October 6-13, 2001-- Travelled to Greece for the International Conference on Image Processing.
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Arrived at the Athens airport around noon on Saturday, October 6. Picked up my rental car, and headed out to find my hotel. My advice is not to rent a car while visiting Greece unless you are really up for an adventure. Greek driving has very few rules and even fewer street signs. I was fortunate to avoid any fender benders, but I got lost many times. Eventually I found my hotel in Athens, where I would spend my first night in Greece. The hotel wasn't very nice, and it wasn't next to the airport like the travel agent had promised, but it was next to the beach, so it wasn't all bad. This was the view from my room.
My first sightseeing stop was, of course, the Athenian Acropolis and its world-famous Parthenon. How can you go to Greece, and not see the Acropolis? You can walk around the ruins and even go through a museum housing many of sculptures that used to sit in the Acropolis. Apparently, you can't see many of the scultures from the Acropolis, because in the 19th century they were stolen by the British who still hold them in their museums. The Greeks make sure to let you know this and that they that would really like them back.
Unfortunately, many of the outdoor structures in the Acropolis were under renovation and covered in scaffolding when I was there. They claim that this work will be done in time for the Olympics in 2004, but the work has been going on since 1983, so they had better hurry.
The Parthenon.
This is the Erechtheion. The statues are not original. Some of the originals are held in the Acropolis' museum, while some are held by the previously mentioned British. The hill in the backgroun is Lykavittos Hill from which the sunset picture at the bottom of this picture was taken.
The next day I picked up my advisor from the airport and we headed out on the Greek national highway toward Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, where the conference was that we had come to attend. This highway is hardly what American would call a highway, since much of it is only 2-lane, although they have recently converted many parts of it to 4-lane or more, but we were told that the whole length of the road will be a real highway by the Olympics (The Greeks claim many things will be finished by the Olympics.) Again, driving was an adventure, but we made it to Thessaloniki without incident.
Thessaloniki's most famous landmark in the city is the White Tower, the large cylindrical building in the pictures below.
Also, in Thessaloniki we visited the Archaelogical Museum of Thessaloniki, which has lots of old stone heads and bodies. Sorry, no pictures.
After the conference, we left to do some hiking at Mount Olympus, the home of Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, and all their fellow gods and goddesses. (We didn't happen to bump into any of them while we were up there however. Maybe next time.) The cities of Athens and Thessaloniki were pretty polluted and crowded so we were looking forward to breathing some fresh air for a change.
After stopping to see the tombs and ruins at Vergina, we drove to our starting point at Prionia and began our hike up Olympus. The is the bridge at the beginning of the trail.
Some of the only natural water we saw on our hike. Greece had experienced a very dry summer. Even the refuge had run out of water.
More sights from the hike.
After about two and a half hours we reached refuge "A", also known as Spilios Agapitos, where we had dinner and stayed the night.
Brian and I at the refuge with the Olympus peaks in the background.
After waking up early in the morning, we hiked the rest of the way up to the summit.
In this shot, you can see the ridge along which the tallest peaks on Olympus lie.
This is Brian on the Skala summit. The peak in the background on the left is Skolio.
This is the tallest peak in Greece, Mytikas. You can see a few people on the summit. The path to the top is a little steep (You're looking at the trail. There's not an easier way up on the back.), but its not too difficult. On the summit, they have a Greek flag and a book to sign.
A window view on the final climb up Mytikas.
The view from the Mytikas summit. We believe that small building is Refuge "C". You can see the Agean Sea in the background.
Me on the Mytikas summit.
Then finally, we hiked all the way back to the parking lot at Prionia where we started. This final shot of the valley, the sea, and us was taken on the way down.
This final picture was taken shortly after visiting the Acropolis. I made the short hike up Lykavittos Hill to watch the sun set over Athens and the Acropolis. (If you look closely, you can see the Acropolis on the hill in the left of the picture.) The building at the top of this hill used to be a church, but now this "place of prayer" has pretty much been turned into a "den of robbers". It is now an upscale restaurant where people pay many drachmas (soon to be Euros) to watch the sunset while they eat and drink.
Last updated: November 19, 2001