Paddleball, James Bond, & history lessons in the middle of the street - Greece, part two

I covered a lot of ground in Greece, and I'm very glad I did since I really feel like I got to see very different aspects of the country, and they all contributed to a great trip. I spent just under 3 weeks there, visiting Athens, 2 islands (Naxos and Crete), the central plains (Delphi and Meteora), and finally Thessaloniki in the northeast.

The Parthenon

A very hot afternoon at the Parthenon

Athens first, because I'll probably say the least about it. It's a huge sprawling noisy grimy city that happens to have the Acropolis in it. I'm sure that's a terribly limited view of a great city, but that's essentially my advice: see the Acropolis, get lost in Acropolis neighborhoods looking for a restaurant, have a great dinner, then get the heck out of town. That was more or less my Athens experience (plus cute street cats), and I feel satisfied with it. If the Athens tourism council takes offense to this and would like to try to change my mind with an all expenses paid trip back, I'm willing to consider it.

The amphitheater at Delphi

From Athens, my friends Dave, Christina, Kate, and I took the ferry to Naxos, the largest of the Cyclandic Islands. Just taking the taxi from downtown Athens to the port of Piraeus is an incredibly memorable event in itself, since it appears the entire population of Europe is in taxis trying to get to the port and on the ferries at the same time. I'm pretty sure quantum mechanics was discovered on a trip the port, because it's not unusual to see several taxis occupying the same volume of space at the same time. "Ferry" doesn't really do these floating cities justice either. On the return trip from Naxos, we watched a ferry loading people, cars, campers, and semi-trucks for a solid 20 minutes. Like most things traffic-related in Greece, it's simultaneously an impressive and nerve-wracking spectacle. As the largest of the Cyclades, I felt like Naxos had enough "island vibe" to keep me happy, while still having a great old city and enough to explore of the rest of the island to keep busy, if that's what you're into. We didn't strain ourselves to explore that much though, as the beaches are inviting and make fore great people-watching, as the spectrum there runs from "Italian super model wannabes" to locals to "Balkans in speedos". What's impressive is that they all seem to be about equally comfortable parading at the beach. Well, parading, and playing paddleball, which judging from the popularity on Greek beaches, will be a summer Olympic event by 2020. In fact, now that I think of it, we should just spin off "Beach Olympics" from the summer games. Just imagine it: beach volleyball, beach paddleball, 800 meter ocean dogpaddle, and competitive basking. I think it would be a ratings winner for sure.

Another monastery with the city of Kalambaka behind it

What's the best place to sleep? In the middle of a doorway in a high-traffic tourist area, of course!

After a very pleasant few days in Naxos, it was time to return to Athens for a friend tap-out -- Kate and Christina left for Ireland just after Malissa arrived -- and to pick up our car to drive to Delphi and Meteora. We spent an afternoon exploring Delphi and consulting the oracle (the prophesies were vague and open to interpretation), we journeyed on to Kastraki, at the foot of the Meteora monasteries. Aside from being when Rule #1 ("Don't drive in Greece") was developed, this was also one of the places where the awe of the Greek history really kicked in for me. Sure, there are ruins all over, but this quickly leads to "ruin burnout" for me (Look! Ruins! More ruins! Our hotel is built on ruins! That homeless guy is using ruins as a restroom!), but when I'm in places like Delphi, which has been at the heart of stories that changes the world for hundreds, if not thousands of years, I get enthusiastic. Nor am I alone in that, apparently, since on a taxi ride in Athens, we noticed a cool statue, which our driver first told us was called "Marathon Man" after the original marathon run after the first Persian war in 490 BC. He then increasingly emphatically pointed out the original Olympic stadium, then told us the entire story of the run from Marathon to Athens, and finally unfolded a map to show us the distance between these cities... while still driving in the middle of downtown Athens traffic. To me, this demonstrated the Greeks' passion for their history, as well as confirming Rule #1.

Early sunset, in black and white, at Meteora

Late sunset at Chania's Venetian Harbor, on Crete

A day at the beach in Crete

A panorama view of Balos lagoons on Crete

Pure blue Mediterranean

We then spent 2 days exploring Meteora, which is where several Greek Orthodox monasteries and nunneries were built on the top of very precarious-looking narrow rock formations. They've been a hub for religious and monastic traditions for upwards of 6 centuries, and, more importantly, served as a location in the mediocre James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. The whole area is beautiful and very impressive with the towering rock formations hanging over the towns and what look like toy fortresses perched upon them. The spiritual and reflective setting is disturbed slightly by rampaging hordes of Russian tourist, but every once in a while they clear out and you can be left in quiet contemplation that a James Bond movie was filmed right where you're standing. I mean, how cool is that?

The "rare" and "elusive" endangered kri-kri goat in Samaria Gorge on Crete

I put "rare" and "elusive" in quotes, because as soon as tourists showed up...

... the goats started acting less like an endangered species and more like, well, goats 

Still cute goats though

For the capstone of the trip, we spent three days on Crete, the largest of all the Greek islands. Large enough to practically be its own country, and certainly large enough to forget that we were on an island. But there is a wealth of culture, history, and mythology associated with Crete, like King Minos, the Palace at Knossos, the Minoan civilization, and the cave where Zeus was born. The actual cave, they have road signs to it and everything. In America, we can't even find a sitting president's birth certificate, but Greece can keep track of where Zeus was born at the beginning of time. Take that, "information age."

Christina, Kate, and me under the grape vines at a taverna on Naxos

"Rrraarr! Chris crush puny monastery!"

Anyway, Crete is a great place for a vacation, and it's large enough to have a month's worth of attractions to explore, but we made due with just visiting the Palace at Knossos, the old city in Chania (the capital city when Venice ruled Crete), Samaria Gorge (Europe's longest gorge), and some of the most photogenic beaches I've ever been to -- rocky, yes, scorching hot, yes, but with beautiful blue Mediterranean water that makes it a fantastic place to laze around for hours under an umbrella. Oh! and the food everywhere! I think I mentioned the food, right? It was really good, and I think I ate at least one of everything you can pull from the ocean, plus an amphora's worth of feta, cucumber, and some of the best tomatoes ever grown. And Greek coffee! I love Greek coffee! And iced espresso you can get delivered to your beach chair! And really, what more do you want in life than iced espressos (and beer) delivered to your beach chair on the shores of the Mediterranean? That's Greece, to me.

Everyone knows that all the cool dogs hang out at the ATM at night in Chania

Malissa, Dave, and me at Meteora