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Friday, April 6. 2007Greek Photos Online
Have done some more photo editing and have put some of the best Greek photos online here.
Saturday, April 15. 2006Leaving Greece
(written 18:19, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
We ate the included hotel but were rather dissapointed with it for what we got - we should have just done it ourselves and saved some money. Today was the day to leave Greece, target Macedonia, so we spent the morning driving across smaller roads to get us there. The Greeks and the Macedonians aren't exactly best friends, as evident by the quality of roads Greece bothers to build to get up there, so some of the going was pretty rough. But, we passed up and over mountain passes with snow everywhere, and through some horrible smog created by a huge number of power stations up in this northern area of Greece - being very cynical perhaps they don't mind if the smog blows north? No matter, their plan wasn't really working as there was plenty stuck in valleys on this side of the border. After the problems we had last trip with the Schengen arrangement visa for me on an Aussie passport (summary: you can spend ninety days out of six months in Schengen countries - basically all EU except GB), I needed to make sure this time that I left the Schengen area by getting a stamp out of Greece - something that had been missed last time. No hassles on this front, as we drove north from the Niki border crossing into no-mans-land and approached Macedonia to attempt to get in. Friday, April 14. 2006North from Athens - Litóhoro
(written 18:03, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
Three different local shops were required to gather three things the next morning - freshly squeezed orange juice, cheese pies and coffee, and then we were ready to hit the road. The road itself seemed to be being battered by huge quantities of water, as the weather had taken a nasty turn for the worse. The Mediterranean countries were sure proving that their sunny hot image was not entirely correct. We headed north-east then north a huge distance on motorways, the weather slowly improving as we drove over lots of toll roads, mountain passes, stopping at Lamía to make some calls back home with the remains of our Greek phone card (note to the European Union: please make it so travellers can buy phone cards that work in more than one country!). Eventually we pulled into Litóhoro at the bottom of the Mount Olympus, the highest in Greece. This town has a spectacular setting, although we could see little of the mountain itself as the remnants of the bad weather we now mostly clouds and a little rain. We pulled into the Hotel Enipeas, a little on the expensive side but with nice rooms and all we felt like was flaking after the long drive. The nice chatty owner taking interest was a bonus too. The weather by now more livable, we went for a wander around the town, down the river banks and then spent a while wandering up and around village streets. We needed to work out where to eat, but ended up following signs to elusive tavernas that didn't seem to exist. So, as when all other plans fail in any town, we wandered back to the main square for a beer and a think. Lonely Planet suggested a restaurant that "attracts hordes of locals" so you should "get in early for a table". Well, that's all well and good, but nobody else was there! So we went for a walk to pass some time through the local park, past what possibly was an ice rink, a small fun-fair which the local kids were having fun at and had views across the valley to some less-illustrious parts of town. Too hungry to wait for the "hordes of locals", we went back to the restaurant, almost startled the waiters by actually coming in the door, and sat down to a great hearty meal of greek salad and lamb, among other things. By the time we left, none of the locals had yet turned up. Despite it now being rather cold (we were up in the mountains, after all), we grabbed an ice cream on the way back to our room, surprising, no doubt, yet another local who took our money. Thursday, April 13. 2006Around Athína - Acropolis
(written 17:47, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
Once again the next morning we caught the trolley bus into town - a quick and quiet way to get around town for not much money. No included breakfast at this hotel, so we needed to find some of our own. For this we ended up sharing "one" breakfast at a little café, which consisted of honey and yoghurt (a greek favourite, and one we grew to love very quickly), bacon and eggs, juice and coffee. The first target for the morning was the obvious one - we walked up the hill to the Acropolis. Like most of the really touristy places we visit, I won't bother saying too much about them because pretty much everything has already been said. Suffice to say we wandered around for an hour or so, took a photo for a group of Germans which necessitated me putting down a book only to have one of our tickets to this and many other sites blow away over the edge down far far away, enjoyed the lookout at the far end and managed a few relatively tourist-free photos. The tickets we had purchased (and now lost one of) gave us access to plenty of other sites across the city, so we set off in search of some of them. A nice walk along a promenade Dionysiou Areopagitou later, and we were at the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Nobody seemed to stop us handing over one ticket and walking two people in, so we went for a look. This place would have been amazingly huge, with 104 columns originally. Now only fifteen remain, one of which is fallen down and really gives perspective to what a creation it was. Like most places, we enjoyed getting lost and re-finding ourselves in the tiny backstreets far more than the huge obvious ones, but eventually we found some market streets and had a bit of a look. Savas served us some cheap gyros for 3euro as opposed to sitting down elsewhere and paying 24euro like we saw plenty of people prepared to do. In fact, everywhere was very full. Some more tickets were begging to be used, so we chose the Ancient Agora, as it had looked pretty amazing while we were up at the Acropolis earlier. This is a huge area of rambling pathways, temples, churches, and the impressively restored Stoa of Attalos, housing the museum of finds on this site and others. It also told quite a bit of history of civilisation in the area. Being a big city and us having only given it a day and a bit to explore, we were soon off again to take in some shopping streets, and eventually located Compendium Books, where we purchased Lonely Planet's Eastern European Phrasebook - something very useful for the pile of strange languages which lay ahead of us. We had a bit of a read of this at a nearby café with a drink, then a wander through the National Gardens before deciding to call it a day and catch the bus back to the hotel. Cheap dinner came from the supermarket across the road, including some cheese that the non-English-speaking deli guy was happy to let us try when he couldn't explain what it would taste like! Was much better than our last attempt at cheese which had ended up with the local stray cats in Náfplio. Wednesday, April 12. 2006Into Athína
(written 16:04, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
After breakfast at our Náfplio hotel again, we set off towards Athína (Athens) along first slower then faster roads, eventually joining the motorway which dumped us fairly unceremoniously in suburbia. We made our way to Piraeus (Athína's port), which proved to be quite a task without a detailed map. After a few wrong turns, we found the port/ferry terminal, very glad we had learnt the Greek alphabet for the signs we had had to read to get there. Pretty bad for the major port to the Greek Islands. That was the reason we had come there - to find out what sort of costs would be involved in getting to/from some islands, which we did at one of the many travel agents on the main drag after getting a lucky park across the road. Hungry, we sat down in a souvlaki place to discuss island plans - eventually deciding against any islands this trip. For one, we had a car, which would have to be put into long-term parking somewhere here on the mainland while we travelled around the islands, while we were still paying for its use and probably some other form of transport on the island also. Secondly, we weren't quite sure how to see enough of the islands to do them justice, and still eventually get through Eastern Europe to our north as well in time to get back to Paris then home. So, deciding that there would have to be a "next time" for Europe yet again, we got in our car and drove into Athína, with no decent map and only some very vague directions to a camp ground. These turned out to be of no use at all, and in very short time we found ourselves driving around the centre of Athína - not at all what we had intended. Still, we were there now and plan B in a big city is to stay central in a place with parking, spending a bit more but seeing the city. We asked at one hotel but guy didn't seem to speak English or Greek to get rates from him, so we pushed on, looking for camping, but eventually ending up driving through the centre and out the other side. With no signs to help us, we turned around, giving up on camping and stopping at another hotel we had spotted on our way out. A few tiny dirty backstreets later and we had a park a couple of streets away. The hotel turned out to be ugly but people there spoke Greek and English, and offered us a room at a reasonable rate, which after the day's mucking around we quickly snapped up. The hotel was on the major artery into town from the north, 28 Oktovriou-Patission, which meant that trolley busses took us into the centre after we had cleared the car of anything vaguely worth money and put that all in our room. A little street stall gave us a tasty snack with some strawberries, while a dog got rather excited after Liz said hello to it - again. With no set aims for the afternoon (most of the big-named sites would need more time than we had left), we wandered around Plaka, the centre of the city. The Cathedral proved to be a draw, and after that we had (expensive but really needed) coffees and cake on the cathedral's square Plateia Mitropoleos, before wandered up the hill a little to take some photos of the Acropolis. Dinner was at Noodle House, where we ate a great and not at all greek meal, but different to anything we had eaten since home. After this, we took trolley bus back, checked the car, and collapsed in our ugly room. Possibly unbeknownst to the proprietor, their DVD of choice was playing across the hotel on channel 11. The porn on offer wasn't quite to our liking and we reverted to CNN to catch up on world news. Tuesday, April 11. 2006Lazing in Náfplio
(written 15:56, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
We had a breakfast at hotel (on our terrace, although as there were others around we chose not to come out through the window!). The stray cats were back again, eating everything that the breakfasters left. Liz was on cat patrol for a while to try and stop this until the staff cleaned up after people, but eventually gave up, much to the cats' relief. A wander through town was next on the agenda, where we stopped in a shop on Plateia Syntagmatos which seemed to be the owner's personal passion. He had books in plenty of different languages for sale at obscene prices, but more interestingly ancient cassettes, VHS tapes and faded everything you can imagine, never cleaned out of the shop when it failed to sell year after year. Plenty of Greece 2004 Olympic stuff too. We spent the rest of day lazing in room blogging, reading, sleeping, and before we knew it it was dinner time. Into town, we found Taverna O Vassilis, where we enjoyed a wonderful meal of some of the local specialties - I had rabbit stifado. Dessert was also required, so we wandered to a gelato bar nearby and ate some huge sugary tasty things - missing Italy already in our own little way. A café by the harbour provided the final course - a couple of coffees. Most of the outdoor ones here (and there were certainly plenty) had huge comfortable seats, sofas even that you were tempted to laze away the evening on. Eventually we broke free and headed for bed. Monday, April 10. 2006Mistrás, into Nafplio
(written 15:41, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
The night turned out to be very cold, and neither of us slept all that well. In the morning, the reason became apparent - fresh snow not there the day before was now very visible on the mountains around us - not at all what we had expected to find in Greece at this time of year. The morning was spent washing clothes in the campsite, making cups of tea for breakfast, and with me ending up with schooner of "greek" coffee from the café that doubled as the campsite office. This is pretty much the same as Turkish coffee (don't tell the Greeks though...) but you are supposed to have about a shot-glass' worth, not half a litre! Needless to say, the lack of sleep problem didn't bother me much that day. After packing up, we headed the rest of the way down the road towards Mistrás. From the road I pointed up to a huge tall ridge with a castle on top and said something along the lines of "that's where we're going!", but Liz didn't believe me. Ninety minutes later, we were up the top, huffing and puffing and feeling thoroughly pleased with ourselves for making it. This old Byzantine settlement was mostly ruins, but they contained monasteries, churches, a musem, and the towering high-up castle, all meant to keep attackers at bay. And those with dodgy knees, as we discovered on the way back down. Mine held out though, and by the time we were back at the "New Mistrás" at the bottom we felt we could go back to sleep without a hassle. Instead, we rewarded ourselves with delicious lunch at a randomly-chosen tourist-looking restaurant, and sat in the sun enjoying the view up to our conquest on the hill. The afternoon was spent driving north then east, passing over many more mountain ridges and finally diving down towards the coast at Mili, where we could see across the inlet to Náfplio, billed as "the most romantic city in Greece" and our target for the night. There were plenty more god boxes everywhere on the roads as we wound around the coast to Náfplio, driving through the city and up the hill on the far side to Place Psaromahala. Here we entered Pension Bonne Nuit, were happy with the room and took it - the first one we looked at, as is usual unless it is horrible or the price outrageous. It turns out one of the owners spent five years or so in Sydney, living in Erskineville, Tempe and a few other places. A nice old guy, we had a chat for a while before checking out our room. We had a great view over the harbour, most likely the best in the place as we had a terrace out the window to sit on that we could even access via our room's window! We spent the afternoon and evening relaxing, enjoying cheese (not really, it was bad!), olives, wine and the view of the sunset over the water. Not quite sure whether it deserved its billing, but Náfplio sure was a nice place of its own accord. The stray cats got the nasty cheese that had been all I could muster from the hotel's shop downstairs. Sunday, April 9. 2006Mani, Monemvassiá, Spárti
(written 15:27, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
It was very tempting to stay in the amazing little room and town another night, but we had plenty of ground to cover this trip, and so after a nice but expensive breakfast at Restaurant Akrigiali (the language barrier had made us think it was going to be cheaper) decided to head further around the peninsula and back north again. The roads we were on around the east side were no bigger than the day before tiny roads, and we were still surrounded by the gorgeous display of flowers. What we had come to term "god boxes" were everywhere on roads like these throughout Greece. Originally we thought they were just someone's private shrine, but we soon guessed they would have to be a little memorial to a lost relative, containing pictures, candles, icons, etc. All in a little box typically on a pole at the side of the road. Where there were particularly nasty curves there were plenty, in some cases just one huge one which lots of pictures were in. Other places where there were straights must have indicated horrible head-on collisions. Not nice thoughts at all, they did however keep us focused on safe driving. Moving down to the third peninsula across the south of Greece, we stopped at Monemvassiá. This was an island separated from mainland by an earthquake, plus with a walled old village on the sea-side, complete with windy streets and touristy shops. Lunch was at the Lonely Planet recommended place, which turned out to be only average, before we wandered around the village away from the shops - nice churches, cobbles, etc., and most importantly no traffic to contend with! The buzz of vespas (scooters) seems omni-present in Italy and Greece, and the break from the noise was most welcome. Back on the road, we drove north-west to Spárti. The town itself held little interest for us, but we found Camping Paleologou Mystras on outskirts towards Mistrás, a target for the next day. We spent the afternoon sitting by our tent munching on snacks and chatting, watching a nearby French family herding their kids around, before tucking in for a cold night's sleep. Saturday, April 8. 2006Mani Peninsula
(written 15:09, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
Packing up our campsite, we set of and continued south along the coast, inland for a while and then further south to Kalamáta. Despite being the namesake of our favourite type of olive, it was ugly, big and had little going for it, so we kept moving. At the bottom of mainland Greece there are three spikes of sorts, the central one of which is called the Mani Peninsula - our destination for the night. We spent the day winding down along the western side of the peninsula, home to an amazing array of wildflowers just coming into bloom at this time of year. Five main different types all but completely covered the landscape, and made the otherwise barren surroundings look bursting with life. There were lots of little villiages all along the road, each so small it didn't have a full set of shops. Eventually after a while, we worked out how the locals got around this - they loaded up their utes with whatever they had to sell, strapped a loudspeaker to the top, and drove along advertising their wares! We stopped in Kardamíli for lunch, where the main street was totally ripped out and we had to divert right along the blue waters at the little harbour, but ended up parked outside a little café where the owner was rather interested in a couple of youngish Aussies turning up for some juice and a sandwich. In the heat we pushed further south, along tiny winding empty roads where tour busses would just fit, but they hadn't quite been dusted off for the year yet, or so it seemed. Areópoli was on the way, which we had a look through for a while, but decided against hanging around in. Right at the bottom of the peninsula, well past where tour buses could fit even if they wanted too, we found the delightful little town Geroliménas. A tiny little harbour with a beach, cafés right on the edge and the ability to park right there, this place was absolutely perfect. Across the road we spotted some rooms just behind us that would perfect but no doubt over-priced for the amazing views they would have. Still, I went to talk to the person with the keys, a little man in the pub next door. The price he was asking almost made me drop my jaw - I had expected easily twice as much! We checked out the rooms, and sure enough had a top-floor one with views across the town and sea beyond for half what we had payed in most places, and a quarter what we had in some. We moved our meagre belongings up to the room, and then looked out over the clear blue water, relaxing reading books, papers, and having a beer or two. Eventually it got a bit windy sitting right on the water, so we set off for a walk around through the town. There wasn't really much to speak of - just a few restaurants and an amazing number of empty derelict houses. If this was most other places on earth, this real estate would be worth millions. In our wanders, a dog adopted us, one of the many stray in the town. Our thoughts to bring her home were stopped in their tracks by the pile of paperwork we would face and just how unhappy Alina (our dog) would be. Back to the room for a while, we did some washing before heading out for dinner to a harbourside restaurant. Here we had lots of mezedes (entree-sized portions of different things), which proved very filling. As we left the restaurant, our puppy was waiting for us. She got some crackers and bread from our food bag before we headed up to the room. I needed a couple of things from the car a little later on, and Liz volunteered to go get them, only to drop a bit more food for the dog on the way through. We're too soft! Friday, April 7. 2006Trains, Ancient Olympia
(written 14:30, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
We were up so early the next morning to catch the train that it was just like waking for one of Liz's morning shifts at the hospital! Needless to say we don't intend to do that very often. Some coffees were found on the station while we waited for the train, which rattled into the station on time, its loud diesel engine strangely located between the two passenger carriages. Only other locals and staff were on this early trip - seemingly the only real use the train gets, given that the two later ones were booked out no doubt with tourist bus-loads. Being so empty, we were free to roam back and forth across the carriage, taking in the spectacular mountain scenery from the train-line which had no doubt taken some considerable effort to build many years ago. The weather looked foggy from the bottom, but cleared rapidly as we rose. Plenty of pictures of the river which had formed the valley, the surrounding forests, tiny settlements (where nobody or perhaps one person got on and/or off) and, further up, open plains were taken as we spent an hour or so working our way towards Kalávrita. This little skiing-base of a town was set up to cope with the midwinter crowds, but there weren't many around this morning. We had a wander around town, but needed to sit down after a while to attend to a few important things - breakfast (cheese pies seemed easy enough to get as the staple foods), and to learn about about this strange language. The menus proved great for us to attempt to decypher with the help of our language guides, and it was great being able to work through each character only to arrive at something like kafe or chocolate - very fulfilling! 9:26 came around soon enough, and it was time for the train to rumble back down the bottom of the mountain. It was still mostly empty, although this time the driver stopped at the most scenic places, probably more out of habit for his usual load of tourists to take pictures. Back in Diakoftó, we retrieved our car from the night's hotel, and drove back towards Pátra where we the ferry had landed the day before, and then turned south. Despite being the largest road we could choose to go in the direction we wanted, we spent most of morning driving rather slowly through a succession of 90-50-90 zones, which is not at all an enjoyable way to get around. It's crazy because the locals don't follow the limits at all, yet for all we know there could be a cop around the corner just waiting to pounce on a tourist following along. Still, we made it to Olympía - driving through the modern town to get to the old, no ancient one. The ruins proved worth a look around for an hour, being impressive, not over-touristed and nicely tree-covered for the most part. This is of course where the Olympic flame is lit from, but we couldn't find any evidence or even a sign-post marking the point. No matter, we must have been close! Being spring, flowers were blooming everywhere both here and for pretty much the rest of our trip around Greece, making the site very enjoyable to wander around. Eventually one of the staff told us the site was closing (strange, it was only 2pm or so), so we took that as a hint to see the remainder quickly and head off to find accommodation. After a few tries, we ended up in a camp site (Camping Olympia) on the outskirts of town, where we pitched our tent under some orange trees (pretty and romantic, but smelly as the site hadn't had it's makeover for the summer crowds yet) and then spent the afternoon in the sunshine chatting. Later on we walked into town, and picked ourselves a cheap little place where they forgot our order twice but otherwise the food was good, as evident from the number of locals there. No tip left, we wandered back to sleep for the night. Thursday, April 6. 2006Into Greece - Pátra, Diakofto
(written 16/4/2006, in Ohrid, Macedonia, by Liz)
We had our sleeping bags with us, so at least we could get a bit comfy, but I ended up sleeping with my head on our backpack, as it has all our important things in it, and I didn't want anyone taking things while we were asleep. We were woken at 3am by one of the ferry crew who was asking if we were getting off at Igoumenítsa, the first stop, but as we weren't we lay back down and tried to get some more sleep. In the morning, we had breakfast on the boat, and waited impatiently for the boat to get to Pátra. We arrived an hour late, and it had been a 15 hour ferry trip - we were glad to get off. But we were, in fact, in Greece!! I'm not sure if it was the diesel fumes from the boat (we had spent the last hour or so outside and it smelt strongly of fumes), or sleeping at an odd angle on the backpack, but I developed an awful headache. I thought as we were off the boat and in fresh air that it might get better, but it didn't, and I felt terrible. We drove through Pátra and found a supermarket where I tried to help Tim pick out a few things, but ended up going and sitting in the car. I really wanted to be excited about being in a new country, but decided that all I really wanted was to lie down somewhere and go to sleep. We drove back through Pátra and out, heading east along the coast. I gave some vague directions and then Tim drove us to our destination, learning along the way that the Greeks aren't quite as mad on the road as the Italians, but they are fond of turning two-lane roads into four-lane roads, by driving with half their car in the emergency lane. It really is no wonder that Greece has the highest road toll fatalities in Europe, we saw some hugely dangerous overtaking manouvours on the roads in Greece. Anyway, we made it to Diakoftó, and Tim found a hotel for us while I sat in the car. Hotel found, I went in and passed out on the bed for a few hours, while Tim went out and about, exploring the little village, and finding a café to get himself a coffee. When I woke up, I had a sore head, but felt much better than I had earlier. We went for a slow walk, stopped for coffee by the train station and watched a train come and go. A while later, we went to the ticket office to get train tickets for the next day, but the two tickets selling men made us wait for fifteen minutes while they dealt with two trains that went past. I guess they don't have very busy days (it's a tiny village), so they have to make the most of any trains that go through. Finally, we had two return tickets for the 6.53am train to Kalávrita the next morning (the other two trains later in the day had sold out). Dinner was at a Souvlaki bar, where we ate two big platefuls of gyros (pronounced yeeros) - grilled meat with sliced tomato and onions and chips, all covered in delicious tzatziki, before heading back to our hotel room for the night.
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