Millers wrap up Mediterranean visit

Published:  Sunday, June 17, 2007 (10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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A smart car on the streets of Greece.Robert “Cookie” and Louise Miller of Ottoville traveled to Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece last fall. The couple loves to travel and has visited 22 countries.
Louise enjoys seeing how people in other counties live. “Cookie” said this last trip was different from any other they have taken and enjoyed the Old World feel.
The following is the final installments of a journal Louise kept on their most recent trip.

Lying at the foot of the Putsin Mountains was the city Kalambaka. We drove south through Greece. Along the way, we saw small chapels beside the road. In some parts of Europe, these are where someone has died. Greece is a country of white houses with tile roofs, much nicer and prettier than those in Bulgaria and Romania. The roads are wider and the cars are newer. We stayed in the Metropolitan Hotel in Athens.
We took a walk around the block this evening. There was a dinner party arranged for us. The bus took us so far and then we walked five city blocks on cobble-stoned streets to an outdoor cafe. There were large umbrellas all over this patio. A tall fence covered with ivy surrounded the area. I sat near the only tree. We had wine and a salad. When the main dish was served, lightning and a few sprinkles appeared. I’m thinking that under a tree is not a good place to be when it’s lightning. Just after the salad plate was removed from a nearby man’s place, a black worm fell in front of him. It had antenna and legs. Needless to say, we laughed hysterically. I even took a picture. I started to eat my meal and Cookie hadn’t yet received his when the rain started to come down in torrents. He grabbed my plate and two forks and said “follow me.” We found an overhang nearby and took refuge, eating our one meal. I looked down once and saw a large puddle forming near my feet. Some people headed for a nearby building owned by the cafe people. I was reluctant to follow because I had to step out onto wet cobblestones and I guess I’m a bit fanatic about falling. One waiter came with an umbrella and we ventured into the building next door. There, they served us pecan desert that’s great for indigestion and a delicious flavored coffee high in caffeine. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep that night.
In the morning, we headed for the Acropolis. We had seen it as we came into the city at night and it is lit up and is very pretty. There were many tourists climbing up to see the Parthenon and other sites. The sun was shining and the climb made us warm so we sat down on some of the ruins and talked about what we had seen.
Finally, we started down the hill. There were several souvenir shops at the bottom of the hill and we found some very nice treasures to take home. That evening we ate at the hotel with a couple from San Francisco. The next day, some in our group left for a cruise of the Greek islands and we ate breakfast with the couple from Lansing, Michigan.
Later in the day, we and a fellow from Virginia took a taxi to the airport heading for Atlanta. The taxi wasn’t exactly standing still as I could see the speedometer and it said 140. However, that is now mph. The airport wasn’t as large as I thought it might be. We had to go through customs and they seemed pretty thorough to me. We had to take off our shoes. They went through our take-ons and checked our passports. Our flight to Atlanta was 12 hours. I was so tired that I actually slept, though I had never previously slept on a plane.
On arriving in Atlanta, our wonderful travel agent, Karen Kleman of Northwestern Travel Service, had arranged for a shuttle and wheel chairs to bring us to the right concourse. What a good plan. We found our plane and would be an hour and a half later than scheduled, so we called our daughters in Lima, who picked us up in Dayton. Wheelchairs were awaiting us in Dayton as well and we didn’t protest. You should have seen Lynn and Laura’s faces when they saw us in the wheelchairs. A little bit of a shocked look and the big smiles as they realized nothing was wrong. This was supposed to be a leisurely paced trip. We disagreed with this label. They said this is the first year they had taken a tour bus into Bulgaria and Romania. They are going to add another day to the tour next year. Finally, it took us about three days to get back to normal and we are still talking about our tremendous experiences of those 13 days.

1 Reader Response to “Millers wrap up Mediterranean visit”

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  1. #1 — Added 10 months, 2 weeks ago

    Louise: This is your old classmate, Don Weber. I was told by my sister, Celeste, about your articles in the Delphos paper and I have enjoyed reading them online. Er can relate to them as we have been in Rumania and especially the Transylvania area. One of our sons-in-law was born there. He didn’t take us but his father did. So we had a five day guided tour by someone who lived there till he was almost forty years old. You mentioned about the German influence you saw in Brasov. Our son-in-law’s family was all of this German ancestory. The village that they came from was about the size of Ottoville in population, but was like living in the Middle Ages. Also Audrey took a group tour about 15 years ago to Turkey and saw the same sights that you mentioned. But her group also travelled to many other parts of Turkey. The next time we see each other we can talk about these places. Nice articles. Don

    Posted on June 27, 2007 at 12:58 pm by Don Weber