Dear Monica (and everyone in the Alipranti Family),
After Turkey, we flew to the capital of Greece, Athens. (I will write more about Athens in a later postcard.) Then we took a bus to a Meteora. Here's a map showing our trip so far:
Meteora is famous because it has many monasteries built high up on the tops of rocky cliffs:
The monasteries are so high up, they use baskets on ropes to pull supplies up. The next photo shows a room hanging over the side of the mountain, from which they can lower a basket to the ground. This monastery was used in a James Bond movie �For Your Eyes Only.� Mom or Dad can explain who James Bond is.
The monasteries were built between 600 and 900 years ago. Then, monks used retractable ladders to get up and down. When there was war below, they could lift the latter and they were safe.
After Meteora, we drove over very windy mountain roads to the Ionian coast. The Ionian Sea lies between Italy and Greece. The red arrows on the map show this.
We stopped at many beaches along the coast and stayed on the islands of Paxos and Antipaxos. The beaches have warm blue water, but instead of sand, they have large pebbles, so they are better for swimming than for lying around. Here�s a photo of the coast:
Parga was my favorite small town on the coast. It was built several hundred years ago by Venetians (from Venice) so it has an old castle and many beautiful old buildings scrunched together on the hillside. Mom or Dad can tell you about Venice. It is also on the Ionian Sea coast. Here is Mr. Mike at the castle:
And here is the beach:
After Syvota and Parga, we took a boat to Paxi, which also has some small towns built by the Venetians. Then we took a smaller boat to the smaller island of Antipaxi. Antipaxi has one of nicest beaches
and even a big cave that we swam into. Here�s a picture of the beach:
Antipaxi is very quiet. I walked around the main town, but there was not a single soul to be seen � just lots of stone walls and houses and olive trees. Here�s a photo:
Back on Paxi, we rented a motor-scooter to explore the island. It also has lots of stone walls and houses and over 200,000 ancient olive trees.
Coincidently, they shot scenes for �For Your Eyes Only� here too.
Please share this email postcard with the rest of the family by reading it to them.
Love, Uncle Jeff
