Vacation in Thassos Island, Greece

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The 7-day vacation in Thassos Island (Marble Island - my way of calling it) was over, I don't really feel like coming back from the heaven... The entire island is so beautiful, and of course, fresh sea food!! Darn, I miss it so much! I ordered seafood like there was no tomorrow... it wasn't cheap though, one plate of sea food spaghetti cost €8, that was the only time I could enjoy fresh sea food!

We did so many things: parachute, jet ski, scuba diving, snorkelling, swimming, hiking, boat trip, mainland trip, sight seeing, visiting monastery, monuments & historical sites (Hercules & Alexander The Great etc) and so on and so forth!

The biggest challenge was scuba diving - shoot, I was not a good swimmer and I didn't know how to control the buoyancy and breathing techniques. It was a torture to wear a metal belt weighted 9kg around my waist and the oxygen tanks on my back... I had to be careful of not to drown myself and at the same time control my buoyancy and breathing... It wasn't that easy as I thought! I managed to finish the whole thing in the end with courage, though I intended to give up when I got panicky under the sea (poor instructor... I'm sorry for being such a pain). How envy I was to watch Daniel could swim like a fish...or a frog. Anyway, I've got my Try Scuba license now!

Another challenge - going to Giola the natural swimming pool on a drizzly day. This was the day we went down to Paradise Beach by foot and then hiked the steep mountain full of marble stones, tens of thousands of olive trees and sheep (yes you can imagine the smell) to reach the pool. We reached the top of the mountain, the view was spectacular, it was worth my effort. As I didn't know how to swim, I didn't go down. Neither did Daniel - he forgot to bring his swimming wear and he didn't want to swim nakedly in front of other tourists... aw..

Zara was cheap there, like 10-20% cheaper than here. Unfortunately this trip was not for shopping so I didn't buy any clothes and dresses. Perhaps next time!

The only thing I didn't like was the noisy and thoughtless neighbours next room, who were being warned 2 times (first time by myself then by Daniel another night) but still brainless enough to make noise while everyone was deeply asleep after all the extreme sports!

Oh yeah, and the 20-hour bus travel from Romania - Bulgaria - Greece, total 40 hours back and forth!

Beaches that I like: Golden Beach (1-km long and sandy beach but a little bit dirty on shore), Paradise Beach (crystal clear greenish-blue water and very sandy, too bad we needed to go up and down the hill by foot and there was only one expensive restaurant), Marble Beach (extraordinarily smooth and fine white sand, a place only reachable by boat, no restaurant) and of course Pefkari Beach (pebbly beach, where we did all the extreme sports).

We rented a Kia Picanto (we won't be renting this car again next time, pathetically low horse power, going uphill is out of the question) for 3 days, cost €28 per day, and we "did" Thassos Island exactly in 3 days!

It was scorching hot during the daytime, our room didn't include the air-cond service, anyway we didn't need it because it was quite chilly at night. Luckily we didn't choose to go in Aug, we will be toasted alive outdoor!

We came back when the peak season just about to start. Imagine everything would be more expensive (food, car, hotel, other fees).

One thing I have to say is, the local people in Thassos Island especially in Limenas (where our base was) were amazingly friendly, helpful, warm and welcoming! We saw big smiles wherever we went, they welcomed us with their wide-spread arms! Not to mention, 70% of the tourists were Romanian (including the irritable neighbours)!

It was a wonderful vacation, we plan to go there again, but by car. We already miss the beautiful island surrounded by the crystal-clear turquoise sea water and fine sand, as well as the fresh sea food and the warmth of the whole island!

Bega Festival

Bega Festival started from 19th to 21st June, it is a yearly summer event. That was why I kept bugging Daniel to bring me there, and he did eventually!

We parked our car in the city center, as usual. It was a 10 minutes walk to the Bega River.

It was really funny to watch this bird walking around and trying to impress many other birds. Look at his puffy head, it shrunk when he didn't have any bird near him. In fact we noticed that many birds were like this. Well, summer time is the perfect period to breed, I guess.



No more tulips, now we have another impressive garden art.


On our way to the river, we passed by the graffiti wall. Here are some nice ones.





We were on the river bridge, the festival was started early. Many booths were set up already.


At another end of the bridge, looking down. The beautiful bride and the handsome groom were taking pictures with people.


We arrived the river side. People were preparing the fireworks which would start at 11pm.


There were 3 different bands playing on the stage. The concert started from 8:30pm - 11pm. The duck was the superstar during the 3-day festival. Why duck? Because there'll be a duck race on the 3rd day, which is the main highlight for tomorrow's program. We bought a duck at €1 in the hope that we'll be running away with €1.000 if our duck reaches the ending point at the first place.


The cute man-in-duck.


Me with the puffy man-in-duck.


These were the little ducks-in-sun-glasses which will be racing on the river. There'll be 20.000 ducks participate in this race.


This was the booth from carturesti, the book store where I purchase "Twilight Saga" from. They were selling tea, the way they wrote 茶道 was funny. I didn't buy tea from them, I liked the books better.

Kids were painting and drawing.

A piece of art at the river side to raise the public awareness of recycling the plastic bottles.

A painter.


This guy was from National Geography!


The songs that the 2nd band played were quite boring, so we went to other place for some light meals. It was only 8:30pm, still a long time to go until the fireworks got started. At 10:15pm we came back to the same spot where we sat to continue watching the concert.

The last song before the fireworks began! Although it started to rain, a few small drops... we quickly got up and found a place for shelter.


Yay, fireworks!!



This vid is better. Daniel didn't film nicely for the 1st one because it was so amazing to watch the striking fireworks with our own eyes.


The rain got heavier, we had to rush back home. Might as well took a picture with the beautiful fountain at night.

Twilight Saga Box

I just added these to my collection of vampire books.

I bought the Twilight Saga Box after I watched the Twilight movie 2 weeks ago. It was quite difficult for me to search for the English version here, I thought I would have to order it through Amazon.com but eventually Daniel found it online at carturesti.ro - they have a branch in Timisoara city center, surprisingly near and convenient! They didn't have stock though, in fact they helped us to get it from the HQ in Bucharest! The entire series cost about €45, quite expensive but definitely worth every penny!

Now I can bring one of these books along with me for a holiday in Greece next month!

I am anticipating the movie sequel "New Moon" to be released this fall, can't wait!

Historical Place

We went on picnic today, grilled and chilled outside. We thought we should enter this historical place to check things out after the picnic.

Cherry tree near the entrance, full of irresistible red cherries...


This is the Romanian traditional dance and costumes.


I would have to climb this stuff...


This tall... not sure what it is.


No idea too, perhaps the ancient Romanian used this to prepare food...




This cute little house is empty, abandoned, but is kept remained like this for years. Nobody is living inside. I like the green garden and the bench. Why not sell it to us at a cheap price, don't waste it, you know...


This is a 263-year-old church from Topla, it was built date back to 1746. Totally amazing!


Here's the description of the church.