the sweeney visit

tricia and kilian came friday starting the greek holy week. the first thing we did saturday was to pass through the monastiraki markets before we headed into ancient greece.. the ancient forum and the acropolis. after that we walked through anafiotika and plaka, had dinner in a rooftop taverna. sunday we went through kolonaki and then up to the top of lykavittos hill. and lucas fell in love with our friends, they were very easy around the baby and practically best buddies the whole time. warm as family.

on monday, we woke up before the chickens to catch our fast ferry to santorini. when we arrived at noon, we picked up our rental car and headed off to the hotel. i dunno what did it, but maybe the rocking of the ferry and then the narrow winding roads with philippe still adjusting to the new clutch, i got woozy. i was okay after we stopped so i could sit on solid earth, and breathe a couple a deep breaths. once we got to our hotel, we ran out on to the balcony to see the "beautiful caldeira view",, and it was that. just as gorgeous as all the postcards. santorini is an island that was made from a blasted out volcano in the mediterannean, and it uhas many different strata in the rock. from many eruptions over the past zillion years,. although its been about a hundred since the last one..

we saw in three days, not necessarily in this order: megalohori, a small village where we tasted wine and 'lost' philippe for an hour. the red rock beach, where we did some rock climbing with the stroller to get to a beautiful red and black sand beach. we took a fascinating walk through the ruins at ancient thira, above a beautiful black sand beach (where we stopped briefly in search of coffee).. on the way we found some amazing spanakopita at a bakery for a snack, and later for dinner the seafood worshippers had their enormous platter of octopus, squid and fish with heads, and our table was practically on the beach... which was very nice. oia, a spectacular little village that easily gets top billing as 'the best place to watch the sunset'. tricia and i took a very nice 20-30 minute walk at twilight from imerovigli to our hotel in firostefani. the whole walk was on the many-tiered footpath that runs between the cliffline and the houses and hotels there. so many good views, so many cute houses. every patio scene could have been a page ripped from a glossy home decoration/patio gardening book about how to decorate in greek style.

as a side note: i'll add this wonderful spanakopita recipe
it's super good, we found this in tricia's bust magazine.

mix in a big bowl:
1 lb fresh chopped spinach
1/2 lb crumbled feta cheese
4 eggs
3 cloves chopped garlic
1 finely chopped onion
olive oil, salt & pepper
fresh parsley & dill

2 sheets phyllo dough, regular pie crusts will do in a pinch.

oil up yr baking pan,
put in a sheet of dough in the bottom
dump in and spread out your spinach mixture
top it with another sheet of dough, sealing the edges
bake for an hour (375f)

lucas was such a good traveller that...
we also took a scenic drive up to ancient delphi. it was gorgeous! i was not prepared for such a treat. the weather was cooler, because we were in the mountains. the wildflowers were out in full show, and the ancient stuff was interesting. and they did a good job of illustrating how it was back when it was in use too.. something a lot of ruins are desperately lacking. we also stopped for a delicious dinner in arachova, a quaint little mountain town before heading back to athens. back in town, we caught the good friday church service where they parade around a symbolic coffin and cross and candles, went to the archaeology museum, and walked around plaka/monastiraki again before we had to start saying our goodbyes. and happy birthday to tricia!