SICILY, ITALY (JULY 2005)

As I begin this post two things in particular come to mind. The first is that Albania is amazingly geographically located and is a wonderful doorstep into so many different European countries, allowing one to experience vast cultural and geographical changes by only travelling short distances. The second thing that comes to mind is the fact that I think Italy has just about the best food on the planet...at least the best I have tried thus far.

On July 20th, Chris, Jozi and myself boarded an overnight ferry from Durres, Albania to Bari, Italy. From Bari we made about a 6 hour ride to the southern tip of Italy to what is known as Reggio de Calabria. From there we took the 1/2 hr ferry ride to Messina, Sicily, Italy. From Messina we traveled about another 1/2 hr to our first destination, Taormina. Our initial plan was to tour the island and over the course of our 2 day stay travel to some of the major Sicilian cities, but unfortunately Chris' bike had some unforseen problems so we spent our time in Taormina primarily, with some short travels to nearby cities for the purpose of trying to get his bike repaired. We had hoped to visit the Godfather in Palermo but obviously that didnt quite work out. On our last day there, after spending the morning finishing fixing the bike, we spent the afternoon and traveled to the nearby active volcano, Mt. Etna. It was a beatiful ride and by far was one of the highlights of our time in Sicily. Mt Etna is one of the worlds most active volcanoes. Its last sizeable eruption was in 2002! After visiting Mt. Etna we returned to the hotel and prepared for an early morning departure for mainland Italy so we could catch the ferry back to Albania.

So here are some of the pictures from our journey. Enjoy!

island of sicily


exit for sicily


preparing to take the ferry to sicily


ferry to sicily


just arrived in the city of taormina


taormina, sicily by night


beaches nearby taormina


nearby city of giardini naxos. the city up on the hillside is taormina


some passenger jozi picked up


mt. etna


sean, jozi, chris at mt. etna


mt. etna had brilliant colors and landscape


riding down from mt. etna


on the ferry back to mainland italy


ferry to the mainland. city of messina, sicily in background


a good laugh can always be had. the wind was quite strong that day.

IOANNINA, METEORA, ZAGORI, GREECE (JUNE/JULY '05)

For 2 nights and 3 days I had the privelage of making my first motorcycle journey to Greece. Jozi and I left Albania at 6am and within 6 hours we arrived in Ioannina, Greece (Northern Greece). Later that day we met up with Chris and Laura Dakas who drove down from Albania later that day with a the medical/dental team from Fresno, California that just finished their days of ministry in Tirane and Sarande. Josif and I camped by lake Ioannina each night.

The next day we made a 3 hour trip to the 'rock forrest' of Meteora. The trip was almost entirely over mountain ranges providing the most excellent twisty roads for improving my motorcylce cornering skills. Meteora is and area in Northern-central Greece where massive rock formations rise to the sky out of no where. Atop these amazing rock formations monks from around the 14th century have built monastaries. These monastaries which used to be accessible only by rope and basket have now had stairways built up to them for tourists. Still to this day some of the monastaries are only accessible by mechanical cable-driven baskets. We returned late that evening and some of us enjoyed a nice walk around the city and a night boat tour around the lake.

The following day (day 3 - our last) we packed up camp, met the team in their vans and headed for the Greek-Albania border. Just before the border we stopped in a small mountain village known as Zagori. Zagori has some great mountains, beautiful valleys and rivers. We enjoyed lunch there before returning to Tirane.

Throughout the entire trip, unbelievable to me, we only covered about 700 miles. Because of road conditions in Albania and mountainous roads in general it seems as if you are driving a lot farther than you actually are.

Here are the pictures from our days of riding:

the morning departure to greece


camping at lake ioannina


above lake ioannina on the road to meteora


jozi and sean on road to meteora


sean on road to meteora


jozi and sean - coffee break on way to meteora




entering meteora







some of the monastaries of meteora


room where deceased priests' and monastary workers' bones are kept


some guy sitting next to one of the many beautiful greek icon paintings




monastary worker crossing from the monastary to mainland via cable basket

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sean on road to zagori


enjoying the good taste of zagori water (they actually bottle water from zagori and ship it all over greece and even into albania).


zagori mountains


jozi and sean in zagori


chris and laura dakas in zagori


zagori mountains


could be the water?


my cousin laura dakas and I in zagori

NAPLES, ITALY (MAY '05)

A friend from the church my brother pastors in Wilsonville, Oregon (www.visitriverside.com) came to serve with us in Albania for one month. One of his dreams was to see Italy...actually to cruise around Italy on a Vespa. Well the Vespa didnt work out, but at least we were on a motorcycle. We travelled from Durres, Albania via overnight ferry to Bari, Italy then made the 3 or so hour drive to Naples, Italy. We spent 2 full days there and one night then returned to Albania. It was a short trip but grips-o-fun. By the way, Naples serves some amazing food. They also are the inventors of the real pizza.

Matt & I departing from the Stephen Center for the overnight ferry to Italy.

Ferry cabin


Naples by day








Italian Eats part 1


Italian Eats part 2