We walked around a bit, then came back to the main square to get a taxi. The good thing is, the taxi stand is just opposite the bus stand, and all the rates are printed on a board right next to the taxi stand, so that you are pretty sure the rates are the same for everyone and you’re not being looted. It costs 12 Euros to get from Kastelli to Falassarna, and you have to call the taxi twice, once for going and once for coming back, because there are no taxis at Falassarna, so in total it cost us 24 Euros. We had to drop the idea of going to Elafonisi because it would have cost upwards of 80 Euros and we are on a budget.
One small advice to the brave who visit Greece in late March – the beaches are not tourist-oriented at this time, so eat at Kastilli before leaving for Falassarna, or carry provisions with you.
Once we got into the taxi, things finally started going right for us. It was a beautiful drive down to the beach, a beautiful sunny day touching 25 degrees and with no troublesome wind but a gentle, balmy breeze all day. Ideal conditions! The first glimpse of the Mediterranean immediately made us feel all the trouble had been worth it!!! Here it is:
For those who are historically minded, there is an archeological site near Falassarna, about 2 km walk. The road to the site is only one lane wide and not asphalted, so take your car at your own risk. We walked part of the way and spied the ruins from afar, but they looked quite eroded, so we digressed and ran to the beach instead. The beautiful blue lake was calling us!!! Almost could hear Circe sing!
We spent 3-4 hours on the sandy beach. It wasn’t strewn with sea-shells or pinkish in color, but neither was there any tar to contend with. Maybe that’s the off-season advantage. The water was a little too cold to swim in, but the sun was blazing and we went in waist-deep gradually. The waves were very strong and the coast is rocky, so we did not venture further. There was nobody in sight, and we had one of the best-rated beaches in Europe all to ourselves!!! The colors of the sea were mind-blowing, the sand was clean and good times were had by all. It was a memorable day!
One unique feature of the Cretan sea-scape is that you can see the sea on one side, and hills, even snow-topped hills in places, on the other side. The coast is mostly rocky and weaves in and out, creating gorges and lagoons that make for interesting views at almost every turn. At Falassarna, two arms of land reach out and almost hug the sea, creating a shallow lagoon. The rocky coast is wonderful for some time-pass spelunking, and we had a lot of fun climbing up and down the rocks and collecting sea-shells.
Finally, making our way back, we came upon a wooden bridge that led to a café, where we tried dakos and cheese pies. Not really our type of food, I guess, but it seemed very average to us. Dakos are a traditional Greek dish, we were told, with tomato sauce and feta cheese on a hard rye bread, with olive oil and some dried olives on the side. The tomato “sauce” wasn’t even cooked, and really just seemed like the tomatoes had been turned in a blender, poured onto the bread and served!!!
Back in Khania for dinner, we first ran to the hotel to take showers and treat our massive sun-burns with some cold-cream. Many layers of cold-cream later, we are both still bright red, itchy and slowly peeling! Hehe, but it was so worth it!!! What a lovely day!
For dinner we had chicken souvlaki and gyros in a wayside café in front of fountain in the Venezian square in the old town, near our hotel. The food was really good. Souvlaki is meat on skewers served with tzatziki, onions, tomatoes and fries. Gyro is a pita roll with bits of meat, fries, tzatziki et al stuffed inside. Yummmmmmy, definitely worth trying at least once.
A strange incident occurred while we were at dinner. A drunk guy punched a teenaged boy on the nose and lurched away, and the poor boy staggered to the fountain to wash his bleeding nose. People stood and watched, but nobody went up to him to help him!!! It was a really strange experience. The waiters in our café all stood by the roadside and made jokes and laughed, and generally seemed to think they were at a theatre watching a play than a real boy in real pain. Maybe they knew him, and knew the situation also. After a while, the boy recovered, the bleeding stopped and he disappeared into the crowd.
Tomorrow we sight-see Khania and fly to Athens in the evening. Sincerely hope and pray the pension situation is sorted out! We haven’t been able to see the news because the TV in our room isn’t working…. Ah well, economy hotel….
To sum up our experience in Crete so far, there are pros and cons to coming here in the off-season. On the pro side, it’s not at all crowded (rather, almost deserted, hehe), the weather is warm and sunny during the day and cool at night, rates are less and it’s not that touristy. On the con side, many tourist conveniences are not available, like cheap tours, direct buses, etc. And people notice you and probably think to themselves, ah, tourist season has begun early this year!!! But the people are generally really sweet, approachable, helpful, voluble and friendly! We’ve had a really good experience with whomever we’ve met so far.
DAY 3 – 22ndMarch 2008
The day started on a lazy note – there was no fixed agenda and the city market starts to wake up only around 9, so we took our time waking up and getting dressed, had a luxurious breakfast of crepes filled with white sauce, mushrooms, peppers, ham and bacon (yummmmy!!!! words cannot describe how delectable it was!), and then went off to look at the markets. On the way, the sea caught our eye, it was a stunning blue and the sun was shining!!!
The leather market off Halidon Street is especially worth visiting, and you can just continue walking on that road till you reach the main market in town. It’s a wonderful place to buy souvenirs at affordable rates. Many people remarked that we were the first of the touristy lot, and our coming was signaling the start of season to them hehe. We got many discounts also from people because of that. There is a market in Khania that is built in a cross-shaped yellow building, where you can pick up all kinds of herbs and spices, flavored honey and various kinds of olive oil. Lovely to walk through and take in the sights, even if fussy airlines do not actually allow you to carry the goodies away (check with your airlines before you buy – have heard stories of people being asked to leave edible items behind). Things are quite affordable in Crete, and we had a lovely time shopping for souvenirs for the family.
After the shopping we made our way to the lighthouse, one of the few surviving structures of any archaeological significance in Khania. We were not allowed to climb to the top, but the walk was good and got some good photo ops. After that, lunch, and then it was time to leave for Athens.
The flight was uneventful. From the airport we found there are two main ways of reaching the city centre – by metro and by bus. Metro costs 6 Euros per person, but you get a discount if you’re in a group, so for 2 of us we paid 10 Euros. You can also take a bus till the city centre, which costs 3.20 Euros. We didn’t take the bus because we would have had to take the metro from the city centre anyway to reach our hotel. We’re staying at Hotel Economy for 68 Euros a night, which is near Omonoia metro station on one side, and Ancient Agora and the Plaka region on the other. Very convenient location. Had gyros for dinner nearby, and a huge ice-cream sundae that was not easy to finish, and now back at the hotel to crash. So tired!!! Tomorrow big day – walking tour booked with Athens Walking Tours at 9:30 to see Acropolis etc, costing 29 Euros per person. We’ve found from our prior travels that it’s always worth it to have an experienced and knowledgeable guide when visiting anything of historical importance. We found out about this walking tour on the internet, and it’s one of the cheapest tours available, and highly recommended. More information can be obtained about them by mailing to this ID:
info@athenswalkingtours.gr.
DAY 4 – 23rd March 2008
The walking tour was really worth it! It’s always a good idea to take a guided tour of the city on the very first day, because it gives you a very good idea of the main attractions, and leaves you free to explore further whatever takes your fancy. We strolled along with our guide, a very nice, knowledgeable and entertaining lady, who kept pointing out areas of interest in Athens and took us all the way from Syntagma metro station to the Acropolis via the Lysicrates monument.
Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world, people have been living in this area since the dawn of civilization, and you begin to feel that right from Syntagma metro station itself. When they started digging for the metro in Athens, guess what they found? No, not buried waste, but a whole ancient city below the present-day city! This is why many of the metro stations in Athens are also museums, with parts of the ancient city on display. In Syntagma metro station are some of the walls and graves, and one grave even had a real skeleton in it just as it was found!!!!!!! That was one of the freakiest things I have ever seen – the skeleton of a real person just lying there as if it’s asleep!!! Eeeeyikes, be warned, this is not for the frail of heart.
One nice thing I noticed about Athens is that none of the archaeological sites have any entry fee. It’s a shared history, and everyone’s welcome to visit. In comparison, Rome fleeces you at every step of the way, with a hefty entry fee for everything. But well, that’s Italy for you, where you even have to pay to pee. It’s quite a nice change in Athens.
We saw the monument of Lysicrates and a Greek Orthodox church that is now a Russian Orthodox church on the way to the Acropolis. If you’re a fan of churches, you’ll go berserk in Athens, because here nearly every wealthy family had its own church, so there are countless little treasures tucked away in quiet corners and little squares and you’ll never be able to see them all. Just to give you an example, the tiny island of Mykonos alone has over 400 churches! We concentrated on the main monuments, and any tiny things we saw along the way were an added bonus. It’s impossible to see everything the city has to offer in 2 and half days.
Immediately after the monument of Lysicrates, the hill of the Acropolis starts looming larger and larger. An interesting factoid about this hill– there are several caves in the hill, and most of them are places of worship! Chapels.
No postcards ever give you an idea of what the Acropolis really is – a vast fortress built on a hill that dominates the city of Athens and can be seen for miles around whenever you look up. It should be seen with a guide, because there are many, many things you may miss that a guide can direct your attention to and tell you more about. As you start the steep climb up, you realize there’s only one way up, with sheer cliffs on all other sides. Can you imagine the strategic military advantage of such a fortress on such a cliff, commanding views for miles around? Of course, in the event that it was conquered, people had built secret tunnels leading to the mountains or the sea to escape.
The Acropolis was earlier the inner city with people living in it, but later it was turned into a place of worship and the people were moved into the outer city. Acropolis literally means city of worship.
Climbing up, you come across various ruins – the temple dedicated to Asclepios (the ancient god of medicine), the theatre of Dionysos, the odeum of Herodes, the Areopagus and various ruins of civic buildings. Of these, the theatres are really note-worthy. The odeum of Herodes is used to this day for musical performances. The Areopagus is the Mount Sinai of Athens, from where St. Paul preached Christianity to the Greek people for the first time. St. Paul is a favorite in Athens for bringing Christianity to them, and supplanting the ancient gods with the new faith. Nearly 98% of the people in Athens are Greek Orthodox, and nearly 5 million of Greece’s entire population of 11 million resides in Athens.
As you climb higher and higher, the view grows more and more spectacular. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Piraeus (the Athenian port) and the Saronic Gulf. It’s wonderful to see the ancient Agora, the temple of Olympian Zeus, the hill of Philopappou, the hill of Lycibates, the Panathanaiko Olympic stadium and countless other monuments from the clear vantage point of the Acropolis.
Along the steps you notice a smooth path running alongside, which was for horses and chariots. Finally you reach the gate of the Acropolis, called the Propylea. Right next to the Propylea is the temple dedicated to Nike Athena. The whole area is under extensive restoration, which may take 25-30 years just to complete Phase I!!! Forget about seeing the entire restored Acropolis in your lifetime – it’s a hundred year plan!
Two interesting facts about the Parthenon. When the Parthenon was being constructed, the priests felt that the corner pillars look narrower than the others, due to an optical illusion. So the four corner columns are wider than the rest, but you will probably not be able to understand that unless you are told. Another thing, the monument was earlier built with a level floor, but it kept filling up with water every time it rained, which destroyed everything it contained. And that was a serious problem because the back room of the Parthenon, behind the giant gold and ivory statue of Athena (which is now missing), functioned as a treasury in which all the wealth of Athens was stored. So, the floor was given a slight slant, so that the water that flows in immediately flows out also.
Apart from the famous Parthenon, there survive 2 more temples within the Acropolis – the Erechthion (temple dedicated to Athena and Poseidon) and the temple of Nike Athena. The Erechthion is the only monument not covered by scaffolding at the present time, and has a beautiful extension with columns in the shape of women, called the Kykladides, named after the beautiful women of the Cyclades. Take a walk around the perimeter of the Acropolis for the views and the photograph opportunities – it’s a lovely experience.
On the way back, it is recommended to turn right and walk through the ancient Agora and the Flea market all the way to the Plaka area. The ancient Agora is another stunning area, containing not only the ancient marketplace as the name suggests, but also civic offices, an arsenal, baths, gymnasia and various other buildings, including the Stoa of Attalus that dominates the scene. On the way back from the arsenal, we went off the beaten path and ended up on a secluded bench overlooking the vibrant greenery of the agora. It was so quiet and peaceful that it was hard to believe we were in the very heart of a giant, pulsing city. Hehe, maybe a little too peaceful, because my husband was asleep within minutes with his head in my lap!
After the peace and quiet of the Agora, the rush and push of the flea market was unbelievable, suffocating and extremely irritating. Millions of people wanted to occupy the few square inches you yourself wanted to plant your foot into, and bumped into you all the time. After Oslo, it was really claustrophobic, and despairing, we ran into Monastiraki metro station with a sigh of relief.
Tomorrow we plan to see Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the National Archaeological Museum and the National Gardens, and time and weather permitting, maybe climb one of the many hills to get a nice view of Athens.
Day after tomorrow is the Greek Independence Day, and we’ll be just in time to catch their parade before leaving for the airport in the afternoon. It’s worked out quite well.
DAY 5 – 24th March 2008
We started the day late, tired after yesterday’s many adventures and strenuous walk. The National Archaeological Museum opens at 1 on Mondays, and is open till 7:30 in the evening. We didn’t know earlier, but entry is free on all Sundays from October till March 31st and on the first Sunday of April – September. The entry fee is 7 Euros per person.
If you’ve seen the Louvre, you may not find this museum very large or well-stocked. There are no paintings, only sculptures and artefacts found in the various archaeological sites in Greece. Many of them are badly eroded and do not survive in a complete condition. However, there are some very interesting pieces, especially the bronze implements. Did you know that the first safety pin was invented in the 6th century B.C.? Or that women used hair pins and small mirrors with lids just like our compact cases even 2700 years ago? It’s fascinating to see how little has changed over the centuries. Some of the earrings I saw in the museum, I could walk out and buy in the flea market just now! It was fascinating!
Some of the sculptures found on various grave monuments are also fascinating, with the dead person depicted as talking to family members or doing some everyday normal activity as though nothing has happened, but with the family members registering expressions of grief at the loss of the loved one. Many of these are in really good condition, and you can see the detail in the work. A couple of bronze statues really took my fancy – the statue of Zeus/ Poseidon and the statue of a jockey on a horse. Zeus has hazel eyes made of paste and glass that are so real you really think a person is hiding inside the statue ready to leap out at you! The jockey really takes your breath away – a little traumatized boy barely holding onto a huge horse going full-pelt in a mad spring. The pain and worry on the boy’s face are really remarkably well-captured.
After a while though, you start longing for the sun, and we almost ran through the last rooms. From the museum we made our way to the Arch of Hadrian and the temple of Olympian Zeus. The arch separates the ancient Greek and Roman parts of Athens, with an inscription on the Greek side saying here resides the emperor and the people of Greece, and an inscription on the Roman side saying here reside the people of Hadrian. The temple of Zeus is one of the largest in the ancient world, but nothing survives apart from a few columns from one corner. Artistic renditions of the complete structure as it once was take your breath away, but today there’s not much to see unless you’re a student of architecture.
From the Arch we made our way to Zapion Exhibition and Congress Hall. Legend has it that Zapion once competed with the King of Greece for the piece of land on which the Queen wanted to build her garden. No points for guessing who won that contest. The area became the present-day National Gardens, in which the Queen entertained her friends and members of the royal family. This comes even more forcibly to mind when you see the Zapion Hall from inside the National Gardens.
After roaming around in the National Gardens for some time, we walked across Syntagma Square to Ermou Street, the main shopping area of Athens, where you will find all kinds of shops from designer labels to souvenir stalls. It’s a nice, lively place for a walk in the evening, and a refreshing change from impersonal shopping malls. Bargaining is a national pastime in Greece, so be sure to retort to any price quoted by something close to half. The shopkeeper usually settles for somewhere near that figure. For instance, I wanted to buy a skirt, and the shopkeeper asked for 20 euros. I told her I’d seen it for 12 elsewhere and she sold it to me for 12!!!
After all this walking we were so tired that we bought gyros and came back to the hotel, where we have now put up our feet and opened our books, laptops and other modes of entertainment. It has been a very nice trip, and the Greek Independence Day parade will be the perfect finish for it tomorrow.
DAY 6 – 25th March 2008
Overslept! Woke up around 10, rushed down to find hotel had finished serving breakfast, trudged back to the room, packed, got dressed and went out by 11. The parade was just starting when we reached the road, around 11:30. The atmosphere was charged – people were lining the streets holding flags, and had even climbed all the way up the stairs of the National Library, which was a really nice sight! We sat down at a roadside café and watched the parade go by while we ate breakfast. As the various units marched past, the people burst into applause. There was some formation flying also. It was nice, but I think the Indian Republic Day parade is much grander.
After the parade we still had some time before our flight so we wandered around revisiting some of our favorite places, and then it was time to go home! We’ve flown straight from 25 degrees C straight to -5, with snow on the ground and a cold, cold wind blowing! Will winter never end???????
