Lest we forget. . . those five days in Crete

Our travels in Greece have been a doorway into history for us.  Not just to the ancient civilizations but also into much more recent history. So, on this Memorial Day we remember the many lives, both military and civilian, sacrificed here during World War II. 

In particular, we remember those final  five days of The Battle of Crete - May 28 - June 1, 1941- when thousands of Allied troops evacuated to Alexandria on British and Australian war ships from the harbor at Chora Sfakia, on Crete's southwestern shore, while others*, primarily New Zealand troops, held off the Germans.  The Suda Bay War Cemetery, near Chania, on Crete's northern shores should be a required stop for all visitors to this island.

New Zealand, Australian and Greek troops made their way to Chora Sfakia while other Allied troops ambushed the advancing German troops.  The road they walked ended three kilometers and 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) above the harbor town, leaving them to make their way down the steep hillsides.  British and Australian warships evacuated 11,000 - 18,000* men  before the Germans overtook the Australian rear gear, capturing 5,000 - 12,000*.
     *Vary by source.

While we Americans have set aside Memorial Day as a time to remember those who have fought for the freedoms we enjoy, in Crete such remembrances are part of every day life. We found memorials along busy roadways, tucked away in remote areas and often the centerpiece of town squares.  While we couldn't decipher much of the Greek inscriptions we understood the date: 1941.

In Chora Sfakia, the unassuming little harbor town, that has won our hearts, a new memorial has been erected overlooking the harbor that tells the story of the evacuations that took place here. . . "lest we forget."

A Novel Destination: "The Writer is Here Now. . ."

A high point of our travels is seeking out  'novel destinations'; those places that come to life for us as result of some fictional story set in some faraway place that peaks our curiosity enough to go there. Such was the case last year in Crete with Zorba's beach in Zorba, the Greek and Spinalonga in The Island. 

This time it was Crete that led us to new novels. . .or, I should  say, to the writer of those novels.

It was during a lazy afternoon stroll along Loutro's waterfront promenade -- a walkway that bi-sects the restaurants ringing its crescent-shaped harbor -- that we noticed the poster at Taverna Pavlos announcing a series of books 'now for sale on Amazon.com.'  As we paused to read it, Pavlos (Paul) the owner, called out to us, "The writer is here now," nodding toward the rooms above the cafe. "He will be here tonight at dinner." 
And it was after dinner that night that we met British novelist Bill Kitson and his wife, Val.  Bill, a retired executive from the world of finance, who keeps you laughing or groaning with his rapid-fire one-liners, writes about murders; murders solved by the character he has created, Mike Nash.  Three books are published and more are on the way.

We continued our laugh-filled conversation the following evening, again at Taverna Pavlos, over after-dinner glasses of raki. Raki is Crete's rather strong beverage sipped in small amounts following a meal. Pavlos has a friend who distills the stuff and bottles it for the restaurant - look close and you'll see the label features Pavlos.

Upon learning we were from the Seattle area, Bill told us his second novel, Chosen, opens with a fictitious article from The Seattle Times that provides the plot's hook.  No, he's never been to Seattle, but he loved the movie, "Sleepless in Seattle."  We've stayed in touch with the Kitson's since we met and we plan to start reading Bill's books upon our return home. . .for those who want to take a look at them, I've added them to the Amazon carousel on the right-hand side of our blog's home page.

Saints be Praised!

Here they are not only praised, they are worshipped and celebrated.  Tourist publications list Saint Days and the festivals that mark them in villages and monasteries throughout the island.  Road signs direct you to chapels and monasteries ranging in size from the smallest of structures to large sprawling complexes.  What has struck us is the numbers of them we have found open - even in the most remote locations and no signs of vandalism. 

The small chapel for Saint Paul below is perched on a slight incline near the highway in the middle of grain fields at the southern tip of the island. 

We were the only ones there on Sunday morning and found the door to the chapel open and a candle already had been lit.

Today we walked the Stations of the Cross - something usually done in our town of Kirkland on the Friday before Easter - here it can be done as often as you want at Moni Agias Ypsenis (Monastery of Our Lady) just outside the town of Lardos on the eastern coast.

The Stations lead to a large cross on the hilltop that overlooks the Monastery complex; home to about 12 monks we were told.

Lindian Village Luxury

We are baskinng in the lap of luxury on the southeastern coast of Rhodes.  We are settled in at Lindian Village, a member of the marketing group, Leading Hotels of the World; certainly not a place we would normally be staying but in keeping with our 'find the deals' approach to travel, Joel happened upon a deal while researching hotels a few days ago.

Actually, Lonely Planet  travel guide had listed it as the author's choice, noting 'if you could afford it.'  This season we can.  I should note here that tourism is down; way down according to the folks we have talked to along the way.  The economic turmoil, protests that it generated and then Iceland's volcano are all being listed as contributing factors to the downturn in tourism.

We nabbed a Mediterranian room for the rate of 105E per night -- 50% of the normal rate -- about 130USD, with the current rate of exchange.  We were greeted with a welcome drink, driven by golf cart to our villa room and then pampered with a welcome bottle of wine, water and fruit plate.  The rate includes a full buffet breakfast with champagne each day (and the buffet rivals that of some of the best cruise ships we have been on).  The beach is like out of a movie. 

The resort is offering a 50% off rate through the end of June - if you found yourself in this part of the world, we would highly recommend taking advantage of the deal being offered.

Medieval contemplation and exploration

"You'll either like Rhodes or you will love it," is the opening line from Lonely Planet's guidebook section on this Dodecanese island. A more appropriate opening may never have been written. . .from the books we had read (travel guides and novels) we thought we would like Rhodes, and now on our fourth day within the walls of the medieval city we are pretty smitten with this place.  It isn't every day you get off a ferry and head to your hotel through a gate such as this one; the Marina Gate.

We are back in the land of mass tourism though, unlike our travels in southern Crete where we often were among much smaller numbers of tourists.  Here they arrive by the thousands on a variety of cruise ships.  We counted seven such ships in the harbor outside this gate two days ago and yesterday only the mammoth Celebrity Equinox brought hordes of day-trippers to the town.  The cruise ships these days reach far higher han the fortress walls.

During the day it isn't unusual to be greeted with the question, "You from the cruise ship?" so we try to focus our explorations away from the heart of the tourist trek lined with hopeful vendors.

But by late afternoon the tour groups have loaded into their buses or have ambled back to their cruise ships and the streets and alleyways empty and call out for contemplation and exploration

Rockin' and rollin' our way to Rhodes

Although we kept extending our stay in Symi for 'just another day' we realized that if we were to get to Rhodes it was time to say goodbye to our new friends and finds and set sail.  Our ship for this trip was the fast-boat Dodekanisos which normally would have whisked us across the 24 kilometers of Agean Sea in an hour.  But we did have a bit of stormy weather -- some said it was the red-dust-blowing Siroco winds from Africa and others said it had changed to the northern winds -- that rocked and rolled our boat like a swing.  They finally dropped the speed a bit but because of our early departure from Symi  we found ourselves at the gates of the medieval city by 9 a.m. Tuesday.

We announced our arrival in this old town as we rattled and clattered our bags through the labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets and alleyways until we happened upon Niki's Hotel where we are now 'at home' in a room that opens on to a garden terrace, up so high that a lemon tree drooping with fruit provides a backdrop to the view.

This 2,500 year Old Town of Rhodes is the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe -- once home to 30,000 some residents it now has 5,000 living within he walls.  We quite literally cross a moat and enter the town through one of its 13 gates to 'get home' after one of our excursions.

The old town is surrounded now by a new town which provides an itneresting juxtaposition:  we can walk one direction and be in a palace  inhabited by the Knights of St. John for some 200 years after their arrival in 1309 or we can walk a few blocks outside the walls and sip a Starbucks coffee. 

The waters that surround Rhodes have got to be some of the most spectacular we've seen; the colors of the sea simply dazzle.

Symi Days

Symi has provided not only spectacular 'in town' walks but some out into the countryside as well. And it seems the town father's or the tourist organization has worked extremely hard to make such explorations a most comfortable experience -- even though the routes can take you up and down from dizzying heights.  One of our favorite destinations was 'around the corner' a couple miles from where we were staying.  We had the option of walking on the dirt/paved roadway or going through town and linking up with the trail pictured above.  Our  little neighboring hamlet is called Nimborios - there we found  a scatterin of  spectacular private homes, a few rental studio apartnements and  a single taverna. . .who needs more in this setting?

 

 The trail was a flat surface all the way; rather steep and they don't use handrails or guardrails around here. . .so you can't let those drop-dead vistas let you lose concentration for too long, but with views like the one below it was hard not to be distracted.

Sunday Dinner in Symi

Our dinner is waiting for us back at our apartment. . .thanks to Fotini (foe-tee-NEE), the woman from whom we are renting and also our next-door-neighbor.  As we have settled into life on this magnificent harbor we realize everyone knows 'our' Fotini. . .we are asked where we are staying and we show the official businness card and the response is, "You stay at Fotini's."

We consider our stay here one of our best - thanks to Fotini making us feel a part of her family.  She and her husband do live next door, her daughter and grand-child and husband are above us and we speculate that a fellow just down the road might be related as well.

Fotini and her husband, we think, are about our ages - and constantly on the go.  They come and go by small boat as we do at home by car.  But when Fotini is home, she cooks and when she cooks, she shares.  Our first day in the studio I was 'preparing' lunch:  opening a package of sliced cheese to have with a sliced tomato and bread when I heard Joel chatting with Fotini.  She had brought us a little something for lunch: shrimp risotto, complete with a lemon to squeeze. (I sliced the tomato):

                         Since that first feast Fotini has provided a plate of pastries for my morning coffee and two days ago she brought us a plate of baklava from her sister-in-law in Turkey.  But back to tonight's dinner:  yesterday while she and her husband were gone, his brother brought them a large fireshly caught fish. . .we said we'd keep it in our place until they came home.  I took it over to them this morning and we headed out for a walk.  When we got home, we found our dinner waiting for us - a wonderful pot of fish stew (we had some for lunch) and cake.

As we have said before, travel is about places, but it is also about people. . .and Fotini is one of our all-time travel highlights.

On the road in Symi

Fellow blogger, Adriana Schum, who introduced us to this lovely island through her blog (listed on our blog log) reports that the weather here is above normal and that visitors and cats are looking for shade.  She's correct.  The temperature is 30C - read that, hot!  (We are not complaining -- just making note of it.)

We rented a car yesterday to explore this tiny island which has one primary road and several others that aren't quite the size of roads as we know them in the US but they took us to spectacular locations all the same. First trick was threading our way past the centuries old buildings that line the harbor. . .you time it so that you don't meet the island's one bus coming the opposite direction or you are the one to back up on these narrow stretches.

Then we were up, way up among the pine tries. . .in all fairness many stretches of the roadway did have guardrails. . .and others like this, didn't.  I will show you where this road took us. . .in tomorrow's post, but as Adriana so aptly said, I am heading out now for shade or air conditioning!

Settled in on Symi

We are pretty much settled in on Symi, the rocky, dry island in the Dodecanese chain of Greek islands that ring the south western coast of Turkey.  We are only six miles from the Turkish peninsula, Datco.  And we have set up a sort of housekeeping in a studio apartment in the middle of the group of three buildings shown in the photo above.

If you've ever dreamt of sailing the Greek islands this is the place to be as we have a steady stream of boat traffic just outside our door. . .fishing boats so tiny that you wonder how they stay afloat, multi-million dollar
private yachts, charter boats the size to make you gasp and of course the ferries.  This charter from Turkey pulled in earlier today.

We watch the parade from our deck.  Our room is a mere 50E a night. We lucked out whenwe met Fotini, the lady from whom we are renting.  More about her next time.

Cruising the Adriatic

We left Crete on Tuesday from its northeastern most port of Sitia.  We'd had a spectacular bus trip there the day before and had a few hours to explore the town after our late afternoon arrival.  We sailed Anek lines on the Priveli, a ship te size of cruise ships and complete with bars, restaurants, lounges and sun decks.  We opted for the sun deck. As you can tell, we opted for the sun deck where we spent much of the nine hours it took to travel from Sitia to Rhodes, or Rodos as it is known here.

Here Joel shows why we like ferry travel so much more than airplanes these days.

We arrived in Rhodes after seeing some beautiful islands and ports along the way that now are added to our 'next time' list including this one on the island of Karpathos:

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We changed to a smaller ferry in Rhodes and at 9 p.m., 12 hours after we had left Sitia, we arrived in our new destination the island of Symi,  More on it tomorrow. . .we are back to using internet cafes so will tease you with the photo of the harbor we entered to get to our new spot:

The Colors of the Sea

That-- the colors of the sea -- is what I told him when he said he wanted to make me a gift.  But you see the real story here is that the time I spent with Georgios Chalkoutsakis on that warm Cretan afternoon was the real gift.  'George' as we were to call him before the day was over ( we couldn't master the Greek pronunciation), is a glass bead artist. And lucky for me his home/studio was only two doors down from Poppy's,where we stayed in Kastri on Crete's southern coast.

My neighbor, a fellow tourist from Germany, had told me about George and apparently had told George about me because he was expecting me. He knew I was from America but had no idea where Seattle was located.  He spoke excellent English and told me it was self-taught by watching television - Extreme Makeover is his very favorite show and he only wishes he could tell its star, Ty, how much he likes him.

George would be described by some as 'handicapped', but I would call him gifted..  He is wheelchair bound as result of a premature birth.  His hand movement is also just a bit limited but that hasn't kept him from perfecting his art of glass bead making.

"If you have the time I will make a pearl for you," he said of the glass beads he creates. "What colors do you like?"  It was then we agreed on the colors of the sea.

After watching the bead being created and placed in the cooling sand, George and I settled in for a vist.  We talked about philosophies of life, politics, both Greek and American, the difficult and sad times he had growing up as a child who wasn't the same as normal boys, and about what my life is like.  Joel joined us sometime later and he also was treated to a pearl-making demonstration.

We returned much later - after dinner - for my gift and decided that other pearls should be added to it and a necklace made.  I became George's assistant:  I held the glue.

And it didn't take long until the artist had completed my necklace; I indeed had the colors of the sea.  The price of the finished piece a mere 20E, but ias far as I am concerned, it is priceless!

Poppy's Garden

Let me begin by saying this isn't a set up photo, this was a scene in Poppy's garden, the enchanting place we had seen last fall really was home to studio apartments for rent.  The place is owned by a woman in her 40's known appropriately it seems, as Poppy.  The gardens were a wonderland of lemon trees, jasmine covered fences, artichoke bushes, papaya trees, daisies, roses, geraniums that overflowed their pots, amaryllis plants and other edibles.

Our room was one of the nicest we have found along our travels, stocked with coffee pot, hot water pot, dishes, cookware, even flowered china tea cups and saucers.  The sheets so thick and white they could compete with any four star hotel.  Poppy also provided a basket of fresh picked peppers and tomatoes. Our cost per night: 25E just over $30!

Poppy doesn't have a website. The name of her apartments are Philoxenia, phone number 28950 51371.

On the Road to Eastern Crete

We still had much of Crete to explore so we caught a taxi - our driver is pictued above - talking on his cell phone as he takes us from Loutro to Sfakia.  It is interesting to see in these remote villages how little, if any, internet is available but cell phone are commonplace.

We followed the southern coast heading east to a beachfront spot we had driven through last fall and vowed we would return to if we got back to Crete.  While we couldn't quite remember the details, we recalled a garden, a beautiful garden that we hoped was in front of a tourist accommodation.

There is no direct route on the south coast, as the only National Road, follows the northern coast cities so to get anywhere on this side of the island we needed to head up into the hills and then back down.

It took nearly four hours to drive the 192 kilometers we traveled that day.  We wound up into canyon's as pictured above and then down onto coastal lands, eventually coming to the place we had remembered: Kastri, a strip of development on the Lybian Sea.

We were here in this small village the day our US stock market had its free fall - but the only television in the town's tavern was reporting non-stop of the riots and deaths in Athens. . .while it appeared all hell was breaking loose there our big entertainment was watching the knife-sharpener come to town and sharpen knives for the two tavernas that were open.

Aromatherapy and Athletes

"You know," I called out to Joel who was several meters above me, "travel really does make you stretch yourself, doesn't it?" Enveloped in a sun induced thyme aromatherapy, we had set out on a path leading us from Loutro Bay up among Venetian ruins.  

.  We'd taken a picnic lunch up to the stone table outside the village's church perched on a cliff. The day so clear that in the distanc we could see Gavdos Island (the history of this area goes back so far that St. Paul refers to the island as "Cauda" in Acts 27: 12-16). From the church, we followed a level footpath past the remains of a village centuries ago abandoned.

Paths are marked with blue, black and yellow paint which means something to those who hike regularly.  It was when we spotted a path marked with orange "A" that we decided to veer upwards, it appeared a gentle slope through the thyme. But the gentle path turned into a goat trail and at the point I called out to Joel I was seeking a foothold on a rock and grasp a thyme plant above me to haul/crawl in a rather unlady-like manner to the next level.

It took a bit of work, but we reached the top and had a fantastic view of Phoenix (Fenix) the next bay over.  We saluted our atheletic abilities and have decided the letter A must mean, "Athletes only."