Greece and Montenegro

So, we've been back Stateside for around three months now, and I'm finally getting around to posting about our Greek cruise. Getting back to work for both the school district and our church has eaten up most of our time, but I wanted to share with you some pictures from our final weeks in Europe.

Following our few days in Rome, we took the train to Venice to board a cruise ship through the Greek Isles. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain for the few hours we spent in Venice, and I wish we could have seen more of the city as it was really quite beautiful, even in the rain.

Enjoying a brief moment of sunshine before the ship departed

Venice skyline as seen from the ship

Venice in the rain

Piazza San Marco

Our first stop on the cruise was to the little country of Montenegro. We visited the city of Kotor, a city surrounded by Venetian fortifications, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Brandon and I decided to walk up the over 1000 steps to get to the top of one of the fortifications built into the side of a large hill.

Walking up the fortification

An old church near the top of the hill

The view from the top

A view from the bottom - we climbed all those steps!

After Montenegro, we visited several Greek cities, including Athens, Corfu, Mykonos, and the island of Kefalonia. Here are some of my favorite pictures from these visits.

The Parthenon

In Athens

Overlooking the city of Athens

Mykonos windmills

Mykonos Street

Little Venice in Mykonos

Fortification in Corfu

Overlooking the city of Corfu

Overlooking the ocean in Kefalonia

Melissani Cave in Kefalonia

Boat ride on the underground lake of Melissani

Ahh, looking at these pictures has made me miss traveling, I cannot wait until the next time we get to visit Europe again!!

Rome (if you want to)

Inside the Colosseum

Sorry for the cheesy title, but I seriously had that song in my head the entire time we were in Rome.

Anywho...Brandon and I just got back from an amazing trip to Italy and Greece. I have been wanting to visit these countries for a very long time, and it took some sweet talking to get Brandon to agree, as he wanted to visit Northern Europe instead (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc.) But in the end, I won out and we planned a trip to visit Rome for a few days, take a train to Venice, then visit a few Greek Islands.

Rome was breathtaking! So much history, so many stories, so beautiful. While we were slightly disappointed by the Trevi Fountain, which is currently being restored, everything else was magnificent. At least I appreciate that the Roman authorities feel responsible enough to take care of their relics, just sad that we could not see the fountain in its full glory.

Trevi Fountain under restoration

No water to throw in our coins

We wondered around Rome on our first evening, without a map or a plan, and managed to stumble upon some of the best sites! Just a few minutes after finding the Trevi Fountain, we found the Pantheon. According to Wikipedia, the Pantheon was built in 126AD and its dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome, even though it's two thousand years old! Don't know about you, but I'm impressed.

Pantheon selfie!

126AD and every bit of it is still standing!

Artsy shot

Inside the dome

Following our escapade through downtown Rome, we enjoyed a lovely Italian meal of pasta and fried pumpkin flowers, before heading off to bed for an early morning.

We purposely woke up very early the next morning so we could visit the Colosseum with few visitors to get better pictures (and to try and beat the heat!). It was worth it, because our pictures are amazing. Seeing the Colosseum for the first time was really breathtaking for me.We took the metro from our hotel, because the monument was on the other side of town. When you walk out of the 'Colosseo' metro station, the historic building stands directly in front of you, and surprises you with its grandeur and breadth. That is the third time this year I have felt that surprise of finally seeing a building I have only ever seen in pictures, for the first time in person. (The first was when I walked out of Westminster station and saw Big Ben standing directly in front of me, and the second was when I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time, while on the metro coming out of a tunnel over the Seine River). Anyway, here are some pictures of the Colosseum, we literally took hundreds, so here are some of my favorites:

The view from the Metro station

Inside

Where the audience would sit

Later that day we visited the Vatican City, the smallest recognized independent country in the world by both area and population. After waiting in a line for 45 minutes, we got to visit St. Peter's Basilica, which is the most decorated and opulent church I have ever seen. The Roman Catholics definitely wanted to show off their wealth when it was built. Later in the evening we visited to Vatican museums, during their special Friday late night hours, and saw Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel (no pictures are allowed within the chapel, but here are some pictures of our visit to the Vatican).

St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's Square

Inside St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's by night

Overall, I was so mesmerized by Rome and all it had to offer. The city is steeped in history and everywhere you turn you find Roman ruins and beautiful architecture. In the next blog post, we will share stories and pictures from our cruise to Greece and Montenegro.

June in Pictures

Howdy!

Sorry Brandon and I have not been doing blog posts lately.  Seems like every free moment we have is spent writing our dissertations.  Thankfully I am now sitting with around 9,000 words (out of the 12,000 required) so I feel comfortable enough to spend a bit of time writing a post for you all!  Brandon is at 10,700 (out of 15,000)

Since we have missed several updates the past week, I thought I'd just post a bunch of pictures so you can see what we have been up to the past month.  Because, let's face it, a majority of you probably just scan these posts and look at the pictures anyway, so I'll keep the words to a minimum this time ;)

We visited the Sherlock Holmes museum back in May when the Stover Seniors were in town.  Here is our attempt at being Dr. Watson and the great detective.

Another remnant from May with the Stovers - Enjoying a pint on the stage before seeing the musical "Once"

The following pictures are sights from Kew Gardens - a large botanical garden in South West London.  Brandon and I made the trip out there one bright and sunny day to enjoy a picnic lunch!

The Kew Palm House - a giant green house with plants from all over the world

At Kew Palace - a formal royal residence of King George III

The Japanese garden at Kew

A modern tunnel built to look ancient

In front of the tunnel

On the five story high tree top canopy walk at Kew 

Kayla, a lovely friend of mine from Millikin stopped in London for one day as part of her month long backpacking trip through Europe, here are a few of the things we did that day!

On my way to Hogwarts!

An a visit to the Doctor was a must...

Brandon and I took a day trip to Oxford to visit the city, but mostly to enjoy an afternoon at The Thirsty Meeple - the UK's only board game cafe.  Several from the Goldsmiths tabletop gaming society went as well.  Now Brandon and I are making plans to someday run our own board game cafe...

One of the many colleges in Oxford

One of the college accommodations in Oxford - seriously looks like a castle...

The Radcliffe Camera - a round building which is one of the University of Oxford libraries

Another University of Oxford building

The board game cafe!

Lately, we have enjoyed many cultural offerings in London, including an orchestra concert in a car park, a stage version of Orwell's 1984, and Bizet's The Peal Fishers at the English National Opera.

The view of London from the car park after hearing Sibelius Symphony No. 5

The London Coliseum - home to the English National Opera

We celebrated our fourth anniversary on June 25th by going on an impromptu Thames River Cruise (okay, not really a cruise, more of a river taxi...but it was still awesome!)

View of the Tower Bridge from the Thames Boat Taxi

Most people get the "London Bridge" and "The Tower Bridge" confused, but as you can see here, the London Bridge  is actually quite boring...

Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge from the Thames

And finally, we spent yesterday morning with a friend we met through a geocaching event.  He wanted to climb to the top of St Pauls, since there is a virtual cache up there, so we made it up the 528 to the top of dome and got rewarded with some spectacular views of London!

Almost to the top, here we took a short breather about 3/4 of the way up on a wider outcropping

At the top!

A view of the scary stairs you have to climb in the actual dome

Hope you all had a lovely June!!  July will be taking us to Italy and Greece, before August brings us back to the US, so we still have lots to look forward to this summer!