CHAPTER 1
When our friends Jake and Jackie told us they were moving home from London, a small part of me died. For the past 3 years we had used the excuse of going to visit them as our justification for long, drawn out escapades all over Europe. Of course it would be good to have them back, but now, what would we do when the urge to jump across the puddle strikes? Luckily, J and J saved us one last time… we hatched an ingenious scheme to join them on their grand farewell tour of the Old World, thus helping them close an important chapter in their lives, as good friends should, and giving us yet one more good excuse to go gallivanting.
The idea started innocently enough, as it always does, with the proposal for a sensible, week long holiday in the Greek Isles. But then the sticker shock of plane tickets hit me, as it also always does, and I began to think how non-sensible it is to spend so much money for a paltry seven day vacation. The only option would be to extend the trip as to spread out the expense of flights across more days, increasing our cost/benefit ratio to an acceptable level. What to do, what to do? Well, before we knew it, our plans had ballooned into a month long sabbatical, starting with the famous bareback horse race, Il Palio, at the beginning of July in Siena, our favorite town in Italy, followed with a quick stop in Milan, and then a week of hobnobbing with the rich and famous on the shores of Lake Como. Next, we would board a plane for the heart of Turkey, and the ancient fairy tale geology of Cappadocia. Back west to Istanbul, and then on to Athens, finally arriving on the Islands of the Aegean Sea a good three weeks into our travels. Phew. And now that we would be getting four times the holiday for the same cost of flights, I was at ease with the gods of vagabonding once again.
You would think that a relatively short trip of one month would be relatable in half a dozen blog posts, with perhaps a hundred or so tasteful photos, but you would be wrong. As our traveling résumé swells, so with it does our photographic acumen. The more we see of the world, the more we appreciate the view. Combine that attitude with a new camera, some fresh lenses, and an itchy trigger finger constantly hovering over the shutter button, and our photo count has inevitably increased by exponential proportions. I have been having an extremely hard time choosing favorites from among this cache of photographs, so to save myself the time, and save you the disappointment of missing out on any, I have decided to post them all! Well, not quite, just all the ones that I took time to edit. But even so, just as a warning, it is going to be quite the bombardment. I think this is ok though, because in the end, I like them all, which is why I take them. I just hope you like them too.
Note: I would be proud to say that they are all mine, but in the following posts, I need to give credit for a number of photos that will be included which were taken by our traveling companions- JR in the title of a photo indicates Jake or Jackie Reingardt, and JM indicates John Mackin or Kate Norek. Many thanks for sharing your photos!
So, without further ado: The Aegean Expedition! Starting with Siena, in four parts…
Next Chapter