We went on a day trip to Pompeii, the ancient city that was buried in lava in 97 AD and then uncovered. It was much bigger than we expected and we even got to see a preserved cast of one of the victims.

From Trapani we went back to Palermo and caught an overnight ferry back to the mainland, to Naples.

The boat was 'first-class' only so us cheap people had to splurge on a 'luxury cabin,' which turned out to be absolutely no different than our cabins on the other boats. There were escalators all over the boat though. Whoopee.

Today in Napoli, we found a huge natural food store with a vast selection of organic pastas and we even found a new-ageish vegan organic restaurant that had a big selection of progressive books about vaccinations, the myth of AIDS, etc.

Omo has recently started to stand up and even with "no hands" for a few seconds.

We got sick of Palermo quite quickly, so today we headed to the west coast to see an old medieval town called Erice that is on top of a mountain overlooking the sea.

The clouds were so low that we walked through the cobblestone streets and Norman castle in a thick fog.

From Brindisi we headed South to Sicily, where we are currently staying in the city of Palermo.

Of course on our first day we found the three things I've mentioned before and had a little trouble at the "vegetarian" restaurant after Orian's pasta arrived with shrimp. But we did get soy gelato down the street for dessert.

The city sponsored electric bike rentals and had methane (natural gas, almost no polution, though not from a renewable resource.) buses.

We took the bus to the top of the mountain there and saw the famous Monreale church that all done in gold and glass mosaic and we had a great view of the city and sea.



Tomorrow we're moving on to Erice.

In Brindisi we found we found 'Urupia'.

It is an eco-commune of 12 permanent members (Germans and Italians) and there were also 13 volunteers from Germany, Portugal, Denmark, and Italy.

We didn't find any eco-communities or organic farms in Greece doing our research while in Palestine, so after five days of asking around in the natural food stores, we decided to move on to Italy, where we had listings.

We caught a 3-hour train that took us to the port where we caught an overnight ferry to Brindisi.

Here we are waiting for the train.

On our final night in Athens we took a night walk around Omonia Square:


And then spent our final night in our "ecological" hotel. They tried to save on heating bills and provided five blankets instead! BRR!

Our first day in Athens was like all first days in new cities for us - we went to the tourist office and fount a map and then went off to check out the natural food stores, vegetarian restaurants, and internet points to connect.
On our way to all these, we got to see the city.

We were happily surprised that not far from our hotel at the Plaka area was a store labeled, "Healthy Food, Vegetarian Fast Food, Books" which was half a natural food store where we could get our organic whole-wheat bread, tahini, and produce and the other half was a cafeteria which served mainly vegan food, there we could fill up on reverse-osmosis water instead of buying new bottles (reduce.. reuse.. recycle).

We were surprised that the people who were eating here seemed to be all middle-aged and up working class and not young hippy kids.

We also ate at an all organic, slightly-upscale vegetarian restaurant which we found recommended in a few places which was good but more expensive. (Yes, as you can see I am a little obsessed with the food part of our trip.)

Other than eating in Athens we also went to the usual sites, the Acropolis and it's surrounding areas, the flea markets and food markets, but mainly just walking around. They also had an 8-floor bookstore with mainly English books - bigger than most American bookstores. There we found every travel guide written for everywhere in the world and we picked up a "Let's Go Western Europe" guide.

Here we are outside the Theater at the Acropolis :


We practised Elimination Communication (for those who don't know, Omo has been diaperless for 3 months already, she naturally communicates with us when she needs to eliminate. This method is called Elimination Communication.) From the Acropolis, we descended to the ruins of ancient Agora:

Though our recent plan (out of many) was to go to Egypt and try to catch a ride with a yacht going south, we eventually decided that Mediterranean Europe is warm enough, so we took the ferry from Haifa to Athens via Cyprus.

Here is Omo as we packed our belongings just before we left home:

We paid a total of about $300 for a room on the ferry. It had no window but got a free upgrade to a room with a window because the ticket seller liked Omo.

Here are some pictures taken as we went on board:

Along the way we made a half-day stop in Cyprus and walked around the residential areas of Limassol, just getting a feel for the place.

Not too many passengers were on the ferry, the weather was great and we had a picnic outside:

Omo really liked sitting in front of the ocean by the window in our room. We put a pillow behind her, and she would occupy herself for quite a long time.

After 3 nights and 3 days we arrived in Pireus, the port town next to Athens. The trip was very relaxing, we could see Turkey and Rhodes on the way, and it gave us a good recharge for the busy city.