RTW Honeymoon #9: Cold War Memories and Grecian Ruminations - Italy and Greece

Cold War Memories and Grecian Ruminations


July 28th, 2002

Imagine that you have been living on the road, sleeping in dormitories and train cars, eating Nutella and bread like it was the only food on the space shuttle, freezing to death one night, sweating to death the next, never having all of your clothes clean at the same time...

...and then you wake up. At home. A big, comfortable bed in a private room. Birds are singing, you're warm and comfortable, Mom has put breakfast on the table; a cornucopia of fruits, jams, breads...everything you could want. You realize your laundry has been done. And ironed. In fact, your clothes smell like apple blossoms.

A fantasy, you say? Kim and Sean have finally lost their wits, drank too much Czech-made absynthe, climbed far too high in the Swiss Alps? Maybe sent themselves to chemical oblivion in Amsterdam or had WAY too much sangria in Spain?? No, no...your happy heroes have woken up in the small German town of St. Johann where the hospitality of a friend's family has achieved dream-like proportions. Our German friend, Julia the midwife, has invited us to spend the weekend at her family's home. We were escorted to castles, caves, horse festivals, Mexican fiestas in Stuttgart (no kidding), a once-a-year festival in a tiny German town (yes, smaller than St. Johann) and treated to some good ole, down-home German hospitality.

But things haven't always been beer and schnitzel for Julia's family. Her parents orchestrated a daring escape from Eastern Europe when she was just 12 years old. Apparently, a family member was a high-ranking member of the East German border guards and had a lot to lose should members of his family fall into disrepute (i.e. escape from Eastern Germany). Julia's family orchestrated a last-minute harrowing escape wherein they purchased a new car and fled to the border, hoping they wouldn't be recognized in their new vehicle. Unfortunately, their family member happened to be the one on duty that night, at the very gate through which they hoped to make their escape!

The ruse worked. He glanced at the car, failing to recognize his own family member in the new vehicle, and waved them through. Just weeks before Russia withdrew her support of East Germany and the subsequent collapse of the Berlin wall, Julia's family escaped from Eastern Germany under the very nose of a family member who, by all rights, would have prevented their escape if it were possible. Travelling without stop through Poland, they fled to the safety of the west.

It was with heavy, reluctant footwear that we departed from Stuttgart's main station in a whiff of apple blossom-smelling clothing on our way to Florence, Italy (Julia saw us off, taking the opportunity for one more act of unexpected kindness: some home-made sandwiches). In Florence we walked around slurping fresh-made gelato and snapping photos of any pale human form that didn't move too fast (for those who don't know, Florence has some of the most beautiful marble statues in the world - Michelangelo's David, for example). Sean turned a year older and committed the day to tape (soon to be the sixth chapter in his day-in-the-life video documentary series), Kim was picked out of the crowd by a vaudeville comedian, and we enjoyed a fantastic pasta dinner to beat all previous pasta dinners. *urp* ...excuse us.

Rome!

From Florence we headed to Rome where, like responsible tourists, we walked through ancient Roman ruins, saw the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel and attended mass at St. Peter's Cathedral (sorry, no pope sightings!). Not having had enough of the whole Catholic sight-seeing bag, we left Rome for Assisi, where the revolutionary esthetic monk, St. Francis, inspired the Franciscan order of monks by his austere, tree-hugging lifestyle. Cinque Terra - you have a stair-filled competitor: Assisi!

Assisi itself appears almost untouched after all the centuries on its quiet, cobblestoned (and staircased!) mountain perch, surrounded by beautiful mountain woodlands and sprinkled with Roman architecture that's gracefully beginning to show its age. Should one desire, one might climb for two hours up a steep and secluded mountain trail, past incredible views of the Italian countryside to where the Franciscan order maintains a humble monastery in the same caves where St. Francis once lived. Or, should one have a car or a bus ticket, one can take a 20-minute trip over modern asphalt around the back of the mountain to walk another five minutes over to where the monastery is. Guess which one we did? Okay, okay, so Kim had the sense to remain at the hostel, heading up to Assisi later that afternoon with a bottle of cold water to meet her brave, strong (er, too-cheap-to-buy-a-stupid-bus-ticket) husband.

So, enough hiking, photography and "responsible" tourism! Our brave duo heads south to relax a few days on the Amalfi coast. Amalfi is like a large Cinque Terra with Vespas everywhere. The cliffs and azure blue waters astonish while the mixed drinks at the local bar relax. The one downside - spending twice what we normally do for lodgings to sleep in...literally, a closet. No kidding. There was about 10 inches between the edge of our bunk beds and the opposite wall. We had to take turns getting in and out. Sideways. And a door? Door? We had one of those vinyl accordian things that slides into the wall, you know, the kind that was really popular in the 70's? Yeah. Did we mention the very convenient kleenex tissues that the hotel left us to use as mattress cushions? We were so distressed that we were forced to spend all of our time patronizing the beach and the local pub...it was awful. We had a terrible, terrible time. *grin*

From Amalfi we made the big jump to Greece. First we discovered that Greece allows free passage for Eurorail pass holders (us), but that in July and August there's just a few surcharges...a $20/person high season fee, a port tax, a tax for being American, a tax for having backpacks, a tax for being bipedal, a tax for inhaling, a tax for ...you get the idea. We worked it out that we saved about $2 with our passes. ANYWAY, being deck passengers we, along with all the other backpackers on board, found that we were not allowed to sleep in the indoor lounge and spent the night in a little niche on the front of the boat, curled up together against the ocean wind. For ONCE, we actually regretted not bringing sleeping bags.

We awoke sore, cold and tired just in time to cram into a tiny train with about 5,000 sweaty Grecian soldiers and no air circulation travelling at almost three miles an hour across the sweltering countryside. We're not sure (the stench of soldiers was blurring our vision), but we think we saw an old lady with a walker pass us, gobbling garlic-stuffed olives and chortling to herself.

Eventually we arrived in Olympia where Greece really began to shine. On our way to the hostel an old man leaned over his balcony and offered us "Good deal, okay!" for a room with A/C. We employed the old "we're not interested" routine when much to our surprise he actually beat our dorm room hostel price. Before you could say "Pericles," we were kicking back upstairs watching subtitled American films on cable in our lovely, lovely, private, AIR-CONDITIONED room. Mmmmmm.

Columns of the Temple of Zeus

The indulgence of the night before faded into the following day as we wandered the grounds of the original Olympic games, the site where the Olympic flame is lit every two years, the ruined temple of Zeus there (one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world), the accompanying museum of rescued statues and artwork... truly fantastic stuff. Olympia itself was a sleepy little town with one major thoroughfare, an excellent place to rest one's weary sight-seeing body.

From Olympia we headed up to Athens to catch a boat out to the Greek island of Santorini. Santorini is rumored to be part of the mythical lost continent of Atlantis, a strange ring-shaped island with an active volcano at its center. The settlements on Santorini are white-washed adobe houses perched high on stratified cliffs of black volcanic and lighter sedimentary rock. Blue-domed churches, beaches of red, white and black sand (take your pick!), crystal clear azure waters and oppressive desert-like heat inhabit the island. At night the place explodes with revelers. The shops re-open, strings of electric lights appear along the alleyways and the cooling streets fill up with the voices of tourists and locals alike, out to have a good time. One of the highlights of the island was catching the sunset at Oia ("ee-ah"), supposed to be one of the best places in the world to watch Apollo parallel-park his chariot at the end of the day.

The Acropolis

Back to Athens we fled, the Acropolis for to see. More Greek ruins, more Greek heat and the absolutely breath-taking Archaeological Museum where there are examples from the Cyclades ("kick-KLAH-thus," the Greek islands southeast of Athens) of man's handiwork from the past 8,000 years. To see an 8,000-year-old fertility goddess image fifteen minutes before you see the corresponding Romanized statue of Venus from 6,000-some-odd years later really gives you a sense of perspective.

And now it is Saturday morning. Our bags are packed with insect repellant and mosquito nets. Our thermal clothing rests quietly at the bottom of our bags, awaiting colder New Zealand nights. Swimming gear and t-shirts are packed to be more easily accessible, and the remnants of our Let's Go Western Europe guide are in the trash. Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring waits at the top of Sean's bag, binding as-yet-uncreased.

At four o'clock this afternoon our plane departs for Bangkok, Thailand.