In Love - In Athens | Charlene L. Edge

Welcome to the first vicarious travel experience of 2022 here on my website. Ready. Set. Flash back to 2001, twenty-one years ago, to Athens, Greece, where my not-yet husband, Hoyt Edge, drove us all over the country.

Why to Greece?

When Hoyt asked me where in the world I might want to travel that summer (2001), I suggested Greece or Italy. Because he’d taught Ancient Humanities for decades at Rollins College, and had been to Greece thirty years earlier, we decided on Greece. What an educational and romantic place to go! It took months to plan the trip and make arrangements. P.S. We went to Italy in 2003 after a trip to France in 2002 on our honeymoon!

With an experienced traveler like Hoyt, I felt confident enough about such an undertaking. I’d not traveled much before meeting Hoyt, except to Canada with my parents when I was a kid, and to England and Israel when I was in a Bible cult. Since those days, I’d changed quite a bit and was eager to learn more about the world. Visiting Greece at this stage of my life felt important. I’d already studied a good bit of Plato and wanted to see for myself where he taught, where democracy was born, the locations of artifacts and architecture made and left by the ancients, feel the vibes of the Mediterranean culture, and learn more about this man I was in love with.

When did we go?

We took off in June 2001 after the academic year finished for Hoyt, and after I had accrued enough paid days off at the software company where I worked (at the time named HTE). Hoyt and I had been together about a year, and although I was well aware he’d done a lot of traveling (ever since college) little did I realize that the more I became seriously involved with him, the more I would end up traveling, too.

After that trip to Greece, not only did we return to Greece a dozen years later, but we eventually traveled abroad to as nearby a place as Cuba and as far away as Tibet. The visit to Tibet came at the end of a nearly five-month-long journey in 2009 that included visits to New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and then we got to Tibet, called “the roof of the world.”

I’ll probably write about that trip in future posts. Meanwhile, if you’re interested, you can find these few I wrote already:

Time Travel – New Zealand 2009 | Charlene L. Edge (charleneedge.com)

China: Travel-free Travel with Charlene | Charlene L. Edge (charleneedge.com)

Escape into World Travel with the Edges | Charlene L. Edge (charleneedge.com)

Travel either makes or breaks a love story

Despite my meltdowns trying to close and keep shut my suitcases etc. these extensive trips fortunately drew us closer together. One travel tip I heard from Hoyt more than once: put in everything in the suitcase you want to take, then remove half of it and leave that stuff home. At first, I thought that was nuts, but I tried. And then I learned that was pretty good advice. Travel light. Wear the same stuff over and over. That’s why you bring laundry soap, a sink stopper, and a travel clothesline to put up in the bathroom or bedroom. I learned to be creative with all that and not too picky a fashionista.

Seriously, traveling together broadened our appreciation of each other’s strengths and empathy for our weaknesses, our gratitude for this interesting planet, and our appreciation for the diverse people living on it.

What good is all this travel?

I’ll let Mark Twain say it for me:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

For more of Twain’s entertaining quotes, click here.

First Steps in Athens

We began our extensive trip around Greece with a few days in Athens, the capital city of that ancient Mediterranean country. Athens is often called the birthplace of Western Civilization.

This post gives you a peek into my journal for that trip. (Later posts may not include journal entries.)

I’ve inserted a few brackets with info to clarify things; otherwise, I’ve not edited it.

Slideshow of Athens

After the journal entry, click the first photo in the gallery to begin the show. Captions say what you’re looking at.

Next blog post next month: Greece trip continued. We traveled extensively through the Peloponnese peninsula (where Delphi is located) and visited the islands of Santorini and Crete. Loved those island breezes.

Our 2001 Journey to Greece Begins

From Charlene’s journal … starting off with lost luggage. How cliché was that?

Sunday, June 24, 2001, 7:05 pm, Athens’ time

Last night we arrived at Hotel Adonis [in Athens, Greece] about 10 pm. [After] the plane had landed, we had to wait and report one of Hoyt’s bags that didn’t arrive with us, then went to Travelers Info where three good-humored staff got us free maps and info, then sent us on our way to wait in a very long line out front for a taxi. That ride was rather wild sometimes through the narrow and congested streets of Athens, population about ten million. On the way into the city from the airport, we saw many olive tree groves scattered along the hillsides. The city of eight or so hills unfolded quickly. I suspect that the taxi driver took us the long way to the hotel in spite of Hoyt providing a map with it clearly marked. After we checked in, we strolled the Pláka to unwind and get some fresh air after so many hours penned up inside airplanes and airports, with the exception of our escape into Amsterdam. [We had a layover there and took a train from the airport into the city center to sightsee and breathe some fresh air.]

[Pláka is the old historical neighborhood of Athens, clustered around the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis, and incorporating labyrinthine streets and neoclassical architecture. Plaka is built on top of the residential areas of the ancient town of Athens. It is known as the “Neighborhood of the Gods” due to its proximity to the Acropolis and its many archaeological sites.” Wikipedia.]

We had a decent night’s sleep, actually, so that we got up early and ate the breakfast of warm rolls, butter, juice and coffee, on the rooftop balcony here) that’s included with our room The Acropolis is directly across from us; we can view the “back,” it’s within walking distance and we got pretty close to the base last night on our walk.

Today we explored, and since it was Sunday, the flea market was open where we bought postcards and little gifts for friends back home. We picked up pork gyros and fried potatoes and soda and ate them on our balcony, which is almost as big as our room.

Walked to the Parliament House where only on Sunday they have the dramatic changing of the guard, complete with about 100 soldiers dressed in the traditional garb. Police had a hard time holding back the crowds of tourists. Hoyt took video, I took pictures. [Photo in the slideshow below]. Took a taxi to the Athens Archeological Museum where we spent most of the afternoon.

7:15 pm – Going back out to eat after cleaning up.

***

Monday, June 25, 2001, 10:45 pm, Athens time

Last night we ate at the taverna in the Pláka called Byzantiono Vizantino. [address: 18 Kydatheneon Street | Plaka, Athens 105 58, Greece (Plaka). Still there as of 01-19-2022.]

It’s only a few blocks from our hotel, down the marble walkway. Tavernas line both sides of the streets in some sections. Most of them have an indoor section, but most seating is outside. Here, they cram in tables in every nook and cranny they can. Usually, small one, the largest seat six I think, but usually two to four. Most all of them are wooden. We ate lemon lamb and some with oregano sauce, rice and potatoes, Greek salad, bread and Mythos Greek beer. Yum. Afterward, we strolled a bit to work off the calories, tried to call Rachel but it didn’t work. [There was a payphone in a small garden near the taverna.] Did a little shopping. Each time we go out, we do a little more. By now, we’ve gotten “worry beads” [prayer beads]: Hoyt’s are black lava rock; mine are mother-of-pearl from an antique shop we went in late today, nearly 8 pm.

The biggest event of today, and of the trip so far, of course, was our ascent to the Acropolis. We ate breakfast early and took pictures and video of the Acropolis from our rooftop breakfast area. Then, when I went to look for my hat, we discovered it was gone. I must’ve dropped it yesterday somewhere on our return from the museum. So, we rushed out to the shops in the Pláka and found one just opening. That was around 8:30 am. I found a wonderful, wide-brimmed straw hat which proved to be far better up on the Acropolis than my white one would have. The only problem now is how to get it home. [I did get it back home. I carried it, held it on my lap].

♥ How does one put into words the experience of being in the presence of the Parthenon and the Erecktheon? The height of the whole place is amazing, the hugeness of the columns astounding. How they ever built it is unimaginable. My heart pounded wildly. Then, I became very reflective as we climbed around, read to each other [from the guidebook], took photos, just sat and looked out at the amazing view, considered all the centuries of civilizations that have come and gone, the different cultures’ peoples who have walked here, the power struggles played out over it, the wars fought around and on it, etc. And to be here with Hoyt, the love of my life, is such a treasure, a sheer gift, I am so grateful every moment as I haven’t been in such a sustained way before. My awareness of the preciousness of my life and the miracles that have taken place in it to bring me to this particular time and place with this amazing man, simply astound me. To be in love, and in Athens. What more could I ask?

Notes: what else happened that day:

We visited Dionysius Theatre
We found a taverna that is being demolished on the supposed site where Socrates was jailed and given hemlock, which ended his life. Why did they do that? He apparently was “corrupting the youth of Athens” by getting them to think for themselves. That’s how I see it.
Hadrian’s arch
Planned to get a rental car for tomorrow’s trip to Sounion to see the sunset. We located Lord Byron’s graffiti “signature” on a stone column.

“Sounion (or Sunium) was an important ancient Greek religious sanctuary sacred to the gods Poseidon and Athena. Spectacularly located on a promontory in southern Attica, the site is dominated by the temple of Poseidon perched on the cliff edge, seventy metres above the sea.”

Went to an internet café where Hoyt answered email. I wrote postcards.
Lunch at charming café on a hill. Had fried calamari, baked cheese with tomato and banana pepper, with lettuce, dill, scallions. Bread. Mythos beer.
Ate a light dinner on a bench in Pláka and listened to music.