Greek Islands

So, I know I've put up a lot of pictures of my trip, but I forgot my favorite parts... the islands!

First island, Mykonos...
Beautiful island, with lots of rich color accents against their white wall structures. It was a very busy place, lots of restaurants serving fresh seafood (yuck!) but I guess most everyone else loves it!

They built their homes on the island of Mykonos right to the waters edge (kind of reminds me of the foolish man primary song) but what a view! We walked right on the edge of the city and the waves were crashing against the foundation spraying all over our legs... I wonder how many people they have to fish out of the water every year?

Second Island, Patmos

This island is famous for St. John's Grotto. Below I am standing next to one of the doors inside the monastery of St. John, it's just my size!! The Grotto was pretty ornate, but I couldn't take any pictures so we took pictures of the inside of the monastery as we walked there.

This is what the island look like from top of the city. Absolutely beautiful, most of the houses have been restored to their original style/architecture and to buy land or a home there starts in the $500,000. Crazy but beautiful!! Time stands still at this place, I wouldn't have minded staying longer.

Third island, Kusadasi Turkey

This island is famous for the ruins of Ephesus, most famous because Alexander the Great defeated the Persians and liberated many cities Ephesus among them. He came to Ephesus and they worshipped him like a god. In the recent movie Alexander the Great, there are several scenes that take place in Ephesus. The entire city is made of marble!!!

Below is the stadium of Ephesus, it is monstrous in size and completely made of marble! There were a lot of gladiator fights here and apparently the biggest site of gladiator grave sites.

Fourth island, Rhodes

The only city we went to one this island was completely surrounded by castle walls and motes. This island is famous for it's beaches and beautiful plants and flowers.

Rhodes is also one of the biggest ports, boats of every size are everywhere. It's beautiful scenery.

The fifth island, Crete

We visited the Palace of Knossos, which was the center of Minoan life. I don't remember much from this place other than we had a good time laughing. Holly and I didn't remember anything from our former school days about Minoan history and so we lost interest, but we had fun none the less enjoying being there!

Below are some HUGE pots. I couldn't believe how big they were, you could sure hold a lot of something inside these. If they weren't thousands of years old I would've like to see if I could fit inside them.

The sixth island, Santorini

This island is of course famous of it's blue roofed churches that hang on the edge of this volcanic rock. I took so many pictures of the blue and white contrast styled homes and churches. It was too beautiful!

This is a view of the city of Oia from the edge of the island.

Last but certainly not least we went to the city of Thera and what comes up to the top of the island must come down, and what better way than by burro! I was the only one excited about it, but I had to get a picture so I convinced Holly to come and take pictures and she ended up riding on down as well! I am not going to say it was comfortable but it was a lot of fun and these little burros can walk, faster than the electrical cable cars!

As we left the island, I took a picture and you can see towards the left side the switchback steps that we traveled on burro. What awesome burros, I hope they get extra food for these trips.