Greece (22-30 Dec 2009)

Here is some useful information to plan a 7-10 day trip around Athens.

Short Trip to Athens
2+ Days: Athens (base station)
1 Day: Delphi (overnight stay)
1 Day: Capsounion (day return)
1 Day: Marathon (day return)
1 Day: Nafplion (day return)
1 Day: Thessaloniki (overnight journey by train)

General Information:
Read: Before you go to Greece, I would highly recommend reading about History of Greece and Greek Mythology. You would than be able to put things into perspective when you will visit various places.

Travel to Athens: A return flight ticket from Amsterdam costs 170-250 euros. Airport is outside the city and there is regular bus service to the city.

City: Its very modern city and yet very historic. Unlike most European cities, it has great culture. Shops are open and young people hang out at night. People are bit rude in Greece. They might just be intimidated by English speaking foreigners. People get irritated when you ask them the same question twice. As a Asian you might get treated badly (although it didn't happen to me). This is because there are lotsa Pakistani and Bangladeshi illegal immigrants here. On the positive side, you can easily find people who can speak Hindi or Bengali!!

Food: Food is just gr8, unique and delicious. If you are a vegetarian, just forget it. You are gonna have a hard time finding something good. "Goodies" was my favorite fast food shop. Trust me, there is nothing "fast" about that food. The menu card tells you all about what food is healthy and what food you should eat (I was amazed that a fast food chain could do that). Anyways, try Greece food in restaurants and Njoy!

Travel: The city has very good public transport system: subway and bus. To go to nearby town its possible to take bus, train or ferry. Its cheap too. There are two bus terminals: A and B. Taxi drivers will cheat, so be prepared for it.
Hitchhiking works!
Keep in mind that people have good heart wherever you go. I was disgusted with the taxi drivers and tried hitchhiking and it worked! Of course, the smaller or remoter the place, the better is the chance you will get picked! Please don't do it in the city (next to a bus stop or train station! :P), or try to hitchhike in a Bus or Train!! :P Although I have hitchhiked in a private Bus in Norway :) and hitchhiking in trains does exist albeit in Siberia (Russia)! :)

Athens:



Delphi:

Marathon:


Thessaloniki:

Capsounion:

Orvieto (Umbria, Italy)

An old volcanic mountain was home to a mystical civilization that flourished thousands of years ago and dissolved into space and time. It is rising from its grave unraveling the mysteries of the lost world. There is lot more to this place than your wildest imagination can take!!



History:

The region of Umbria and Tuscany was originally home of Umbri tribe who were decedents of some Greek tribe. Etruscan people came from north, occupied this region and flourished (800-500BC). Later it got assimilated into Roman Empire (after 500 BC) and then 2000 years of more complicated history followed.






Underground City (Etruscan City- 600BC):


Orvieto is located on top of a small mountain with sharp cliffs. As it is an old volcano, the ground consist of very porous soil. Its very easy to dig. It allowed the Etruscan people to make their houses underground. They used the underground part for Pigeon farming!! The underground part of the houses on the circumference had openings on the cliff: so lotsa light there, pigeons can freely move out and take care of themselves. The picture on the left is an underground Pigeon farm. You can see Pigeon holes, stairs and the light coming from the opening to the cliff behind me. Second interesting feature are small holes going down all the way to the bottom of the mountain. The rain water wouldn't stay due to porous soil, so they had to dig very deep holes to reach water.





When archaeologists started digging the town they were as surprised as we are about the findings. After digging 2/3 of the old part of the city, more than 2000 cave houses, they stopped excavation on fear of the city collapsing. Even the two caves that are open for tourists, they put cement on the roof for it not to erode. Some underground caves they digged were just 1 meter below the new construction (cathedral, house) on top of it! The main problem is that the whole mountain is constantly eroding for last thousands of years by the wind and rain and a third of it has already collapsed. They are now trying to preserve the mountain cliffs from eroding.


Other Sites:


Duomo di Orvieto (Roman Catholic Cathedral):

Its probably the tallest building in the town. The flagstone was laid in 1290 by the Pope and it took around 300 more years to finish different parts. Even for an art illiterate like me, the golden facade just took my breath away. It evolved from Romanesque to Italian Gothic styles as it was constructed.







Pozzodi S. Patrizio (Saint Patrick's Well):

This well was built in ~1530 AD to provide water to the residents in case of disaster or siege. The well is cylindrical in shape, 53 meters deep with base diameter of 13 meters. There are 250 steps and 70 windows. There are two spirals that provide access to the bottom. You go down from one side, cross at the bottom and climb up through other spiral! Easy for mules to take water up in an orderly fashion. The place reminded me of the old Dev Anand song "Dil ka bhanwar kare pukar".



Piazza della Repubblica:

There are many other sites built at different times. You can find them on wikitravel article. Also, you can visit the archeology museum. Unfortunately, I don't have good pics of other sites. Although they have filed for this place to be on UNESCO world heritage site (WHS), Italy already has most WHS 60+. You can't make the whole country a WH.





How to get there?

The place is north of Rome. Only ~50 KMs. One day is enough to visit this place.
By Car: Orvieto is situated on highway A1, connecting Milan to Rome via Florence.
I traveled from Perugia by car with a friend. It took about an hour.
By Train As most of the tourists might be coming from Rome or Florence. There is a train station at the base of the hill that has regular connection with these cities.
By Bus: Its possible to come by bus from Rome or Perugia.



Note:

Umbria is an awesome region with beautiful, ancient and constantly inhabited mountain towns. I could have dedicated one week trip easily if I knew what all it has to offer. The original blog I wrote on Italy, I planned to combine two different trips to Italy and write all about the people, places and culture. As soon as I started writing I realized my mistake. For every city I have visited, it would take an entire article to cover all I have to tell about it. I'll write about some more Etruscan towns I visited.