The Greek Isles

Venice Italy, May 27, 2007

Hi all,

I sort of skipped over the Greek Isles in the Blog. We visited three. Santorini, Mykonos and Corfu. Each posed a unique and surprising adventure. The first Island we cruised into was Santorini. It is the most spectacular, but we were unfortunate to have the worst weather on the trip there! The small city is built on the edge of a large old remanent Volcanoe rim. The huge caldren rim can be seen way out over the nearby ocean. We rented a car and driver along with our S. Carolina friends and got a 3 hour tour of the island, from north to south. I expected an annotated tour from our guide Danny, but found out after we left he had only been there 3 weeks, from Ukraine!! well so much for tour info, but we had a great ride dispite no historical insites. It has the tyical white and blue houses and commercial buildings, characteristic of the islands. A beautiful place. Mykonos, was similiar, but in the sun, gave us a more positive experience. We hopped on the city bus and found a beach. Same white and blue painting scheme here. Here we saw the beautiful windmills, seen in many places on the islands.




Corfu, was an entirely different story. With its old Venetian, and British roots, Corfu Town was very European in design, looked like downtown Rome! With an esplanade, or city park with a Cricket court. We jumped a city bus to the Achillion Imperial Villa, where "Sissy" Queen of Austria back in the late 1800's built this incredible palace high on the hill above Corfu town overlooking the water. Later her family sold it to the King of Prussia, right before he was assasinated (remember?..which led to the beginning of WWI)

An impressive area, beautiful weather, nice people, shopping and scenic views.

Friday night we all arrived in Venice. It cruised in about 5:00, so got some incredible views of St. Marks Square right from the ship!!!; in the morning, we got our luggage off the boat fast and transferred to the water taxi which took us to this beautiful city on water. More on that in the next blog

Yours in Travel...Bill