Blog from Icaria

click here to view images

Drawn by an enthusiastic description in The Lonely Planet, we took a ferry to the so-called Red island, Icaria, so named because many Greek communists were exiled here after the Greek Civil War, which followed World War II.

We took a cab to the Dionysus Hotel in the hamlet of Kambos (100 inhabitants) up a winding road three kilometers from the secondary port of Evdilos (about 500 inhabitants) and met the reputedly effusive Vassilis; however although the location was uphill, our stay was downhill and a reminder that you can’t always go by the guide book. For one thing, Vassilis had told us on the phone that the room would be “45 degrees,” jokingly, but the room at that price had no window. The better room was 55 euro and we took it. We then trekked downhill 500 meters to the beach, a trial for Barbara and her famous weak knees. The waves were so strong that she couldn’t venture in, although Irwin battled the waves for a short time and then gave up. We walked back to Vassilis, and then another 500 meters or so to the “village” and had a moderately interesting dinner at the one restaurant, which overlooked the terraced hills — stunning. This island is a photographer’s dream even if all we do is point and shoot. Sites include two mules on the way from our hotel to the “hamlet” and the never-ending and overwhelming cicadas.

We had planned to stay four nights at the Dionysus but realized one would be more than sufficient. In the morning, Vassilis made us a delightful breakfast of yogurt with honey and fruit and “fritters” which we had thought was included in the price but turned out to cost 5 euro each. Okay. He hailed us a cab, which arrived an hour later and we returned to the village of Evdilos, which we have come to love in just a few short hours.

We dined twice today at a fabulous little fish restaurant overlooking the harbour and watched the children swim in the clear still waters that run deep.

At 4:30 am (not really our choice) we are taking the ferry back to Samos town, Vathie, for two nights and then we hope to be off to Lesvos.

Evdilos is the first village we’ve visited where there is virtually no English spoken or written on menus and tourists are a tiny minority. No hustling either. Our hotel is modern with a pool, which we enjoyed immensely this afternoon. We’ll send you our marvelous pictures tomorrow.

Blog from Samos

click here to view images

As we sit on one of our two balconies overlooking the marina in Pythagoria on the isle of Samos , we feel lucky once again to have found an island we have grown to love. We are staying at Acropol Rooms (30euro a night) on the main boardwalk just five minutes from the port and 200 meters from our favorite beach. Today we discovered another beach at the end of the main commercial street just past the archeological site of Samos. It was a bit rocky and wavy for our liking. We prefer the first beach with its restaurants that serve you right on the seashore. The best time to swim is either in the morning before 10am or after 5 or 6 pm. Otherwise, expect to be broiled and served up on a platter along with a lobster. Last evening we went to our favorite beach for a swim at 6 and then stayed at the same table for dinner, sampling the specialty of grilled sardines. Yummy! Irwin helps by eating the heads. Maybe he thinks they will make him as smart as Pythagorus, whom if you haven’t guessed is from these parts.

We have stretched out our stay to four nights because we feel very much at home and comfortable in Pythagoria, having met Sandy this morning. Sandy is from New Zealand, has lived here more than 23 years and raised two children here. She owns the bar where we stopped for breakfast, which included three large fresh orange juices, (one was extra) and our favorite brown baquettish toast and filter coffee. Real milk is quite a deal here so you have to ask for it. Otherwise you get Carnation. Sandy suggested we dine at Thanasis’ Sister, an ouzeria with authentic Greek music so off we went last night to hear lovely ballads by a gentleman playing the Bouzouki with guitar accompaniment by the owner of the restaurant. His wife, Joclyne, also an owner, is an American Greek from Utah and she serves up Greek homemade delicacies, including what we ordered: a tomato anchovy salad, freshly made fried chick pea balls, a grilled red pepper stuffed with spicy feta, tiny and tasty calamari, and some indigenous boiled greens from the island. For dessert, a herbal tea from the island and a chocolate log with walnuts which was sumptuous. We’ll be back tomorrow night to try as many other dishes as we can. It will be our last night in Pythagoria before we set sail for Icaria (yes, our next isle is named after Icarus). Icaria is very near Samos but takes four hours on a very slow ferry. We chose Icaria because well…. we’d never heard of it before and when we started reading up on it, we loved the idea. The island was a island of exile for Communists after the Civil War which followed the Second World War and apparently still maintains a strong communist presence. We’ll let you know just how strong in our next blog. Till then…….

Happy in Samos after Bodrum

click here to view images

We arrived in Bodrum via ferry from the Greek island of Kos and did not have enough euros for our Turkish visas (45euro) so we added the last of our money, 4 blue five-dollar Canuck bills. The immigration guy looked at them with thinly disguised disgust, and with a crowd of tired and hot tourists behind us, accepted them. (They don’t take Visa for their visas.)

We then rolled our bags from the port to the old city looking for the hotel we planned to stay at, fronting on the lovely bay. We couldn’t find it and it took about an hour to discover that it had been damaged by fire and changed into another bar amidst the hundreds or so that dot Bodrum.

So, this being high-high tourist season, we knocked on some doors, and finally settled on the Artemis Hotel at 140 Turkish Lira a night, ($78) with breakfast, wi-fi and AC. It turned out to be just fine, right across from the beach and choc-a-bloc among the myriad old city shops that Barbara loves. Except for Sunday, they stay open till the last shopper has collapsed, and that means well past midnight. Hundreds crowd the narrow streets – local tourists, Northern Europeans, French, Polish, Italians, the odd Yank. Restaurants extend on platforms to the water’s edge. There are fabulous pastry shops, fish restaurants displaying their offering in glassed-in refrigerated cases, pizza and kebab joints. And that is what we did in Bodrum: swimming, eating, shopping, gawking, and reading. Irwin has read three books so far, Barbara five.

We left after three days, taking a ferry back to Kos, not knowing where we would end up next. The Greeks and Turks not getting along so well puts a damper on trying to arrange Greek Island hops in Turkey. We luckily found a fast ferry to Samos, 4 hours or so, and when we docked we knew we had found our next little magical island. We are in the village of Pythagorion in a lovely little hotel (30euro a night) with two balconies, a fridge (so we can make our own pikilia), and AC, overlooking the main cove and port. What more could we ask for? More on that soon.

Blog no. 5

click here to view images

We spent a restful and wistful two last days in Paros sipping iced tea outside the Hotel Paros with owner/friends Jenny, Tassos, Vassili and Pellagina. We took a boat to Antiparos for the day, the little island 1/2 hour from Paros which was even more peaceful than Paros if you can imagine that. We had simple but wonderful souvlakis with fries inside and ended our lunch with homemade ice cream. We boarded a ferry to Syros, two hours, and spent two hours on the Syros port at our favorite coffee shop where we had our favorite heated chocolate melt in your mouth cake (one piece for two of us, don't tsk tsk) and then embarked on the Blue Star Ferry at 11 pm headed for Kos. 

We had booked a cabin even though we had to disembark at 3:30 am but it was worth it to feel the gentle rocking of the boat as I fell asleep reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon, Yiddish lovers will love it....maybe. We were awakened at 3am and made our way off the boat in Kos to the sound of hundreds of drunken brawling kids having to carry one another back to their hotels. We had booked the Fastasia Apartment Hotel and had the address which was supposed to be not far from the port. We asked for the street and were directed, unfortunately in the wrong direction, so we ended up walking approximately 5 kilometers in a kind of circle or square, exhausted, asking for this Fantasia Hotel which we were beginning to believe was a real fantasia. Finally we found it, no one at reception, only a telephone no. which we called. First time we haven't met our hosts. The key was stashed on the outside of the window of the bathroom. We slept and slept, woke up at noon and we were are sitting in the Old City at Chocolat Bakery Cafe, one and the same the we visited 3 years ago when we took our Easy Cruise. Tomorrow we hop a boat for Bodrum, Turkey, to revisit our favorite shoe store etc. there in the Old City. Pictures to come. Love, Barbara and Irwin   

blog no. 4

click here to view images

Don’t visit Paros! We want to keep it for ourselves. But if you insist, definitely stay at the Paros Hotel. I know what you’re thinking. The Paros Hotel? It sounds so bland and kitch. But it’s actually the best accommodation we’ve ever had on these islands and perhaps off them too. Our room faces the sea. We can walk 50 meters to a pristine and calm beach. And the owners Tassos and Jenny and their children Vassili and Pella, otherwise known to me as “Cutie” are the best!

The day before yesterday (yes we have some catching up to do) we rented a car and lo and behold, a Mercedes appears. It happens to be the only automatic available. This is our first time renting a car outside North America, but we’re persuadedby Jenny that it’s worth it, She supplies us with a map and marks all the sights for swimming and eating fish and tells us to just follow the only road around the island. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. There were some cliffs on this winding hilly road that at best is two lanes and there are decisions to be made about which turn to take at numerous points but generally it was a lot of fun and we made it round the island stopping at Aliki to swim in the most beautiful bay and then went on to visit a mountain village called Levkes which levt ua hot and tired and dying to get out of there. It seems closed down and unhappy, but very clean. Next we stopped at Kolimvythres Beach for lunch at an authentic home style resto. Then it was back to the winding road with a few wrong turns and finally home to the Paros Hotel and our friends.

The next morning (somehow we managed to keep the car from 11 am the first day until 4 pm the second day) we drove up another steep and winding road to Marcello Beach, another exquisitely clean, blue part of the bay, where we swam with abandon until it was time to return the Mercedes. There’s something about getting into your air conditioned car and driving off when you feel like it that makes renting a car worth it, at least for a day or two.

Today we decided to take a ferry to Naxos for the day, an island 45 minutes away from Paros. What can we say about Naxos. It seems to have all the Greek Island amenities, an Old City with shops, a kilometer or two of cafes and restaurants basically offering the same thing, and a swimming beach about 500 meters from the town, which was soothing after walking around in the heat, but really not as clean or magical as Paros beaches. So we left after six hours, happy to come “home” to Paros. We met two Vancouverites in Naxos at the beach, retired women who spend three months a year in Naxos, their favorite island. Choosing a favorite island is a bit like choosing an ice cream flavor and for us Paros is the right combination of our favorites, cherry and vanilla.

Blog No. 3

click here to view images

We were met at the main port of Paros by a phalanx of accommodation hustlers, at least two of them with the same name – Jimmy and Jimmie – offering deals on rooms. We were looking for Mike’s, recommended in the guide book, but succumbed to the offer of a no-commitment ride on behalf of one of the Jimmy’s to look at a room. It wasn’t bad at 35 Euros a night, but not what we were looking for. He drove us back to a second hotel that had no rooms, so we decided we’d go back to our time-honoured method of finding our own.

And we found a the perfect place, Hotel Paros, an older, renovated hotel, blue and white, and immaculate, right opposite the calm inviting Sapphired colored sea. Jenny, an Australian Greek and her husband, an American Greek from Chicago took over her family’s hotel six years ago and come from Athens every year for the tourist season, May to end of October. They have done a splendid job renovating and maintaining this haven of tranquility and beauty, protecting it from the salt water, and they do it all! They also run the Beach Café which fronts the hotel serving all manner of international snacks and salads, including Margaritas and Tacos and full list of breakfasts. Their kitchen, which you can view in all its glory when you walk in the front door, is huge and inviting and so is their hospitality. Jenny kindly made room for us when we decided to stay more than our typical two days. In fact we are so in love with this little stretch of paradise, we have hardly left the area and are planning on staying a total of five days.

As we sit on our balcony with a lovely view of the sea, we thank our intuition and Jenny, whom we knew upon first site was the hostess with the mostess. We shop for our salad and morning yogurt with almonds at the nearby grocery open till 3 am. Next door is a terrific fish restaurant where ate last night, sampling tasty lightly fried calamari and equally light zucchini which we dipped into our tzatziki and savored along with the local fish filet with garlic sauce.

As soon as we dipped our limp bodies into the sea, we knew we had found the paradise, at least on earth. This was not a two-dayer, or even a three-dayer – at least a four-or-more, we both agreed. The water is so clean and calm and the air so fresh, the wind so soothingly gentle. You have only to avoid stepping on the sea urchins, which look like small rocks but inflict painful strings when stepped upon. And who can blame them? Their presence is a sign of clean water, because they cannot survive if there is any filth. We were advised to walk 50 metres to the left to avoid it entirely.

Blog No. 2

click here to view images

We arrived in Rethymno by bus from Chania (1 hour) and walked quite a way toward the sea until we found the perfect pension thanks to the Lonely Planet Guide, which we purchased in Chania to make life a bit easier and their recommended budget room turned out to be better than expected. Located on the immediate edge of the charming port area, Atelier, which doubles as a pottery shop, had a studio apartment for 45 euro including kitchen and a beautiful balcony where we ate all our meals for the two days we spent in this beach town. It too is a former Venetian stronghold, later controlled by other foreign powers.

We walked for a few kilometers up and down the boardwalk looking for a good place to swim and on both days we found chairs and umbrellas for 5 euro. Unfortunately, unlike the calm of Chania beaches we visited, the strong waves at the Rethymno beaches made swimming difficult. We learned that the sun is very strong in these parts, returning home with sunburnt back and for Barbara, a heat rash. The lesson: cover every part of your exposed body when you react negatively to prolonged exposure. Even Barbara’s ear was burning from too much sun.

We had fun choosing our meals in the supermarkets and minimarkets that dot the boardwalk. We feasted on Taramosalata, Tzatziki, tomatoes, cukes, red peppers, avocado, feta, and black olives that had the texture of prunes and were not at all oily or salty as the ones we get in Canada. For about 1 euro each for the dips we ate like royalty on our peaceful terrace with a view of the town, avoiding the harassing waiters hustling for business all along the waterfront and serving exactly the same dishes in each restaurant.

We were tempted to stay more than two nights and simply read on our terrace, but decided to push ahead with our non-existent agenda and take a bus to Iraklio, which took about 1 ½ hours on a comfortable air-conditioned bus.

Hotels were not as charming here, at least the ones that fit our budget of 50 eruo max. We chose the Mirabella, which is 15 minutes from the Old Centre of town, for its air-conditioning and balcony although the room itself is tiny. We have two cots to sleep on and a sink in the room because the bathroom is the size of a small shower with a toilet beside it. After cooling off, (it’s 32 Celsius here), we took a cab to the palace at Knossos and the ruins there excavated and reconstructed according to the vivid imagination and scholarly values at the time of Sir Arthur Evans. An hour walking among the ruins in extreme heat was sufficient. We complemented the tour with a visit to the archeological museum in the heart of town where the major artifacts from the Minoan period are stored. We now sit in a breezy outdoor café sipping our café freddos, one with ice cream, and trying desperately to get on the wi fi. We will send this when we find a more desirable connection including pictures. Tomorrow we board a Catamaran to Paros, which takes only 4 hours and costs a farmegen (a fortune) 90 euro each.

Blog 1. Day 3 in Chania, Crete

click here to view a slideshow of images from Chania

First impressions mean a lot, especially when you’re travelling, exploring new territory with no reservations, no tips, no guide- book, and high expectations. After three days in Chania, the delightful historic seaport on the north coast of Crete, this city has surpassed our highest expectations and set a high standard for the rest of our 30-day Greek-island hop.

As is usually the case in July, the weather is perfect: blue cloudless skies, 31 C. by day, and the sea is cold enough to be refreshing at first dip, but just right to soak in during the heat of the day.

We stumbled onto the Venetian-built old port in Chania, too shallow for big vessels, which now dock some 10 kilometres to the east. The Turks and Venetians have left their architectural mark here, and these old buildings give the old city its charm. Narrow streets are lined with shops and restaurants, and the port-area main square is covered with marble and surrounded on three sides by restaurants and shops.

Yes, there are many tourists here, but they seem to add to the festive feeling. There is some hassling of strollers, but it’s nowhere near as extreme as in other Greek islands, or in Turkish coastal cities.

The food is wonderful — home-cooked pastry items filled with cheeses, stuffed peppers, spicy feta, fresh grilled sardines, and rich yogurt with honey and chopped almonds for breakfast.

The Cretans are polite, friendly, and helpful. The two beaches we visited were low-key, the one nearest to Chania, a city beach somewhat more crowded than the gorgeous inlet at Stavros we then visited about 10 kilometres to the east. There the water was clear and smooth and the beach faced a mountain. We met some American Greeks who live in Stavros and love it. They were working at Mama’s Place where Anthony Quinn taught dancing lessons during the filming of Zorba the Greek in 1964. Mama’s owners are very proud that Mama herself cooked for the cast.

We took a cab there (22euro) and a bus back (2 euro).

Lots of Norwegians, Dutch, and a few Americans are among the hundreds of visitors that add sparkle to Chania and its surroundings.

We ate at the same restaurant, Semipamis, three nights in a row. The courtyard is filled to the brim and the Greek musicians serenade from a distance as we sample the delicacies that make us return to this part of the world again and again.

Earlier, we encountered a couple of volunteers of English origin trying to save the giant sea turtles who spawn on the north-coast beaches. If they walk right into the sun chairs, they return to the sea afraid to spawn. The volunteers’ mission is to bury the turtles’ eggs and surround them with a protective fence to save them from being crushed. Their goal is to have the owners remove the chairs at night or stack them up to enable to turtles to breed in safety.

-0-

On our seven-hour ferry ride from Piraeus, we met Maria and Nick. She is 29, a recent graduate in environmental sciences and unemployed. She is among the 20 per cent of recent university graduates in Greece who are without work, victims of a government, she said, that had squandered money from wealthier Euro Zone nations on infra-structure projects that benefit their friends, rather than promoting research and development so Greece emerges from its dependence on agriculture and tourism. Nick, 30, too is fed up. He has a Master’s degree in Economics but had to pay 8,000 Euros for his studies because it was classified as “research.”

Meanwhile, the rich don’t pay taxes. They declare their yachts as fishing boats and seem to get away with it. Members of the Greek Parliament are cutting away at public services but have never taken even a symbolic pay cut. Nick’s no anarchist but he’s angry and frustrated. They live in Petras and want to avoid what so many Greeks had to do during the lean 1950s, emigrate to greener pastures in North America. Frustration. The same frustration we heard about from Dutch travellers, high-school teachers in revolt against cutbacks from their government. Although Greeks are angry and frustrated, there is no outward sign of crisis and most of the tourists here are Greek.

The Bank of Greece reported July 12 that tax evasion and the black economy amounts to 30% of the country’s GDP every year while “no efforts” have been made in the last few years to control tax evasion, resulting in failure to collect taxes, while social security funds are strained to a point that the state budget cannot meet its commitments when it comes to social spending.