After the wedding in Akrata, we travelled back to Athens to spend a couple of days there before heading to Santorini.

We stayed in Plaka, the oldest district in Athens that sits underneath the Acropolis.  Our hotel room had an amazing view of the acropolis and we spent the two days wondering the streets around Plaka, visiting taverns for yummy food and cold beer with frosted glasses (they really know how to serve beer on a 40 degree day) and of course we went to the Acropolis.  Unfortunately we decided to visit the new Acropolis museum on our last day and sure enough, although the guide book said it would open at 12pm, it was closed for the day.  That was a disappointment as we had heard some amazing things about the museum.  Oh well, it just means we will have to go back to Athens again, which I am quite happy to do!

Our view from the balcony at night

The Acropolis - it is just amazing!

The streets of Plaka were beautiful, so I tried my hand at some street photography.

Isn’t this dog just the cutest?  Sitting on the window, waiting for his owners to come home I think

As a wedding photographer, I cannot resist snapping a couple in love…

While I am waiting for a album to upload, I might start uploading some images from our trip to Greece and Italy in June, finally!  This trip was a little different as I took my laptop along with me and tried to download and edit a few photos as I went because I always come home with 1000s of images to edit and I never get to them.  I still have 1000s of unviewed images from Africa, Vietnam, Cambodia and China just sitting on discs and hard drives.  This is where I think film was better, limited photos taken (as I was always a bit skint travelling), take them to my lab and presto, photos from my trip in my hot little hand.  Although I never quite managed to get them into an album and now they sit in a trunk in my living room…

So Akrata was the little town where Kirsty & George’s wedding was held.  We arrived on Thursday (after a marathon long haul trip from Perth via KL & London) a little shaken by driving on the motorway from Athens to Akrata.  On Friday we visited Olympia and Saturday was the wedding.  So not much time to enjoy this peaceful place but I had a little bit of jetlag so was up early on Saturday to walk around before everyone else was up and things got a little more hectic.

The mountain in the background is nicknamed the sleeping lady, can you see her?

Told you I was up early!  This is the sunrise on Friday morning.

Olympia.  It still amazes me to see remains of buildings from a couple of thousand years ago (or more, history never a strong point, geography, now I am way better at that)

Sometimes, weeds can be pretty…

The museum there was pretty incredible.  Strangely I gravitated towards the sculpture of the naked man…

How’s the detail in the shoe?  It is just awe inspiring…

Saturday morning, 6am on Akrata beach.

Someone else was up early, or left their bike there the night before.  A more likely tale since the street was partying till the wee hours the night before.

Next installment, Athens… maybe next weekend?

Just to let you know I am flying out to Europe to shoot a wedding in Greece then spend some time in Santorini, Rome, Cinque Terre and Naples!  I plan to do a little sight seeing, a little photographing, a lot of eating and spending quality time with Dale who is a little neglected after wedding season.

I won’t be answering my phone while I am away as I won’t be able to afford the phone bill when I come home but you can still email me and I should be able to get to them within a few days, depending on how reliable my google search for hotels with wifi was.

Back sometime in July, ciao!

View I will be enjoying from Ola, Santorini

(hopefully this visit 5 years later is minus so many clouds)

An image I took at Père-Lachaise Cemetery in 2001 on my K1000 Pentax film camera (I loved this little beast!) has been included in the online map publication Schmap!  You can see my entry here with my name!!!  I only recently got some negatives scanned at Fitzgerald Photo Imaging and uploaded onto Flickr so I am very excited that the image got noticed and included.

I cannot wait for my European trip next year (destination wedding in Greece - WOO HOO) to go again to Paris and visit and now with my Schmap on my iPod touch (massive PLUG!) and when I meet a lost tourist I will help them out with the map and casually say “oh by the way, that is my image of the cemetery - you should visit…”

BTW it just goes to show it is not about the camera or the lens…  I picked up the K1000 secondhand with one 50mm fixed lens in London for 120 quid and travelled extensively with it until my conversion to digital in 2006!

I met two friends from Victoria, Rach and Loz in Cambodia for this adventure.  We had already travelled as a threesome before hitting Sicily in 2006 (and almost hitting a few locals with our little Micra as we negotiated tiny alleyways and giant potholes) and Rach and I have travelled through Africa and Vietnam together as well.

Cambodia was a mixed bag of surprises, with stunning ancient ruins, friendly people and beautiful markets.  Unfortunately it wasn’t all beautiful with tourist clambering all over the ruins of Ankgor and the surrounding temples, not paying attention to blocked off areas, poverty and environmental problems.  The poverty of the cambodian people was highlighted for me especially, hotels and tour companies operated by businesses that are not Cambodian owned and profits do not go back into local infrastructure.  Also visiting the beautiful silver pagoda with all it’s riches and coming out of the compound to be confronted by beggers left a bad taste in my mouth. 

All that aside, I loved my time in Cambodia (thanks Rach and Loz for a great time!) and hope you enjoy the photos.

PS I didn’t get the monks to pose for me but I may have stalked some around Angkor for a couple of hours…