Thursday to Saturday, 24-26 June 2021 Eretria, Greece and Flying Home

 

Courtyard of Hotel

Thursday and Friday were similar. A walk from 6:30 to 7:30,

 babysitting from 9 to 1. 

The nursery was much quieter. Then free time which I spent swimming in the Aegean Sea, then more babysitting. Then either another walk or more swimming.  The weather has been perfect. No rain at all and reasonably cool temps until this week when it has been in the high 90s, perfect for swimming. 

My plane left 6:15 AM on Saturday--the taxi picked me up at 2:30 AM in order to make the flight-- from Athens and had a 7 hour layover in Paris.  I  landed in Detroit at 6:15 PM although my suitcase had an extra day in Paris. 

On the whole, it was a very fun trip.  I enjoyed traveling by myself and would do it again. Traveling right after things opened up after covid meant that I had considerably fewer crowds to deal with especially in Turkey. 

Wednesday, 23 June 2021: Athens

Wednesday was much more interesting.  We had a choice of 2 excursions, Athens or Corinth. I chose Athens. The weather was super hot, 97 degrees and humid. First we climbed up the acropolis

Acropolis from below

Concert Hall in Acropolis

 and saw the Erechteion Temple  which was dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon--supposedly Athena and Poseidon were vying to become patron/patroness of the city. The Athenians chose Athena who offered olive trees over Poseidon who offered salt water. There is also a piece dedicated to an early king.

   

What is left of five of the six original statues is in the Archeological Museum. They take great pains to point out that the sixth is in the British Museum but really out to be back in Athens.

and the Parthenon.  The Turks used the Parthenon to store artillery, and in 1687 the Venetians either accidentally or purposefully lobbed a cannonball in which set off the artillery and caused a significant chunk of the roof to blow out. Earthquakes and age caused more damage.  There was some restoration going on, but there was no indication how much would be restored.

I walked right past Mars Hill (Acts 17) but didn't realize where it was, so I will have to see it next time. I separated from my group after that and went through the acropolis museum which had a lot of interesting artifacts and videos. The things I found most interesting:

A reproduction of the Parthenon portico frescoes based on a sketch from the late 1800s, what is left of the frescoes pieced together like a jigsaw missing a lot of pieces, 

and an extensive dig underneath the entire Museum which can be seen from above through a glass floor and then accessed below.

I saw miscellaneous other ruins, bought a t-shirt and had mango Gelato before rejoining my group and returning to the hotel.  

 We had a praise service on the beach then my roommate and I went snorkeling.  We saw some sponges, some fish and some rocks.  Not too exciting but something to do. It was close to 100 F so swimming felt great.

Saturday toTuesday 19-22 June 2021

 0n Saturday morning, I flew from Crete to Athens where I met most of the workers for the conference I am helping at as well as many of the participants. Almost everyone  had arrived by Sunday evening. Since Sunday was a free day until late afternoon,  my roommate and I took a taxi to the nearest town, Eretria. It was Pentecost,  so we listened to part of a Greek Orthodox service.

 Then we walked around town to an island connected by a bridge

  There was an abandoned resort on the island with a tower at the edge.  Most of the buildings had been painted in interesting ways.

 We also walked past a lot of ruins, the temple of Apollo, a gymnasium,  and the ruins of a Hellenistic bath.

 We saw a lot of beehives near the gymnasium.

  We walked a little over 5 miles before we took a taxi back. 

Sunday and Monday mornings before breakfast we took a walk on the vicinity of the hotel. We found an interesting farm with goats and enough barking dogs to wake the entire neighborhood. And we found a fun way to get back to our hotel by walking along the water which started with us walking on rocks in the water and ended with us wading through the water.

The conference appears to be going well. I'm in the nursery, age 3 and under.  Many of these kids haven't been in a nursery in the past year and a half or longer. They don't know any of the helpers. The first session was rough, but they are already doing better. 

 Tuesday was much the same as Monday.  We went for a walk before breakfast,  babysat from 9 to 1, swam and snorkeled in the afternoon, babysat again for a couple of hours in the evening,  then ate dinner and went to bed.

Friday, 18 June 2021: Chania Venetian Harbor

 Today was an easier day. I walked around Chania. When the Crusaders captured the Byzantine Empire in the 1200s, they sold Crete to Venice.  The Venetians built a fortress as part of the harbor which encompasses quite a large area. Many of the walls are completely intact; most are still there in some form. Houses and other buildings have been built right against it, using it as the back wall.  I found a Byzantine museum, a Byzanatine wall, and a very cool vegan restaurant named Pulse.  At the restaurant I was able to practice my German with a fellow guest. 

Byzantine Walls

Venetian

5.1 miles walking today

Thursday, 17 June 2021: Samaria Gorge: The Longest Gorge in Europe

Today I hiked the Samaria Gorge,  the longest gorge in Europe, a level 3 of 5 hike in difficulty. It was about 10 miles of mostly downhill (the gorge itself is only eight miles long, but there were a lot of switchbacks),  a lot of rocks, some sketchy bridges, and even some walking across rocks in the water. I took a bus to the start of the gorge, walked for more than 6 hours--I went very slowly and carefully on account of my foot. At 5:30 I caught a boat back along the coast and went from there by bus back to Chania and my hotel.

The boats all leave at the same time: 5:30PM, so there is plenty of time to get to the bottom of the gorge.  I think the best advice I received was to wait at the top until all the others hikers rush past, then you can have the gorge to yourself. 

Google maps did not distinguish between the first bus ride and walking, nor between the ferry and the second bus ride.

Wednesday, 16 June 2021: Crete--Spinalonga Island, Miletas Cave, Minoan Ruins

 Last night's sleep on the boat was great! No changing tracks noises and bumps like a train berth  and no wild swinging like the hairpins turns the bus did in the mountains of Peru. Just a gentle vibration. I was up early enough to enjoy the sunrise.

I disembarked at 6:30 AM and after  renting a car,

 I drive east to Plaka and took a boat to Spinalonga Island. Spinalonga has a Venetian fortress completed in 1579, so strong that the island remained under Venetian occupation for several years after the Ottoman Empire conquered the rest of Crete,  After the Turks were evicted in 1904, all the lepers in Greece were sent there. That lasted  until 1957 after a cure had been found. Most of them were released.  The book _The Island _ by Victoria Heslop is based on the leper colony. Interestingly, Spinalonga Island was the most crowded tourist attraction of all the places I went.

Map of Venetian Harbor in Spinalonga

Next stop was Milatos Cave.  Many people had hidden there during the Ottoman invasion. The Turks had promised to allow them to leave , but forgot their promise when they were starved out.  It has a chapel in the middle in memory of this. There were no lights in the cave and parts of it had very low ceiling. There were very few visitors, but enough to feel comfortable there.

After that I went to two minoan palaces,  Malia and Knossos. They were mostly just the bare remains, but they would have been similar to  Topkapi or Forbidden City,  a huge sprawling place.  Someone attempted to recreate some of the buildings a hundred or so years ago at Knossos.  It did make it more interesting,  but the excavator appeared to exercise a great deal of imagination. 

I also drove to a place called fairy caves but decided against a hike since I was the only person there.

After that I returned my car and took a bus to Chania, about  3 hours west. My hotel, Alena Apartments, is a 1 minute walk north of the bus station.  Great location, not the most elegant, but extremely functional with a kitchen, a clothes drying rack over the balcony and a massage chair. I would stay there again. 

119 miles car, 74 miles bus, 1.7 miles ferry (to Spinalonga--not sure why Google didn't include the ferry from the mainland or all the walking I did.