K day-tripped to Delphi today, 3+ hour bus ride out. I thought I'd take the day off and give my body time to recuperate. Do some laundry, some writing, maybe even some hotel bookings if I could just get myself started (yes, the last month is still, um, unbooked). I was going to check out the Central Market and visit E. K can take pictures and tell me about Delphi when he gets back. Maybe I'll visit whenever we're back in Athens again, if I'm thus inclined. Those were my thoughts at noon, when I was writing and waiting for my laundry.
By the time the laundry finished and I packed away all our clean clothes, it was 2:30, so I quickly headed out to the market, which closes at 3pm. Market buys: bananas, tomatoes, oranges, cherries, apricots. With the exception of the cherries, everything else was great. I was quite peeved about the cherries. I'm used to picking the fruit I buy myself. So, if I buy a bag of cherries, every single one of the cherries is entirely yummy. In Greece, I've found that they get a bit upset if you touch the fruit, giving you dirty looks and so on. With the cherries, they just scoop a bunch into a bag. The other day, there were only a few bad ones. But today, it was horrible! It was partly my fault; I didn't look close enough at the quality. Only a handful of the cherries I ended up with were any good >_<
The fruit and veges were on one side of Athinas street and the meat and fish was on the other side. The meat and fish part was pretty organized. Meat seller after meat seller, the ones selling the same items being adjacent to each other. All the meat sellers were men and I got my dose of what it was like being a young, non-local woman walking through it. Most of the men were fairly polite, but there was this one group that accosted me, and one guy in particular who would not keep his dirty meat-hands off me. Argh >_<
I then picked up some souvlaki sticks to go and ate that plus my fruit back at the hostel. I only ate half of it, and left the other half for dinner.
Headed out to E's a little before 5. When I called E to tell her I was in front of her apartment, it turns out I wasn't -- I was on the wrong street, a block off, oops.
Just thinking about seeing E was exciting. We met one crazy teenage summer in Baltimore, when I discovered there was so much more diversity out in the world than my little bubble in NJ, and when I had the best roommate from Greece anyone could wish for. I saw E again twice after that, once at my house, and once in Boston, but we managed to stay somewhat in touch, and here I was, in Athens, visiting her at her house, shortly after she had just given birth ^o^
Stayed at E's until after dark, catching up on this and that, and learning little tidbits about life in Greece and about taking care of a newborn. She had just started nursing her 12-day-old newborn when I arrived ^-^ Her main advice -- don't listen to any friends or family who try to tell you what you should or should not do with the baby. The advice they give is usually based on the very few babies (or one baby) they've taken care of and every baby is different. It's funny -- I'll probably be having my first when she's having her second!
Got back to the metro without any wrong turns. K was already back when I returned to the hostel.
We left around 1am to go to the airport. 4:15am flight to Warsaw.
Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Day 45: Mycenae & Nafplio
In a bit of confusion/misunderstanding/etc, I thought we were day-tripping to Nafplio today, but K thought we weren't. We woke up a little later than we would have wanted, but in time to quickly get ready and to walk to the closest bus stop to take a bus to the bus terminal in time to board the 10:30 bus out.
After discussing with the friendly and helpful reps at the bus terminal, we decided to go to Mycenae first. This would give us more time in Nafplio and less stress. Otherwise, we'd be trying to make the last bus from Nafplio to Mycenae in the middle of the afternoon. It's a 2+ hr bus ride out from Athens.
Mycenae is pronounced "mic-cun-knee-s" ('mic' as in Mickey), not "my-seen-knee" as we'd previously heard on random shows. Once we saw the Greek spelling of the word, the pronunciation made sense. All those years of math and physics taught us more than just math and physics. It taught us the Greek alphabet. It's interesting to see it used in an everyday living language and trying to break it down to 'read' stuff. That's a phi, omega, lambda, iota, alpha. Of course, most of the time it doesn't mean anything after we've 'read' it; we still don't know enough of the language to understand it!
According to the taxi driver who drove us from the bus stop to the site, it's 34 degrees C (~93 F) out today! Good thing we ended up deciding to take a taxi instead of walking the 3km instead. I don't like heat!
When we saw Pompeii two years ago, we thought "this is old stuff". When we saw Ephesus a week ago, we thought "this is even older stuff". And Mycenae. This stuff is way, way older. 2000 B.C.! That's B.C.!! Crazy.
We take the last bus (3pm) from Mycenae to Nafplio. It picks us up right at the ruins ^-^
Nafplio. In perfect health, we might have taken the 999 steps in the blistering-hot sun up to the Palamidi Fortress. But today, we take a five-euro taxi. The fortress was built by the Venetians in the early 1700's and is supposedly very well-designed military architecture, a reminder that Venice was #1 for some brief point in European history. For us, it's big, with a bunch of cool bastions, and really nice views ^-^
After exploring a while, we walk back down to the town. 999 steps, right? The entrance lady said that it's actually 913 steps. I only counted 835 O_o
We walk around the Old Town and port, stopping at a creperie to pick up some crepes for dinner before our bus back to Athens. I'd been thinking about crepes ever since I saw a crepe shop in Santorini. There's a bunch of 'suggestions' of combos for crepes, but what drew me was the crepe was also fully customizable. Base price for the crepe, 1.70 euro at this place, and then each 'topping' has a price to it. The 50-cent mushrooms, 80-cent tomatoes, 1.20-euro chicken, or whatever else you want to stick on it. Perfect for us.
The second-to-last bus (7pm) back to Athens. We expected it to take us back to the bus terminal, where we would board another bus to get closer to our hostel. But even better, it stopped at a metro stop two stops from our hostel's metro stop. Saved 40 minutes or so for us. Yay! Too bad they don't let you also board the bus there.
After discussing with the friendly and helpful reps at the bus terminal, we decided to go to Mycenae first. This would give us more time in Nafplio and less stress. Otherwise, we'd be trying to make the last bus from Nafplio to Mycenae in the middle of the afternoon. It's a 2+ hr bus ride out from Athens.
Mycenae is pronounced "mic-cun-knee-s" ('mic' as in Mickey), not "my-seen-knee" as we'd previously heard on random shows. Once we saw the Greek spelling of the word, the pronunciation made sense. All those years of math and physics taught us more than just math and physics. It taught us the Greek alphabet. It's interesting to see it used in an everyday living language and trying to break it down to 'read' stuff. That's a phi, omega, lambda, iota, alpha. Of course, most of the time it doesn't mean anything after we've 'read' it; we still don't know enough of the language to understand it!
According to the taxi driver who drove us from the bus stop to the site, it's 34 degrees C (~93 F) out today! Good thing we ended up deciding to take a taxi instead of walking the 3km instead. I don't like heat!
When we saw Pompeii two years ago, we thought "this is old stuff". When we saw Ephesus a week ago, we thought "this is even older stuff". And Mycenae. This stuff is way, way older. 2000 B.C.! That's B.C.!! Crazy.
We take the last bus (3pm) from Mycenae to Nafplio. It picks us up right at the ruins ^-^
Nafplio. In perfect health, we might have taken the 999 steps in the blistering-hot sun up to the Palamidi Fortress. But today, we take a five-euro taxi. The fortress was built by the Venetians in the early 1700's and is supposedly very well-designed military architecture, a reminder that Venice was #1 for some brief point in European history. For us, it's big, with a bunch of cool bastions, and really nice views ^-^
After exploring a while, we walk back down to the town. 999 steps, right? The entrance lady said that it's actually 913 steps. I only counted 835 O_o
We walk around the Old Town and port, stopping at a creperie to pick up some crepes for dinner before our bus back to Athens. I'd been thinking about crepes ever since I saw a crepe shop in Santorini. There's a bunch of 'suggestions' of combos for crepes, but what drew me was the crepe was also fully customizable. Base price for the crepe, 1.70 euro at this place, and then each 'topping' has a price to it. The 50-cent mushrooms, 80-cent tomatoes, 1.20-euro chicken, or whatever else you want to stick on it. Perfect for us.
The second-to-last bus (7pm) back to Athens. We expected it to take us back to the bus terminal, where we would board another bus to get closer to our hostel. But even better, it stopped at a metro stop two stops from our hostel's metro stop. Saved 40 minutes or so for us. Yay! Too bad they don't let you also board the bus there.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Day 44: Athens
Not feeling very well today. It's hard with all the cigarette smoke when I'm already having quite a bit difficulty breathing. I can only imagine how V felt during her whole 3-week trip. It's was also HOT both yesterday and today. When we landed yesterday, they said it was around 26 degrees C (~80 degs F). I'm soooo happy we deliberately picked now to visit; I don't want to even imagine the heat in June and July!
We started the day with probably the lamest 'included breakfast'... bread with jam/honey + juice. It's almost like they did the least they had to do to be able to say "breakfast included" in their literature. Oh well.
Archaeological Museum. Ooooh, shiny Mycenaean gold items! It's probably my quickest museum visit though; I was feeling very out of sorts. In fact, I ended up partially napping on a bench while K checked out the second floor. The brief nap helps a lot -- I feel much better when K comes back and leads me to the highlights of the second floor.
Ancient Agora. To the uninitiated, it's just a bunch of ruins and some piles of rock. We have an RS description of the different parts though, so we can try to imagine something ^-^
Cherries! Two guys selling cherries in Monastiraki square. They were also selling strawberries, but they didn't look nearly as good as the cherries. And of course, our daily dose of bananas.
After washing the cherries back at the hostel and eating some (plus some rest), we head back out to the Acropolis. Maybe the best vantage point from which to see sprawling Athens. The Parthenon has some scaffolding, which K says detracts from its impressive-ness -- would be better if it entirely held itself up, no? They promptly kick us out at 7:30pm, not letting anyone stay a minute later. It's unfortunate they don't keep the site open until later (maybe even into late night)... the light is just *starting* to get good at 7:30.
Our Athens hotel/hostel actually charges for wifi =( I was quite happy to find some unsecured wireless network to piggyback off of to catch up for a bit, and finally being able to watch D's graduation video ^o^
One of the cons of having parents who own a restaurant is that they have to work 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Well, almost. They used to have to do that (minus a couple of days off for Thanksgiving weekend). But for the last fifteen years of their nearly 25-year restaurant history, they've had Fridays off and don't open until sunset on Saturdays. If my brothers and I were lucky enough to have events scheduled on Fridays, yay! And I was lucky for my graduation, a Friday. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky after all; a last-minute tragic family event prevented any of my family from attending. We were hopeful for D's graduation. But it was not to be. A Saturday. There was no way my parents could attend and get back in time for restaurant-opening. And I was going to be abroad. But in perfect D-style, he recorded with his camera, with his own hand, complete with his excited and nervous commentary, him walking across the stage, receiving his diploma, and walking off-stage. I cried watching it, as if I were there. Thank you, D, for letting me share in the graduation I couldn't attend.
We started the day with probably the lamest 'included breakfast'... bread with jam/honey + juice. It's almost like they did the least they had to do to be able to say "breakfast included" in their literature. Oh well.
Archaeological Museum. Ooooh, shiny Mycenaean gold items! It's probably my quickest museum visit though; I was feeling very out of sorts. In fact, I ended up partially napping on a bench while K checked out the second floor. The brief nap helps a lot -- I feel much better when K comes back and leads me to the highlights of the second floor.
Ancient Agora. To the uninitiated, it's just a bunch of ruins and some piles of rock. We have an RS description of the different parts though, so we can try to imagine something ^-^
Cherries! Two guys selling cherries in Monastiraki square. They were also selling strawberries, but they didn't look nearly as good as the cherries. And of course, our daily dose of bananas.
After washing the cherries back at the hostel and eating some (plus some rest), we head back out to the Acropolis. Maybe the best vantage point from which to see sprawling Athens. The Parthenon has some scaffolding, which K says detracts from its impressive-ness -- would be better if it entirely held itself up, no? They promptly kick us out at 7:30pm, not letting anyone stay a minute later. It's unfortunate they don't keep the site open until later (maybe even into late night)... the light is just *starting* to get good at 7:30.
Our Athens hotel/hostel actually charges for wifi =( I was quite happy to find some unsecured wireless network to piggyback off of to catch up for a bit, and finally being able to watch D's graduation video ^o^
One of the cons of having parents who own a restaurant is that they have to work 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Well, almost. They used to have to do that (minus a couple of days off for Thanksgiving weekend). But for the last fifteen years of their nearly 25-year restaurant history, they've had Fridays off and don't open until sunset on Saturdays. If my brothers and I were lucky enough to have events scheduled on Fridays, yay! And I was lucky for my graduation, a Friday. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky after all; a last-minute tragic family event prevented any of my family from attending. We were hopeful for D's graduation. But it was not to be. A Saturday. There was no way my parents could attend and get back in time for restaurant-opening. And I was going to be abroad. But in perfect D-style, he recorded with his camera, with his own hand, complete with his excited and nervous commentary, him walking across the stage, receiving his diploma, and walking off-stage. I cried watching it, as if I were there. Thank you, D, for letting me share in the graduation I couldn't attend.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Day 43: Santorini => Athens
George, the landlord, takes us to the airport a little after 10:30 (we have a 12:15 flight out). He says earlier is better today because there's going to be quite a few flights to Norway, Sweden, etc. And he's right! So strange! Most of the flights are to Scandinavian cities... Oslo, Bergen, Stockholm, Copenhagen, etc.
After seeing all the signs with K's name in them, we ask George about it. It turns out that his name means "and". I suppose that's better than Turkish (a swear word).
Aegean Airlines, Airbus A321. New plane. Most amount of legroom we've ever had. And the flight map even shows in 3-D! It's also the shortest flight we've ever been on. Take-off, barely reach cruising altitude, descend.
We've learned from the past that even though we might land at, e.g. 1pm, it doesn't mean we have half the day to do stuff. It takes time to get into the city, settle in, etc, which was very true for Athens. The usual way to get into the city is via Metro, but it turns out the airport line is currently closed for six months for construction. So, we take the bus to Syntagma square and then walk a ways (1 metro stop + some) to our hostel.
It's already almost 4pm, but restaurants and cafes are full of people eating and drinking!
There's still a few hours of daylight, so we head out for RS+LP walking tour of the city. It's sort of funny in a way to see various ruins scattered about here and there. Ah, here's part of a Roman bath. And that's the remains of temple xyz.
One of my favorite parts of the city was the cute Anafiotika quarter. Whitewashed houses, pretty plants, all locals (minus one other family we saw). And, honeysuckles! I haven't seen honeysuckles since I was in elementary school, when they grew across the street from my house, in a nearby meadow, and near the school. I've only partially lost my touch for extracting the little bits of sweet nectar from the flowers ^-^ (managed to only do it for myself, not K O_o)
Whereas Turkey had many stray cats (and a few stray dogs), there are many many stray dogs in Athens.
K mentioned that Athens reminds him a bit of cities in Italy. There's sort of a Rome feel. And a bit of Florence -- the many enterprising youths selling handbags on the street, and the quick closing up of their wares when the policemen come by (the policemen seem to be a bit more lax in attitude here though).
After seeing all the signs with K's name in them, we ask George about it. It turns out that his name means "and". I suppose that's better than Turkish (a swear word).
Aegean Airlines, Airbus A321. New plane. Most amount of legroom we've ever had. And the flight map even shows in 3-D! It's also the shortest flight we've ever been on. Take-off, barely reach cruising altitude, descend.
We've learned from the past that even though we might land at, e.g. 1pm, it doesn't mean we have half the day to do stuff. It takes time to get into the city, settle in, etc, which was very true for Athens. The usual way to get into the city is via Metro, but it turns out the airport line is currently closed for six months for construction. So, we take the bus to Syntagma square and then walk a ways (1 metro stop + some) to our hostel.
It's already almost 4pm, but restaurants and cafes are full of people eating and drinking!
There's still a few hours of daylight, so we head out for RS+LP walking tour of the city. It's sort of funny in a way to see various ruins scattered about here and there. Ah, here's part of a Roman bath. And that's the remains of temple xyz.
One of my favorite parts of the city was the cute Anafiotika quarter. Whitewashed houses, pretty plants, all locals (minus one other family we saw). And, honeysuckles! I haven't seen honeysuckles since I was in elementary school, when they grew across the street from my house, in a nearby meadow, and near the school. I've only partially lost my touch for extracting the little bits of sweet nectar from the flowers ^-^ (managed to only do it for myself, not K O_o) Whereas Turkey had many stray cats (and a few stray dogs), there are many many stray dogs in Athens.
K mentioned that Athens reminds him a bit of cities in Italy. There's sort of a Rome feel. And a bit of Florence -- the many enterprising youths selling handbags on the street, and the quick closing up of their wares when the policemen come by (the policemen seem to be a bit more lax in attitude here though).
Friday, May 22, 2009
Day 42: Santorini
Now that my body finally succumbed to K's virus germs (he's been sick for the past week) and we've had crazy day after crazy day for a while, we're taking today easy. We decided to sign up for the shorter 3-hr (vs longer 6-hr) cruise out to the volcanic island Nea Kamini. The ferry leaves port at 11am, and it's a little rush for us when we leave the hotel a little past 10am. K needs to find some cheap swim trunks and we need food for later. Then it's a 20-minute walk down to the 'old' port.
The 20-some-minute walk down to port was ultra K-nightmare! What could have been a nice walk down to (or up from) the port is actually a stinky, messy, horse and donkey poo path. The booming tourist industry has led to horse and donkey rides up and down all day long, and thus steps/slopes covered in nature's fertilizer. Towards the top was 'ok' but got progressively worse as we went down. More than half the way, you just have to give up trying to pick a way of not stepping on any poo, because well, it's all covered! At least some of it's not slippery-fresh. What was sad was seeing some of the horses partially tripping / loosing their footing while walking down. It's so wrong. >_<
We manage to *just* make the boat. It's crowded, but according to one of the boatmen, it's nothing compared to high summer -- good luck trying to find *any* seat then!
Nea Kamini is pretty cool, but *very* windy and a bit cold on top. I'm glad I brought my jacket. In some parts of the craters, you can see gas coming out and if you get close enough, you realize it's sulfur ^-^
Then, it's a stop at the 'hot spring'. They tell us the spring's water is approximately 7 degrees warmer than the water of the sea, not that they tell us the temperature of the sea water! After watching person after person jumping into the water and exclaiming how 'freaking cold' it is, K opts to not swim after all. This is water my winter-swimming Dad would love. I find out later that the 'hot spring' area is approx 22 degrees Celsius (~70 F), but you do have to swim through the ice cold water to reach it (and back).
Returning to port, we decide to take the cable car back up to Fira. No more poo for us! There's no line for the car up, but when we get to the top, we see a massively-long line to take the car down O_o
Rest at the the hotel and then back out to see the sunset from Fira. Even more gorgeous than yesterday! Imagine what it would have looked like from Oia today!
The 20-some-minute walk down to port was ultra K-nightmare! What could have been a nice walk down to (or up from) the port is actually a stinky, messy, horse and donkey poo path. The booming tourist industry has led to horse and donkey rides up and down all day long, and thus steps/slopes covered in nature's fertilizer. Towards the top was 'ok' but got progressively worse as we went down. More than half the way, you just have to give up trying to pick a way of not stepping on any poo, because well, it's all covered! At least some of it's not slippery-fresh. What was sad was seeing some of the horses partially tripping / loosing their footing while walking down. It's so wrong. >_<
We manage to *just* make the boat. It's crowded, but according to one of the boatmen, it's nothing compared to high summer -- good luck trying to find *any* seat then!
Nea Kamini is pretty cool, but *very* windy and a bit cold on top. I'm glad I brought my jacket. In some parts of the craters, you can see gas coming out and if you get close enough, you realize it's sulfur ^-^
Then, it's a stop at the 'hot spring'. They tell us the spring's water is approximately 7 degrees warmer than the water of the sea, not that they tell us the temperature of the sea water! After watching person after person jumping into the water and exclaiming how 'freaking cold' it is, K opts to not swim after all. This is water my winter-swimming Dad would love. I find out later that the 'hot spring' area is approx 22 degrees Celsius (~70 F), but you do have to swim through the ice cold water to reach it (and back).
Returning to port, we decide to take the cable car back up to Fira. No more poo for us! There's no line for the car up, but when we get to the top, we see a massively-long line to take the car down O_o
Rest at the the hotel and then back out to see the sunset from Fira. Even more gorgeous than yesterday! Imagine what it would have looked like from Oia today!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Day 41: Samos => Santorini
7:30am out of the hotel to catch our 8am ferry to Naxos and then transfer to another ferry to get to Santorini (aka Thira). Sleep last night wasn't so good. I woke up in the middle of the night, probably unconsciously because of the mosquites. Over the course of some time, I trapped and killed eight very large mosquitos >_< There were still several large mosquitoes on the ceiling, but I finally gave in to my tiredness, made a little tent with my sheet around myself, and fell back asleep. It reminds me of my Fuzhou trip many many years ago... 30-some bites over a couple of days. Eek.
There was an upside to the hotel though -- the sound of the waves. Since it was right next to the sea, I heard the waves crashing against the shore while I was up. It was beautiful. It reminds me of our loft apartment in KBL -- the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops on our roof window made for happy rainy days.
Simon and Kim are also on the same first ferry but they're getting off at the stop after Naxos, Paros, to go to Mykonos. The ferry boat is *huge*.
It's good we have a decent connection time -- 12:10 arrival to 12:55 next ferry -- because we arrive more than 40 minutes late. Simon and Kim might have missed their connecting ferry. Our ferry to Santorini is also a bit late though.
George, our friendly hotel owner, picks us up from the Santorini ferry dock.
After checking in and depositing our luggage in our room, we take a bus to Perissa, one of the black sand beaches. It's an interesting sight, but maybe I've seen too many beaches? I don't know. Or maybe I just wasn't in a very beachy mood. Or maybe it's because I prefer sand over pebble-ish beaches. Yay, black sand! Hmmm ^-^'
Getting back to Fira, we were going to just head back to the hotel, but it seems there's an extra 7pm bus to go to Oia, so we hop on that one. The schedule said the next bus was at 7:15, not 7, and 7:15 would have made it to Oia a little too late for enough time with the sunset.
Gorgeous. This, minus the lots of people, is what we expected from Santorini.
Supposedly some of the 'typical' Santorini photos are from Oia.
Last bus, 9:20pm, back to Fira. Quite a long day. And I think I'm getting sick.
There was an upside to the hotel though -- the sound of the waves. Since it was right next to the sea, I heard the waves crashing against the shore while I was up. It was beautiful. It reminds me of our loft apartment in KBL -- the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops on our roof window made for happy rainy days.
Simon and Kim are also on the same first ferry but they're getting off at the stop after Naxos, Paros, to go to Mykonos. The ferry boat is *huge*.
It's good we have a decent connection time -- 12:10 arrival to 12:55 next ferry -- because we arrive more than 40 minutes late. Simon and Kim might have missed their connecting ferry. Our ferry to Santorini is also a bit late though.
George, our friendly hotel owner, picks us up from the Santorini ferry dock.
After checking in and depositing our luggage in our room, we take a bus to Perissa, one of the black sand beaches. It's an interesting sight, but maybe I've seen too many beaches? I don't know. Or maybe I just wasn't in a very beachy mood. Or maybe it's because I prefer sand over pebble-ish beaches. Yay, black sand! Hmmm ^-^'
Getting back to Fira, we were going to just head back to the hotel, but it seems there's an extra 7pm bus to go to Oia, so we hop on that one. The schedule said the next bus was at 7:15, not 7, and 7:15 would have made it to Oia a little too late for enough time with the sunset.
Gorgeous. This, minus the lots of people, is what we expected from Santorini.
Supposedly some of the 'typical' Santorini photos are from Oia.
Last bus, 9:20pm, back to Fira. Quite a long day. And I think I'm getting sick.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Day 40: Samos
6:55am dolmus to Kusadasi. It was strange. As the dolmus left the Selcuk otogar, I felt a wave of emotion overcome me. Sad at leaving Turkey? Maybe the country has grown on me.
A 20-min or so walk to the port, and a 8:30am ferry departure for Samos.
Kusadasi really is a large party town, running an efficient operation of lodging, feeding, and entertaining the many, many tourists. It's quite evident -- I don't think I've seen anywhere else in Turkey (even heavily touristed Istanbul's Sultanahmet area) advertising "full Irish breakfast" or "full continental breakfast".
Those boats are huge! Not ours. Ours was the dinky little one in front of the big boats.
Upon reaching Samos port, we head to one of the travel agencies I've heard of (right at the port) to ask and buy tickets for the ferry to Santorini for tomorrow. We have a small hope that maybe the info we received in Turkey was wrong and there really are ferries for today.
The guy at the travel agency is really nice and informative, giving us his opinions and advice in addition to answering the questions we ask. Supposedly better than the TI. According to him, if we go to the TI, we will get maybe five minutes of their time, not more. When we first arrived, he was assisting two girls in making a plan to reach Mykonos. When we ask about things to do Samos, he first tells us about the things we can reach via public bus. Then he suggests perhaps the four of us renting a car together so that we'll get to explore more of the island (the bus only goes to very few places). He also calls a hotel near the port for all four of us. It turns out to be one of the hotels I called yesterday, but I didn't book a room because I called back too late (past 10:30pm), but I didn't tell him that.
The hotel guy, who turns out to be the owner, comes to pick us up from the port. We check out the room and it looks fine, so we take it. 25 euros a night, with a 'seaview'. It's actually 5 euros cheaper than he'd quoted me on the phone, but we kept that piece of info to ourselves. ^-^
Since all 4 of us are staying at the same place, we decide to check out the car rental prices. It's Simon, from Brazil, and Kim, from Korea. They'd just met each other on the ferry. The rental price for the rest of the day is 25 euros plus whatever gas costs to fill it back up to its starting level (we filled 10 euro, but 5-7 euro probably would have been enough). Simon's the only who can drive manual, so she's the driver ^-^
Our first stop is a little town called Vourliotes up and up some winding roads off the main road. We had yummy late lunch in a little taverna there (our 1st meal in Greece!). We all shared a large appetizer platter and then K and I also shared a yummy eggplant dish. Simon and Kim shared an omelet, but this omelet had spaghetti in it! K said it reminded him of okonomiyaki from Hiroshima, not the taste, just the fact that it had noodles. Next time I make an omelet for myself, I'm going to stick yummy noodles in it. And at the end of our meal, we were surprised with baklava on the house ^-^
Post-lunch, we tried to find the great views, but noticed the views driving up were nicer, so we headed back down and stopped somewhere along the way. Driving down, we saw several people on scooters. I think it would be scary for me! Well, I've yet to go on a scooter, though I did supposedly ride with my parents on their motorcycle when we first immigrated to the States. But these roads were very curvy and many times with no guardrail on the cliff-side.
Samos is supposedly the 'greenest' island; all the others are rocky.
Next was Potami. A hike in to three small waterfalls. Now, this is more like the kind of hike I prefer... tree cover all the way, no bugs, along a stream. But it ended up missing something -- a goal. Yes, there were the three waterfalls, which I was really looking forward to, but when we got to the end of path, no waterfall. You have to walk in the water (and maybe swim) to actually *see* the waterfalls! >_< Actually, the guy at the travel agency said something to the effect of 'swimming to the waterfalls' but we thought he was joking and that there was a path as well. Oops!
Other stops... Ag Konstantinos and Kokkari. At Kokkari, there were a bunch of bamboo umbrellas. Simon laughed at my fascination with them, "There's tons of them in Brazil!" It's all a matter of perspective based on where you've been and what you've seen. It wasn't so long ago that I first traveled to Cali and I remember being dazzled by all the palm trees (just like D&R earlier this year when they visited). Now, whenever I see a palm tree, it doesn't strike any such chord.
We returned the car a little before 8 and then had dinner in Samos town. Since we all were still quite not hungry, we just ordered some small dishes.
Visiting Samos with Simon and Kim was a nice detour from our usual 'run around just ourselves'. Kim's already more than six months into her travels (previously visiting Thailand, Nepal, India, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon) and still another four months to go. After the islands, Simon's heading back to Istanbul to fly back to Brazil (regular two weeks vacation for her ^_~). Kim was our age but I was quite surprised to find out that Simon has two adult daughters; she certainly wears her age well! The perspectives of people from other parts of the world is always interesting. I was a little sad that they'll be heading off to Mykonos together and we won't be joining them. Simon's going to drag Kim out dancing.
A 20-min or so walk to the port, and a 8:30am ferry departure for Samos.
Kusadasi really is a large party town, running an efficient operation of lodging, feeding, and entertaining the many, many tourists. It's quite evident -- I don't think I've seen anywhere else in Turkey (even heavily touristed Istanbul's Sultanahmet area) advertising "full Irish breakfast" or "full continental breakfast".
Those boats are huge! Not ours. Ours was the dinky little one in front of the big boats.
Upon reaching Samos port, we head to one of the travel agencies I've heard of (right at the port) to ask and buy tickets for the ferry to Santorini for tomorrow. We have a small hope that maybe the info we received in Turkey was wrong and there really are ferries for today.
The guy at the travel agency is really nice and informative, giving us his opinions and advice in addition to answering the questions we ask. Supposedly better than the TI. According to him, if we go to the TI, we will get maybe five minutes of their time, not more. When we first arrived, he was assisting two girls in making a plan to reach Mykonos. When we ask about things to do Samos, he first tells us about the things we can reach via public bus. Then he suggests perhaps the four of us renting a car together so that we'll get to explore more of the island (the bus only goes to very few places). He also calls a hotel near the port for all four of us. It turns out to be one of the hotels I called yesterday, but I didn't book a room because I called back too late (past 10:30pm), but I didn't tell him that.
The hotel guy, who turns out to be the owner, comes to pick us up from the port. We check out the room and it looks fine, so we take it. 25 euros a night, with a 'seaview'. It's actually 5 euros cheaper than he'd quoted me on the phone, but we kept that piece of info to ourselves. ^-^
Since all 4 of us are staying at the same place, we decide to check out the car rental prices. It's Simon, from Brazil, and Kim, from Korea. They'd just met each other on the ferry. The rental price for the rest of the day is 25 euros plus whatever gas costs to fill it back up to its starting level (we filled 10 euro, but 5-7 euro probably would have been enough). Simon's the only who can drive manual, so she's the driver ^-^
Our first stop is a little town called Vourliotes up and up some winding roads off the main road. We had yummy late lunch in a little taverna there (our 1st meal in Greece!). We all shared a large appetizer platter and then K and I also shared a yummy eggplant dish. Simon and Kim shared an omelet, but this omelet had spaghetti in it! K said it reminded him of okonomiyaki from Hiroshima, not the taste, just the fact that it had noodles. Next time I make an omelet for myself, I'm going to stick yummy noodles in it. And at the end of our meal, we were surprised with baklava on the house ^-^
Post-lunch, we tried to find the great views, but noticed the views driving up were nicer, so we headed back down and stopped somewhere along the way. Driving down, we saw several people on scooters. I think it would be scary for me! Well, I've yet to go on a scooter, though I did supposedly ride with my parents on their motorcycle when we first immigrated to the States. But these roads were very curvy and many times with no guardrail on the cliff-side.
Samos is supposedly the 'greenest' island; all the others are rocky.
Next was Potami. A hike in to three small waterfalls. Now, this is more like the kind of hike I prefer... tree cover all the way, no bugs, along a stream. But it ended up missing something -- a goal. Yes, there were the three waterfalls, which I was really looking forward to, but when we got to the end of path, no waterfall. You have to walk in the water (and maybe swim) to actually *see* the waterfalls! >_< Actually, the guy at the travel agency said something to the effect of 'swimming to the waterfalls' but we thought he was joking and that there was a path as well. Oops! Other stops... Ag Konstantinos and Kokkari. At Kokkari, there were a bunch of bamboo umbrellas. Simon laughed at my fascination with them, "There's tons of them in Brazil!" It's all a matter of perspective based on where you've been and what you've seen. It wasn't so long ago that I first traveled to Cali and I remember being dazzled by all the palm trees (just like D&R earlier this year when they visited). Now, whenever I see a palm tree, it doesn't strike any such chord.
We returned the car a little before 8 and then had dinner in Samos town. Since we all were still quite not hungry, we just ordered some small dishes.
Visiting Samos with Simon and Kim was a nice detour from our usual 'run around just ourselves'. Kim's already more than six months into her travels (previously visiting Thailand, Nepal, India, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon) and still another four months to go. After the islands, Simon's heading back to Istanbul to fly back to Brazil (regular two weeks vacation for her ^_~). Kim was our age but I was quite surprised to find out that Simon has two adult daughters; she certainly wears her age well! The perspectives of people from other parts of the world is always interesting. I was a little sad that they'll be heading off to Mykonos together and we won't be joining them. Simon's going to drag Kim out dancing.
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