....................Happy 2010....................

Last day of our vacations.

Last day at "Platanos" and we wanted to do something good for the kids that after one and a half month, they must come back to the big city,

So we took them and went to "Xilokastro" a city 30 minutes far away from were we were, to play with "George" (son of a friend of ours).

So here are some the pictures I took that night.
These bikes are so easy for Vaggelis to manage, and he started to do tricks to impress us...
...Katerina by the way liked to drive this "Jeep"... and at the and of her ride told me to buy her one of this ............ but a real one so she can have it when she grow up!
 

(Did you check Vaggelis hair style?....... He wanted me to make his hair like that!!!!!)
This is George with Katerina.
And here is the "MAD DRIVER" in the green bumper car.

Right behind him (in the red bumper car) is Vaggelis's godfather with his son that they have a house at "Xilokastro" city.

Rack Railway to Kalavrita.

While we were At Platanos city, we arrange to take the famous "Rack Railway Train" that goes from Diakopto to Kalavrita.

Diakopto is a city at sea level while Kalavrita is a city builted at about 760 meters above sea level.

As you can imagine the train goes all the way up (It's a steep slope for a train ).

That's why the made it "Rack railway".

You can see it at the next photograph.It's about 30 minutes from the one point to the other but....

the view is awesome!!!!!!!!!

I don't think that you want me to explain what we saw!

Here is a small sample of what we saw. 



All the passengers of that small train were standing up and went from the left to the right side of the train to see the view at the left of us the right of us .....

...... above us and underneath us!!!!!! 



Click at the next picture to have a closer look.

If you do it you'll see a canyon with a river at the bottom side and somewhere in the middle you'll see the old narrow bridge that the train used to pass by...... 
Yep,... It's a kind of scary looking back to where the train just pass!.......

..............but it is gorgeous to!.............



I tried to give you an idea of what we saw.
Believe me that it's not compared to what we saw over there.

Let me tell you that this track is voted Europe's one of the most spectacular track and the 6th most beautiful world wide!!!!!

Just think that is "built" near 1896.

10 more days at PlATANOS.

Me and Soula didn't stay more that a couple of days at the village. We had to came back for a week because Soula had to go back to her work. So we stayed for a week in Athens while the kids stayed at Velimahi with their grandparents.
So after that small break to we went back to the village and took the kids and went to Platanos.

My uncle Diamantis and my aunt Katia have there a house near the sea.

So we asked them if we would go there for those days and they kindly told us that we could stay.

It's not the first time that they are letting us stay there so the kids were crazy about it!

(For those that they have seen that house, they probably remember that is just a feww steps away from the sea water).So here they are enjoying the sea. 

They were from about 10:00 am till 14:00 pm (some days even more than that) to the sea.
They were playing with each other..... 
I forgot to tell you that Vaggelis learned how to use the mask and the snorkel!

So me and Vaggelis wore are masks, our snorkels and our flippers and went in deeper waters to find shells.

Hey... don't laugh at me! It was the first time of my life that I found so many shells in the bottom of the sea!

The two or three first days was easy to find them but after the third day I had to dive more that 3 meters down to the water and the pressure of the water pushing my ears so strong!...

Here you see Vaggelis looking for shells.

(No he could dive to catch them but he yield at me to go catch it for him!!!!.
Okay Vaggelis you can come out now.... We have to leave.

The "Sardine's Selebration" at Velimahi village.

For those that they think that the Sardines goes only to the villages near seaside,

................

they have to reconsider.

At Soula's village, for I think 7 times in a row, they are celebrating the sardines.

The celebrations took place at the center of the village, and the only thing that you can eat and drink that night is (of course) Sardines, Greek Salad, Bread and a lot of Wine!.

Sometimes the have live music and sometimes they bring a DJ but that is not a problem for everybody from the village to stand up and dance.400 kilos of Sardines are grilled that night.

Yep, 400 kilos!

(You couldn't find not even a paisley next day..).
There were almost all the people of Velimahi but there were a lot people from the villages around it.
If you look carefully the previous and the next picture you'll notice the people dancing while the tissues in the air (The plates that we ate were plastic so they could brake them by throwing them down on the ground).
Vaggelis keep bringing up Sardines. Here is his grandmother (Soula's mother).

Do you want some? Katerina ate a lot that night and they were great!.
After kids ate their Sardines the went to dance.

And as you'll see from the next pictures, they dance a lot!!!




Finally just before we come back to our home, the DJ played one of his favorite music.

And as you can imagine he wanted to dance.

And so he did ..... in the middle of the street!!!!

It was okay, no cars, just people passing by.

Everyone liked this celebration and we can't wait for the another one next year,.

Moments of Milos...

As you can imagine.... I came back with thousands of pictures in my camera........

It will be very dificult for everyone to see them if I putted them one by one, so I decided to post this slideshot.

Now, if someone wants any photo to download it, click on the slideshow and I hope that you can download it. If not, then make a comment and I'll see what I can do about it..

The last of the 10 days at Milos Island

Here we are at our last day at Miloas island.

You can see from Katerina's face that she not at her best mood.

(Nether we...).We had to be at the harbor at 12:30 pm and we thought that it was a great idea to go to see "catacombs".

Here we are outside of "catacombes", let's go inside. 
Here they are. They were closed for about 3 years because they open up about 200 meters.

Let me tell a couple of words about "Catacombs".

They were a Christian church and cemetery too back where the conquerors were chancing them. It is more that 500 meters inside the mountain and we were very lucky to went there because they've opened up two days before we leave.
In every big round hole that you see in avery picture they pu the deads.

.....Time to leave.......

........Time to go back to our home.......

.....Till the next time to be here.......

....Bye bye Milos....

.........is the sun sets in the same place from everywhere or......not!..........

Pictures of my family around Milos

Here is Vaggelis in a park near to the sea playing.Katerina join the game with Vaggelis too.


I told you that there were a lot of things to see around Milos island.

Look at those kayaks!

Are they great?

(Look at the far back how windy it was...).


Here we are at the Museum of rocks.

I forgot to tell you that at Milos island they extract brimstone, opal, perlite, and many more...

Here they use dirt and perlite to sow a plant.