5:45 am!!! Ahhh!! We got up and headed for our ferry to Santorini. The sun rose over Athens as we pulled out of the deep blue harbour, the warm wind and early sun luring us out on deck. The ferry was great until the very end when rougher waves made us all feel a touch queasy. As we approached the harbour at Santorini, the view of the shiny white homes perched upon the steep, otherwise barren, volcanic rock was unbelievable. Cruising past the rounded remains of th...

This morning, we booked ferries to Santorini and Mykonos with a return passage to Athens (Piraeus). Next, we returned to the Indian embassy with all of the required documentation. The only tricky part was not having a contact in Athens, so we decided to give the number of the travel agency that had been so helpful the day before. As we gave them Socrates' number, we crossed our fingers! Hoping that our little ruse would work, we headed over to ACTIVE travel where...

We are writing this blog for a number of reasons. The main reason is to capture our adventure in a way that we can all remember it. The second reason is to assure our family at home that we're OK. The third reason is for friends and family to, we hope, enjoy the pictures and travelogue. The fourth reason is to create a reference for Connor and Tessa for when they travel. We are trying to document all the mistakes we make, as well as all the spectacular things we'...

Nine hours later, at 5:00 am, we hit Athens, exhausted. Barry had changed seats to an empty one two rows forward about half-way through the trip, and Connor joined him later while Tess and Margaret stayed where they were, but none of us had had much of a rest. Eek. We got to the Hotel Neos Olympos at 6:00 am. This involved catching a city bus followed by taking the metro to Larissa Station and then asking some cab drivers for walking directions to the hotel. We...

The kids are a little upset that they are missing the first day of school, and all of the excitement about friends, courses, classes, options and lockers. We completely understand that this an important time in their lives, and we sometimes worry that this trip is not in their best interest. However, we hope that when they return, everything will be right with their world and they won't resent missing some of grade 8 and 9. We even gave them the option to call it...