Last summer we island hopped across Greece for 5 weeks; on one day, we saw a single, small solitary cloud, for about 30 minutes, before it evaporated into the big blue sky. Today, we woke to rain, and it has been cold, grey, miserable and wet all day. There’s not too much to do in Rethmyno on a wet Tuesday in April. We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete – we (well, Becky in particular) do like an art gallery, and we had earmarked this for a visit regardless of the weather, but it was a bit underwhelming. Entry was only 3 euros pp, but the exhibits were neither inspiring or captivating.
Other than that, there was little to do but sit in cafes, drink coffee and watch the (somewhat bedraggled) world go by, before moving on to another taverna for lunch.
Much of the afternoon was spent either reading or snoozing – not a bad way to spend a day and by evening time the rain had stopped, and the forecast for tomorrow morning does suggest a return of the sun, here’s hoping …
We tend to book our travel destinations a long time in advance – working in education, we both know when our holidays are going to be for two or three years ahead, we have a list of places we’d like to go to and have learned that the cheapest way to book flights is the day they open. So it would have been last May that we booked our flights to Crete. One of the things that attracted us to Crete was the Samaria Gorge, at 16 km, the longest in Europe and a popular, all day hike. We both very much wanted to walk its length before emerging onto the beach and sea. However, we book early with a vague idea of what we want to do, then research at a more leisurely pace as the holiday approaches. This time, this strategy failed us! The Samaria gorge is only open between 1st May and 31st October (for safety reasons – in the other months, too much water flows through it, making it unsafe to traverse.)
However, a bit of googling before we left home revealed a short gorge walk not far from where we were staying in Rethymno, Mili (or Mily) gorge, so named as it is full of abandoned water mills. Finding out how to get there was a little difficult – one option we found was to use the red hop-on-hop-off tourist bus, but this would be 20 euros each, and there wasn’t much else on the route to see that we hadn’t already visited. So we asked at the bus station, and they suggested getting the bus to Chromonastiri, which we decided to do (2 euros each) These buses don’t run often – every three hours or so, and don’t trust google! The times given to us on the sheet at the bus station where correct, google was out by over an hour! Anyway, we found the bus, waited in the glorious sunshine for its arrival, before boarding what was little more than a minibus for the 20 minute journey. We got off before Chromonastiri at bus stop that the hop on hop off bus used – it was pretty obvious this was an entrance to the gorge, and headed down some steps into a beautiful, lush green world.
The walk was lovely, pictures nor words will do it justice. There was a well marked and maintained stoney trail to follow, although we did occasionally divert of the track and scramble down to the waters edge, to marvel at gushing waterfalls and gaze into deep, clear pools.
It was a lovely walk, trending down hill, but there was the odd bit of uphill as you crisscrossed the river. We did spot the odd Croc wearer, but I would recommend trainers as the footwear of choice and a reasonable level of fitness and agility would be needed, but certainly do-able by most, children included. Towards the end of the trail, we came to the Banana Tavern were we had a drink and light lunch in what seemed like a tropical oasis.
We did then make a mistake in navigating our way out of the gorge and ended up taking a very pretty, but unnecessary detour through a field of olive trees and yellow daisies.
Doubling back on ourselves, after an extra 30 mins and a few kilometres, we got back on track to walk back to Rethmyno. The first half of this walk was a pleasant stroll on a very minor road, but as we neared the town, the roads got busier, and much less scenic, until we hit the beach. And that was still not the end of it as the beach is long, and it felt like miles as we walked back to the old town. Beautiful and serene, looking out into the infinity of the ocean, but with aching limbs, by this point we just wanted a sit down, an ice-cream and to get back to our apartment.
Forgive the pun, but it was a gorge-ous walk, a lovely way to spend a Spring day in Rethmyno.
It was in the late eighties when Belinda Carlise sang the words ” True heaven is a place on earth”
I can only surmise that she had swum in deep, clear, blue waters of the Cretan Sea, and then had a gyros for lunch, because that’s what I did today and it truly was heaven on earth.
After a leisurely, and large, breakfast at our hotel, we ambled from our room, through the streets of Rethmyno before reaching the sea front and following it along in the direction of the old fort, stopping occasionally to admire the clarity of the water, look across the bay to snow capped mountains in the distance, whilst applying sun tan cream to protect against the warm fire of its rays. I was on simultaneously on the lookout for a good place to swim, whilst also telling myself the water did look a bit chilly and perhaps it was still to soon to swim when we spied some heads bobbing in the water. Being a Sunday, many locals were out and about enjoying their day off, and we had stumbled upon their favoured bathing spot, off some rocks. It wasn’t long before I joined them in the water, although that first plunge was breathtakingly “fresh”. But a minute or two of vigorous and energetic breaststroke and I became acclimatised to the water temperature, and enjoyed bobbing about in the deep blue. The water was deep, clear and wonderful, a perfect swimming spot and, when I’d had enough, I climbed out of the water and, like an iguana, baked dry on the rocks.
And whilst sat soaking up the sun, not more than 10 metres from our spot, a beautiful white egret flew in, landed, poked around in some rock pools, before flying off again. A wonderful sight.
Perhaps inspired by the hungry bird, we, too, then set off to seek out our lunch, taking a long, slow amble around the headland at the base of the ancient fortress, enjoying the sight of flowers in bloom – one of the pleasures of heading south at this time of year is that everything is a month or two on from the UK, Spring has truly sprung, everywhere is green and flowers punctuate the landscape with their vibrant colours. We found a street grill and ordered a couple of gyros – the perfect lunchtime snack.
After lunch we walked along the seafront in the other direction, and this is where the town’s big hotels front the sea, and the sun beds and umbrellas were spouting up all along the long expanse of beach, getting ready for the season to come, and the visit of many, many tourists making Crete their summer holiday destination.
Today, Rethymno delivered, a day of heaven on earth. Pretty streets, delicious food and a swimming spot to rival any other. That ancient Geek medicine is working its magic and all my woes and cares, aches and pains are being washed away in the deep blue sea and bleached dry in the warm Mediterranean sunshine. I’ve always believed in Belinda, true heaven is a place on earth, and today I glimpsed it.
Winter is a tough season – the days are short, the nights are dark and long, and the thermometer rarely rises above single digits. But with Spring (just about) upon us, bluer skies and warmer weather of southern Europe beckon, and we were up well before the larks to head to the airport for our first adventure of 2025, a week in Crete.
We soared over the magnificent snowy alps before landing, some four hours later, at Heraklion airport on Greece’s largest island of Crete.
We hopped on a local bus (euro 1.20 each) to take us the 10 minutes from the airport to Heraklion town, from where we were to catch another bus/coach to Rethymno – home for the next 5 days. Now, I must confess, on first impression of Crete, via Heraklion, we weren’t blown away by the beauty, charm and character of a typical Greek island, but I suspect that was just because we saw the utilitarian, practical parts of the island. We return for a few days to Heraklion at the end of our trip, so will report back then.
Having whizzed through the airport faster than expected, at the bus station we did ask if we could catch an earlier bus than the one we had booked, but unfortunately it was full, so we had an hour or so to wait until our bus. Hungry, and a little tired (we’d been up since 2.30 am) we decided to grab something to eat at the bus station. Now, in the UK, bus station food would be over priced and underwhelming. Not here in Greece. We went to the station cafe, the menu was all in Greek – actually a good sign that there was no English translation – with a combination of pointing and Google translate, we came away with two plates: roasted mixed vegatables and potatoes for six euros, and 3 big, delicious meatballs and rice for seven euros. Both meals were generous in size, “home cooked” and delicious. We’ve even earmarked the possibility of returning to the bus station cafe for a meal when we return to Heraklion – something you’d never dream of doing back home.
We took the bus (1 hr 30 mins, 9 euros each) to Rethmyno – I’d love to be able to tell you of the magnificent mountain scenery swooping down to the blue sea, but I soon feel asleep! We arrived in Rethmyno and found our hotel – a gem, I’m sure I’ll write more of that later – and set off into the evening sun. We wandered the streets, enjoyed a beer looking out over the harbour, before enjoying a fantastic Greek meal, albeit indoors as the evening temperature makes sitting outside a little chilly.
We both (and me, in particular) need some time to relax and recharge, and a week in Greece in early April is just what Dr Hap-pea-travels prescribed.
After a day wandering the harbours of Piraeus – to be fair, largely killing time, there is not too much to see and do -a delicious final gyros for lunch and packing our rucksacks for the last time (I shan’t miss that, although now have it down to an art form: everything has its place) we set of at circa 6 pm for the 8 minute walk to the metro, to get the tube to the airport (9 euros each, a little over sixty minutes travel) for our flight just before midnight.
Two minutes out from the hotel, my phone blared that I had text. I paused to take a look, and my heart sank: “Sorry your flight is delayed, please check your app for details.” So I did. And my heart sank further – a two hour delay. We decided to press on, leaving Sophie (our daughter back in the UK) to investigate whilst we entered a wi-fi black-spot of the underground. From what she could gather, it was due to air traffic control problems – the outbound jet from Bristol was at the airport, and passengers were called to the gate.
By the time we arrived at the airport – fresh after a comfortable journey – the situation had not improved, and as the clock ticked on, the prognosis worsened – for no discernible reason (to us in Greece, anyway) the jet was not departing Bristol. I was beginning to suspect the flight might be cancelled. At the end of our odyssey, we don’t want to leave Greece, and it looks like Greece doesn’t want us to leave!
However, we still had to go through the motions of checking in our luggage, so I joined the back of the queue, reckoning by the time I reached the front either our aircraft would have left Bristol, or the flight would have been cancelled. Sophie was monitoring the flight on flight radar – as I progressed along the queue she messaged to say the flight status had changed to unknown – that sounded omminus. But a few minutes later, tracking the flight on the map, it began to move along the taxiway at Bristol airprot; progress and hope! As I edged to the front of the queue it was holding before final turn onto the runway threshold. But then it held, and held, and held. My hope began to ebb. I reached the front of the queue, as I looked at my phone to change to my boarding pass I saw the aircraft begin to move, its speed increasing: 40 knots, 70 knots, I couldn’t keep looking as I had to hand in my bags, but I knew she was taking to the air, and the chances of our returning home – albeit late – suddenly looked likely.
As I type, we should be an hour into our flight, but we still have an hour and a half before our (new) expected departure time. But we are coming home. The odyssey ends. Its been wonderful, I have loved every minute and would happily turn the clock back a month and do it all again.
Exharisto, Greece, you have been a wonderful host.
We hadn’t really intended to go into Athens on this trip – we have a couple of nights in the port city/suburb of Piraeus, built into our trip in case there was any problems (weather cancellations) with our ferry before our flight home tomorrow. We’d thought we’d spend a calm day mooching around Piraeus, avoiding Athens in the height of summer. But the hotel staff this morning suggested that there really wasn’t too much to do in Piraeus so we decided to head into Athens.
We hopped on the metro (7 mins from our hotel) which is the end of the line, so no problem bagging seats, and had a comfortable and cool 20 minute trip into the heart of Athens (a return ticket was circa 2.50 euros) and what a good decision it was – Athens was wonderful: not the hot, crowded, dirty, polluted city I had feared. We got of the metro at Monastraki, happened to look up, and saw the Acropolis towering over us from afar!
We headed into the Psirri region, which ended up being my favourite, a chilled, quirky part of the capital – quite probably recently “gentrified”, but still retaining a uniqueness and charm. Street art was in abundance, so Becky was in her element and we spent a couple of hours ambling aimlessly through its streets, taking in the ambience and culture, never feeling threatened or at risk.
We wandered from there through Plaka, and then up to into Anafiotika – a still lived in labyrinth of white houses and tiny alleyways
… and views:
This area was a fortuitous find – we discovered it whilst looking for more street art like this:
Whilst I do like a good story, and history is a great source of many a fantastic tale, neither of us are too much into ancient ruins (although that, perhaps, does not bode well for me: after a day traipsing the hot streets of Athens, I certainly feel like an old ruin) and after lunch, rather than visit Hadrian’s Library, The Agora or other sites of antiquity, we headed over to the Olympic stadium from the birth of the modern Olympics in 1896. The heat was immense, so we didn’t go in, but it was spectacular to look at from outside.
We wondered back through the cool green oasis of the National Gardens, saw Greek soldiers in their “fancy” uniform guarding the Parliament building before sitting down for a refreshing ice cream – it was hot, although I do think that a month “in country” has helped us to acclimatise and cope with the high temperatures in the city: it didn’t feel overwhelmingly hot, but that ice cream was welcome!
I really enjoyed our day out in Athens – it felt like a bonus day and the city itself was much “better” than I had expected. Very different from the laid back nature of the islands, but I’m very glad we went.
This afternoon we left our final island – Syros- and took a slow boat to Piraeus, the port of Athens. Not being in any great rush to get to the city we had taken the cheaper option of sailing on Blue Star Ferries – Blue Star Paros – a big, old fashioned roll on roll off car ferry rather than the sleek and swift catamarans of Seajets and Fast Ferries. The journey was fine, and certainly didn’t seem like four hours. Once we were on the boat, we did regret our super economy tickets (pretty much down in the bowels of the boat, with an oar each. I jest, of course. We were entitled to roam the middle and upper decks, sitting on cafe chairs, or plastic patio chairs) and found some super comfy “airline seats” that hadn’t been occupied. We sat in them, and waited to see if anyone would come and claim these numbered seats, they didn’t. There was then an announcement that you could upgrade your seats, so I went to see the Purser and for 14 Euros each we could claim our seats for the whole trip, I paid up, and we settled down to enjoy the trip. No-one subsequently came to check our tickets, we needn’t have paid the money, but for peace of mind and comfortable bottoms, it was worth it.
Arriving in Piraeus was a bit of a culture shock – after 4 weeks of chilling on various Greek islands, taking life at a leisurely pace, the noise, bustle and speed of this port city was an assault on the senses. It is a different world to the one we have lived of late – bright lights, rushing people and unforgiving traffic. We have a couple of days here, we will enjoy it but, I think, perhaps not as much as the sedentary island life of Sifnos, Syros et al.
I’ve been enjoying Syros – perhaps I don’t have too much to write as the days have fallen into a lovely lazy routine of wake with the sunshine, across the road for a swim, back to the apartment for breakfast on the balcony, watching the world go by, another amble across the road to our favourite spot under a tree on the beach 5 minutes from our apartment, swim, chill, chat, stare out to sea, back to the apartment late afternoon for a shower, coffee (and possibly a snooze) before having to decide do we turn left or right to go out for dinner.
Today, we chose right, and had a delicious meal in a busy taverna. We arrived at circa 8pm and already most tables were full or reserved, but we managed to get a table, …
…enjoyed each others company, wonderful food, and the hub-bub of a busy taverna as the light faded to darkness.
Whilst there are a few other English holiday makers here, and a few other northern Europeans (including a group of young lads from Republic of Ireland who have annoyed Becky with their competitive bickering whilst playing “ball” in the sea) most of our fellow tourists here on the island of Syros are Greek – probably escaping the heat of Athens (into which cauldron we soon travel). And I can think of no higher recommendation than to go on holiday where the locals choose to go.
I will confess, as time on our trip has passed, it is possible that one’s standards may have eroded a little. We left the UK with clean, laundered and ironed clothes, T- shirts changed daily, cleanliness being next to godliness and all that. Now, a few weeks in, new norms have been established: a T-shirt does at least two days, then I take it in the shower with me to give it a rinse through – dry it in the sunshine and wind, and its good to go again.
For lunch today, we picnicked on the beach – a hunk of bread, an apple and some pretzels. I am told – although I fervently disagree – that I have “grabby hands” when it comes to crisps and the like, and I am forbidden for delving into sharing bags as I come away with a handful, too much, apparently. So denied direct access to our bag of pretzels, and with no bowls or plates to hand, one of my slider shoes was pressed into action as a plate for my pretzels. OK – perhaps standards are on the slide(r!) after 26 days of travelling, but it worked.
Later in the day, after a shower and a proper sit down meal with full crockery we continued our amble along the Posidonia side of the bay and came across a hotly contested game of beach volleyball that we watched for ten minutes or so. This was on the “trendy”” beach and we definitely were not in the age profile of the rest of the beach users, but it was fun to watch this great sport being played.
