After heading out from Antiparos, we took the ferry to Naxos. Naxos is known for a number of different things, but I’m sure one of the only things that will stick in my mind about Naxos for years to come is the story of Ariadne. Oh you don’t remember Ariadne? I am being to suspect that I am the only person whose entire grade school education was made up of Greek myths. Theseus ventured to Knossos to slay the Minotaur, the half bull/half man monster that lived in the labyrinth there (and was the child of the Queen- yuck). Ariadne, the king’s daughter, gave him a ball of twine, which he dropped on the floor as he went, and which he used to find his way out after slaying the Minotaur. Ariadne was probably thinking to herself, “Awesome, now I don’t have the monster in my basement that keeps eating all of those kids, AND I get a hot man out of the deal.” Theseus, the bastard, took her away from Knossos, but abandoned her on Naxos. Worry not for poor Ariadne though, she ended up marrying Dionysus, the god of wine and merriment, so I suspect that she didn’t complain that much. If this tale intrigues you, wait until later entries where we visit Knossos and Athens and the story continues.
Anyways, Naxos turned out to be a different adventure altogether. We set out in search of our hotel when we got there. In contrast to earlier lodgings, we had a map to get there, and it actually led us in the right direction. We, however, are either incredibly confused about metric measurements, or these hotel proprietors have no sense of distance, because it took us at least 15 minutes to reach our hotel on foot when their website promised that it was located “300 meters away.” This turned into a running joke on our trip as everything was “300 meters away.” Looking for the beach? 300 meters away! The summit of that mountain? 300 meters! That island in the distance? A mere 300 meter swim! We eventually got there, and our hotel manager looked a little annoyed with us which was inexplicable because we were the one who hiked 2 miles uphill to get to his property. “You were supposed to get here at 2 PM. I was going to come pick you up at 2 PM.” Hot, sweaty, smelling worse than the donkey that Darden would ride later on in our trip I was annoyed that he was annoyed by our earliness. An air conditioned room and a shower quietly undid my resentment.
We continued onto our exploration of the city. Naxos Town has labyrinth streets, allegedly to protect residents from the frequent pirate attacks that used to infest the city. Nowadays, they serve to bewilder tourists and create quiet walkways to stroll on. We headed to the Kastro. This was a section of the city that used to be inhabited by Venetians who came to the city and that still contains crumbling Venetian mansions, a Catholic church and an old school, among other things. There was a water microbiology conference going on there at the time we went. I found it to be a neat place to attend a conference, though you probably lost at least half of the attendees as they tried to find it.
Darden headed back to the hotel for a bit, and Leah and I wandered around before we got hungry and ate a waffle. Actually, I just wanted to have a place to sit in the shade, and the waffle restaurant, entitled “Waffle House” was enticing as was the smell of waffle drifting into the street. We sat next to an elderly gentleman who had enjoyed a waffle then fallen asleep in his chair. The waiter got a kick out of this; at first, he stood around the corner and took pictures on his cell phone- when he saw that I had noticed him, we both shared a laugh. Later, he got bolder and stood out in the open and used an actual camera to take pictures of him. Apparently, this was the most fun he had had in years. I should mention that this waffle eating came an hour before we ate dinner. But I attribute this more to the fact that I was boiling and wanting shade and less to the fact that I was seduced by the smell of waffles. Me? Choosing to eat a waffle covered with whipped cream, and hazelnut ice cream before dinner? Why on earth would I choose to do something so decadent in regards to food?
The next day, Darden really wanted to have a use for her running shoes and track shorts, so she and Leah decided to go on a hike. Me, feeling less sporty, went for a walk to the beach. Now there are some nice beaches in Naxos. But none quite equipped to take me and my vampire like skin- one hour in the sun would have required more sunscreen than I had. So I went in search of a shady place, which, in Greece, is like looking for a holy man at a midnight, Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras parade. I finally found a spot, but only obtained it by stalking the young Greek girls who sat there, and pouncing as soon as they left. I settled myself under a tree, and lay on the slimy, wet, flat rock next to a tidal pool. It was actually quite heavenly until a dude who looked like a German hustler decided to seek the shade of the tree and perched above me and spoke angry German into his phone for an hour, all the while staring at me like I was a mermaid. I finally left, but only after finishing the terrible book that I was reading.
Now here’s a pain that I felt acutely while in Greece- lack of good reading materials. I brought two books and one magazine with me to Greece, and they were finished within my first two days there. The rest of my trip, I was left to the mercy of the hostel/hotel bookshelves.
For those of you who have wondered about the reading level of the average European traveler, look no further than the hostel bookshelf! On this noble shelf you will probably find about sixty magazines, 90% of them in German and approximately ten years old, the rest in a mix of English and French, boasting such tantalizing titles as “Caterer and Hotelier Weekly” (which is about as boring as you can imagine, and makes you wonder about the person who carried this ALL THE WAY from the UK). The books you find will mostly be in German as well. The books in English will fit into one of three categories:
A. Travel books about Europe/the place you are visiting (mostly Lonely Planet, Let’s Go, and free travel books you get from airports and travel agencies)
B. The drama books such as Sci-fi books where every other word on the jacket is made up and specific to that book, or true crime novels where a girl goes to work as a babysitter in Iowa only to find out that THE ENTIRE FAMILY ARE BLOODTHIRSTY CANNIBALS!!
You think I exaggerate here for comedic effect, but if you were visiting Santorini or Antiparos last week, you would find these selections gracing their shelves. The third selection of books to choose from are no less frightening than selection B and will probably make you wish that you read a AAA travel book instead. The books that I ended up reading were from answer choice C:
C. Trashy British romance novels
Now, this in and of itself is not a bad genre. “Bridget Jones,” for example, was delightful. And considering that the Americans didn’t seem to be leaving any books, I suppose I should be grateful for the books left. But NO. Just NO. It is not possible to be grateful for these books. One of the books that I read from this glorious shelf, in particular, still makes me want to weep for the downfall of the English language (and the fact that this book was a bestseller). In this book, the girl is just SO SICK OF her irresponsible boyfriend. She dumps him, and while going home her boyfriend meets a fairy! Who loves him! And wants his baby! And the girlfriend realizes how controlling she’s been and she wins him back! But only after the fairy has to go back to her land through the portal at Stonehenge! And she gets her fairy baby in the end and the boyfriend and the girlfriend reconcile! And I can only use exclamation points because that’s how awesome this book was! And these are the books that British women seem to be transporting around Europe and leaving in hostels for desperate girls like me to find. Anyways, long segue later, this was the book that I finished on my slimy rock in Naxos, and which I had to replace later in my trip.
No pictures today, because I have a slow and unreliable internet connection, but soon, I hope. The next entry will be about Santorini.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Paros and Antiparos, Greece
After leaving Mykonos, we finally reached Paros, where we had hoped to be two days earlier. But as Mykonos turned out to be lovely, none of us did a lot of complaining about our late arrival.
Originally, we had planned to spend a night in Paros, though since we were behind schedule by the time we reached it, we skipped our day there and headed straight to Antiparos. Antiparos is “unspoilt” as was quoted to me twice by my guidebook, and my good friend Kathy, a Greek-Australian (interestingly, if you have been following my blog from the very beginning, I originally met Kathy on my first trip to Europe and we still stay in touch- I will even be seeing her in America in a few months). To get to Antiparos, you must take the ferry to Paros, then hop on a bus to a small “city” at the end of Paros. I use the work city loosely, because as far as I could tell, the bus pulled up to a ferry, and that was all there was of the city. Anyways, this ferry was the best deal we got during all of our time in Greece- it was a car ferry, but it carried passengers, and only cost 0.60 cents for a 6 minute trip. On the way back we swam the distance with our luggage to save the money- just kidding. But we could have.
To your left, you’ll see the rare lone picture of me without the benefit of any pretty scenery in the background. You’ll have to trust me when I say that this was on the ferry ride over. I actually had a nicer picture, but this dude tourist insisted on standing at the front of the ferry and enjoying the view and the breeze and subsequently ruining my glorious and inspired photo.
Antiparos is what you would call a family island (ironic, when I explain our events later in the day). There were some tourists, mostly families, not many single tourists. In general, there weren’t many tourists there. I imagine during high season there are more. Again, we benefitted from travelling in the low season. The hotel we stayed in there was one of the nicest in town, and it was only 60 euros per night. It also had a lovely porch on the front where we sat and watched people go by. In general, a car came by every five minutes or so, and most of the time people strolled in the street or rode bicycles.
We enquired from our hotel manager as to a good beach to head to. He replied, “Well there’s one to the right- close, but touristy. There’s one farther to the left, past the campgrounds, that’s nicer- I prefer to go to that beach.” So we headed that way. Getting there, Darden and Leah informed me that apparently he had something else that I had missed- “They wear less clothes there.” Turns out, it was a nudist beach. We set up camp on the periphery of this beach. There was a volleyball net set up- for nudist volleyball, I guess. There was also an older gentleman flying a kite, wearing a shirt, but nothing on the bottom. We tried our best to concentrate firmly on our books, and do a little swimming. Before we left, we chatted with a nice older British man, who had searched for the beach by walking along the entire shore of the island. He too didn’t seem to have been informed that it was a nudist beach. Just because it was asked of me when I told this story, most of the people on this beach were older- 40+, deeply tanned, not in the best shape.
After this adventure, we went shopping. Darden bought earrings from a Danish man who had moved to Antiparos years ago. He informed us that Tom Hanks and Madonna had both bought land on the island. I don’t doubt that fact, but I was more skeptical about his claim that Tom Hanks was coming back “next week.”
The next morning we had to leave, sadly, though we left with a delicious breakfast (included with our hotel stay). We were seated, and the hotel manager kept bringing us food- all told, we received a loaf of bread, butter, coffee cake, boiled eggs, yogurt with honey, orange juice and coffee. Leaving, I had time to reflect on our trip there on the 6 minute boat ride back to Paros. Antiparos was a lovely island, very relaxing, not the place for partying or museum hopping, good for a quiet day of sitting and watching the locals and tourists stroll by, good for shopping and a little eating, and perfect for some nudist beach tanning.
In the next instllment, you’ll hear about our trip to Naxos and Santorini.
Originally, we had planned to spend a night in Paros, though since we were behind schedule by the time we reached it, we skipped our day there and headed straight to Antiparos. Antiparos is “unspoilt” as was quoted to me twice by my guidebook, and my good friend Kathy, a Greek-Australian (interestingly, if you have been following my blog from the very beginning, I originally met Kathy on my first trip to Europe and we still stay in touch- I will even be seeing her in America in a few months). To get to Antiparos, you must take the ferry to Paros, then hop on a bus to a small “city” at the end of Paros. I use the work city loosely, because as far as I could tell, the bus pulled up to a ferry, and that was all there was of the city. Anyways, this ferry was the best deal we got during all of our time in Greece- it was a car ferry, but it carried passengers, and only cost 0.60 cents for a 6 minute trip. On the way back we swam the distance with our luggage to save the money- just kidding. But we could have.
To your left, you’ll see the rare lone picture of me without the benefit of any pretty scenery in the background. You’ll have to trust me when I say that this was on the ferry ride over. I actually had a nicer picture, but this dude tourist insisted on standing at the front of the ferry and enjoying the view and the breeze and subsequently ruining my glorious and inspired photo.
Antiparos is what you would call a family island (ironic, when I explain our events later in the day). There were some tourists, mostly families, not many single tourists. In general, there weren’t many tourists there. I imagine during high season there are more. Again, we benefitted from travelling in the low season. The hotel we stayed in there was one of the nicest in town, and it was only 60 euros per night. It also had a lovely porch on the front where we sat and watched people go by. In general, a car came by every five minutes or so, and most of the time people strolled in the street or rode bicycles.
We enquired from our hotel manager as to a good beach to head to. He replied, “Well there’s one to the right- close, but touristy. There’s one farther to the left, past the campgrounds, that’s nicer- I prefer to go to that beach.” So we headed that way. Getting there, Darden and Leah informed me that apparently he had something else that I had missed- “They wear less clothes there.” Turns out, it was a nudist beach. We set up camp on the periphery of this beach. There was a volleyball net set up- for nudist volleyball, I guess. There was also an older gentleman flying a kite, wearing a shirt, but nothing on the bottom. We tried our best to concentrate firmly on our books, and do a little swimming. Before we left, we chatted with a nice older British man, who had searched for the beach by walking along the entire shore of the island. He too didn’t seem to have been informed that it was a nudist beach. Just because it was asked of me when I told this story, most of the people on this beach were older- 40+, deeply tanned, not in the best shape.
After this adventure, we went shopping. Darden bought earrings from a Danish man who had moved to Antiparos years ago. He informed us that Tom Hanks and Madonna had both bought land on the island. I don’t doubt that fact, but I was more skeptical about his claim that Tom Hanks was coming back “next week.”
The next morning we had to leave, sadly, though we left with a delicious breakfast (included with our hotel stay). We were seated, and the hotel manager kept bringing us food- all told, we received a loaf of bread, butter, coffee cake, boiled eggs, yogurt with honey, orange juice and coffee. Leaving, I had time to reflect on our trip there on the 6 minute boat ride back to Paros. Antiparos was a lovely island, very relaxing, not the place for partying or museum hopping, good for a quiet day of sitting and watching the locals and tourists stroll by, good for shopping and a little eating, and perfect for some nudist beach tanning.
In the next instllment, you’ll hear about our trip to Naxos and Santorini.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Mamma Mia!!! Or, an introduction to Greece, Pireaus, Syros and Mykonos
Hello folks!
Well it's been a while since my last great adventure, so welcome back!
My latest trip took me to the great land of Pericles, Theseus, the Minotaur, gyros, Doric columns, Zorba the Greek, and of course, the musical Mamma Mia! I headed to Greece for two weeks with my two friends, Leah and Darden. You might remember Leah from my last postings on our trip to Canada last year. Darden is another old friend, dating from our middle school days. Together the three of us packed backpacks approximately 2 times our body weights with industrial size strength sunscreens and took our 15 hour trip there.
The plane rides were surprisingly non miserable. We all sat apart from one another on the longest plane ride. Darden did some nice detective work and ended up with three seats on the way there which she then stretched out on and went to sleep. Leah, gaining sympathy from fellow travellers for being a seemingly alone minor, spent her time drinking the only can of Fresca or Coke Zero that was available in the drink cart. And I shared the empty middle seat next to me with a nice Greek gentleman where we stored all of our stuff.
Arriving in Athens and finding the airport bus was very easy. What was not as easy or pleasant was the 1.5 hour bus trip to the port city of Pireaus, where we were to take a ferry to Paros. The bus had no air conditioning, and all of the other people on the bus didn't seem to mind at all, to the extent that they didn't even open the windows. When the lone open window imparted a breeze, it was so smog ridden that I wished that it was closed. By the end of the trip I felt motion sick and miserable.
Luckily, we finally ended up in Pireaus. This is a fairly unremarkable and unfun city, asides for the fact that it was one of the only places in Greece where we found lamb gyros, to Darden's infinite excitement, and ongoing frustration, as she enquired for lamb gyros at every other place we visited, always to be disappointed. Apparently, this is an American thing. There are pork and chicken gyros almost everywhere, at the cost of only two euros (about $2.70) or so, though after eating approximately 100 on this trip, I think I'm done with gyros for a while.
We were to take a ferry late that afternoon to Paros, where we were to spend the night. The ferry trip was long-about 5 hours or so. We waited to board the ship in a ferry passenger terminal. We were all tired, and Leah and I ended up falling asleep waiting. We were awaken by a Greek man yelling, "Come on, go, go, go, here, I'll take your bag, one euro, go, go, go!" at us; a very rude awakening. We rushed on the ferry (two hours early, but the earliest we could board), and ended up with sweet bench seats (most of the economy seats on these ferry are simply chairs around tables on the deck). We ended up sleeping for most of this trip.
When we woke, we had reached our first island. Darden exclaimed, "Oh, great! We're here early!" We grabbed our bags and headed off the ferry and in search of our pension. After wandering for 15 minutes or so, we still hadn't found it and asked a local woman for directions. She kept looking at our map and finally said, "This map is for Paros. This is not Paros," whereupon, we all looked at each other and back at her. After repeating something similar multiple times (and looking at us as if we were well fed American morons) we finally realized that no, we were not in Paros where we had hoped to sleep, but instead, we had absconded the ferry too early, and had ended up in Syros, an island with, undoubtedly, many pleasant characteristics, but not the one that we were hoping for which was being Paros. We wandered back to the main street, and approached a man who was hawking rooms. He led us to his wife who, after a hike up a veritable mountain, finally brought us to their pension room where we all fell into a deep sleep (well, where I did at least, I believe Darden and Leah ended up with bug bites the next morning and had reason to curse this pension. I was ok).
The next morning we headed to the ferry office where we bought a ferry ticket to Mykonos. We had never planned to go to Mykonos, but the next boat to Paros from Syros was two days later and, as Syros is not really a touristy island and had not much to recommend itself for another day there, we headed to Mykonos. To our credit, the ferry office employee told us that there were a number of tourists who had accidently disembarked in Syros the night before so at least we weren't the only ones. For this reason alone, I'm sure the pension owners earn a tidy sum in Syros.
Mykonos turned out to be lovely, and one of our favorite islands. We had originally decided not to go because it was a party island that was very expensive, but as June is the low season, it was not overrun with tourists and the prices were lower. We accepted an offer (and a ride) from a hotel propietor at the port, and the hotel ended up being one of our favorites. The beautiful pictures above and below are of our hotel.
The island itself is quite lovely. The guidebooks refer to the houses here as being "sugarcubes" and they do resemble them. Cubic, white houses, with blue or red doors and windows.
There are also a number of windmills on the island, seemingly not in service anymore (though on Crete, later in the trip, I saw new, metal windmills running and generating wind energy). 
There are also flat, solar panels on the top of most of the roofs here. I saw these in Moorea; they are used to heat water. I've never seen these in use in America, though I'm sure they are somewhere, maybe someone can enlighten me?
I'll finish my post on Mykonos with a little info about Petros, one of Mykonos's most famous residents. Petros arrived in the 1950's, blown in during a storm. He quickly took up residence and was taken care of by the residents. Now, the original Petros is probably dead, but there are 2-3 Petros' still in residence. Petros is a three foot tall pink pelican. He turned up on the waterfront during dinnertime and a swarm of tourists (including me) surrounded him and took pictures while he waddled along.
More posts to come in the upcoming weeks. I am heading to New Orleans tomorrow to visit family, but I will update with the rest of my trip soon. Upcoming: Paros and Antiparos!
Well it's been a while since my last great adventure, so welcome back!
My latest trip took me to the great land of Pericles, Theseus, the Minotaur, gyros, Doric columns, Zorba the Greek, and of course, the musical Mamma Mia! I headed to Greece for two weeks with my two friends, Leah and Darden. You might remember Leah from my last postings on our trip to Canada last year. Darden is another old friend, dating from our middle school days. Together the three of us packed backpacks approximately 2 times our body weights with industrial size strength sunscreens and took our 15 hour trip there.
The plane rides were surprisingly non miserable. We all sat apart from one another on the longest plane ride. Darden did some nice detective work and ended up with three seats on the way there which she then stretched out on and went to sleep. Leah, gaining sympathy from fellow travellers for being a seemingly alone minor, spent her time drinking the only can of Fresca or Coke Zero that was available in the drink cart. And I shared the empty middle seat next to me with a nice Greek gentleman where we stored all of our stuff.
Arriving in Athens and finding the airport bus was very easy. What was not as easy or pleasant was the 1.5 hour bus trip to the port city of Pireaus, where we were to take a ferry to Paros. The bus had no air conditioning, and all of the other people on the bus didn't seem to mind at all, to the extent that they didn't even open the windows. When the lone open window imparted a breeze, it was so smog ridden that I wished that it was closed. By the end of the trip I felt motion sick and miserable.
Luckily, we finally ended up in Pireaus. This is a fairly unremarkable and unfun city, asides for the fact that it was one of the only places in Greece where we found lamb gyros, to Darden's infinite excitement, and ongoing frustration, as she enquired for lamb gyros at every other place we visited, always to be disappointed. Apparently, this is an American thing. There are pork and chicken gyros almost everywhere, at the cost of only two euros (about $2.70) or so, though after eating approximately 100 on this trip, I think I'm done with gyros for a while.
We were to take a ferry late that afternoon to Paros, where we were to spend the night. The ferry trip was long-about 5 hours or so. We waited to board the ship in a ferry passenger terminal. We were all tired, and Leah and I ended up falling asleep waiting. We were awaken by a Greek man yelling, "Come on, go, go, go, here, I'll take your bag, one euro, go, go, go!" at us; a very rude awakening. We rushed on the ferry (two hours early, but the earliest we could board), and ended up with sweet bench seats (most of the economy seats on these ferry are simply chairs around tables on the deck). We ended up sleeping for most of this trip.
When we woke, we had reached our first island. Darden exclaimed, "Oh, great! We're here early!" We grabbed our bags and headed off the ferry and in search of our pension. After wandering for 15 minutes or so, we still hadn't found it and asked a local woman for directions. She kept looking at our map and finally said, "This map is for Paros. This is not Paros," whereupon, we all looked at each other and back at her. After repeating something similar multiple times (and looking at us as if we were well fed American morons) we finally realized that no, we were not in Paros where we had hoped to sleep, but instead, we had absconded the ferry too early, and had ended up in Syros, an island with, undoubtedly, many pleasant characteristics, but not the one that we were hoping for which was being Paros. We wandered back to the main street, and approached a man who was hawking rooms. He led us to his wife who, after a hike up a veritable mountain, finally brought us to their pension room where we all fell into a deep sleep (well, where I did at least, I believe Darden and Leah ended up with bug bites the next morning and had reason to curse this pension. I was ok).
The next morning we headed to the ferry office where we bought a ferry ticket to Mykonos. We had never planned to go to Mykonos, but the next boat to Paros from Syros was two days later and, as Syros is not really a touristy island and had not much to recommend itself for another day there, we headed to Mykonos. To our credit, the ferry office employee told us that there were a number of tourists who had accidently disembarked in Syros the night before so at least we weren't the only ones. For this reason alone, I'm sure the pension owners earn a tidy sum in Syros.
Mykonos turned out to be lovely, and one of our favorite islands. We had originally decided not to go because it was a party island that was very expensive, but as June is the low season, it was not overrun with tourists and the prices were lower. We accepted an offer (and a ride) from a hotel propietor at the port, and the hotel ended up being one of our favorites. The beautiful pictures above and below are of our hotel.
The island itself is quite lovely. The guidebooks refer to the houses here as being "sugarcubes" and they do resemble them. Cubic, white houses, with blue or red doors and windows.
There are also a number of windmills on the island, seemingly not in service anymore (though on Crete, later in the trip, I saw new, metal windmills running and generating wind energy). 
There are also flat, solar panels on the top of most of the roofs here. I saw these in Moorea; they are used to heat water. I've never seen these in use in America, though I'm sure they are somewhere, maybe someone can enlighten me?
I'll finish my post on Mykonos with a little info about Petros, one of Mykonos's most famous residents. Petros arrived in the 1950's, blown in during a storm. He quickly took up residence and was taken care of by the residents. Now, the original Petros is probably dead, but there are 2-3 Petros' still in residence. Petros is a three foot tall pink pelican. He turned up on the waterfront during dinnertime and a swarm of tourists (including me) surrounded him and took pictures while he waddled along.
More posts to come in the upcoming weeks. I am heading to New Orleans tomorrow to visit family, but I will update with the rest of my trip soon. Upcoming: Paros and Antiparos!
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