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Posted by Tim Holloway [69.54.28.229] on Friday, June 04, 2010 at 09:31:21 :
Got home at 11:30 PM last night, with the time zones figured in it felt like 6:60 AM. Yawwwn.
We had an awesome time. The unrest there is evident, but it isnt the tourists they are mad at. There was a Transit Workers strike the day we flew in, but fortunately we were not taking public transport our first day so it didnt effect us. Last week there was a Ferry strike, but again not a day that we were travelling by boat so dodged that one too. We took the Ferry into Athens Wednesday and had our flight out on Thursday morning. When we went to buy our train tickets to the airport we saw that there was another Transit Workers strike for Thursday. Bummer. The hotel we stayed in Wednesday set up a Taxi for us and another guest heading to the airport. What would have cost 1 Euro each for the train cost 40 Euro for the Taxi, but at least we were able to split it with the other guest. I dont understand their thoughts on the one day strikes. In most places when a group goes on strike, they list some demands and strike until either they are met, or the strikers cant hold out any longer. The one day strikes are just a major inconvenience to the other workers, and I dont see that they accomplish anything for the unions.
So, we flew int Athens, and then caught a flight right to Crete. As we landed in Crete, I swear I saw an M37 parked (or abandoned) at the end of the runway. That was my only Dodge sighting the whole time. We stayed in Heraklion, afairly uninspiring city, but we caught the various museums and archeological sites there. After a few days there we took a bus to Hania, a much more picturesque city on the western end of Crete. There is a large gorge that goes from the central mountains to the southern shore, called the Samaria Gorge. There is an 18 Kilometer hiking trail through it, and it is all down hill. The first 3 kilometers you drop 1 kilometer in elevation. At one point towards the end the gorge closes to about 10 feet wide with 1,000 foot cliffs up on either side. Quite stunning. The trail ends a a small village, that has no roads to it, you take a boat out to another town and catch a bus back to Hania. There were a lot of others doing the hike, and the majority were Germans, of all ages. They passed us like locomotives all day long. They are a darn fit bunch! Joan and I were hobbling around like 90 year olds the next couple of days though!
After a few days we decided we were looking for a place a bit less touristy than Hania, so took a ferry to the island of Syros. Syros is the capitol of their group of islands, so is a more normal place. Still tourists there but not in the swarms we saw in Hania. We had a great time there for several more days, and then moved on to another island called Milos. Again not too touristy, but it gets swamped in July and August. Swam in some hot springs, took a boat trip around the island seeing some amazing geological formations (it is a volcano!) and swam at a small beach accessable only by boat. The beach was sandy, about 150 yards long, with sheer cliffs on 3 sides probably 4 or 500 feet high.
Plus ate lots of great Greek food, mostly seafood, some goat, and mayby some horse, but not too sure on that one. And not to mention lots of Mythos beer, Ouzo, Mastic, etc etc.
Several of the places we stayed had wifi, but it was pretty unreliable. I tried to get onto the Forum a few times but I would get a screen with the word FORBIDDEN in big letters, and them "You are not authorized to be on this server" or something like that. Not sure what that was about, I was able to check in on the M37 forum a couple of times.
I will get some pictures up in a few days, no Dodges, but some cool small trucks!
Good to be back!
Tim
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