Hellas: goodbye.

"I don't pity the Corfu." - Mr. T.

Corfu, Greece - As we wandered into Corfu this morning, moody clouds slouched with rounded shoulders.

The sun had risen as a misty pastel gouache over the island's mountains, but had begun to play hard-to-get.

With jagged streets lined by coffee shops and the tic-tac-toe of shuttered windows, the quaint town owes some of its heritage to a number of nations, including France and Great Britain. Strategically located, Corfu is ringed by an old and a new fort – which really isn't.

Still very much a postcard of Greece, though, serpentine grapevine and bougainvillea creep across lines above the street and billow with blooms. As the morning gave way to a more acceptable local hour, the streets, too, blossomed with vendors' colourful wares.

At each corner, our noses were tickled by the smells of herbs, grilled meats and baked sweets: gyros, souvlaki, baklava and pastries with sesame. Corfu is also known for kumquats, and the fruit's bright orange colour shimmered from liqueur bottles shaped like the island.

The fruit grows alongside silver-leafed olives on Corfu, which – filled with waxy tropical plants – is more lush than some of the other Greek islands we have visited.

As we turned to leave the main square, pigeons tussled over a crust of bread, and the laundry hanging over the street waved goodbye.

As we, too, bid adieu to Greece, I believe this is an island to which I could say hello again.

Gold.

Sprinting is hard when you're made of marble.

Olympia, Greece - As grown men first did here in 776 B.C., school children ran the 192-metre course in the stadium that hosted the ancient Olympic games.

The start and finish lines are still marked by blocks of marble.

The Olympics have changed a lot since they began – back then, Nike was just the Goddess of Victory, rather than a global fashion statement. She didn't need Dri-Fit or air cushions.

The modern games are also a world-wide, made-for-television spectacle comprised of far more than the original seven events. Now, women and other nations are allowed to compete.

Despite what you see during the beach volleyball events, the Games now also require you to wear clothes.

The long pathway to the stadium – where statues to Zeus once stood – however, shows some things have changed little: those found to have cheated were to commission a statue glorifying the god, which would serve as reminders to those competing that fair play was to be the ethos of the Games.

There were many.

Today, ancient Olympia is essentially a large pile of scattered stones and fallen columns amidst a heavily treed garden. The pungent smell of rosemary, which grows wild in the area, wafts through the air.

But these stones once included one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – the Statue of Zeus at Olympia – and formed the basis for the Olympic Games as we now know them.

Some even consider Olympia to be the cradle of democracy, as any Greek who had not murdered or sinned against the Gods could participate in the original games, regardless of class.

In the age of tyranny, victory guaranteed influence.

Such influence was worth its weight in gold.

Mykonos, Greece.

Iconic windmills on the island of Mykonos.

Greasing Palms.

The Erechtheum, atop the Acropolis.

Athens, Greece - Antiquity's smooth white marble contrasts with the colourful, organized splatters of spray paint. Ancient columns shrug behind cages of steel scaffolding.

The old and the new: everywhere.

There seems to be a tension in Athens between holding on to the city's impressive history, and moving on. Having the country's economy crumble like so many of the buildings we have come to visit has, of course, not helped.

Nor has having more history than most cities could dream of.

Tension was at the forefront again today, as Athenians used the occasion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's unplanned visit to strike and to protest. Police sat skittishly astride motorcycles, but this has become an all-too-common practice in the city. Ho hum.

Yet, roars from the gathered crowd could be heard atop the Acropolis. Bandana-clad protestors chipped marble from ancient structures and both literally and metaphorically threw history at the police.

We had changed our itinerary to be away from downtown by noon, when the larger protests had been planned.

Instead, we stopped briefly at the site of the first modern Olympic Games, the Panathenaic Stadium (which our guide told us, "hosts a marathon every year with amateurs – not real athletes." Um, wow.), before climbing the Acropolis, which overlooks the city.

As with the Olympic Stadium, all of the buildings up the steep hill – including its most famous resident, the Parthenon – are made entirely of marble. They stand now like chipped smiles, missing columns and leaving their former splendour to your imagination. But, they are still as beautiful as they are impressive.

Standing there, history became very, very real.

While I was not, for the most part, overly thrilled by Athens, how many other cities can boast of having clusters of ancient ruins trod upon by the likes of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato sprouting from their core?

Unfortunately, the city of philosophers now seems filled with too many who are content to express their thoughts through violent strikes and spray paint cans, rather than truly help move the country forward.

Hellas Angels.

Hard to take a bad picture in Santorini.

Santorini, Greece - Stone buildings, painted white, perch atop tall, volcanic cliffs like icing on a cake. Blue-domed churches gleam in the bright sunlight like gumdrops.

Today also felt like icing on the cake for our trip – it was that beautiful.

We began by riding well-trained, yet stubborn, donkeys up switchbacks to the town of Fera, before taking a town bus to the more-famous town of Oia.

Yes, it was a day filled with ass jokes.

A caldera with an active volcano, the Greek island of Santorini erupted so forcefully thousands of years ago it caused a 600-metre tsunami.

From this destruction, however, has come one of the most picturesque places I have seen anywhere in the world.