Month: September 2007

Today we went to the little village of Margarites and the city of Chania. Both are over on the western side of the island, so there was some driving involved. Butler wanted to hike a gorge over there, but it would take too long to drive there, hike it, and then come back. So they decided that we’d spend one night over in Chania. On the way there, we stopped in at a village called Margarites. I think the guide said that there are only 301 people living there, but they make a tremendous amount of ceramics there with a special kind of clay. The ceramics didn’t do much for me, but Butler really enjoys that type of stuff. I occupied myself by wandering around and enjoying the place.

We eventually ended up in Chania, wow. We all agree that this is the place that we should have stayed, not Herakaion. This place is beautiful, and out hotel (the Amphora) is amazing. This is probably the nicest room I have ever stayed in from a “charm” point of view. I have a balcony that overlooks the old harbor, a loft, and a great view! Check out the pictures… Anyway, there are a gazillion shops and restaurants around here. I’ll do some looking around tomorrow before we go and pick up Butler. Pictures should be up, but I don’t have enough time left on the wireles to put tags on them, I’ll do that later. Tomorrow will be our last day in Crete, and sadly it will be mostly in the car and in Herakaion. The day after we fly back to Athens. Dad and Butler leave that same day, I stick around for one more before I go. This trip has gone by too fast!

I knew that Greece was more “open” to things like nudity and sexuality than the US, and I knew that coming from Yemen, it might be a bit of a shock. I was not prepared for just how open they are. When I was in Athens, there were several “Greek Women” calendars that featured totally naked women on the covers. It wasn’t bad, they weren’t in any sort of sexual situation, just perfect bodies out at the beach. When we got to Crete, things were a bit different. There’s a newsstand right in front of the hotel that sells magazines. In addition to the usual Playboy and Hustler (the European versions with lots O’ nudity on the covers) there were a bunch of much “harder” magazines as well. We’re talking full penetration, right on the cover, right out front.

I was shocked on several levels. There’s the obvious, I find it odd that that kind of graphicness doesn’t faze anyone. I’m also shocked that those sorts of magazines are still being made. I would have thought that the dirty magazine would have gone the way of the adult theater. The internet has made it incredibly easy to have access to pornography. That has obvious downsides, but a not so obvious upside is that it takes that material and puts it people’s bedrooms directly without the need for a shop or newsstand. I wonder why people who want that sort of thing still buy magazines?

I remember a shop that I used to go to when I was in college. It was in Johnson city and I’d drive down from Ithaca on occasion to look for LPs and singles. All he sold was records (not cds, records) and old girly magazines. It was a great place to go to score quality jazz and classical LPs. His usual clientele seemed to be after “Frampton Comes Alive,” Styx’s “Paradise Theatre.” anything by Rush, and maybe a couple old copies of Penthouse forum. I went back there a couple of years ago and sure enough, it was gone. He just couldn’t compete with the internet…

We had been seeing many restaurants advertising “toast” on their boards outside. We thought that was a rather strange thing to advertise. Today I found out that it meant toasted sandwiches. That makes more sense…

There are innumerable roadside shrines here. They don’t look like much, just a white box on a pole with a small cross on top. There is usually a door with a small window in it on there and through it you can see what is inside, usually an icon and some candles. I don’t know what the significance of these things are, or who sets them up and maintains them. You can see many Orthodox priests around, all of them in long robes. I have yet to see one without a full beard.

Will add more as I think of stuff…

I’ve got new pictures up, you know the drill by now. Click the “recent” button on the right (under “My pictures”) for the first 12 or so, click on “The rest of them” for, well, the rest of them. I’m going to try to take more pictures of this place, the last couple of days we have been in the car and there never seems to be a good place to stop…

Today was a really good day. Our first stop was Knossos, the site of the Minoan palace and supposedly where the minoutaur, Icarus, etc. took place. It is a place with amazing history and legends. My short version, don’t bother going there. Damn near everything you can see is rebuilt, and everything that is taller than about 3 feet tall is rebuilt. Basically we, and several thousand of out closest friends, walked around a place filled with half walls made of concrete where the Minoan palace was. It’s true that the palace had impressive dimensions, but that’s about all you get from the current site. It is crawling with busloads of tourists, so unless you obsess over Mioan stuff, you can find better things to see on the island.

Zaros for example. Zaros is a tiny little village about midway north/south and south of Herakaion. We went there on a whim, were were going to try to find some more ruins (hopefully not so “restored” and crawling with tourists) but we got diverted to look for food. We ate at a little taverna in Zaros. The food was OK, the sights were amazing. First of all, there is just some great scenery there. Big (for Crete) mountains, lush valleys, etc. Butler took a look at her guide book and found out that there was a monastery nearby that was supposed to have some amazing stuff. We found a little pond up by one of the peaks, and there was a path along the back of it and then along the face of the mountain. The guidebook and the signs on the trail said that it was .9k to the monastery, but they lied. It was about .9 to a sign saying that the pond was .9 back down the trail… Just a little further we came to it. The monastery looks pretty new, we found this out from a trekker coming back down the trail, it seemed to put her off since she didn’t even go look, her loss.

We were greeted at the main entrance by a large monk in a rather interesting robe. It was dirty, and had obviously been patched in many places. He didn’t speak much English at all, when we asked about seeing the icons, he offered us some schnapps (no really, he did!). We thanked him but declined, we were really hot and dry, that alcohol would have hit us pretty hard… We eventually made it known that we wanted to see the icons, etc. and he went over to a box and pulled out 3 skirts for us. We were all wearing shorts, so we had to cover up before he would let us in. They were billowy white things, I bet that they were initiate’s skirts…

He then pulled out a key and unlocked a door not in the monastery, but in the building next door. It housed the most beautiful icons have seen yet. They were haunting. In the best tradition of Byzantine icons, the halos gleamed and glowed in the dim light. It was quite an effect. The icons of Mary and Jesus were particularly moving, and the large one of St. George right by the door was also quite striking. While Butler and I were gazing at these icons, I noticed my father lighting a candle with the monk back in the entranceway. WTF? My dad is not particularly religious, and I’m certain that he hasn’t the first clue about Eastern Orthodoxy. It made more sense later on… Butler and I came back up to the entranceway and figured that we were done. It was quite a show, but we wondered where the really early frescos and icons were that the guidebook talked about. As we were about to leave, the monk stopped us, pulled an enormous key out of his pocket, and unlocked another door just past the entryway. We hadn’t even noticed it, we figured that it was probably a closet or something. Well, that’s where the old stuff was. There were remnants of frescos from the 14th century(!) there along with some really old icons. The frescos were not in good shape, but it was still awe inspiring to see them at all, let alone so close.

After we had gotten our fill, we filed back out of the room. Butler and I immediately put some money into the collection box. The monk saw this and insisted that we take a beeswax candle, light it, and put it in a holder in front of the icon of St. George. Aha! So that’s what dad was up to. Anyway, we thanked him, gave back our skirts, and hiked back down to the pond. There we sipped strawberry ice thingyies until we cooled down. The scenery was amazing on the way back, the villages were really cute, and we saw about 6 other tourists the entire time. A day to remember for sure. It makes me wonder how many other places there are like this on this island…

We arrived in Crete 2 days ago and were taken to our hotel in Herakaion. It’s in the middle of the night life area and we were a bit worried about the bustle surrounding the place, but things have worked out. The first day here we mostly walked around the town and we saw the local archeology museum. Our second day consisted of renting a car and driving all over the west side of the island. We saw several nice beach cities along the Cretan sea, and not much of anything along the Libyan Sea. The highlight of the day had to be going to a monastery in the middle of nowhere. They had quite a nice museum, the icons were incredible. Some of them were also very old. If you walk around Greece enough, you’ll see a bunch of tourist icons. You might even see “church stores” where you can buy actual, new icons. The ones in the museums and monasteries are really in a different class, seek them out.

We got a shock when we got back to the hotel, the whole city square (which our hotel is on) was going crazy. Flags waving, fireworks, air horns, news crews, and lots and lots of people. It turns out that they had a country wide election that day, and the headquarters of the party that came out ahead was right next to our hotel… Cars and motorcycles were driving all over the place with Greek flags fluttering and horns blowing, it was quite a scene. We eventually fell asleep, the festivities seemed to die out around midnight or so.

That second day was spent in the car mostly. We saw some really nice scenery, but there was never a good place to pull over. Besides, I still wasn’t feeling 100%, the day is a big blur for me… I’m trying to put some pictures up..

Well, I’m still sick. The really weird thing is that I don’t feel bad, I just… um, need to stay close to a bathroom. So I’ve been hanging out at the hotel while dad and Butler make the most of the trip. I feel bad for them spending all this money just so that I can hang out at the hotel… Looks like I’ll miss the Parthanon, but we are going to Crete tomorrow. With any luck I’ll recover by tomorrow and I can start to enjoy this place! My internet time is drawing to a close, so I’m not sure when I’ll be posting and/or emailing again. Well, off to Crete, wish me luck!

So my stomach problem got worse the next couple of days. The second day, I didn’t feel up to going to the Acropolis. I stayed in bed and took some Imodium. I felt well enough when they got back and we went out into the local neighborhood. It’s really lovely here, the weather is perfect, there are tons of cafes and shops, and everyone seems really friendly. I scoped out some potential gifts for people, and then we came home.

Today was the worst. I stayed in my room until 6PM. I had my first food around 7PM. So far, so good, but I didn’t get to do a damn thing! Tomorrow will be my last decent day to go see the Acropolis before we head to Crete. I am feeling better right now, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to do everything I want tomorrow, wish me luck!