Roses in Greece

Let's start with a famous song by Bobby Vinton "Roses are red Violets are blue", 1962 hits.

A rose is a woody perennial of the genus, Rosa within the family of Rosaceae. There are over 100 species of Rosa. Roses can be herbs, shrubs and trees. For the first time in my life, what I saw in Greece is a Rose Tree, so tall and full of healthy roses welcoming a summer season in 2008.

It was a trip back to Athens from Delphi, where the bus made a quick stopped for toilet. It was a dream come true for me to go so near and admiring a beautiful creation of Almighty when the bus driver suddenly stopped for about 5 minutes.

Rose plants range in size from compact, miniature roses, to climbers that can reach 7 meters in height. Different species hybridize easily, and this has been used in the development of the wide range of garden roses. The garden roses is what I encountered in here, so graceful and stunning.

The name rose comes from french, itself from a Latin word, Rosa, which perhaps borrowed from Greek word wrodon. In Malaysia, we called rose as "Mawar".

Roses form a group of plants that can erect shrubs, climbing or trailing with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Its flower vary in size and shape and are usually large and showy in colours. Most species are native to Asia, with smaller numbers native to Europe, North America and Northwest Africa.  Species, cultivars and hybrids are all widely grown for their beauty and often are fragrant. 

Below photos are red roses that I saw in Epidaurus Colosseum courtyard. Beautifully blossom and melted my hearts.

Greece, Day 6 - Saronic Island Cruise

Day 6 - 5th June 2008, Thursday

The Tour bus pick us up at 7.22am sharp sending us to the  sea Port for our cruise day. We departed via cruise ship called "Anna Maru" at around 8am. Our cruising itinerary was to stop at 3 islands,  Polos, Hydra and Aegina for a whole day.

The fort at sunrise for early start!

The Saronic Islands or Argo-Saronic Islands is an archipelago in Greece, named after the Saronic Gulf in which they are located, just off the Greek mainland. The main inhabited islands of this group are Salamis, where the ancient Greek navy defeated the Persians in the Battle of Salamis, Aegina, Angistri and Poros. The islands of Hydra and Dokos included as part of the Saronic Islands.

A clowd of seaguls came from nowhere, following our ship for a while, an exciting view to watch.

A closer look at 1 of them with the background of deep blue Saronic sea.

We harboured at around10.30am at the Polos Island for 1 hour sightseeing. Poros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km (31 nautical miles) south from Piraeus, separated from the Poloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the strait. Its surface is about 31 square kilometres and it has 4,117 inhabitants. The town of Poros has 4,102 of these inhabitants. The ancient name of Poros was Pogon. Like other ports in the Saronic, it is a popular weekend destination for Athenian travellers.

Rows of restaurant available at the dockyard

The Clock Tower of Poros

Someone refused to move not until he brought back the thing that he admired!

Lunch was served in a big dining hall of Anna Maru. To my delights, they served main dishes of smoked salmon, my favourite. And, to add to my excitement, an American Couple and my daughter more than gladly passing their salmon to me.. hehe!

At 1.30pm we reached Hydra Island for a quick stop of 45minutes.  The municipality Hydra consists of the 50km2 islands of Hydra and a few uninhabited islets. We were reaching Hydra Island (seen from distance), at below photo.

Rare moment to see him smiling this wide :)

War memorial museum seen below photo, where our ship being docked.

Transportation, widely used in the Island

There is one main town, known simply as "Hydra port", consists of a crescent-shaped harbor, around which is centered a strand of restaurants, shops, markets, and galleries that cater to tourists and locals (being called as Hydriots). Steep stone streets lead up and outwards from the harbor area. Most of the local residences, as well as the hostels on the island are located on these streets. There are other small villages or hamlets on the island.

We left Hydra Island at 2.15pm.  At 4pm, we reached the famous Aegina Island where we were allowed to explore an island for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Aegina is one of the Saronic Island of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 27 km from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born on and ruled the island. During ancient times Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.

Time to leave! Petrol tanker behind filling the fuel to the ship.

The clock at harbour click at sharp 6.15pm before we headed back to hotel, exhausted from a long day of cruising along Saronic Island, a lovely experience indeed.

That's the end of our 6 days travelogue, enjoying summer holiday in beautiful Greece. We were leaving to Doha for 2 days transit before headed back to Karachi on 6th June 2008. Thank you for reading and sharing our experienced.

Greece, Day 5 - Exploring Athens

Day 5 - 4th June 2008, Wednesday

We did not booked any programme with the agent on 5th day as we had well planned to explore Athens on our own. We had plentiful of things we wishes to explore, shopping is 1 of them.

As no appointment with the bus, we woke-up at 7.30am, get ready and had late breakfast at 8.30am. Nasrul went swimming as soon as he finished his breakfast. After he returned, we were able to leave hotel by city bus to look for Hard Rock Cafe at around 11am, thinking to have our lunch there. As we were clueless of the bus system, we jumped into a bus right in front of the hotel without purchasing a bus ticket and it was lucky that a kind hearted lady in photo below was kind enough to share her bus card with us. She refused any compensation.

She advised that we should stopped at Constitution (Syntagma) Square and with the city map, we successfully arrived at Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) without much difficulties. First thing we did was selected few t-shirts at the HRC retail outlet just at the left side corner of the restaurant for all our family member excluding my husband. The shop assistant was not happy as I did not purchased anything for my beloved husband though he had suggested a few. While ushering us to the 1st floor to have our lunch, he repeatedly asked why did I not buying anything for my husband. "You don't love him that much, do you?" Hahaha... It was him in the photo with the kids in below photo.

The lunch at Hard Rock cafe was great as the quality of the food served suited the ambiances. we were amazed with the restaurant decoration. Very pretty, inst it? 

I had various individual shots of the well known guitars for memory. The corner below was still my most favourite.

Thereafter, we walked and stopped at many places to explore other attractions surrounding Syntagma Square, Athens Cultural Art Centre, the university building adjacent to it and many other places for photos ( see below).

Syntagma Square, a hub for many transportation, i.e. Metro Lines, Athens Tram, buses and trolley bus are available here. Below are the waiting area and/or meeting point for passengers.

Changing of guards in front of the unknown soldiers tomb annexed to Greek Parliament House, Syntagma Square are happening daily. The guards, known as Evzones are the elite soldiers guarding the tombs had similar duties like the guards in Buckingham Palace. Their uniforms and attires were the same wearing by the Greeks fighter in 1821 revolution, established by Otto as a formal court dress.  The Parliament House was formerly the King's Palace, built between 1836 and 1840 by King Otto and financed by his father Ludwig 1 of Bavaria. The square has a long list of history, during Nazi's occupation, it has been used as resistance points by the Greeks.

Feeding pigeons at Syntagma Square

Greek Hellenic Parliament house, the other side.

The National Library of Greece was designed by Danish architect in a neo-classical buildings. The same architect who design the below photo of Athens Academy.

The Academy of Athens is the Greece's national academy, the highest research establishment in the country. It was established in 1926 and operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Education. The academy's building is one of the major landmarks of Athens. 

At 3pm, we decided that we had enough of the tour as we needed rest before adjourn for dinner in Plaka Restaurant. Too tired to notice, we accidentally took the wrong bus to the hotel. It was a very funny experienced but one of the bus passenger guided us to get down and take another bus route to be back to our hotel. We finally reached Dorian Inn at 4pm.

Citi Travel had provided us a dinner voucher at Plaka Restaurant, seated at the bottom of Acropolis. We left hotel for our diner at 6.30pm. Despite of Nasrul objection to go there by taxi, we took Athens Metro at Akropoli Station not far from Dorian Inn.

The dinner was heaven. They served us all sorts of seafood's, i.e. fish, cuttlefish, prawns, lobster, crabs and 3 of us cannot finish all of them. It goes wasted.

Plaka was developed mostly around the ruins of ancient Agora of Athens, seated at the foothills of Acropolis. The area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. During the years of Ottoman rule, Plaka was known as "Turkish quarter of Athens", the seat of Turkish Governor. During the Greek war of Independence, Plaka like the rest of Athens was temporarily abandoned until the 5 years ruling of King Otto, it has been repopulated till presence. It is now a famous tourist attraction and since we were there, we explore the night market nearby and did some shopping of Greek's handmade items available there.

Cruising on Saronic island will be the next entry :)

to be continued...

Greece, Day 4 - Argolis

Day 4 - 3rd June 2008, Tuesday

The bus pick us up at 7.55am and as usual the bus shall stop at numerous hotels to pick-up other tourist. After 3 days, we saw familiar faces on the bus to to Argolis. The pick up bus sent us to another Argolis pick-up point which leaves Athens at 8.45am. There were 2 Asian family in the group with us, a family of 3 from India but migrated to US. They looked very pleased to see Asian faces.

Argolis is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese, situated in the eastern part of the Peloponnese Peninsula. Most cultivation land lies in the central part of Argolis. Its primary agricultural resources are oranges and olives. Argolis has a coastline on the Saronic Gulf in the northeast and on the Argolic Gulf in the south and southeast. Argolis has land borders with Arcadia to the west and southwest, Corinthia to the north, and the islands regional unit to the east. It was a very long journey and we are all very happy when the bus finally made a quick stop for photos and coffee break at Corinth Canal.

Corinth Canal is a canal that connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea which is mainly used for tourist traffic. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the former an island. The builders dug the canal through the Isthmus at sea level; no locks are employed. It is 6.4 kilometres in length and only 21.3 metres wide at its base, making it impassable for most modern ships. Because of that, it now has little economic importance.

The area has been developing for tourist stop for toilet, coffee break and souvenirs’ shop. After photo shoots and refreshments, we went for shopping for souvenirs. The shop owner had pack few items for the tourist guide to have a Q&A session with us to keep our long bus ride cheerful. Nasrul managed to answer 1 and received laudable response from everyone in the bus. It made him felt very special, indeed. After almost 2 and a half hours of bus ride, we arrived in Mycenae at 11.30am.

At the entrance of the ruins of Mycenae, our lady tour guide called everyone four head count to buy an entrance ticket for everyone. She asked Syahirah how old was she and Syahirah responded that she's 16. The lady turned to me and asked for my age in front of everyone. I had to say "I'm the mother" as I was too embarrassed by her sudden question. My answer made everyone laughed, its hilarious (my face turned red). 

Treasury of Atreus, outside view

Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km southwest of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean. 

The Lion Gate, the two lionesses flank the central column. Inside, we viewed the tomb of Clytemnesta.

We stopped for lunch at 12.30 noon, the restaurant not far from the ruins.

Thinking that nobody was looking, we picked the peaches from rows of peaches trees just outside the restaurant and was caught by our smiling bus driver who later gave us a handful's of what he picked earlier :)

As soon as everyone finished with their lunch and back to the bus, we headed to Naufplio for photo.

Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the capital of the First Hellenic Republic, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the regional unit of Argolis.

The above photo is a castle of Bourtzi, located in the middle of the harbour of Nafplio. The Venetians completed its fortification in 1473 to protect the city from pirates and invaders from the sea. The Greeks regained it from the Turks on June 18, 1822, from where they assisted in the siege of Nafplio. Until 1865 it served as a fortress. It was then transformed into residence of the executioners of convicts from the castle of Palamidi. From 1930 to 1970, it served as a hotel. Since then, it is mainly a tourist attraction hosting occasionally parts of the Summer Music Festival. After everyone finished taking picture, we continue our journey to Epidaurus. At 3pm, we arrived at Epidaurus Colosseum.

Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the regional unit of Argolis. Epidaurus was independent of Argos and not included in Argolis until the time of the Romans. With its supporting territory, it formed the small territory called Epidauria. Reputed to be the birthplace of Apollo's son Asclepius, the healer. Epidaurus was known for its sanctuary situated about five miles (8 km) from the town, as well as its theater, which is once again in use today.  

Our lady tour guide in the centre

The theater was designed by  Polykleitos the Younger in the 4th century BC. The original 34 rows were extended in Roman times by another 21 rows. As is usual for Greek theatres (and as opposed to Roman ones), the view on a lush landscape behind the skene is an integral part of the theatre itself and is not to be obscured. It seats up to 15,000 people.

The boy from our group performing classical song with his amazing voice

The theatre is marveled for its exceptional acoustics, which permit almost perfect intelligibility of unamplified spoken word from the proscenium or skênê to all 15,000 spectators, regardless of their seating. Famously, tour guides have their groups scattered in the stands (like ours) and show us how easily we can hear the sound of a match struck at center-stage.

Nasrul was exceptionally hyper active that day. He was changing seat to the back and front in the bus and been running around at the theatre rows. The 2 photos evidenced how hyper active he was and friendlier to the Indian family who came along with us.  

The bus dropped us at our hotel around 6.15pm. By 9pm we dosed off early due to a long tiring journey.

to be continued...