Paulette

I posted pictures from the Athens part of my vacation.  I’ll get to Crete & Santorini soon.

I’m finally going through my pictures of Greece and trying to pick out the ones that might be of interest to others.  All of them are meaningful to me.  I will post a link to the entire album once I have them uploaded and commented.

Here are a few pictures of the main points of interest in Athens that we visited.

The old Olympic stadium in Athens is also known as the Panathinaiko or Kallimarmaron stadium.  It is beautiful. It is made of marble.  Take a look at the seats/steps.  They are all marble.  It is in very good condition but they do not allow you to walk in/on it.

The Temple of Zeus was very interesting.  Our guide was informative but I now remember very little of what he said.   It’s so easy to research and retrieve that information now that I don’t need to store it in my brain.  In the distance you can see the Acropolis.

The Acropolis is the thing I most heard about before coming to Greece.  The Parthenon is the temple that sits atop it.  I didn’t know much about it but I recognized it immediately whenever I saw photographs of it.  It is amazing to me that it is right in the center of the city.  It just sits up there surrounded by everything.  They are working to preserve it.  It is mind boggling to stand beside something so old and treasured.

There is an amphitheater at the Acropolis called the Odeon of Herodes Atticus that is still used for concerts.  You can see in the background of the picture that the city is very dense.  There are so many buildings and very little trees.  When you walk around the acropolis there are trees.  It is too bad they didn’t preserve some of them in the city as well.

There are many other points of interest in Athens but we were only there for a couple of days.

I don’t manage to sleep much.  Basically it’s one hour of sleep then wake up and check the time.  I don’t like having to wake up in time for a flight.  Next time I’ll have to make sure I book something a little later.

At 3:00 AM (8:00 PM Ottawa time) I wake up for the last time.  I lie in bed waiting for 4:00 to arrive.  Finally at 3:50 I get up and head to the airport.  Carla briefly wakes then goes back to sleep.

The airport is busy.  I checkin and head to my gate.  My flight is on time and uneventful.  I arrive in Frankfurt 3 hours later.  I have a 5-6 hour wait for my flight to Ottawa.

I walk around the airport but after an hour there isn’t much else to do.  I buy “The Appeal”, the latest John Grisham book and head to the food court.  I find a flight attendant in a little corner sitting by herself reading.  I join her and pull out my book.

I spend the next few hours reading and trying to ignore the airport noises around me.  There is no quiet space in a busy airport.  I try to go to my gate early but they turn me away.

An hour before my departure time I head to my gate.  I go through security then continue on.  As I get closer I have to go through another security entrance.  (?)

The flight is to leave at 2:15 (7:15 AM Ottawa time).  They call for boarding to start.  Again we are being put on a bus that will take us out to the tarmac where we will board a plane.  I let the first bus go.  There is still a long lineup so I wait.  Carla hasn’t arrived yet.  I decide I’ll wait until the last minute to get on the bus hoping she arrives in time.

I keep reading my book and glancing up every once in a while.  Finally I see her!  She made it.  We get seats together on the plane.

It’s a 7-8 hour flight.  I finish my book.  We both watch movies and TV sitcoms.  We are given a meal, a couple of snacks and a few glasses of wine.  We arrive in Ottawa a little early.

We go through customs and wait for our luggage.  Mine arrives but Carla’s does not.  Her connection was too tight.  She will get her bags tomorrow.

And just like that it’s over.  Carla’s Dad is there to pick her up.  Dave is there for me.  We say our goodbyes.   I’m exhausted.  I’ve been up for about 20 hours now with only bits of sleep before that.  Tomorrow is going to be tough.

Wow, I’ve been to Greece.

We have a few hours today to do our last bit of shopping in Crete before we start the journey home.  Carla and I make our way to the market.

We both pick up a few things.  I finally find what I was looking for.  I buy a sleeveless shirt for myself with the Greek pattern along the bottom.  I pick up some t-shirts and baseball caps for the boys.

We have lunch back at our hotel and spend an hour or so at the pool cooling off.  It’s a small indoor pool with a very small outdoor patio.  We manage to take in some sun before we leave.  We keep checking the web and it seems like it’s going to be cloudy and raining when we get back to Ottawa.

We head to the airport for our flight to Athens.  The airport is crowded and people are smoking everywhere.  The air is thick.  There are no smoking signs but no one seems to pay attention.  Finally our flight is ready and we head to Athens.

We are staying at the Sofitel next to the Athens airport.  We are pleseantly surprised by the hotel.  It is the nicest hotel we’ve stayed in.  Too bad we only have a few hours there and can’t take advantage of most of it.

We have dinner at the hotel restaurant and head to bed.  It’s going to be an early day.  I have to get up at 4:00 AM.

This is our last day on the island of Santorini.  We have been doing a lot since we got to Greece.  We decide to spend a more relaxing day before we start heading back to Ottawa.

After breakfast we take a walk on the Caldera to get some last photos.  We walk up to both churches (there are a lot of churches here) and then back again.

We spend some time at the pool cooling off.  We then head next door for lunch again.  The owner is very friendly.  We’ve been the only people there at lunch (well at the Canadian lunch time).

I ask him what is good today.  He says he can get us this or that or …   Then he says he can bring us a variety of different things and we agree.  He starts off with a plate of dips - tzatziki of course and some fava beans and the third is eggplant.  Tomatoes & cucumbers ring the plate.  We have bread and oil & vinegar.

Next he brings out a plate with meatballs, cheese pies, stuffed grape leaves and probably some other things I don’t remember now.  We can’t finish it all.  It is very good and we thank him for the variety.  The bill is very reasonable.

We head back to the pool to spend our last few hours.  Fred has let us keep our room until we leave.  No one is coming that night so he doesn’t rush us out.

We take a taxi down to the docks for our 5:00 PM ferry ride.  I’m not looking forward to this.  When we get down to the port we get “fished in” by one of the restaurant owners.  “The ferry is late tonight.  It won’t be here until 7:00 PM” he tells us.  We can either wait in the terminal or sit at his outdoor eatery and have a drink.

We opt to sit at the eatery.  We start with a drink.  Eventually we split a sandwich.  The owner is very friendly and lets Carla use his cell phone to call Eva.   She and her family are to meet us at the hotel for one last visit.   We didn’t want them to show up on time and we are 2 hours late.  They still agree to come into town even at that hour.

The ferry shows up and I take a double dose of Gravol.  I hope I’m not sick as I was the ride over.  This time we are in the business class upstairs.  We have reclining seats.  I find the ride much smoother.  I don’t get sick.

When we arrive at the port I grab my bag from the bag area.  Carla’s is missing.  She waits and it finally is sent down the conveyor belt last of all baggage.  Someone must have moved it inside.

We can see our hotel from the dock so we walk.  We end up having to climb a large amount of steps to get to the hotel.  I feel like I’ve been doing the Amazing Race.

We finally get to the hotel and Eva, Manoli, Anthony and Maria are waiting for us.  I can’t believe they came into town for just an hour or two to see us.  What nice people they are.  Manoli wrapped up a large bottle of their olive oil and two smaller bottles of their Raki for each of us to take home.  I know Kat will love the olive oil and Dave and Brian will grab the Raki.

We say our goodbyes.  I’ve definitely made some new friends.  I hope they can come to Ottawa to visit someday.

We signed up for a snorkeling tour yesterday.  We put 10 euros each deposit.  “They’ll pick you up at your hotel at 9:45 AM.”  For some reason neither Carla nor I really believe someone will pick us up but we head to the gate and stand by the entrance waiting for our ride.

It doesn’t come and I head back to the office and speak to Fred.  I get in trouble for not booking it with him.  “This would not have happened if I had booked it.”  I stand there and take it.  He’s helping us now by phoning everyone.  He finally gets through to someone who knows about us.  It ends up the morning tour was full.  The dive center had been waiting for confirmation from us.  The tour agent did not complete the arrangements.  They can take us for the afternoon trip and will pick us up at 1:15 PM.

At 1:00 we head to the gate to wait.  There is a truck there and I see Mediterranean on the side.  Our guy is early!  It is a dirty truck and we get assigned two little side seats in the back.  We have to dig for seat belts.  They’ve never been used and they are filthy.  Regardless we buckle up.

We arrive at the office and wait for the rest of the group.  We will be 12 people heading out.   Bobby is a nice girl from Austria.  She will take the snorkelers.  George is the dive master and seems to run the operation.  He will take the divers.  We drive to the dive center just opposite the black beach.

The black beach is small black pebbles so hot that you cannot walk on it even with flip flops.  It’s like walking on hot tar.   They have wooden walkways so that you can get to the sea.  Beaches here aren’t that great.

We get setup with all our gear, fins, mask, snorkel and short wet suit.   We don’t think we’ll need the wet suit but we are told to bring it and we can ditch it when we get to the snorkeling.   We now drive to the port where the dingy is docked.

When we get to the dock, 9 of the group decide they are not going on the trip.  They are traveling together and need to catch their cruise boat at 5:30.  It is already near 3:00 and although George insists he will bring them back early they don’t feel they can enjoy the trip knowing they might miss their boat.

George makes arrangements to send them back.  So now there is Carla & I with Bobby for snorkeling and a young German man with George for the diving.  Worked out for us!

We head out on the dingy.  We see the black beach, the red beach, the white beach.  The names say it all.  We won’t need to visit those.  The dingy ride is fun.  We get sprayed with salt water.  I’m feeling very weathered by this point.

Our first stop snorkeling is at the caves.  There are several different spots for snorkeling the caves.  Due to the waves we can’t go to the best caves but these are fine. Bobby has a full length wetsuit on so we decide to leave our shorties on for the first swim.

Into the water we go.  Between the wetsuit and the salt water we float very well.  The water is cool.  Good thing we kept our wetsuits.   We swim into narrow channels and view the rocks below.  The fish are sparse.  We go deep enough into one cave that everything is black.  You cannot see a thing.  Back out we notice how blue the water is.  We didn’t notice it going into the cave but after the dark you can really see it.

We get back on the boat and drive a bit to our next stop.  Here we are given a croissant (with chocolate filling, yummy!) and some juice.  This is our rest before the next swim.  George and Bobby take the opportunity to chain smoke.  (There’s way too much smoking in Greece for our comfort.)

After our break we head back into the water and swim around.  We see crabs, sea sponge and a few other things.  It isn’t the type of snorkeling I’ve done where you see a variety of colorful fish.  It is interesting though.

One thing we’ve found in Greece is that the water is full of garbage.  We’ve noticed it in several places.  There is garbage floating on top, weeds, plants as well.   I just try to keep my mouth closed as to not get anything inside of me.

Time to head back.  We pass fishing boats and seagulls.  The spray again is wetting us and making us a little chilly.  Back at the dock everything is loaded onto the truck and we drive to the dive center.  We hand in all our gear and wait for the drive back to our hotel.  George drives us back.  It’s been a long day and we are exhausted.

We both jump into the showers and clean off the salt.  That was the best shower I’ve had.  By now we are just in time to watch our last sunset just after 8:00 PM.

We sit outside with a bottle of wine and play Scrabble while Carla takes pictures of the sunset.  We’ve had 2 close games so far.  Carla won the first one.  We tied the second time.  Tonight I get beat - not even close.  I’ll have to practice for next time!

We ask Fred to make us dinner.  Carla takes the meat prepared Greek style with a sauce.  I take the Greek lasagna.  Dorottya, the waitress, brings us a huge Greek salad each, a basket of bread and a fried cheese (can’t remember the name now).  We didn’t order any of that!

Next she brings us our dinner.  My lasagna is very nice and light.  It isn’t the type we have at home.  It is a layer of noodles, a layer of ground beef, a layer of noodles, a bechamel sauce and cheese on top.  It was so good and not heavy.  That’s one thing we’ve notice here is that the food doesn’t make you feel stuffed (unless you eat too much).

Carla’s dish comes and it has meat and peas.  Hmmm, seems they forgot the potatoes.  Next thing we see is a huge bowl with 2 baked potatoes and carrots in it.  There’s way too much food.  We don’t even touch some of it.

By the time we finish eating it is past 10:00 PM.  Again we are eating like the Greeks do.  I couldn’t do this everyday.  I don’t know how they manage to eat so late and then go to bed.

Carla hears an Irish accent and heads over to talk to the couple.  They have lots to talk about.  I listen for a while and then head back to our room to read.  Carla follows a short while later.  We are both pooped.  Tomorrow is our last day in Santorini.  I think we are going to take it easy and relax.

We are hoping to take a tour today so we walk into Fira to buy tickets.  Again we walk about 1 hour before we see the tourist shop that sells the tickets.  The man is very friendly and helpful.  We buy tickets for a boat tour that starts at the old port.  We continue walking until we see signs pointing to where we need to go.

We are it seems miles above the water.  There is a cable car to take you down (looks like a ski lift) but Carla and I want to take the stairs down.  It’s a lot farther than it looks.  We keep walking and walking down the steps and we start seeing more and more poop.  Soon we realize that donkey rides are a different way of making it back up to the top.

We see groups of people going up on donkeys.  At this point we have no time to change our minds nor the energy to climb back up in full sun so we continue.  As we get closer to the bottom the stench is horendous.  At the bottom there are so many donkeys that you have to push your way through.  Disgusting!  We are definitely taking the cable car back up.

We board a nice boat and after about 30 minutes we get off at the volcanic islands.  It is actually 2 volcanoes that merged into 1 island at some point.  Part of the island is huge black boulders while the other half is smaller coloured stones.  The guide tells us the large black boulders came into contact with water while the other side cooled slowly and therefore has more minerals showing.  We spend 1 hour walking up the volcanoes stopping at different spots along the way.

We walk up to the top and see steam coming out at one spot.  It is sulphur and you can surely smell it.  It feel eary walking on the island.  To me it was like walking on the moon.

We get back on the boat and within 20 minutes are at the 2nd stop.  Here you jump into water about 20 metres deep and swim to the hot springs.  It’s not what we expected but we jump in and swim over.  The water is very muddy and gets warmer as we get closer.  Carla has googles and looks underwater and sees a lot of fish.

The swim back to the boat is a little harder.  Not only is the water getting cooler but the waves are against you.  One person needs the life ring to bring them back in.  We do fine.

That’s the end of the tour and they take us back to the port.   We walk immediately to the cable cars and get on.  We are up in the hill in about 20 seconds.  There was no way we were going on the donkey path again.

The path to the port is  long and narrow with many side streets.  Every square inch is a store or restaurant so we shop.  We see a few restaurants that serve fresh fish so we return to one to eat.  We both had the sea bass.  We are asked if we want bread.  I remember to ask if that is extra.  It is he says so we decline.  We don’t really need bread.

I should have taken a picture of the sea bass.  They brought us our plates with the whole fish.  Carla took one look at hers and announced she could not have it looking at her.  We quickly cut off the heads and put them on a side plate and covered them.   It was delicious, light and fresh tasting.

We have a leisurely lunch and then set out to walk back to the hotel.  We want to take the Caldera route which is a path away from the main street.  It takes you through some beautiful hotels and villas.  Some of them look very fancy and expensive.  We stop to take a lot of pictures.  It’s amazing what they can build on the side of a mountain.

The walk is long and the sun is hot.  Carla says it’s like a mirage.  We keep thinking we should be there soon but it is always just over there.  It’s been another day of lots of walking.  I think we are making up for all the food we ate previously.

By 6:00 PM we are back.  Carla jumps in the pool.  I opt for a shower.  We are going to have a Greek salad later and drink some wine we bought in town.  I’m pooped!

Carla and I tie in Scrabble.  We’ve combined the Spanish & Greek Scrabble letters to make an English one but the scoring is a little off.

Tomorrow we’ve booked a snorkeling tour with 2 stops.  I hope the fins they bring me fit!

Manoli drove us into Irakleon to the port.  We caught the 9:45 AM ferry to Santorini.  It is a huge catamaran.  We have reserved seats.  It all looks good.

We soon take off and the motion is wicked.  I get dizzy just thinking of it now.  No fear I took my Gravol before we left.

It didn’t work.  I am soon feeling so seasick that Carla says I look green.  That’s hard to do considering I have a sunburn.  She says I don’t look like myself at all.  I white knuckle it for over 2 hours.  When we get off on Santorini it is hot and I can barely walk straight.  I just want to lie down.

We look for our ride and don’t see a sign with our name so we grab a taxi.  When we arrived at our hotel we are told there was someone there to pick us up.  Oh well, we are here now.  Our room isn’t quite ready but it didn’t take long for her to clean up.  We did arrive before check-in.

We turned the air conditioning on and I unpack a bit.  I’m starting to feel better already.  The room is very nice.  It will be quite comfy.

We head out to the pool and swim a bit.  The water is cooler than other pools we’ve been in here.  It is refreshing though.  We blow up our air mattresses and paddle around.  I spend a bit of time just lounging on it.

We ask the owner if he can make us dinner and he gives us a few options.  We choose the veal prepared Greek style with a sauce and mashed potatoes.  In the meantime we go and change.

We sit by the pool overlooking the sea and the sun is starting to set.  We drink some wine that her friend Shelly arranged for Carla and eat stuffed vine leaves.  Carla beats me at Scrabble.  We played with a spanish version and there were a lot of vowels (which I seemed to only get) and a lot of letters missing (J, K, W, X, Y).  We only notice at the end.  No wonder we couldn’t find any words!

The sun sets into a hazy sky.  Carla takes a lot of pictures.  Fred sends a glass of champagne to everyone to watch the sunset.  As soon as the sun goes down it is chilly.  Carla gets her hoody and my fleece.  We move closer to the inside of the bar area to keep warm.  Now we know why the pool water is cool!

Then Fred brings us our wonderful dinner.  The meat was so tender and the sauce so flavourful.  We enjoyed it tremendously.   I asked if they had any dessert (yes I was looking for a chocolate fix).  Fred says we can have figs from his tree if we want.  So he sends the waitress over to get figs and brings us a plate of them.  I’ve never had fresh figs before.  They are really good!

By now it is getting late and we head to our room.  It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow so we need our sleep.

Tonight we went to the village of Mohos where Eva’s family is from.  It is about 9KM up from where she currently lives.  They are currently renovating the house her grandparents lived in.  Eva’s parents will move in.

The village is a picture perfect Greek village.  There are cobblestone streets, boys playing on their bikes, men sitting out front watching everyone go by.  We walk towards the village centre and stop at a pub for a drink of Raki (Greek version of moonshine).  Ugh I don’t manage but Carla finishes hers.

We continue down the road and sit at an outdoor restaurant in the village centre.  We are surrounded by shops and restaurants and a church.  It is so beautiful it looks staged.  We are told that a movie was filmed here recently.  I hope to find that movie and watch it sometime.  I wonder how much of the village they will use.

We had the best authentic greek food.  We opted for a variety of appetizers.  We were not disappointed.  Everything was made with fresh ingredients.  We’ll need to do a lot more walking!

Today we went into town to Iraklion.  We went through the market and stopped at a travel agency to pick up our tickets for the ferry to Santorini.

Linens seem to be the good bargain here in Greece.  We noticed nice things and good prices in Athens and now again on Crete in Iraklion.

Mid-afternoon we head back to Eva’s.  Carla and I take a walk along the road.  Their neighbours a few doors down have goats.  It’s that kind of place.  Horses go down the street.  Everyone seems to have a garden or olive trees.

I’m so surprised by the olive trees.  They are about the size of a small crab-apple tree.  There are so many olives in one bunch on one section of branch.  I can’t imagine how many olives they harvest from one tree!

Carla and I then head down to the sea for a swim.  This is my first time in the Aegan sea.  It is so warm!  There are waves and I’m a little nervous so I don’t head out very far.  It is refreshing though.

Imagine living so close to the sea that you can walk down anytime for a dip.