My last day in Greece was spent visiting Delphi. This is 3 hours by bus from Athens, and the weather turned out to be the best so far this spring/winter. The Pythia was unfortunately not present at the moment, so I didn't get to ask the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, which means that 42 is still the only answer ever given. Instead of worrying over this I delighted in exploring the rest of the site, which is beautifully located at Mount Parnassus. There was a small, table-sized reconstruction of the site inside the museum, which gave some idea of how the whole place must have looked back when it was in full bloom.
At this UNESCO World heritage site the sanctuary of Athena is probably the most picturesque remains for photography.
Drinking sun with Poseidon
Yesterday I was back in Athens after 5 hours on a high speed boat from Santorini on monday. Since I've already seen the major tourist attractions in Athens I was a bit unsure of what to do with the remaining days. Going to Mount Olympous turned out to be more of journey than what was doable in a couple of days, especially if I was going to climb it, which would be sort of the whole reason for going in the first place. The receptionist at the hostel where I'm staying suggested going on day trips to Corinth or Delphi, so I'll probably do either or both on thursday and friday. Today I'm going jogging in the national gardens and maybe take the tram down the attic coast where there are some nice beaches and cafees, we'll see. Yesterday evening I spent in the company of Poseidon. Down at Sounio, at the very edge of the mainland there is a temple honouring Poseidon, ancient God of the seas. This is an excellent place to watch the sun set, and although it was rather cold and windy, the beautiful view was warming my heart, so what more does one need?
Santorini sunset and national day
Yesterday I left Paros behind and ferried on to Santorini. Arriving around 5 pm I was happy to find that the bus to Fira (main city) was waiting at the harbour.
Politely fencing off hotel and hostel owners who wanted to rent me a place I found my seat on the bus, and after chasing off a rather persistant house owner in Fira I got some help from a local taxi driver to find my hotel (this is actually not so easy because the roads do not look like they have any names, and even though I was only 150 m from the hotel it wasn't exactly visible from the bus station). Leaving my backpack at hotel Lignos I first thought I'd go to Oia to see the sunset, but there was not going to be any bus returning later that night so I settled for the sunset at Fira, which was very beautiful (pictures come later). Since it's still winter season, not may pubs or bars were open, in fact there were not very many people about at 10 pm, so I decided to head for bed.
Today is the national day of Greece, and this was celebrated with parades, national costumes, music and dancing in the streets of Fira.
It reminded me of our own national day celebration (May 17th), although the celebrations here only lasted for a couple of hours, after which I returned to my hotel. Since some worker decided drilling in the street outside my room was excellent exercise on a sunday, I went out jogging to shake of some strain from all the travelling (and also to get away from the noice). It is still too cold to go swimming so my afternoon exercise will be walking down (and up again unless the cable car is working) the 589 steps down to Skala, which is the small harbour where boat trips go out to the vocano during the high season. By then I'm sure I've worked up some appetite, maybe I'll go try the seafood restaurant next to this internet cafe. Tomorrow I'm returning to Athens with the high speed ferry at 5 pm.
Paros
Yesterday was terrible. The weather really did nothing to cooperate, it was all over the place, quite literally, not too much rain, but I'd say "rather" windy, with sand blowing in my eyes and everything being closed on this little island. Paros is certainly not the place to be outside the season. Today, friday, everything looks much better with little wind and sun from a clear blue sky.
However, it is not very warm, and there does not appear to much to do, though I'm planning a trip to the peak above Parikia, the city on Paros where I'm staying. It's easy though to picture how nice these islands are during the high season, although they are extremely touristified, if that is a word. Right now I'm sitting in a desolate cafe on Antiparos, the tiny island next to Paros. I though I'd go see some caves with stalagmites, but apparently there are no buses on this island this early in the season. I suppose walking 2.5h each way is out of the question. I guess I'll go looking for some lunch instead. Since the islands are not the best places to be in the winter season I'm only going to visit Santorini before I head back to the main land for the last part of my holiday. The plan is therefore to go by train on the main land. If there is time I want to visit the area around Mount Olympous, the home of Zeus, just to pay a visit and say Hi!
After returning to Parikia and lunching at a local grill bar I decided to head for this tiny hill behind Parikia where I had seen a cross clearly visible against the blue sky. Finding the right road was not easy, but after passing through some green fields and over a couple of stone walls I found the right path. As I headed up I realized there was something looking like a church or a monastary high up in the hillside. I headed for it. Close to the top I met a guy on a moped who apparently had seen me coming up the road. At first I thought I was on private property and that he came to tell me to leave, but this turned out not to be the case. He was the protector of the monastary and although it was past opening hours he invited me in to have a look around. The view of Parikia was really great so high up. Here, way up in the hills he had lived for the past year, painting religious motives, crusifixes, and receiving visitors. After showing me around he invited me in and insisted on drawing a small gift for me, which turned out to be a picture of the crusified Jesus Crist (not too surprising...) He was very talkative and insisted on explaining to me how great the Greek-orthodox church was, to which I listened politely, and it was an interesting conversation, even though his english was not very good. An hour and a half later he gave me a ride back down to the city on his moped. A fascinating experience, and surely a good example of the famous Greek hospitality!
In Athens
On tuesday night (1 am) I finally arrived in Athens, and 40 euros (taxi) and about an hour later I found the place I am staying, Athens Backpackers, right next to the Akropolis. Waking on tuesday morning around 9 am, feeling fresh... or maybe not so fresh, but a shower later I went out to check out do all the "must-do" sight-seeing including the Akropolis and the ancient Agora right next to it. In the busy street next to it I found lots of nice little cafees, and decided on a tuna salad in one of them. This is also the district where there is a large flee market, and the shopping district is also in the vicinity. However, I decided to leave the shopping district and flee market for wednesday and went, yes, actually walked all the way to this little hill in the middle of the city, named Mount Lycabettus, where I dined at the restaurant located on at the top of the hill. There was a cool, but steep cable car taking me the final climb up to the hill. I was very greatful for this since my feet were beginning to tire. After a nice dinner - traditional greek Mousaka, I went back to the hostel to put my feet up for a while. It was a long day with tons of walking about just seeing stuff and taking pictures. I'll post pictures on flickr once I get back. At first I was planning on going out in the evening, but since I didn't get any sleep until 4 am or so I decided not to go, or in other words, I fell asleep and didn't really wake up until it was time to go to bed.
Today, which is wednesday I've been walking around the shopping district and checking out the flee market. Before I did that I went down to Pireas to check out the harbour and buy a ticket to Paros for tomorrow. I'm leaving at 7.25 am, which means I'll have to get up pretty early, but it'll be exciting! Leaving Athens behind and going out on the different Islands seems to be the right thing to do even if this is a very quiet season on the islands. It might be too cold to go for a swim, but I'm sure there's other stuff to do besides swimming. After Paros I'm planning on going on to Naxos, where I'll probably be on sunday, which is the national day here in Greece. I'm looking forward to seeing that, perhaps it'll be a little bit like our own national day, everyone being outside celebrating! This evening I went on the hill oposite Akropolis, the hill of the Nymphs, which gives an excellent view of the city as well! It was so nice and peaceful up there, no tourists crowding the place. I found a nice little bench with a view and settled down to read a little in the book I brought, an excellent read by Virginia Wolf; the Waves.
