As our last destination on our round the world trip, Greece was our place to relax and rest before facing the reality of going home. What better place to kick off our relaxation then Club Mediterranee on the island of Kos at the eastern edge of the Aegean Sea. After a brief 4 hours at a hotel near the Athens airport we were on a 6 am flight to Kos. With a 7am arrival at Club Med we were probably the only ones in the village who were awake except for those who had stayed up all night! "Drop your luggage, go have breakfast by the pool and come back when you are ready" was the perfect greeting from the staff at the reception desk. This was our first clue that the next few days would be totally relaxing - just what we wanted.

After breakfast we were driven to our bungalow at the far end of the beach. With a patio just steps from the sea, an umbrella on the sand and the sailing area, we were happy campers. We spent the next days doing our best to make no decisions. Everything was included with the cost of the room: all meals were a buffet served with wine and beer, all of the sailing and windsurfing equipment was available from 10 am - 6 pm, and there were meters of soft sand with lounge chairs and umbrellas. We were so content that as our last day came we decided to extend our reservation for two more nights.

Not that we didn't get in a bit of culture. To make us feel that we weren't getting too decadent, we explored the Bay of Kamares where there is a little rock formation close to shore that has a chapel to St. NIcholas and opposite, on the mainland, are the ruins of a 5th century Christian basilica. Fortunately for us these are both perched on the edge of the Club Med beach and our sightseeing could be done on the way to dinner!

Tanned and rested we knew that if we didn't leave soon we would be applying for jobs with Club Med and selling our house! We walked to the end of the driveway and caught the local bus into town for a few hours of sightseeing before we took a ferry to Rhodes. Kos is a cute little town where Hypocrites is supposed to have taught in the shade of a large plane tree. We used the trees to shade us while we ate lunch!

We had the choice to take a ferry or a hydrofoil to Rhodes. Since the hydrofoil was 1 hour faster and since we did not have a hotel reservation for that evening, we opted for the hydrofoil. Never again! A hydrofoil literally rises up onto the equivalent of skis and skims across the top of the water - hitting every wave and wake and bouncing the entire boat from side to side. Two hours of this left us more than a bit rattled and thankful to reach the dock in Rhodes. The Rhodes dock is the center of activity for the island - filled with rows of stalls selling sea sponges and shells, packed with boats of all sizes with flags of all nations and bustling with people.

While we didn't have a hotel reservation, Tim had made arrangements to rent a car in Rhodes. A representative from the agency met us at the dock, sat with us on a park bench while we filled out the paperwork, told us to ignore the dents since the car was fully insured and asked that we call to arrange a drop off spot before we caught our flight. Not exactly the formalities of renting a car that we are used to. We took off for the east side of the island where the beaches are the nicest and started checking out hotels. Our second stop landed us at the Paradise Royal Mare with a room overlooking the sea.

After five days of decadence it was time for a bit of culture and Rhodes was the perfect place to begin our exploration of ancient Greece.

Since Rhodes is only 11 miles off the coast of Turkey, during the Crusades, it was a crucial stop on the road to the Holy Land. There are a number of structures built by the Knights of St. John, an order of Hospitalers organized in Jerusalem to protect and care for Christian pilgrims. The walls of Rhodes in themselves are one of the great medieval monuments in the Mediterranean. Each stretch of the wall was the responsibility of a the knights from a certain nation. For 200 years the Knights strengthened the walls, thickening them up to 40 feet thick in places to deflect cannon balls.

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the largest of the Knight's public buildings was the Hospital, completed in 1489. It now houses the Archeological museum with an unbelievable number of ancient statues including the Aphrodite of Rhodes (who pushes aside her hair while bathing as if listening). There are also large quantities of cannonballs from the siege of 1522 in the museum courtyard!

Our search for ancient Greece took us down the east coast, past beautiful white sandy beaches, to Lindos, 37 miles from Rhodes city. Lindos is famous for its acropolis and medieval streets. There are two ways to get to the acropolis at the top of the town - by walking up a narrow and twisting course or by hiring a donkey for the climb. Since the winding path leads past a gauntlet of women who spread out their lace and embroidery over the rocks like fresh laundry, Jane opted for the walk.

The final approach to the acropolis is up a steep flight of stairs and through the main gate of the Crusade castle. On the upper terraces are the remains of the elaborate porticoes and stoas; the site and 6th century BC temple command an immense sweep of sea.

Rhodes not only taught us about the Crusaders influence in Greece, but it also about Greek hotels. Having arrived with no reservations we were thrilled to have stumbled upon the Paradise Royal Mare with its upscale rooms, calming sea view, numerous pools and beautiful grounds. A bit of luxury. You can imagine our surprise when we came back from dinner and found out that our room was above the hotel disco, and the70's era music was blaring. No problem, we would shut our balcony door and simply miss falling asleep to the sound of the sea. Great theory until we found out that the air-conditioning didn't work. Faced with a hot room or a noisy one, we opted for the noise. The next morning we called the front desk and asked if they would have someone fix our aircon. We quickly learned that there was no problem with our air-conditioning unit, they hadn't been turned on for the entire hotel and wouldn't for another two weeks! We requested a quieter room and were promptly moved to another building in the hotel complex, as far from the disco as possible. It was quiet, but the cool sea breezes were conspiring against us. Even with the door open, the room was like a furnace. In the dark of the night we wrestled the queen-size mattress off the bed and shoved it out onto our balcony. We grabbed our pillows and slept out under the stairs, keeping nice and cool. Before going to breakfast we tugged the mattress back into the room, setting up our "camp" again the next night.

Never before have we been in a luxury hotel where their contract to turn on the air-conditioning was based upon a calendar and not the outside temperature. Lesson learned - don't just ask if the room has air-conditioning, ask if it is turned on!

We had heard so much about the island of Santorini that we were bound and determined to get there after Rhodes. Shouldn't have been too hard. Santorini was almost the next island over from Rhodes. Next lesson - never underestimate the Greek ferry and air schedules. It turns out that the various ferry systems have been purchased by one company which has not quite figured out what they control. They publish the ferry schedule each Wednesday, and change it weekly. So we had to wait until Wednesday to find out if there was a Friday ferry between Rhodes and Santorini. That was cutting it a little close for us, so we decided to fly to Santorini. Not so fast - Olympic Air has that monopoly and they don't fly between the islands every day. We ended up flying from Rhodes to Athens and then taking a fight from Athens to Santorini, retracing 75% of our route. Greece was beginning to conspire against us.

We finally got to Santorini, checked into our room, dug out our last bottle of French wine and relaxed on our balcony overlooking the caldera in time for the sunset. Ahhhh!

Santorini is in the central Aegean Sea in the group of islands known as the Cyclades. Santorini is the rim of an ancient drowned volcano that exploded about 1500 BC. The core of the island blew up in 1625 BC and the sea rushed into the abyss to create the great bay which measures 6 miles by 4 miles and is 1,292 feet deep. In the center of the bay, black and uninhabited, are the two still-smoldering cones. There is speculation that Santorini is the mythical Atlantis.

The sensational views across the flooded caldera would make the island a place to visit even if it didn't have fascinating excavations and a dazzling white town. Picture a crescent of cliffs rising 1,100 feet, with the white clusters of the town perched along the top.

.Our hotel is in the picture above, carved into the cliff of the caldera, with each room having a fantastic view of the bay.

From our balcony we could watch the cruise ships pull into the bay and tender boat after boat of tourists to the bottom of the cliff. We knew that the boats had docked when we could hear the bells on the donkeys that carried the tourists up to the town.

Santorini island has hundreds of small churches, all painted a brilliant white with blue and pink trim. Each one is so beautiful that we were constantly stopping to take a picture of the next, even more picturesque church.

Oia, Santorini's second largest town, sits at the tip of the northern horn of the island. It has classic cubical white houses that stand out from the volcanic brown and rust color of the rock.

Even the small fishing boats inthe Oia harbor follow the island's color scheme!

At the other end of the island, eight miles away, ancient Akrotiri provided us with the necessary morning of culture in Santorini. In 1967, the University of Athens began excavations of an ancient town, frozen in time by layers of pumice that buried it at the time of the eruption, 3600 years ago. Today students are still working at uncovering the 40 buildings of the huge site. They estimate that it will take another 100 years to complete the excavation. It was incredible to walk through 2 acres of the excavation site and see four-story frescoed houses and elaborate public buildings and even the remains of a sanitary system beneath the streets - all built in 2,000 BC

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After our relaxation on the Greek islands, it was time to face the mainland, but we still were not ready for Athens. We flew into Athens airport and we were met by a no-name rental car agency. Filling out our paperwork using our luggage as a table, our friendly agent drove us to the outskirts of town, stopped on the shoulder of the national highway, gave us vague directions, and jumped out of the car to hitch a ride back to the office. We were off to find the town of Delphi. Shouldn't have been a problem, we could just follow the rode signs. But wait, all of those letters were not part of the English alphabet. We quickly realized that we couldn't read the Greek signs, although they looked tantalizingly like English. We had classic moments when Tim would say, "Road sign ahead - which way do I go?" and I would answer, "It's Greek to me!"

We actually had one occasion speeding down the National Highway when we couldn't read the signs and only as we were passing it did we realize that we needed to take the exit. Tim literally stopped the car on the highway and drove in reverse back down the highway until we reached the exit. A scary moment, but you get an idea about how people drive in Greece when you realize that none of the cars that passed us honked their horns or shouted at us, almost as if this was a normal occurrence. Yikes!

The billboards in Greece added to the hazardous driving conditions. Theone below gives you an idea of the distractions that Tim had to put up with! We still haven't figured out why the 'USA' is part of the ad!

We finally reached Delphi, a two-lane town about two hours outside of Athens. It is in the narrow valley of the Pleistos River, next to the stony cliffs of Parnassos. A sea of olive trees flows almost unbroken from the valley to the edge of Itea, on the shore of the Gulf of Corinth. Small, rural, quiet, no need for hotel reservations.

That's the Delphi we expected when we drove into the village at 6 PM. What we didn't expect was that the Delphi/Itea leg of the Acropolis Road Rally, which was front page news in all of Greece, was starting the next morning. Delphi was chosen as the town in which to house all of the racers, their support crews and the media (including ESPN). After checking for a room at three hotels, we were fortunate to find a clean room with a view in a little pension that had 8 rooms. We went to dinner early to get ahead of the Road Rally crowd - a wise choice as we started out being the only people in the restaurant which was later filled with the French and British racers and their entire crew. The Europeans take this sport seriously.

The next morning we were at the entrance to the archaeological site of Delphi at 8:30 am. There were only three other cars parked outside the gate. When we left three hours later, tour buses lined the streets. What an incredible place - if you only see one ancient site in Greece, this is the one.

If you don't remember your Greek history, here's a quick version of the story of Delphi, home to Apollo and to the most famous oracle of antiquity. Its history reaches back at least as far as the Mycenaean period and in Homer's Iliad it is referred to as Pytho. Legend has it that a shepherd noticed that his flock went into a frenzy when it came near a certain chasm in the rock. When he approached, he also came under a spell and began to utter prophecies, as did his fellow villagers. They chose from among their number a woman to sit over the chasm on a three-footed stool and to prophesy. Due to the presence of the oracle within the sanctuary, Delphi became the largest religious center of ancient Greece, renown throughout the Mediterranean word. Those citizens who wished to consult the oracle took their place in a line that might form days in advance, and after an animal sacrifice and payment of a determined sum, each questioner was admitted to the temple to ask their question. Official envoys from all over the then-known world came to consult with the oracle, even King Croesus who asked if he should attack the Persians.

The pictures below are of the Temple of Apollo which housed the oracle. Three successive temples were built on this site; this is from the 4th century BC. The first temple was built in the 7th century BC.

This picture is a close-up of the ramp leading into the temple:

The following picture is of the Temple of Athena:

Artifacts that were uncovered when the temples were excated are housed at a museum at Delphi. It is an incredible experience to walk around the ancient site and then go inside the museum to see the intricate and sophisticated statues and carvings, most of which are 2,600 years old. One of our favorites is pictured below. It is thought to be the face of Apollo, from the middle of the 6th century BC, wood core, ivory face and body, gold garments and hair.

When we left Delphi, we decided to explore the Peloponnese, a southern peninsula of Greece that is linked to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The Peloponnese was the heart of Greece in the Bronze Age and the home of the heroes of Homer's Iliad. We based ourselves in Nauplion, a lovely small town on the Gulf of Argolis with a beautiful old section that mixes Greek, Venetian and Turkish architecture. Narrow streets comb the slopes beneath the walls of the palace, tree-shaded plazas surrounded by neoclassical buildings, elegant Venetian fortress draped over the high cliff.

Driving into town in search of a hotel, a small sign near this building caught our attention. We circled the block to get a second look at the Hotel Nafsimedon, a refurbished neoclassical building in the old city opposite the park with a view of the Palamidi and Acronafplia castles. Fortunately for us they had their best room available for the next two nights. With windows that looked out to the park and the castle, the interior was decorated and furnished with antiques and a four-poster bed.

Nauplion was not only perfectly situated for exploring ancient Greece, but it was also minutes from gorgeous beaches. After a morning of culture we would drive a few kilometers to Katathonia beach, rent a couple of sun beds and an umbrella, and proceed to laze the afternoon away sunning, swimming and sleeping - our favorite 3 s's.

Evenings in Nauplion were equally difficult. The beautiful sunsets made it a requirement to walk down to the shore and have an iced coffee and beer at one of the many cafes as we watched the sun set. Then the hard part was to choose between the many restaurants. Since the weather is warm with a cool sea breeze and since the old town streets are closed to cars, the restaurants put their tables out on the streets and sidewalks under arching vines of bougainvillea. Our favorite was the Taberna Ta Panafia where we shared our meal with the stray cats that had claimed the taberna as their territory.

In the mornings we explored the surrounding area described in Homer's Iliad and uncovered through the excavations led by Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist and discoverer of ancient Troy. We drove just outside the suburbs of Nauplion through the ruins of the Mycenaean acropolis of Tiryns.

Tiryns, called Tirantha in ancient times, was the birthplace of Hercules. Amphitryon, king of Tiryns, wed his virtuous and stunning cousin, Akmene, but before they could consummate the marriage he left to avenge the death of her brothers. Zeus, disguised as Amphitryon, took advantage of the king's absence to seduce Alkmene, and from her union with first a god and then a mortal, she bore two sons. One, Iphikles, who resembled her husband, was lacking in ability; the other, who took after Zeus, was the mighty Hercules. When still an infant of 18 months, he proved his demigod status by strangling the serpents that were sent to kill him by Hera, Zeus's jealous wife.

A few kilometers further we reached the ancient citadel of Mycanae which Homer describes as "rich in gold".

Mycenae was founded by Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, and the Perseid dynasty provided many of its rulers. After the last of them, Eurystheus (famous for the labors he imposed on Hercules), the Mycenaens chose Atreus, son of Pelops and Hippodamia, as their ruler. But Atreus hated his brother, Thyestes, so much that he offered Thyestes his own children to eat, thereby incurring the wrath of the gods. Thyestes pronounced a fearful curse on Atreus and his progeny; Atreus's heir, the renowned and energetic Agamemnon, was murdered on his return from the Trojan War by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus (Thyestes's surviving son). Orestes and his sister Electra, the children of Agamemnon, took revenge for this murder, and Orestes became king of Mycenae. Druing the rule of his son,Tisamenus, the descendants of Hercules returned and claimed their birthright by force, thus satisfying the wrath of the gods and the cruse of Atreus.

The citadel at Mycenae was fascinating. You enter through a large stone door topped with two lions facing each other, their forepaws resting on a high pedestal representing an alter.

Inside the Lion Gate is a grave circle where six royal shaft graves were discovered. The "grave goods", gold face masks, gold cups and jewelry, bronze swords with ivory hilts and daggers with gold inlay are now in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens There were so many items found in these graves that the majority of the first floor of the museum is devoted to their display. Up a ramp from the graves you come to the palace complex that covers the summit of the hill and a series of terraces. All very impressive on its own, but even more so when you realize that the Mycenaeans were in power in the 17th century BC.

We ended our visit to Greece with a short stay in Athens. We stayed at the newly renovated Omonia Grand Hotel on Omonia Square. The Omonia Grand is perfectly located on a metro stop, a ten-minute walk to the National Archaeological Museum and a thirty-minute stroll to the Acropolis. Forget all of the hype about staying near the Plaka unless you want a tacky tourist experience with high prices.

We found that two days in Athens was enough for us. The best of the two days was a trip to the National Archaeological Museum - amazing. The Mycenaean Room overflows with the stunning gold treasure from Schliemann's 1876 excavations of Mycenae (where we were the previous day); other rooms had such treasures as the funeral mask of a bearded king from the 15th century BC; Jockey of Artemision, a 2nd century BC Hellenistic bronze salvaged from the sea; Aphrodite getting ready to slap an advancing Pan with a sandal while Eros floats overhead and grasps one of the horns. Too much to absorb in one visit.

Of course a visit to Athens is not complete without a trip to the Acropolis. It is a true testament to the Golden Age of Greece, from 461 to 429 BC. Located in the center of downtown, it is startling to drive through the crowded city streets and come upon the 512 foot high limestone outcrop on which you can see the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and the Acropolis Museum.

Walking through the neighborhoods of Athens you are constantly confronted with the glory of their past. Turn down a street and you come across Hadrian's Arch - marble gateway built in AD 131; on the same block is the Temple of Olympian Zeus - begun in 6th century BC and completed in AD 132 by Hadrian. Facing these monuments you have a feeling of awe and peace; turn 180 degrees and you face jam packed streets with concrete high rise apartments built with a utilitarian purpose in mind and with a disregard for aesthetics. That perhaps sums up our reaction to this country. The ancient cities and ruins should be experienced by everyone, but once you have had your fill of Homer and Zeus, make your way through the impossible traffic to the airport and catch a flight to the islands..