Author: crimsonkathyrnandcrew

No visit to Victoria would be complete without a drive along the Great Ocean Road. We drove down to Warnambool and had a tour of Epworth’s new cancer centre (Epworth is the healthcare provider that Margie works for). It was very impressive and so new! We had a nice dinner with Margie’s sister Vicky and Vicky’s daughter. From Warnambool we drove east along the Great Ocean Road to our final destination – Kerry and Porky’s (Margie’s other sister and her husband) cabin in Apollo Bay. The drive along the ocean is amazing – such a different shore from the Sunshine Coast. It’s ruggedly beautiful even when it’s windy and cold. We had a great time in Apollo Bay and the cabin was lovely. 

We’re into our last week of our Australian visit. We’re celebrating Christmas on Sunday with a nice turkey dinner and then we’ll be on our way back to Toronto!

Hello from Mark in OZ.  Evelyn and I have been recovering from colds acquired in Greece, so it’s been low key for us. As well as exploring Ballarat, we’ve done day trips to the surrounding towns for sightseeing and flea markets (thanks to our great tour guide and driver Matt). We also enjoyed an excellent lentil soup in Daylesford. On Friday, Nov. 11,  we spent the day in Melbourne, the large coastal city, and we had nice weather. 

November weather here should be like June in Canada, but it won’t warm up to that until Wednesday, the day we fly to Queensland in search of better weather. That’s how it goes. This beach resort type of holiday is new for us. Pina Colada time! 

After about 19 hours of flying (Athens to Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi to Melbourne), we are relaxing at Matt amd Margie’s lovely home in Ballarat. We had good flights on Abu Dhabi’s airline called Etihad (although our flight information said we were flying by Aegean Airlines – very confusing) and actually arrived at the Melbourne airport about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We’ve had a nice slow start to our 5 week visit – both Mark and Evelyn have colds and are slowly getting better.

The weather is also slowly improving. Ballarat has had a very wet spring which is great because they really need the water. It’s so amazingly green – flowers are starting to bloom and it looks so different from the winter Australia we’ve visited in the past. Right now we have no plans and are basically just enjoying being at home with Matthew, Margie, Oliver and Jonah.

It’s hard to believe that our month in Greece is coming to an end. We’ve explored many ruins, had some amazing swims and managed to empty all the Retsina from a few grocery shores shelves! The weather is finally starting to become fall-like. We’ve had some rain and it’s getting cooler at night.

Early this week, we visited Kalamata and Voidokilia beach (which is said to be the nicest beach in Greece). The beach was truly beautiful and the water was the warmest we’ve had in Greece. It kind of gave me a taste of what our winter beaches will be like⛵️🏝

On Saturday we leave our Astros house and head to Athens. We’ll meet up with Matthew, Margie and the boys at our hotel and then fly to Melbourne on Sunday. Matt and Jonah are making a 3 day stopover in Dubai while Margie and Oliver head directly home.

Next blog will be from down under! Get ready!!

We’ve had a full house in Astros this week – Jim, Lisa and Lucas joined us. We’ve done some more exploring, this time to Korinthos and back to Nafplio. The crazy ones among us (that’s not me!!) even climbed one of the stony hills/mountains near the house.

Matthew, Margie and the boys head to Santorini on Sunday and then we will be 6 in the house. Next week we are planning to visit Kalamata and maybe do a little more swimming. After that, it’s off to Australia🇦🇺

We’re at the end of an amazing week with Caroline, Matthew, Margie, Oliver and Jonah. We did more awesome exploring, this time driving further away from our Astros villa. Caroline’s goal was to see as much of Greece’s history in one week and I think she did well!

Our first visit was to the ancient ruins of Mycenae where we walked through the Lion’s gate and learned a lot about the Mycenaean period. Some great views and a very interesting museum were part of this archeological site. 

Our next major ancient site visit was to Olympia which is about 2.5 hours from Astros on the west coast. It was our first day of rain but we still explored the ruins of Olympia. It was amazing but a little hard to find. After a bit of searching around, we noticed many buses traveling along a fairly major road and sure enough, they were headed to Olympia. 

Our last visit was to Athens. Man it’s crazy driving in this city!!! Cars, buses, streetcars and worst of all, the motorcycles and scooters who don’t obey traffic rules or lanes. But all the craziness was worth it when we visited the Acropolis site and museum. It was quite spectacular and very impressive.

Tomorrow Caroline heads back to Toronto. It has been a very fast week and we have loved traveling as a family again! Jim and Lisa arrived on Wednesday, so we’ll be 9 people until Monday when Evelyn’s friend Lou joins us for a week or so.

All of us here in Greece wish all of you at home a very Happy Thanksgiving. Eat lots of turkey for us and we’ll raise a glass for you. We’re having a great time visiting ancient ruins and eating yummy food.

After a rough departure from Paris (Air France had some technical issues with the luggage conveyor belts), we landed in Greece and met up with Christine and Rob. We had a great drive to our Greek house in Astros. The last part was quite spectacular as we curved along the coast. The house is very much with tons of Greek charm. We  are slowly discovering where everything is and settling in for our month stay here. Unfortunately, we are back to no wifi. We have to sit in the town square to find some free wifi so blog posts will be limited for the month.

We have had a few adventures already. We’ve been to the theatre of Epidavros (very exciting for me because I have talked about this theatre for more than 15 years in my gr 9 drama class) and the city of Nafplio. We also ventured to Sparta and the ruins of Mystras. One of the best parts of our Greece visit is the swimming. We’ve splashed in the sea 3 times already and hope to do more.

On Saturday, Caroline arrives and Christine and Rob head to Italy. On Sunday, Jim and Lisa and Matthew, Margie, Oliver and Jonah arrive for part 2 of the Greece expedition.