Car Stats - Athens

Upon returning the car at the airport in Athens, we had driven 1,708 km or 1061 miles over nearly 10 days.  This is about the same distance driving from Boston to Madison, WI (one way).  We used 124.25 L or 32.8 gallons of petrol, pending 232€ ($249).  We also spent 28.60€ ($30.70), and were comped 7.80 euros ($8.40), in tolls.  

We principally explored the regions of Attica and Evia, with an unexpected trip to Delphi, before heading to the Peleponnese to revisit areas in the Korinthos, Argolis and Messini regions.  

Although we spent half of our time on the mainland at sites that we had seen on our previous trips, this was where we were led.  Next trip may have more structure--maybe not.

Best and Worst

After 19 days in Greece this trip, we have seen a lot of stuff.  Some new, some old.  All worthwhile in one way or another, even as a cautionary tale.

Here is our best and worst list:

Best Site:

    L. Three way tie. Zakros because it was extensive, Eritrea for Houses II and IV, and the newly updated Palace of Nestor in Pylos.

    R.  Zakros. The one Minoan palace that was unspoiled.

Worst Site:

   We both agree was Poylrinnia. While I do enjoy scavenger hunts, there has to be a payoff, and this wasn't worth it.  

Best Museum:

    We had originally considered not choosing because we didn't remember that we had visited many museums, which may say something already about the quality of the museums, but having actually visited 5, I am more sanguine about picking winners.

    We both agree that Heraklion was our standout for this trip.  We spent 5 hours there over two visits to make sure we saw each and every exhibit, and it was worthwhile, if a little repetitive at times because of where the artifacts were discovered and how the displays had been designed.  Still, we would go back.

Worst Museum:

    Through no fault of its own, Aptera had to take this honor.  It's small archaeological site had been looted by Heraklion, and so had nothing left to offer.  Still it maintained a job for an older gentleman, and it did have an aerial photograph which showed the back alley to the site.  

Weirdest thing we saw

    R.  Ancient Greek alarm clock at the Kotsanas Museum

    L   A goat on the A7, the equivalent of Mass Pike. 

Best restaurant

    It would be hard for a local restaurant to compete with a 1-star Michelin restaurant, so just take as a given that Sense was a culinary experience in a class by itself.  

  Best souvlaki. Olivia’s Taverna atop Polyrhinnia

  Best ffsh.    Tsefaki in Chalkida

Thing we brought that we didn’t need

    R.  Physical book to read.  As we made this list, he threatened to read it just so it wasn't a wasted object, but that never happened.  

    L. Sneakers. This was on my list from the first trip, and I learned for the second, and then I forgot.  Maybe I will learn again?

Thing we should have brought.  

    Both of us:  A hat.  Totally forgot this trip to represent. Go Sox!

Best cat.  The little black one at the version of Perachora who only wanted love and practically crawled into my lap. 

Most annoying luxury

   BMW i118 5-door sedan. Changed the gear shift interface, and the odometer wasn’t from the onboard computer but from the indicator control. Completely counterintuitive. 

Best staff. 

    L:  A tie.  At Tylissos, the ticket attendant was obligated to ask me about something I picked up and embarrassed to learn that it was just a snail shell. We talked about the site and she gave me the guide book. 

              At Aigosthenes, the attendant and I discussed the reconstruction of the tower and I learned that the 9m center beams (3x) were chestnut (kastano) trees, and then discussed how we each prepare and enjoy chestnuts.

Worst Staff. 

    We both agree, Malia. They didn’t want to work and closed early so they could leave before the site officially closed, although Randall adds that the truly worst staff are the ones who aren’t there when the site has posted hours (online, on-site). 

Worst road. Eleftherna. The road which was paved suddenly became unpaved and took at 30° drop.  We became concerned that we would be able to get beck up because our vehicle lacked all wheel drive.   

Best road. A8 from Athens to the Peleponnese,a second time winner even with tolls!

Best policy recall. Acropolis museum now allows photography—as did every other museum we visited anywhere else in Greece. Finally. 

Least likely excuse—"Destroyed by fire" was the universal and vague explanation for why the Greek Dark Ages began. It was a fire of unknown origin and seemed to encompass all of Greece for many years....

Most improved site. Nestor’s palace.  Can't beat the elevated walkways for understanding the site.

Worst maintained site.  Heraion of Argos. Too many tall weeds.

Most misleading description of a site before we got there. 220 steps into and out of Dikteon Andron. As if that were the relevant criteria of getting to the bottom of the cave!

Best ferry. Tie. Inbound and outbound between Piraeus and Heraklion. We had a VIP cabin for only an extra $50 round trip, and that made all the difference. 

Most annoying distraction at an archaeological site.  Drones.  At some sites they were specifically prohibited (Zakros), but a Delphi and Mykines, they were present, noisy and irritating.  

Photos of the Perplexing

Every trip, I take a few thousand photographs. I say to myself, "bits are cheap", an update from "film is cheap", relative to the cost of returning to a place to recapture a moment which can never be regained. Which isn't to say I am only taking pictures. There are so many photos I wanted to take, mostly every time there was a break in the verge growing beside the highway--the mountains and the water in a constant state of visual transformation--but time, location and safety would not always allow those photos.

That said, I did get a lot of pictures of things that left Randall and me wondering, "Why would someone do this?"

In Athens. Everything on this sign is in English, so.... And we were never able to get a photo of the combination of stores of "Ritual Tattoo" next to the bridal store, and wondered if this was a one-stop-shop.


This was a two 'fer on our way to Dikteon Andron of bizarre museums--Homo Sapiens Museum (left0 and Greek Mythology Thematic Park (right). I just couldn't bring myself to go.


These are just some unusual parking jobs. Left: sidewalk in Athens; Right: intersection in Heraklion. We also saw, but were unable to photograph significant parking in rotaries, especially in Nafplio, where there was plenty of free parking at the port just another 100m away!

Do we follow the stop sign or the stop light???



Fences were often the bane of my existence in trying to access a site, but here are some examples of stupid fences. Left: fencing OVER the ruins. especially where there is a perfectly good space about 12" away. Right: DOUBLE FENCING, especially where the interior (white) fence tracks the line of the excavated wall.


  This one is a little sad, and we have seen this repeatedly, especially since our last visit, but people will leave unwanted pets, particularly large dogs (or perhaps that is what survives) at temples and highway road stops.  I've seen bags of food left at these sites as well, and the animals that we have seen on this trip appear to be in good health, but they have also become a bit of a nuisance.  They lay in the road, unperturbed by traffic.  This dog plopped down on the warm pavement in mid afternoon on the main road into Delphi, about 300m from the entrance.  By this hour, most of the tour buses had left, but still there was a fair amount of traffic which simply drove around the dog.

  Ah, yes.  It seems each of our trips to Greece has accompanied some interesting event.  This was the election.  Here, we see a bunch of talking heads, however, two are notable.  Woman in green, who is so obviously reading something on her iPhone and otherwise completely disinterested in the discussion.  But you may miss this detail of the guy in the lower left whose background is of the TV showing the broadcast of him...showing the broadcast of him, and so on.  And there is the added detail of the "Exit Poll" notation as if this needed to be translated for a Greek election!?!  And the website "kalimera@gkal.gr" giving further evidence for Randall's comment about how the internet has affected non-Roman alphabet-based languages.  

The roads and how Waze/Google maps work will be a separate post.  

Ode to the Theragun

A few years ago, a very dear friend loaned me her Theragun because I was having some muscle pain.  It changed my life.  Now, whenever I travel and I know I am going to be doing a lot of walking/standing (Walt Disney World, Las Vegas, and now Greece), I pack it.

At the beginning of this trip, I posted about the obvious errors with the data produced by my Apple Watch.  Notwithstanding what I know are grossly underestimated values for number of flights of stairs and missing data during the times when my watch died because I forgot to charge it (26 hours of darkness), I walked over 80 miles, 4+ miles each day, stood more than sat every day, including days when we were driving for 7 or more hours, and seemed to still log around 20 flights of stairs daily.  The Apple Watch suggested that I climbed over 50 flights of stairs on 3 separate occasions, exercised 90 min daily, and had a personal best of 3 hours (174 min).  

To say that the Theragun was my friend each and every night would have been an understatement.  It was what allowed me to get up the next day and do it all over again.   

Hiking the Stairs

After some scrambling on our first night in Nafplio, we found a quaint Airbnb which better suited our needs, but we were now confronted with a new challenge. Stairs, and not just any old ancient staircase, but a true 18th c. two-story walkup.

Any day that we didn't feel like we had enough hiking, we knew we still had this to look forward to at the end of the evening.

I wish had I taken more pictures, but by the time I got home, it was always dark, and all I wanted to do was force march myself to the apartment.  I will note that the first flight, not even seen in this picture of 20 steps, were about 2.5' wide, and then got narrower as they began to circle the shaft, a point made more difficult by the downstairs neighbor who was also running a salon, and decorated the entryway with potted plants in the corner stairs, thus taking away from the tread depth.  Additionally, the "landing" outside our apartment was itself only just one stair, so I am half in the apartment as I am taking this picture.  And there were more stairs to the roof deck, which we never used.  That vertical ascent was worse, as if one were climbing a ladder.  Our host kindly said, "you will take your morning coffee up there".  I kind of nodded dismissively thinking there is no way we will have enough time to practice those maneuvers.  

Hauling the luggage and all that wine and honey into the room was a chore.  Taking it back down on the day of our departure was scary--kept feeling like the luggage was taking me down the stairs, not the other way around.

Movie night in Nafplio

 We've gone to the movies every time we've visited Greece, mostly seeing US movies since the Greeks like them in the original language with subtitles.  This trip we discovered that the Open Air movie theatre was operating - we've tried to go in earlier trips but it's always been too early in the season. 

The open-air theater - screen is good sized, not gigantic.  Sound was Dolby but at a reasonable level, we guessed to keep the neighbors happen

For whatever reason, they were running this time and we caught the (single) showing of "Fast X" at 9:15pm.  The movie was, well, car chases intermixed with alleged plot (though Jason Momoa was clearly having a blast with his role as the villain and more or less stole every scene he was in).  

The great part was that tickets were just €7 each, for comfortable seats and really cheap food & drink.  All this was just €10!

Plus, we got to see some posters for upcoming shows - such as the Disney live-action Little Mermaid.  But how is that translated into Greek?

Indeed...it's Disney's 'microGorgon'

Unexpected sight while touring wineries

The last post we did about something we unexpectedly found while touring a winery was in 2012, and it was for finding a temple to Herakles. I suppose in retrospect that should have been so surprise since all of Greece is simply one archaeological site waiting to be unearthed, and plowing fields for a vineyard was bound to lead to the discovery of something.

On the first miss for Aivalis Winery, we had to drive a ways before we could turn around.  This wasn't so hard to find amidst the vineyards.

  Wait, are those satellite dishes and "golf ball" satellite antennae?  And grape vines everywhere else?  Why yes!  

  A Satellite Communications Center in Nemea.  Just what I'd thought.  I will note that this is a private satellite communication facility--OTE Group is a Norwegian firm--so that still doesn't explain the English on the sign.    

Methana - reprise

On our last day in Greece, after some wine tasting and in light of the seismic activity in the region, we decided to climb the active volcano at Methana, again. Now, the activity of Methana is a lava flow into the ocean and a lot of hot springs generating an abundance of spas in the area, but still, this was going to be a challenge.


My pictures from 2017 will never be better, but here are a few additional photos.

  This should have been the first clue.  There is no distance listed, but we kind of remembered what it was like.

  Although I didn't remember this coming up so quickly.

  Almost there.

  Did I take this for the path or the view?

  Almost...

  Almost...!

  Looking into the vent.

Gratuitous Photos of Land, Sea and Sky - Mainland edition

Cloud cover over Mt. Parnassus

A burned forest outside Vilia

Chalkida waterfront

Bouganvilla growing in Nafplio

The beach at Troezen

  Saronic Gulf at Eritrea

Nemean Wineries

On our last day in Nafplio and in Greece, we decided to visit a winery.  This had been the first winery to which we had been recommended at our dinner at Sense in Athens, and then when I was chatting with the chef noting we were going to Crete next, that was when we got our second recommendation.

Aivalis Winery is not well-listed by Google maps or Waze.  Both want you to stop on a different road and walk across someone's vineyard to get to another perfectly good road which would drive by the winery, so after having driven up the road a bit to find a good place to turn around--the roads around this area are barely one car wide and abut to vineyards, we tried again and took the side road.  As we now drove past the winery, which did have a sign, we saw construction of a new building which must have easily been the size of the existing building connected by a short hall, and wondered if this was a good time.  Open hours were listed on Google until 2:00pm and it was only noon.  I remarked that the gates to the winery were open, so we parked just past the construction and walked back.  

We were greeted by an enthusiastic and large black dog who was fortunately on a tether, or we would most certainly have run back to the car.  A woman came out and pulled the dog back, and we proceeded into the courtyard.  A older man was sitting in a chair outside, getting a haircut.  He spoke no English, and we didn't speak enough Greek for this transaction, so we brought out Google translators.  Randall went first with some question something like wanting to learn more about his wines.  He tersely replied "no tasting".  I had another question loaded in my translator because by this point, the 20 year old barber wasn't offering to help translate, although it was apparent he understood more English than his client, and this for all the world had the hallmark of being in the presence of a Greek godfather.  "Can we buy some wine?"  "Yes."

Once we got that settled, then he showed us his wine on his phone, the barber still getting in periodic snips.  We settled on two bottles of "Le Sang de la Pierre" (French named wine in Greece???), paid in cash (50€)--a transaction that will never see a spreadsheet--and left.  

However, the Nemean wine region is a lot like Napa or Stellenbosch, or any other region known for its wine, and there were dozens of municipal signs listing the wineries with arrows and distances.  Well, one was Lantides, and thanks to a dear friend who introduced me to this winery a couple of years ago, I bought all their aigiorgitiko until Total Wine stopped stocking it.  Three minutes later, we pulled into Lantides Winery, surprised a couple of workers there, had an impromptu tasting of two bottles (Cuvée and a 2021 aigiorgitiko), and walked out with 6 bottles, including some random whites (moschofilero and a white blend).  As a kicker, we were gifted the remainders of the two bottles that we had sampled.  

We drank well that night.  And I have the contact information for both wineries US distributors!  Lantides to NY (same as Silva), and Aivalis to Washington, D.C.  My guess is the latter is enjoyed by the embassy.

I will also make an observation about the cost of wine in Greece.  I will begin by reiterating that Sense is a 1-star Michelin restaurant.  While they were predominantly pairing their food with Greek wines (what grows together goes together), they were by no means serving cheap wine, yet we have come to the realization that there is a maximum price for wine in Greece, somewhere around 25€ a bottle.  Now, in the US, most people show up to a party with a bottle around $20, but wine, even domestic wine, can soar to astronomical prices $100s, even $1000s, of dollars puts into perspective the economic forces of production and consumption in Greece.  Almost every village has a vineyard, and makes their own wine.  "Box wine" is still incredibly popular, and one can buy 1.5L of white, rose or red in a plastic bottle in any grocery store or convenience store for about 5-8€.  A nice and reasonable glass bottle wine will be the same price for 750ml.  Despite offering a bottled-wine menu at every restaurant in Chalkida or Nafplio, we could still get house wine for 4-7€ for 500 ml.  So, coming to a dinner party with a 25€ bottle of wine is like bringing a $100 bottle in the US.  It sends a message.  

Nestor's Palace, Pylos

In the continuation of comparing Minoan and Mykenaen civilizations, we revisited Pylos and Nestor's Palace.  I suppose this site was the impetus for the comparison since a recent article about a recent archaeological find had prompted the re-examination of whether these were two distinct groups, or related.  We will need to spend some time with our photographs and site maps before we make our own observations.  I will note that the signage at both here and Mykines now talk about Minoan influences, which had not been a part of the discussion the last time we visited.

In the meantime, here are some amazing new perspectives on this site--the cultural ministry with a huge EU grant have renovated the site so it is a modern arched covering with a transparent section to simulate the sunlight as it would have passed over the interior courtyard, and elevated walkways so one can see the interrelation of the rooms, and not get distracted by the maze of low walls.  

Propylon (entrance)--double vestibule with columns into interior courtyard.  The King's megaron (great hall) is further back.

Note the light spilling into the porch (courtyard)--this would have been open, so this simulation fascinated me to consider how other rooms would have been lit.

 Another view of the porch

  Vestibule and king's megaron.

King's megaron.  Throne would be inset on left wall (there is a square which indicates the area).  Two circular depressions with connecting trench are now believed to be related to ritual offerings of wine.

You can still see original paint around the hearth in a few places.  

And in my post from 2012, I was able to get close enough to the interior walls to see paint around the throne.  

Queen's megaron with center hearth.  

Foreground, outdoor courtyard.

Archives.  

Note the raised area for storing clay tablets.

Wine magazines, conveniently located behind the King's megaron.  

  Stairs!!!

  Not Stairs!!!  This is the first and perhaps the only archaeological site which is ADA compliant.  There is a wheelchair accessible ramp and a small open elevator to allow a visitor to access the upper walkways.  We've also noticed with some frequency signs in Braille, and even one which was tactile of the plants in the area.

Here are some Easter Eggs of photos I probably wasn't supposed to take of the adjacent dig site.  The warrior's grave was identified in 2015, and the article was just published in 2023.  We understand that all the areas have been thoroughly and completely excavated that this is no longer "active", but there are still all the indicia one people there.  Not sure they are "working".  

  Left of the Tholos Tomb

  Right of the Tholos Tomb, covered in two types of tarps.  Office/shed on right side.  "Main entrance" right of the Tholos Tomb

  

State of the Greek Language - Part 2

Since Crete, I have been collecting photographs of other examples of Romanized Greek words or English being used in applications only for locals. In addition to the exclusions from the last post of anything directly or even reasonably tangential to tourism, anything which is an imported good (e.g., the Parkiside Cross Cut Mitre Saw or Silver Crest Espresso machine sold at Lidl) and exclude Nafplio in general (like Athens) since it is clear that it is catering to the cruises.

So, in no particular order:


This one kind of says it all. There's Greek, English, and transliterated Greek. Kind of have to have ADHD to keep up with the information on this van. And just what exactly does Fargeo Hellas do? Waste management. Granted it is forward thinking in the reduction of waste to zero, and probably could (eventually) market its business solutions outside Greece, but then why brand just for the "Hellas" market. Otherwise, if it is a subsidiary, then clearly the intent was local, and therefore, no need for the English and transliteration when it is also clearly making an effort to use Greek words. It's just confusing.


Here's another one that can't decide what language, but seems to be appealing to a decidedly British speaking English market. And what are they offering? "Service"--Car repairs.

  Or graffiti?


I'll just put these next three here and let them speak for themselves...







I will also add a sub-rant about "How do I pronounce this?" With all the transliteration from the Greek alphabet to the Roman alphabet, sometimes, this is not obvious.

This one is from the ferry from Crete. Now, Crete and Heraklion are tourist destinations, and Minoan Lines was easily able to accommodate English, but these two spellings are not the same! In the bottom word, the "P" is clearly rho, but that "B" is a v-sound. Granted, the sign is cute, and intended for the English-speaking market with "self-service", but just sayin'.

Here's another one that leaves me scratching my head. The "s" at the end is clearly Roman alphabet, but I didn't know that starting the word, and would have read "rho", not "P". And then the "B" could go either way, although it is capitalized, so that makes me think it should be Greek? Anyway, it's not like I care about water that I would be ordering this brand, but it is indicative for the use of the Roman "s".  It is a slippery slope.

The P/Rho battle has been especially perplexing to me. Here, this shop using the English word "fashion", so how should I interpret the "p" in the name?  Or does it even matter at this point, since this shop is catering to tourists.  Is it a Greek designer, or just clothes one bought in Greece?


I could go on for days about this, and I suspect on our next trip, there will be even more English (or transliterated Greek).