Greece

The country that I have enjoyed most on our van trip. Beautiful scenery, wonderful water and lots of interesting places to visit. We free camped (slept on the side of the road) a lot in Greece as it was so easy. free camping spots would normally be right on the beach so we could wake up in the morning and go for a swim and use the beach showers, couldn't have been better starting the day that way.

On the island Corfu. This is where we got our new chess set from......wait till we bring it home to show you.....its pretty big and fancy.
Corfu

Taken from the boat we hired, so beautiful.

Captain Paul, on boat driving duty.

Me having a swim off the boat.

Beautiful view on Corfu

Olympia- truly amazing. We went to Ancient Olympia the original venue for the Olympic games which first started here in 776BC. Below are more photos from here...

Gefyra & Monemvasia- My favourite place we visited in Greece. Below are lots of photos taken from here. Monemvasia is a walled village which occupies one side of a massive rock. Monemvasia was separated from mainland Gefyra by a earthquake in AD 375. When you enter Monemvasia you go through a tunnel into a tiny town of cobblestone streets which is mostly cafes, souvenir shops and hotels, we took a massive walk up into the old town which is now in ruins.

This photo was taken in the upper part just before deciding to stop our trek and walk back downhill. You can't probably see them in this small photo but if you enlarge it you will see black spots....these are spiders in huge spiderwebs...we would take two steps and get webs stuck on us.

Paul checking out the view and having a rest. It was quite a walk up, thankfully we free camped close by so we managed to get out of bed early in the morning. Walking back down in the midday heat was rather painful.

Exploring the ruins

View from the upper town ruins

Paul in the lower restored town.

Still in Monemvasia

The view of the entrance way into Monemvasia, you can see the tunnel entrance and the ruins on top of the hill.

Looking back to Gefyra

Horses.....secretly taken while Paul was getting out of the van.

Out for dinner. We got the house wine. Served in the red canister and drunken out of tiny glasses.

This photo is taken from where we slept the night. When we first arrived we thought we were in the wrong place but Monemvasia was on the other side of the island.

Goats- this photo was taken from inside the van. We were completely surrounded by goats and had to wait for them to all move off the road.

We stopped to let the turtle cross the road.

In Nafplio where we got the BEST ice creams. Pauls one was snickers bar flavour and soooo good!

Nafplio

Sea urchin....possibly the worst moment on our holiday. Firstly I fainted and then I had to have cooking oil on my hands for a day before Paul had to dig each one out of my hand, very painful!

Delphi- Sanctuary of Athena and 4th century BC Tholos. And same again in the next 2 pics.

Me swimming (have to look really close!) This was a private beach belonging to the campsite we stayed at on our first night.

Matera

Onto Matera, one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on Earth! This is a town where people lived in cave houses only 40 years ago, where a family of 10 might share a cave with a donkey, some pigs and no electricity or water. We went and looked inside one of these cave houses which was set up to be the way people lived.

Rrrrrooommmeee

How exciting going to Rome. This is one place we are going to try to get back to. Mainly, (shame on us) as we only saw half of Rome. We went with the plan on staying for two days but it was soooo hot that we didn't go back for day two. Paul had to have some time out under the tree, I felt sick from the sun, and we both have never sweeted so much ever! So now the plan is to go back not in peek season and winter....or at least not during an European heat wave! We did go into the Colosseum (70–80 AD), the largest amphitheatre ever built in the Roman empire. The arch of constantime and to the Palatine hill which is one of the most ancient parts of the city. And on the second day when we didn't go back into Rome we had the best ever day beside the pool!

Florence

We didn't stay long in Florence. everything that we came to see had a big long line. We have a motto.....if there is a line don't bother. Perhaps not the best as we missed seeing lots of things but standing in over 30 degree heat for hours doesn't really appeal. Wasn't overly fond of Florence, but seen we were only there for 30 min I don't think its really fair for us to coment much.

Pisa

We went to Pisa and did what every tourist do and took photos of us with the leaning tower...

Venice

Venice was somewhere that both myself and Paul had always wanted to visit. For the both of us it was as beautiful as we imagined. We stayed at a campsite outside Venice with the plan that we would take the boat there.....however it was a Sunday and no boat service ran so we ended out driving in...lucky for us this was before peak time so didn't have any trouble with parking and traffic. I have to say that the Italians have CRAZY campsites......you could go on holiday for a week and not leave the campground... well if you are a family anyway (Italian do the hokey poky at 10pm wasn't too exciting for us). We spent the day walking around the city that is built on 117 islands and managed to get a bit lost. We had a look at all the main buildings including the Basilica Di San Marco and the Doges Palace. Was a good day and one of the highlights of our van trip.