Chillin' in Paros

While Fads and Mark traipsed around Italy, John and I headed to Paros for a week of catching up on things. We went via Athens first where a long-awaited meeting happened. Through my scrapping, I have made a few good friends from various parts of the world and one of those wonderful ladies is Valia, from Athens. Once I knew I was going there we just had to meet! We were both so excited to actually meet in real life! Valia was every bit as wonderful in real life as she is online and we had a truly fantastic night. Woooohoooo!!!!

We'll meet again one day Valia!

We flew on to Paros and the flight was lovely. Nothing beats that stunning blue of the Mediterranean Sea.

Paros is one of the mid-sized islands in the Cyclades region of the Greek islands. We had basic but good accommodation which was great because we spent a lot of time in it just getting the next stages of our trip organised. We had the upstairs area where the two balconies are. The male model is demonstrating the correct pose to adopt on staircases!

Paros is not beautiful in the classical sense. Like most Greek islands it is barren, arid and rocky. Also like most Greek islands, it's beauty lies in the buildings and the water.

The architecture on Paros is very cubist.

The painted paving and brightly coloured balcony railings reminded me a lot of nearby Mykonos.

A few old windmills have been converted to accommodation.

The harbour was lovely. genuine fishing boats lined up around the beautiful church.

Ruins of an old Venetian fort made for a gorgeous backdrop.

Each morning, John rode his bike while I walked. Walking wasn't so good here. Everything was so bleak, although the water was lovely. We were based in the town of Naoussa and there wasn't a real lot to see nearby. John could go further on his bike though and he enjoyed it.

It was also really hot! They were having a bit of a heatwave so we had to get up before dawn to get our exercise done before it got too hot. We got to see some great sunrises though!

See that chimney in the distance in the above photo? That was a diesel-generated power station. It was ok during the day as other noises muffled the sound of its engine, but at night it kind of ruined things for us. We had a beautiful balcony to sit on but we never used it because the sound of the generator made it unpleasant. It is probably similar to the wind turbine noise we will face at home if the local wind project goes ahead with its much larger turbines so close to homes. We worked a lot on the wind issue while we were holed up there for the week and it was hard going. Maybe we should sell up and move to Greece! (Just joking, Mum.)

One thing about Greece in general though is that they don't spend a lot of time keeping the countryside clean. They abandon houses all the time, leaving them to decay, even when they're in spectacular locations like this one. However, the Global Financial Crisis would have played its part too.

They're not too fussy where they dump their rubbish either. This was just beside a road I was walking on.

I decided to put these photos in because I tend to only show the good side of places. I think its good to show a more balanced view.

On one of my walks I came across a sign pointing to a Mycenaean acropolis. I climbed to the top of the hill and found mounds of rocks. I'm really not sure what they were all about but it was cool anyway!

The view from the top was great.

Early morning was a great time to walk while John rode his bike.

It took us a few days to discover the great restaurants in the town. My goodness - the food was fabulous! We often ate in the narrow lane-ways. 

I found this heavily pregnant cat one day with one blue and one green eye. She was stunning!

Beside the main church was a cemetery. They put electric lanterns on the graves here. It gave such a beautiful atmosphere. Graveyards elsewhere can be foreboding, creepy or scary places but this one was so inviting and relaxing. Our kids take note - I want a lantern on my grave!!

In our whole week here we never ventured beyond the town we were staying in so, when we left for the next island, we allowed time to explore the main port town, Parikia. It was smaller than Naoussa but was interesting enough. There was a Frankish castle whose walls were built from ruins of previous temples.

They had cleverly renovated an old windmill and it made a lovely feature on the very busy waterfront.

So that was our week of catching up on things. We got a lot of the next - and last! - leg of our journey planned. Yes, we'll be home in early November! I also got some scrapping done with the new products that Valia had given me. We also rested up which was probably just as well because the next week turned out to be huge! Stay tuned for the next instalment.......

Heather and John

And then there were seven.......

We dragged ourselves away from Switzerland while we still had a few dollars left in our pockets and headed to Provence in southern France. Our long-time friend, Barry, has a house here and very kindly offered to put us all up.

We arrived in the evening and found a group of people had all been invited over for dinner. We were delighted to catch up with Jane again, who we had met on our last trip, plus some others that we had heard of. To our astonishment, one of the ladies, who now lives in England, was born and raised in Ballarat! Leonie from Ballarat is in the centre and Barry's on the left of this photo. We had a wonderful dinner with great people.

The next day was wet and cool so we had a quiet day which didn't hurt at all. We checked out the local flea market and went for a bit of a walk around the village. We found this great Trompe L'oeil painting on a wall.

Speaking of Trompe L'oeil paintings, Barry showed us around his huge cellar. The house used to be owned by a Baron centuries ago and there was an escape tunnel from the cellar. The tunnel started collapsing so Barry had it filled in then had this wonderful painting put over it.

If the Saturday was quiet then the Sunday was huge! Jane kindly invited us over for lunch. I'm not sure she knew quite what she was getting herself into! Barry showed us around her town first. We loved the old Roman Bridge although it has such a sad history. A flash flood drowned many people here about 25 years ago.

The setting was perfect - the sun was out and we sat on the deck at Jane's house. Jane's English friend, Hilary, was also there, so there were seven of us. We brought plenty of wine and we had a really wonderful, fun-filled afternoon.

Mark found a guitar and the music started. After a few drinks we were all such brilliant singers!

The tempo picked up as the boozy afternoon progressed. What's wrong with a little dance in the sunshine?

Things started to deteriorate when I picked up the drumsticks. 'My Sharona' will never be the same again!

We decided to explore Jane's village a bit more and had a ball. We climbed a hill, explored old lane-ways and checked out views. The seven stooges were in good form.

It was a tad windy on top of the hill!

Fads and I found some beautiful artwork in one of the small shops.

Thank you to Barry, Jane and all their friends for showing us such great hospitality!

We said our goodbyes and sadly left beautiful Provence. We drove to Nice where we dropped off Dusty, the hire car, and flew to Venice. We had a huge apartment right on one of the main squares. The weather was cool but it was OK.

Two happy Aussies in the city of romance.....

It happened to be my birthday the day we arrived so we planned a cicchetti evening. Cicchettis are small snacks that you have with drinks.

First stop. The cicchettis were good and we had to have Prosecco with them of course!

The second stop was the best by far. The meatballs were simply amazing! I've never been excited by meatballs before! We met up with an English couple and spent the rest of the night with them. Fun times!

The third stop had terrible food - fried things re-heated in a microwave. Check out Mark's face. He hated them. It's lucky the Prosecco was good!

Last stop was a gelato place. We found a sensational gelato place the next day but this was fine at the time!

Venice seemed more crowded and less special this time around for us and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was because the other times we've been there we've come straight from home, and waking up at 5am and walking the streets seeing the city wake up is a pretty amazing thing to do.

Having said that, we seemed to have more of a party time this time around. John had booked a wine tasting and lunch for us all at the Venissa winery on a nearby island. We caught a ferry out to the island and passed one of a number of leaning towers on the way. These towers were all built hundreds of years ago on very low islands and many are leaning to one side as the earth under them is unstable.

During the lunch it started to rain. Then it poured and poured! Good thing we were snug and dry inside. And good thing that the red wine made by their winemaker in not-too-distant Tuscany was amazing.....................................

We started talking to an American couple, Joan and Bob, at the next table and, as the rain kept falling, we all settled in for the afternoon. This can be a dangerous thing to do at a winery! John reckons Joan is a dead ringer for Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane. Anyone else agree?

The rain finally eased and it turned out that we were all planning to go to the next island, Burano, to check out the coloured houses in the fishing villages. Burano was only a short walk away via a bridge. As we walked along, a young girl, Katie, asked where we were from. It turned out that she was American but lived in Sydney. Of course, she joined us. So now we were seven again!

Tadah! An excited Aussie in Italy.

Burano was stunning.

Two crazy girls having a blast.

We ferried back to Venice and the seven of us stayed in a bar for a while just chatting and having a good time. Katie, Joan and Bob eventually left and the remaining four of us had a really wonderful dinner in a very cool restaurant.

We took things a bit easier the next day. We checked out the Rialto Market and saw amazing fish and things like gorgeous bunches of chillies.

We had fun just exploring the city. This was very cool!

Classic Venice.

St Mark's Basilica detail.

Fads, Mark and I went inside St Mark's Basilica. There was a huge queue but Fads and Mark worked out a jump-the-queue system and we got in really quickly which was amazing considering the queue snaked for hundreds of metres! The interior was incredible and we got to overlook St Mark's Square from a balcony. There were surprisingly few people in the square - they were all in the queue!

Four Aussies on the Rialto Bridge.

The next day, Fads and Mark left to go to Florence. John and I had one more day so we joined a walking tour. It was fun and informative. One place we knew nothing about was the Jewish Ghetto. For many years, Jews were segregated from the general community in Venice but at least they were allowed to live there, unlike many other places in Europe. There were memorials to the Jews who were taken to concentration camps and never returned. This is just a small part of a list of their names and ages. It's sobering stuff.

Venice is lovely at night.

We saw the sun rise as we waited for our ferry to the airport the next morning. Arrivederci Venezia!

Heather and John