Athens

The downside to traveling to the lesser traveled islands is they are tougher to get to. We had to pass back through Athens to get to Lesvos. This time we spent two days walking the Acropolis and shopping.

There were 8 cruise ships in the harbor and 80,000 people coming in for the football championship. We got to tour and shop with many of them. But Athens can handle a lot of people so it wasn’t too bad.

The photos show a tourist train that winds around the old town, providing access to all of the souvenir shops and souvlaki restaurants.

We don’t know if there’s symbology in the graffiti or if it’s just fun to look at.
Two quick days, a new camera, some fun puppets and we’re on the overnight ferry to Lesvos.

More Milos

We’re leaving Milos on the Highspeeed ferry to Athen’s port of Piraeus. It’s raining heavily but the winds have died down. The picture shows what the sea looked like when we decided to postpone our departure. Our ferry rides have been too enjoyable to ruin them with an avoidable gut wrenching passage.

There was a lot to like about Milos. Low key tourism on an island of great beaches, rock formations, interesting villages and friendly people. There was more to see and do then we got around to. I guess our time went into laying around and swimming. And jumping off of rocks. That’s why there are so many bubbles in the water behind me. It has nothing to do with the fava beans we’ve been enjoying.

On to Athens for a few days before heading to Lesvos. We’re hoping to avoid the impact of the upcoming national football final. It’s between Britain and Italy. The Greeks have a plan to make the Brits travel from the airport by train while they Italians travel by bus, They’ll wear color coded bracelets to match the color coded signage. There will be undercover police traveling with them to identify the trouble makers. All so much better than the historic national fights that ended in rape, pillage, slavery and genocide. Long live the EU!

Milos

We came to Milos hoping for a beautiful island shared with fewer tourists. It’s here. So are extraordinary beaches, sulphur hot springs and great geology.

The island was created by volcanic action and the extinct caldera forms a bay that must be 10 km across. It left behind pumice, volcanic flows and minerals, easily visible since the vegetation is sparse. Jules is covering the horizontal surfaces of our flat with colorful rock samples.

One of the stand out beaches is Paleohori. We were drawn to it by the beautiful red and yellow cliffs and its long stretch of sand. We parked by a taverna who’s sign read “Volcanic Food”. Oh good, I like spicy food.

When we hit the beach there was a closed metal box on the sand that we took for a solar oven. Our barefoot stroll across the sand turned into a hot foot run. After great swimming and more foot burning, we finally realized that the beach’s heat was not coming from the sun but was rising up from the earth. It got hotter the deeper we dug in the sand. We couldn’t even get down a foot before it burned our hands.

The volcanic food wasn’t spicy, it was cooked by geothermal heat in the metal box! To control the temperature they just shoveled the sand around. There must be ancient explanations for this phenomenon involving angry gods and underground monsters. And there’s no need to look for clues of fiction in this blog. It’s really true.

The same monsters (or whatever the cause) are releasing heated, sulphur rich water in the surf. These show as yellow-orange patches on the seabed. The water is nicely warmed around these spots. There aren’t bubbles, just warm water.

Another surreal sight during our visit has been the submarine that appeared and has been floating in the bay. We’ve been assured that the island has not been reclaimed by the Turks. Too bad, I found a Turkish lira stash in my backpack was hoping to spend it.

Milos is the Milo in the Louvre’s “Venus de Milo”. There it’s promoted as one of the top three pieces to see (along with The Nike and The Mona Lisa). A farmer found it here in the 1820’s, complete with arms. Seems the French ambassador to Istanbul (or Constantinople as it’s known here) took a liking to it and forced it to be “sold”. The French King gifted it to the Louvre. The arms seemed to have been lost in transit to France.

The Greeks have been trying to reclaim it to no avail. Instead, the French made a replica for them from the original. It’s here in the Archaeological museum. It’s known as the “Venus de Mea Culpa”.

The focus on our camera is on its last legs. Many of our pictures are coming out blurry. We should be in Athens this weekend and I expect to get a new one. Then it’s on to Lesvos (we think).

Crete

Crete is about 5 hours long by 2 hours wide in a car. Much of the easily accessible coast is fully developed for a July/August tourist season. In May it’s a light mixture of tourists midst the construction and clean up.

We stayed outside of Chania, a beautiful medieval city of restaurants, jewelry and clothing shops, hotels and ice cream cafes. Our studio in the Ammos Hotel had a patio by the pool, which was by the lounge chairs on the beach. We met our basic needs with the kitchenette and internet in the room. It was here that we truly started the island phase of our trip. May it go on much longer than planned.

The highlight of our week was the daylong hike down the Samarian Gorge. This loop trip was a daybreak bus ride to the head of the gorge, the 16 km hike, a boat ride to a village and another bus ride back to our start point. It was all public transportation but mostly used by hiking tourists. This eclectic group included some Greek men that insisted on booming out “romero”. Maybe that means “spectacular” or “beautiful” or “I should have worn better shoes”. I bet it was cathartic given it’s repetition and volume.

We also thought the gorge was “romero”. No sightings of the endangered Kiri Kiri goat but we did find some cool plants. The maroon, lilly looking plant contained a putrid smelling liquid inside the flower. This attracted flies which appeared to pollinate the seeds hidden down there. A few of these flowers could make an area smell like a rotting dolphin (you’ll have to return later for that story).

We made it through the gorge safely, then Jules broke her toe by stubbing it on a chair in our room. This mostly healed after a few more days of beach time. I should have taken a picture. It looked like a little eggplant.

The other highlight was the Limnopoulis Water Park. Huge slides and winding tracks that you could ride down on rubber tubes. All with a loose notion of safety by US standards.

We allowed our cynical side to take over at the Knosis ruins. This is an important Minoan site that was uncovered and reconstructed under the directions of a Brit named Don Evans. Out of at least five successive cities on the same site, he partially rebuilt one of them. To the extent of recreating complete rooms with frescoes and wooden pillars in vivid colors. To us, it came off a little bit too much like “Pirates of the Caribbean”.

We left Crete on an evening ferry to Milos. We used a different ferry company than the one Ben praised in his post. I think that's why he didn't want his picture taken. This trip included a stop at Santorini but it was dark and barely visible. Kind of like peering through the windows of the Louvre.

We’ve now spent five days on Milos, a beautiful island. Our camera is failing so we’re missing some great pictures. Hopefully, we’ll get a new one soon in Athens.

Mark
+30 6939 099411
skype: markdane

ANEK ferry lines

If you are going to Greece or traveling in Greece use ANEK lines to go there.
“how I love thou ANEK, shall I count the ways,”
PROS
1) ANEK lines have satellite internet terminal.
2) For an iffy $500 you can get a 3 person room, a spot in the garage for your car, and a room with a window . (these prices are for the 24 hour ride , the 1-9 hour ones are much cheaper.)
3) there are about 5 restaurants.

CONS
1) People are allowed to sleep in the halls if they didn't buy a cabin. It reminded me of alot of bums.

-ben dane


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Corfu Veggies

Corfu Town was lovely with good food, neat old forts and a labyrinth old town. There was lots to see and do on the island but we had a Sunday, followed by a rainy day followed by a holiday. We stayed in town and left the rest of the island for another time.

I liked these veggie pictures because they were different then what I normally see. The squash blossoms reminded me of Jules’s cheese filled, fried blossoms. I assume the roots were left on the lettuce to show it was handpicked. The beans had justed been stacked, and I like the handmade sign.

Ferry to Corfu

We did a long drive on Saturday from the lakes in the middle of Croatia through Slovenia to Trieste, Italy. We were hoping for an overnight ferry to Corfu, Greece. When we got to Trieste, the men at the ferry dock told us to drive to Venice and take the ferry from there. They made distasteful faces about their ferry having to stop in Albania. We thought if they didn’t think we should take their ferry, we really should listen.

We figured we could race to Venice before the sun went down and if the ferry was gone, we’d get to enjoy some time in Venice. On a Saturday night. On a holiday weekend. We suspected rooms would be tight and envisioned having to splurge for a 4 star room. Something over the top with a really nice bathroom. Or we could make do with a noisy hostel if we had to.

We found the hotel we had stayed at on our last visit but they were full. At the next stop they told us Venice was very full and they had just called three other hotels trying to help out some other travelers. As we left, he said “every room can’t be taken. Just walk around”.

We walked many of the neighborhoods, canals and bridges. Afterwards we realized we had searched for four hours. Venice was lovely but full.

After midnight we went back to our car and drove back to the mainland. We set the GPS for the Holiday Inn we had seen five hours before on the way in. They had a room and we stumbled in and slept for 5 hours. For some reason they charged us 125 euros instead of the max rate of 265 euros. Jules didn’t use any of my negotiating skills and she got a better than 50% discount on a night when all rooms were booked. Hmmm...

It all ended well with us drinking tea and coffee in the morning while holding cabin tickets for the Corfu-bound ferry.