the grand finale: corfu, olympia, and athens

note: these run chronologically in reverse, so if you want to read it as it happened, start with turkye and go up.

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after our day at sea, we landed in corfu (kerkyra), on the western side of greece, one mile from albania and 50 miles from italy. a totally different island than the arid bits in the east. corfu was lush, pine forested, and full of more dramatic beaches and beauty. we rented some 50cc scooters and went out to find a beach for the day. as we cruised uphill at a zippy 13mph, it was so nice to smell the pine trees and get the egypt garbage stench fully out of my nostrils.

we kayaked and snorkeled in the unbelievably clear waters of the Ionian sea. ate more greek food. and faced the dreaded reality that our vacation was rapidly coming to a close.

after corfu, we hit olympia and ran some windsprints at the site of the original olympic games. drank greek coffee. ate more greek food. and wept a little bit as each hour ticked by.

as we headed to athens, we had little heart left. we packed up our bags and worried about being over the weight limit with our souvenirs. luckily i'd drank all the pepto, so that helped keep our luggage under 23kg.

how can two weeks go by that quickly? how am i ever going eat feta again without comparing it to greece? how the hell did they get me to yell jihad in the middle of an arab nation? how many more marble columns can i take before i die of ancient-world over stimulation? doesn't turkey seem like ages ago?


in athens, we toured the acropolis, ate one more amazing meal with a few rounds of mythos (beer), marveled at how bad the greek wine really was, and boarded our plane to rainy north.

a top-three all-time vacation, for sure.