Island hopping

So our first stop after Athens was Nafplion. Then we went to Mykonos. It was Ms McDougall’s birthday.

Mykonos has lots of white painted buildings and these famous windmills.

Some people now live in the windmills, or use them as their holiday home. Originally they were used to grind flour. They would have sails between each cross of wood.

Our next stop was Ephesus, Kusadasi in Turkey.

This is the House of the Virgin Mary. It was discovered 200 years ago but the base of it is nearly 2000 years old. This is the house that John, the disciple of Jesus in the Bible brought Mary, the mother of Jesus to after Jesus died.

There are three water taps below the house and people pray for good health, wealth and love when they drink the water from the taps.

Ephesus is an ancient city that was built in the 10th century BC. BC means 'before Christ'. These are some of the ruins that we explored and walked through. We are standing in what was called the Agora or market place. Through the archway on the left is the entrance to the Celsus Library. It was built in 114AD so that's 1904 years ago. It held 12,000 scrolls. It was the third largest library at that time but it was destroyed by either an earthquake or fire but they have managed to put together the facade at the front.

This is the Celsus Library and we were very spoilt to have a very special dinner. No other tourists are allowed to enter at night except for the people on the Windstar boat. These are just two of the dogs that live in amongst the ruins.

Here is our Windstar when we returned from Ephesus.

Our next stop was Santorini, another Greek Island with all the buildings painted white.

Here is our last Greek Island Monemvasia. I was lucky to go on to the bow of the ship with Ms McDougall. It was fun!

Edit

At the southern tip of the old town is a gate to the sea. This is a special gate that was built so the people could escape. But now their are refugees coming from a country called Syria, they come sometimes in little boats and try to climb up these rocks and then hide in Greece because they are not safe in Syria. We were sad to hear that people have to flee their country because they are not safe. We are so blessed to live in New Zealand.

The next morning we woke in Athens for another adventure to Delphi, Meteora and to see the Spartans.