[ Aug.2011 ] When we took the boat to go around  Athos peninsula in Greece, we saw one Father with female religious group. He started giving some pieces of bread or something to seagulls flying…

[August, 2011] Mt.Athos in Greece and surrounding peninsula is really a strange place with as many as 20 monasteries and nothing else. On top of that no women can enter this area in this 21st century….

[August, 2011] One day, we walked in Thessaloniki in Greece without the group tour people, just following the suggestion in my guide book. First we went up to Kastro to look over the city and then…

[August, 2011] We looked for a restaurant recommended in our guide book for dinner in Thessaloniki in Greece. But it was not there and a woman at kiosk told us it was closed down. I suppose…

[August, 2011] Our Ancient Macedonia tour went into Macedonia region of Greece from Macedonia as a country. Macedonia and Greece are still fighting about this name, so Macedonia Republic is often called officially with the adjective…

[August, 2011] We took a rowing boat at a place called Naum which is at the south end of Lake Ohrid, Macedonia. Here is the spring, whose water is flowing into the lake and a part…

[August, 2011] 5 km towards Albania, away from the town Struga, north of Lake Ohrid in Macedonia is a place called Kalista. Here there is this cave church called St. Bogorodica. According to the guide, around 13th century, it was a trendy thing to do for monks to hide away from people’s living places and to stay in caves…

[August, 2011] One day during our stay in Ohrid in Macedonia, we had our own guide and went to Struga, which is north side of the lake. Here the water from the lake flows out into…

[August, 2011] We took a boat trip on the Lake Ohrid. The boatman did not speak very much English, but told us ‘ Here, the depth is about 10m, but over there it is about 300m’…