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My flight is boarding…

Friday, May 15th, 2009

We left the islands and headed back to Athens on the mainland.  The weather has been warm and sunny, good for visiting the historic sites like the Parthenon and many other ruins.  We also swung by the Olypmic Stadium, which is almost completely deserted and starting to rust and grow weeds.  Our time in Greece is ending, but we finished it with a last pita, souvlaki, and salad with feta.  The food has been excellent and I’ll miss it.

 The photo below was taked at the Temple of Olympian Zeus with the Acropolis in the background.  (The weird shadow on the top left column is not a smudge on the lens.  I think the camera sensor is going since I dropped it.)

blog-acropolis.JPG

Posted in Greece, Travel | No Comments »

Visas – Priceless

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

We finally got up the energy to take a leave Santorini, but we only made it as far as Naxos, another beautiful island in the sun. During our down time here we started to work out our plans for the next few months. This part of the trip has always been a vague “we’ll just go around Europe until October,” but now we actually have to start mapping out a real route.

Remember all those stories about kids just out of college who backpack around France and Spain for 6 months? Well, it turns out to be a lot more complicated than that. We learned more about something called a Schengen visa than I cared to know. I had heard of it before, but didn’t really think it applied to us. I’ve been to Europe – you just show up, they stamp your passport, and you go have a nice holiday, right? That’s partially true…if you are only planning to be in “Schengen countries” for less than 90 days out of 180.

No problem, we thought. There are still a few places in Europe that are not part of the Schengen agreement, so we can go to there to help gain a little extra time by leaving the region. Switzerland was one of these countries and we had planned to spend about 3 weeks there. In the 6 months since we’ve been gone, things changed. The Swiss joined the Schengen counties in January, so now any time we spend there will count toward our 90 days. Turkey is another country which is not part of the agreement, but we’ve already been there. Croatia and the UK are just about the only places that are not part of the Schengen region that we wanted to visit. And Liechtenstein, which might be good a few extra days too.

Before I get a bunch a comments saying that there are ways around this, we’ve checked out all the options already. One option that seems to come up on internet message boards and is popular with students is to just overstay. The risk is that you might be fined, if they even notice that you are still here, or you might get your future rights to a visa revoked. There’s also the possibility of jail time, but the “experts” on the internet seem to think this has a low probability. It still doesn’t sound like a very good plan to me. I might want to come back and visit these places again, aside from the fact that fines and jail don’t sound like much fun.

The other option is to get an extension to your visa. The information on the web is confusing and often contradictory on how to do this. Since we are US citizens, we are part of a Schengen visa waiver program. It means that we didn’t have to get an actual visa because it’s waived, but we are still subject to the same 90 day requirements as if we had a Schengen visa. That’s all fine until you attempt to get an extension to a visa that you don’t actually have. Did I lose you yet?

If you understood all that, the next step would be to go to the local police station or high commission in whatever country where you want stay past the 90 days. They all have different procedures, but generally you have to fill out a lot of forms, show proof that you have insurance, lots of money, and won’t be a burden to their society. At that point, most people get rejected and sent back home.

We’ve decided to go with option three, which is just to count our days carefully, spend some extra time in non-Schengen countries, and to make the most of the what we have. 12 days and counting…

We put a few of those days to good use here in Naxos.  This view is near the entrance to the harbor called the Portara, the doorway to a temple of Apollo that is 2500 years old.

 blog-portara.JPG

Posted in Greece, Planning, Travel | 5 Comments »

Maybe Ávrio, or the next day…

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

After a few days of rain on Santorini, the skies cleared and the buildings were once again bright white, with the blue sea reflecting the sunshine. Everything here is blue and white – the sky, the houses, even the Greek flag. Beside the weather, other things started to get better too. Eric, aka Mr. Wizard, fixed our ailing PC, we extended our stay by a few days, visited a winery to sample the local Assyrtiko, and took a boat ride to hike on the volcano.

We heard about another “hotel” which was described as having cave rooms. We couldn’t resist checking it out and it turned out to be more like a luxury hobbit hole built into the side of the caldera at Oia. We booked it on the spot and extended our stay for two more days. Although there are ferries that run every day, we seem to be having more trouble leaving this island than the characters from LOST.

Here’s the sunset from our patio – just one more reason we’re staying put here.

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Sunsets and Sogginess

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

 We left Turkey on a ferry and spent a day and night on Samos, our first stop in Greece.  From there we took more ferries to arrive on Santorini (Thira).  Our first two days on this beautiful, volcanic island were nearly perfect.  It’s a little too chilly to swim, but great for the long walk from Firostefani, where we are staying, along the caldera rim to Ia. We also had a nice stroll around the black sand beach at Kamari.  We enjoyed two of the famous sunsets here that were so great we thought our retinas would burn from staring at them so long.

Then everything changed.  We’ve had two days of pouring rain and realized that islands are not quite as much fun when you are cold and wet.  However, it has given us a chance to catch up on errands, including trying to get our PC fixed. We’re still having problems with it, so it may be a little longer in between blogs.  More to come, but here’s one from the sunny days.

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Posted in Greece, Travel | 4 Comments »