Walking with Paul, Plato and Poseidon: Greece Part 2

For our last day in Greece we decided to take an unplanned road trip. I woke up early and found a Hertz to rent from and an hour later we were on our way! It was a bit cramped because we checked out of our hotel and had all of our bags (plus the stroller) so that meant we all had bags, jackets and other items shoved around our legs and in between us and the doors. (That made the photo-op stops that more enjoyable so we could stretch and untangle our legs from the uncomfortable positions we were in).

The drive south from Athens to Sounio was beautiful. It was not long to get out of the city (it is SO much smaller than Istanbul) and we were in the resort countryside. Lady Hiva and I both thought that the vegetation, the clear blue/green water and the islands off in the distance reminded us so much of Hawaii. (only a bit colder!) We would stop—OK more like I would stop and they had to join in because I was driving…hehe—and take photos whenever we saw something wonderful! It made me want to go swimming. I miss seeing the ocean when I am away for too long.

Greek Coastline with Islands in the distance

It made me want to go swim

Temple of Poseidon off on the distant hill

Sounio is at the Southern tip of the mainland of Greece. On one of the large cliff tops there is a temple dedicated to Poseidon—the god of the sea. Lady Hiva wanted to see it and I am glad that we went. It was so beautiful. The wind was a bit chilly, but the views were breathtaking. Nature truly does provide some amazing experiences.

Sounio Temple of Poseidon

Sounio

My two favorite people--Lady and Lucky Dragon

We were done and our flight still was not for several hours so we—in crazy-Dustin-and-Hiva-travel-style—made an impromptu trip to Delphi. Now Delphi is literally the opposite direction from Athens as Sounio and a bit farther away. But we made the trip anyway. We saw a huge chunk of the country as we went. We passed the farmlands, the city, the cute villages, the fields, the olive orchards and eventually made our way to the large rocky mountains.

Part of the ruins of Delphi

We jumped out and looked at Delphi and the ruins there (again, it was sad to see that it was all purposefully destroyed years ago) and then went back to one of the cliff side villages that we passed on our way—Arachova. It reminded us Uchisari in the Cappadocia area of Turkey or Montepulciano in Italy. Little quaint rock homes clung to the cliff and were decorated with rustic designs. These are the places that if we ever came back we would stay. We ate some more delicious Greek food and went back to Athens to fly out…(we were cutting it really close)

Arachova

Thankfully there was no accidents and that the roads are wide, well-kept and not crowded because we made it to the airport just in time!  It was an amazing (albeit long) day to end our introduction to Greece.