Lafayettes Gourmet is fun to visit, so much yummy food:

A little bit of chocolate:

Checked out some more unusual museums:

musee du parfum is in a pretty old private residence

Nextdoor-ish, flyview Paris had multiple interesting VR movies:

Place vendome:

Jardin des tuileries was a bit weird and still half closed due to olympics. It had this interesting hot air balloon in the middle:

Had dinner with David at La Plume, nice restaurant with view:

Then it was time to see Luminiscence at Eglise St Eustache:

The next day, after going to see the Eiffel Tower, which I hadn't done in a while,

I went to check out some other local museums I had never seen:

interesting history :)

And a museum on Yves St Laurent, famous designer:

Got to meet to my friend David in Paris:

A few pictures from the store:

yum :)

Given the nice weather, went back out to enjoy the city during "fete de la musique"

And after all these years and failing due to limited opening dates/times, I finally got to visit la tour st jaques:

Fantastic view from the top:

Since it was fete the la musique, I went around to several places to see performers:

Quick video summary of the music:

After arriving, we started with a walk around town:

Once back in the castle, a quick castle museum and castle tour:

Of course great views from up there:

After that there was a bit of time left to see town, but that time was running out and then it was time to get back to the bus back to Prague:

Back to Prague for another Transmission at O2 Arena, a wonderful show

Welcome to Prague

I chose a Prague underground tour this time around, it was interesting as Prague used to be an entire floor lower, exactly like Seattle, and due to repeated flooding, they raised the entire city to the first floor. However, just like Seattle, you can visit the old ground floor in a few places:

Next, it was fun to go back to the top of the clock tower, which you can do by elevator:

After that I booked a river tour, one of the other things to do in Prague that I hadn't done before:

The next day, a quick tour of the castle and its majestic Vitus cathedral

Next, it was time to go back to the excellent Narodni reopened state museum:

Across the street a sister museum:

On that day, I also booked a communism and underground bunker tour, which was a pretty informative tour and story:

where the revolution started

There was a bit of time after that to go to the lego museum, now renamed museum of bricks because patents?

and just enough time left to see the Bansky Museum, which is definitely intriguing:

A few pictures left:

The last day was a full day tour to Day trip from Prague to Cesky Krumlov (clickme)

Flew over Chinee Peak, a ski resort I didn't know

unusal straight in approach to LAS with low pass over the strip

LAS was super busy, that was the one time that taking uber/lyft was not a better idea than a cab

Not a lot of time in Vegas because EDC is all encompassing, but a few pictures nonetheless including a quick walk through Wynn:

I wish I could have seen that new show, but it didn't run the night I could have gone and no matinees

Mclaren dealership inside

As a tradition of doing at least one buffet, did the Wynn:

Boat arrived quite late (close to midnight), it was nice inside and fairly empty:

the boat being chronically late, opens its doors while still arriving in port to save a few minutes

better late than never...

I'll skip the terrible experience with the rental car dropoff at the boat, and the village idiot we ended up being stuck with and that wasted an entire hour making himself feel important, and eventually arrived quite late at the beautiful hotel with fantastic views:

The next morning, after some needed rest, enjoyed a great breakfast with view:

and then it was time to drive around the island to see the many viewpoints:

still a volcanic island

A lot of history on this island, all the way to potentially being the lost island of Atlantis (the part of it that ended up being swallowed by water after a volcanic eruption)

this used to be an entire crater filled with water

how things changed

One level down, there are actual leftovers of a city:

this is one of the most famous paintings

From there, I went to downtown Fira to enjoy some tourist stuff:

Lots of viewpoints on the road:

cable car from old town

The heart of santorini is a nice hole in a rock:

Next was another archeological site, interesting ruins:

Plenty of cats in Santorini too:

Then continued the island tour:

From there, drove up to ancient thera, another archeological site, which unfortunately was closed early and closed the next day. It's supposed to not be essential, but kind of sucks to get all the way there, just to be turned back at the gate. At least there were good views form the top:

So instead, I opted to visit a couple of wineries. Santorini is very arid, but somehow they still have a tradition of making wine:

The first winery also had an art gallery:

The 2nd winery had a fantastic wine museum that was beyond expectations, literally one of the best such museums in the world:

Then went to the museum:

Cool to see what happened to Santorini:

After that, time to grab dinner and enjoy the view from the hotel and sunset:

Fun to compare with the next morning:

For the 2nd day, I picked a boat tour recommended by the hotel, which ended up being the wrong choice. I did want to see the craters and actually "do stuff" like get off the boat and be on islands, however this boat did not offer that, and felt like mostly a waste of time, even if it did offer some views:

intersting colors on the rocks

other people in the boat went to bathe, but water was kind of cold and I don't really go in the water unless it's to snorkel or dive :)

they offered a nice lunch

After the boat tour that burnt most of the day, there was a bit of time to drive around:

While I thought it would be a tourist trap, in the end Lost Atlantis Experience was actually an interesting interactive museum that makes plenty of fair points that the Lost City of Atlantis, if it existed, may very well have been in Santorini as a good portion of it did sink under water level due to volcanic activity:

This video does a good job explaining what happened to the island:

From there, it was time to drive to the north side by Oia to visit this charming little town where many go see the sunset. The route there was interesting:

Finally, Oia:

then an early morning flight the next day to fly to Malta. Santorini was a beautiful island, great to have seen it.

The Island is still an active archeologic site, it's a bit amazing that they let us walk around unsupervised, walking on the actual site, and probably causing some light damage to it:

the famous Delos lions

Friendly cats were an unexpected part of the attraction:

I might have had a few snacks for them :)

After about 2h on the island, it was time to get back, the boat was waiting for me :)

not bad for a boat, but not fast compared to a plane.

The first stop was another island, further delaying the already late arrival:

finally, 1H late....

After arriving, picked up a higher power quad (thankfully, the cheaper lower power ones would have been totally useless on that hilly island):

A few museums to visit:

wonderful old mosaics left over

Mykonos has lots of friendly cats:

And of course Mykonos is well known for its pretty painted houses and churches, as well as windmills:

The old town was fun to walk through, lots of small streets:

Then, due to timing not lining up, time to burn before the late boat to Delos:

absolutely overpriced dessert, not bad, but sold for 27 times its price of 1E

Eventually it was time for the late boat to Delos with a good guide who actually used to be part of the team working on the escavations (clickme):

After the tour, went back to the very nice hotel for the night:

The 2nd day was a toss, either take an early-ish ferry around noon, or go around the island. In hindsight, going around the island wasn't that interesting and the noon-ish boat was probably 1H late anyway, so it would have been possible to go around for a while and then take the boat to Santorini. Taking the later boat to Santorini was a mistake, itwas very late and got there past midnight.

found a nice bakery

Then had some time to burn for late lunch and then time to check out a few beaches, although they were windy:

rode by the airport I never used and maybe should have

And after the ride, went to the boat, and waited for it over 1H since it was late like every day...

Initially going to Delphi didn't seem like a fun drive, just going to Olympia was already a fair trek, but I didn't originally factor it as a day trip from Athens with a tour bus (to avoid the 4H+ of driving). But due to limited time, I picked from getyourguide, which offered 2 tours, one that stopped 2H at Arachova and said pretty much nothing about what Arachova was or why it was a good idea to stop there.
As a result of the very poor getyourguide site (and you had one job), I picked what they called the "most popular" day trip which was indeed to Delphi only. Once on the trip, driving through Arachova and realizing how beautiful it was and why it was on the other tour that I didn't pick because I had no idea, now I had deep regret. Thankfully I was able to work something out to rescue to the day, do both Delphi and Arachova (With 2H in Arachova), and still catch the bus back to Athens.

Let's start with Delphi, though. It was another one of those pretty impressive places back in the day, of which there is only so much left today, so you have to read the descriptions and use your imagination along with the audioguide:

found a beautiful and probably poisonous spider on the way ;)

For comparison, thi is what the site used to look like back in the day:

The highlight was the top forum that is still in good shape:

From there, the rest higher up was apparently closed, but I managed to miss that and went to the top:

the top arena was not well maintained and probably hadn't been for a while

From there, I felt I saw all that could be seen, so I went to check out the museum which had a decent collection:

Once done with the museum, took a cab to nearby beautiful Arachova:

super colorful church

Lots of yummy and cheap shopping:

Cute little museum inside town:

The town was full of friendly cats

and after about 2H in town, walked to the bus pickup area, for the IG crowd ;)

and then, longish ride back to Athens, but so happy I didn't have to drive :)

Athens had been on my TODO list for a long time of course, and while Rick Steves recommends 3 full days to do a good visit, it became clear after the first day that most everything else would fit on the 2nd day, so that freed up the 3rd day for a day trip to [Delphi and Arachova, the latter city was actually super fun and pretty (blog clickme)|].

So, I'll start by mentioning cabs. They have a monopoly and too many are crooks that refuse to use their meters. If you step in one, they'll decide how much they want to charge you (usually double or triple the meter rate). Also, they hang out outside monuments and wait for "customers" to fall into their trap:

The only way around is to uber which calls a cab, about half will refuse to take you unless you turn off uber and give them the same flat fee, but eventually one will be honest. Still, pain in the ass...

Athens Day1: Parthenon, Agora and Roman Agora, Pssyri, and Kerameikos

Some of the sights are on their own page, starting with the obvious:

View from the top to scope the next destinations:

After the Parthenon, a somewhat steep climb down through small streets, brings you to other sights included in the ticket:

saw multiple tortoises in the city

Lots of touristy streets:

The Rick Steves Book recommended a Pssyri and Central Market walk, so I did followed that:

they added nice murals to a run down area

food stops :)

On that tour, found this gem:

The spices and market area was very cool to visit:

lots of cats to pet :)

Ther other big site for that day was the:

A church or two on the way:

more museums, kerameikos cemetary and museum:

This is where I'll admit that it was only 16:00 and therefore there were 4 more hours of museums that could been done, but due to travels, lingering cold and short nights, the day ended here. That said, still time for dinner:

Athens Day2: All the Museums, and More

A short walk away was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Honestly there is very little left of it and it's skippable (nice history, but there isn't much left of it, and the unfinished restoration didn't bring it back to its original grandeur). The Roman Hadrian Gate outside is more interesting in my opinion.

Hadrian's Gate still looks good today

From there, lots of museums to see:

From there, museum street was next, and five different museums to visit:

it's an interesting fork of christianity, with its own written language

ouch

also ouch :)

Athens Day3 Evening: Walk Around the Parthenon

A walk down Anafiotika

more cats :)

checked out a few tourist stores:

AFter finishing the loop of the Parthenon, ran into an easter parade, so I knew it was time to get the hell out before everything got blocked. By then many streets were already blocked and the uber had a hell of a time to get us back (took more than twice as long):

And that was it for Athens, time for bed and an eearly 07:00 ferry to Mykonos the next morning