Our family vacation in the Peloponnese 2010

I’m sitting here at home, by the dinner table with my cup of tea in the late morning, washer running, and it feels good to be back home. For well over a month now, we’ve been packing, unpacking or traveling. Last night we finally flew in from Athens after ten wonderful, amazing, exhausting, and dramatic days in Greece. In about four weeks we are supposedly moving to Beirut, Lebanon, but our house bears no witness of that. I am sitting here with my tea, recovering and gearing up.

On Monday morning after breakfast, the boys & I took Courtney to the conference venue, went back to the hotel to pack up, have a last swim in the pool, and check out. We then drove back down to the village of Ancient Olympia and walked around a bit while waiting for Courtney, shopping, having ice cream. After Courtney was finished (his paper was very well received!), we started our drive south down the west coast of the Peloponnese. Somewhere along the way we saw a sign that said “Beach” and decided to take a break. It was a beautiful white, long beach with very few people, high, dramatic waves and foamy water. I stayed close to Abraham, a little afraid. The current was so strong, and the water so stirred up, that had he got under water, I would not have been able to find him. Fortunately, he was more interested in the sand and rocks than swimming, but still got so close to the water once that he did get pulled down. I fished him out just as the second wave was about to suck him out. A frightening moment! The boys had a blast swimming and diving into the waves.

After another hour or so drive through Kalamata, we started the drive south on the west side of Mani. It was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever done. The Mediterranean Sea is so blue, the sky so beautiful and clear, and the mountains so majestic. There are not enough words to describe the beauty of this part of the world, and our pictures will give you nothing but an idea of what if looked like. If you ever get the chance: Go! It’s difficult driving; curvy narrow roads winding up and down the mountains, but so worth it. We arrived at our destination Stoupa just in time for dinner. From our restaurant, where we had house wine, Greek salad, tzatziki, fresh swordfish, and souvlaki, we had a beautiful view of the sunset.

We spent the next day on the beach, swimming in the cleanest water I’ve ever experienced. It was so extremely clean, and also cooler than in other places we discovered, because of the many submarine fresh water springs. You could literally reach in between the rocks and drink the water that came out of the mountains. The sand was fine and white, the water blue and clear, and surrounded by mountains and a clear sky, we all enjoyed the day.

The next day after lunch we drove a bit further south to visit the caves of Pyrgos Dhirou. Such beautiful landscape, and breath taking caves! After the caves, we headed north to Sparta, where we visited Ancient Sparta. The ruins are not all that impressive, but to experience the location and see the site was well worth the visit. There was also what Courtney referred to as an “Über Carrefour” where we bought an array of snacks and drinks. After a couple of hours we drove on to Mystra where we checked into a hotel. In Stoupa we had stayed in a camping, but you can only sleep so many nights in a row on the ground, so we decided to splurge for the night; internet, pool, air conditioner, and a clean room! After a fresh night’s sleep we visited the Byzantine village Mystra, which required several hours of hiking up a steep mountain, but was well worth the climb. Even when it was at its hottest and hardest we could tell ourselves, “This is nothing compared to Mount Moses!” After having seen seven churches, one museum, one Palace, one fort, and several houses, we left Mystra behind and started towards Argos and Mycenae. Along the way, looking to put gas in our car, we noticed something strange; fist we saw a long, long line of cars along some random road. Why had they all parked there? What was there in the middle of the country side? Then when we kept looking, we noticed all the gas stations seemed closed, and had signs up that included the word “Telos,” a word my husband scholar is familiar with. We decided it was for this very moment Courtney spent all those years studying Plato, but why were the gas stations talking about the end? The end of what? The long line of cars we had passed in Mystra had indeed been lined up towards a gas station; could it be that they stood in line to buy gas? When we finally reached our camping in Mycenae and got online, we found the answer in the news: strike! It was Friday evening, and after five days of truckers and in particular gasoline truckers on strike (How could we so completely have missed this??! Well, I’ll tell you how. The claim that an internet-free vacation is good for the mind? Bah!), Greece was running out of fuel. As far as we could tell, there was no solution in sight either. We had less than half a tank, and plans to visit Argos, Epidaurus and Mycenae the next day, so we needed gas. What should we do?

The next day we visited the archeological site of Mycenae, only two km away, and then we called Hertz. After a little “back and forth” I got to talk to a man who told me gas had just been delivered to the coastal town of Nefplio, some kilometers away from Mycenae. He said to go there and look for long lines of cars, and so we did. After ca. 1 ½ hours in line, we got nearly a full tank, and our vacation was salvageable. We would at the very least be able to get back to the airport in Athens on Monday. We drove straight to Epidaurus and visited the site around dinner time; a very pleasant hour it turns out, to stroll through the vast amount of archeological area it covers, the most impressive part of which, of course, is the theater.

The next day we packed up our tent and headed for Corinthos. Near the turn off however, we decided that we – since we were in Greece and all – had to take the boys to the Acropolis, and I headed straight into Athens center instead. This had been a point of discussion throughout our entire vacation: driving in Athens would surely be unpleasant, at the very least, but could we really not take the boys to see the Acropolis? At this very last moment, we decided to take them. Finding it and a parking spot was easy, climbing the mountain and visiting the site was unpleasant as always but worth it of course, and our lunch at a restaurant we chose because of their nice-looking salad plates by the Forum Romanum was surprisingly worth its price and very tasty; it was the getting out of Athens that proved horrible. We had both predicted this, but made a very bad miscalculation when we thought there would be hotels east of Athens, by the sea. We should have checked, but even the most experienced traveler makes mistakes like this in situations like these. We drove around in circles for – really – hours, until we finally ran into a mega-overprized hotel in Pireus. 8 am, with kids screaming in the back, fighting, we - literally - paid for our stupidity. The hotel was nice, with a pool and breakfast, but – really – no 8 hours of sleep is worth that kind of money.

Monday – we slept in and took advantage of every free hotel facility available (breakfast buffet, a swim in the pool, two hot bubble baths within 12 hours, and a late check-out, anyone?) before we headed back to the airport. Hertz has probably seen dirtier cars returned, but I thought I saw the guy frown at the full package of garlic nuts poured out all over the baby car seat, the vast amount of sand and rocks covering the floor, and the plethora of drinks spilled all over the seats, not to mention the sticky fruit and candy wrappers wedged in between the seats. Our little grey polo was also covered in sand and dust. Well used but not a scratch!

As for the rest of the trip, it was business as usual. The boys – the entire family – are professionals when it comes to standing in and getting ahead in line, checking in, snacking on free samples in the airport shops, surfing the internet or watching a movie and flying. Our trip home was very smooth.

And here we are, just home but heading out. There are currently a lot of e-mails circulating to arrange our transfer. At this moment, it looks like we’ll be shipping back to the US, and then relocating to Lebanon, all within a few weeks, but I’ll have to keep you posted on that one, because it could change. At this point, nothing is worked out, and we’re not exactly sure how everything is going to happen. For now, I’m enjoying my tea, and the quiet before the storm.