Mykonos

 With our time in Paros done, we left for Mykonos the next day, and Mykonos has been wonderful. We weren't to sure what to expect. We heard it was a party island and very crowded, and although it is both of those, we are loving it. The town core is gorgeous. There are so many wonderful alleyways to get lost down.

There is also a portion of the town called "Little Venice", which has buildings that are right on the edge of the ocean. Mike is off trying to take a night time shot of it right now, which is why I am writing the blog post instead.

Anyways, our first day on Mykonos was July 28th. We arrived around 1pm. The owners of our hotel came to pick us up and brought us back to the hotel and our room, which is beautiful...which it should be at 99 euro a night (it was hard for us to find a place at this time of year for any less). The doors are yellow and blue and so cutesy.

After we arrived we showered off and then went for a walk around town. We ate at a tavern called Nikos, which our hotel recommended. The restaurant was beautiful. I decided to try a traditional Mykonian appy that kind of sounded like bruschetta, but had cheese (apparently the Mykonains are known for their cheeses). Unfortunately we were not prepared for the strong cheese. It was sorta like a blue cheese, but so much stronger. It almost felt like it was burning your mouth.

Mike is back now. He wants to take over because I'm too slow.

We then spent the rest of the day just wandering around Mykonos Town, and then went back to our hotel to watch the sunset with a bottle of wine (Mike had water), and then went to bed as we had planned a beach day for our only full day in Mykonos.

We woke up earlier than normal (around 7:30) and pulled together our stuff for the day.  After a quick FaceTime call with Heather, we left the hotel and made our way to the city centre for breakfast and to rent an ATV (no more hot, overcrowded buses!)

We decided that since we had the quad we could go to a few beaches, so we checked TripAdvisor and chose to go to the top 3 beaches, Panormos, Agios Stefanos, and Agios Sostis.  Each of the beaches were nice in their own way, and we enjoyed them all.  Lindsay wants me to mention that every time I go to fast, or don't "slow down for the corners" quick enough I get poked in the ribs...somehow this doesn't seem to be a wise decision...you know...distracting and harming the driver of the vehicle...

The first beach, Agios Stefanos, was a "natural" (not nudist...although there were some...) that has no amenities (no umbrellas, showers, restaurants, etc.)  We stayed here for maybe an hour and half, until 11:30.

The second beach, Panormos, was much more populated, as the first beach we had almost to ourselves.  This beach was very nice, however, as the swimming seemed a bit better, and it had less nudists.  It also had some cool rocks to take pictures on, that were in the water, but gently broke the surf as it came in.

The third beach we got to around 2pm, after stopping at our hotel on the way there to cool down for 30 minutes.  Here we rented beach chairs and an umbrella, although at 12 euros, this was the most we have had to pay for them anywhere in Greece.

We left around 6:45, and then went back to the hotel to shower, change, and drop the ATV off at the rental place.  We then made our way into the town to take some pictures, eat, and wander the streets a bit and see what the night is like in Mykonos.

Tomorrow we will be out the door around 8:30, on our way to the airport, and on our way to Rome!  We have loved Greece and will hopefully return one day.

Days 14 - 16 - Paros

When you spend 3 days on the beach it makes sense to just group everything together or else you would have 3 almost identical blog posts.

We left Santorini around noon on day 14 (July 25), and arrived in Parikia, on the island of Paros, around 2:30.  We went to our hotel, which was only 400m from the port, settled in, and grabbed our swimsuits to head to the beach across the road.  The beach was fine, with decent sand, but a very rocky shoreline, so we decided that the next few days we would go to other beaches on the island with not as much rock.

That night we went out for dinner at a restaurant on the beach, and enjoyed a good meal of rabbit stew and a mixed appy plate.  Lindsay didn't like the rabbit, but Mike thought it was nice (having never had it before and not knowing if it was cooked properly or not).

The next day we rented a scooter and took the 60km trip around the island, stopping at 2 different beaches, Santa Maria, and Golden Beach.  Most of the day we spent at Santa Maria, which is more of a clubbing beach, complete with pumping music, which we determined we were too old for.

It was a very busy beach, with hundreds of people on it.  This must be one of the top beaches on the island based on the amount of people there.  The sand was nice, and the waves relatively calm, so at least we enjoyed the 4-5 hours we spent there.

On our way back to the hotel we then stopped at Golden Beach for the sunset, walked in the rolling waves, and talked to one of the windsurfing shops to find out about lessons and the cost, as we determined we would come back to Golden Beach the next day.  We then made the 20 minute scooter ride back to the hotel, had a cheap meal of hamburgers at a local restaurant, and went to bed.

On our last full day in Paros we caught the 11:40 bus to Golden Beach, as we missed the 10:30 bus writing our blog post :)

The bus ride was horrible...they took the long route to Golden Beach, which was about an hour, and it was in a VERY full (standing room only) hot bus, without working Air Conditioning.  By the time we arrived at Golden Beach, Mike was feeling awful, so he had 2 Gravol, we ate lunch, and then found some beach chairs to sleep in.  The restaurant that we went to for lunch was actually part of a resort, and as we were finishing lunch we noticed that there were beach chairs on their nicely manicured lawn, so we quietly slipped over to them, plopped our stuff down, and pretended that we were guests of the hotel :)

Honestly, these were the best beach chairs we have found.  They were well built of wood, with well made cushions, and having grass below you instead of sand was fantastic.  It was much cooler, and to add to that, we found some in the shade of one of those large pineapple trees; it was awesome!  We stayed here for the day, and after a few games of Ticket to Ride Europe on the iPad, Lindsay talked Mike into paying for windsurfing lessons together.

Windsurfing was a lot of fun, but hard to learn and get used to.  We do think that if we had more time and practice, we might be able to get the hang of it, but in the short hour we had to learn we did OK and there are promises of an exciting career in windsurfing.  We wanted to get photos, but unfortunately as we were both out at the same time we were unable to :(

For the bus ride home it was much nicer - we were sitting closer to the front of the bus, had a bus with higher backs to rest our heads, with working AC, and as it was later in the day it was not as hot.  Mike also got drugged up before we left so he slept most of the way back to Parikia.

We had a later dinner, around 9pm, and then went back to the hotel to watch Bruce Willis in "The Kid", and went to bed.

Another Long Hike - Santorini, Part 3

We started our day a bit later than we originally planned, but after sleeping in a bit, finding breakfast, and preparing for a 3 hour hike, we got going around 11:30am.

The hike started with us at Fira (which is where we went to get breakfast), and took us around to Oia, which is at the most North-Western point of the Island, about 11kms.  We followed this "walking path", which really isn't much of a path, but more of trail.  It took us along the Caldera side of the Island, past many of the resorts and hotels with a Caldera View, and into Oia.

The trail was very hot.  We went in the hottest part of the day, and there was no shade.  Although there was a breeze, it wasn't a very cold breeze, as the hot volcanic rock we were hiking on heated it up before it ever touched our bodies.  At 2 points along the trail we came to small churches where we were able to find a bit of shade from the building, and took the time to relieve our backs of the packs we were carrying and air out our armpits.

Around 2:30 we arrived in Oia, and took the chance to eat some lunch, walk the streets, and explore some neat shops like Atlantis Books, which is famous for its decor, witty writings on the wall, and having a great selection of books.

We stayed only until about 5pm, as Oia doesn't have much in the way of "shady places" to cool down, and caught the bus back to Ferostephi, our hotel, and a chance to quickly cool down and shower before going to an outdoor movie in Kamari.

We caught the 8:15pm bus to Kamari, and as the bus was very full, we had to stand in different parts of it, separated.  Well, what happened was Mike got off the bus at the correct stop, and as Lindsay was a few people behind she didn't see him get off the bus, and stayed on.  She had assumed that he wouldn't get off the bus without her, and he (I) assumed she would have heard the guy yell out "Cinema", twice, notice that a dozen other people got off, and have seen him standing on the sidewalk looking into the bus motioning for her to get off.  In any case, the bus took off, Mike tried to follow it to the next stop, and as he forgot to start in his fast position, he wasn't able to catch the bus, so he went to a nearby hotel and asked where the return bus stop was, and waited there.

Lindsay, on the other hand, got to the end of the line and realized that Mike had already gotten off.  With no money and no phone, and not knowing Mike's Greece cell phone number, she had to charm her way back on to the bus.  The guy collecting fares let her come back on, and thankfully, for Mike, it stopped at the point he was waiting at...however...this was wasn't the stop Lindsay got out on; she stayed on the bus, and Mike didn't know if she was actually on the bus, or if she had gotten off at the end of the line and was now walking to the Theatre.

Anyways, to make a long story short, Mike was given the wrong directions to the theatre by a local, walked a few extra kms, asked another person, got the right directions, and met up with Lindsay at the theatre 45 minutes later.  Thankfully, Lindsay had been dropped out RIGHT outside the theatre and was waiting there for Mike.

The movie playing was Mamma Mia, which Lindsay loved.  It was a really neat theatre, with a big screen, a bar, and stadium seating in nice outdoor chairs.  We grabbed a couple drinks to help relax, Lindsay grabbed a hotdog, and we settled in.  After the movie we caught the bus - together - back to Fira, walked to our hotel, and were in bed by 12:30am.

Day 12 - Santorini, Part 2

As opposed to sitting around the pool or beach, the next 2 days in Santorini we took to exploring the island (truth be told, part of the reason is that we had to switch hotels, and the new hotel we stayed at did not have a Caldera view).

On the first day of adventure it took a while for us to wake up, eat breakfast, check out of hotel 1, and check into hotel 2, so we didn't get going until about 1pm. The first thing we did was try to go to one of the museums in Fira, but as it was a Tuesday, it was closed (who knows why they close on Tuesday...)

From here, we hopped on a bus and went to Akrotiri, which is an ancient Minoan Archeaological site. Akrotiri dates back to 1600BC, but even a bit further than that, because it was actually built on top of other Minoan ruins, spanning back even further, as there were 2 earthquakes that decimated the settlement twice previously. The site, thankfully, was under cover, so we were sheltered from the sun. That being said, it was VERY stale, hot air in there, so after an hour and nearly passing out, we left.  We probably would have stayed longer if we were able to get a tour, but the unmotivated tour guides were not able to gather up enough people to make it worth their while, so we were left to the poor signage to guide us.

We went back to Fira, taking pictures throughout the city. For dinner we stopped at an Asian place and had some noodles, and then went back to the hotel and watched a movie and prepared for our long hike the next day.

Days 10 & 11 - Santorini, Part 1

Santorini...wow...what a place!  This is the view from our pool deck.  To the right you would see the Caldera, but the lights at night of Ferostefani and Fira are amazing.

We booked a place in Ferostefani, which is just above Fira, and it is awesome.  The views of the Caldera are amazing, and the streets are super cute and picturesque.  There are bougainvilleas and other flowers that are absolutely massive and stunning everywhere (Lindsay points out each and every one of them as we walk by) and they site adjacent to some of the neatest little buildings.

We arrived, by ferry, around noon and checked in by 1:30.  We went for a late lunch (which was expensive) and then went to sit by our pool and wait until dinner...which was also expensive, but we had a great sunset, as you can see in the picture above.  It seems as though everything in Ferostefani is WAY more expensive than in neighbouring Fira (as an example, you would be hard-pressed to find lunch for less than 30 euro for 2 people, as opposed to finding budget street-meat for 10 euro).  What you are paying for in Ferostefani is the view - everything has a view, and they charge heavily for it.

After dinner, around 9:45 (after the sun sets) we had some FaceTime with some family, and then played a game of Ticket to Ride Europe in our hotel room, overlooking the city, and went to bed.

The next day we slept in, had breakfast, and then lay by the pool from about 10-4.  Mike got a pretty good sun burn, although he's hoping it goes away in the next day or so.  Lindsay sat reading her book (she is now on to book #2, "The Forgotten Garden") and Mike is on to audio-book #2 of Harry Potter ("The Chamber of Secrets").

We had low key night, going out for a cheap dinner and eating leftover pizza from the night before, and then watched a movie in our room, "Down With Love".

Our Last Day on Crete

Our last day in Chania was nice.  We slept in a bit and then went to the beach for a few hours in the early afternoon.  During our time at the beach we went to the restaurant associated with the beach chairs and umbrella we rented, and ordered a lunch of Greek salad, bread and tzatziki and Cuddle Fish.  I learned 2 things: 1) Cuddle Fish is closely related to Squid, and 2) Cuddle Fish is horrible, or at least the way we had it was horrible; see the picture above.

Another thing we learned during our time in Crete is that with, basically every meal, they give you a free dessert (general some kind of fruit or light gelatin cake) and Raki, which comes in some kind of tiny bottle like the one above.  It is rough, but not unbearable.  Mind you, I'm not much of drinker, unless it is fruity and comes with an umbrella, so what do I know?

After this we caught a 5:30 bus back to Heraklion, went back to our favourite restaurant, 50-50, spent the night in a gross motel, beside a chain-smoking-foul-mouthed-door-slamming-50-something-Brit, and caught the early high speed ferry to Santorini.

The Samarian Gorge

 

There was no relaxing today.

We started with a 5:15am wake-up, to catch the 6:15am bus to the Samarian Gorge.  The Samarian Gorge is Europe's longest gorge at 13km, and an elevation drop of ~1200m (for just the hiking path).  It took us about 1.25 hours on a winding road...a VERY winding road...to get to the top of the hiking path. The picture you see above is what we were starting to brave at 7:45am...after resting for a while to ensure I didn't barf up my gross "chocolate donut" breakfast.  Donuts, and bread in general, are not something I would say that Greece excels at.

The hike was tough.  The ground was very uneven, very steep in sections (a couple years ago 2 people died from falling rocks overhead), and it was very hot (29 degrees in the shade).  Every day about 1000 people do the 13km hike, and a few people do the hike UP the Gorge (we passed a couple dozen or so).  On our tour bus 3 people didn't make it, and turned around near the beginning, as the first 4km are the hardest.

At the narrowest point, the Gorge gets to be about 3m across, although that is near the end of the hike.  The sides, as in the picture above, are about 300m high.

After the hike we stopped in the little town at the bottom of the Gorge and enjoyed a few hours on a beautiful beach with smooth black pebbles/sand, on the Libyan sea.  At 5:30 we caught a ferry over to Sougia, where our bus picked us up and had us back to Chania around 8:00pm.  We quickly had dinner, ice cream, finished Bridge to Terabithia, and went to bed, tired and ready to sleep.

Day 7

 

We mentioned that after going to the Knossos Museum (which I fixed the video for - go back to the last blog post to watch the newly uploaded video) we were going to go out for dinner; we did, and we went to this restaurant, called "50-50", which was recommended to us by the couple from California.  It was amazing food - really good food - and funny enough, we bumped into Tomas and Heidi (the Californians) there and ate and drank Raki (a Cretan hard liquor) with them until 11:30pm or so.  It was nice to meet people from the same continent as us, as there really are not many North Americans here; it is mostly Russians and Germans.

In the morning we caught the 8:30am bus to Chania, which arrived around 11:30am.  We checked in, had a little nap, and then made our way to the Old City of Chania, and down to the major touristy area, the inner harbour.  We spent some time walking around the city, stopping to grab some lunch, and then walked out on the sea wall, towards the lighthouse.  We stopped about 1/4 of the way to just sit and watch the waves roll in, and after a half hour or so determined our legs were being sun burned, so we left to get ready for dinner.

The Californians also recommended to us a restaurant in Chania, called "Tamam", so we checked it out, as we so impressed with their last suggestion.  We ordered the Giant Baked Beans (which are a Lima bean in a buttery, garlic, dill sauce) and the Lamb in a tomato aubergine sauce...both were AMAZING!  Such a good meal...I hope we can find a similar recipe at home.

It was then early to bed, after watching half of "Bridge to Terabithia", to get ready for our 5:15am wake-up the next day, and a 16km hike through the Samarian Gorge.

Knossos

 

It was beautiful...after a 4am start to yesterday, today we slept in, and didn't leave our room until about 11am.  We were due for some laundry to be done, so on our way to the bus stop to Knossos we stopped and had some laundry done.

We caught a 12:20 bus to Knossos, which is about 5km south of Heraklion, where we are staying.  The site is an ancient site that predates almost all other ancient cultures, other than the Sumerians.  The site, belonging to the Minoans, was discovered by Arther Evans, a Brit from the late 19th century and the early 20th century.  He was very wealthy, and had heard rumor of a labyrinth on the island of Crete (from the myth of King Minos and the Minotaur) and purchased a LOT of land to start digging it up to try to find it.  He didn't find the labyrinth, but a palace (the Palace of Knossos) and these ancient ruins.  Truth be told, the ruins they really do not know much about because they have been unable to decipher the writings they have found.  Most of the glyphs, called "Linear A", have not been deciphered, so they actually don't even know if they people were called "Minoans" - this was just a name given to them.

We took a tour while there and met 2 really nice couples - one from San Francisco, and another from Romania.  It was a tour led by an English-speaking Greek, Niki, who did a great job.  After this we went to the Museum, back in Heraklion, and looked at many of the relics and frescoes from the site.

We then made our way back to the hotel for some rest.  Around 7 we left to walk the boardwalk in front of the hotel and take some pictures in the sunset.  Tomorrow we will be leaving to Chania, where we will be staying for 2 or 3 nights, before heading to Santorini.

Day 5...A Longer Day Yet

Our day started with a wake-up alarm at 4am...yes, I said 4am. We had booked ourselves a flight from Athens to Crete for 9:45, and we knew it was going to take about 4-4.5 hours to get to Athens International from Meteora. It was a long drive, and hard to stay awake for, but we made it fine and it one-piece...even though I missed seeing a railroad crossing on the highway and hit it going 80km/h...that was the biggest bounce I have ever had in a car!

The night before, we did our sunset tour of Meteora, and it was nice. The sun was not really cooperating with us, as it had (and is still on Crete) quite hazy. The locals believe it might be the humidity, or some dust storms from Africa, but it doesn't matter to us – it is still hazy at a distance. We did learn some interesting facts about Meteora, in that hermits wanting to be closer to God and starve themselves of worldly pleasures, back in the 10th century, came to the area to make homes in the caves up high in the rocks. They had to learn how to rock climb from the locals, but eventually created these sanctuaries and grouped together with other hermits, leading to the creation of the monasteries.

Once arriving in Crete we hired a taxi and went to our hotel, Kronos Hotel. After quickly settling in we went for lunch, and made our way to the bus station to take a 20 minute bus to one of the local beaches, Arita Sand. We spent most of the day there, until about 7pm, with me listening to Harry Potter on audio book, and Lindsay reading The Undomestic Goddess and then made our way back to the hotel to shower and head out for dinner. It was relaxing time after a long start to the day.

On Top of the World

It seems as though we never get to sleep in with all that we have planned, but at least we are enjoying everything!

We woke up around 7 and went out for breakfast.  On our way, we stopped in at a tour company, www.VisitMeteora.travel, and booked a Sunset Tour for the night, running from 5-9pm.  For breakfast we stopped at a small bakery just down the road from our hotel, Rooms Totti Sisters, and grabbed a couple Greek pastries and iced coffees.  Funny enough, at the bakery we went to, the lady who owns it demonstrated really good English, and when she asked where we were from we said Canada, and she said she lived there for 15 years, in British Columbia.  We told her we lived there too, in a small town called Prince George, and she was quite excited because she actually lived in PG for the 15 years she was there!  She lived right near Alward and 10th, so it was fun to chat with her.

We then went back to the hotel, packed up, and took the car up to Meteora and the first monastery.  There are 6 monasteries now, (there used to be 24) and all of them are active and in use.  They are beautifully situated on cliffs, with long stairwells carved into the mountains, although those were only recently added; until about 90 years ago you had to be pulled up by a pulley system, which is still in use to bring up supplies.

The hike to these monasteries was often a lot of steps, some of them as many as 300 steps, going down a valley, and up the other side, and of course these were very steep walks, and very tiring.  Also, as they are functioning monasteries, woman have to wear long skirts, and men long pants, so both Lindsay and I were cooling off in the AC'd car after each one, trying to prepare ourselves for the next.

We actually only made it to 4 of the monasteries - 1 of the six was closed, and 1 we ran out of time for.  We started the day a little later than we wanted to, and as we wanted to rest and write our blog before our sunset tour, we didn't make it to the last one.  Each one was beautiful in their own right, and there was some amazing history on display.  Along the road connecting the monasteries, (it is about 16km to hit all 6 of them) we stopped to grab a couple photos, showing how it looks and feels like the top of the world.

We are just about to head out on our sunset tour, so hopefully we will have a few more great photos later!

A Long Day

After we finished our Day 2 blog we went back to the hotel, had a nap, and got ready to head out for a later dinner.  We walked back to the Plaka and found a nice little restaurant and had some really good lamb and orzo dish...I can't remember the name, but it was good!  Of course dinner would not be complete without some ice cream, so I indulged :)  Lindsay and I have an agreement - she gets wine with dinner, and I get dessert...I guess one of us will put on a few more pounds than the other!

We then went for a short stroll to the base of the Acropolis and took a few pictures. They have large lights illuminating it from the base, so it is just beautiful.

The next day we woke up around 6:30 and rented our car, after lugging our suitcases back to around Hadrian's Arch (about 20 minutes from the hotel) and hit the road.  We took the winding road (the REALLY winding road!) to Delphi, and after settling our stomachs for a while, we enjoyed the museum and strolling the site, (we are VERY glad we weren't sitting on a tour bus for this drive).

Delphi was essentially dedicated to Apollo, so the main feature at the time, about 2500 year ago, would have been Apollo's temple.  There is not much remaining now, but you can see the view is amazing, as it overlooks a large valley filled with olive and Cyprus trees.

We also walked to the very top of the site and saw the stadium that was built for Pythian and Panhellenic Games, also around the same period.  You used to be able to walk out on the track and even place your feet in the ancient starting blocks, but those were roped off.  On the way down we stopped and grabbed a photo overlooking the entire site and the valley...very beautiful.

From Delphi we drove another 3 hours to Kalambaka, the city site of Meteora.  The drive was so gross with winding roads and going up and down hills that both of us had to take gravol.  Thankfully we arrived safely, and we were able to relax, go get some dinner, and head to bed early.