Greece??

hey everyone...so i was wondering if maybe getting to Greece for a weekend or something is at all possible? does anyone know how far it is to get there? is a weekend enough?? i know a few people who took a ferry from Italy to Greece, but they said that gravol is a must because the sea is so rough. i figured i'd just put the idea out there...

There is no doubt in my mind that I am going to Greece. It cost a chunk to get there but the hostels are very cheap!

I'm so up for Greece! Although I am not sure how long it takes to get there. I'll see if I can look into it before I go to work.....

I will be joining any and all of you on weekend escapades provided the money is in my pocket. I Will make money until I have to leave, then I will get on that plane, fly to Italy, live there and spend my money until it is all gone. I Know, people say it is better to come home with some $ then with nothing at all, but really, who are they kidding.

Heres the scenario:

"I am living in Italy ( catch that, LIVING ) friends want to travel around Italy and neighbouring countries on the weekend, eat at Italian restaurants, purchase and consume wine, participate in Carnivale, no. I won't join in, I want to save some money. WHAT THE HELL!!"

Ok, to summarize, I am making money at work right now for a reason, I applied to this trip for a reason, to travel and travel as much as my human form can manage on menial funds, so, bring on Greece, bring on London bring on everywhere!!!

Ok, I am finished my rant, it was just a general rant, I Would personally love to visit greece, even if all the time I have is one weekend, that is one more weekend to visit than I have here!!!

Ciao!

YES count me in for Greece!!!
One of my friends is Greek and I know she has made the voyage from Italy to Greece many times, so I will ask her which one to get a reasonably good idea. I'll keep you posted!

awesome! thanks!!

nikki i love your rants. they're all true! you said exactly what i've been thinking about this whole trip. i mean, ya i am going to be spending a lot of money during a period of three and a half months or whatever it is...BUT when will we ever get another opportunity such as this to go live in italy! and travel to pretty much wherever our hearts desire?? exactly! probably never again. so i'm going all out, even if that does mean that i'll be spending the next 2 years paying for it.

Hear Hear!! ( or is it here here??) oh what the hell, you all know what I mean!!

Greece? Awesome! I can't wait to eat spanikopita and Feta and everything else Greek! Did I mention that I am on this trip to eat? It's my hobby. I'm not kidding.

I totally and amazingly (doesn't make sense here i know) agree with elise and want to go to Greece. Please for my benefit if we can lets not book a fary ummmmm I sorta have a week stomach for some things and that would be one of them. I could just live on Gravol for 2 days but enjoying the greek food would be much better. And Nikki its Har Har (lol). I do not know how long it takes to fly or get there by any other means.

well ciao my friends,

So I have talked with Effie (my greek friend) and this is what she said:
- travel to Bari and take the ferry to there for the western greek islands -- much greener than the other islands
- if you want to go to athens and the eastern islands, it would probably cost you much less to fly (charters) into athens and travel from there
- the western islands are usually teeming with italians because it's only a one day ferry ride
- for you[me, lol] (because i know you like the site seeing) i would recommend going by ferry to the western islands, stay a few days, ferry to mainland, travel down the peninsula to olympia and then around to athens and then to the eastern islands [but this takes time and money]
- she recommended to fly if we are time restricted

Is there a preference between east and west? I am up for anything really, if we wanted to we can do two weekends and divide it that way.

If you are not tired of reading this long response, then I congratulate you!


On a side note, she also recommended we change our "running club" name to "running-after-hot-italian-men club" you know, as an extra incentive

For my Greek outings Crete is a must. I think that's probably a little too far and akward to get to for a weekend trip but I'm going to do my best to get there afterwards.

Going to Crete after school sounds good to me. Dave what are your plans for after school so far? Italy to Tunisia to Greece?

I am going to try to do Athens and/or Crete DURING the semester.

Dont care if I have to swim

Maria,

I think I am WAY Out in left field, but, this friend of yours... does she live here?? And was she just recently married, say within the last 2 or 3 years??

I am only curious, I Have a friend of the like and she in turn has a friend of the same name, very Greek, and very much in the know of Greece travel.

I am sure there is no link but it would be funny it this friend of which you speak is a friend of a friend of mine.

Interesting....

I am sure it is an odd coincidence.. but lets see what we dig up!!

Wow its so amazing how much you miss if you dont check your email for a few days! I missed you guys!! Im definetly down for heading to greece, whether it be before or after the semester. Crete is also a must see along with the National Archaeological Museum in Athens...really the list goes on and on...ièll probably be there more than once (ièm travelling for a month and a half after the trip)

maria thank you so much for the advice!

to be honest, i really don't know very much about Greece, like where's good to travel and all. i think Athens is definetly a must. anywhere else is perfect for me!

now do you guys think we'll actually have time to do this in a weekend?? i hope so...it would be pretty cool to tell my friends at home, oh ya...we just went to Greece for the weekend, because we're in Europe and people can actually go to historic places such as Greece for a freaking weekend!

Nikki, Effie is a 4th year Engineering student here, I've known her since high school. She's extremely busy, haha she's one of the few I can't really complain about how much I have to do because she can oust me (I think I just made a word up) in a second flat.

Elise, I totally agree with you, everytime I talk to my cousin (who lives in France) he always tells me how much fun he had over the weekend when he went to Rome (or Spain, or England, or Switzerland, etc...) I WANT TO SAY THAT!!!

As far as Greece goes, I love the idea of going, of visiting museums, ruins, west/east islands, taking a ferry/charter, I am not particularly picky!

Where there is a will, there is a way, so I definately think that as long as we are up for it and we do our travel homework ahead of time, there should be no reason why we cannot visit such places as Greece and Paris over the weekend. If we fly, we can always leave the thursday night or afternoon prior to that weekend, if we go by train, perhaps the same option will be available to us!!

If we all put our heads together, there should be no reason to miss out on the opportunity to visit any destination we wish!!

Thats all for now, even though it feels good to put homework off, if I don't finish my presentation preperation for tomorrow morning, I will be SOL people, and I am going to the Sarah Slean concert tonight at the
M. Horrowitz Theatre ( great concert to go to, BAD timing!!)

Nik

ok, so let's say that we'll try to do as much of our research as possible for thursday the 7th?? that way when we meet, we can make some concrete plans and figure out when we're going where. i'll probably be doing all of my research on that thursday, since classes will be done, but ya...

Oh I know, I feel like I'm soo out of the loop here. All these places I want to go to, random hostels I feel like I should be booking at. AAHHHHHHHHHH

But soon classes will be done and I can get a handle on all these things!

Hailey,

My post-term plans are fairly up in the air for the first couple weeks and then a bit more solid (so far) for the few weeks after that. I'm booked to fly back from London on April 23.

After school is done I plan to hang around Italy with the gang for a bit. No idea exactly what that means yet. In Tunisia the only place I really must see is Carthage so I would be happy with a full weekend there during school. If not, I'll head there after Italy but just for a day or so. Greece is a place I've had to trim a lot out of. At the moment I'm only planning to go to Athens and immediate area for a couple days, and a couple days in Crete. If nothing else those two will do but if we end up going there as a group I imagine my plans for later will change.

Then it's off to Egypt for about a week. My exact plans here aren't too solid yet but since I won't be there too long I think maybe flying into Luxor and seeing some of the many sites in that region, then travelling along the Nile to the Cairo/Giza area will be good enough.

After that I'm going to fly north, hopefully to Krakow, Poland to spend a day or two at Auschwitz but maybe just straight to northern Germany. This has always been important to me, to see one of the Nazi camps, but Auschwitz might be a little too out of the way. In Germany I'll probably largely skip Berlin in the interest of time but I'm definitely going to Kiel (well, Laboe actually) and Bremerhaven to visit the u-boats there. South to Munich for a day or two including a full day for the camp at Dachau then through Ulm (must see the Ulm Münster cathedral there, it's the tallest church in the world at 530'. For comparison, the tallest building in Edmonton, Manulife Place, is 479'.)

Next up is France which I've almost completely cut to save time but a stop in Paris is a must even if it's mostly not all that important to me. I really want to visit Normandy both to see Mont St. Michel and some war sites but I think I may unfortunately end up skipping that. I want to cross into England via a ferry at Dover and then spend a week or so with a little slower pace going through some sites in England (lots of museums) and southern Scotland, but I won't bother listing it all here.

I decided to go with this whirlwind method because I have no idea when I'll ever get back to Europe again, especially with the freedom to do this so I want to see as much as I can. After living a more culturally enriched experience in Italy I don't feel so bad about playing the high speed tourist role afterwards. Of course this is mostly subject to change still (it's certainly changed enough already) and if I end up travelling with you or others for part of it, or maybe just meeting up with someone for a bit somewhere that would be great too.

Wow, that's a long post.

Hi everyone,
So what has been decided about the Greece trip? How are you guys getting there? Have any Hostels been booked yet, and what are the tentative dates? I would love to hit Athens, Crete and possibly Mykonos....
Sorry about all the questions, I am a late member of the Forum and I'm trying to catch up!!!!
Thanks,
Denise. K.

hey denise, glad you could join us.

I don't think that anything has been officially decided yet about Greece. We are still discussing.

Thanks Gabriella!
I'm glad to hear I haven't missed the boat on the Greece trip! I will now try to keep up on a daily basis with the posts (The Forum) ...although Finals are taking up the majority of my time right now.
I don't think I'll be able to make it tomorrow night to The Upper Crust meeting. Will Nikki post the minutes later?
Thanks again for your reply.
Denise. K.

Just wanted to say that is looks like the 2 and 10 of march are booked for Positano and Cinque Terre. That leaves (I believe) only Feb. 23 for Greece...unless you are in the INT D class.