Iraklio
Still no photos. Hundreds in the camera, but you have to take our word for it that Crete is very attractive.
We left Rethymno, which we enjoyed thoroughly and toured the Amari Valley in the mountains. In Thassos we had a terrific time in a taverna which sold every local ingredient known to the mountain folk and then visited the 10th century church with unbelievable original frescos. Deep blue background, serene Byzantine figures that were remarkably well preserved. We had to ask the old lady next door to the church to let us in, she then mentioned that she sold coffee, so we had coffee with her (after she had brushed away the ants from the table). A German couple from Freiburg joined us. We chatted a bit. They were surprised that we we Americans, said there weren't too many up the that part of Crete. The toothless old lady was excited that we were Americans, she keep repeating "Americaniki" and smiling her single toothed smile.
Zaros was a delight. Nana (Iriana) who runs the hotel spoke only Greek and German. I struggled to remember my high school German. A combination of our 10 word Greek vocabulary, my 30 word German, some help from the school teacher who spoke some English and all questions were resolved. She insisted on cooking dinner for us the next night.
Now we are in Iraklio, having seen both Phaestos and Knossos, the two major Minoan sites. I like the Minoans. Beautiful pots and art work, great palace complexes. I need to buy a good book on them. Iraklio is a bit like Athens, modern and ugly but it has some nice areas and a fabulous museum with all of the finds from the Minoan sites. I tried to take pictures of everything, which will be tedious when we start looking at the photos.
Great dinner last night at a little non-descript taverna. I had a roasted pork loin with the best herb sauce. Good wine from the barrel. Iraklio isn't pretty but it has good food, and no menu gauntlet.
Athens to Rethymno
We have been internet-less until yesterday which has become embarrassingly odd for us. Also I brought the wrong cable for the camera, so there might not be any photos for a while. Oops. Anyway, here is my first post and my first impressions about Greece.
The sites and museums in Athens are wonderful, but the city is hard to like. The city is charmless. Near the Acropolis there is a small area called the Plaka which is quaint, albeit overrun by tourists like us. Nonetheless I'd come back in a minute to see the Acropolis and the museums.
The overnight ferry to Chania Crete worked great, we had a nice cabin and a pleasant dinner on board. We arrived at 5:30 AM, got to Chania at 8:00 AM and were stunned by how pretty the harbor area was. We ate breakfast and walked around the town all day. Beautiful, but by the the end of the day swarming with tourists like us (TLU). The most difficult part is running the gauntlet of menu hawkers as you stroll down the harbor.
So far Greece is surprisingly easy on our monolinguality. In the tourist areas, English is the lingua frana, so our three word vocabulary has worked fine. In the town of Argiroupolis up in the mountains we bought some tableclothes with sign language, but everywhere else it's like being in NYC.
From Chania and we drove our to the western part of the island, and then the next day into the Akrotiri peninsula. In Akrotiri we hiked down to a small chapel inside a cave, a hot dusty 2 hour hike. We were pretty parched. Slightly sunburned too.
We're in Rethymno now, which is similar to Chania - Venetian style buildings with some Ottoman minarets, a spectacular harbor lined with a menu hawking gauntlet of tavernas and TLUs. I think I prefer Rethymno, it seems to be more balanced between a pure tourist town and a town with its own life. I can't complain about the tourist aspect, obviously, since I'm only able to exist here because of it.
Today we visited the Archeological Museum and then drove up to a monastery, where the rebels against Turkish occupation blew themselves up in the powder magazine rather than surrender. From there to ancient Elutheria, which we'd heard about in the museum. Originally a Minoan site, what remains looks like mostly Hellenistic. No one else there, and no info on the spot so it's my baseless speculation.
From there down the Margarites, a pottery haven with great pots (we bought some). Then on the way home we found a Minoan tholes tomb. We had to scramble around for it, I ended up walking down the path alone since K and J were burned out on ancient rocks. Pretty neat. No one there but me. The tomb is bee hive shaped, buried underground. Ten or fifteen feet in diameter, ten feet high, with a five foot high doorway and a ten yard entrance path. It's a bit creepy being in it alone. Hopefully I can get the photos posted.
