Wonderful exciting Aegina Island....
This is a picture of the Temple: I have tried to correct the year: it is supposed to be 2006....
aegina island
David and I got to Greece 2 days before our oldest daughter, Tara and her Fiance', Robert. The four of us met at the motel and rode the subway system to Piraus. We bought our ferry tickets on the Flying Dolphin. We bought coffee and stood next to the docks while we drank it and people watched. Greeks are passionate and alive when they speak. I love that. They are also very warm to each other and strangers...
We loaded and sped to the
After we got there we walked around and shopped a little while with our packs. We saw a couple of boats pulled up that were fruit stands: neat. We bought a little fruit for later that night. The packs were getting heavy. We decided to get a room for the night then so we didn't have to lug our packs with us..
Two different motels had their doors wide open and no one about.
Tara spotted a place with a large covered patio: there was no one there although it could have held 50 people. We sat down. A lady came running out and insisted we sit inside where it was warm. We trooped inside: there was one larger family table and a couple small "taverna" table one had two elderly men sitting at it. The drunker of the two began asking us questions and finding out what we did and where we were from... While he was talking I looked in at our hostess as I was about 6 feet from the open door to the kitchen/oven area.
The man at the table informed Robert that one coke was worse for you than 5 glasses of wine and he should not be drinking coke.
We strolled on down to the waterfront and went into a jewelry store: we found out there was a temple on the island. The owner called a "friend" who had a taxi and told us it would cost 30 euros. I hesitated.... then the taxi driver called again and said 20 euros.
could not believe the temple. It was so complete and so beautiful.
The temple was built at the beginning of the 5th century BC. It was dedicated to Aphaia. No one really knows who Aphaia was, although it seems that she was a very old goddess who eventually became associated both with the huntress goddess Artemis and with Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
We (surprise? not!) took a million pictures.... What a lucky thing to find out about it.
We visited the monastery of St Nectarius. It was a huge complex with many buildings and a beautiful church that was being refurbished. It has a beautiful silver coffin in the side sanctuary . I saw it.... but no one was with me so i didn't have the guts to look onto the top. Plus I was a little height challenged to look into the top of it... but it was an amazingly intricate silver coffin and extremely ornate. I have tried to find a reference to it on the internet but I cannot find anything.
In the main church, The pews were all carved individually with birds and scenes and the floor of the sanctuary was an ocean mosaic.
We returned to the main town and Tara and Robert took the ferry back to Piraus. David and I bought some crackers, cheese and wine and walked back to the room.. It was freezing ... We tried to turn on the heater then asked our hostess how to turn it on.... Oh... not until tomorrow morning.... yikes... we wound up putting on layers of clothes and our coats, gloves and scarves and getting into bed...We decided against opening the wine and the rest was just awkward to eat with our gloves on... we froze all night... Bright and early the next morning we found there was no hot water... We decided not to shower : we weren't really brave enough to strip in the frigid air anyway.... We retreived our passports and went out to get breakfast... excellent meal. We caught the ferry and met up with Robert and Tara late morning.
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