sites, roughly spaced around the Acropolis. We used them all with no cheating. Now I get to inflict the results on you. Liz keeps telling me people would rather see the pictures than read my blather so let's look at pretty pictures.

Once again, the view from our balcony, blown up a bit.

We passed through this tunnel under a highway every morning.
Los Angeles has nothing on Athens for graffiti.

Odeon of Herodotus Atticus. As if Athens didn't have enough theaters,
 as soon as the Romans took over they added a few more.
 

The backside of that theater.

As you enter the Parthenon

Temple of Athena from the Parthenon. Note all those stone blocks.
Restoration is constantly in evidence everywhere.

Two classice views

I'm not sure what to make of this. The only sign was in Greek and all I could make out was 1941.
Apparently when the Nazis took Greece they considered it necessary to add this guard post or something
 and put their own mark on the Acropolis.

Temple of Olympian Zeus.

Another view of the Parthenon with some idea of the constant flow of people.

The Agora Museum. All the columns are reproductions and enclose the
 old market spaces which are the museum rooms.

Did I mention ruined statues? It seems every invader did their best to mess things up.

One of many Byzantine churches.

Legend has it that this is the prison of Socrates.

Outside view of Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

Pretty much all that's left of the Dionysus theater.
 In its day it extended all the way up to the wall behind it.



Remember, all this great stonework was carved with fairly crude soft iron chisels.

I simply cannot resist an old motorcycle. This is a '38 BSA.
The proprietor of the shop restored it and is very proud of it.
 Everywhere I go I see beautifully maintained old motorcycles.

Add caption

Part of Hadrian's Library.

Hadrian's Library is mostly empty lot. This turtle apparently lives on the grounds.

Back wall of Hadrian's Library. This wall contains Cyclopean blocks, rubble fill,
 brick and some really nice marble in an apparently random patchwork.

In the Kerameikos, ancient graveyard just inside the old city walls.

 

The Parthenon

Wow, there it is, just a short hike up less of a hill than I feared.

We got up early and just followed the directions our hostess, Fortini Logianni thoughtfully wrote out for us last night. For a mere 12 euros each we got tickets good for 4 days of wandering around a lot of old stone. Check it out!

By the way, this is my first attempt at blogging by smartphone. Much more difficult than from a computer.

At it again

Friends

It's been a year and a half since I've used this blog but it's time to update it. The reason? We're about to take off to Europe (Greece, Italy, Austria and Germany) for 9 weeks. It's going to be unusual in that we'll be using just our smart phones and leaving the computer behind so text will be on the terse side.

So what's happened in the past 18 or so months? Lots. First there was our second winter in Gold Canyon. Interesting and relaxing for us but it'd probably bore the reader between golf scores, pool team stats, hike reports, minutes of Healthy Eating Group meetings and the like. That would take us to April 2014. That's when life got a bit more interesting.

We got to Michigan in time for Mother's day in May. We stopped in for our annual med checks and that's when the world turned upside down. I had a PSA (prostate something something - the important word here is prostate) of 13, up from the normal 5 or so from 2 years earlier. A biopsy was indicated and duly performed. Bad news. Not only did it show cancer but a fairly active form, ready to spread. Aw crap! The Urologist was ready to start cutting immediately but my lovely wife found a prostate cancer support group meeting at Sparrow hospital. A very good liaison nurse (Deb Batterbee, praise be her name) navigated us into an expert panel. The doctors recommended radiation and hormone therapy, reasoning that even after removal of prostate the cancer was advanced enough to require radiating the area anyway. Fine, how long will that take? Oh, past the end of October. October, maybe November in Michigan? Wait a minute, it's cold by then and we live in a 5th wheel trailer. Once again, Liz sprang into action. Sparrow has a counterpart in Phoenix that could get us in. Suddenly we were on the road with a vengeance. 5 days from Michigan to Arizona. First quandary: granted, it's cold in Michigan in November. It's hot in Arizona in July, especially Phoenix. There's a compromise. While hormone treatment started immediately, the start of radiation was a little more leisurely, starting in September to allow the hormone treatment to take hold and do setup and tests. So we didn't really have to be near Phoenix until then so long as we kept appointments about every three weeks. There's a part of Arizona that sticks up far enough to not broil in the summer sun in its northeast  called the Mogollon Rim. We had already heard of a town called Show Low (interesting history, look it up) and a nice RV park called Juniper Ridge. It certainly was nice. Even had its own golf course. In order to make the game more interesting and somewhat more friendly to windows they use a type of golf ball called a Point 5  (was called Cayman). Half the weight of a regular ball it flies about half as far and floats. Our trailer was right on the course so we could take off on the third hole and finish off on two. To add to the attraction, this area is subject to a summer monsoon so every afternoon we at least saw rain clouds or had a nice cool rain. In short, a nice green place.

Radiation treatments started in September so there was no real choice but to return to Gold Canyon. We didn't quite miss the worst of the heat. 100-115 most afternoons. Spent a lot of time in the pool. Put something over 1,000 miles on the truck driving back and forth from radiation treatments. After a few weeks the radiation irritated my bladder and intestines enough to keep me near a john. Towards the end of the series we discovered I'd developed a lactose intolerance. Sigh, no more milk for me.

To keep herself busy, Liz began planning a European trip. Now we get to live her plans. Just for variety we left Gold Canyon the first of February and investigated California. We spent a few days near Temecula and then came to Gold Village Palms in Hemet. It's convenient to San Diego and Los Angeles and close to lots of other tourist attractions. Here, take a look.

Welded metal sculptures near Temecula.
Ricardo A. Breceeda, sculptor.

Landmark house overlooking Palm Springs. Modernism Week is celebrated annually in February.  

Starting a hike. Wednesday hiking group in Golden Village Palms
is much like in Gold Canyon.

Polar Bear, San Diego Zoo.

More San Diego Zoo.

Dirt track races in Perris.

The old mission, San Juan Capistrano.
Mostly destroyed by earthquake.

Swallow nests. We missed the return by a few days.

Altar at San Juan Capistrano mission.

Bells, San Juan

Getty Museum

Migs at March AFB museum

A car show at Golden Village Palms.
There are lots of hot rodders around and they love to show off their cars.

Golden Era golf course. The hills in the background recently slid,
rendering part of the 8th hole unusable and causing the state to condemn
several homes between the course and the hills.

Getty Museum

And more Getty museum

Part of golf course at Sunnylands AKA Camp David West.

Liz took a tour of Sunnylands.
 This is as close to the house as they allow you to photograph.

That's not all we did, but we need to finish packing. See you overseas!