Getting up to date

Okay, now I´m back in Germany. To be honest, little of particular interest has happened since my last post. I headed across to Limassol on the south coast of Cyprus, basically relaxed there and did practically no sightseeing, then the next day took a bus to the airport and headed back to the fatherland. I suppose this post is just to let you know I´m still alive, and to get the pub challenge up to speed - I´ve been to a handful of pubs, but haven´t updated since Rhodes!

Billy´s place, Rhodes

Looking very suave with a spillage down my front in
Eskalan´s Beer house, Selcuk

James Joyce, Istanbul

North Shield, Istanbul

Alexandros, Nicosia

Ship Inn, Limassol

Rhodos (Rhodes if you will) and Pub Challenge 113

This morning I was feeling very grumpy.

Artist's impression of the Colossus
of Rhodos.

More or less where the Colossus of Rhodos
would have stood akimbo.

The plane last night was delayed by an hour, and all the time I had to wait in a tiny departure lounge servicing six gates that any respectable airport would use to service two. I then caught a tiny plane that actually had propellors (I thought they stopped making those in the fifties?). I then had to catch a taxi for five minutes to the hotel and pay the exhorbitant price of fifteen Euros for the privelege. The hotel was kinda shitty - the door to the bathroom opened about 70 degrees due to hitting the toilet, the shower curtain had at some point been removed and never replaced, planes were constantly flying overhead, and overall the room was just a little poxy. This morning I had to wait about half an hour for an overcrowded bus to Rhodos.
In Rhodos I discovered, apart from the pretty medival walls and streets, there is very little to do, and again the Buses decided to hate me, because the only archaeological sites in my Lonely Planet guide didn't have any more buses going to them today. And to top it all off, today is Monday and as such even the museum was closed. So I tramped unhappily up Mandraki harbour to the Venetian fortress. Even most of this was closed for repairs. I tried to get a good shot of the harbour with mixed success - it is apparently the original site of the Colossus of Rhodos. This statue, built entirely of Bronze, apparently stood over thirty metres tall and was apparently a depiction of Helios (though I have heard it being attributed to Apollo as well). It was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, until it collapsed in an earthquake. Now there's nothing left. That didn't help my mood.

Walls of Rhodos

Soon, however, my mood made a change for the better. It started with patting a stray kitten that was probably way too friendly for its own good. After thoroughly washing my hands, I got something to eat and drink, then headed for the tourist information centre. There I picked up a map of Rhodos and discovered there was some ancient Greek ruins I could see after all: the old Acropolis, Stadium and Theatre of Rhodos.

Partially restored ruins of the Zeus temple at Rhodos

These were excavated and restored in the early twentieth century by neither Schliemann or Evans, so it actually looked in part how it may have looked over two thousand years ago. The theatre was mostly new white marble, but the stadium, it seemed, had been pieced together almost exclusively from the original pieces. The temples and sanctuaries on the acropolis weren't quite so well preserved, but no worse than most of the sites I have been to. It seems my not knowing about it beforehand is not entirely due to my own stupidity either, because there were very few tourists. And the best part was, it was completely free!
Then the final thing to make me feel good again, I found an English pub and sat down for a pint of Cider.

Top 3, Rhodos

Pub Challenge 107-112

Agora, Nafplio. I really wish I could say this wasn't my
first drink for the night.

Xenon, Nafplio

Highlander, Fira

Murphy's, Fira

Town Club, Fira

McDaniel's, Fira

Pub challenge 103-106

Sports Bar, Athens

Agora, Delphi

Top's, Opympia

Theogonia, Olympia

Hello Athens! (And Pub Challenge 102)

Proof I do have friends! I only had to pay this random
guy on the train 50 Euros and he agreed to pose in a
photo!

Well, good to hear from you all! Looks like you're going to have to keep putting up with my posts...
I arrived in Athens yesterday after a mammoth bus trip next to an old Greek bloke who kept trying to talk to me even though it was absolutely clear that we couldn't understand each other.
Pretty much the first thing I did when I arrived, after hunting down my hostel, was to take a train to the airport. No, I haven't had enough and decided to fly back home. In fact I was picking up my mate, Jan, (no he's not a girl. It's a German name, pronounced Yun. Sheesh) who will be travelling with me for the next week or so. The great thing is he really knows his way around Greek history, so it's almost like having a personal tour guide.

Taverna Plaka, Athens

The airport, like any decent international airport, is far out of town, so after the 30 minute trip back in, Jan decided he wouldn't mind getting off a few stops earlier so as to walk the rest of the way and see a bit of the city as it's turning night. Seeing as he was the one with the heavy backpack (I having deposited mine in the room already) I had no objections. Navigating our way by the sun (I'm not even making this up), we worked out the approximate direction to the youth hostel and proceeded to slog our way through the streets, even cutting across part of the Acropolis hill. When I finally found us on the map I discovered that , before we veered off in that direction, we had already been very close to our destination. So basically we clambered over the ancient heart of Athens for nothing. Still, it was great fun. That evening we treated ourselves to a Guinness at a nearby pub then flaked out.

Greek Theatre on the Acropolis

Today, however, was our first day of sightseeing. Naturally we visited the Acropolis and the Parthenon, as well as the Agora (the old marketplace), the original Olympic Stadium and the Temple of Zeus. The day was filled with in-depth discussion about history and architecture, most of which I won't bore you with (unless you are particularly interested in the difference between Doric, Ionian, Attic-Ionian and Corinthian pillars...), however I will indulge in a quick history lesson. Athens, of course, is the birthplace of democracy. We're talking several hundred years BC people in this very city came upon the great idea that the regular people living in a city should have a say in how that city is run. Of course at the time "regular people" didn't include women, foreigners, slaves or gingers. Still, pretty good effort for a time when the rest of the world still thought dirt was the height of technology. And they knew how to build.

The Parthenon

Those temples, even what little is left of them often, are staggeringly impressive. Pictures simply don't do justice. The parthenon, particularly, perched as it is atop the rocky, cliff-encircled hill in the middle of the city, is mind-blowing. It's also relatively well preserved. It would have been moreso, however, had it not been for a war in the 17th century. There the Ottoman Turks had seized athens and used the natural defenses of the Acropolis as a fortification. Not expecting their enemies, the Venetians, to destroy such an iconic building of their neighbours, they used the Parthenon as a gunpowder magazine. You can imagine how that ended. They are, however, busy restoring the colossal temple to Athena with original fragments found around the area, and where they are missing from newly carved marble from the original source. It should look nice and quaint when it's finished.

Pub challenge 98-101!

This is a momentous post - I've finally visited over 100 pubs (although maybe you noticed I did 89 twice. Yeah, there's definitely a very good reason for that, but you would't understand it. It's certainly not because I'm a dumbass!)
So here they are:

Marconi, Rome

Fiddler's Elbow, Rome

And number 100 (although it should be 101) - the Druid's Rock, Rome
I chose this one specially because I had a great time here
four years ago, last time I visited. This time to the pub was
very much a disappointment. But I made it up in the next and
previous pubs.

Druid's Den, Rome

Pub Challenge 89-97

Tantalizingly close to 100... it's a bit tougher in Italy because there aren't so many pubs. Apparently the Italians don't drink to get drunk, which to me is like saying you don't eat to get full.

Inishark, Venice

Poppa's, Venice

Blues Cafe, Venice

Margaret DuChamp, Venice

Lion's Fountain, Florence

Scholar's Lounge, Rome

Alessandro Palace, Rome

Abbey Theatre, Rome

Drunken Ship, Rome (complete with photobomb)

Sloppy, Rome

Bremen and Pub Challenge 88

Long time no update. I've been chilling in Germany for the last week or so and I've done relatively little, but now it's getting exciting again. So I'm sitting in an unashamedly expensive internet cafè in Venice, writing about Bremen. That's right - consider yourselves priveleged that I'm paying way too much to sit inside at a computer in the most beautiful city in the world to keep you all informed. Yeah, I know. I'm a great guy. Although, I at least expected for the price I'm paying that the connection would be a wee bit faster, but this is Venice.

Bremen

The flight to Venice this morning left at the barbaric time of 6:40, and left from Bremen which is a good 2 to 3 hours away from Eckernfoerde where I had been staying, so naturally I came to Bremen a couple of days earlier and stayed with my aunt - well, my Mum's cousin - I'm always confused as to what that makes her. Second cousin? Cousin once removed? Step-half-maternal-aunt-cousin-once-removed? Anyway, she was tops and I got a chance to see the city of Bremen while I was at it, which was nice.
I really had my heart set on visiting the Beck's factory, but unfortunately they only do tours from Thursday to Sunday, and I didn't like my chances of getting a tour at 3:30 in the morning today, so I had to miss out. Instead she and I wandered around the city for a bit seeing the sights. There was very little of the city left after World War 2, but what survived is very pretty.

Feldmann's, Bremen

And finally we retired to a pub for a pint of beer, as was naturally necessary. The lucky thing was, being in the home city of Beck's beer I was able to have a type that you can't get anywhere else, in this case a Haake Beck Kraeusen, which is a Pils with yeast still floating in it making it cloudy.
And now for a bunch of pictures of Venice.

Pub Challenge 75 - 87

Crazy times in Edinburgh. 14 pubs in 3 days.

The Hebrides, Edinburgh

The Doric, Edinburgh

Deacon Brodie´s Tavern, Edinburgh

Lebowskis, Edinburgh

Black Bull, Edinburgh

White hart, Edinburgh

Black Rose, Edinburgh

Jinglin´ Geordie, Edinburgh

 

Tolbooth, Edinburgh

Malt Shovel, Edinburgh

Halfway House, Edinburgh

1780, Edinburgh

Taverna Kreta, Eckernförde.
Finally back in Germany!