Here are some more pictures I took this summer. Most of them are taken in Greece, but one of them is from Italy.
This picture is from the Greek island Samos.
The cruise I was on took a short stop in Turkey, but we didn't get to go ashore. I did, however, get to see some of the city from the boat.
This is from the Acropolis in Athens. I am very interested in Greek mythology, so it was really cool seeing the Parthenon in real life.
This is from the Pantheon in Rome.
This is from the monastery in Meteora in Greece. It was a truly gorgeous location, and I am happy I got to experience it.
Was the Acropolis really as quiet as it looks? It looks so much more peaceful than the Pantheon pictured immediately below it.
After traveling a fair amount I realized the quiet and freedom from crowds is quite important to me when I visit places. That is to say it enhances the experience by 3x or so. Sometimes more.
On one occasion I visited the Louvre. It didn't seem exceptionally crowded but that changed when I arrived at the room which houses the Mona Lisa. People jostled one another for a position to snap a blurry photo while holding their mobile phones or cameras above their heads to "see" over the mob.
It was quite frustrating. Obviously it would have made more sense for everyone to file past the famous portrait to get a look and -if absolutely necessary- a snapshot. Instead almost no one was able to see the artwork properly or snap an
unecessaryhigh quality photo.BTW, if you (i.e. anybody reading this) went to the Louvre and were prevented from seeing the Mona Lisa because of the crowds here is your chance to have a look...lol:
It wasn't nearly as crowded at the Acropolis as at the Pantheon, but that is mostly because the space is so much bigger there. I actually visited the Louvre this summer, and (kind of) got to see Mona Lisa. Like you said, there is always a huge crowd of people blocking the painting, but I managed to get a quick photo, just so I could look at it later ;) It was crazy, I lost the people I came with the second we walked in the door, because people were very pushy and you really have to push back to get anywhere in there.