Birthday in Paris

12.5.2007 - it's Maria's birthday and we took the opportunity to spend a long weekend in Paris to celebrate!

A new look for the website of Intervac in Greece!

Those of you that have been reading our blog, know about our favourite way of spending our vacation: doing home exchanges. In fact we are members (and as a hobby of ours we are also representatives for Greece) of the first world wide organization of home exchanges, called 'Intervac'. So what's new? Well, Maria has been working lately on the website of Intervac Greece and has come up with this wonderful result that you see in the picture. You're just a click away from enjoying it in full!

15 minutes...

Stathis had his 15 minutes of fame when Athens largest daily newspaper ("TA NEA") published in 5.3.2007 in the weekly legal supplement ("TA NOMIKA NEA") an interview about the role of the in house counsel and the Association of Corporate Counsel he represents in Greece.
You can read the interview by visiting the newspaper's site (www.tanea.gr).

Update

It's been quite some time since we last updated our blog, so I guess this means we've been busy... or lazy ...or away! So, for our friends that keep asking (huh?) here's a recap of our latest news:
-We spent Christmas in Berlin with Maria's extended family (parents, brother+wife+kids). It was cold but not too much and we had a very good time. Highlight of our visit: Potsdam (not to be missed when in the area). In the photo Maria is standing in front of a house in the 'Russian neighbourhood'.















-Stathis is still busy with work and on weekends studying for his MSc. Maria is also busy at work but on weekends she tries new outfits or new recipes!
-We did spend a weekend in London in January, taking advantage of a business trip Stathis made. We returned with the 5th DVD series of '24 (Twenty-Four)' and we are looking forward to viewing it!
-We plan to visit Paris in May and Denmark and/or Sweden in July. Any suggestions?
That's it for now! Keep visiting our virtual or our bricks and mortar homes!

Let's stay in Greece, this year...

To the surprise of many (including ourselves) our summer vacation this year did not involve any trip abroad Greece. Partly because of our decision to leave in July instead of our customary August and partly because we didn’t have in mind any one particular place that we really wanted to go to, we finally decided to stay in Greece (as a Ministry of Tourism’s slogan for internal tourists says).
Thinking about it we thought that whichever place would have …the honour to host us should have the following qualities: small, quiet, new for us, easily and fast accessible. A few places came to mind including Leros in the Dodecanese; however we finally opted for Paxos, in the Ionian Sea, not far from Corfu.
Getting there was half the fun: we first went by plane to Corfu and spent the night there. Corfu is an interesting hybrid of cultures: we dined in an (excellent) Italian restaurant (‘La Famiglia’), wandered around the small streets (a la Napoli) of the town and marveled at the Chinese exhibits of the former British Governor’s mansion turned museum of eastern cultures.
From Corfu we flew to Paxos but our departure point was not an airport! No, Sir, it was a …marina, base of operations for the Airsealines. Yes, we used a seaplane! An interesting experience, flying low and having a nice view of the islands and the sea below and finally landing, (oops, is it …sea-ing?) in the Air Terminal of Paxos (despite the imposing name it is actually the edge of the marina and the fishing harbour!!)
We were greeted by one hotel staff waiting with a van to take us. Our hotel was about 10 to 15 minutes walking distance from the capital port town of Gaios which gave us the rare (in Athens) opportunity for some walking every day. Our first evening was spent visiting a local photo exhibition in Gaios and watching the World Cup match for the 3rd place (you know who won, right?)
Next day, the first of our actual Paxos vacation, was quite easy-going: swimming at the hotel beach and eating there (the food was OK but the jazz music that accompanied all our meals, including breakfasts was perfect). Of course we watched the grand finale of the World Cup the result of which was celebrated noisily by the the many (MANY!) Italian tourists in Paxos.
In the course of the coming days we had the time to get to know the island. We hired a car for a day and went around visiting the few villages. The longest distance across the island is no more than 20 to 30 minutes by car, so that wasn’t really difficult.. We were amazed to see so many villas (summer, mostly, houses) and in so nice surroundings. The island is green from one end to the other full of cypresses and olive trees. There aren’t so many beaches and most of them are pebbled ones. Anice place to visit at the northern part of the island is the Old Lighthouse: we watched the sunset from there, despite the rain! (oh, yes, the weather was very unstable in the first days).

Another nice sunset we saw over a steep cliff’s edge from the bar called ‘Erimitis’.

We also went to the nearby island of Antipaxos (less than half an hour away) and the beaches there were sandy. The colour of the sea was a spectacularly clear blue that made the yachts anchored in the bay look as if they were floating in the air. And speaking of yachts you wouldn’t believe how may we’ve seen come and go during our stay in Paxos! We hiked across the island of Antipaxos which has a few houses but not what one would call a village. We thought we were quite athletic in walking so much until we saw an old British guy (probably over 80 years old) doing what we had been doing and with ease! Not to be missed the wine from Antipaxos.
Naturally we went around the island by boat (a must for all visitors) also visiting impressive caves at the west side of the island. Maria was brave enough to swim in one of them, too. As for meals, the best dinner we had was at ‘Vassilis’ restaurant in the tiny port village of Longos.
We spent our time at the hotel reading (we read over 6 books the two of us combined, which is a record considering we were there for just about 10 days). Ah, and playing table tennis!
The most adventurous encounter we had was with a …snake by the beach when moving the beach chairs and with the mosquitos that were waiting for us every night at our room’s entrance door (they were quite the gentlemen though: they never came inside the room!). And with the exception of a brief 10 minutes visit at the local Internet café (at Maria’s insistence!) we managed to stay away from our emails!
The cultural high of our visit was the Greek rock concert at the Museum yard (Machairitsas, Yellow Bicycles, Kazoulis – nice guy, he gave us a ride to the town in his car the next day – and others). And of course this being summer vacation, we had to go the local disco’s grand opening after midnight! (not very wild – and they served us beers that had expired since last season!)
So, that was it for our common vacation this year! Maria was lucky enough to have a second round in Rhodes but not Stathis. Ah, well, Athens is not half bad in August anyway…

Schoolmates having fun

In the beginning of April, Stathis and four of his old schoolmates and good friends decided to visit Milan. This was the first time we ever went abroad as a group and the city served as the backdrop. As we stayed there just for three days we barely had enough time for some sightseeing, some shopping and a wonderful half-day trip to lake Como (not to be missed!). And even though the city has a perfect public transport system there were some complaints about the lack of private transportation! We are already planning our next trip... but don't tell it to the wives!

Keeping the tradition (but with a twist)

As all our friends know, we like to go abroad on one of the most traditional Greek holidays! Sunday prior to Lent is the culmination of Greek carnival with people feasting and watching parades. Then comes what is called Clean Monday (Kathari Deftera) (known as “Ash Wednesday” in other Mediterranean, primarily Catholic countries), as tradition has it that all meat and cheese residues have to be cleaned out of pots and pans in the household. In Greece, Kathari Deftera is a day of picnics, Lenten foods (including unlevened flat bread called “lagana”) and kite-flying, an activity particularly loved by children. But although we usually spend this three days break in London, this year we are going to Berlin! We leave Athens at 15 oC and expect to find sub-zero temperatures in Berlin (Come to think of it, this was a German winter for us: we went to Munich, now to Berlin - we even had house guests from Frankfurt for a week!) Aufwiedersehen!

A change of employment for Stathis

From March 15th and after almost five years of exciting in-house legal work for HERACLES GCC (the Greek subsidiary of Lafarge S.A.), Stathis is looking forward to meeting new challenges in another great company, BP.

Christmas feeling ...at last!

It is not very easy to get into the Christmas spirit with 18 degrees (Celsius) outside... So, we left for a weekend break in Munich. Indeed, the Christmas spirit in Germany is omnipresent: as soon as you arrive at the Munich airport a typical 'Christkindlmarkt' awaits you - a 'village' of wooden kiosks that sell clothes, candies, snacks etc. And such markts are all over the city, too. There wasn't much snow, unfortunately (only some ...leftovers!) - but it was quite cold anyway (-7 to 0 degrees). Finally, we found some use for our pullovers and other winter clothing... All in all, we had a good time and hope that some of the Christmas spirit will find its way to Athens too!

Διασκέδαση στη Λάρισα

Παρασκευή 11 Νοεμβίου, αργά το απόγευμα. Ταξιδεύω (η Μαρία) από το Βόλο (όπου είμαι για το πανελλήνιο συνέδριο πληροφορικής pci 2005)προς τη Λάρισα. Η φίλη μου μού έχει υποσχεθεί μια ωραία βραδυά στη νυχτερινή Λάρισα και δε με διέψευσε καθόλου.Πρώτος σταθμός το εστιατόριο "Τηγανάκια". Γεμάτο από κόσμο (βγαίνουν πολύ οι Λαρισαίοι, φαίνεται) και συνεπώς πολύς καπνός (το μόνο αρνητικό στο μαγαζί). Το φαγητό όμως είναι υπέροχο, ειδικά τα γεμιστά μανιτάρια και το κοτόπουλο με τη γλυκιά σάλτσα,η διακόσμηση πρωτότυπη (σουρωτήρια για "καπέλα" στα φωτιστικά) και οι τιμές πολύ καλές, καμμία σχέση με τις εξωφρενικές της Αθήνας.Το πρόγραμμα συνεχίζει στο ΑlloBar (ελπίζω να το γράφω σωστά). Πολύ χαριτωμένο, ωραία μουσική, νέος κόσμος.Το καλύτερο σάς το άφησα για το τέλος... Μετακινείστε συχνά το βράδυ για να διασκεδάσετε με το ποδήλατο? εγώ πάντως όχι, αλλά μάλλον οι Λαρισαίοι το συνηθίζουν. Τέλεια αίσθηση να σε κτυπάει το δροσερό νυχτερινό αεράκι και να μη σκέφτεσαι για ταξί ή τοπού να παρκάρεις. Έξω δε από το μπαρ υπήρχε ειδική θέση για να παρκάρουν τα ποδήλατα. Μήπως αυτή η πόλη πρέπει να αδελφοποιηθεί με το Γκέτεμποργκ? Άννα μου, πέρασα πολύ ωραία, σ'ευχαριστώ!

Been There, Done That

So, it's official: Stathis has graduated as a Master of Laws, from the University of Strathclyde. (LL.M. in Information Technology and Telecommunications Law).
Which gave us a good excuse to travel for an extended weekend to Glasgow, to attend the graduation ceremony, exactly 10 years after our first trip to Scotland. And it was also an opportunity to relive the atmosphere of student days. The ceremony was nice, a bit too 'formal' but we guess this is to be expected from the British...

2005: Summer in the ...colonies! (2nd part)

…Of course what would a trip to the Côte d'Azur be without a visit to a modern Greek …colony? Time to go to Monaco, the colony of all modern times rich Greeks, starting with Onassis. On our way there (driving on the famous corniches, the seaside motorways, which reminded us of the old Athens-Corinth motorway), we had a stop at the beautiful villages of Villefranche and St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. In the latter, just to warm up, we visited the villa Ile-de-France, built by and for the wealthy Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothchild in 1912. It now is a museum surrounded by many ‘theme’ gardens (the French one, the Japanese one, the rose garden etc.)

Monaco’s old town was nice but the rest of the (more modern) city is so crowded and full of tall and rather ugly buildings! But we guess there’s no other way to house so many aspiring Monegasques! A surprise was waiting for us when we visited the Grimaldis’ palace: the audio guide was available in Greek, too – that’s so uncommon abroad, that we’ve only seen it at the Parthenon marbles hall of the British Museum! This confirmed our suspicion that Greeks are no strangers to Monaco… Another quasi-greek coincidence in Monaco: the orange easyCruise boat of Stelios Hadji-ioannou was anchored at the port. Monaco was also the site of a small adventure for us: we had left the car parked at the port, where we had found free parking space, but we had left the lights on! So, when we returned after a few hours, the battery was, of course, dead. We had to call road assistance – they came after about an hour (the company name was ‘Heracles’, another coincidence) and were very helpful. But it was very funny to see our car and the road assistance car among the Ferraris and the Bentleys that were in abundance at the port and Monaco in general… Unfortunately, this delay prevented us from visiting the Monte Carlo casino.

And after the modern we went to an ‘original’ colony: Antibes, the ancient Antipolis. Once again, we liked the small old town centre. What we didn’t like was Juan-les-Pins, Antibe’s sister city, famous in all tourist guides. Too touristic for our tastes: it reminded us of Faliraki in Rhodes. Cap d’Antibes, on the other hand was full of exclusive villas among the pines. But before Antibes we had been to the nearby 'Marineland', sort of a ‘Disneyland’ with dolphins and whales as the undisputable actors! The sea creatures presented an amazing show in special pools before large audiences. One can also admire seals and sea lions (can you tell the difference between the two?) as well as sharks. We liked the place and we went back the next day, having fun also at the nearby water park (‘Aquasplash’)

On our last day we allowed ourselves the small luxury of lunch at the beach of hotel Hilton on the Boulevard de la Croisette, in Cannes. The sea was less than inviting, as usual, but the service was good…

So the time had come for us to leave… Air France was good enough to allow us and our luggage to travel together this time. We arrived to an empty Athens – at the peak of the August vacation period. Maria continued her vacation, departing a few hours after our landing for Rhodes, whereas Stathis had to stay behind to attend to business and other obligations.

While in Cannes, we heard from friends and relatives that ‘Tachidromos’ a magazine distributed with the ‘Ta Nea’ newspaper has published, as expected, an four-page article on us and Intervac. It was describing in a very positive –and truthful- manner the advantages of this way of spending one’s vacation. But at that time we were living ‘the real thing’ and absolutely enjoying it!

2005: Summer in the ...colonies! (1st part)

Our Greek friends find it strange that we prefer to travel abroad during the summer… ‘Why would you want to do that? Summer means sun and sea and the best place to have these is Greece!’ seems to be everybody’s comment. Well, we like to live new experiences exploring other cultures and ways of life is our honest answer.

But it makes you think… Can we combine our wish to travel abroad with the typical (Greek) summer features? And let’s see what else we’d like to be added to the equation: let’s find a place that’s not very far so we don’t spend all our time in planes; it would be great if people there speak French, for Maria to practice her newly acquired language skills; and it has to be a place with a nice Intervac home for us to use (see www.intervac.org, our preferred way of vacations).
The result is obvious, isn’t it? La Côte d'Azur! (French Riviera for English speakers) So no Scandinavia this year – we’ll visit the colonies! (Ancient Greeks settled in the area in the 5th century B.C.)

We briefly considered going there by sea and car, but in the end we decided that flying was much quicker. And it was, just not for our luggage! Air France decided that our luggage were not in the same hurry as we were, therefore they shouldn’t need to be in the same plane as we were! So we landed in the airport of Nice with just our carry-on luggage and a nice small travel bag for each one of us, courtesy of Air France, with the basic stuff we would need (toothpaste and the like…), until our luggage were delivered to us the next day.

Our home for the coming days would be a comfortable apartment overlooking a small forest at the village of Mouans-Sartoux, at the outskirts of Cannes.

We spent our first evening in the city of Cannes, to orienteer and relax. The dinner menu had mussels. Finding our way back home was a small adventure, as we over-depended on the car GPS system which we used for the first time! (A very useful feature for the next days, though, which rendered road maps useless).

After spending one more day in Cannes, we decided to visit the famous Saint Tropez. A very picturesque but crowded town! Of course not only Saint Tropez but the entire Riviera was full of tourists (yes, just like us…), which meant that it took quite some time to go from one place to the other. Unfortunately and despite our searches, we didn’t manage to see any famous person -although Bruce Willis had visited a Saint Tropez beach a day ago. Ahm, the beaches… Rather disappointing we’re afraid: narrow, overcrowded and the sea far from crystal clear.

The next day was a trip to history and literature: the island St. Marguerite in the gulf off the city of Cannes. This was where the ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ was incarcerated. The weather was fine, so the short cruise combined with a walk in the paths of the wooded island and some swimming made for a wonderful half day – and it got better when we visited in the evening the village of Mougins. This is where Pablo Picasso stayed and we agree that he had a good reason to do it: a village on top of a hill, small, pretty and, despite us tourists, rather quiet.

The next morning we thought, since we are so near, why not visit the Italian Riviera too? So, off we went to San Remo… The city is famous for its song festival, but we can’t really find any other reason to recommend it. Back in Mouans-Sartoux, the mood was festive in the evening: live music and dancing in the village square.

The city of Grasse is just a few kilometres away from Mouans-Sartoux and is ‘the perfume capital of France’. (That’s another good thing about France: every place seems to be famous for something…) We visited the Fragonard perfumery and then enjoyed music and dancing as the city celebrated its ‘jasmine festival’. So we satisfied our senses of smell and hearing… How about taste? After all, this is France! A sumptuous four hours lunch at the 2 Michelin stars restaurant ‘Moulin de Mougins’ was a wonderful and rewarding experience. The night ended with splendid fireworks above the night sky of the gulf of Cannes.

The next day our excursion took us to the villages of Biot (home of many glasshouses) and Saint Paul de Vence (a typical medieval fortified village, one of the most visited places in France). And then to the rightful capital of Côte d'Azur: the city of Nice (or Nikea as it was called when it was first colonized by our Greek ancestors back in 350 b.C.) with its famous Promenade des Anglais! Since you managed to read this far, here’s a free tip worth at least 10 €: parking is hard to find but don’t despair. Just park it in the parking lot of a casino, go for swimming, visit the old city with its narrow streets and its vendors, have dinner and then, just before you leave, spend some time –half an hour is enough-, at the casino itself. No need to actually play, although we did try the slot machines. Remember to ask the casino staff to stamp your parking ticket and then you can drive away having paid, well, nothing! Another original idea we tried in Nice: a restaurant where they serve you whatever they have decided; you don’t have to –and can’t really- order! Nice food but we couldn't understand why the service was so slow...

A book recently read...

(The book review that follows is in Greek) Το πιό πρόσφατο βιβλίο που διάβασα (Στάθης) ήταν το "Μια σταγόνα Ιστορία" (τόμος Α') του δημοσιογράφου Δ.Καμπουράκη. Το βιβλίο ήταν δώρο που έπιανε σκόνη στο ράφι, αλλά ήταν από καιρό στα 'υπ'όψιν' βιβλία (όσο πάει γίνονται και πιό πολλά δυστυχώς)... Η Ιστορία είναι κάτι που με γοητεύει και ενδιαφέρει αλλά το στυλ της δημοσιογραφίας του συγγραφέα του βιβλίου μάλλον όχι... Τέλος πάντων... Το βιβλίο με συντρόφεψε σε ένα πρόσφατο ταξίδι στην Ελβετία για ένα συνέδριο δικηγόρων (οπότε η παρούσα αναφορά σχετίζεται και με το θέμα του blog που είναι τα ταξίδια!). Το καλό του βιβλίου είναι ότι έχει πολλές μικρές παρουσιάσεις (3-4 σελίδες) ιστορικών ανεκδότων και έτσι έχει ποικιλία και δεν κουράζει. Βρήκα όμως μερικά λάθη και αναρωτιέμαι και για την ακρίβεια κάποιων στοιχείων του. Εν τέλει θα το συνιστούσα σε όποιον θα ήθελε 'μιά σταγόνα ιστορίας' - αλλά για κολύμπι στη θάλασσα της ιστορίας, προτιμήστε κάτι άλλο.
****Νοέμβριος 2005: Στο ταξίδι στη Σκωτία διάβασα και το δεύτερο βιβλίο της σειράς. Το βρήκα πιό ενδιαφέρον. Αν δεν υπήρχαν και τα 'διδακτικά' σχόλια του συγγραφέα στο τέλος κάθε παρουσίασης (κοινοτοπίες, ευτυχώς σύντομες) θα ήταν καλύτερο...

Summer 2004: Northern Exposure (4th part).-

One more city/country to visit in this trip: Estonia. Just 1,5 hour by boat across the gulf from Helsinki and we found ourselves in the beautiful medieval and fortified capital city of Tallinn. We were rather surprised to see that the city was not too big; it was picturesque, with beautiful and colorful buildings and full of restaurants, cafes and tourists. Sort of a smaller version of Prague. This came as a surprise as Estonia is virtually unknown in Greece and it's a shame. By the way, although Estonia was part of the former Soviet Union, one can hardly notice it, as both the lifestyle and everything else (such as signs for example) have nothing Russian about them. (Well, if one notices some details such as the sewer taps one can see that they are made in Russia and bear Russian letters on them)..

Returning from our trip to the North, we only stayed for a day in Athens, heading this time southeast, to Rhodes. We spent a couple of weeks there enjoying the sun and the sea and seeing (Maria's) family and friends. We even went on a 24-hour trip to the island of Nisyros (quite pretty and reminiscent of the Cyclades, despite being part of the Dodecanese complex of islands. It even reminded us of Iceland -see our 2003 summer vacation description- as we visited the island volcano's crater, to see again the earth boiling and releasing steam and ...ugly smells!)

Finally we returned to the (Olympic!) city of Athens, to get a taste of the Olympic metamorphosis of the city and watch a few sport events, too.

Summer 2004: Northern Exposure (3rd part)

Having Helsinki as our base for the next days, we were planning to visit first Saint Petersburg in Russia and then Tallinn in Estonia.
This is the most exciting and unfortunate part of our journey; so if you managed to read this far, don't give up now!

By train to Russia... this was our first visit to Russia and we had a few things to be concerned about: Would we be able to receive our train tickets? (the ticket cashier in Helsinki had told us that the tickets were not ready yet and they would be delivered to us by the train ticket conductor) Were our visas OK? (There was a mention somewhere on our visa about a 'tour group', which of course we were not) What would Russia be like?

The bureaucratic part went on smoothly. What are our comments about St.Petersburg? We had been told that this was the most Western European city of Russia-and we think it is indeed rather Western European, at least on the surface. It is a city with many majestic sights and certainly impressive. Not really a 'Venice of the North' but many canals and the river are also interesting features of the city.

Some things that gave us a hard time:

• the distances are enormous; it takes forever to cross an average square...
• The public transportation system (?) was chaotic, relevant information was scarce and a large part of it was left to private entrepreneurs with minivans!
• Despite the similarity of the Cyrillic and the Greek alphabet, the Russian language was rather different and difficult for us.
• One of the worst problems was the warning we had had (by our travel guides) that the water pipes of the city were unclean and dangerous and that we had to use mineral water in bottles even to brush our teeth! (The advice: 'cook it, boil it, peel it or forget it!') As the hot water from the tap was rather ...brownish (despite the generally good standards of our hotel) we even showered with cold water (brrr!).
• Not unlike their Greek counterparts, civil servants were not very helpful or polite - but the people were in general friendly and helpful.
  

The Metro was impressive: four lines of VERY fast trains crossing the city. Probably the DEEPEST metro system we've ever seen (it took about five minutes to reach the platforms level from the ground despite the fast escalators - another Russian first: the escalators had an employee sitting in a booth at the bottom of the escalators to ...watch them!).

And here comes the exciting part of our journey: we (actually Stathis) were the victims of pickpockets at the St. Petersburg! A very unpleasant experience as Stathis was 'sandwiched' between two bulky Russians while he was 'relieved' of his wallet, which was, foolishly enough, placed in his pocket. Just before the doors of the train close, the group of the (three, as one more was holding the doors) pickpockets ran out of the coach, leaving us wondering what had happened...

Fortunately enough, we realized immediately that we had been robbed. As the wallet contained just 50 euros but many credit cards we were terrified at the thought of us been charged enormous amounts to our cards. Again, we were fortunate to call immediately to cancel our cards (it took us less than ten minutes) and to block them. This had been a big lesson for us (thankfully not a very costly one). Next time we will return to methods of carrying our valuables that we had abandoned (waist belt-wallets etc) and to change also the type and amount of cards we will carry with us (just a few and prepaid ones).

Right after this incident we visited the Greek consulate to see if there was something they could do for us. Not that we needed much (we still had some cash left and Maria's cards), but they didn't do much to help us in some way either. The staff was friendly and sympathetic though.
Contacts with the (very efficient and helpful!) bank call centers reassured us in the meantime that efforts made by the thieves to use our cards had failed as the cards had already been blocked.

Somewhat relieved to hear that, but still in a rather bad mood, we headed for the famous Hermitage museum. Needless to say, this is indeed an amazing collection of art (the paintings are marvelous) housed in (more than one) impressive, both internally and externally, buildings. A word of advice if you ever visit it: bypass the long lines to the booths selling individual tickets and ask to participate in one of the museum-organized guided tours: it costs 35% less than the individual ticket, you have a guide speaking English to show you the most important exhibits for about 1,5 hour and then you can wander in the museum on your own! We still haven't figured out why people are buying individual tickets! One more remark: prices are different for tourists and for locals, obviously because of the differences in average incomes. Keep in mind that St.Petersburg is not a cheap city although one could tell that its citizens are not rich.

Returning in Helsinki was rather a pleasant thing after all we had suffered. Once again we were impressed by the small things that prove that the Finnish are good and civilized people: as we had lost the parking card (it was stolen with the wallet) they accepted without hesitation our (honest!) declaration that the car had been left for three days in the parking lot and we paid accordingly. Had we been dishonest, we would have paid less and they wouldn't know...

Summer 2004: Northern Exposure (2nd part)

When we arrived to our destination (Oulu), we were pleasantly surprised to find a nice house with a large garden waiting for us. It even had a sauna, which would be, in the days to come, an amazing experience and a source of pleasure for us! Rather different from the landscape of Athens, we were surrounded by equally pretty houses and a forest. The city centre was a 20 minutes ride by car and our first afternoon and evening in Oulu were spent to orienteer and familiarize ourselves with the city. In the next days Oulu proved to be, rather unexpectedly, a quite pleasurable place. It has a picturesque harbour with a small market and some renovated cafes and restaurants in wooden (former) warehouses. We also visited the small islands of the port (Hietasaari, Pikisaari) and even found (again...) some sandy beaches (Nallikari).

A good thing about the North in the summer is that it doesn't get dark until it gets very late. So we had many-many hours of sunlight to do things.

But, as we were so close to the Arctic Circle we were tempted to cross this virtual border: a two hour drive away was the city of Rovaniemi, rather famous in Greece in recent years for being 'the home of Santa Claus'. So we visited Santa's village (took some pictures in Santa's post office, where we left some letters for friends and nephews to be delivered just before Christmas) and an interesting museum, called Arktikum, devoted to the culture and nature of Lappland.

One more interesting experience in Rovaniemi: we had reindeer meat for lunch. Not bad... (A funny incident: we were served beer -in bottles- that it had expired. When we told that to the waitress she was very polite in apologizing and quick to add: 'if you feel sick after you've left, please let us know!...)

On our way to Rovaniemi we even crossed an actual (not that one can really tell the difference between this and a virtual one) border, the one between Finland and Sweden (the cities of Tornio and Haparanda are next to each other).

Next day was devoted once again to the beauties of Oulu: the parks, the little islands and the nice outdoor restaurants. And we used the bikes our hosts had left for us to wander around on the special street zones that were devoted to pedestrians and bicyclists.

And then came the day of ...the animals: we visited a nice zoo in the city of Ranua (the most interesting moments were the sight of the polar bear and that of two little brown bears playing in a pool). What's more, on our way to the zoo we encountered reindeers roaming freely on the road! Maria was driving at the time and she got rather upset...

The time had come for us to start our return to the south of the country. We crossed the wonderful area of the lakes, so full of green and water. The city of Kuopio is worth mentioning. We definitely plan to return some time to the area and spend more time there.

Summer 2004: Northern Exposure (1st part)

Once more we decided to spend our summer vacation's largest part 'up north'. This time we thought of visiting Finland, a country we thought would be cool in many ways (including of course the climate!). Most of our (Greek) friends keep asking us why not spend the whole time by the beach, in Greece. Well, a simple answer would be that we like to see new things and that we like to experience not only different places but different cultures as well.
So we tried to arrange an exchange with a Finnish family. We did find a suitable exchange partner that lived in the northern city of Oulu. 'Fine', we said, 'we'll have a chance to travel through the Finnish countryside and visit many cities along the way'. Searching for the best and cheapest flight (not an easy task as the Olympics were approaching and prices kept rising), we decided to fly Finnair. The first leg, to Zurich, Switzerland, was in a Swiss code-sharing flight, which meant that not even water was served for free...

Our first night in Helsinki gave us the opportunity to have a first walking tour of the city centre and enjoy some sights, as the Kaupatorri (market square), the churches Uspenski (orthodox) and Tuomiokirkko (lutheran). We met a friend and had dinner together and exchanged home and car keys with our Finnish exchange partners. Next day we continued our visit to Helsinki by visiting the Hietaniemi beach (the very fact of the existence of a Helsinki beach may come as a surprise to us Southerners, but it was a pretty nice beach, too) and the wonderful Tempeliaukio church, a modern church that is built inside a rock.
And there we were on our way to the city of Oulu. The roads were fine and the only unusual sign was the one warning drivers of ...reindeer/elk crossings! More on that later...

The first town we visited that is worth mentioning was Rauma: most of the (old) town buildings were made of wood, surprisingly left intact from fires through the years. Walking in the town streets seemed like a stroll in the past- towns from 'western' movies came to mind. (And we also found a nice pastry shop to sweeten our teeth).

Next was the town of Pori, at the time celebrating its world famous jazz festival. The weather was good, the music plenty, the streets crowded and the street food nice. Add some water and there you have it, a fine afternoon: certainly worth buying a couple of t-shirts to remember it. A wonderful sandy beach in the area was that of Yyteri, quite popular with the Finnish, and for a good reason.

Arriving late at night in the town of Vaasa, we spent the night there and left early in the morning continuing our way to Oulu. We had a brief stop for a light lunch in Kokkola and a 10-minute shopping stop at the Lidl supermarket of Raahe.

Photos from Iceland (4)

The Blue Lagoon - an artificial lagoon, which is the most visited sight of Iceland.

Photos from Iceland (3)

The glacier lagoon Jokulsarlon. The set for James Bond movies.