Santorini

Santorini has quite a reputation.  Everyone I knew who'd been had gushed about how friggin gorgeous it was, so I expected to find it a little overrated. But the island is all it's cracked up to be-  it's friggin gorgeous, and undoubtedly my favourite place I've been in Greece thus far.

What sets Santorini apart is its unusual setting atop cliffs, which makes for spectacular views of the Aegean. The buildings are exactly those you see in postcards and calendars of Greece - white houses, blue, domed roofs, etc. Funnily enough, I haven't come across this architectural style anywhere else in the country. So if that's the Greece you're lookin for, go to Santorini.
A little history:

Originally and still officially, the island is called Thira, (Θήρα). It got its later name, Santorini, from the Latin Empire in the thirteenth century, as a reference to Saint Irene.

In the Bronze Age, roughly between 3000 to 1580 BC, a Minoan settlement thrived on the Southern part of the island. At the time, Thira was a single island, whose inhabitants lived in sophisticated, 3 story houses with advanced drainage systems. They had a dual pipe system, which suggests the use of hot and cold water (the hot water probably heated by the nearby volcano), and toilets. Their elaborate fine art (mostly wall paintings) indicates that they were probably quite wealthy. The settlement's architecture, piping system and the city's layout match up nicely with Plato's description of Atlantis, the mythical lost city. As does the fast, furious destruction of the city by the eruption of the island's volcano:


Plato says in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias (360 BC), that after a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune."

The eruption occured at some point during the second millenium BCE, although scientists and archeologists are unsure of the exact date. It completely whiped out the settlement there, although the ruins of the ancient town (known today as Akrotiri) were well preserved by the lava, and are often compared to the ruins at Pompeii. Until 2005 (when the canopy over the ruins collapsed and killed a tourist), you could go see the remains of the city. Apparently the canopy is being fixed and the site will reopen soon.

Anyways. The volcano erupted. I'm a little unclear on exactly how the geology goes after this, but from what I can glean online, here's what happened post-eruption: the peak point of the volcano could not sustain the weight from the explosion, so it sank down. Over time, water moved into this deep crater portion of the volcano, forming a lagoon, and the parts of the island that were not submerged became the  "caldera", or cauldron.

Today, Santorini looks from above like a backwards C, whose massive cliffs surround the lagoon on 3 sides. On the fourth side, the much smaller island Therasia separates the 12 by 7 km lagoon from the sea. In the center of the lagoon is the volcano, which we visited by boat. The lagoon (400 m deep) also merges with the sea in at two points, so ferries can easily come in and out of the lagoon to drop off the thousands of tourists who journey to this far-away gem of an island. From cafes atop the cliffs, you can see the boats come in and out, leaving white trails in the blue behind them. All the harbors are situated in the lagoon, not on the outer perimeter of the island, where the land slopes gradually away from the interior cliffs.
I went with Robyn and Whitney. Two of Robyn's friends from DC also joined us, and it was great to have some new blood around. We stayed near Fira, the capital, which perches on top of a cliff at the center of the inverted C. On Thursday night, we went out in Fira, where there are three or four bars that everyone in the town seems to gather at. There were a surprising number of tourists in Santorini, considerin it was only mid-May. I'm really glad we went sooner rather than later, as I imagine it's crawling with tourists by now.
We began our first full day (Friday), with a hearty American breakfast of Ommelettes and toast at "Jerry's" breakfast joint. (We returned to Jerry's on Saturday and Sunday, as well). After breakfast, we rented ATVs and drove around the island. About a mile into the trip, we realized that Whitney's helmet wouldn't stay on her head, Robyn was missing a left mirror (she probably should've noticed that earlier), Sandra's brakes were kinda broken, and my ATV only went 28 k/hour. And the ATV's didn't reverse, so we had to get off and pull them to turn around. Clearly the man at the rental service was awfully concerned about our safety.

We stopped for a midday "snack" at a shoddy looking beachside taverna, which ended up having someof the best Middle-Eastern/Lebanese food I've ever tasted.

Lebanese Food

We returned to our hotel around 6:30, showered and "napped," but then suddenly it was 9:30 pm and we called it a night.

On Saturday, we did the volcano boat excursion. It's a little silly. You go to the volcano and hike a kilometre up to see a tiny hole in the ground, from which thermal, sulphuric air emerges. Everyone goes crazy to get their hands up next to it. And you gotta be careful, because you never know when the volcano's gonna blow - it erupted in 1950!


After the volcano, the boat takes you to the "hot springs" - you jump in the freezing cold water and swim to a rust-coloured, muddy, lukewarm area near the interior. Your bathing suit gets stained brown. It's kindof a strange tourist attraction. I liked seeing goats amble down the hill to observe the humans splashing in the mud, and hearing everyone yell "Fuck its cold!!" in English, French, German, Greek, and Chinese as we swam back out into the cold to be hoisted onto back up to the boat.

After the "hot" springs, we spent some time on the beach of the detached part of Santorini, known as Therasia, before the boat brought us to Oia (top of the Caldera) for the famous sunset. Oia is 300 m up, and you can either walk or take a donkey. We walked, but almost got knocked off the hill by the donkey stampede a few times.






Before sunset, we went to grab a drink at this rooftop bar. Pretty incredible view:



View from the Bar



Ditzy, Delicious Drinks

The sunset is hilarious. Tourists pack onto the Northern slope at Oia like its a movie theatre. As soon as the sun goes down, they file out - show's over. It is a lovely view of the sunset, but if anything on Santorini is overrated, I'd say this is it. But certainly still worth seeing.

That night, we ventured back to Fira for another night on the town. At "Murphys" we met some rather entertaining Australians who had just quit their catering jobs and were travelling in Greece for the next three months. They planned to move to Ios the following Monday, and find some kind of work there. Is it just me, or do most Australians just surf, drink, travel, and find work where they end up?


At lunch on our last day, our kinda-creepy waiter told us he was going to charge us double for our meal because all of us had refused to dance with him the night before. (He had been trying to grope Whitney all night). Although I'm going to miss Greece, I can't say I'll miss the lecherous old men.


On the flight back to Athens, I got to watch the sun set, twice - once while we were down South by Santorini, and then as the plane went North and caught up with the sun, again over the mountains surrounding Athens. Not a bad way to wrap up the trip. :)



 



Oia



Santorini Screaming Match

Parents Part 2 - Crete

When travelling around a Greek island, the hotel shouldn't be the best thing about the trip. There's so much culture and history to see, and the natural landscape is so beautiful, you'd want to get out and explore it, right? Well, sortof. Truth be told, the highlights of our Crete trip - and lowlights, I suppose - were the hotels we stayed in.

Crete, as the largest of the Greek islands, spans 260 km East to West, and 60 km North to South, thus its sheer vastness is what led us to stay in more than one hotel. The first hotel was paradise, the second was so abominable that it deserves its own post (and will get its own post soon). The third, to which we fled from the second, was such a welcome refuge from the second that it could've been a homeless shelter and we'd've loved it.

Crete is incredibly mountainess. From the airport in Iraklion, we could see snowcapped peaks in the distance. The landscape provides a sharp contrast with that of Corfu, because it's so much drier. As we drove towards our hotel, we could almost constantly smell smoke and see it rising up through the mountains, because Cretans burn their trash. Flocks of sheep and small packs of goats lined the sides of the highways.

Kinda Looks like Maine

Sheep

Crete's natural landscape is spectacular. The rugged coastline reminded me of Maine, and I was grateful for that. But to really experience the interior of the island's natural landscape, you need to know your way around. And you need to be comfortable driving in Crete, which is a whole other ballgame, even when compared with driving in Athens. Cretan drivers are freakin insane. During my time in Athens, though I've consistently noted how recklessly Greeks drive, I have witnessed a total of two car accidents. In my four days on Crete, I witnessed three. In Chania, a car backed straight into another parked car, leaving a visible dent, and drove screeching away.

We wanted to drive up to the "Lasithi Plateau," a high plateau which apparently affords extraordinary views of numerous windmills and the surrounding mountains. So up the narrow, winding road we went, a road with no signs, no lanes, and no stopping any Greek driver coming down the mountain at 80 mph from blindly slamming his car right into our own. We made it about 1/5th of the way up and then decided to cut our losses and turn around. Just not worth it.

Mountains!

We wanted to go to the Samaria Gorge, but didn't realize that you could only get there by bus. Of course we missed the bus, which departed at 8 am, and it was raining cats and dogs anyways, so.

600,000 people live on Crete. Approximately 42% of them live in the island's main cities. In my humble opinion, Crete's main cities are not very nice. Iraklion and Aghios Nikhios, on the Eastern side of the island, were tacky, touristy, and unkept. Chania, on the Western side, has a reputation for being a quaint sea-side town. It was cute enough, but packed with tourists and tourist junk. In my eyes, it didn't shine a light to Corfu Town. Even Kritsa, a small village with a reputation as a "traditional example of Crete," was a disapointment. It consisted of little more than a few hilltop streets lined with old Greek women selling lace and men selling the traditional Cretan black riding boots. I think my father put it well when he said of the Cretans: "They're not taking advantage of their advantages." This is arguably one of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet, and yet the towns are so unfortunate looking.

Chania

During these first two days, what excited me most about Crete was our beautiful hotel. The hotel was very modern, and reminded me of why travelling with parents is a good thing - because they'll pay for you not to stay in a shitty youth hostel! The people at the hotel were incredibly friendly. Through speaking to them I realized that Crete has its own specific dialect of Greek, and a very unique accent, different from the Athenians. The food was delicious, I had my own room and my own pool, and a free massage that left me "greased up" and smelling like heaven. This place was paradise.

Night view from Room

Crete was the center of Europe's first advanced civilization, the Minoan civilization of the Bronze Age (2700-1420 BC). The Minoans wrote in Linear A (still undeciphered). Minoan history is the source for the legend of King Minos and the Minotaur. Every year, Minos, the son of Europa and Zeus, chose 7 young boys and 7 young girls to go hang out with the Minotaur in the labrynth. By hang out, I mean wander aimlessly around the labrynth and try to avoid getting eaten by the half-man-half-bull Minotaur. Unfortunately, until Theseus came along with a ball of string to guide him through the maze and slayed the minotaur, the kiddies always got eaten.


We went to visit Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archelogical site, which was "probably" the political center of Minoan civilization. I'm sure it was once a wonderful maze of living spaces, storage spaces, workrooms, etc, but now, it isn't all that impressive. The extensive restoration by archeologist Arthur Evans lends a strange and slightly cheesy air to the site, because the restored parts include many too-colourful wall paintings that look really out of place next to the actual ancient ruins. If I were an archeologist doing restorations, I would try to imagine how what I was restoring would look today, after thousands of years, not as it did in it's original form, because when you put "as it looked then" next to "as it looks now" you get a very odd result. All in all, Knossos doesn't come close to comparison with the resplendent Acropolis.

Minoan civilization is often thought to have collapsed due to the volcano at Thira (Santorini), but this is up for debate.

The best part of Knossos - Peacocks

On our last day we went to the beach. It was a nice beach, but be forewarned if you're ever thinking of travelling to Greek islands - if you want a real "island" experience, come in the summer. Crete, even as the southernmost island, is not warm in late April. It was windy and particularly freezing that day, and there was no chance I was going in the water.

Parting words: While in Crete, my father, impressed with my Greek, told me, "You should consider joining the foreign service." If you know me at all, you'll understand why this is funny.

Paska in Corfu

Corfu  (Κέρκυρα in Greek, pronounced Kerkyra) is the northernmost and second largest of the Ionian islands, a group of seven islands in the Ionian sea, off of Greece's west coast. The island's name comes from mythology - Poseidon fell in love with the beautiful river nymph Korkyra, abducted her and brought her to this island.

I'm still not sure why it's called "Corfu" in English. This is something that's been baffling me all year - why do we change the names of places for our own languages? A name is a name is a name. For example: Greece, in Greek, is called "Hellada." Wouldn't it make sense for every other country in the world to just call it Hellada, too?

Anyways. Corfu was the beginning of a nine day Greece extravaganza with my parents.

The flight up the coast of Greece over the Ionians was one of the most pleasant flights I've been on - also one of the shortest, at 45 minutes. I was surprised to see how large the island was - as we flew in, it seemed to stretch on forever - (from top to bottom it's around 200 km). 

While waiting for a cab outside of the small airport, my parents got their first taste of Greek melodrama - a cab driver and what seemed to be a paying customer (a man dressed in a fancy beige suit and polished black shoes) had a full on screaming match. They just wouldn't stop yelling at each other, for about 7 minutes straight, ignoring everyone in the taxi lineup. "Then Boro!" the cabby kept yelling. ("I can't!") Other than this, I couldn't make out much of what he was saying, as it was all coming way too fast and furious. Finally he told us to get into his car.

"What was that all about?" my mother inquired. "Oh, that's just my boss," he responded in a very British accent. When asked where he learned to speak English, he responded. "London. Too many English girlfriends."


He drove us through winding streets, full of colourful houses with ornate shutters that looked much more Italian than Greek. Corfu was long controlled by Venice, and you can certainly see the Venetian influence in the architecture near the main town. At one intersection, he pointed to ruins on both left and right of the car - "There, byzantine, there roman," he said. And then he brought us to the wrong hotel.

My mother had been to Greece once before, when she was in her twenties - she and a friend got stuck on Milos for an entire week because they were given wrong directions about which ferry to take and the ferry to Milos only came once weekly. My father had never been to Greece. He has this incredibly annoying tendency of treating all languages other than English as one language, and responding in a strange hybrid of French, Spanish, and Italian to any language that he does not understand. So there was plenty of "si si"ing and "grazi" on this trip. I tried to teach him a few Greek words, like thank you, "effaristo," but he kept saying "effaristimo." At least I was able to teach him the one Greek word to replace his all time favourite word, WANKER - malaka. That one, he could remember.

On our first night, on our way into Corfu town, my father tried to speak his Franglospantalian to the cab driver. I told the cab driver in Greek that my father was crazy. "Ohee," he responded. "Eisa treli, yiati milas Helenika!" - YOU're crazy, because you speak Greek. Very encouraging.

Hangin out the windows to see the celebration

I chose to bring my parents to Corfu because it is THE place to be for easter, and I wanted them to see a bit of Greek tradition. Tens of thousands of people flock to the island for the occasion, wherein different philharmonic bands play (the island has the highest population of musicians of anywhere in Greece), terra cotta pots are thrown from windows, and fireworks light up the sky.

Spit roasted Lamb - traditional Easter dish

Corfu Town looks much more like Rome than anywhere I'd been in Greece thus far. The buildings are grand and ornate, but the town is small enough that it's not overwhelming. We had two lovely (minus the mayaritsa, a traditional soup made of lamb innards) dinners in the outdoor light of Corfu town amidst the Easter celebration.




Because the island is so large, we rented a car. About 5 km down the road we realized there was NO gas in the car, so we almost had a close call in the middle of Corfu town, but luckily were able to get to a gas station in time. I'm really glad we rented a car, because there's a lot to see - the geography of the island is pretty striking. Corfu recieves a pretty heavy rainfall, so it's much more lush than the islands in the Aegean, and doesn't look anything like the rest of Greece that I've seen. As we drove up the North side of the island along the Eastern coast, we could see Albania, which is only about 2 miles away.



At one point we stopped to get out and figure out where we were going and were met by a very friendly, if a little odd, British couple in their mid-sixties. The man, tall, thin and tan with white hair, was smacking away on an ice cream on a stick. "Lost, ah you?" His ginger haired wife flashed us a yellow, crooked toothed grin.  "No, no, just trying to figure out where's best to go... what do you recommend?"  The man finished his ice cream, came over to take a look at the map, and used the stick of the ice cream to point out the best route. I couldn't help looking more at the chocolate and saliva covered stick, rather than the map, as he pointed here and there along the coast and up into the mountains of Corfu. "Don't wanna go up there," he told us, dragging the stick over an area on the northernmost part of the island. "Bit like Blackpool. Not your cup o tea, I'd say."

Mom's fish "soup"

We had a very nice lunch at a little beachside taverna, probably the only place on the island that was open. My mother ordered fish soup, but was told there wasn't any. They recommended something else that was supposedly "similar," and she agreed. Instead she was brought an entire fish carcass covered in brown sauce. At first we were all repulsed, but she found it fresh and tasty.

View from Lunch Table

We drove to a few beaches and little inlets, where the water was crystal clear and turquoise. I went in for a swim, but the water was almost as cold as it is in Maine - really biting. We got lost in the woods, among olive groves, on some seriously winding and narrow roads, and in some little hilltop towns. The driving was pretty hectic and the roads are not very well marked at all. The other towns, aside from Corfu town, were not very well kept, and were pretty tacky from what we could see, which was a bit disappointing. But the landscape made up for it.

My parents were generally pretty impressed with how friendly the Greeks were. After getting lost innumerable times our first day, my Dad was fiending for a beer, so we stopped by a little roadside restaurant to grab something. The owner told us he was closed.. "But come in! I give you something to drink." We ordered a few beers. He introduced himself as Evangelis, and told us all about the island. When we tried to pay, he refused to let us. All he wanted to do was just have a nice chat with some tourists. It was so kind of him.

That's something I've found with Greeks - they generally ARE very very nice, one on one. It's just when it comes to things such as driving, where they're incredibly aggressive, or lines (which they have no concept of), that they can seem rather abrasive. But Greek hospitality is no myth.