Crappy Austrian Palace and Athens.....

Hi Folks

Well Kearie and I did one of the hop on hop of tours in Vienna, we only did one stop, Kearie was looking forward to seeing Belvedere Palace. What a let down. The pictures of the palace show some really lovely rooms and the palace reflected in a huge lake/pond. Well the lake/pond was undergoing repairs, so no water and lots of men and equipment, the back gardens were nice, we took some snaps of the fountains etc on our way down to the lower Belvedere. We went through an art exhibition and by the time we got to the stables they were closed, they only open from 10 to 12, but nobody bothers to tell you that when you arrive, they don't tell you about the garden renovations either, but you can't help but notice those. We then listened to the audio of how wonderful the privy garden is, only once you get inside you realise they are talking about how it was, not how it is now and it is all pretty ordinary now. When we headed back up to upper Belvedere, the main palace we notice that all the fountains are now turned off, so had we not gotten earlier snaps, we would have missed those too. Really shoddy the way the place is run. There are maybe 3 or 4 rooms in the main palace that are worth looking at, most of the rooms have had all the embellishments removed over the years and are just plain plaster walls and ceilings, it was very disappointing. There is no furniture left in the castle, so basically you are walking around boring room to boring room. They have tried to compensate by hanging art in all the rooms, but most of the pictures where not originally in the palace. It was a big let down and Kearie was very disappointed. The original must have been really wonderful, they have sketches, stories etc, but what it is today is really not worth visiting, which is kind of sad. Versailles is wonderful and the French went through a revolution without destroying it, but I am not aware of why the Austrian couldn't save there's, they didn't tell us that....


Looking towards upper Belvedere from towards lower Belvedere, luckily the fountain is still working at this point. Once they turned them off they did not turn them on again for the rest of the day.. The gardens in this area where impressive.


Lower Belvedere, taken from the middle of the garden.


Another view of Upper Belvedere, I didn't take any pics of the privy garden, it wasn't worth it. We were not allowed take pictures inside the palace, I think they are afraid people will find out how shitty it is and not visit it..

We travelled to Greece on Monday, Athens is so not what I was expecting... We thought we would see ruins and when we arrived we realised that Athens is one big ruin, what a dump... I was really surprised, it is just amazing, the buildings are crap!! Our hotel is fine, it has a roof top garden, with a view of the acropolis, we ate up there the first night and the view of the city around us just showed up the poverty, but once the night fell and the lights came on, the Acropolis and the city shined, it is a wonderful view.


A view of Athens from our hotel. A coat of paint would make a hell of a difference...


The Acropolis from our hotel roof, it is wonderful, really impressive


After dark, it was beautiful, the picture doesn't really capture it sufficiently.

We went into town shopping early yesterday morning, the shopping area was way better than the area we are staying in, we had lunch and browsed the streets, I brought some clothes and souvenirs. We then headed back to our hotel as we were taking a tour to the country to see Poseidon's temple, that was really good. We passed through some better suburbs of Athens, where the Greek Shipping millionaires have homes, but they can't be on the coast road as I didn't see anything that was really awesome, like you would expect them to live in. The coast was really nice and we followed it for a good hour or more before arriving at the temple, that was awesome, seeing the ancient ruins, we walked around them and took pics etc and then returned to Athens. Kearie and I ate once more on the rooftop and then had an early night, we were both pretty buggered, she is still sleeping now.


A view from the beach road, it was a lovely coastline.


Most of the country side is incredibly barren...


The temple of Poseidon, is that a Greek Goddess or a fat Aussie chick? Hard to tell really....

Today we are going to a beach, we are being picked up from our hotel and delivered here again, 2pm to 7pm for 20 euro, they supply the deck chair towel, sunscreen and drink etc, so it should be good and no effort on our part, I like that bit.... I saw a lot of their beaches yesterday and they look really nice, so fingers crossed.

Some of Athens is really quite nice, I cannot understand why they do not just put some paint on the crappy buildings and smarten up the place, it is really quite an ugly city. The part that amazes me the most is that the ancient Greeks built such amazing things, but since then the Greeks seem to have rested on their laurels and done nothing at all. The architecture here is non existent, all the buildings are just like boxes, what happened to the wonderful talent they had for creating masterpieces all those thousands of years ago? I cannot see anything they can take real pride in that wasn't built since Moses played full back for the Arabs.... It is really quite disappointing.

We are having a few days here before starting our Greek tour on Saturday. I shall post some pics so you can see some of what we have seen

Cheers for now

Lones


Another view from the roof top restaurant


Another pic taken along the coast road.


Our first view of the temple in the distance.