Hey there, everyone! We're baaaaaack!
First off, let me say that I missed you all. So much. I checked into Weddingbee every few days during our honeymoon (all the way from Greece!), but refused to let myself comment on anything or post. You know, just to avoid addict status...oh, who am I kidding? Checking into Weddingbee from my honeymoon officially makes me an addict, but you catch my drift :)
So, we spent two amazing weeks in Greece together. Greece was fabulous, but the best part of our honeymoon was the spending time together part. You see, in three years of dating, Mr. Star and I had never had the time and/or money to take a vacation together that didn't involve visiting one family or the other, so it was incredible to have so much time just to ourselves to talk and explore together.
On a side note, I highly recommend the book How to Love Me for anytime when you A. have a lot of time to kill with your significant other and B. want to jumpstart deep and meaningful conversations about things you never would have thought to talk about otherwise. Mr. Star and I spend a nauseating amount of time talking to each other and this book still finds things that we've never discussed before.
Aaanyways, our itinerary for the two weeks consisted mainly of Athens, Vravrona, Epidaurus, Delphi, and Santorini. I thought that instead of recounting our travel tales day by day (since 14 days is a lot of days and I think you'd all hate me by the end of our 800+ plus pictures!), I would share with you our trip more categorically, organized by the way things struck me. Don't worry, this cryptic description will become more clear as this series continues.
I'll start off with what everyone thinks of when they think Greece: ancient sites. You know, the white columns and crumbling temples deal. I happen to be a self-proclaimed dork and hugely into history, so we saw a lot of these historically significant (and sometimes nearly unintelligable) sites. I'll just share with you the highlights:
This was in Athens, in front of the Roman Odeion (theater) that they restored in the 1800's and still use today to put on performances. It was a really cool sight and I was totally wishing that we were around in the summer to see a show there. Only the weather in Athens is much nicer in October, so there you go...
Us in front of the Parthenon in Athens! This is the big kahuna of the ancient sites in Athens (and really, in Greece), of course. Situated high atop Athens on the acropolis and visible from much of the city, it is a stunning landmark and pretty amazing to contemplate how many people have walked around that very important spot!
This is a shot of the Ancient Agora in Athens. This was the marketplace and economic center of Ancient Athens, so there are acres of ruins all grouped together. There aren't too many particularly well-preserved buildings here, but the site is so extensive that you can get really get a feel for what it must have been like to walk the ancient streets. And Socrates was put to death in the Southwest corner, which made my history buff self go crazy. This was one of Mr. Star's favorite sights in Greece!
This is the Temple of Artemis in Vravrona. Since we weren't staying directly in Athens (hello, timeshare membership getting us a great deal!), we were able to catch a few sights that were off-the-beaten-path. This temple, for instance, was literally two miles from our first resort, but since it's in the middle of NOWHERE, it hardly gets visited. We loved seeing such a relatively well-preserved site and had the place all to ourselves the whole time we were there, which made it feel so peaceful. Two thumbs up, for sure!
There I am, just chilling out at the ruins of the Oracle of Delphi. Being theatre majors, we had to read most of the ancient Greek dramas and I'm pretty sure that every one of them has a character who makes the trip to Delphi for advice at one point or another, so it was really cool to actually stand in the place that we had read ancient playwrights write about so many dozens of times. The actual ruins were alright, but the mystique of the oracle and the absolutely breathtaking location were well worth the many hours we spent driving through rural Greece to get there.
The Stars at Epidaurus, one of the most intact and impressive of the surviving ancient theaters! You can probably guess how giddy we were to be there and I promise that you'll be seeing more pictures of the theater at a later date. For now I'll just say that the acoustics in this place were the most astounding thing we encountered in our whole two weeks in Greece. You could stand in the middle of the stage and whisper and the people in the back row (55 rows back, mind you!) could hear you clear as day. When I stood onstage and sang a few bars, I was totally thrown by the fact that it sounded to me like I was singing into a megaphone! Very, very cool.
I'm going to wrap up this first post (of many!) about our wonderful honeymoon with another shot of the Parthenon on the acropolis in Athens. As much as I loved seeing it during the day, the way they light it up at night is truly gorgeous.
It's something that everyone should see in their lifetime.
Next up, "The Colors"! Stay tuned :)
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