Oia

As I mentioned before we were staying in one of the classic Greek cave-like rooms. The door was roof level so there was a step down and off to the right was our bathroom, then four steps down more was the beds. Very simple but oh, so cool. At night the wind came up from the sea and made our door rattle a little, but it added to the whole Greek experience!

On our second morning we got up early, had some brekky, and off we went armed with our cameras. Every 3 steps we wanted to stop to take photos. It is that beautiful. From the shining white buildings huddled together to the tiny little alley ways they hide, to the bright fuchsia Bougainvilleas in full flower offering a beautiful canopy to hide from the bright sunshine. Just gorgeous.


And there are dogs and cats everywhere!!! I was in full cuddle mode petting every creature I found. Yes, they were all strays, and yes the Greeks (and tourists) all participate in their up-keep. There are tell tale cat biscuit scatterings here and there and the dogs don't look emaciated or mangy. Yes there are quite a few cats that were missing parts of their ears but overall they are not frightened of people and are happy to come in for a cuddle. The dogs tend more to mind their own business but once in a while will come in too, for a neck rub. I want to take them all home.


As suspected, there weren't as many folks around in the morning and we got some really nice photos. By 11:00 bus loads of people from the cruise ships came in and people flooded the tiny streets.

In the evening we made our own little dinner with some olives (of course), some tzatziki (of course), a bottle of red (of course) and some fresh bread. Bloody brilliant. We had the best view for the sunset, literally at our doorstep.

  

Santorini - Oia

Today we were moving up in the world, both literally and figuratively. We were off to Oia (which is on the opposite side of the island on top of a cliff).
We booked a boat trip that would bring us from the port to the volcanic island (Nea Kameni) in the middle of the bay, then to some hot springs for a swim, then to Thrissia (the other small piece left from the original island), then to Oia.


It was on this trip that we realised that although this was the shoulder season here, it was still very busy. We boarded at the main port with a few people and then made our way to the old port at Fira and picked up a heap of other people. The boat was full. When we got to the volcano we saw that there were many other boats that were full - all doing the same thing we were.


 When we got to Nea Kameni ("new burnt island") It was hot and we had to hike up this volcano quickly because the boat was on a tight schedule. The views though, were spectacular. The inner edge of Santorini is a huge cliff face. On top are the various villages, painted mainly in white. From our vantage point in the middle of the bay they looked like a crust of salt, clinging to the rock. Very beautiful.
Quick hike back to the boat and off to the hot springs. We had 20 min to jump off the boat, swim to the hot springs that were about 60m away, enjoy the springs and swim back. Do-able, but hardly relaxing. The hot springs themselves were murky and brown and we were warned that the sulfur in the water would discolour light coloured bathing suits and jewellery. Apparently, not everyone was told because we saw some funky coloured suits come out of the water. The swim may have been short, but it was fantastic on such a hot day. The hot springs? More lukewarm if you ask me.


We were then off to Thrissia which is another piece of the Santorini puzzle. It used to be part of the main island, but well, the two had a blow up and now they're separated. We've all seen it a thousand times.

Lunching in Thrissa with friend

Thrissia is quite small comparatively speaking, and its port is basically a string of restaurants catering to the throngs of people that were doing exactly what we were doing. We stopped there for lunch and I gotta say, as a vegetarian in a place known for seafood, my choices were limited - they were bbqing up dead stuff left right and centre (had fried tomatoes for lunch).


Afterwards we found a rocky place to go for a swim (since this was the inside rim too, it's also a cliff-face). The water was so clear and crisp, as we swam around we could see the bottom far below our feet. It was brilliant. So brilliant we almost missed our boat back! We got out of the water and were about to settle down for a nice rest and to dry off when we heard the boat's horn go off. "Is that ours????" Oh SHIT! I ran back as fast as my wet-thonged feet could carry me. Dominique was clever and had water shoes on so she blazed a trail in front of me and vowed not to let them leave without me.

When I got back to the boat (I was that annoying last person that every one has to wait for), Dominique found that her bag had been moved and that the lock was broken. <insert panic here>
She searched to make sure her passport and extra cash was still there (it was), but there was no way to know if anything else was missing without undoing her bag. As I said the boat was packed so that wasn't going to happen. Dominique spoke to our guide, who spoke to a crew member, who spoke to the Captain - apparently he was swabbing the deck while we were off swimming and yanked the bag from the floor to put it on the bench - breaking the lock in the process. Phew - mystery solved.


By then we had reached Oia and had to get off. As the boat sailed off back to Fira, we looked up at the climb ahead of us. Have I mentioned that all the villages on the inside rim are on a cliff?


Enter the slaves of Santorini (if you don't want to hear me rant about 'the poor animals' skip this paragraph). <start rant> Donkeys are one of Santorini's symbols, they haul people and things up the cliff side. In the summer this must be a non-stop-all-day-every-day nightmare for them. As I was trudging my way up the 250 odd steps leading to the top (carrying my own bag, thank you), I saw a guy coming back down with his two donkeys (one for him one for the person he brought up). He was running down the stairs pulling his donkeys who were doing their best to keep a sure foot on the slippery rocks. Because they were being lead by the harness, and the lead was taut their heads were up so they were running blind. The second donkey kept slipping, made me want to punch the fucker pulling them. <end rant>


It was a hard slog up to the top. It was about 4:30 and the sun was in my face, it was around 28 degrees and the sun had been shining on the rocks all afternoon. It was bloody hot, but we made it.


Our hotel was one of the traditional white cave-like rooms on the roof level overlooking the outside side of the island. Perfect place for sunset viewing.

After a well earned shower, we watched the sun show off with it's grand exit for the day. It was then that the hard reality of Santorini set in.


We set off for dinner, and we were met by wall to wall people. The main drag of Oia is a pedestrian street lined with tourist shops and restaurants. It's narrow in most parts, wide in some and very narrow in others (so narrow you can touch both sides if you stretch out your arms). Everyone comes to Oia for the sunset - it's like they don't get them at home or something. The place was packed. Even the wide places were full. (Hard reality 1)


We finally found a restaurant that suited both me and Dominique - We're hard to cater for here, neither of us likes cheese or eggs, I don't eat meat/seafood and she doesn't like tomatoes! It was delish but holy crap we paid dearly for it. Everything here is very expensive. As an example, we saw the classic Greek style dresses everywhere in Athens for 70 Euros, here in Crete it goes for 40 Euros and in Santorini it was priced at 112 Euros. Same dress. Same fabric. (Hard reality 2).


We decided that we would get up early the next day for prime photo ops with out people.

Santorini - Perissa

Ok, so it's been a few days...I've been, um, busy.


In the very wee hours of the morning we left Athens to catch the 5:45 flight to Santorini with just a moment of terror when I realised that I had forgotten my very important medication in the fridge of the Airbnb. (no worries, had the taxi turn round and go back).


When we arrived in Santorini, we took the local bus to Fira and then changed to go to Perissa, which is the town on the southern outer rim of Santorini.


Santorini, btw, was a massive volcano back in the day (there's still activity in the middle - more about that later). Back during Moses' time ('round 1646 BC) the volcano erupted, they reckon it was one of the biggest eruptions the earth has ever seen. They found ash evidence of it in Greenland! Some speculate that the effects of the eruption, coupled with Moses' threats are what persuaded Rames to free the slaves, and cause the red sea to have issues. Today, the main island is literally a sliver of it's former self.


Our hotel for that day/night was booked and we were quite early so we had to drop our bags and amuse ourselves for a couple of hours. Beach any one?

The beach in Perissa is made up of coarse black volcanic sand, and the water is clear and cool, but not cold. There are lounge chairs and umbrellas all along, and we decided that today would be a ''dolche far niente'' day.

Once we settled in to the hotel (very basic, but cheap!) we headed back to the beach and picked a couple of lounge chairs. About 15 min later a guy came by from a restaurant on the strip. 10 Euros please. Apparently these chairs weren't free. Ok we moved (the next ones weren't free either). We hadn't brought any money to the beach, and there's no way you can lie on black sand in the hot sun without slowing cooking. It was lunch anyway and it turns out if you order from any of the restaurants on ''the strip'' you can use their lounges for ''free''.
And thus, we spent our first day in Santorini doing absolutely niente.
P.S. Yes the water was divine!

Delphi

Today we took a day tour to Delphi. It took 3 hours to drive there and the same again back, so sadly we didn't get to spend too much time there. I wish we could have spent the night it was so fascinating.


The bus ride was pretty uneventful until we got to Mt. Parnassos. WOW.


Legend has it that Apollo (god of art, oracles, medicine etc etc) was looking for a nice piece of real estate to set up an oracle stand. He found this cool place on the side of Mt. Parnassos, but as luck would have it there was already an oracle set up there. The folks who were there told him they weren't gonna move out so he challenged their god to a duel over supremacy in the area. This other god, a giant dragon or serpent called Python lost and so Apollo set up shop. But being the kindly god that he was he hired the old staff back to predict the future on his behalf. The main oracle kept the name she had: Pythia.


Scientists today reckon that those priestesses were totally stoned on the fumes that were emanating from a fissure below the temple. Pythia was kept in seclusion and once a month (except during the winter months) she would sit over the fissure and get divine inspiration from the fumes - mainly CO2 and methane... no wonder her answers were ambiguous!


The priests would talk to all the supplicants (who would come from all over the Ancient world, we're taking 700BC here). The priest were basically gathering information from around the world so that when Pythia spoke her incoherent babble they could ''translate'' it into something that made some sense. But they would make it somewhat ambiguous so that if it didn't come true they could always blame the supplicant for not understanding correctly.

The Athenian Treasury

On the way up towards the main temple were a lot of treasuries that were offered to Apollo by cities in recognition for his help. These places also served to impress/intimidate their neighbours/enemies. The only one that still stands is the treasury of Athens - mostly because it was the only one built in marble so they were easily able to put it back together.


The Temple of Apollo itself was a failed attempt to create the 'classic Greek ' building, but either the architects failed university, or they were high on the fissure fumes too. They didn't get the proportions right. Usually it's; x number of columns (Doric) at the front, times 2 +2 on the side. So 6 in front 14 along the sides. Instead they put 15 - not 14 as they should have. It was a weird temple. On the front columns were inscriptions for the supplicants to think on before going to see the oracle. Things like this gem that Neo heard when he went to see the oracle, ''know thyself''.


In the museum we saw some more cool things and our guide showed us the evolution of the art of the statues - going from all the same (the Korai and the Korous) to the unique and individual features of everyday people. The coolest thing by far though was a large stone with writing.

They could understand the writing, the odd thing about this thing was the weird notations above the writing. Scientists reckon that this was man's first attempt at writing music. Fitting since Apollo was also the god of music.

Wandering the streets

We had nothing to do today because we had already seen everything that Athens had to offer.


HAHAHAHAHAHA!!


Seriously, there is no way you could see everything there is to see in this place so you have to draw a line somewhere or you will go mad. So, the line was drawn and we decided that we had seen what we had set out to see and we were content.


Except we hadn't actually seen the Roman Agora.

Upon looking at the pictures in the guide books and pamphlets that were left in our apartment, we realised that Hadrian's library and the Roman Agora were two separate ruins. Doh!
With that back on the list we went back to the Monastraki area to find the Roman Agora.

Its mostly various piles of rocks with the notable exception of the Tower of the Winds (Horologion of Kyrrhestos). Its an octagonal tower with a representation of the personification of various winds. There used to be a bronze weather-vane at the top to let you know who was blowing at any given time. Inside was a water clock which was operated from water running down the Acropolis.
 

Next to it was a public latrine - not much left of it but its good to know they thought of such things. The Romans built this agora in the 1st c BC to try to move the commercial centre away from the Ancient Agora. Sadly, I didn't see any turtles, but there were a couple of cute kitties!

 

This was our last day in Athens proper. Tomorrow we are heading to Delphi on a day trip and then we leave on a 5am flight to Santorini!

So much walking, so much to see

Holy guacamole...or should I say holy tzatziki! We walked so much yesterday, but really it didn't seem so. 

Today the plan is to visit the Monstraki area, which allegedly is the Soho of Athens. There also are some more ruins (surprise!) that we will visit.

As I said in my first post, we are located behind the acropolis, actually we are behind a hill, behind the acropolis. This hill is called Filopappou hill and surprise, surprise, there are ruins up there. It seemed like the perfect place to begin.

View from the top

It's a nice forested walk to the top of the hill. It meanders nicely so that you're not just walking up a hill. At the top the view is spectacular - oh, yeah and there's the funerary monument of Gaius Juluis Antiochus Philopappus some Greek dude who was big in Rome in the first century BC. The view was the real winner here with Athens sprawling on all sides, the Mediterranean sparkling just beyond the city and of course the crowning jewel of Athens just there in front of us: the Acropolis and its wondrous architectural masterpieces.


As we started to make our way down I saw something quite bizarre. A turtle. He was just wandering along minding his own...in the middle of a massive city. WTF? Was this someone's pet that they had released? What the hell was a turtle doing here? He didn't seem overly concerned though and went on his merry way. As did we. 

We made out way back down the hill towards the Monastraki area of Athens which is found on the other side of the Acropolis.


There was a light intermittent drizzle so we decided to stop for a coffee at a local cafe. Now, I don't usually drink coffee, but thought what the hell, lets have a Greek coffee. In fact, make it a double. Geez those things are so thick I almost had to chew it!


We wandered around Monstraki for a little while, it's full of little shops, and market stalls from army surplus to ''antiques''.
Within the Monastraki area is the Roman Agora (not to be confused with the Ancient Agora that we visited on our 2nd day).


When we arrived at the Roman Agora, there was a street dog wandering just inside the gate. He was rather large and quite furry - Malamute furry although not quite that big. I held out my hand so that he could smell me and made some encouraging noises so that he would want to come over to say hello (which he did). So here I am giving back of ear scratches to this lovely fellow when I hear from behind, ''Eww I can you believe she dares touch that THING'' It was a young man (he was speaking French), it pissed me off that he referred to this beautiful creature as a thing so I responded, ''Yes I dare. He's a very nice boy, who just wants a bit of attention.'' The young man then just said that he was afraid of dogs. hmph. My new furry friend was glad to get some lovin', and I was happy to comply.


The Roman Agora is much, much smaller than it's Greek counterpart, and was built between 11 and 19 BC. The biggest building there is Hadrian's library,built in 132 AD by, you guessed it, the Roman emperor Hadrian - of the famed Hadrian's wall in England/Scotland. This fella got around.

As I was taking photos in this place I saw another small wonder: another turtle. What the? Ok I had to find out. I went to see the lady who was making sure no one sat on the priceless ruins and I told her that there was a turtle wandering there. She laughed and said, ''Oh, yes! We have just one turtle here. At the Ancient Agora they have many.'' HUH? Apparently turtles are a fairly common thing here. Who knew! I thought they needed water to swim in and such but apparently they get their water content from the plants they eat. Turtles: today's favourite find.

There were also some great bits of mosaics. They are so intricate and colourful, it's hard to believe that they are almost 2000 years old.

After that we headed up town to another hill called Lycabettus hill. Allegedly there was a cable car that could bring you to the top. Who can say no to a cable car?
We stopped at the National Library to have a look (ok we stopped to use the bathroom), and it was so beautiful. We were only allowed just inside the door of the reading room and no photos were permitted, but wow. It has a glass roof and four stories of floor to ceiling books only along it's walls. In the middle it's the reading room and just on the ground floor. I wish I could have gone in there to have a look at all the books, but we had a hill to climb.


It was hot and sunny and humid by this point in the day. We made our way slowly up and up through a very fancy neighbourhood, towards this hill and it's wonderful cable car that would bear us effortlessly to the top. 
Turns out there is no cable car. It's all a big lie.
But we persisted and walked to the top anyway. Once there, we found a bunch of very tired, very hot people all trying to cram into any small space of shade they could find. The views would have been spectacular but because it was so humid there was a haze in the air.

By the time we made our way back down to earth we were ravenous. We caught our bus back to our neighbourhood so that we could make it back home fast for dinner. We were absolutely knackered.

The Museum

Is it Poseidon or Zeus?
They can't decide

My fav of the day

I know, you're saying, ''the whole bloody town is a museum!'' Be that as it may, they say that the National Archeological Museum is spectacular. And they're not wrong.

I'm not going to go into great detail about our visit (I'm sure you're relieved). It was truly magnificent but after about 5 hours we still had not seen everything, and our legs and empty stomachs could not bear it any longer.

On the way to get a bite, we happened to be passing by the Parliament building during the changing of the guard.

He has a superb moustache

Every hour, on the hour the two Evzones (special presidential guards), are replaced with two fresh guards. Like most of their contemporaries around the world they stand perfectly still without expression. Not an easy feat when you have people taking pictures with you every moment you're there. Evzone means ''well-belted'' a saying that hails from Homer's time. Basically it means a well dressed. The two guards are protecting the tomb of the unknown soldier. They wear the traditional uniform of the mountain guerrillas that resisted Turkish rule. The skirt/kilt is called a fustanella and it has 400 pleats and it takes 80 days to make. There are only 10 people who ever know how to make them. The guards' shoes each have 60 hobnails in their soles and have massive pompoms on top that each weigh 1.5 kgs. They also wear woollen stockings. I don't know how these guys didn't pass out. It was sweltering. There's also another soldier there making sure that people don't get too close to or touch the guards. He's also there to get people out of the way when they change the guard because those boys don't stop for anyone - they will walk all over you with their hobnail shoes.

After a quick bite, we went off to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus, one of the largest temples of the ancient world. It was 110m in length had 104 columns (Corinthian, in case you're wondering) of which 15 still stand.

It is HUGE. It took over 700 years to build, mostly due to lack of funds. It was started in the 6th century BC but wasn't completed until the emperor Hadrian took up the project and finished it in 131 AD. He put a colossal statue of Zeus in it upon completion, and then proceeded to put an equally big one of himself beside it! Classy. Neither of those statues are there today.