mountains, ruins, and lots of olives

After Oktoberfest, Mark returned to math-land, and Justin and I fled the city for the peace and quiet of Innsbruck, Austria. Specifically, we were there to hike, and hike we did! Despite some ominous-looking weather, we picked a gondola station (Seegrube) high up on one of the peaks surrounding Innsbruck, and headed for it. While it was a steep and difficult path (which apparently suicidal mountain bikers would bomb down), we made it up, and were rewarded with a great view before the clouds rolled in on us. We then hiked back down, very thankful that the bad weather which had been forecast never really materialized - we only had about 30 minutes' worth of light rain, and about 15 minutes in a cloud. Not bad at all.

Now that the hike was done, it was time to return to Munich where we'd catch a flight to our next destination, Greece!! Over the next few days we explored all the cool ruins in Athens (most notably the Acropolis), and took a day-trip to nearby Corinth and Nafplio. In the evenings we'd head to our hostel's roof deck where we'd hang out with fellow traveler's, and enjoy the awesome view of the Acropolis from the deck. Not a bad way to spend a week!


Pictures below: enjoy!

the view from our hotel in Innsbruck, Austria. Not bad, eh?

view from our hike - a gondola to the peak disappears into the clouds

view of Innsbruck from above

well, I can't exactly have a blog entry about Athens without including a picture of the Parthenon. . .

I wasn't joking when I mentioned "lots of olives" in the title - they were everywhere! We did sample a few (ok, I didn't but Justin did), and they weren't so tasty, though. Probably weren't ripe. Or we were confused and they were actually highly poisonous berries which looked like olives. Well, as far as I know Justin's still alive, so I guess no harm done. . . (update: apparently all raw olives taste gross. They need to be cured before they taste good. Credit: Mixer)

cool view from a hole in the wall at Palamadis castle during our Nafplio day trip

run for your life, it's Godzilla!! And, ummm, his giant bottle of water! I randomly encountered this scene at a tourist trap outside the castle and couldn't resist. . .

cool fortified island off the shore of Nafplio

cool statue. One of the bajillion statues in Athens.

artsy shot - the Greek flag flies proudly over a church steeple

another artsy shot - dogs in the window. Random Athens fun-fact. While these dogs clearly have a home, there are a ton of street dogs in Athens. But apparently it's the government's job to look after them, so they all have collars, and are well fed. They're also quite well behaved. So almost anywhere you go in Athens (the ruins, Syntagma square, the welcome mat at our hostel) you'll see a big street dog (or three) fast asleep. Random!

the Parthenon lit up at night, as viewed from the rooftop bar at our hostel. Pretty damn cool.