GrauGeist's Photos

[ontos]

WOOOOOW!!! Fantastic shots Dave, the second shot is fantastic, what a capture.

 

[GrauGeist]

Well here we are, a month after my European adventure...and I am just now getting around to post some photos...how's that for being a lazy bastard?

Actually, I've been pretty busy at work and stuff, so I haven't had alot of time...it took me well over two weeks to get all shots posted up at FB...

Anyway, my trip started when I flew from LAX to Rome, then Sofia. From there I met my Fiance and we drove to Burgas, which is on the Black Sea coast of eastern Bulgaria. We then drove to Greece, took a ferry over to Italy and then drove up to Slovenia, passing through Croatia and Serbia to end up in Bulgaria, where I took my flight home from Sofia. And most of you know about the snafu at Rome...

Since we don't have albums here like FB, I'll just post the best of the trip, in chronological order

Shortly after leaving LAX, I got a great view of the Grand Canyon from about 35,000 feet

As we neared Rome, the view of the Adriatic from about the height of Mount Everest was just about as cool as it gets!

The dome of the Alexander Neverski Cathedral in Sofia

While we were still in Sofia the first weekend of my vacation, I became engaged to my sweetheart...the bench is where I popped the question the night before (yeah, I know...mushy stuff...but it had to be said...lol)

On our drive to Burgas, I saw countryside that was remarkably like that of California, except for the fact that they grow Sunflowers everywhere (even in Greece, Italy and Serbia)...this shot was taken on our way to Burgas, near Plovdiv. Someday I would like to try and compose a shot of these fields at sunrise.

Sunrise over the Bay of Burgas...you guys knew I was going to toss some nature stuff in there at some point, didn't you?

While in Burgas, I had the opportunity to see quite a few things and I can easily say that living in Burgas would be something I wouldn't mind at all.
This photo of Cinderella's Castle was taken at a huge sand sculpture exhibition and is one of the many things they had going on in the park along the beachfront.

Also at the park along the beach, was a Raptor exibit that focused on Owls!
Owls are simply badass, period!

Along the waterfront of Burgas, there is a museum that has a display of the Thracian artifacts recently uncovered. Rosi pulled a few strings and got me permission to photograph the items on display even though cameras were strictly prohibited! The Thracian Gold (and silver) hoarde is one of the richest archeological discoveries to be made since the discovery of Tut's tomb...

We visited Sozopol, to the south of Burgas to see the ruins and visit the marketplace. While we were there, I shot a photo of the old buildings and narrow streets. When I looked at this photo later, I realized that there was an ad for an upcoming Jazz fest and the photo of Louis Armstrong kind of creeped me out...lmao

Then we checked out the ruins at Nessebar, north of Burgas...all these ancient ruins and stuff going on all over the place...it's a bit overwhelming to an American where our oldest stuff goes back several hundred years (excluding Native American stuff that's several thousand years old, of course)...

We then stopped by the Burgas airport because Rosi had mentioned something about some "Old Airplanes" there...and you know that the word "Old Airplanes" will always get my attention, so it was a must-see.
You can see the Cold War aircraft thread here: Cold War aircraft at Burgas Airport, Bulgaria

So now we head south of Burgas and our journey to Greece begins!

 

[evangilder]

Nice shots, Dave. Makes me miss Europe even more.

 

[GrauGeist]

I hear ya', Eric...it was an amazing adventure and my Fiance has already started making plans for next year. I always wanted to go to Europe but never imagined doing it like we did...definately a memorable experience!

Here's the next group of shots of the Journey. We've left Bulgaria and are driving south into Greece, our destination being Athens!

One of many tunnels we passed through along the way.
I will mention here, that I have never seen so many tunnels in my life. Many of them were just quick shots through a hill or two, but a couple were incredibly long...

Once we were in Athens, you know we had to head up to the Acropolis!
This is the path up to the Acropolis, we're about halfway up...what a heck of a climb!

At the top, there's several smaller temples and such, but the main "entrance" to the Acropolis itself is done by passing through the "Propylaea". It's hard to imagine just how many people have passed under theses columns over the millenea...

The Parthenon is going through an extensive reconstruction effort, it's probably going to be years before they're done. Even being partially dismantled and shrouded by scaffolding, it's simply amazing.

Across from the Parthenon is the Erechtheum with the famous "Porch of the Caryatids"

After taking in the sights of the Acropolis, we made it down to the "Plaka" where there were shops, stores and cafes all crammed into exceptionally old and narrow neighborhoods.

At the end of the day, we watched the Athenian sunset from the resteraunt on top of our hotel.

The next morning, we headed out for the port of Igoumanitsa for our ferry crossing to Italy.
Along the way, we stopped at a town for lunch called Isthmia, where they have an old canal that cuts across the Isthmus of Corinth. It was cool to see the bridge lower into the water and boats of all sizes passed through, including a bigass freighter being towed along by a tug.

I had a little fun while we were crossing the Rion-Antirio bridge

Finally, we made it to the port of Igoumanitsa and were treated to another great sunset during dinner. We boarded our ferry at midnight and were on our way to Italy!

 

[Gnomey]

Nice shots Dave!

On the tunnel front, just wait until you go into the Alps (French, Swiss or Italian) or Norway/Sweden, then you'll see tunnels (if I remember right we even went through one that corkscrewed upwards through a mountain)...

 

[ontos]

Fantastic shots Dave. I envy you guys that take these great vacations

 

[Wayne Little]

me too....love them shots Dave

 

[Matt308]

Very cool. Love the narrow street shots with the small businesses.

 

[rochie]

amazing work Dave

 

[GrauGeist]

Thanks Guys!

And Matt, some of those shops were older than I could imagine. They say that the "Plaka", the area we visited, was a very popular place for people to gather even back in ancient Greece and has been that way for the several thousands years since.

We were nearing the Italian coast the next morning around 8:30, heading into the port of Brindisi. I should mention here that the ferries I am used to are completely blown away by these ferries. One word would describe these things: Bigass. Period. I've been aboard ships in my time, some very big (including the New Jersey) but as far as ferries go, this thing was freakin' awesome! For the record, we were aboard the Sorrento and we were parked topside and driving up the ramp to the upper deck was a total kick in the ass!

I grabbed a shot as we passed inside of the Brindisi breakwater.

Here's a shot of the Pilot boat as it hauled alongside the Sorrento once we were inside the harbor.

We've been on the road now for a little while, and have gone inland, heading towards Naples. The countryside was really nice, but I kept recalling images I have seen over the years of the pitched battles the Allies fought against the Italians and Germans during thier hard push up the Italian landscape.

Once we hit Naples, we turned south and headed for Torre Del Greco, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. It's hard to imagine the fury that this mountain unleashed back in 79 A.D. that annhilated two towns and devestated two cities, making the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima look like a hand grenade...

The reason we were in Torre Del Greco, was to visit....yep, you guessed it: Herculaneum!
When I was a kid, I had read about Pompeii (discovered in the 1800's), and it captured my imagination...but there was another city, recently dicovered (1957) that was beginning to take the limelight, and reading about it's fate and the condition that it was in, completely captivated me. So visiting this city (or the small percentage that's been excavated) was the realization of a lifelong dream.

Visiting Herculaneum was far different than visiting the Acropolis. At the Acropolis, you had the sense of antiquity. In Herculaneum, you felt the Romans as you walked on thier sidewalks, through thier homes and shops...it was almost eerie in a sense...

The next day, we headed back across Italy northwards to the city of Mestre. Destination: Venice!
Once again, there was amazing landscapes. Everywhere you looked, there were little villages nestled against a hillside.

Every so often, there was a castle sitting on a hilltop. One of these days, I'll go back and take my time to get much better photos of all these gems.

Just south of the Venecian bay, there was this extremely old church.

And that brings this latest journey segment to an end...next post will be Venice!

 

[evangilder]

More great stuff, Dave! I had a blast in Italy many years ago. Did get to Greece. How are things over there? Over here, you hear a lot about the faltering economy over there, but it's always to get a view from the average guy on the street.

 

[Gnomey]

Great shots Dave!

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Excellent shots sir! I think we are going to have to give a Nick Name. World Traveling Mechanic. Great tour Dave!

 

[Crimea_River]

Beautiful pics and nicely narrated Dave. Looking forward to Venice.

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

Cool shots Dave. Looking forward to Venice. 8)



Wheels

 

[GrauGeist]

Thanks guys, glad everyone is enjoying the "photo journey"!

Eric, the folks everywhere I went were nice. I never ran across anyone who was bent out of shape and there weren't any signs of unrest, like the media has been showing about Greece. I will say that travelling through Greece by motorway was expensive, because there were tollbooths all along our route. Italy had several, but nothing compared to Greece, where the tolls ran from 2 - 3 Euros to as high as 13. As far as prices go, in order from the highest to the lowest, Greece was the most expensive followed by Italy. Slovenia and Serbia were reasonable and Croatia and Bulgaria saw my dollars (exchanged) go the furthest.

I did observe that in Southern Italy, the locals didn't like to speak English all that much, and when I mispronounced an Italian word, they corrected me. Seing as how they were kind enough to correct my attempts at Italian, I was nice enough to correct thier poor English. However, I did find that my long disused Spanish (learned it growing up in Southern California) was actually helpful there.

And Aaron, I think that if there was any status ever applied to my nick, it would probably be something more like "mean bastard"

Alright, so catching a bus from our hotel in Mestre, it was a short ride across to Venice, a quick walk over a bridge and the day begins!

There was incredible architecture everywhere you turned...and I found it difficult to take two steps without photographing something.

The famous Rialto Bridge

And now we're at the Piatza De San Marco (Plaza of St. Mark)

And beyond the Plaza is the waterfront...it's amazing that such a small area has so much to do and see!

I'll stop here for now, so it won't take forever for the photos to load in everyone's browser...
Venice - part two will coming along soon!

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Excellent tour Dave! Stupendous shots to sir!

 

[Gnomey]

Nice shots Dave! Great tour so far by the looks of things.

 

[ontos]

Thanks Dave, I am greatly enjoying our vacation 8)

 

[Matt308]

Me too!