I'm back from Greece!!! With **59** pics!!!

Hello again Pet Talk!

I've had a spectacular holiday in Halkidiki in Eastern Greece, we stayed in a fabulous hotel well worth its five stars and we went on some really great trips out too. Of course, as requested, I've had my camera out quite a bit so I hope you all like these pics, there are 59 in total so it's going to take me a while to post them all http://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/tongue.gif but I really hope you enjoy them! So, without further ado, picture number 1:

Starting with the hotel, this was the view of the pool from our room
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My dad and my brother playing volleyball in the pool
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The hotel was beachfront, so here is the beach
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And another http://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/smile.gif
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The view across the bay from the main balcony
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My brother and I getting ready for a 'doughnut' ride. I don't know why our expressions look so moody, LOLhttp://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/biggrin.gif
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Starting the doughnut ride
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Lots more to come.....

Whilst my brother and I were swimming in the sea, we came across a little fish that was swimming quite slowly near the surface. My brother caught it in his bare hands and put it in a bucket where we had a look at it. We saw that it had been attacked by something, its tail and left fin were missing. We felt sorry for the fish, and set it free in a small inlet amongst the rocks where it would be safe-ish from another attack. We called the little guy 'Victor' as he had a victory over the predatorhttp://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/wink.gif
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I decided to do something a bit different this holiday, so I went on a parachute ride! This is the bay where it began
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Then I had to get strapped in (yes I am there, behind the big white thing;) )
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Going up...
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Higher and higher...
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That little speck is me!
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Coming back down again
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Plenty more on their way...

Finally getting my feet back on a hard surface. It is such an amazing experience, I would recommend it to anyone. It's not scary in the slightest, you just get the great feeling of floating in the air and taking in the lovely scenery

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One morning, we got up quite early, and got the chance to see this beautiful Greek sunrise from our room
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Sorry this didn't come out to well, but this is a 'Greek night', with traditional Greek dancing and food
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OK, that's all the hotel pics, now for some more interesting ones http://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/biggrin.gif
This was the local town, Kalithea, which was very quaint
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We went on a trip to Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. This is the view from across the harbour
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This is the 'White Tower', a main point of Thessaloniki. However, nowadays it isn't all that white!http://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/tongue.gif
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Lots more coming!

My brotherhttp://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/rolleyes.gif http://petoftheday.com/i/our_smilies/wink.gif
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A park in central Thessaloniki
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Ancient ruins down a main street in Thessaloniki
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My brother and I in a restaurant
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The view of Thessaloniki from the Acropolis, the highest point of the city
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Wine caskets from ancient times in the Thessaloniki museum
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Ancient statue and pillars
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Absolutely loads more....

The museum was filled with much ancient handicraft, this was probably made for a rich Greek citizen well over 2000 years ago

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A stone depiction of a family
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Another statue
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We also went on a boat trip around the three peninsulas of Halkidiki, mainly to see the third peninsula which is home to Mount Athos. This is a view of the bay we set off from
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Cruising away from the shore
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My brother on the boat
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My mum and my brother on the top deck, with my brother's weird expression:o
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More are on their way...

Mount Athos itself, with a beautiful river valley running down it

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A monastery on Mount Athos. Monks have inhabited this peninsula for hundreds of years, and they still live here in complete isolation from the rest of the world
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The town of Ouranopolis, where we stopped for a rest
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Another trip we went on was to a waterpark, nothing too exciting about this but thought I'd include it anyway:)
My mum in the pool
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My brother just landing in the water
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My dad coming down the slide
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The larger slides, my brother went on the white ones many times and came down like a bullet!:p He has no fear.
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This is the entrnce to the tombs of ancient Macedonian kings, the most famous of which is Philip II. Cameras were not allowed inside the tombs, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that to show you, however, it was very interesting and the museum also below has plenty of information about the times of Alexander the Great.

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We also visited a greek winery, this is the cellar where the wine matures
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And these are the huge wine storage tanks where the wine is kept before bottling
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The winery was filled with cats to keep the mouse and rat population down, this little beauty posed nicely for the camera
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And it turned out, she had a kitten. This little guy was so cute, I watched him chasing and catching an imaginary mouse for about 5 minutes instead of listening to the information the guide was giving us;)
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The final trip we went on was to the waterfalls of Edessa, the highest waterfalls in Greece.
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The view over the hills from the top of the waterfall
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Still a few more to come...

Another view

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Closer to the waterfall, you could feel the spray from at least 50m away and 10m up from where the plungepool was
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Behind the waterfall
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This was supposed to be another landscape picture, but my brother decided to stick his head into it just as I pressed the button:rolleyes:
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My brother getting soaked at the bottom of the waterfall
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The top of the waterfall
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Another slightly smaller waterfall
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Last few pics in next post

A beautiful 'water garden' view from the small restaurant at Edessa. That calm water doesn't look as if it's about to plunge down the waterfall!

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My brother in the restaurant (sorry to have so many pics of my brother:p )
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Some of the wonderfully shaped-rocks carved by the waterfall
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And last but not least... yep, that's a cat. He sat in there just by the payment office!
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That's it! I hope you enjoyed them. I would reccommend Halkidiki as a very relaxing and a pleasant place to spend a fortnight.:D :D :D

Beautiful pictures, Zara! It looks like a wonderful vacation. I love the hotel and all the scenery, it's marvelous, every single picture was enjoyed here. :) I love the parachuting. But I thought you land in the water? :confused: I'm always offered to let me do it on trips but I chicken out. :p Anyway, sorry for blabbing, all the pics were wonderful! :D

Such a photogenic country! I also like it because there is always plenty of opporunity to photograph cats. :D

I'm glad you had such a good time.

Those are great photos!

Thanks for sharing, looks like you guys had a great holiday. I'd love to visit there someday.

What a wonderful trip- nature, culture and Greek kittys :) I'd like to go right now :D

What wonderful pics and a very informative tour guide (you). ;) Thanks for sharing your experience & a bit of history. You sure are lucky to be able to experience such things.