Recommended Travel: Porto (and Barcelona)

The sun is setting to our right, as the train chugs along towards Lisbon ("Lisboa" here in Portugal) from Portugal's second largest city: Porto. In Porto, we have had an amazing day and are ready to move there. After a few days of travel logistical headaches and the like it was wonderful to get to a place that was so welcoming, interesting, beautiful and relaxing.

The Porto Train Station

Before Porto, we were in Barcelona. It is not an understatement to say that Barcelona was a stop on our journey that I had been looking forward to for months. Since I visited Barcelona once before in 2005, I knew that the city personifies so many attributes that I admire, being incredibly international, melding old and new perfectly, super pretty and personifying an unselfconscious coolness that sure seems appealing.

Barcelona

Our plan for the full day we had in one of the coolest cities on earth was a "walkabout". A walkabout, an aboriginal Aussie term, is how we think about a journey that people embark on without a clear plan, taking shape as it evolves. We have co-opted the term for our big days exploring the impressive Euro cities on our itinerary. The Barcelona walkabout did not disappoint.

I must note, we did have a rough plan (this being us) that involved a few Gaudi stops, the beach, the famous street in the old town "Las Ramblas" and the surrounding neighborhood, the Olympic park and the CaxiaForum. I also hoped to check out the Picasso museum, since his work is so interesting and covers a variety of genres, mediums and historical moments. Very luckily, i made it to the museum with about 45 minutes to spare and got to see the impressive collection of early works and the utterly amazing retrospective of more than fifty paintings that re-imagine the famous Velaquez work, "Las Menias". Picasso's 58 piece retrospective takes Las Menias and reworks all or part of it in various color schematics and cubist techniques. It was quite literally spellbinding.

La Familia Sagrada (By Gaudi and still under construction 100 years later)

The highlights for our walkabout day and the evening before included:

Watching the Real Madrid championship league game while enjoying Patatas Bravas, Black Paella (from the squid ink) and other Spanish delights in this great tapas spot in the Garcia neighborhood, the beguiling Parc Guell designed by Gaudi, and Mu's happy and admiring face about how cool the little designer clothes and shoes were in the various boutiques in the old part of the city.




Porto

While Barcelona was great, it felt a bit impersonal. Also, the travel to get to and from Barcelona was off-putting as well. In the end, we actually preferred the city that our train left a few hours ago: Porto. Porto is at the mouth of the Douro river and has a long history of trade. It is one of the economic centers of Portugal and proved to have super cool modern artist, designers, architecture and food. It also helped that we could go out for great dinner for the two of us for 10 Euros instead of 50 Euros. Both Mu and I came away from our (short) time there very impressed and i really encourage anyone thinking about a vacation location to put it under consideration.

Church -- not even a major tourist destination

Why is Porto so awesome?

In short, it melds the old and new worlds seamlessly. One perspective gives you intriguing modern art, hip design and a nightlife of local youth that goes until 6 am without breaking a sweat. The other side of the coin includes classic winding streets, tiled buildings, and gorgeous churches everywhere. The best parts of the city combine both of these, all the while being incredibly friendly and welcoming.

Shopping in Porto :)

Upon reflection, I think this might be the main difference between Barcelona and Porto. In Barca, it was hard in such a short visit to find anything that seemed unique or discovered. In Porto, that happened on an hourly basis --

-eating lunch at a taverna where the owners grilled my deliciously seasoned salmon out on the street while they ate their own saturday afternoon lunch)




-visiting a sweet gallery hosting a photography exhibit of a woman who went to Lapland for a week by her self in the dead of winter and took haunting pictures at -25 degrees celsius;

-wandering around the "Serralves" (Porto's modern art museum and grounds) at dusk on a Friday evening with the place almost to ourselves;




 

-marveling at the views of and from the Se Cathedral;




-stumbling upon a youth art fair with maps of the city over time and the handicrafts of the Portuguese youth in the city...etc .

Porto melded the traditional with the new in a pitch-perfect fashion. As we near Lisboa, i am excited about what the next several days hold and hope that our positive momentum from Porto carries forward. I am sure it will.



 

The best laid plans: pear shaped in France

Things have been a little more stressful these last couple of days, and it all started with our arrival in Nice and the realization that we had zero plans since our car rental was voided. Mu wrote a great post on this, and we did a nice (pun sort of intended) job audibling on the fly to have a really fun time in the Cote d'Azur. Since the initial screw up was my fault, it has felt suboptimal as things have been a bit harder, more expensive and the like.


However, i thought my life raft would come yesterday as we would get on the plane to Barcelona and get on with the tour de force through Southern Europe. This leg of the trip was of particular excitement for me because i had tickets to the champions league game at the famed 95,000 seat Camp Nou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Nou), where Barcelona FC plays their home games. Watching Messi, Xavi and the gang on their home turf was something i had been looking forward to since i got the ticket over a month ago.

However, it was not to be. Upon arriving at the airport in Nice yesterday we went to check in, and found that our flight had been canceled due to a labor strike around the pension system. It was quite surreal, as the strike only affected a handful of flights and the rest of the airport was buzzing. It is very weird to haver a (budget) airline tell you that your flight is canceled when there are dozens of flights taking off from the same airport, and i thought on more than one occasion 'why is this happening ton our flight versus all the others?'

We tried a number of options, including other carries (cheapest flight that (sort of) got me to there in time game was well over 200 euros a pop), our travel insurance (not valid for french air strikes, bizarrely), our British Airways exec club memberships (no dice), rental car with other stranded travelers (very pricey and not going to get me to the game), and bus/train (both take about 12 hours from Nice to Barca, so no dice). Slowly the realization and acceptance crept over my cosience, i was not making it to the Nou Camp, we were not going to be in Barcelona tonight and we had to find a way to kill/enjoy the next 24 hours. I tired my best not to think too much about the apartment we had already secured in Barcelona for the night, and how much i was looking forward to getting settlted before the game.

This was a difficult realization, as i really had been looking forward to the Nou Camp for weeks. However, i am acutely aware of how lucky we are to be traveling to all these great locations, and if one day was traded from Barca to the French Rivera, that is certainly not the worst forced trade in the world. Sounds pretty nice in the abstract, honestly. Still, it stung.

After we had exhausted all options we could muster, we grudgingly conceded to the reality of another day in France and headed to the bus station. On a whim, we went to Cannes as opposed to back to Nice, arriving near sunset. Of course, there was a convention in full bloom and the first 5-6 hotels were totally full, until one of the booked hotels took pity on Mu and called another place that offered a discount to stay a few blocks from the port. We got tucked in our cozy little room and then headed out to see the town. It is not as cute as Nice and Monaco, more functional than those quaint gems, but we did manage to see an amazing sunset from the fort on the bluff protecting the south end of the city. It was one of the best sunsets on our trip, amazing and subtle color over the rugged country and the Med.

We also had one last meal of moules frites (i will never, ever get tired of those feasts), with the obligatory 4 euro bottle of still water, which was quite delicious. I watched the Barca game from an irish bar on the main pavilion of Cannes. It was quite hoping and enjoyable, Cannes is a city that is active and cosmopolitain at all hours of the day and night. It would have been great to be at the Nou Camp for the epic thriller of a game (Jordi Alba with an injury time winner: http://espnfc.com/uk/en/report/355670/report.html?soccernet=true&cc=5739), but since it was not to be we made the best of it and had a really nice night out in famed and beautiful Cannes.




I write this from that same apartment in Barca, just one day late and looking across the twinkling city after midnight here. It has not been the greatest couple of days, but that is travel sometimes and we have had a very nice time despite the challenges. Again, we are so aware of how fortunate we are to have adventures in Nice, Cannes, Barcelona and the whole host of special places we have been to over the last 50 days. Letting go of the attachments to an imagined future and enjoying the moment may not come entirely natural in times of frustration but it greatly enhances my actual present and future. It is a personal goal to strive for being present and happy in most every situation, and an ongoing internal journey that i got a nice little lesson in over the last several days.




Check out the full album of pics from the French Riviera here: https://picasaweb.google.com/107842809281323581448/TheDreamCoteDAzur

 

The Best Laid-Plans: Monaco

Stoic in Nice

We arrived in Nice at 2 pm three days ago and began our search for a cafe with internet (or with "wee-fee" as the French call it). We needed internet because we were not sure where to pick up our rental car. We had gotten a sweet deal on a car rental -- 3 days for $60 Euros and we could pick it up in Nice and drop it off in Barcelona. We needed to arrive in Barcelona today (10/23) so that Wilson could see an amazing soccer game -- Champion's League game between Barce and Celtic.

On the way to Barcelona, we planned climb on to limestone cliffs overlooking the sea at Les Calanques, by Marseille, France, "couch-surf" for our first time, and drive through the Pyrenees. In the Pyrenees, I had hoped to see a little of Basque Country and to visit places where my mom had spent the summer of 1961 (I think that's the right year) building a road when she was 19.

In Nice, we found a charming little cafe called "Pancake" and settled in with our coffee drinks called "Noisette" and "Americano" and opened up our i-pad to check on that car rental reservation. Zut alors!

We discovered that a couple of weeks ago we had ignored what we thought was a routine confirmation email from the car rental company. That email was not to confirm our booking --it was to cancel our booking. So there we sat at "Pancake" with our bags of clothes and rock-climbing equipment (approx. 110 pounds in total) with no plans and nowhere to stay in one of the most expensive global regions, the French Riviera. Whoops.

The place that we had planned to stay for the night, a "couch-surfing" spot was a small town a two hour plus-drive away. We had recently joined the "couch-surfing" website, www.couchsurfing.org, where you create a profile and ask to sleep on people's couches or spare rooms. No money is exchanged -- it is a cultural exchange. No car to get there -- no couch surfing.

What now? A tug-of-war between us over the i-pad began in earnest as we both tried to research:

(a) Car Rental (only Mercedes cars and upwards available -- we don't have the funds to cruise the Riviera like that);

(b) alternative modes of transport to end up in Barcelona (bus? train? ferry? plane?);

(c) climbing (would we ever get to do it again?); and

(d) where were we going to sleep tonight? (Pancake did not appear to be an option).

We eventually figured out the answers to the interrelated questions of b and c. We decided to go to Monaco! Where else should you go when adventure backpacking on a budget?




In Monaco, we didn't end up in the suit and tie mandatory casinos but we did hike up super steep hills from this little densely populated country back to France to a small village called La Turbie. During our online tug-of-war, Wilson had found out that there was climbing right by La Turbie -- so close that we could walk to it. The problem was how to get to La Turbie and that is why we ended up in Monaco -- albeit briefly.

After Pancake, we decided to try to "luck" into accommodation in Nice that night so with Wilson carrying 75 pounds of stuff and me carrying 35 pounds, we headed in the direction of where we thought cheap (for Nice) accommodation would be. On our way, we took in the Nice Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MOMCA).



Then as dusk began to settle in, we finally came upon a little inexpensive hotel where we got a very small room (they said it was only for one person) after six flights of stairs. It was their last room and we were glad for it.




The next morning, we woke up and ran through Nice and up to an incredibly beautiful park. In the pic above, you can see the park, Colline du Chateau, overlooking Nice, miles of the Côte d'Azur and the harbour. We then wandered through the fruit and flower market before we took the bus to Monaco and hiked uphill for 2 hours from Monaco to La Turbie -- Again Wilson was carrying 75 pounds of stuff.

The Old Town of La Turbie

We had to make the hike down again today. Here is a picture from the climbing crag of Monaco. Even though our "best-laid plans" didn't include another country in our itinerary and a lot of hiking, it was still an excellent way to spend the last 3 days.We loved La Turbie and the climbing was great, excellent quality while perched on top of uber dense Monaco, with helicopters jetting about and all of the mega yachts mere matchboxes below.



 

Corsica: saying goodbye doesn't get easier on the road

It was with a heavy heart that Mu and I watched the sunrise this morning from the deck of the ferry between Bastia, Corsica and Nice.

We are excited to be moving onward and westward, with the next 10 days or so taking us to the French Riviera, Barcelona and Portugal. Great places all around, but we had to say goodbye to our dear friends this morning and are back to being two travelers. We have had such a wonderful time with Tanya, Nick, Josie and Lily over the better part of the last two weeks, and coupled with our long weekend in Bologna we are feeling quite happily connected, and comforted, to family and friends. It will take some getting used to before it feels natural to be back to our little two-person entity, I think.

The climbing has also been amazing, as we touched on in our last post. We had one more day here in Corsica, climbing on featured granite in a deep valley outside of the mountain town of Corte. The setting was eerily similar to Boulder Canyon in CO, to anyone that has been up that canyon to climb, pedal or paddle. We always love the climbing/travel combo, as the climbing gives purpose to the travel, and takes us to little corners of cultures and locations that would certainly go missed otherwise. Climbing with friends is excellent, as they help you reach a higher level of performance and reinforce the strides made in both the mind and body (both of which must be right to climb well).

I was also sad to leave Corsica after only a couple of days, as it has proved to be thoroughly charming, both physically and historically. Everyone was making fun of me for having a crush on the island, and that is a charge I am happy to confirm. The island is incredibly mountainous, with super steep peaks littered throughout. There are a number of treks ranging from a few days to 3 or so weeks, and we just touched on the mountains yesterday with a day hike up to some deep alpine lakes. Then, the coast is stunning as the ferry ride out of Bastia confirms, with little cute villages and medieval towers perched on the hills overlooking the Ligurian Sea. Pretty sure I will be coming back to Corsica at some point.

Historically, Corsica has been the way station for many cultures, especially those with naval strength, controlled by the Roman Empire, a number of city states in Italy, France and others. There is a fierce sense of independence, which is stronger in the rugged inland, even though the country is part of France, and has been for roughly the last 200 years. One simple example of comes from streets signs, which are written in the native Corsican tongue (not taught in schools here until the 80's, by the way) as well as the colonial French. These seem pretty similar to an non-french speaker, but the difference is profound to some Corsicans as virtually every sign that had the french version was spray painted to the point of being illegible. This island is a case where the topography and geography of a place has a clear influence on the culture. There is a strong sense of clan, with even the occasional modern day vendetta carried out in the street. More recently, Corsica was the first beachhead made by the Allied forces in the Med during WWII and then served as a jumping off point for all of the efforts to retake mainland Europe.

All told, we look so fondly on our last 2 weeks on two rugged and ideal islands. The food, culture and landscape have been stunning, and made all the more enriching and enjoyable to have shared them with such special friends We love you guys and miss you already.

 

 

 

Travel Thoughts: Getting the most out of your vacation

****Special Contributors: T-dawg,JosieBean, and Nick-E D

The five of us (W, M and our 3 special contributors) will travel altogether for 11 days. The five of us have already been vacationing for 8 days and we had one other compadre, Ms. Lily Anna North, for 5 of those days. We have 3 more days to "make the most" of our vacation.

Lily on a gigantic rope swing

Pictures of the special contributors below:

JosieBean

T-dawg

Nick-E D

In the past 8 days, we have hiked to our car with headlamps 5 days and woken up with alarms for 7 days. Some (JB) may claim that we aren't even on vacation. But even that one won't be able to erase the smile from her face remembering the view from the top of the multi-pitch climb that she and Nick-E D completed over one of the most beautiful beaches in Sardinia, Cala Luna.

Climbing around the beaches of Sardinia has been pretty special. The water is clear.




The weather is cool enough to climb but warm enough to swim.

While playing on the beach, T-dawg and JB took pictures of W and Nick E - D climbing. W must have been especially photogenic in his green and white tight short swimsuit (the "sunga") because other people on the beach began taking pictures of W as well.

Even though the 5 of us love to fill our vacations with physical exercise and beach time, we've welcomed the cultural and social interactions that Sardinia has provided. A cultural highlight was after we had piled into our 5 person car on a sheets of rain day to search for a dry place to rock climb. While searching for a dry place to climb, we came upon a charming town -- Monteleone Rocca Doria. Monteleone Rocca Doria currently has 130 inhabitants and is almost 1000 years old. It is perched on top of a mountain with a stellar climbing cliff band and overlooks a tentacled body of water.

It was wet and cold when we got out of car in Monteleone Rocca Doria. No problem! We found a bread museum. The bread museum showcased the local art of turning bread dough into ornate decorations and jewelry that resemble clay and porcelain craft. [http://www.ssardinia.com/en/land/cultura/storia-e-architettura/centro-di-documentazione-della-panificazione-tradizionale-in-sardegna.html]. But the true of highlight of the museum was the hostess -- she showed us the amazing view from the museum's rooftop terrace, picked pomegranites for us from the garden outside, and kissed us goodbye.

***As a side note: Kissing on the cheeks can be tricky -- it's important to either go in slow or know which direction to kiss first. (JB almost got a kiss on the lips).

Luckily, later we found the climbing area -- more climbing pics below. [Not the differences in weather -- the climbing by Monteleone Rocca Doria was cold! And climbing other places was hot!
















The 5 of us are now back in the car -- 3 girls in the back, 2 boys in the front -- for a day of transit. We will spend at least 3 hours in the car here in Italy, then 1 hour on a ferry crossing the strait of Bonifacio to the French island of Corsica. We will then drive at least 2 hours in France to reach our destination Corte. On this transit day of both potential motion sickness and beautiful sea and mountain scenery, we return to the question -- what does it mean to get the most out of a vacation? Is it better to relax as much as possible or to trying to do the most stuff possible? And if you are doing "stuff", how do allocate time between both doing the various options of exercising, seeing sites and museums, shopping, enjoying food and drink, having cultural experiences like seeing music, and traveling to do those various options?

Our thoughts about how to best accomplish a balance between the various options of doing "stuff" and relaxing is to, first, weigh the opportunity costs, second, plan ahead and be practical about what is logistically possible, and third, perhaps most importantly, minimize transit time where you feel cooped up (e.g., bus, taxi, car). Although transit time can be exciting with new views, new sites, new towns, it isn't always our favorite use of time. Maximization across these multiple variables can be tricky, of course, and the cruel reality of opportunity cost is also a challenge, but with good friends, amazing places and an open mind it all seems to work out.



 

 

Northern Italy: coming 'home' again

With our flight from Greece to Italy, we moved from super old antiquities to merely very old castles which predate America by many centuries. For instance, the university in Bologna is the oldest in Europe and has been in operation for nearly a millennium. Coming to Italy felt familiar as compared to the newness of Greece, Jordan, Turkey and Israel, part because we visited here together several years ago and more importantly the lovely visit we had with my cousin, Jen.


Arco/Verona

Our first stop in Italy was the well known outdoor focused town/region of Arco. This area is a delightful mix of the wine country of Napa Valley and the massive alpine lake and outdoor culture of Lake Tahoe. Since we have a strong affinity for both of those areas, combining them into one made for a place that was both pleasantly familiar and awesome. The similarities to Tahoe were particularly enjoyable, as Mu and i have spent nearly every winter weekend in Tahoe with our dear friends over the last 3-4 years.

The mountain lake in Arco is Lake Garda, and it is ringed by mountains rising a couple of thousand meters, and in some cases with thousand foot sheer cliffs cutting straight into the lake. It is a bit of an outdoor mecca, famed for rock climbing and mt biking, with a number of other outdoor activities on tap. We were focused on the climbing, which is quite well set and lead to us climbing on cliffs nestled in a grove of olive trees one day and high above the lake in a forest the other. Both crags had views of the lake, as well as vineyards, small villages, castles and seemingly endless big mountains. Honestly, the climbing was not as stellar as in Turkey and Greece, but the setting more than compensated and we had a great time.

We stayed a spectacular hour drive south of Arco, to be near the city of Verona. Having heard a number of good things about its charm, we wanted to check it out. Our B&B was in a small town about 10k outside of the city center, with tiny streets and a very relaxed vibe. We got to go into the city one night for a fancy dinner out in at this place (http://www.lacantinadel15ristoranteverona.it/), which we had read about and found after a charming hour of wandering the old city, seeing the famed forum from the outside, walking along the river and throughout the many, many pedestrian streets.The restaurant was down a flight of glass stairs in a basement, with delicious food and romantic ambiance. The two best things were a Parmesan flan app and the molten chocolate cake with vanilla sauce for desert, while the house white wine was quite delicious as well.

Bologna

After the two days in Arco, we cruised down to Ozzanna del'Emilia, right outside of Bologna, to visit my cousin, Jen, and her family. Jen has lived in Italy longer than she lived in the US, having met her husband, Mauricio, while studying abroad in Bologna 20 years ago. We were excited to see everyone and the visit ended being a clear highlight of our travels. After so many days on the road, meeting new people and making fast friends, it was deeply satisfying and comforting to be with family for a few days. We are so grateful for their bountiful hospitality and wish we had planned much longer for our visit.

It helps that their lifestyle is so enjoyable and relaxing. Some of the best times were the lingering lunches and dinners at their apartment, sitting around and talking/sharing with the sumptuous food. On the food front, visiting family in Italy is VASTLY superior to eating in restaurants, as each meal Jen, Litizia, Samantha and Mauricio prepared was off the charts delicious. They also evolved more gradually and enjoyably, with several distinct courses, followed by fresh fruit and always wrapped up with a little cappuccino. It is impossible for me to identify favorite, as they were all so yummy, be it the salmon cream pasta, baked calamari, chicken and potatoes baked in their pizza oven or the fresh tortellini with a butter sage sauce, the pasta being made that day in Ozzanna. Right now, my stomach is churning from the memories right now, and i just ate breakfast!

Beyond the lovely meals, we also got to do a number of really fun thigns throughout our visit, including a bike ride into the old city of Bologna with its arcades and plazas and famed towers, as well as a trail run in the hills above Ozzanna, a night out for pizza and gelato, and my personal favorite - a super fun sunset mt bike ride with Mauricio with technical ascents, as well as mellow ups passing vineyards and other fields. That led to super steep and flowing descents on both rock and trail. I was grinning/laughing the whole way down. (The ride back also went underneath the famed skier Roberto Tomba's "Tomba la Bomba" house, which was pretty cool.)

Our visit came to an end much too soon, with a delightful evening TV sports doubleheader of the Napoli soccer game followed by the Pats/Broncos tilt (both victories for the home team, by the way). I did not expect to get to see the Pats this fall so watching the game felt like a delightfully 'stolen' moment (with the game ending at 1:30 and our alarm going off at 5:15 to get to the airport, it was stolen from my night of sleep). It felt like home.

 

Greece: Ancient history with a dash of modern tension

Our most recent segment of the trip has been sublime, in parts of the world that we would happily return and have been looking forward to visiting for quite some time, the Greek isles and Athens. For some reason, Greece has always held an allure to me, i think this is primarily due to the early James Bond movies that seemed to tour through the islands on a regualr basis. I was hooked with Sean Connery either diving through the Aegean Sea to reach an evil lair or frolicking with a Bond girl on a picture perfect, island beach with that same sea shimmering in the horizon. These movies were a big part of my youth and the reality of the country did not disappoint.


Greece - Kalymnos

Our first stop was the island of Kalymnos, which is probably one of the top 5 sport climbing destinations in the world. It has miles of interesting limestone climbing, all looking out at the sea and several islands worth of coast. By chance, North Face was hosting a climbing festival on the island the same weekend, so there were hundreds of climbers mostly from all over Europe that were enjoying the great weather, the crags and the afternoon swims.

The living is easy too, as we had an apartment perched at the top of the 'town', with an open veranda to the vistas and some of the best sunsets imaginable (see the picture below for a prime example). The view was so nice, we slept with the French doors open and the moonlight streaming in, even though that resulted in several hundred bug bites between the two of us. Well worth it. One thing that was a bit of surprise was how bare the greek isles in our part of the country proved to be, with almost no vegetation to be seen. I am not sure if this the result of the islands being deforested by the centuries upon centuries of habitation, or whether it is a natural occurrence.

Greece - Athens

After a few days of hard, enjoyable and spectacular climbing, we caught a couple of ferries in the afternoon and overnight up to Athens. The latter was on a massive ferry, with multiple levels, soccer on the TV,several restaurants and hundreds of people throughout (most of them smoking cigarettes, by the way). With a nearly full moon, the famed greek isles slipped through the night in quite some style.

Morning found us docking at the very large port of Athens, Piraeus (sp). Simply put, Athens is the place for antiquities. Scholars say that the golden period for Athens occurred from 8th century BC through the 5th century BC before the Persians came and sacked the City in 489 BC. [check]. Democracy was invented during this period and a thriving art culture was also dominant, resulting in intricate and beautiful marble sculptures and structures. Subsequently, Athens was invaded over and over again but this golden period and Athens accompanying honor allowed the City to flourish under various invaders, including the Romans, who sought to co-opt that honor.

A few high lights include;

- The Acropolis— The ancient holy city of Athens, made to honor the god Athena. This includes the famous Parthenon, but also other large temples made from marble. From the top, the massive city of Athens nestles between large hills with the Aegean Sea in the distance. There is also an amazing and impressive new Acropolis museum that is one of the best museums i have ever attended ( the Tate Modern, MOMA, SFMOMA, Portland (Maine) Museum of Art round out my list). The museum literally sits over ruins that are revealed through glass floors and has a stunning amount of sculptures and other pieces of history on display in a bright, airy and modern setting. The top floor has segments of the original friezes from the parthenon, which you can see from the museum. We also had a delicious lunch on the patio, overlooking the old district of the city with the Parthenon dominating the view from above.

- Plaka and Monastiraki districts — these neighborhoods are at the base of the acropolis, and feature classic winding streets with tavernas, galleries, gelaterias and cafes (and yes, plenty of stores full of kitsch) throughout. It is quite charming, touristy and bustling. We also checked out a few of the more modern parts of town, renting an apartment in an area called Mets, running in the swanky area and getting drinks in a a couple different trendy areas.

- Panathinaiko Stadium— lastly, there was a quick visit to this large, gleaming white stadium, which hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. The stadium is constructed from roughly 94,000,000 tons of marble, and it was fun to consider the lineage of those Olympics in 1896 when Sports were a pastime and not a livelihood to the enormity and commercialization of the current Olympic Games.

The last thing I wanted to share about Greece was the perceived impact of the ongoing financial crisis. While we were there, the Greeks announced that their economy had contracted for the 6th straight year and projected a roughly 5% reduction in their GDP. The day before we arrived, a general strike took place to protest the new, provisional government's proposed (and very necessary) austerity measures. In general, the country suffers from both an extreme aversion to paying taxes and a work force that is heavily dependant on public sector employment. As a result, the State faces massive budget shortfalls while the confidence in the State from outside investors is extremely low. Tourism is an essential part of the greek economy, with roughly 18 million visitors a year, most coming from other European country, so i hope that there is not a material degradation in tourist confidence as well.

Having read at length about the crisis over the last several years, i was curious to see if i noticed anything on the ground. In short, i did see a few things that reflected the crisis, but not nearly as many as i had anticipated. First, there were quite a large number of large infrastructure project, primarily large highways, that seemed to be half completed and neglected for the foreseeable future. Secondly, there was a fair bit of anti-austerity graffiti on the streets of Athens. Considering how confusing greek is to read ('it is all greek to me' rang in my head throughout our time in the country), i predict that we were only understanding a very small percentage of graffiti, and still there were abundant messages in English against capitalism and austerity on buildings. Lastly, in the center of Athens there were several large mobile bus police vans staffed with anti-demonstration police. The row of anti-riot shields and and helmets at the ready was an ominous sign of the common occurrence protests have become for the greek capital.

Those indicators of crisis aside, i did not hear too much tension about the ongoing and wearing crisis from the greeks that we met along the way. There were a few knowing allusions to the crisis and 'austerity' but the people we met seemed quite sanguine about the challenges their country is undergoing (maybe resigned as well). It was a small sample, so it is impossible to have it be representative in any fashion. Anyway, we loved the country and hope it is able to work out a viable long term solution with the EBC and Germany that allows for progress/growth within the internal economy and a commiserate increase in confidence from outside investors/bond holders. That seems unlikely at this moment but perhaps a rising tide and can lift all boats, it is a great country with such essential millenniums of history, and one hopes that it get back to a 10 year bond yield spread worthy of that illustrious history.