Finally heading home

The general word on Athens is that it is not an attractive city, and that's correct as far as I can see. The neighborhood where we are staying is called the Plaka, which is supposedly the one neighborhood with character. I suppose. I mean it's not all modern and nondescript, but for the most part it's not charming. Lots of places to eat and buy souvenirs or jewelry, a decent number of pedestrian streets, proximity to the Acropolis and a nicely busy tourist/local mix of people on the streets. But character? Meh. 

It was an excellent trip. We had a really great time, helped by 2 straight weeks of perfect weather, but I'm ready to be home. I'll be happy to not have to remember to put toilet paper in the trash bin. I mean, why not just go in the bin? It seems more efficient than having a toilet and a bin. 

We had an unsatisfying day today, visiting the National Archaeological Museum, which has a pretty amazing array of objects

but not nearly enough of what we were interested in seeing. We then walked around a shopping area that was nice enough, but it was way too much walking (like 6 miles total) and nothing really that we wanted to buy, so we spent the last part of the day just resting in the hotel. 

No matter how much interesting, fun stuff you do on a long trip, especially to a foreign country, it wears you out physically and mentally. As Ronnie said, too many decisions, one after another, all the time. Beyond the big decisions about itinerary and whatever attractions you may want to see, it's what street should we walk down, where, when and what should we eat (helpful that all the hotels have breakfast included) and what do we do when the best thing on TV seems to be CSI with Greek subtitles. They do seem to like their CSI a lot- it seems to be on once or twice every night. We simultaneously noted that it's one of those shows where people will be talking and wondering about something and as if by magic someone walks in with information on just that thing. Just like in real life!

I got to watch a baseball game on Sunday because I have a VPN that connects me through the US and that allows me to see things like Netflix or MLB.tv wherever I might care to see. That was a nice break. It used to be so hard to follow sports- have to buy the International Herald Tribune or after a while the NY Times at a newsstand. Now I wake up at 7 and it's midnight on the east coast and the west coast games aren't even over yet, but I can keep up easily.

So we kept ourselves awake until 11 watching, and I am not kidding, the snooker world championship. This is not our first go-round with snooker on TV, it seems to dominate the German version of Eurosport- we never saw any other sports anywhere, so snooker in German it was. You don't really need the announcers, and we eventually figured out the rules. They play best of 25 games, which is a lot even though the games only take around 20 minutes. 

Snooker is played on a pool table but the rules are pretty different. There are nine red balls and 6 balls of different colors. The red balls are worth one point and the colored ones are worth two to six points and placed in different spots in the table, depending on the color. The basic rule is that when there are red balls on the table, you can only sink a colored ball immediately after sinking a red one. At that point, someone with white gloves takes the colored ball out of the pocket and puts it back in its original spot. This can lead to things like a guy sinking a red ball and then the pink ball 4 times in a row. After all the red balls are sunk, you sink the colored ones in a specified order and whoever has the most points wins. I can't say it's the most entertaining thing I've ever watched, but Who Wants to be a Millionaire in Greek is even less so.

We were both awake this morning when the alarm went off, got dressed and ready to go and taxied to the airport. The Athens airport is pretty typical- like a shopping mall you're forced to walk through to get where you're going. I'm not sure if there's some kind of generalized hearing problem in Greece, but at the airport, the announcements were several ticks louder than in the US and twice as long because they're done both in Greek and English. The music was loud too and generally a mix of 60's and 70's pop, with Stevie Wonder, ELO, Stones, Santana and best of all, the Hawaii 5-0 theme. The people at security and passport control are very officious and insistent that you do things exactly as they wanted, which caused the contents of my pockets and backpack to go in 4 separate bins though the x-ray machine, but at least everything came out the other side.

We had access to a "business lounge", though it was one of the least nice we've encountered. It was hot and airless and bare, with no regular tables and chairs, the juice machine and the bathroom were out of order and there was nothing like regular breakfast food there at 8-something in the morning. There was coffee, however, and yogurt and beers to stow in my bag. We eventually went to the gate, which is sequestered from all the other gates and equipped with its own bathroom and Starbucks. I did like that, as opposed to announcements that nobody can hear or understand, the gate agents had someone hold up a cardboard sign saying which group was boarding.

We're now on the plane and heading home. I want to note that, Although Delta seems to be a well run airline and the people have generally been very nice and helpful, the food in business class is ridiculous. Look at this menu:

Overly fussy doesn't begin to capture it. Look at the ingredients. What if you, like many people, don't like eggplant? It's in the soup and two of the 3 mains. And look at how many things are packed into each dish. The salad? Eight ingredients crammed into an ashtray-sized bowl. I ordered the beef kebab, which was fine but I didn't need it swimming in sauce, with 6 other ingredients on the side. And I really hope they're not grilling stuff on an airplane. I would suggest at least one simplified dish- a nice, well-seasoned piece of chicken, marinate it in yogurt if you must, with rice and haricots vests. Elegant and edible no matter what your non-vegetarian taste. 

Only 8 more hours on the plane!

Done with Mykonos and back in Athens

Mykonos is a polarizing place, I think. It's very lovely in spots and they also have shops that sell t-shirts that read "Mykonos Fucks Ibiza." Some people love it and some hate it. There is also very little to do; I made a mistake in planning the itinerary it was having a day too long here (and a day too few in Crete, I think). By mid-afternoon on Saturday we were basically done with it. I worked with a nearby trainer in the  morning and there's one cute little town with an unusually ornate monastery that was worth a visit, but that's about it.

It's not beach season, which is generally what people do here. We went to one beach because there were supposedly remains of a neolithic settlement, but all that's there is a small sign talking about the artifacts that have been removed from the site. The beach was nice, but whatever. After driving around for a while, we came back to the hotel and hung out by the pool for most of the afternoon. Then we went down to town for dinner, which was a pretty miserable experience, though not because of the dinner itself, which was okay. There is plentiful free parking "near" the old port, with near meaning at least a 10 minute walk to anywhere. There's another, closer-in lot that was packed beyond capacity and so we dragged ourselves from the outer lot across the entire waterfront to the restaurant.

So if you're planning a multi-island trip to Greece and don't care about being on a trendy beach or partying the night (and morning) away, 2 days is plenty. A day for Delos and a day to see the town, which really is pretty cool but it's small. I promise you will not regret it leaving so soon. At least the people at the hotel were nice, there was a good coffee shop nearby, and if you like climbing stairs for exercise, this is the place for you. There are so many ways to go up and down even after a few times you can be surprised where you emerge.

So today, Sunday, we are headed back to Athens, and not a moment too soon. Ready to be back in a city, at a hotel we're familiar with that also has nice people working in it. Returning, of course, was a multistep process, only because we didn't want to fly. We left the hotel, then went to the coffee shop to buy a sandwich for my lunch. They have these round bready things covered with sesame seeds with a hole in the middle big enough to put your hand through, so close enough to a bagel for me to get one. I asked the guy what was on it and he said "turkey, tomato, lettuce and Filadelfia." Yep, cream cheese. It actually wasn't bad- there was about as much cream cheese as one would put mayo on a sandwich.

Then to the gas station and airport, dropped Ronnie with the bags at the taxi stand, dropped off the rental car, took a taxi to the port and then waited for our half-hour-late ferry to come. At least they text you to tell you what the revised embarkation time is, in Greek and English, and then show up when they say they will. We've had pretty good experience with the high-speed ferries, which are noted for being unreliable, but I think that because we've had such good weather things have been pretty much on time. The boarding process at intermediate stops, like Mykonos, is ridiculous and chaotic from a customer perspective, but for the ferry company, all they care is about getting everyone off and everyone on quickly so they can get underway. From that perspective it's great. We got our luggage stowed- there's just a bunch of racks and nobody to help, went up to our seats (Platinum class is worth it if you can manage it) and had a decent 3 hour ride over to Athens.

The port in Athens is a madhouse and I'm really glad we did not ever have to get on a ferry there. On the islands, you can see the boat coming and it's obvious where it's going to dock. In Athens, there's a long pier with a dozen or more boats, including several from the same company. It would have been okay because the boats all have electronic signs on the back saying where'd when they're going, but not enjoyable at all. We had a car meet us and take us back to our original hotel, AVA Hotel and Suites. We were really happy to be back in a city, where you don't have to descend 10 flights of stairs or park and walk for 10 minutes to get to town, and a pleasure to return to the hotel. The rooms here are good-sized and well equipped (what hotel has a minibar refrigerator and another refrigerator?). It's a suite, which works well for us, since I get up earlier than Ronnie pretty consistently, and the bathroom is off the living room, not the bedroom, which also works well when only one of us is awake.

We got some very good takeout pizza and watched Legally Blonde in English with Greek subtitles, then went to bed. One more day and then we go home.

On to the last island

I'm finally almost getting caught up! I was having issues charging my laptop which are now resolved enough that I can manage because as it turns out, this sort of bereft-looking hillside (otherwise known in Mykonos as "land") actually has a bike shop, a gas station, a health care center, a supermarket, a coffee shop and an electronics shop within a few hundred feet. When I knew I needed a new cable, I did a search of the island to find the right kind of electronics store (as in not the kind that sells refrigerators) and realized that there was one directly across the road from the hotel, so we strolled in, bought the cable and came back in less than 5 minutes.

So yes, we're on Mykonos- the party island. Being here offseason is kind of like being at the Jersey shore in March or April. Most things are open but nothing is crowded and it's kind of pleasant. It must be hellish in the summer, with those cute little "streets" packed with tan, shiny, perfumed beachgoers looking to buy a new designer t-shirt. I got a taste of it when a cruise docked and disgorged hundreds of people into the town. It became almost impossible to move around. Resort stuff aside, beach towns are all kind of similar, be they on the east coast barrier islands or in the Caribbean. Lots of small shops, long strips with clothing and souvenir stores, a beachside strand with restaurants, and small hotels. There's something relaxing about it when it's relatively empty. 

Mykonos is tiny, like Santorini, and has almost all of its commercial activity crammed into Mykonos Town, while Santorini has a couple of tourist towns and also some residential areas. Plus Santorini has a thriving wine industry, while Mykonos is pure tourism, 24-7, literally, I gather. There's no agriculture because, to paraphrase our guide, there's no soil. That would seem to be an impediment; people import soil, like they import water (all of these islands import water- they desalinize it but it still isn't good to drink according to everyone). 

We're staying at a boutique hotel called Vencia, which is very island resort-ish. Small and quirky, with generally high end food and drink, pool, linens and such, with personal service but missing some things that you might expect at a good hotel, like a box of tissues somewhere, like more than one outlet where you can plug in whatever electronics you might care to and maybe some drawers to put clothes away.

But we were able to have massages in the room soon after arriving, which was nice. And then we decided to walk to town. Horizontally, like on a flat map, the town looks very close and it is, in a way. The thing is that getting to the port where all the waterfront restaurants are is the equivalent of walking down 10 flights of stairs. And of course walking down isn't the entire issue. There's no place to drive or park within the town so you have to park in lots at the periphery. It's a 10 minute walk at best to the middle of town. We might do the down trip if it didn't involve and up trip as well. I've been up and down a few times, but pretty much just as exercise.

We ate at a family-run seafood restaurant in a small village, which was okay, nothing great. The most important thing we've discovered is to not use Google Maps, but Apple Maps and CarPlay instead. The Google direction are consistently confusing and not always timely. At least with CarPlay you can kind of see where you're supposed to be going, with the rule being, even if it doesn't look like a road, it probably is. 

The next morning we were picked up by a guide for visit to Delos, one of the things we were most looking forward to seeing on this trip. Delos is an island that is mythically, at least, the birthplace of the gods Apollo and Artemis. It was considered so holy that nobody was allowed to be born on the island (and therefore claim some sort of ownership or inheritance) or die (again, no permanence allowed). It grew in importance as a commercial center in the mid first century BCE, as the Athenians and then the Romans developed it as a duty-free trading center. Most central and lucrative was the slave trade, and it became a wealthy place. This, predictably, attracted the attention of pirates, who sacked and burned the place and left it abandoned and bereft.

And there is sat for about 2000 years, before some archaeologist began exploring and realized that it was the biggest and best preserved ancient city found to date. This area is not volcanic, so no earthquakes to level structures, and it's incredibly dry, so for the most part, things that were not destroyed by the pirates (and unfortunately that was many things) are still there. It's bigger than Pompeii and was never buried. Of course, there were no gravesites because you were forbidden to die there- the graves are across a narrow channel on a neighboring, similarly bereft island, where all the births took place as well. 

The part we visited was divided roughly into public and private residential areas, with the largest house covering over 6000 square feet and multistory. There also were some amazing mosaics on the floor of the living/dining rooms.

In the public area, there were temples, several to Apollo, a marketplace with shops and space for stalls, a huge customs house, a theater, and biggest of all, the slave market. I don't have a good photo of the slave market, but maybe 3 times the area of the theater?

There's apparently the world's oldest known synagogue on the other side of the island- you could really spend a week there if you wanted to see everything, but you can't. Nobody is allowed to stay there overnight except for the archaeologists, who have small houses adjacent to the ruins. You can come for a few hours but then you have to go back to Mykonos.

After resting in the room we went to dinner at a place called m-eating. I don't know what the name means, but it was a spectacularly good meal. The cocktails (AEGEAN FLAG (Gin Mediterranean Fruits & Pergamont Mandarin Sparkling Water), the wine, the starter (Scallops on baked apple powdered with orange dust, citrus filets and citrus vinaigrette) was beautifully presented and delicious. The mains were stuffed croaker fish with mixed herb pesto, broccoli flowers and mash accompanied with tomato gazpacho and caviar (even better than it sounds) and a lamb shank special that was the best lamb dish I've had in recent memory. Dessert was "Rich almond cream on a cracked "amygdaloto", sprinkled with crispy almond brittle and almond-flavored ice cream." I don't know what an amygdalato is, so I don't know why they put it in quotes. I didn't notice that it was shaped like your amygdala, aka your lizard brain. And then they brought somethings else that we were too full to do more than take bite. FYI, pretty consistently, Greek restaurants will bring you a dessert even if you don't order one. It's happened on multiple occasions in high end and casual places. It feels very hospitable.

So that was the end of Thursday and Friday. One more full day on Mykonos, which is one more than necessary but I'll talk more about that in the next post.

Filling in some gaps

 I don't know whether to apologize for jumping back and forth like this or to just revel in it. I've got a couple of days to account for that I haven't mentioned at all so far, and if I get through them I can at least be somewhat up to the moment, or at least to the same island where we are right now. So I'll try to be brief.

Our last full day in Santorini was just improvised. It was Easter Sunday, so attractions like museums were closed, not that we really felt like doing that anyway. And we had a lunch reservation, which was silly as a concept because there were like 6 other people at the restaurant, for a traditional Easter lunch, which is roasted lamb, most traditionally done on a spit (believe it or not, I participated in that kind of lamb roast once a long time ago, although my only part in it was to pick up the lamb, a whole lamb mind you, at a butcher shop, toss it in the back of a station wagon- kind of an old school crossover vehicle for you young 'uns) and bring it to the house where this was taking place. In any event. we went to a part of Santorini that we hadn't explored. Santorini is essentially the rim of a sunken volcano, so it's an incomplete circle. 

We hadn't been on the southwestern part of it, so we drove pretty much all the way to the tip, or to the lighthouse at least. Some beautiful views there.

We took a, let's just say less than optimally maintained, road down to a very strange-looking, mostly deserted black sand beach, looked around there for a while, then went and had our very tasty roast lamb lunch, then followed along the coast east and eventually north until we found another beach that we'd wanted to explore. We strolled around, Ronnie took some cool photos, I mostly sat in the shade and experienced some biting insects.

Back at the hotel, everything was closed except a mini market, so we had cheese and cold cuts and crackers for dinner. It was pretty bad but we managed. The next day we puttered around and then left for Crete.

We left Crete on Thursday morning. We reversed course and rolled our bags over to the ferry at 7:45 and had a very mellow entrance to the boat because it was the point of origination. The ferry stopped back in Santorini and then at Naxos, before coming to our destination, Mykonos. It was about 4 hours but not terrible. We have one more ferry ride remaining. 

We'd experience boarding at an intermediate point on the route, which was crazy, but from the vantage point of disembarking (debarking? I don't know or really care), you have a couple of hundred people rolling down one side of the ramp while cars roll down the other, and then there people are rolling up where the cars went down and once every has gotten off, cars rolling on that ramp. This all happened in maybe 5 minutes and then the boat lifted the ramp and headed out.

We took a taxi to the airport to pick up the rental car, which was simpler than the process in Crete, where the office and parking were several blocks from each other, which was confusing when I tried to pick up the car, only to find the office closed because the agent had gone to the parking area, so I headed over there only to find she had gone back to the office. It worked a little more smoothly on returning it. Anyway, on Mykonos, we went to the Hertz office, which was huge and completely empty aside from us and the agent, who was extremely talkative and had lots of recommendations. We were happy to get an identical car to what we had in Crete, a nice little Toyota hybrid. We made our way to the hotel and I'll pick up from there on the next post.

Second day of Crete

 I want to note that we have have had spectacular weather throughout this trip. It's a been a bit cloudy at times and there was morning fog on the part of Santorini where we were staying, but otherwise sunny and comfortable, high temps in the upper 60's and lows in the upper 50's. It's not really beach weather yet, but it's warm enough to go to the beach if you care to.

Our second day on Crete we drove to Chania, the second biggest city on the island after Heraklion, where we were staying. It's a two hour drive, which was a lot, but the scenery was beautiful, the road is good for the most part and we had a nice car. The roads are two lanes for the most part and they're hilly, so there's a lot of passing going on. The road has wide shoulders, so people who are expecting to be passed tend to drift over so half the car is on the shoulder, which essentially makes a 3rd lane for passing. Given that, the double lines appear to be meaningless. If you can see ahead and everyone's moved over you can go and pass 1, 2, 5 cars and trucks at a time. It's a little hairy at times but nothing worse than driving in Manhattan.

Chania appears like any city when you arrived and again, unlike Santorini, there are real cities on Crete. Chania has over 100,000 residents. That's about 7 times the total number of permanent residents on Santorini. And Chania is only the second biggest city. Anyway, we crawled through city traffic until we found an underground parking garage that, while very tight, was navigable. From there we walked to the old town, which is Venetian in character and quite pretty. There's a nice square with cafes and shops and and old church, a long waterfront area leading eventually to a lighthouse, and a warren of little alleys, so with shops, some not. 

We walked around a bit and then found the one synagogue on Crete. Before WWII, there was a real Jewish population on the island that was well accepted, but the Germans rounded them all up, put them on a boat, probably to the camps, and it was sunk by a British torpedo killing everyone on board before they arrived. The synagogue in Chania fell into disrepair until around 1990 and there's a small, ecumenical congregation of people with some kind of Jewish background that rebuilt, maintains and worships there. It's tiny, but very inviting. Our visit was marred somewhat by an obnoxious couple, likely Israeli, who were disrespectful of the rules and the people. But it seemed like the people who worked there had handled this sort of thing before and nothing escalated. 

We had coffee and some food on the square, bought some stuff, walked around and then headed back. It was our last night on Crete and we ate at Peskesi, an authentic Cretan restaurant that is known as one of the best in Heraklion, the large city where we were staying. Unfortunately, there's not a menu on their website. This place was great. The food and wine were great- we mostly let the waiter order for us given some direction. I had an appetizer that was beans and leeks that was somehow delicious, but not as good as my pork roasted in honey and thyme from their farm. Ronnie had eel and then goat that were also delicious. We didn't want dessert, but they brought us some anyway and along with it a glass of pink stuff, a rose liqueur that they make in house. Yum. We told the waiter that we liked it and they brought us each two more. 

It was one of the most fun dinners I can remember eating, and remember that we're pretty sick of restaurants at this point. We then walked back to our hotel, and just in case we couldn't figure out how to get in...

This is a nice hotel, but the lobby is just fucking weird. There are two entrances, the PULL one, which lets you in on lobby level, and the one on the main street, where we parked that car. In that one, you come in and there's nothing, just a little elevator. You got in that, search for the button to go up, which is where the door open button usually is, and guess that you're going to the 0 floor (the other option being -1). No sign or anything. It goes up and the elevator opens facing away from reception and toward the cafe. You weave around the many big columns, try to avoid the spiral staircase this is a head-banger waiting to happen, and there is the reception desk. The other thing was that the key cards seemed to only hold their information for a few hours, so in the 2 days we were there we probably went through 8 of them.

We got back to our room, watched Netflix, which was on the TV for some reason and went to bed. Early ferry in the morning.

Jumping back

We had a pretty great last day on Crete, but let's save that and finish up on Santorini.

If by any chance you've been in some kind of beach resorty town where there really isn't much else around, that's what Santorini is like. It looks like a great place to spend a relaxing week at the beach. The island overall is pleasantly scruffy, a little bedraggled here and there, but nice. And the towns, packed with tourist shops as they are, were fine. The people in Greece, as far as we've experienced, are wonderful. There's no attitude or insecurity about them and they seem genuinely nice. We've seen numerous examples along the way, one of them being our guide on the day we did our tour of the ruins of Akrotiri and wineries. 

The first thing we did was go to the ruins of the ancient Minoan city of Akrotiri. It's kind of like Pompeii in that the city was destroyed and buried by a volcanic eruption. The big differences are that (1) most of Akrotiri still remains to be excavated and (2) there were no human remains found in Akrotiri. Apparently, the people in Akrotiri, unlike those in Pompeii, decided not to sit and hang out and watch the volcano erupt because it looked cool. Not only weren't there any human remains, there were no valuables or much of anything else of value. 

I mean, there was lots of nice stuff left behind but big things like pots and wall frescoes. They found one gold ibex figure, which we saw as a replica in the car when out guide’s husband, who was an integral part of the trip and a real jokester in at least two languages, had each of us hold it briefly before reporting that the genuine one had been stolen from the museum the night before and we were now prime suspects.

The visit to Akritori was great, even though most of the settlement still hasn’t been excavated, mostly because we had a fantastic guide, Evi, specifically for that part of the tour.  She was clear and knowledgeable and gave thoughtful answers, a marked contrast to the guide we later had at Knossos, who had her patter and would not substantially answer anything. The Minoans were a very advanced civilization, with multistory buildings and indoor plumbing/sewer system. Given that Western Europe didn't get indoor plumbing for a couple thousand years hence, pretty spohisticated I'd say.

We spent nearly 3 hours on the site and apparently, our doing this blew the timing of the rest of the tour. It was the main thing we were interested in seeing so we didn’t care, and I have to give major credit to Amani, our guide for the day, for continuing on with the remainder of the tour, apparently not minding that we went two hours over time. 

The next place we went was a village called Megalochori where we sampled wines at a small, family owned and run winery. Have you ever been on a tour where the guide seems to know everyone at every place you go? Amani and her husband were like that, smiling and chatting with everyone and as far as we could tell, enjoying the day as much as we were. The wines were interesting and one dessert wine was particularly delicious and we bought a bottle.

We then went to a larger, more corporate-looking winery. Much bigger, though still family owned. One thing with wine growing on Santorini that’s unique is the way they train the vines to form a basket rather than stringing them along in rows. Amani’s husband Akis explained that because Santorini is a very dry island there isn’t enough rain or water for irrigation the grow grapes the normal western European way. The basket shape allows the leaves to shade the grapes from the sun and to trap moisture from the morning mists, which waters the plant and (allegedly) inject a bit of sea air into the grapes’ terroir. It’s not a way of doing things that would work for mass production, because it takes much more labor to train the vines and harvest the grapes.

Anyway there are patches of grape vines that look like this everywhere. After the second winery, we returned to our hotel. I have nothing but good things to say about Amani and her husband/driver/guide Akis, who is an architect by trade and has a deep understanding of how and why things on Santorini are built as they are. This was also the tour where we picked up guidespeak, which divides each statement into three parts:

1. In WXYZ year, the people of someplace did something
2. Why?
3. Because of something that happened.

This gets entertaining after a while and it does impart all of the information, even if not in an efficient way. When not guiding, of course, Amani never spoke like that and she and Akis were excellent guides and great company. The five hour tour lasted seven hours, not only with no complaints but with restaurant recommendations and in one case, making us a reservation for Easter Sunday lunch the next day. And she later checked up on how we liked the restaurant.

Back at the room, we had pizza for dinner. On long, busy trips like this, eating at restaurants devolves from a fun novelty to an every day necessity, and sitting at a table, reading a menu, waiting for the food eating generally more than you would otherwise and waiting to pay gets old. So ordering a pizza to go from a nearby restaurant was a relief. We found some TV in English and called it a night.

Jumping ahead

 I've been lagging by a few days, so today I'm going to talk about what we're doing now and then circle back to what else we did on Santorini- none of it holding a candle, so to speak, to Friday night in Pyrgos.

We're at the point in the trip, and any of you who have traveled like this, spending a few days in one place, then going to another and then another, can relate to the thought, "Was that yesterday? What were we doing yesterday?" Today we are in Crete. We came in late afternoon yesterday by ferry from Santorini, and I'll start there. 

We each have a big suitcase and a carry-on size bag. Everything rolls, but my bag in particular is very heavy. So we have tried to plan things so that we don't have to lug the luggage any more than necessary, so that meant keeping the car until we were ready to leave, dropping it at the airport, then taking a taxi to the ferry port so we could just walk onto the boat. This part worked fine. We got to the port, confirmed everything and learned where to go to get the boat, and then went and sat in a cafe until we saw it come in. 

Getting on the ferry was a bit of a madhouse, though not in a bad way. We all rolled our bags up the ramp, which was conveniently ridged for traction and to make the rolling bags bump as much as possible. Then we put the big bags on a large luggage cart and crammed together to get to the seats. There were several hundred people getting on and exactly one person checking tickets. He kept trying unsuccessfully to get us to queue up, but we just massed around the door and eventually everyone got on.

The ferry ride itself was fine- smooth and not too late getting in. The debate had been how to get to the hotel from the ferry, because we knew it was close to the port, but we didn't really want to roll our bags all that way. Then, as we came in, we saw the hotel basically across the street from the port and I said to Ronnie- I think a taxi driver would spit on us if we asked them to drive us to that hotel. So we rolled over- it wasn't hard.

The hotel was in many ways the opposite of what we had in Santorini. That one was small and personal; this one is pretty big and kind of formal as thing go in Greece. It has possibly the worst feng shui I've ever seen in a hotel lobby. I cannot imagine who designed this thing and thought it was a good idea. But they gave us a very nice suite so we were okay with it. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, which was fine and then watched some TV (they have Netflix! Not just Greek channels and BBC news!) and went to bed. 

At 4 AM, I got up to go to the bathroom and when I got back in bed I began to hear a kind of high pitched sound, which got louder and louder and it became clear that someone was screaming in their room. I didn't hear anything that made it sound like anyone was getting physically hurt, but they were very very loud and very upset. I figured out how to call the front desk and they said they'd have security come. It was quiet for a couple of minutes and then started up again, so I called again. This time, I heard a door close and it was finally quiet, but it took us a long time to get back to sleep.

We got up, groggy and a bit grumpy, had breakfast and went to see the Knossos Palace, where the Minoan kings lived. I had some trepidation about this because I knew a lot of it had been reconstructed and didn't know how that would feel. We met our guide and went in. The guide was an older woman and my immediate thought was, well either she's really knowledgeable or she has a patter and wouldn't vary from it. Unfortunately it was the latter, so the whole thing was kind of disappointing. But the ruins were kind of interesting and the reconstructions weren't really inappropriate. The most interesting thing to me was the idea that the palace itself, which was huge even for a palace, was itself the mythical labyrinth. 

Afterwards, we headed south, all the way. across the island, to Matala beach and caves. It was a very scenic hour drive and when we got there it was magical. The beach and the water are gorgeous; I could (and did) just stare at it endlessly. 

The town and caves are famous as a hippie hangout, where Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell lived in the caves for a while. The caves were a hoot- you could certainly see how people could live there. Some were big, some were small, a few were connected, but they were arrayed on several levels of the cliffs. Easier to show than describe.

We both got cliff dust all over us and it was great fun.

Great Friday

By writing about Friday day at all, please note that I am burying the lede. Good Friday day is pretty normal, for tourists anyway. The religious folks are in or around church, as the churches are open and some have loudspeakers outside so you can hear what is going on inside. 

We spent the afternoon in Oia, which is at the northern tip of the island and thought to be an extraordinarily beautiful town. It is certainly very pretty and it's sited dramatically, on top of a cliff with house and hotels either clinging on the side or dug into the cliff. Lots of white and blue and occasional splashes of yellow, and the water far below. The streets, such as they might be called, are really narrow passages, slightly larger than alleys really, lined with shops ranging from the cheapest, junkiest souvenirs to expensive jewelry, clothing, and artwork. Between Oia and Fira, which we had visited yesterday, I don't think I've ever seen such a high concentration of jewelry stores.

The weather has been beautiful and after walking around for a while, we had a sorbet on what might be called a boardwalk if was either made of boards or not 300 feet above the water. It was a lovely place to spend an afternoon. We went back to the hotel and rested for a while, went out to dinner at 7:00 and then walked over and up to Pyrgos for the evening activities.

I do not know how to properly describe what we did Friday night so I'll lay out the bare facts and let the videos do most of the talking. It was Good Friday, and the Greek Orthodox Easter week is like nothing in the churches most of us heathens are familiar with. It's why we're on this island, staying in this town at this point in time. On Good Friday, there are day-long masses, and then there is a parade of an effigy of JC on a cross around the village (there is nothing on Santorini that would be called a city) and then it varies, but there are always fireworks and in Pyrgos, they take it one step further. 

When we went to dinner, just a few minutes up the road, we saw a steady stream of people heading up the road to the town. We questioned why we were walking in the opposite direction from everyone else. They were all walking because the road to Pyrgos had been closed since 5 and there was a Field of Dreams-like line of cars on the main road heading up the hill. Honestly, I have no idea where they all parked. Our hotel closed off its parking lot so nobody could go there, and the town is very much at the top of a big, steep hill- I walked all around and on every road around there was no place to go except straight down a steep incline with no obvious place to put a car. We were staying a five minute walk to town and didn’t have to worry about it. 

So why is this happening? (oops, lapsed into guide-speak for a moment). Well, all week long, people, including our hotel manager, place cans filled with some kind of mix of sawdust and wax along the tops of buildings, on walls and really on any outdoor horizontal surface. And at 9:00, I don't know how many people began running around lighting them. Not with matches- with propane torches. Pyrgos is one of those fortress villages with lots of winding alleyways and staircases and no real center. It would be be next to impossible to tell someone to meet you inside the walls. It was startling to see people running through narrow passages at full speed though crowds of people with torches blazing. 

Within 15 minutes or so, all of the cans have been lit. It’s a famous thing; the town seems ablaze and it is a truly spectacular sight. We got up in the middle of it and wandered around looking for new views and good photos. It wasn’t difficult. Because the town is so vertical there was always something else you could look down on or across to. Flames everywhere. It was spectacular and beautiful and terrifying.

To add to the amusement, there was a 30 mile per hour wind blowing, which was sending showers of sparks flying from the cans that were exposed to the wind, which was most of them. It was hot and there were places that I was not willing to go because it looked like too much. I’ll let the videos take it from here (still photos don't really capture it).

We’ve been to Running of the Bulls and the massive street parties before and after, and this was in every way at least as exciting and unique. Unforgettable.

Adding to the amusement, after about an hour and a half, most of the fuel in the cans had burned off, making the cans light enough to be blown about by the gale force winds. Once the burning cans started flying off the walls we decided to leave, which was no easy feat because of the crowds and the chaotic nature of the alleyways. You just take a passage that’s going down and figure you’ll eventually see something familiar. This took such a long time that I was starting to get concerned, even though I knew it was impossible to get lost. We walked and walked and eventually I said “I think we’re at our hotel!” And sure enough, there was the hotel entrance- we’d come down the opposite way than how we'd gone up. But it worked. Here's what it looked like from around the hotel.

We did not stay up long when we got back to the room. We looked at photos and videos and then went to bed.

The real touring begins

Wednesday, April 13. We got up after a crappy night of sleep which, considering that in Eastern time it was from 4 PM until 1 AM 24 hours after we arrived, was predictable and expected. After breakfast, we met our guide who walked us over to the Acropolis and showed us around.

I probably haven't made this clear, but I came into this trip knowing very little beyond the logistics that I'd arranged. I have a basic knowledge of Ancient Greek history, like why Athens is named Athens, but once you start throwing dates around, like understanding the apparently very important difference between what was going on in 480 B.C. versus 450 B.C., I would not have retained it without weeks of study. So I can't tell you any of it. What I can tell you is that the Acropolis and especially the Parthenon are truly very cool and it is not mysterious why people want to visit. We came in past a Roman amphitheater, which is still in use for mostly music performances of all sorts (opera? yes, Elton John? yes, Megadeath? maybe not) and climbed a surprisingly gradual hill. 

Before I go on, I think "climbed" is a really awkward word and there needs to be something like "clumb" to be the past tense of climb.

As we clumb, the guide explained what all the things were that we were passing and passing through. As we approached the top, she explained that at one point (don't ask me exactly when) the entire city of Athens was on the top of the hill in a fortress, hence the name Acropolos, literally the city at the top. Eventually we reached the gate to the Acropolis, which is properly called the Propylaea. It's actually more of a gateway, because there are five gates for multiple types of entrants, from the rich and powerful to the animals heading toward their sacrificial end. 

Once you come through the gate, there's the Parthenon in front of you. If, like me, you've seen lost of pictures but never really thought about the structure that much, you may be taken aback by the size of the thing. It's huge and for me at least, a bit breathtaking. I am not going to go into architectural detail because I don't know any, but it's a cool and impressive thing. And the history is complex, because the area was ruled by Turks, Venetians, Turks again and then the Catholics, each of whom had their own uses for the site.

We heard about all of the uses the Parthenon had over the years and what's become of the original frieze- as in, some of it is intact and exhibited in the Acropolis Museum and a lot of it was purloined with questionable legitimacy by Lord Elgin, who took way more than he was authorized to take (by the ruling Turks) and eventually sold them to the British Museum which will never, ever, ever give them back, stolen and inappropriately displayed or not. Arrogant fucks.

The other thing up top is called the Erechtheion (spelled like it sounds), which features 6 incredibly beautiful (replicas of) statues as columns called caryatids. Lord Elgin carted off one of them, which is in the British Museum, but the other 5 are in the Acropolis Museum.

Thanks to the Turks thoughtfully storing all of their gunpowder supply on the site, when the storeroom was hit by a Venetian cannonball it all exploded and collapsed large parts of the Parthenon and gods know what else. Therefore, much of the ground is covered with big blocks of marble that are in the process of slowly being identified and added back into the structure. Where parts are missing they have filled in with marble from the same quarry used back in the day to build everything. 

On the way down we stopped to see the theater of Dionysus, which was the original Greek theater that could hold most of the population for performances. Very understated an beautiful, as opposed to the Roman theater, which was grand.

After a brief rest, we went to the Acropolis museum, which was full of many original statues and artifacts found on the site, as well as the five remaining caryatids, which have been cleaned very carefully and are strikingly beautiful. On the top floor, the remaining pieces of the frieze are displayed above on walls the same length as the Parthenon, along replicas of those that were stolen. There were other reliefs that wrapped around the site, many of which were severely damaged by the Church, which objected to anything displaying the Greek gods. It's a fantastic museum and it's built on top of the ruins of a settlement they found when they were excavating the site, which you can now view through the floor of the museum and later can get a closer look.

This was, unsurprisingly, exhausting and along the way we lost a lens cap, so after resting in the hotel for a while, we found a camera shop where we could buy a replacement and walked down to the corner to get a taxi. 

One thing with taxis in this part of Athens, they do not want to enter the Plaka, because it can take 20 minutes to get out after going a half block in, which was where the hotel was. There's a massive boulevard at the corner, and when we got a cab he refused to take us because we were going in the other direction and it's apparently next to impossible to turn around, so we crossed the street, got to the shop and got our replacement.

Then dinner time. We did not have plans, so we started strolling around the Plaka. Eventually, we found ourselves in an area where we had walked yesterday, near the Roman Agora. There was a taverna on the corner so in we went.

It was not totally expected that as we ate our dinner at the taverna that we'd be singing along to Hava Nagila at any point, and yet there we were. The people at the next table were Israeli, but they didn't request it from the duo that played without a break for the hour and half we were there, so it must have been the people behind me who were heavily involved in the music at all times. 

Then we walked back to the room, bring the day's total walking to 7.2 miles, according to my phone. I guess we collapsed when we got back. I don't really remember. 

Looong beginning- overnight flight plus first day

 The first thing you need to know about being in Greece is that you do not put toilet paper in the toilet and flush it. Not bath tissue, whatever that is, either. You put it in a trash bin next to the toilet. Apparently, the sewer pipes in Greece are much smaller than anywhere else I've been, and too much TP will clog them. Don't worry- if you make a mistake they probably can't trace it back to you. The trash bin has a tight-fitting lid and at least in a hotel is emptied regularly.

The second is that no matter where you are, be it narrow sidewalk or quiet thoroughfare or small town, someone is coming up behind you on a motorcycle

There are many other things that you should know about Greece, of course, though I came here knowing almost none of them, though I know that they use Euros, pretty much everyone speaks English reasonably well, and they are crazy drivers.

The trip was the usual jumble of things- final packing and getting out the door- and it went smoothly all the way to the airport. We flew out of Kennedy Airport, which was vaguely terrifying prospect but we found the off-site parking lot easily and they dropped us at the terminal within a few minutes. My main activity on the way to the airport is inventorying things I might have forgotten and trying to remember whether or not I did. The things I forgot were of little consequence, so that went better than it normally does. 

The flight was pretty normal and an hour shorter than scheduled. I do want to note that in Delta business class, they seem to feel the need to go over the top on the food preparation, to the potential puzzlement and dissatisfaction of the people who are eating the food. They should remember that interesting food prep is not the point- happy, satisfied eaters are. So a choice of either onion quiche or bread pudding for breakfast is not appropriate unless you also offer some yogurt and fruit and a baked good of some sort. It was just odd.

We arrived an hour early and our bags came out quickly, so we met out driver and headed to the hotel......until I realized that I'd left my backpack, which had all kinds of important stuff in it, at the airport. So back to the airport we went, and fortunately our driver was happy to help out, because he quickly led me to the lost and found and explained the situation. The lost and found guy took me to baggage services and they had it sitting on the counter. In the US they probably would have sent in the bomb-sniffing dogs and exploded it out in an empty lot (though it was at baggage claim and that would mean I had kept a bomb with me all flight and then left it at baggage claim for some reason- a grudge against baggage handlers, I suppose). 

Anyway, back to the hotel we went and went into our regular post-overnight flight routine. It's a recovery day where we get to the hotel, sleep for a few hours, then spend the day getting our bearings. This involves walking around whatever neighborhood we're in which is called Plaka. It's a nice area, and the adjacent neighborhood, Syntagma, is also nice and both are full of shops and restaurants. We had a quick bite and continued to walk. Eventually, we got back to hotel, which is small and has very nice people working there. We went out for a really nice dinner with good cocktails and a tasting menu at a place called Hydra. Finally went back to the hotel and to bed, though maybe not so much to sleep because it felt like 4PM to us, but we tried.

Yes, I know that this is the first thing I've written in a very long time but I do like to do this when I travel because it makes me remember things about the trip I might have otherwise forgotten.