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Friday May 13, 2005: Departure to Chania

We get up at 03:45. We need to make sure we’re at the airport in Zaventem at 05:00 at the latest. Maurits picks us up at 04:15 and we leave for the airport immediately. We take 1 suitcase, 1 bag pack, and a small bag pack as hand luggage. We arrive at the airport on time and check in; at the VIP stand off course. Everything goes smoothly and after customs control we can go to the main departure hall. We take our time to have breakfast, because it will take a while until we have our next meal. Two coffees, 2 biscuits. Then we can enjoy the sunrise near our gate (the last one, number 72). The plane can leave on time; there was only 15 minutes delay. So at 06:45 we leave! After a flight of about 3 hours we land at Chania airport in Crete. It is 26 degrees: great! For once we have two items and off course we need a long time until the bag pack is there. The bag pack was there and immediately the band stops, so that really was the last one. We take a cab to the centre of Chania for 25 Euro. The driver brings us to the centre and we need to walk another 3 minutes to get to the hotel. It is situated in a neighborhood, where no cars are allowed. We like it already. In the hotel we need to wait for another 10 minutes because our room is not clean yet. We’re in “Porto Del Colombo” in a room on the third floor. We need to put a lot of effort to bring the bags up, but have a great view on the old harbor from our room. On the other side we see the city, which is also a great view. We don’t spend too much time in unpacking our thing, because we feel like exploring Chania. First we have something to eat at a restaurant near the sea: Monastiri. We have a Greek salad, tzatziki and grilled octopus. It’s very nice and not too expensive. Then we go into town. We start with a walk, that we get from our tourist guide and follow that. The guide leads us past small alleys with all different kinds of shops. We pass along the orthodox cathedral, the archeological museum (something for later) and go to the market. There is nothing much to see now, because the market has already closed the doors. Maybe we can return there a bit later. We walk to the Agios Anargoeri, a building where a lot of icons are visible. We don’t enter here; this would lead us too far already. We walk on to a church with a minaret and arrive at the port, just where the new and the old one come together. It’s already four in the afternoon and we’re already awake for 12 hours, so it’s time to have a siesta. Let’s go do that! Around 18:00 we prepare to go to have dinner. We ask at the reception, where we can book a tour to the Samaria Gorge and the woman advises us to go outside of town for a tourist office. We don’t go there, but she calls them and within 5 minutes everything is scheduled. Monday we go to Samaria. We walk to the harbor, enjoy the sunset and look for a nice restaurant. We take an aperitif (ouzo) and then have a lot of small dishes al together: cabbage salad, small Greek fishes, and dolmadakia with retsina. We can enjoy our first meal here.  When we ask for the bill (only 24 Euro), we get a raki for free. Here on Crete it seems that people drink raki more than ouzo. Then it is time to return to the hotel. We take the road along the water and then dive into the alleys. Underway we buy the cigars and retsina we like on our holidays. We continue to enjoy the good weather: it’s till hot till 00:00 and around that time we go to bed.

 

Saturday May 14, 2005: Elafonissi

According to our plans that we made yesterday we should be going to Elafonissi today. We took a timetable from the buses yesterday and there was a bus at 08:30. So we get up early and have breakfast. The breakfast is nothing special as usual in Greece. Then we rush to the bus stop and buy a ticket to Elafonissi and back. It is a ride of about 2 hours from Chania to Kastelli to the south part of the island. We rest a bit on the bus and we’re stunned by the variety of landscapes we drive through. This part of the island is green and fertile. There are chestnut trees, fruit trees and nut trees. We drive through the mountainside, along the coastline over hills and through valleys. This side of the island is really magnificent. And indeed after two hours the bus arrives: it is beautiful. It seems like we’re on a Caribbean island. An unbelievably beautiful beach with a lot of lagoons. The water has all different colors and on some spots the sand is rose. Sometimes you see it very clearly; on other parts of the beach you don’t see the pink color. We wade through the sea from the first beach to the second that is even bigger than the first one. You can go into the sea for over 100 meters and still be in the water only to your knees. We lie down near the water and think it’s just great here. We put sun cream over whole our body, swim a bit and lie in the sun. Timo suddenly sees a small calamari, really cool. He even can hold it in his hand for a minute, but then immediately release the animal and let it swim freely. We rest, swim, bathe in the sun, and swim again and to it all very relaxed today. Off course after a few hours (at around 13:00) we’ve had it and need to do something, instead of just lying around. We follow a track into the dunes and over the rocks and along beaches. After a while we need something to eat and go all the way back, to where the bus is. There is a small kiosk and we have a sandwich with tuna and one with ham and cheese. We drink retsina and a lot of water with it. We sit there eating and it starts to become a bit chilly. There is a lot of wind and we’re sitting in the shade to avoid we get sun burnt. So we move a bit to a quieter and warmer spot. There Timo sleeps a while and Eef rests a bit. After a while we notice we even got sun burnt lying in the shade, great. We’re both as red as a lobster. So we go back to the kiosk and wait for the bus to return to Chania. It seems the watch of Eef was running late and we had to rush to still get the bus on time. Nice to know, her watch is not OK; we still had 20 minutes, when the bus almost left. So we get on the bus to take the same way back. It’s the same as the road we came: get some rest and enjoy the trip. At 18:00 we’re back in Chania. We now know where the Tourent office is, where we need to collect the car on Tuesday. That is something Kurt did not schedule OK. We need to get the bus for about 15 minutes to go there. We’ll see then. We go back to the hotel and start using sun oil like hell. First shower and then oil. We can use it, because we got seriously burnt the last couple of hours. But off course, that’s not really smart is it? Lie in the sun that long on the second day in Greece. After about an hour we’re ready and have now time to go to eat. Again at Monastiri, but there were too many people, so we eat right next door: at Michalis. We drink 1 liter of retsina, 75 centiliter of water and eat mix grill fish. This is: one piece of swordfish, 4 big shrimps, about 10 sardines, 10 rings of calamari, 4 big stuffed mussels and octopus. Two large pieces of octopus. Two whole stuffed squids and all of that on a bed of rice. Really very good and only for 40 Euro. You can’t leave it for that little money. We did not manage to eat it all; we had to give some sardines to the cats. On our way to the hotel we buy another bottle of retsina and water, but we only smoke a cigar and go to sleep, as we’re very tired. Tomorrow we sleep long.

 

Sunday May 15, 2005: Archeological museum and do nothing

We do it all very calmly today. We need to stay out of the sun, because we got burnt yesterday. Eef wears light long trousers; Timo goes outside in his shorts and T-shirt. We get up around 08:30, go for breakfast and start the day the same way as yesterday. Then we walk through town. We find a good place to meet each other, when Timo goes to collect the car the day after tomorrow. Timo takes the bus and returns to Chania with the car, where the taxi driver has dropped us off. Now we stroll through Chania. We again come along the market place (now closed) and the minaret and arrive at the old harbor. There we return to the center. There is very, very busy, but we prefer a nice and quiet table. What is quiet? The wind blows very hard and even blows an umbrella away. Really quiet is not the case. There are a lot of clouds today, but we don’t mind, because we needed shade, as it seems our skin is not big enough due to the sunburn. We have each one frappe de luxe (10 Euro) and write the postal cards to everyone in Belgium. We could finish already half of them. We stay sitting for a while and then want to visit the archeological museum. We take about 1,5 hours to see the funds. It’s kind of a torture; stand still and then start moving again. That really hurts our legs. The museum is worth the visit, not really big, but very nice. It is located in an old church and we see a lot of statues of bulls and a lot of old pottery, where people kept grain and water. Also a few beautiful mosaics are in the exhibition. After the visit we make our preparations to go to Samaria tomorrow. In a small shop we buy cola, 2 bottles of water, bread, cheese and some napkins. For tomorrow we need a lot of water and sugar. Timo puts it all aside in the hotel room and Eef tries to get some money. Then we go to eat right next door at Soultanas. It tastes really good: a mixture of Greek specialties, moussakas, beans in tomato sauce, stuffed eggplants, stuffed peppers and meatballs. We have two small bottles of retsina with it and are very surprised, when we get the bill: all together it is 36 Euro; this is too much. We were planning on returning here, because it was that good, but that will not happen for obvious reasons. Then we return to the hotel, it’s time to take some rest. We sleep until 20:00 and then make everything ready for dinner. We’ve just eaten, but are already a bit hungry. Don’t worry we won’t eat too much. Just 1 dish for both of us and that’s it. We go to restaurant Faka. We take moussakas, chicken souvlaki and 2 Mythos. When we ask for the bill we even get raki and a plate with apples and cinnamon. Enjoy it! We return to the hotel, write the last cards and go to sleep at 23:00. Tomorrow at 06:10 the bus will pick us up and we will need to be able to walk the Samaria gorge. Sleep tight!

 

Monday May 16, 2005: Samaria Gorge

Today is the big day. We leave to see the largest and longest gorge in Europe (so the Greek tell), SAMARIA. At 05:30 we get up, prepare everything, water, lunch (bread and cheese), cola, sugar and biscuits of LU. These are all things we can’t miss, when we’re going for a 16-kilometer descent. We arrive punctual at the Alpha Bank, where we leave for Samaria. There are already a lot of people on the bus, so the bus drives off on time. We receive an explanation in English and in French. Apparently it is a Greek girl. Surprising: a Greek that speaks languages that good. Important for us was: we had heard the name kri-kri already a few times and did not know, what is meant. It is the special kind of goats that run around in the gorge. We drive for about an hour to the village called Omalos; here we stop for breakfast, because nobody had the time to eat in the hotel. About ten minutes later we arrive at the beginning of the gorge. At 07:50 we start the descent. Let’s go! The first views are astonishing: a steep ride down for 4 kilometers. Just stairs, so that is a bit dull and dangerous with the rocky soil. We don’t go very fast, but keep a good pace. The first few times we stop to get a drink, because it is pretty hot. We have lunch at Samaria Village, then we are already past the first half: bread, cheese, cola and biscuits. After 10 kilometers and about three hours of walking we arrive at the most beautiful point of the gorge. We have enjoyed a really magnificent walk until now, but the best place is down here. First we see the rock walls about 20 meters apart and that’s already a great sight. We start to take a lot of pictures, and then suddenly the digital camera breaks down. We try to fix it, but no luck. We enjoy the gorge then without taking any pictures and follow it to ‘The Iron gate’. This is the most famous place inside the gorge; you see it on postal cards and so on. We keep on walking, it is even hotter than earlier, really very hot, almost 87 degrees Celsius. Once we have left the gorge through a kiosk there is a concrete road to Aja Roumeli, the village at the Libyan Sea. We quickly stop to have a drink and then move on to tavern ‘Artemis’ to have a Greek salad. We both feel pain in our legs and feet; you should not underestimate this trip. Timo wades in the sea to get his feet cooled down and feels a lot better after he has clean socks. Then we need to wait until we can take the boat out of here and waiting takes a long time. We try to enjoy the time here and look back onto a nice trip through the gorge.  We’re really tired and love the thought we can lie down on the boat to Sougia; we even fall asleep for an hour. Then we can get off the boat and on the bus for another two-hour drive. The guide tells about the little chapels along the road (to honor people, who had an accident here) and about olives and oranges and other typical Greek stuff. We take a detour to drop off other people at their hotel and arrive back in Chania around 20:30. We go immediately out to eat something at a fast-food restaurant (chicken burgers and normal hamburgers with fries). Then we can finish up our day, because we’re tired, but had a really good day. We take a shower, rest a bit and prepare our bag pack for tomorrow, because it is our last evening in Chania. Tomorrow we have to pick up our car in Agia Marina, about 15 minutes away by bus. At 23:00 we go to bed, hopefully our legs don’t hurt too much.

 

Tuesday May 17, 2005: Transfer from Chania to Aja Galini

The first day we have a car. We get up at 07:30. We discussed a lot on how we were going to arrange the car pickup at Tourent, because that office was located outside of Chania, 15 minutes to Aja Marina. First we were thinking of going apart; Timo should go get the car and Eef would need to wait, but in the end we decided to go together with our luggage and so we take the bus to Aja Marina together. This was all very at ease; we have breakfast in the hotel and at 09:00 we take the bus to where we need to go. At around 10 we’re at the rental office and all is checked and done within 10 minutes. We can leave directly then. We first need to fill up the car, because the tank is empty and then it is ‘en route’ for us. We leave Chania following the highway direction Vrises and Sfakia. Sfakia is a different name for Chora Sfakion. We decide not to visit Sfakia itself and leave the highway at Frankgelokastro. There is also our first stop for today: an old Venetian fortress. Only the outside walls remain, but – just like a lot of ancient monasteries and fortresses – the location of the building is magnificent. After this visit we move on to Moni Preveli, but first we have to eat something, because we’re already on the road for a few hours. According to trotter there is a good restaurant in Mirthios, so we drive in that direction. They have full glass fridge, where we can see the food and there is a big choice. First mezedes: cabbage, olives, fried paprika, dolmadakia and zucchini salad. As main course Eef has gemista and Timo eats octopus in red wine sauce. From the terrace of the restaurant we have a beautiful view on the bay and the surrounding area. We have some retsina and water and then we see, we’ve been here for more than an hour, so time to leave. We take small roads up and down through the mountains to Moni Preveli passing by Lefkogia. A visit to the monastery is not possible at this time, but the trip is worth to do, magnificent mountainsides, valleys and olive trees. When we come down from the monastery to the big road, we bathe our feet in the cool water. Temperatures are very hot now. Via Asomatos and Mixorouma, we drive to Spili, where we stop for a moment. At Spili we check out the source from Venetian times. Out of about 20 lion heads water is flowing all the time, really cool. This is the only thing that is to be seen here, so we move on to our destination and the place, where we’re going to stay the next couple of days: Aja Galini. At 16:30 we arrive there and we start looking for a room to stay. We follow the guidance of Trotter and look out of rent a room Hariklia. In the book is written the owner is a Danish woman, so we ask (in English) if a room is available. The manager is not Danish, but a woman from Gent, Belgium. Trotter now you’re wrong. We continue in Dutch and immediately book a room for the next 2 nights. The room is very big with a huge terrace with a view on the bay of Aja Galini. Beautiful. We unpack and receive a raki from the owners and enjoy it under a majestic bougainvillea. Near the hotel there is a small path down to the centre of the village. We walk, better like a cripple, down and come a while later back up. We’re not very fast today due to the trip in Samaria yesterday. Then we take the time to rest a while. We close everything, so it’s dark and we rest for an hour or a little longer. Actual sleep we don’t have, but we are OK, when we wake up. Then we take a shower, the bathroom is immediately flooded – typical Greek: the shower is nothing more, than the bottom part, without curtains, without anything. We splash the room, prepare ourselves and go down to the centre. The first time we drove through the village we thought there were not that many restaurants, but in the alleys there are a lot of them. We choose one with three floors and eat something on the top floor with a view over the sea and the village. In the restaurant Parthenon there is a roof garden and there we have tuna salad first and then swordfish (Timo) and moussakas (Eef). Off course we have retsina and water with it. As aperitif we receive each one ouzo and as desert we have watermelon and raki. When we finish, it’s almost 22:00 and all tourists have left the restaurant. We walk back up the steep path to the hotel and have another retsina on our balcony. We quickly revise what we will be doing tomorrow and sleep like babies.

 

Wednesday May 18, 2005: Rethymnon and Agia Arkadiou

After a long and good night (till 08:30) we get up and have a very tasty breakfast on the balcony. Timo boils water in the common kitchen downstairs and Eef prepares our breakfast: marmalade, cheese, toasts and coffee from a little jar of Nescafe. We do it all very slowly and enjoy every single moment. By 10:00 the dishes have been washed, the bag pack is done and we’re already on the road to Rethymnon. We take the highway to the city and after about one hour we’re there. It is about 62 kilometer and for driving through the mountains it’s not too bad. Yesterday we drove 185 kilometers and today we will add another 155. We easily find our way through the business of the town and park the car on a car park just next to harbor. We walk into town to the Venetian fortress and visit it. We’re lucky today, because entrance is free. It has a great view, but when it comes to buildings and findings it is nothing much. There is a cathedral and remains of old walls. It is hot here, so we don’t stay there too long. We walk back down and arrive in the small old Venetian port. It looks quite cozy, but there are too many tourists here for us. In all the restaurants the fish and calamari are waiting for the tourist to pass along. It’s really a spectacle to see all this. There even is an old Greek, who takes a whole fish of 1.5 meter big on his motorbike. A bit further is the beach and that is also nice, but we don’t have time to stay on the beach. We walk through the streets, pass churches and a mosque. We stop for a moment in a small shop and buy tomatoes, fruit, bread and water. We need water, because we drink a lot due to the heat. On a small square near the sea we take our time to eat the bananas, the bread and the tomatoes. It’s only 11:30, but we already have lunch, because it is still quite a drive to the monastery of Arkadi. After half an hour we leave from Rethymnon, get away from the business of the town and drive direction Heraklion on the highway. We drive past the exit and take the next one and drive through small villages up to the monastery. Fifteen minutes later we’re there and drink retsina on a terrace. It is unbelievably hot here, but we like it a lot. The white stones and the white sand almost make people go blind. Also the monastery is free to visit today, we burn a candle in the little, but beautiful church: to our grandparents. We look at all the icons and the church and buildings and don’t stay here too long. Timo wears a long-sleeved T-shirt and he sweats like hell. Then we go back to the car and drive home to Aja Galini. At first we’re using a small road, but once we passed by Rethymnon we’re following the same highway as this morning. We’re back at 16:00 and take a refreshing dive in the Libyan Sea. We walk 200 meter down to the beach, swim and let us float on the water. We’re not lying down, because that’s too dangerous even in the sun in the evening. We rinse the salt of our bodies and have a cup of coffee in our room. We can make the coffee ourselves in the kitchen and take it upstairs to our balcony. Then it is time again for a break, we’re tired so we sleep a bit. It should not be underestimated to drive that far in the mountains of Crete. At 18:00 it is not that hot anymore and we have a late siesta.  At 19:30 we can’t sleep any longer; we have new neighbors, people speaking French, who make a lot of noise. So we go down to the centre of the town. Near the sea there is not a lot of wind at this moment and we can enjoy our food here. As appetizers we have Greek specialties (tzatziki, dolmades, cucumber, tomato and two salads we don’t know), then we have calamari (Eef) and spaghetti (Timo). We take our time and drink Mythos and can return satisfied back to the hotel. There we stay a while with some retsina and a cigar. We briefly discuss the plans we have for the next few days. Can we do this or that? We decide to keep it as it is. At 23:30 we go to sleep.

 

Thursday May 19, 2005: Lendas, Aja Triada and Festos

The day of the lumps! This might sound a bit without respect, but that’s how we call it. We go to see lumps (archeological sites) today. There are three sites we’re going to see today, one better than the other. We have breakfast with what we still have left: everything was cool in the refrigerator in our room. We slept a bit longer than normal; it’s 08:30 when we get up. We leave at ten and drive to Timbaki and Mires. From there we have the intention to go to Lendas. Via a small detour this works out fine. But it is not easy to find the way: the road leads us through little villages and over a mountain higher than 1000 meter, so again we drive up and down. It goes very slowly, the average speed is about 40 or 50 kilometer per hour. After an hour in the car we arrive at Lendas. We have driven a long time and there is nothing more than on mosaic and 2 marble pillars. In the village itself three are also some pillars and something that looked like a wall. So with this experience we leave Lendas and drive to Kali Limenes to reach a monastery and then Festos. It all starts well, but then the road disappears and turns into a dusty road with stones, rocks and sand; up and down very steep through the mountains. We think (and hope) that it will not be that long and just follow the same path. In the end it still was 10 kilometers further the same road condition, so a bit longer, than we hoped. When we’re back on a good road we have a choice: either we follow on as planned with the same road condition ahead or we make a detour with a good road. So we follow the good one and arrive on the same highway we left behind us almost half a day ago. We’re a little irritated and tense with taking the wrong way and due to the heat and the efforts to go to Lendas. Lendas is not worth the tour, but when it comes to nature and birds (Timo’s specialty) it could be worth it. Larks and great eagles fly around here. According to Trotter these are Eastern Imperial Eagles, but we can’t recognize them as they are flying too high. We drove off the highway and follow direction Aja Triada, where we have the second site of the day and the better one. A ticket for both Festos and Aja Triada costs 6 Euro. Just before this we stopped at a supermarket “Champion” to buy some food. Sandwich with cheese and sausages. On a pick nick spot with view on the site of Aja Triada we have our lunch with some cola; this sometimes is better than just water. After lunch we start our visit. There are a number of big vases – we’ve already seen a lot of them and will see even more – a basilica of Georgios and remains of an old villa. Agios Georgios is always on paintings and icons on a horse fighting against a dragon. What is special here is: the agora, the food chambers, the villa itself and the number of small rooms for servants and others. By 15:00 we leave this site and go to the next one: Festos. That is only 3 kilometers away from here, so we don’t mind. We move on through the heat, it’s unbelievably hot today. We thought we already were used to the heat, but in the sun it is just hot, so we need to drink a lot. Festos is the biggest and the most famous we’re visiting now. Time here goes back 3000 year bC. People have walked on the same stones we’re doing now in that long ago. The big agora is indeed very big and next to that also a lot of small rooms, probably to store food and grain with stones to grind and pots to store it in. the larger chambers are nice to see. It’s a pity they are covered with plastic roofs, which doesn’t look so good. There is also a big part of the site we can’t access, but we don’t mind. We walk around on the site and even discover a few rooms with a fireplace. The heat makes us go to the museum shop, where we get some water. We drink it almost immediately and around 16:00 we go back to the hotel and half an hour later we’re there. We’ve seen enough archeological sites today. Quickly buy some more water; we had to drink a lot today and then we go for a rest. That’s what we planned. Instead of lying on our bed, we go for a walk. We follow a road down to the beach right opposite our hotel. The Greek workers here have used asphalt for the road and made small carvings in it to make sure it looks like a stone road. Typically Greek! Along the beach there is a path and we just follow it. We need to turn back because it goes on until the rocks get in our way. So we walk the same way back to the centre and cross a river on an old iron bridge. Back at the village we see a restaurant a bit higher with a magnificent view on the harbor and the complete coastline. So we decide to drink and to eat something here. Ouzo as an aperitif, then mixed grill. It was not the really traditional one (chicken filet, hamburger, bacon, 2 pieces of meat), cabbage salad with a bottle of red wine (San Antonio). We can’t keep it sober with a whole bottle of wine and then Timo orders another Metaxa with coffee. It tastes very good, but it makes you drunk like hell. We ask for the bill (only 40 Euro) and go back to the hotel. There we have the last bottle of retsina and a cigar and go to bed early. We drove over 140 kilometer and will drive a part tomorrow too to Mochlos on the northeastern part of Crete. Now we’re too drunk to pack; we’ll do that tomorrow just before we leave.

 

Friday May 20, 2005: To Mochlos

We’re awake very early today. Timo did not sleep well tonight, but we will have some time to rest today. We take our time for breakfast: coffee, cheese, marmalade and tomatoes with bread. After breakfast Eef starts packing and Timo goes down to the centre to withdraw some money. There is only one bank and one place where he can get money, but he manages to withdraw 500 Euro. We pay our bill at the hotel (80 Euro and a 5 Euro tip) and leave Aja Galini. We quickly buy some water and then can start driving to the north. We take some kilometers the same road as we did yesterday to Festos, drive past the excavations of Gortys and drive on to Ierapetra. After yesterday we’ve had seen enough sites and therefore don’t visit Gortys. The first village is Pirgos. In that part of Crete it’s very difficult to find the right way, but we finally manage, direction Ano Vianos. This is supposed to be a quick and peaceful village, but there are a lot of busses, so we just follow our way to Ierapetra. Timo thinks he has found a nice stop in the village of Mirtos. We try to reach it via a small road to Gdochia, but this road quickly disappears. Turn back and via the main road to Mirtos. It is indeed very nice: a small village with a short sea-bank. In one of the taverns we spend some time to eat: it’s 12 o’ clock and we have driven pretty fast. Eef has spinach pies and Timo calamari. Very good and a nice place along the beach. Off course we have a bottle of wine with it. We stay here for about an hour and then move on. We take the main road to Ierapetra and now it goes faster. Between Pirgos and Mirtos the driving conditions were not always good, because off the steep slopes, but now the road is in a valley and we move on quickly. In the distance we see the glass from the greenhouses, where they grow vegetables and which has made this part of Crete famous. Here a thousand tomatoes and cucumbers grow. You can see a lot of trucks and pickups driving back and forth loaded with tomatoes, even complete trucks including trailer are loaded with vegetables. From here it’s not far anymore. In 15 minutes we cross the island from the south to the north. Here we choose the road to Sitia and a few kilometers further we take a turn to Mochlos. It’s beautiful here. Magnificent view on the coast of Agios Nikolaos, but also on the rocky coastlines on the other side. A small road leads us 5 kilometer on to Mochlos. We park the car at the beginning of the village and search for a place to sleep on foot. In about 10 minutes we walk through the village – it’s really, really small, normally only 70 people live here – and then we choose to ask at Sofia’s, as was mentioned in Trotter. Tonight we sleep in a room with one huge bed, a little terrace and sea view (28 Euro) and tomorrow and the next days we have a bigger room with a big balcony, big bed and direct sea view (30 Euro). This means we have to move all our stuff tomorrow, but we don’t mind. It’s only through the hallway. In front of Mochlos there is a small island that you can almost reach swimming. Maybe we should try it out. We go back to get the car, park it near the hotel and bring all our stuff to our room. This is just great! At the reception we get our explanation in Dutch again, this time not Flemish, but a woman from Holland. We lie down for a while and wait to see what the rest of the day will bring and get some rest – we need to make sure we don’t leave Crete tired. At around 18:00 we prepare ourselves for an aperitif. We go and have a drink at the neighbor’s: ouzo and olives, even 2 ouzo. This costs us 12 Euro, but “Money is not an issue”, when we’re on vacation. Afterwards we eat something at Sofia’s. They give us a menu, but we’re invited to the kitchen to choose something ourselves: 3 dishes for both of us. We have ‘octopus in won juice’. This really is octopus prepared in its own black juice, read ink. Then we have a dish with only vegetables: flowers from cabbage, potatoes and zucchini. Eef also takes bean soup. We stay a while for a drink and go to bed pretty early. But first we have a drink on our balcony and a cigar. We try to sleep, but it’s not easy, because there are a lot of mosquitoes here. Finally it works out and we fall asleep.

 

Saturday May 21, 2005: Lassithi

After our nightly hunt for mosquitoes we wake up under a blue sky at 09:00. It’s already hot this morning, what is it going to be the rest of the day? Breakfast at Sofia’s on the terrace near the sea. Really great. Good bread with coffee, different kinds of marmalade and chocolate paste. Today we do it all slowly and go direction Lassithi. We need to drive a bit further than we originally thought it would be. In distance it’s not that far, but we need to cross some mountains again: this is really something you need to take into account, when traveling through Crete. We drive about two hours until we reach the Lassithi plateau. We take the highway to Agios Nikolaos and then direction Heraklion. Then go to Neapoli and then drive into the mountains, altitude is 1500 meters. We’re in the car a whole day, but it’s worth it. The views are spectacular. On an altitude of about 1000 meters there is a plateau of a few square kilometers big. A lot of fruit trees and grass grows; there is a lot of nature and green in general. We follow the main roads across the plateau through small and bigger villages. There is a disadvantage, because there are a lot of cyclists and buses. There are a lot of tourists, but we don’t care for the moment. We have lunch at taverna Panorama; here we have a good view over the plain. Timo came here earlier, when he was visiting Crete with Bo (one of his friends). A Greek salad, lemonade and a sprite and we’re ready again to explore the plateau. Close to the tavern are the famous windmills, or at least the remains of them. They are built in a row and there is a lot of wind, so we immediately understand why they’re here. On the slope of the mountain there are about 20 windmills that served to irrigate the plain. We’ve seen it all and drive back to Agios Nikolaos and then to Mochlos. We’ve been in the car a long time, but we really enjoyed the views of the plain and the views on the road to the plain. At 15:00 we arrive in Mochlos. We still want to have a swim and that’s what we do; we take our snorkel and go to the beach for about an hour, because it’s not warm enough any longer (there’s no more sun and a lot of wind) and return to the hotel. A small rest and then off to have a drink. First ouzo with tzatziki and then Timo goes into the kitchen to order the main course. He goes into the kitchen with the Dutch women and a few moments later these dishes are being served: swordfish. Timo has seen the filets and they were just looking great. Dolmadakia, stuffed zucchinis, tomatoes, melanouri – a special type of fish that can only be caught in this time of the year. Normally the fish has that good eyes and isn’t caught, but now he does not see the nets, because he’s more interested in the females. Really tasty. Next to that there are boiled artichokes with peas and carrots. As always we drink retsina and water. We get a bottle for free from the owner Jorgos and give him a bottle of ouzo back. We get to meet another Belgian couple from gent and enjoy the rest of the night. Around midnight we close out the day with a bottle of retsina on our balcony and then go to bed. The meals were great, the company good, a Greek family next to us and a nice music. This is about all a person needs to be happy. A bit after midnight we fall asleep and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

 

Sunday May 22, 2005: The most eastern part of Crete

We already know up front it’s going to be a long drive. It will take a while, because there are a lot mountain roads we need to take and even on the bigger ones maximum speed is 50 or 60 kilometers per hour. First breakfast at Sofia’s and now Timo asks for an egg with it; he has enough of the chocolate paste and the marmalade. It tastes very good and we have a perfect view. We have difficulty to start our day this morning. Eef is not feeling very well, but after a good breakfast she soon forgets about it. At 10:30 we‘re already on the road to Skopi and Sitia. We don’t stop and visit these cities: according to the tourist guides there is nothing much to see. Our first stop then is Moni Toplou and we arrive there at 11:30. Moni Toplou is a monastery with a big collection of icons and etching. The icons are very interesting – and especially for Timo. We see everything in about an hour and then drive on. There even is an icon that Timo still knows from the time he was at university. That’s weird: an icon that famous on an island in Greece on a place forgotten by everyone. We leave just in time, because a bus with all Dutch people stops. Not one of them is decently dressed and they make a lot of noise. As always in Greece they ask tourists to be a bit decently dressed when entering a monastery. We normally always consider this, but these people don’t. Wearing only bikinis and shorts they enter the monastery. They don’t show any respect. So we then move on to Vai. This is a famous beach with palm trees. It is beautiful. We park our car (Fiat Seicento) on a non-paying car park and walk to the beach between the palm trees. It’s nice to stop here, but only shortly – half an hour is enough – a lot of people are coming here, so it gets too busy for us. There are a lot of clouds and is not hot, so there aren’t many people backing in the sun. We climb up the hill to have the view over the beach and the surroundings and then we drive to another beach, the one of Itanos. Next to the beach we can see the remains of an old fortress. From Itanos the road brings us to Paleokastro. We’re starting to get hungry and buy 2 sandwiches, a little jar of mustard and a little kind of sausages. We don’t want to eat lunch in the village, so we already drive into the direction of Zakros. Two kilometers outside Paleokastro we turn into a sandy road stop along the olive fields and have lunch. Timo is in the car and Eef is sitting between the olive trees. Nice, cozy and it tastes OK. After lunch (around 13:00 we go to Zakros, but there is nothing much to see and pass Zakros to reach Kato Zakros. According to Trotter a person needs to have been there. We drive through the inhospitable hills, you could say mountains. Only little bushes grow here, only 20 centimeters high, succulent plants and a small species of broom that colors the hills. Next to the yellow colors of the broom the grey and brown of the stones and sand attracts our attention. In the deep valley is Kato Zakros. We follow a road with beautiful panoramas – we see the village and the ruins of a castle. It’s indeed something you need to do, when you’re here. This is really a special piece of land. In the village itself there are two giant buses, all French people, who have conquered the terraces along the beach. The Greeks are very arrogant here, not polite at all and only looking for the money of the tourists. We don’t stay here any longer and start our trip back. We know we still have some kilometers to go. Now Timo is driving so Eef can enjoy the landscape. We try to find a different way to get back to Mochlos, but they road directly to Sitia seems a little suspicious – there are only rocks and sand visible. So we drive through Paleokastro to Sitia and that way back to Mochlos. We have passed a bit the town of Sitia, when we cross the border of 1000 kilometers. We’ve driven some kilometers here on Crete. It is off course the biggest island we’ve visited until now. When we almost reach Mochlos we take a turn before the village and reach that way a beautiful beach with on the right side the high cliffs and on the other side the village. It’s difficult to get in the water here, so we only walk around and get back to Mochlos after half an hour. Rest for about an hour and write the diary and then we have the time for a walk and to have diner. Today we take two ouzo with tuna salad and then again mostly the same as we had yesterday. We have the swordfish and the artichokes and also melanouri. After diner we get some kind of medlars. They don’t look like the ones we have in Belgium. Those you have to store and make sure they become rotten. The ones here are little yellow fruits, look like prunes, but are much more juicy and tasty. It takes a bit more effort to peal them, and to remove the stones. At the end of the day we’re really tired and go to sleep around midnight

 

Monday May 23, 2005: Spinalonga

Classical breakfast at Sofia’s with a nice view over the harbor. We like it better and better: the village of Mochlos. We have noticed sometimes there is a bus with tourists, but for the time being it does not happen very often. By the time of 09:00 we’re already on the road to Agios Nikolaos. For now we drive past this picturesque city and visit Spinalonga first. We drive through Elounda and then reach Plaka. There we stop, because we can take the boat from here to the island. A ticket costs 7 Euro per person and we can make the crossing in 45 minutes (at 11 o’clock). So we still have time to have a coffee and a frappe on the terrace nearby. We enjoy it all and 45 minutes later we take the boat to Spinalonga. It’s a small island near the coast and was inhabited by the Venetians. They have built a fortress and now we can still visit the ruins of it. Later on this served as a colony for people with leprosy and now it’s a tourist attraction. We have here about an hour till we need to take the boat back to Plaka, so we have time enough. There are also some of the bigger boats that left from Agios Nikolaos. The people are gathered like herds around the guides, who lead the people through the ruins. We walk on the island and around the fortress in about 45 minutes and we then go to the highest point of the fortress. It was very good fortificated against attacks from enemies and conquerors and just because it is high on the island, it has an ideal location to enjoy the surroundings. Just in time we’ve seen it all and the boats picks us up where we got off. Ten minutes later we’re in Plaka again and we take the car to Agios Nikolaos. We drive directly into town and try to find a parking spot. Because we only want to walk round for an hour we think it’s stupid to pay 3 Euro for parking, so we start looking for a spot along the road. It is the busiest city we’ve been to until now and nowhere we can find a good place to park the car. We’ve had it already, especially with all the fuzz on all the terraces. Unbelievable. It’s not picturesque, only busy and full of stress. So we try to find something quieter and stop at Pachi Ammos. On this beach there is a lot of wind, but very few people. We eat a Greek salad with a bottle of retsina and go lie down on the beach to enjoy the sun and the rest. We only stay in the sun for about 15 minutes, because we remember what happened at Elafonissi. We take two plunges in the sea and then take the car back to the hotel. At 15:30 we arrive there and then we start preparing for tomorrow. We need to make sure everything is packed in the bag pack and the suitcase ready to take with us on the plain tomorrow. It’s not very easy, but it needs to go in there, so we don’t have a choice. It only takes about 30 minutes to get it all done. We rest a bit and then call home. Eef is happy to have heard her mother. Timo has no connection, but he’ll try again tomorrow. We have diner very early actually, order 2 ouzo with tuna salad. Today is our last meal here at Mochlos, tomorrow we’re in Athens already. So enjoy the peace and quietness. Retsina and souvlaki: we get three little sates and again it is very good. We have dolmadakia and tzatziki with it. We buy a bottle of water and retsina and drink that on the balcony. Sleep tight!

 

Tuesday May 24, 2005: Knossos, Archeological Museum and transfer to Athens

Already at 08:00 we’re at the breakfast table with Jorgos, he’s the owner of the place. He runs the place of his mother together with his wife (she cooks) and his sister in law (we think that, because she looks a lot like his wife; she cooks and cleans). It’s the same breakfast as ever: roasted bread, marmalade and chocolate paste. With that a nice cup of coffee, a beautiful view. We only need to pack 2 towels and pay our bill at the reception. We pay 107 Euro for the food (a really very small amount) and 85 Euro for the room. With a tip included we pay 200 Euro. For that little amount we’ve had a great time here in Mochlos. Jorgos says goodbye and we take the car to Heraklion and then to Knossos. The road is good and we can drive quickly all the way and after one and a half hour we arrive at the excavations of Knossos. The Greeks try to guide us to a parking lot; no problem we leave the car on a spot in the shade and it’s even free. We queue to get a ticket for the Palace of Knossos. This is one of the most important things we needed to see in Crete. We don’t know, whether we’ll make it to the Archeological Museum, so we only get a ticket for Knossos. So we enter history. Knossos is really great, awesome. Here you can easily imagine how it looked like in the past thanks to the reconstruction of Evans. This is for once something else, than only seeing the rocks or stones, which sometimes means something but sometimes it doesn’t mean anything at all. The important things we can see here are the fresco of the athletes, who’re doing bull-leaping. This is known all over the world. Also there are some larger frescos and barns with grains. Big vases are also exhibited here. This is a clear feature for the Minoan culture. The pillars are erected on a lot of places with the original colors: red-brown and black. It must have been very beautiful. To visit the thrown hall we need to queue in the heat, but it’s not too hot, there is a bit of wind. Here we see the wall paintings and the stone throne. In total we walk around here a bit more than an hour and seen everything. The rooms of the king and queen are not open for the public, but you can see some parts of the reconstructions they’re doing now. Then we notice we still have some time to go to the archeological museum. We quickly have a sandwich and drink a lot of water and leave for Heraklion city. The main road we’re taking immediately takes us to the museum: it costs 3 Euro for parking, but if we don’t pay it’ll become very hard to find a free spot. So now up to the museum. We buy a ticket and in total we pay 4 Euro too much, because we have not taken a ticket for both Knossos and the museum. The museum has 16 rooms and it all stars with the oldest one. There we can see vases from Mochlos, where we left this morning. The most famous and beautiful finds from Crete are gathered here: the head of the Minotaur, the tablets of the Linear A writing of Festos and a whole lot of vases. Important are also the ornaments and weapons from old ages. The most are the vases, big and small ones, in all shapes and forms. Remains of old burial-places, with bones and gifts for the after-life included. On the top floor the original frescos from especially Knossos are hanging against the walls. ‘The Parisienne’, the ‘Bull-leaping, the famous fresco of the two dolphins. One is better conserved than the other, some are even more reconstruction than an original one. We take 1.5 hour and we’re exhausted, because it is quite a distance and the pace is very slow. On the ground floor there are two more rooms with remains from the Hellenistic and Roman Period. That is not really a collection, more like a storeroom for all types of different statues. We remind ourselves we still need to have lunch, before we drive to the airport. We will certainly not arrive in Athens prior to 21:00 and on the plain there will be little to eat. We see an indication of a Mac Donald’s restaurant and commit a sin to have fast food in Greece for this once. Then we take the car to Heraklion airport to take the flight of Olympic Airlines. We need to be present at 16:00 and the plain leaves at 18:00. We arrive at the airport and immediately see the plain has a delay of 45 minutes. We have left the car at the rent-a-car parking and we have left the keys at the ‘arrivals’. No problem, everything is OK. We put our luggage a moment outside and we have a Mythos in the shade. Time goes pretty fast now, so that’s good. At 17:15 we can already start with the check-in and then we don’t have to take our entire luggage. Timo needs to go aside for a moment with the bag pack, because they have seen strange things on the scanner. The deodorant, some plastic bags and the small sack with medication. Then we go on to the departure hall and wait there until we can board. We prepare ourselves for Athens by reading some info about things we need to see. Everything goes perfectly on time and at 18:45 we leave Crete. The flight almost takes 45 minutes and we arrive safely at Elefterios Airport. The luggage is there also on time and we walk to the subway station. It’s a walk of 10 minutes and we just arrive there, when the train leaves. We have no other option, than to wait for an hour until the next one leaves to the centre. We can wait in the train itself, so that’s OK. We have a place to sit, that’s sure. Now again; everything is happening on time, exactly on the second. To the first stop it takes about 20 minutes and than there is a stop every two minutes. It will certainly already be dark when we exit the subway. Even at 21:30 there are a lot of people still traveling. When we reach the last stop ‘Monastiraki’ there are already 20 people standing up. We get off and search for our way to the hotel. We come above ground and the first thing we see is ‘Acropolis by night’. This is marvelous, unbelievable. We take a short detour and arrive 10 minutes later at the hotel, really luxurious. The receipt is very friendly and we go directly to our room. We quickly unpack the most important stuff and then we can have a quick snack. We walk to the Monastiraki square and find ourselves a tavern, where we also can have pita take away. We have one each and eat it on the stone walls on the square. Then we return to the hotel, because we’re already a bit tired. First we have a drink (retsina) and then we can go to sleep. With a direct view at the Acropolis we sit and drink at the bar of the hotel. On the fourth floor there is a terrace and here we enjoy the liter of retsina and the Acropolis that is lit at night. You can’t keep your eyes of it; it’s that beautiful, especially because there is a full moon currently. We talk some time and realize we’re having a good time here and that we will have an even better time. By midnight we’re exhausted and we fall asleep like two rocks from Knossos.

 

Wednesday May 25, 2005: Athens: many archeological excavations

Our first day in Athens. We don’t get up too early and we go to the top floor to have our breakfast at 09:00. We have only 30 minutes left for breakfast, but we don’t rush. In this hotel the food is not typically Greek, because we can choose between two different types of cheese, bacon and then there are eggs (cooked, omelet) with sausages and bacon. This is finally something else than always chocolate paste and marmalade. Enjoy it. We have a great view onto the Acropolis. It’s a pity it is all surrounded scaffolding and that is not a pretty sight. It looks like (and in fact is) a building site at broad daylight. Today we have the “rock”-day. We’re going to visit a lot of monuments from old Greek and Roman history. We don’t really have a planning; we’ll see where we get throughout the day. Really the Greek way. Our first stop is the ancient agora. If you hear agora, you imagine a big square and nothing else, but apparently there is a lot more to it than only a market square. We walk to it: here in Athens everything is at walking distance from the hotel. The man at the counter says it’s better and cheaper to have a ticket for several monuments. This costs 12 Euro per person, but we can visit almost everything with it. Tomorrow we’re going to see the Acropolis and now we have the choice between the Greek Agora, the Roman Agora, the temple of the Olympic Zeus, Kerameikos and the Temple of Dionysus. We start with the Greek Agora. Ruling over the agora is the Temple of Hephaestus. This is already very impressive: meters high above the ground are the walls, the pillars. Then we get our first piece of rain, so we look for shelter and stay there. After a few moments we can continue our visit. Very impressive are also the statues of the giants: some low pillars with mega-statues on them. Also on the agora the channels for drainage are visible and a few remains of other smaller temples. Of the stoa there is only a small portion of the pillars that remain. From the agora a main road leads towards the Acropolis, but we’ll save this for tomorrow. Now we visit the museum that is here on the agora premises.  Close to the stoa of Attalos, which has been completely re-erected and now serves as museum. Also here we find famous potsherds, famous by the ostracism. When the civilians wanted, that someone got banned, they had to write the names on the potsherds. The person, who received the most votes, got banned. After the agora we go to our next stop. We now receive our second portion of rain. The Temple of the Olympic Zeus is next. Right in the middle of the city, next to the Arch of Hadrian, which we see first. Again this is a really overwhelming feeling we have, when we see the temple. It’s really unbelievable how all people can have done this in the past. We have a little break and check, what we want to do next. First we go and see the stadium and then we go and have something to eat. We can’t really visit the stadium: you can’t miss it, but you can’t go on the stadium ground. This was the spot, where the first Olympics took place. We walk through the city through the park to the Plaka, a bunch of alleys and small streets and we’re looking for a nice restaurant. We think we’ve found it and sit down. We have a Greek salad and meatballs, nice, but the service is not really friendly. We were used to a different kind of hospitality on Crete. What can you expect: Athens a real metropolis. We pay (16 Euro) and go to see the guards at the grave of the Unknown Soldier. Always there is a lousy tourist that ruins the clothing of the soldiers. We only take a picture and leave to our last stop of the day: The Roman Agora. To find your way around is pretty easy with the map we got at the hotel. I would have thought it would be more difficult. The Roman agora is different than the Greek. There is a building that serves as clock tower and at the same time as entrance gate to the agora. With respect the agora is oriented towards the Greek. Also we find remains of a fountain and a lot of pillars that are up or already broken down. We’re busy a while already and are feeling a bit tired. So we take the map and try to find the shortest way to the hotel to take a nap. We rest a bit from 17:00 until 18:00. Then we’re getting ready for diner. We have looked in Trotter and the other guides if and where there is a good restaurant in this neighborhood. At “Mezedopolio Naxos” we find what we need. We order half of liter retsina, salted sardines, a cabbage salad and carrots with mayonnaise, backed mushrooms and mussels saganaki. We eat it all with bread and it tastes magnificent. We’ve had enough, but we don’t feel we have had too much. That’s very nice. On our way back we buy another 2 bottles of retsina and cigars at a kiosk and have a drink on our balcony. From the balcony we have a side view at the Acropolis. The drawback of this hotel is that it is located very close to a very busy road. Once you’re inside you can’t hear a thing anymore. Today on TV there is the finale of the Champion’s League, so we watch TV and then go to sleep. Tomorrow we need to get up early, as we want to be at the Acropolis as one of the first visitors.

 

Thursday May 26, 2005: The Acropolis and all at ease

We get up early at 07:00; prepare ourselves immediately to go for breakfast. We had to get up that early, because we planned a visit to the Acropolis. If you do up too late, it is a big crowd and you can’t look at all the buildings without getting disturbed. At 07:30 we go up the mountain to the Acropolis. We walk around the ancient agora that we visited yesterday and then it is steep upwards to the top. There is a small queue and that’s OK. Completely to the top to the Propylaea. This is the entrance of the platform on the mountain of the Acropolis. Propylaea are loaded with iron, so we really can’t get a good look of it. Then we walk on towards the Erechteum and the famous porch of Caryatids. The ones here are not the original statues, but that does not matter at all; it really is impressive. The building looks a bit strange with all the sides and corners. We walk round it and then to the Parthenon. This is also completely being rebuilt. Restoration is going on for already a few years and will still continue. The progress is pretty slow, because it needs a lot of attention to make sure, that everything is going on as it originally was. The marble are huge stones of a few 100 kilos. The workers need big machines and cranes to get all the rocks in the correct position. If you stand in front of the Parthenon you see the rounding of the lower plateau and the differences between the pillars in size. That was done to create the correct impression to the visitors. About Parthenon big books have been written and I will not try to describe it here in a few sentences. If you need more info you can easily find specialized literature. I can summarize it: huge, beautiful, even with all the cranes. Still at this moment there are not many visitors, so we took the good decision to start our visit early enough. All the way at the end of the Acropolis is a platform with a great view over Athens. We see the agora and the temple of Hephaestus and on the other side the Arch of Hadrian and behind that the temple of the Olympian Zeus. You should imagine how it must have been in those ancient times without all the recent houses. It must have been very impressive. The next stop is the visit of the Museum of the Acropolis. The most important artifact in this museum is the original statue of the Caryatids. On exhibition are also parts of the frieze of the temple of Nike, but the most part is in the British Museum of London. We can’t see a thing anymore of the temple, it has been demolished completely and they’re now rebuilding the temple. We saw the place where it should be just in front of the Propylaea, but we can only see the full building on a postal card. What a pity. A lot of statues and figurines are located in the museum from the Parthenon. It’s surprising how many details there are, even though they are some meters above the ground. Statues of animals like bulls and horses, even have kept the original colors. Then we exit the museum and immediately it’s clear, why we needed to come early. On the Acropolis are now about 20 groups of visitors and this is becoming a little busy for us here. So we go to the last part we need to see: the gate of Beulé. That was as Propylaea; the entrance gate to the Acropolis on ancient times. We go down here and look up to the majestic buildings of the Acropolis and then we need to see the Theater of Dionysus. This is not open to the public today, so we return to the hotel. We were able to catch a glimpse of the theater, when we followed the road down, so that’s OK. Close to the hotel there is an ancient cemetery and that is our last stop for this morning. The cemetery itself is not really special, but the small museum there is. The remains on the site are nothing more than rocks and sometimes you can see something that looks like a grave. In the museum are other pieces of art: the gravestones are now located inside. There even is a complete bull on a socle that was previously located on a grave. Also here we see the ostraka, which we saw earlier on the agora and a lot of pottery, which is given with the dead people in their graves. Some of the stones are even few meters high with statues of the people or of the families buried in there. It’s almost 12:00 and we’re starting to feel a bit tired and we go to rest. At the hotel we are woken up by the phone from the reception. Yesterday we had to make a reservation for Koen en for someone else. So we did, but we needed a credit card to reserve it. We haven’t heard anything, so we send a message to my mom to ask for the credit card of Patrick. A few minutes later we receive another call now from Linda and we can go to the reception to have the room reserved. Then we go back to town and have a snack: kebab chicken: a small sandwich folded with chicken, tomato, salad and cabbage. This is really good and not too much and expensive for lunch. Then we take the subway to Victoria, 4 stops further than Thissio, the one closest to us. Here we need to find where and when we can take the bus to Rafina tomorrow, so we can take the boat to Evia. That is done pretty quickly, but then we need to find the easiest way from the subway station to the bus stop. After 15 minutes we found it all. We just need to take the correct exit from Victoria station and walk two blocks straight forward. All done for tomorrow. The last thing we still need to do here in Athens is a visit to the Archeological Museum; the museum with the most extensive collection of Hellenistic funds in the world. Take this British Museum! We get there easily, but we arrive here 45 minutes before closing time. They still have their winter opening hours now and it’s closing time at 15:00. To pay 14 Euro for only 45 minutes is a bit too much. So we return to Thissio, because this is the heart of Athens and unbelievably busy.  Driving here, honking there. It smells like gas here. Back in Thissio we sit down on a terrace with an Alpha Beer with view on the temple of Hephaestus. Then we start looking for a gift for the wedding party for Linda and Patrick. We buy two cups of the Olympics with an image of the Greek flag and the logo of the Olympics of 2004. To that we add a small bottle of ouzo and that’s enough. Then we have an ‘ouzo me meze’ at the Plaka and then we go back and make the necessary preparation for diner. We take a shower (this one is the best we had since we came here, a lot of water, this is something else, than what we had in the other pensions and hotels) and we go to the same restaurant as we did yesterday. Again at Naxos. Now we take a mix fish: a variety of 5 different kinds of marinated fish with ouzo: shrimps, sprouts, herring, sardines, octopus and swordfish. We enjoy this again and then return to the hotel. We have another bottle of retsina and tomorrow we leave for Evia. By midnight we sleep.

 

Friday May 27: Athens and transfer to Evia

We are not getting up too early, have breakfast at a lazy pace and then start looking for a wedding present for my mother and Patrick. We decided yesterday to keep the ouzo for ourselves and that bottle was already empty. We now stroll the Plaka the Adrianou Street and also want to bring something for Maurits and Betty. This time it is a bottle of oil with herbs and Maurits needs to try out ouzo. When he wants to come to Greece, he needs to know and like ouzo, doesn’t he? That is all done pretty quickly and we then return to our hotel to pack the bags. We flew from Crete to Athens and therefore a lot was still in the bags and all was done within half an hour. We don’t wait any longer and take the metro from Thissio to Viktoria and there we take the bus to Rafina. The bus leaves on time (11:15) and after one hour and fifteen minutes we arrive at the port. The first thing we do there is buying two tickets to Marmari. We have about two hours before the boat leaves, so we sit down, have a drink and order Greek salad and fried peppers. In Rafina there are a lot of fish shops and there the octopuses and other animals are lying on ice. It all looks very good. We just got our food and there Winny and Frank arrive. They have taken the first flight this morning and arrived now in Rafina from Athens. They tell all different things from Belgium, but soon it is already all to busy for us. We enjoy it all ‘siga siga’ (all at ease, the Greek way). At 14:00 all the others arrive: Pat, An with Rita and another An. We all take seats on the boat to Evia and go to Marmari. And look who is waiting for us there. Patrick, Linda, Christine (a friend of Patrick) and Vassilis (the owner of the place, where we are going to stay). It is very nice, to see my mom and Patrick back after a few weeks. We take the bus from Marmari to Karystos and after arriving at the pension everyone receives their own room. We need to wait for 2 minutes. In Greece this means we’re waiting for a couple of hours. We don’t mind because we’re already used to the Greek way of living. Off course we can’t live another way after two weeks here. We drink some ouzo, because you always need to keep drinking, what you started with. At about seven thirty it is about time to go and have something to eat. Eef and I have had a bit too much ouzo and we stay here to have a rest. Eef sleeps for two hours and Timo starts chatting with Tatjana (Sofia after she was baptized in Greece). She is from Ukrainian origin and speaks Russian. This is a good opportunity for Timo to speak some Russian. Once in a while he goes to check on Eef and he speaks Russian for a couple of hours. Then the others return to the pension, but off course now Timo and Eef are hungry. Vassilis and Tatjana told us we could have a snack somewhere in the centre. So we go on foot to the centre with Patrick, Linda and Frank. We order something and can take it with us to the pension. We have sardines with chorta and Timo has spaghetti with large pieces of veal. We stay in the garden to have a drink and (for us) pretty late we go to sleep.

 

Saturday May 28, 2005: Walk through Karystos and wedding party

We got up as last people of the whole group, but it still was only 10:00, so it was still not that long we slept. We have breakfast; there is nothing much, but that is typically Greece and we’re already used to it. There are no real plans for the day, we start the day with a walk in the town. We walk to the sea, only 100 meters from Vassilis place and then take the boulevard along the harbor; it’s a pretty town Karystos with a lot of nice terraces, a castle and a nice harbor. We walk away from the water and go into town, then cross the town and end up at the beach again. Just outside the center is a nice sandy beach. We have gone on our own: Eef, Linda and Timo; just to be away a bit from the busy and noisy other persons. We need to get away from all fuzz, because it was quite of a chock in Athens. In the meantime Patrick went to Marmari to pick up Koen and Iris; they only arrived this morning. We sit in a bar and drink frappe. It’s quite an expensive one, but this is the best we had so far. When we return to Vassilis, it’s already 14:00 and we go to have lunch in the harbor with the whole group (15 people). Now we can order a lot of different dishes and taste all of them at the same time.  There are Greek salads, octopus in redwinesauce, calamari, tzatziki, and taramasalata. It tastes very good and does not cost that much. We drink ouzo and water with it. Then it is time to lie down and that we do apart from the rest on the big sandy beach not far from Vassilis. We’re almost alone there, apart from some Greek guys and that’s it. The other group was on another beach with rocks, but there were a bit too much of sea urchins; that’s why we were on the other beach. They only lie in the sun, we go into the water too. We snorkel a bit, rest some time and completely relaxed we return to Vassilis. Before it al starts some of us have given Patrick and Linda a few things to do. They did not have a bachelor event, so this is happening now. After that Vassilis looks after the food on the BBQ.  At 22:00 he starts to prepare the meat. We already have an aperitif and some small snacks. Rita and I are the only ones drinking ouzo and the rest has wine. They bought about 20 liter, when they had diner last night. The food Vassilis is making is just GREAT. The best pieces of the pig, well spiced with nice thick fries and a lot of tzatziki. There is a good atmosphere with the Greek music, nice food, and good drinks. At about 01:00 some give up and then regularly some go to bed. We stay awake the longest together with Vassilis and Tatjana. It’s almost day, as it is six inn the morning. It was good and so we go to bed also.

 

Sunday May 29, 2005: Do nothing and enjoy ourselves

It’s almost midday when we get out of bed, not really late, because we in the end were only in bed around six. Eef still has a lot of fun, she laughs at everything and everybody; maybe she is still a little bit drunk. There is no one a real wreck, which is astonishing, as we see how much there was drunk last night. Together with Christine and Patrick we play cards for a few hours and Linda reads a book. Pat, An, Rita and Ann have taken the Jeep and the others went to the beach. At 14:00 we go to eat something with few people: again all different dishes, this time also with sardines. Very good. Then we go to buy our ticket for the boat tomorrow (no good!) and we call to Betty to inform her of our flight number. Then we need time for a siesta and we sleep till about 18:00. We take a shower, pack all our bags and Linda comes and has a coffee with us. We don’t go to have diner with the whole group and want to spend the last evening here in Evia with the two of us. At 20:00 we go to eat (Timo finally has pork chops – they were very nice – and Eef has gemista). We make a last walk here and then return to Vassilis. We stay up in the garden for a while and just when we want to go to bed, the rest arrives. So we have a goodbye drink and sleep at 01:00. Tomorrow our day will start early.

 

Monday May 30, 2005: Back to Belgium

We get up at 05:00, because we need to leave Karystos at 05:30 at the latest. Mama and Patrick bring us to Marmari with the Jeep of An and Pat. At quarter to six we’re there and the boat is already ready to go. We choose the short pain and immediately board the ship – quickly saying goodbye. On the boat we have a sandwich and a coffee. We go and sit on the deck and enjoy our last sunrise in Greece now. Beautiful. We arrive in Rafina port at 07:00 and wait for an hour and then take the bus to the airport. The bus is on time and we are at the airport at 08:00 and still need to wait pretty long; the flight only goes at 13:30. We walk around at the airport, talk to a Dutch man and at nine thirty we can go for the check-in. we asks for emergency exit seat, but need to pay 15 Euro. Not! De flight is great and at 14:00 (Belgian time) we land on Zaventem airport. It’s raining and it’s only 10° C. This is not good! Maurits is waiting for us and brings us home safely. Cartouche is very happy to see us and we are too.