Burton Dane Travels

We're traveling through Europe and parts nearby for a year. We'll be posting our pix and adventures here.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Quite a day in Delfi




Must mention the night before the day as it was spectacular and serendipitous: students--a choir from Philidelphia and an orchestra from Oakland--were performing in an ancient square we happened to be walking past and so caught these fine young people experimenting with performing together for the first time in their trip through Macedonia!
The next morning started out in a fairly crappy, but still vacation-y way with the worst breakfast thus far--even the egg white was barely edible. I must say that the Hotel Hermes had a drop dead view of the mountains and gorge of olive trees stretching all the way to the Gulf of Corinth though. Before too long we were crawling the ruin of ancient Delphi, looking for the oracle (crack in the crust that emits gases and fumes) that possessed ancient priestesses and made them babble in tongues understood only by a priest. Believe it or not this was a semi-regular sight in the Peloponnese during the time of the Temple of Apollo (7000-100 B.C).
The temple pictured here is a famous shrine to Athena that has nothing to do with the Oracle but often inexplicably appears in literature for the Temple of Apollo. Athena had a powerful cult here especially during the Peloponnesian wars and she regularly hurled rocks from the surrounding mountains at folks. Watch out for the sun glinting off Mark’s freshly shaven head--he made the right choice for the day though as temperatures pushed 122 F. Luckily, we could still keep from melting the way the ancients did, by cooling ourselves in water along the way. Sacred water that the Oracle used to bathe in before she babbled.
We were also able to spend time in the air-conditioned museum (not open ‘till noon!), craning our necks around the package tourists to view remarkably Asian-influenced sculpture and metal bits found in Delphi not carried away by the British, the French or the Italians. It was back to the car en-route to Patras after that with a refreshing respite along the way where we took a soak in the Gulf of Corinth and stuffed ourselves with fried fish and retsina for the last time before taking the ferry to Venice. There was even time for a nice cool showing (in English!) of Pirates of the Caribbean 3--which absolutely rocked in our opinion, despite what the American reviews are saying. Whew!

Friday, June 22, 2007

North Aegean Water





After regrouping in Ayvalik, Turkey Jules and Ben insisted we all had to do a party boat trip. This had us island hopping to swim and explore while eating way too many fried sardines. This was accompanied by house music and exuberant college kids dancing and teaching us phishte, a card game.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Alacati, Turkey






I love my travel mates but after 10 months together, every day and every night we all decided I should go somewhere without them. I planned to turn the day trip to Turkey into a three day coastal exploration. That all changed when I learned that Alacati, Turkey specialized in learning to windsurf and kiteboard. Plus it was on a beautiful peninsula and near a cute town.

I knew I was in for fun the first morning while waiting for breakfast in the outdoor bar/restaurant. I was lounging on stacks of oversized bean bags, listening to sheep bells, overlooking a pretty bay and an outdoor dance floor with a disco ball.

The Alacati beach is dominated by beginner and intermediate windsurfers. It’s flat water conditions with hip high water out almost a kilometer from the beach. There were Turks, Europeans and Australians. All either babbling from a great session high or sitting around surly waiting for wind.

The kiting beach was across the bay, keeping us dangerous traitors away from the pure people learning to windsurf. It was a bit of a scene with beginners knocking kites and macho locals showing off. This provided motivation to learn how to get and stay upwind.

Eight days later, I learned all of the skills needed to kite in most places. This has been an elusive goal of mine for two years. I had five windy days to have fun on the board and a few low wind days to sight see.

Back with my travelmates, we are ready to power on. Heading west to Greece.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Back to Turkey Meraba and Yassus!




Imagine our delight to find we could easily get to yet another bazaar in Ayvalik, Turkey from Mytilini, Greece! The two countries share baklava, volcanos and a great deal of animosity but they are separated only about 12 miles of Aegean sea. The ferry lines hold the key to tourism through Greece and the Greece/Turkey line is especially controlling as the fare doubled during the week, ironically, for us to return for a joint Greek/Turk culture festival.
As the Greek flag waved on the boat, the boat departed a stunning two hours late (no explanations or expectations) and we amused ourselves by watching the port scene. A handsome tern wheeled, almost grazing my face, among the fishing boats dipping at mini fish playing in the warm, satiny water. This fell away as we sped toward Turkey and the Greek flag rolled closed while the larger Turkish flag spread open.
The festival was delightful and well-meaning and we met a fascinating Turkish illustrator, watched diverse Greek dances and 2 movies documenting the population swap between the two countries in 1922. Ben was able to play chess for hours with the local Turkish club and there were displays of Greek ceramics and handicraft. A surprise addition for us was the shadowplay puppetry--Turkish AND Greek--that we fell in love with in Athens but were not able to see. In the Fall, the event switches to Mytilini to host. No doubt the festival took a great deal of trouble on both sides to bring on and we thank them for the effort.
We had a full plate of things to do in Turkey. There are day excursions, swimming and boating along the islands of Turkey after which we were fed exhorbitant amounts of the best fried anchovies and salad--swimming over open ocean is not something Ben or I do lightly but we really had a great time. We went to Troy, legendary city of Homer and wars--apparently the WWI Gallipoli stand-off is considered by some to be the last Trojan War--then staggered back to Ayvalik in the wee hours.
On our return, after the ferry boat driver rolled away the Turkish flag and rolled out the Greek flag, we walked across a soapy welcome mat (Avian Flu) before landing again in Greece.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Lesvos








Two weeks into our idyllic respite here on Lesvos, we were jarred by reality. GHW Bush and his Kennebunkport entourage emerged from a huge ship and waddled down the strip.

There’s a nice picture of the house that changed a two day stop into a three week stay. More later when we have the energy......TWO WEEKS OF ENERGY LATER... Skala Eressou (and a plumper Christina, the cat) stay among our favorite places (and cats) during this long trip, maybe we are just ready for roots. We spent long periods lounging at Breez Bar with cherry juice and “gin and toxin”s and enjoying thin pizzas from the place next door (whose Greek name I could not spell or pronounce). I (Jules) am pathetic as this place was one of the few places we noted on our journey making attempts to deal with the stray cat and dog issue that ravages everywhere, but they offered me a chance to throw money at the problem, so I did.

Sappho Travel did everything possible for us, including locating our rental on Vigla and accepting delivery of our mail AND they had the only automatic bank teller in miles and miles (once when the machine was down they loaned cash out until it was fixed!).
Hiking with Patricia was a delight as she shared Eresou’s past, present and pirates for hours hiking through oaks, olives and pines with us. Fist-size acorns are scavenged by red squirrels as goats and sheep clink by the dusty roads. Her husband, Thanasis works neolithic shapes from sheet metal and is an expert at creating coin replicas from all over Greece and he was gracious enough to share his processes and studio.

The pictures also show us in front of a petrified tree trunk. There's a great museum highlighting the petrified wood from the area. Much of it winds up as rounded beach rocks, but you're not supposed to take any with you.

Mark: My brother came to visit for 10 days. It was a great time to catch up on each other's lives. I'm also hoping I can be as buff as him when I get older!