Traveling Summer Part 3: Venice, Italy

In Italian the flag is known as Il Tricolore. The colours have several different meanings- hope, faith, and charity or hills, mountains, and bloody war of independence are just some of the possible meanings.

We started our Great Balkan Adventure by flying to Venice, Italy. Many a PCVs from MK have done this trip and almost all (at least as of lately) start their trip in Venice due to Wizz Air's amazing deals on flights (only 20 euros). This was the first time I had ever flown on Wizz Air and I can't say I am necessarily excited to be a repeat customer. Because they are a budget airline, you have to pay for every little extra thing, including checking in at the airport. They monitored the luggage you brought on quite closely- to the point of, I was not allowed to carry my purse and a carry-on on board unless I could prove that my purse could fit inside my carry-on. But I guess when you are paying only 20 euros for the flight, you can't expect a whole lot.

It is a relatively short flight from Skopje to Venice, however it was made much longer by all the crying children and the pilot's inability to land the plane smoothly. It was a little rainy in Treviso, which played a role I am sure, but it was the second worst landing of my life and the worst landing Phil has been through. There were a lot of feelings of loosing your stomach and as expected, a plane full of people who cheered when we touched the ground.

After landing, we boarded a bus and headed into Venice. Since we had less than 24 hours there, we wanted to make the most of our time and quickly found the hotel and went out exploring. Picture can tell you far more than I can, so as usual, I will let them do the talking.

Oh, but remember than rainy landing we had? The sprinkles soon turned to drizzle, which turned to rain, and then downpour. And of course we left our umbrellas at the hotel. E la vita.

The Grand Canal

Another Grand Canal photo

Such narrow waterways

The famous gondolas- we didn't ride in one as they were going for 80 euros a ride and we are poor Peace Corps Volunteers!

Phil clearly is mocking my desire to take photos.

It is hard not to take a million pictures in Venice.

Cool buildings were everywhere!

I can't even begin to grasp just how much money these men must make each day.

St. Mark's

Now the real mocking starts. However, I told him this was going on my blog, so he has to live with it.

Bell Tower at St. Mark's.

Another view of St. Mark's.

The pigeons were everywhere and when some man put corn in Phil's hands, the birds flocked. There were many pictures of this, but this is my favourite. If you look closely, you can see the pigeon on Phil's head just decided it was time to relieve itself on his forehead. I really am a great girlfriend- the mocking was followed by a wet wipe.

A boat traffic jam.

Rialto Bridge.

One of the hundreds of small bridges Venice is filled with.

One final look at Venice before we headed for the bus to Ljubljana.

Traveling Summer Part 2: Thessaloniki, Greece

The flag of Greece (Hellenic Republic)- each stripe represents the syllables in the Greek saying, “Freedom or Death” (Eleftheria i thanatos) and the nine letters in the Greek word for “freedom” (eleftheria). They may also represent the nine Greek Muses. The cross represents Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Sometimes the flag is this colour blue, other times, the blue is darker.

One of the best trips Phil and I have taken so far was to Thessaloniki, Greece. We were expecting it to be a nice mini vacation, but underestimated just how nice it would be.

Every good travel adventure requires a bit of misadventure in my opinion. For us and this trip, it was actually getting to Thessaloniki. We awoke ridiculously early so we could catch a 5am bus from Shtip to Veles, where we planned on catching a different bus to Thessaloniki. However, after sitting at the Veles bus station (not a place I recommend hanging out) for hours, we realized the bus wasn't stopping for us. Thanks to some wonderful PCVs, we created an alternate plan and sat for a few more hours until we could catch the first bus of the morning to Gevgelija on the Macedonia/Greek border. By the time the bus arrived, we had been awake for 5+ hours and there had been no reason to wake up at 3:45am. With our Plan B in place, we found a taxi driver who was willing to bring us across the border and down to Thessaloniki for a fairly reasonable price. It seemed too easy and well, when things are too easy, something usually isn't quite right. We arrived at the border crossing and for some unknown reason, the taxi driver didn't have the appropriate papers, so after going back and forth from office-to-office and person-to-person for over 45 minutes, he finally appeared to collect Phil and I and take us the rest of the way to Thessaloniki. To this day, we are still unsure what the problem was, but it might have had something to do with him not having the appropriate papers filled out and then lying to the border patrol.

From there, it was pretty smooth sailing, thankfully. We had missed our time to check in with our host from our Airbnb apartment we were renting, so we had to schlep our bags around for a few hours, but none-the-less, we were just happy to have arrived in Thessaloniki only 4 hours and 50 euros later.

As usual, I will let the pictures do most of the talking!

Our first taste of Greek beer was at a very aptly named place.

Phil's first Mythos

View from the pier.

Another view from the pier.

And another one.

It was a little sunny out!

Our first meal- mussels and octopus

In our wandering, we came across a fun little street full of these colourful characters and two delicious restaurants.

Our view from the beach in Epanomi- the view straight ahead was nice, however our fellow beach goers were an interesting crowd of overweight, senior citizens whose bikinis only covered about half of what they were supposed to cover!

One of the main bus transportation hubs is at IKEA. Of course I had to take a picture!

The ruins of an old Roman Fortress

Fortress wall

At the fortress

Modiano Market

We ate these!

Inside one of the many churches. I wasn't sure if it was ok to enter with bare shoulders, but then the lady behind me was sitting there plucking her eyebrows and grunting, so I figured I was fine.

Hagia Sophia

Phil and I aren't very good at taking pictures together, so I made it a mission one day.

The Arch of Galerius

The Rotunda

This is the tree that Mustafa Ataturk played around when he was a child.

Ataturk's house.

Outside Ataturk's house.

The White Tower

White Tower

The pedestrian walkway along the water.

When in Greece, I think its a requirement to take a picture of a small fishing boat.

View back at the White Tower from the walkway.

There was live Greek music at our restaurant one night. It was very enjoyable.

We finally made it to the top of the White Tower (we went once and it was closed).

Very top of the White Tower