The Search for Sea Urchins

It's quite childish, but I call sea urchins 'pokers' and I hate them. My ageing eyeballs are ever vigilant for those pokey little bastards and I refuse to step on one. In the Adriatic and other parts of the Med the devil's spines are everywhere, but I had yet to see one in Greece by the time we had left Santorini. I was quite ecstatic about this, however I truly believed they were lurking under the next rock shelf, just waiting to embed their quills in my sweet, tender feet.  Well, I did find them on the rest of the islands and am happy to pass on to you the final score was: Colin 1, Pokers 0.

After Santorini we left the cruise ship/tourist beat and hit the smaller less tourist(y) islands of the little cyclades. We wanted to add a little spice too, so we didn't book any hotels and decided just to rock up on the ferries and take what we could get. Adventure! Yahoooo!

This story actually reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live sketch--It was one of those commercial spoofs that happened right after the opening monologues. It was a take on the Guess jeans adds of the early 90s, but it was for Bad Idea Jeans. I tried explaining Bad Idea Jeans to my softball team this summer, but it just didn't translate. I've tried looking for in on the internet too, but to no avail. So for those of you who remember it, Heather and I were both wearing Bad Idea Jeans when we decided not to book accommodations in advance when travelling the islands in the high season.

Oh well. It was still great, it just might have made for a few stressful afternoons.

The ferries themselves were fun. I like to call them cruises, so our cruises were fun. When we travelled around the lesser cyclades we were on a ferry/cruise ship called the Express Skopelites. The Greeks run their ferries a little bit more haphazardly than the safety conscious Canadians. Actually, I shouldn't say safety conscious, as the Greeks employ an anarchistic method of loading and unloading the ferries/cruises. This method is usually orchestrated by one man's heavily cigarette and ouzo influenced voice yelling instructions from a pulpit. He kind of sounds like a Greek version of Wolfman Jack (but with less cadence and more fear of capsizing).

Anyway, here is some unloading and loading. The second one isn't the Express Skopelitis, but the big ferry we took back to Athens. Strangely, they employed the same strategy of mass chaos when loading.

Our first stop was Naxos. The books said it was overrun with tourists and too busy. In reality, it was very Greek and filled with Greek tourists budging in line to get ice creams. I guess when the books meant touristy they actually just meant 'services'. We ate at a hybrid Thai/Indian place and loved it. The Greek food was great, but having those tastes sure made us homesick (for Vancouver and Manchester). We had a nice hotel with a great view for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, when looking for our hotel Heather tripped on the cobblestone streets and cracked up her big toe, which limited our hiking for the next week. Bummer. Anyway, here are some pics, but I'll have a lot more from when we returned through Naxos on our way home.

From Naxos we hopped on the Express Skopelitis---WAIT--Have I mentioned anything about Greeek service? I don't think so. I can do it quite quickly. There isn't any. We waited 35 minutes to buy a ferry ticket in Naxos. Time to buy the ticket? 2 minutes. We had about 7 Greeks budge in front of us. They most definitely do not know how to queue.
Well, off to Iraklia. We landed and wow--nice place.

Too nice. No hotels, hostels, homestays, or rooms on the island for the night. Adventure!? Boooooooooo. We ended up talking to a nice hotel owner who took us for a quick tour around the island to see if anyone had availability in his convertible---I love convertibles! We ended up deciding to go to the next island, Schinousa, and he hooked it up so that we would get picked up by his 'friend' at the ferry and taken to his hotel. We were very grateful and very happy that it all worked out, but let's just say it wasn't the nicest place we have ever stayed in our lives. We broke contract with them the next day and found a fantastic hotel for super cheap down the road and our Schinousa fun really took off.

Schinousa was our favorite of all the Greek islands. It was really quiet and laid back, and by quiet and laid back I mean llllllllaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddd back. It was exactly what we wanted. The island is about 19 sq km'ish and it is mostly farmland for goats. Oh and beaches. Lots and lots of beaches.

We swam, snacked, read, and drank beers for 5 days. It could have been five years and we wouldn't have noticed. There was a great restaurant called Deli, which we frequented too many nights in a row (and breakfast once too--we are dorks). It was just so good. We mostly walked around and just explored looking for beaches for ourselves. One day we rented a quad. It made it quite a bit easier!

We then headed to Koufonisia. This time we ended up with a really nice place from a woman at the ferry! The only problem was it smelled heavily like sewer and had lumpy beds and paper thin pillows. Adventure! We got out of there the next day. Koufonisia was nice, but not as good as Schinousa. It was funny how we just weren't used to the hustle and bustle of Koufonisia---It had more than a 100 people.

We took a water taxi to a beach described as Caribbean-like. Unless they just meant windy, it wasn't very Caribbean like. We decided to walk back to town from this beach and found one of my favorite places in the islands! It's called the pisina--or swimming pool. I jumped into it many, many times.

It was so wicked. It was about 20 feet deep of crystal-clear water filled with fish and no pokers! The surrounding ocean was such a soothing color and it was so warm. A nice afternoon of jumping.

There was even a sea cave right beside it and we went spelunking!

This was a large cobbled beach just outside of town. I like the pebble beaches because you don't get so sandy, but man does your ass get sore.

On the last day we took a water taxi to Kato Koufonisia. It's a basically deserted island only 20 minutes away that has a giant campsite and a pub on it. It also has beaches. Lots of beaches.

From Koufonisia we went back to Iraklia and got to stay at the hotel of the guy who helped us out. We ended up with a swanky room with a fantastic view.

One thing Iraklia had more of than the other islands was cats! Somewhat healthy looking ones too. I tried to catch them all. They didn't want to be caught.

I don't know about most of you, but whenever we travel and read the travel books it always highlights festivals or events that seem to happen nowhere near the time we are there. Well, we lucked out on Iraklia as we were there on the one day of the year where there is something happening. There is this giant cave on the island that all of the islanders go to and light candles for some Saint (John the Baptist?) and hang out and drink wine and eat snacks all day long. It was supposed to be just an average hike to get to it.
It wasn't.

The cave, although cool, was super humid inside so all of my pictures fogged up. It was huge! By far the best formed stalactites and stalagmites I have ever seen. It was really neat.

On the hike back we decided to take a detour to a different beach and take a water taxi home. It might not have been the best idea...after losing our trail, rummaging through an abandoned village, and bushwacking down a mountain we made it to the water taxi with a whopping 10 minutes to spare! I'll tell you, though, it was one of the best swims I've had when we arrived. We had just sweat uncontrollably for five hours and then got to jump in the ocean.

These are some Iraklia sunsets.

Back to Naxos. We took the early ferry because I wanted to go to the Temple of Apollo. It was really cool. One of the most significant archaeological sites in the cyclades. The rest of the day we just wandered the streets. This is what we saw. Equally cool.

We had another night in Athens before we went home, but Naxos was mentally the end of our month in Greece.
There are not too many negative things I could say about Greece, even if I tried really hard. Oh wait--Pokers! I hate those bastards.

Blast-er from the Past-er

Fat from salmon that I should have been catching.

Grecian Cats!

This cat was flirting with death. I'll call him Evel Knievel.

On the flipside,

CC

Greece is the Word

Hello my lovelies.

For all my insisting that this not be a travel blog, it looks like it is mostly a travel blog. Do I continue to say that it is a blog on the wonderful and insightful musings of one particularly average canuck in Manchester, or do I just admit we've been doing so much travelling around that it is a glorified travel blog?

I think I'll just ignore the issue because I can. Plus, labels are boring. I'll just say my blog is the Radiohead of blogs, without the creativity, skill, beauty, or imagination.

So we spent the entire month of August in Greece touring around the islands. I just went through my photos and picked out a good selection of activities, events, and beaches. I ended up with 119 photos, which would probably take me until we are back in Canada to upload. I decided to edit them down by taking out all the pics that show us on a nude beach, drinking wine or beer, or getting into fistfights. I only ended up with this one:

I went through all the pics again and came up with some appropriate good ones. I might keep the stories short---awww, who am I kidding, they will be long and poorly written, but hopefully enjoyable.

I figure going to Greece before it collapses is kind of like going to Cuba before Castro dies- things are about to change. We were in Portugal last year when the government there was basically broke, but building continued and the (older) people seemed to still be living a regular life. Things are not like that in Greece. You can not only see the effects of unemployment and poverty on the streets, but you can feel it in almost all the interactions you have with people in Athens. It's not that they weren't nice, but when dealing with people in the tourist or service industry, you could tell their minds were elsewhere. There is also tension on the streets. (I tried to get Heather involved in a few riots, but she just wanted to watch TV at the hotel. Oh well, there is always next year's Stanley Cup riot to look forward too!)

We had heard that Athens itself was a big, dirty, unappealing city and we should go to the Parthenon and then get to the islands as soon as possible. Well, Athens is dirty and it is HUGE, but we really liked it. For all its edginess, it is also beautiful. The Acropolis is fantastic, the Plaka is too touristy, but there are other sections of the city that are hip and bustling (but only after sundown as it was too freakin hot to do anything in the day except drink water).

I've wanted to see the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis since I was in grade six and we did a section on ancient Greeks in Social Studies. Our school librarian came in with an actual piece of one of the columns because her father was an engineer who came up with some new way that stabilized the columns and made them not fall over, and he was given a piece. I never realized how important that engineer must have been for some Greeks to chip off a piece, but I always thought it was super cool, and it was.

I think it was 37 or 38 degrees out that day.
As an ex-archaeologist I've always tried to have a greater appreciation of prehistory/history everywhere around us and especially the 'lesser' types of sites, artifacts, or places. It was hard, though, in Athens not to get swept up by the world's greatest ancient treasures and just ogle at them in their glorious splendor. Actually, it was impossible not to ogle.

Example one of ogling: A huge solid gold chalice with giant oxen. Take that Lil John.

Example two of ogling: A bronze statue excavated from a shipwreck.

Example three of ogling: The mother-truckin' Mask of Agamemnon. Seriously?

Let's just say it was a good time.

The rest of Athens was cool. Our hotel was reasonably priced and it was located in a 'real' greek neighborhood, which was unexpected and nice. I had no idea that Greek bakers were so skilled! I don't have a picture of it, but my favorite was a giant bagel-type pastry filled with a soft cheese and covered in sesame seeds. It served for many breakfasts across the month.

We ended up eating dinner at an out of way place that was recommend to us by our hotel. The food was pretty good, but really the view was bananas.

We started off to the islands by heading back to the airport for a short, sweat-filled, fist-clenching, gut-wrenching flight to Chania in Crete. I wish I could have swam to Crete---it really would have made me happier than flying.
We took the bus to a small town an hour and a half away called Kissamosis. The first thing we did was jump in Mediterranean. I've said it before and I'll say it again---it is the best water I have ever been in. Hands down.

The next day we took a ferry to a 'secret' beach. Turns out it wasn't a ferry, rather a tour boat, and the beach is not a secret, rather it has no bus access. We were packed onto this boat with a whole bunch of Russian tourists, but it was kind of fun. We stopped at two beaches.

The first one:

The second one:

It's a crappy picture, but you can see how the water is shallow. It was about 12 inches deep and bathtub hot. It was really nice.

We then headed south by bus to one of our favorite stops of the month, a town called Paleochora. It is one of the most southern cities of Europe. It was quite disconcerting that you could hear the warplanes flying missions in Libya. The city is built on a big spit and divided into two parts with two beaches, a pebble beach and sand beach and they are only about 10 blocks apart from each other.
The sandy beach:

Paleohora has an abundance of really great restaurants. This was an old church that has a collapsed roof so they turned it into a restaurant. I had chicken stifano and it was unreal good. Oh yeah, our wine was 2.50 for a half litre.

One night we went to the outdoor movie theater and watched Zorba the Greek, which was filmed in Crete. The movie itself was not that good (although Anthony Quinn was great as Zorba), but the outdoor theater was fantastic. I ordered a beer and a popcorn and played with cats and sat outside in the warm evening heat.

After a very relaxed four nights in Paleochora we went back up to Chania for a night. It used to be a ship building stronghold/factory for the Venetian empire and the old harbour was beautiful. We were lucky enough to get a hotel right in town. It had the craziest stairs of any hotel I have ever stayed.

Our room was the top left pink one.

Great dinner that night. I had lemon chicken meatballs and Heather had a sea bream cooked in parchment paper and fresh herbs. Yum!

We left Chania for Heraklion (the capital of Crete). It was as to be expected, less quaint and more functional. It still had a giant Venetian old port and great vistas.

We took the ferry from Heraklion to Santorini. We ended up taking the fast ferry and had to go in first class. It was a catamaran jet ferry. It was a fast boat--I mean we were going very, very fast. I don't know the exact speed, but when we hit 88 I thought Doc Brown was going to push the flux capacitor into high gear.

Santorini is completely unique and stunning and magnificent. And busy. Really busy. Especially coming from the small towns of Crete, I was not prepared for that level of tourism. There were three to four cruise ships docking per day in Thira and the road was bumper to bumper with cars, scooters, and quads. There is a reason why so many people come to the island though: it is gorgeous.

It was expensive to stay in any of the hotels in Thira or Oia on the rim of the volcano, so we decided to stay in an smaller town close to Thira. It wasn't more than a 20 minute walk to town and we received great value and had a kitchenette and flowery balcony (and great pool).

We were in Santorini for five days---maybe it was one day too long, but there is a lot to do on such a small island. By a lot to do, I kinda just mean go to the beach.

We rented a scooter one day and explored Oia and the island.

Santorini is the quintessential picture of the Greek Islands and it really didn't matter there were so many people around with us, it just looked fantastic.

The sunsets are famed in Santorini and for good reason.

Can you believe I asked my sweet wife for a bite and she just stabbed me with her fork and squirted lemon juice in my eyes? Just plain mean.

One of my favorite beaches of the trip was called Red Beach on Santorini. Again busy, but worth it.

We also hiked up to a monastery at the top of the island (and by hiked, I mean drove to the entrance and walked up 8 flights of stairs to the top. It's too bloody hot to hike!)

I wanted to rent a donkey instead of a scooter, but I'm allergic.

We ended up going to see another outdoor Greek themed movie--Mama Mia! It was fun. This theater was even nicer, with food and mixed drinks, but we just ate a mammoth platter of Greek delicacies before heading to the show.

Well, I think this is a good place to end part one. It also happens to be the mid-point of our month too. So far, W-O-W.

Stay tuned for Part 2 and the continuing saga of Heather squirting lemon juice in my eyes and stabbing me with a fork.

Blast-er from the Past-er

Our old city, soon to be our new city. Again.

Cats! Cats! Cats!

There were soooo many cats in Greece. I actually thought most of them were going to be house cats, but they were just strays and that made me really sad. There were some real beauties, though, and this was the best pic. Not the nicest cat, just pic. I'll call him, Handsome Heath. What a looker! You could get a mug made of this guy!

Later,

CC

Back in the Saddle

Well folks after a long wait, I'm back! (three people clap)
There was a bit of a delay in me getting back to these posting as my sweet cousin Cathy passed away after a hard battle with cancer. She is loved and will be missed by many.
I'll get some writing and posting done tomorrow, so stay tuned.

CC