Northern Italians think that they are the “real” Italy. The rest of Italy – and this should come as no surprise – has a different opinion. Yet there’s no denying that Milan is more reminiscent of the rest of Europe than it is of, say, Palermo. Milan’s streets are wide and tree-lined, and the Milanese walk around – generally speaking – as if they were looking for a runway to strut down.

The contrast with Greece couldn’t be more pronounced. The Greeks, even in Athens, have more in common with Eastern Europe fashion than the least fashionable Milanese – not that being compared with, say, Poland is any insult. The average Polish college student makes the average Eastern Washington University undergraduate look as if he/she went to Joe’s Barber College and School of Style.

Baggy pants and baseball caps worn backward have still to catch on in Italy, and it was evident nowhere in our nine days of travel in Greece except on television. Oh, you do see the occasional exception in Italy, as we did in Como when we saw the kids doing their best Tony Hawk impressions. But that’s a rare sight. For the most part, Italians would rather wear Gucci than North Face – even, if they could get away with it, on the ski slopes of the Dolomiti.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with the fact that our European jaunt is nearly over. Sitting here, having killed a bottle of good red wine, tapping computer keys that feel as unfamiliar as dollar bills look dully green, it’s just a way of rethinking all that we’ve done over the past few weeks – and all we have left to do.

Mary Pat and I are already planning our next visit abroad. Maybe Spain. Maybe Morocco. Maybe Australia or New Zealand. Wherever it is, we’ll be looking to experience all that we can, looking for life as we find it – and making it as “real” as we can.

Preferably without the baseball cap.

I’m sitting in a basement business center of a hotel south of Athens, far from the life that I have experienced for the past two days in the Central Greece city of Larissa and its suburb, Falani. The sound of my typing echoes off the empty walls, but I don’t notice. I’m still dreaming of the beach, rich Greek pastries and the clouds masking Mount Olympos (the local spelling).

Here’s what happened: After taking us out until the early morning on Friday, my wife Mary Pat’s Greek relatives – whom she had never met until this trip – insisted on taking us for a Saturday drive. Her cousin Nikos, his wife Jennie (that’s the closest I can come to spelling it in English), their daughter Zoi (which means, she says, “life”) and Zoi’s boyfriend Gus (a nickname, I think, for Constantinus), piled us in their station wagon and we took off.

We stopped at a holy place, a church built around a picture of the Madonna that had been found during excavation by the railroad. We sat next to the beach at an outdoor café, where I had a frappe (a concoction made with Nescafe that, if sweetened, tastes something like a Frappuccino) to wash down some pastries so good that they’ve been outlawed in three continents. Gus points to the last piece and say, “We call that the piece of shame because everybody wants it but nobody will take it.”

We hiked to a small village in the shadow of Mount Olympos and ate a lunch of saganaki (fried cheese, which comes in many forms but in this case was topped with a sauce), some locally made pasta served in a dish with cheese baked over the top, and salad, topped off with pork kebobs (I resisted) that the others ate more efficiently than even the feral cats roaming the village streets could have managed.

And I could pay for nothing. Nothing. “When in your country, then you can pay,” they say.

Below: Greeks at the seashore, enjoying life - and each other.

We are in Larissa, Greece, to hook up with members of Mary Pat’s family. They are cousins through her grandfather, a native-born Greek who immigrated to the U.S. while still a teenager and who ended up staying for the next 70-odd years.

This should be fun, as only one of them - it appears - speaks a bit of English. And we can come up with about four Greek words (meaning “thank you,” “you’re welcome,” “yes” and “no”) between us. Good thing MP is fluent in what she likes to call “pointy-talky.”

Second good thing: Whenever I’ve attempted to say “thank you” (“ευχαριστώ,” which comes out something like “Ef-HAR-ee-stow,” with a guttural-sounding “h”) I get smiled at - though whether it’s for my linguistic or comic abilities, I can’t say.

We got this from one of the publicity sheets for the monasteries at Meteora, located just north of Trikala here in central Greece. The James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only” was filmed at one of the picturesque sites. Even here, halfway around the world, I can’t escape Hollywood.

And before we get too far away from the Athens part of this trip, I have to say something about all the rocks that litter this place.

OK, just kidding. I meant all the carved rocks that litter this place.

MP and I spent a couple of hours on Monday afternoon touring the Acropolis, the collection of white columns that sits atop a hill commanding a view of all Athens. We stepped over smooth marble steps and past ancient stoa with Asian tour groups, elderly German tour groups, Athenian high-school tour groups and the occasional Australian, Frenchie and even Brit.

And I thought to myself: This is where Socrates once walked and taught. Or, at least, I think that’s what my friend Karen told me (and she should know, having once studied philosophy at the UW). And I felt … well, nothing would be too strong. But I didn’t feel as much as I thought I might.

Thing is, the Acropolis has been destroyed more than once. The Persians dismantled it. The Venetians bombed it. So did the Turks. The Greeks themselves did it just to get some Turks who were hiding there. And then there was Lord Elgin, the English guy who cut out some of the most hallowed marble pieces and hauled them back to London (where they sit to this very day). And so what we see there is not what actually was but a representation of what was.

I say this not to demean the place. It truly is inspiring. Or can be. But I think that people tend to see Greece, as many of the Greeks themselves do, in terms of what was going on some 2,500 years ago instead of what is here today.

And the fact is that Greece is more than a few pebbles strewn about the Acropolis, the Agora or over the slopes of Delphi. Greece of today is mountains as starkly beautiful as anything you’ll find in Yosemite, as evergreenly atmospheric as any Cascades meadow, as shipshapely presentable as any Italian port.

So my point is this: If you come here to visit, take time to appreciate what is here now instead of just dreaming only about what once was.

A note about driving in Greece: It’s not that hard. Here’s what I can tell you. If you’ve ever driven in Italy, that means that you can certainly handle Greece. If you’ve driven in Greece, that doesn’t prepare you in the slightest for driving in Italy.

And then there’s this: You might think twice, if you were Greek, about jumping in your car and driving, say, 100 kilometers to see Delphi. Or the monasteries at Meteora. But if you’re an American? Think about it: 100 kilometers is just about the distance between Spokane and Ritzville.

As I sit at this terminal, in an Internet spot in Larissa (LAH-ri-ssa), Greece, the kid sitting next to me is fighting the Viernam War. I think he’s having more success than I and my fellow vets did. BOOM! there went a mortar team.

Athens seems so long ago. That’s what happens when you step into your Fiat Punto, a pig of a car on the best of days, and take off through the Greek countryside. Every town you come upon is so much of an adventure that you can’t remember what you were doing five minutes ago much less two days.

Last night we stayed in a hotel on the coast in a village called Galixadi. The night before that in an alpine resort called Elatos. The geography couldn’t have been more different - beach- to ski-bum country.

Oh, hell, now that kid just cut somebody in half with his k-bar. Blood all over snow. Rambo city! I gotta go.

Below: Our pig of a Fiat Punto took us all over Central Greece, which earned it a rest here on the port of the resort town Galaxadi.

Speaking of Globalization, we’ve walked past two Starbucks here in Athens. And both of them are exactly identical to what you would find in virtually any franchise in America. Only difference: the second menu in Greek.

There are Starbucks sites in 20 countries outside the U.S., though none yet in Italy. The Italians might finally succumb, because Americanism is rampant throughout the world, from fashions to slang to attitude. But it won’t be because they need to improve their coffee, which still ranks as the best I’ve ever drunk. Greece? Well. . .

By the way, the McDonald’s here (which, apparently, is the first one ever set up in Greece) serves something called a Greek Mac. It features two lamb patties on a special folded piece of pita, tomato, lettuce and tzaziki sauce. Give McDonald’s credit: At least when it tries to corrupt other cultures, it makes some effort to do so with a sensitivity to local tastes.

Below: Eating in the Athens McDonald’s is like an old “Saturday Night Live” routine - cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!

Below I admit that Mary Pat and I had to walk the entire way up Athens’ Mount Lycavittos. I also admit that we never could find the funicular that’s supposed to serve those who just aren’t up to the trek physically (which I was pretty sure that we weren’t, though we fooled both of us).

But then while searching for Athens stuff online I came across a blog by blogger named Anastasia, and I didn’t feel so bad. In a post dated last July 4, Anastasia wrote about strolling through the center of Athens and not being able to find the Acropolis! I admire her willingness to be that honest.

The guidebooks say not to attempt the climb up Mount Lycavittos (Lycabettus Hill on our Streetwise Athens map) unless you’re in “good shape.” Right. If two 50-somethings with only a dim memory of what the inside of a gym looks like can make it, then anyone can.

Lycavittos (or Lycabettus), which commands the best view of all Athens, is just just a 15-minute walk from our hotel. But factor in the climb, which is like climbing 50 stairwells at once, and you can add another 20 minutes. Or more.

(And let me be honest here. The guidebooks, as other Web sites, say that a funiculat serves the mountain. But WE couldn’t find it. And you can believe that we were looking. So we hoofed it. The whole way. Can you say “Ibuprofen”?)

But the view is worth it. Especially at sunset, which is when we were at least three-quarters of the way up. We would have been disappointed had a, believe it or not, full moon not come up over the opposite horizon at almost exactly the same time.

And they say that such things happen only in movies.

Below: As seen from the Acropolis, Mount Lycavittos stands as the other high point in Athens.

At first, it looked as if our cab driver, who chain-smoked and responded to my first attempts at conversation with little more than grunts, didn’t speak English. Then he began a long tour-guide monologue that at least resembled something you might hear the talking heads speak on Fox News or CNN.

He even teaches me my first word in Greek: “Ef-har-ees-TOH” (which is what it sounds like and is what he tells me means “thank you”).

As we make the hour-hour drive into the city center, where we managed to book a hotel across from the National Gardens, I get my first glimpse of Greek culture - a giant billboard ad for Samsung cell phones that features a smiling blond supermodel type holding a phone, under which the tagline runs, “Tap Into a Whole New World of Entertainment.”

It’s only then that I see the familiar five-ring symbold for the 2004 Athens Olympics. Ah, the joys of globalization.

The cabbie gives us advice about the weather (“They say rain, maybe begin Monday”), about driving (“If rain, drive slow, no problem”), about how to pronounce Greek (“Ther-mah-PEE-luss”) and he points out Athens Stadium (where the modern Olympics began in 1896).

“The U.S. win many medals in that Games,” he says.

Below: The view from hotel in Athens took in both the parliament building and the National Gardens.

If you stay near the center of Rome, you can walk to many of the city’s most famous sites. Here are just a few must-sees of the Italian capital:

The Spanish Steps (Piazza de Spagna): Strangely enough, they were built in 1725 by the French, and they lead to the French church Trinita dei Monti. They were named, however, after the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See because – so the story goes – during the 17th century, the area was considered Spanish territory. If you’re young and single, they’re a great place to find a new pal.

The Colosseum: You can imagine great fights and other stuff in this massive structure, which dates back to the first century CE (also known as AD). A guide once told me, though, that Christians were never fed to the lions here. Thanks, Steve Reeves. Also, the name in Italian (il Colosseo) refers to a giant statue (a Colossus) of the Emperor that long ago disappeared. For a couple of euro you can take photos with actors dressed up in gladiatorial costumes.

The Vatican: So many things to see here, from the Basilica di San Pietro (in which Michelangelo’s Pieta sits) to the Capella Sistina (featuring Michelangelo’s famous paintings on the ceiling). Those who feel particularly religious, Catholic or not, should feel right at home.

The Trevi Fountain (la Fontana di Trevi): Made famous by the 1954 romance “Three Coins in the Fountain,” the fountain is still a place where tourists from all parts of the world come to shoot photos and toss coins. The traditional site of fresh water for the city (which was destroyed by the evil Goths) is marked by 18th-century sculptures of Neptune and seahorses and other stuff. It’s also a great date spot.

I could go on. There are shopping spots, walks past great buildings, piazzas in which to sit and watch the world stroll by, churches (The Pantheon, for example) to visit, parks to explore and numerous museums to view some of the world’s great art. But then the fun is finding all this, and more, on your own.

It was a nice stay with our friends in Cortona. They’re living their dream, having cut ties with the U.S. so that they can live in Italy full time. Allen teaches in Switzerland, Karen works in the Milan office of an international corporation. Their place in Lake Como is in a building designed by the Italian architect Giuseppe Terragni, and it has a lake view (George Clooney’s villa is off in the distance somewhere). Their second house in Cortona can be rented online (look for La Magnolia). Their lives (insert sigh here) are their own.

But now Rome, the center of my own Italy, the big, bustling center of the South, which Federico Fellini captured so well on film in “La Dolce Vita” and “Fellini’s Roma” among others.

We arrived this afternoon, having taken the two-hour train trip from Cortona. Since then we’ve cabbed to the city center (near the Trevi Fountain), been shuffled from our original hotel (it was, apparently, overbooked - thanks Expedia.com), ridden in a minivan to our next hotel (near San Pietro), dodged the rain while in search of a work by Gianlorenzo Bernini (“St. Theresa in Ecstasy”) in the chiesa Santa Maria della Vittoria (which we found, so my wife is happy).

As for me, I’m just happy to be here, using my second-grade Italian skills to talk to cab drivers and hotel clerks and waiters who lie to me and say how well I speak. Right. But I appreciate the lies.

Below: La Magnolia is a pleasant break from the reality of urban life.

Today we drove through the Tuscan-Umbrian countryside, to the south and east of Cortona (remember, “Under the Tuscan Sun”?). One of the highlights was visiting the village of Monterchi, where the fresco “Madonna del Parto” (or “Madonna in Pregnancy”) is located. If nothing else, it shows that not all the great Italian art is located in Florence.

And, truth be told, I’ve never heard of a depiction of the pregnant Madonna.

But for those who prefer outdoor sites, we found a little village named Pierle, which is just 10 km or so east of Cortona (and just over in Umbria). It’s marked by a weathered stone edifice shooting up 100 feet or so named Rocca di Pierle.

And for a second, I consider: Frances Mayes did it. Why not you? This could be the beginning of a whole new career, owner and manager of an Italian B&B.

Below: Rocca di Pierle stands tall, in the hills just 10 km east of Cortona.

Travel notes: We’ve just begun a two-week trip through Italy and Greece. Following are some of the high, and low, points so far.

Overheard in the lobby of The Standard, a trendy hotel on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip: “The only thing that I like about this hotel so far is that we were signed in by the Dalai Lama.” (Our assumption was that the guy was referring to the nationality of the desk clerk).

Trip advice: Never, if you can help it, drive in Los Angeles. Because of a scheduling conflict, we chose to fly down to L.A. on Wednesday evening, even though our flight to Milan wasn’t leaving until Thursday. That meant, of course, that unless we wanted to be stuck in our hotel, we had to rent a car. And even though as a California native I’m familiar with L.A. traffic, I’m apparently no longer capable of dealing with it. After several honking, yelling and making-obscene-gesture incidents, I was only too happy to return my rented car.

Take every advantage to see a movie: Of course, one nice thing about having a car was that we were able to go to the Arclight Cinemas, near the corner of Hollywood and Vine. And the movie we chose to see was “Capote,” the study of the late writer Truman Capote and his writing of the classic nonfiction novel “In Cold Blood.” The movie is, by the way, a brilliant portrait of a troubled, troubled man.

Trip advice: Always bring a good set of earphones on international flights of nine hours or more. We sat right behind a woman who two toddler-age children who screamed nonstop for the first two and a half hours out of Los Angeles. After that, the woman must have drugged them because they fell asleep and didn’t make a peep the rest of the way.

Italian drivers: Our friend Allen picked us up at Malpenza, the Milan airport and drove us the not-quite-an-hour-long trip to the home that he owns with his wife on the shore of Lake Como, Italy. On the way, we were passed a half dozen times by cars traveling in excess of 100 mph with their left-hand turn signals permanently on. That light means, “Get out of my way or I will ride your tail until you do.”

Stealing beauty: Like the name of the Bernardo Bertolucci movie, Lake Como stole our hearts when we awoke this morning. Surrounded by mountains, the green slopes of which haven’t been completely trashed by one housing development after the next, the placid lake would fit in nicely with any Northwest fjord. And George Clooney lives nearby.

Trip advice: Never depend on your rudimentary language skills. In an upscale pizzeria this afternoon, I ordered a salad with my pizza that I was certain had only vegetables. But it came with a layer of thinly sliced beef on top. Next time, I resolved once again, I would use my pocket dictionary to check every word.

Trip advice: If you’re as old as I am (I can remember President Eisenhower), always take an afternoon nap. It will help you get through your trip in much better humor. That’s what I’m going to do right now.