Pirgos, Tinos, Greece

This is Lapros Diamandapoulos, a sculpter and marble mason that allowed me to use his tools and workspace to create my Cycladic Dove in marble. An easy going guy that has been in business for a long time and he continually has buddies dropping by for coffee or a chat. Maggie is a fellow sculpter from Bloomington, Indiana and survives by working in one of the cafes. I knew that I was close to the end of the road when she said that I was the first American that she had seen in eight months. She has been here for a year now and was very helpful in getting me settled in.  My masterpiece that took way too long to create and polish, but it allowed me to meet with a lot of locals to buy sand paper and hang out at Lapros's shop. I rented this 125 cc Piagio for four days to tour the island and be able to run back and forth to the port city and to Tinos town. There is a lot of this dry stacked rock walls both in the village and on the hillsides for sheep fences. A colorful boat at the port city of Pirgos. Seems that the villages are up on a hill away from the water and then they have a port city located a mile or two down to the water. As there was only one restaurant open in Pirgos, I liked to walk down for lunch as more were open here as it is more of a tourist destination. Nice beaches to the left of this photo. This is my village of Pirgos taken from my room. It is supposedly one of the prettiest villages in the Greek Islands. It is typical I think with narrow, winding alleys about 6 feet wide. Everything is on the slope of the hill so there are lots of steps and its easy to wind up at a dead end at someone's front door. Delos is an very old town and island next to Mykonos. It doesn't have any A.D.'s in its history as it was abandoned after being conquered and its inhabitants slain in 87 B.C. Only about 20% of it has been excavated and it is remarkable. Much larger than any of the more famous spots and much more pristine. Seems the early acheologists were prone to putting things back as they assumed they should be, but many of their assumptions were premature and they destroyed a lot of evidence while carting off the statues and other items to their foreign museums

Santorini & Naxos

I still don't have the blogging procedure down, so please go to the bottom and scroll up to get the time line correctly. Marble is still a big industry here and has been since 700 B.C. I toured several of the old sculpting sites and unfinished works. It's impressive what someone with a little creativity and 10,000 slaves can do. This is one of the current quarries. It would be interesting to be able to take a tour of how they do this.

I am now in Naxos, two islands to the north of Santorini. I rode the boat up with a young couple from Sacramento that had spent a week here. I was going to rent a motorcycle, but it was overcast and cool so I picked up this Smart car. It's a hoot to drive with a really different transmission. I never did find the engine to see what it was, but it was spunky enough. Naxos is the largest island in the Agean group and it too seems to be quite tourist dependent. I met up with a frustrated Greek marble sculpter who had married an American, moved to her home in Oregon and then she left him. He said it had been four years since he had seen his 8 year old daughter. I thought his work was so so, but he is also a farmer with fruit trees.

This is Costos who ran the only coffee shop that was open at 7 in the morning. Everyone else waited til 10 or so to open up. Two boys, 4 and 8, and he works in the winters at a restaurant in the capital of Fira. My hotel was just down to the right.

The wildflowers on Santorinio and Naxos have been spectacular. Then toss in all of the flowers that the residents grow and its a colorful place. These red poppies were my favorite. This shot is from the excavated roman city above Perissa and it's black beach.I stayed 5 days here in Perissa on the southeast coast of Santorini. The price was still 25 Euro a night and it was just off of the beach. I walked a lot. There was an ancient roman town that had been excavated on top of the hill overlooking the sea. An hour hike to the top and 2 Euro to get in and it had lots of explanatory signs in English. I rented a bicycle one day and rode south on the beach road to the fishing marina. I had had dinner one evening with a man from Athens that also had a rental property on Santorini and then ran into him again for lunch overlooking the marina. He was riding an 1150 GS. The beach was great as well as the swimming pool and I continued to water paint. Three Rumanians ran the corner hamburger stand and they were quite informative about different parts of the EU.

This is mama of Mama's restaurant in Fira, a joyful and entertaining hostess. I had pancakes there and when she brought them to me, the top one was cracked open and showed raw dough. I brought to her attention and she exclaimed loudly, 'That bitch!" and returned it to the kitchen. I chuckled for days.

The Santorini sunsets are supposed to be the best, but without any clouds, you only get the marine layer and a hazy sunset. I spent a week here, but I'm not sure where the time went. This was the view from skallos, a rock point looking out over the caldera of an old volcano. I only spent one day and night in Fira, the capitol and largest city on the island.

Leaving Crete

Leaving Matala, I hiked Ibros Gorge as Samaria, the big hike, had not opened yet. It was a dry canyon, 8 Km long and quite green with some narrows 10 feet across and 60 feet high., almost a slot canyon at places. The taxi wanted 20 Euro to take me back up the 16 Km to the bike, but I caught a ride with a young couple from Amsterdam.

Crete was not clear to me at all. It's either on its way up or on its way down. Iraklio, where I spent last night is certainly no Portland, but it's not Trenton, NJ either. There was way too much traffic in the Center and around the port, grafiti on abandoned buildings and public buildings, but some really nice hotels and restaurants intermingled in it all.

The country is definitly a mom and pop place. No mega stores that I saw, no malls either. The restaurants always seemed like a family affair with one doing the cooking, the other out front, and usually a son or daughter working also. I saw a couple working together as tree pruners and another doing a small construction project. The hothouses seemed to have only one vehicle parked in the employee lot and I thought they must work as a couple also.

I turned in the motorcycle on Friday after falling off of it in Agios Nicoloas. Just hit the brakes a little too hard at an intersection and the front wheel slipped out. No damage except for smashing the LCD on the camera that I wear on my belt. The owner of the shop where I bought another camera recognized my MicroAge jacket as he used to work for Tandy/Radio Shack in Canada. We then discussed business a bit and he is concerned about the Greek outlook. They keep comparing today to the time before joining the EU saying how cheap things were then and how expensive they are now. I don't understand how just switching currency can do that. Men and women here smoke incessantly, second had smoke everywhere. I bought a croissant at a bakery the other morning and the store stunk of a customer's smoking cigarette rather than the desired bakery aroma.
I met and chatted with three young Somalians at the hotel in Iraklio. They were surprised I knew where Somalia was and we joked about the high jackers.
Sunday morning I took the fast ferry to Santorini. The regular ferry was much cheaper, 16 Euro vs 45, but it didn't arrive til 10:30 at night and I like to come into a new place in the daylight. Two hours later I was gazing up at this story book island. All of the travel brochures are true! The views are fabulous. Hotel rates are still at 25 Euro and I spent one night in the capital of Fira.

Matala

I am now in Iraklio, returning the rented bike to Ierapetra this evening. Then off to Santorini on Sunday. See if you can translate the greek sign using the greek alphabit. I knew my math education with all of the alphas and sigmas would come in handy someday.

Always a surprise around each corner. The sheep are frightened much more by the motorcycle than they are by a car.

The week before Easter, the whole town spruced up with cleaning windows, painting buildings, moving plants outside. You would think that Jesus was coming, but it was only the opening of tourist season. After midnight mass, the pagans came out and lit this humongous fire underneath the wicked Judas hanging from a scaffold. The men would toss in pints of gasoline that would throw up a big flare and the boys would toss in firecrackers. Then the band started up around 1 am and played til 5.

The village of Matala, where I stayed for a couple of days. If you zoom in the the rock walls on the far side of the beach, you can see the caves there. Originally Roman tombs, then used over the years by others after the Romans were evicted. German Army in WW II and the hippies in the 1960's.

Here is my trusty Sherpa. The sea is in the background. Below is the Honda 110 Scooter that I had the first day while new brakes were being put on the Sherpa. The Sherpa is much nicer.

I had a lot more to say, so now I am back in Mirtos at the restaurant of Yiannis, good red wine, good Greek music, speaks English, cooks well, and lets me use his PC. There are more restaurants and tavernas than seem necessary, but I hear it gets mobbed here in July and August. The roads here are windy and twisty for the most part, perfect for a super motard, but I haven't seen any yet. There is a surprising number of larger bikes, TransAlps, V Stroms, and R1200's. Especially considering the island is 60 Km by 300 Km, it seems an overkill. Cars are typical small European and a lot of Chinese motorcycles in the cities. Speed limits are never greater than 90 kph, or 55 mph. The highways are not well marked with numbers, but the cities are. So I just navigate from one city to the next and only got lost twice today. Never did get to where I was headed, but I think I wound up where I was supposed to be. There was a tremendous wind coming down a canyon as I was coming home. It was the stiffest I have ever seen and I had to walk the bike across the bridge. I just had to hold on until it let off a bit, then gain 10 feet or so before it cranked up again. Gas is 1.54 euros per liter which works out to $8 per gallon. So yes, the roads are rather empty. Otto

Mirtos, population 600, is mostly a tourist town with lots of rooms for rent. Most have a small refrigerator and stove and are fully furnished. My place is about 2/3 of the way down the front street.

Party group. That's my glass of raki on the table in the lower left.

My trusty Sherpa high on the mountain slope overlooking the sea. There are a lot of these roads that head up the steep slopes with flat twisties and no center line or guard rails. You just take as much road as you need and believe me, the trucks know how much a motorcycle needs. Crete is just a large ex volcanic island with peaks up to 7000 feet located within 30 miles of the coast.

People walk a lot here, but in the street as the sidewalks have been taken over by extensions to stores and the outside part of a cafe. Or a parking spot for a scooter!

Independence Day parade in Ierapetra.

This is the town band and they marched two or three times back and forth before the crowd, then positioned themselves in front of the emcee as the children marched by in review.Seems I always wind up at the end of the road at a small town before I'm comfortable. I am in a room overlooking the bay over a closed restaurant. It's still a tourist town, but it is not in season yet. 25 euros a night and a nice lady runs it. Town's name is Mirtos, with the t as in 'the', and 16 Km west of Ierapetra on the south coast of Crete , south of Agios Nikolaos. Uneventful trip, on time to New York , then an hour and a half late takeoff for Athens , but I got lucky and was bumped up to first class. I could get used to first class real easily. Arrived in Athens around 10 am Wednesday and took a bus from the airport to the seaport to see about ferries to Crete and bought a ticket for Euro 60, then walked around that part of town and had some dinner. Boarded the ferry, a quite large one, almost cruise ship size at 6 pm and took a nap. I had a cabin with two other guys, one who spoke English. Slept so-so, lots of engine rumbling, and we got into Iraklio, Crete at 5:30 am in pouring rain. I spotted a bus for Sitia, which was in the direction I wanted to go, but it only took us to the bus station where I bought a ticket for Ierapetra for Euro 10. The rain stopped after we crossed the mountains into southern Crete . This was Thursday which is Independence Day in Greece and Ierapetra was having a parade at 10:30. Met some locals and had a coffee with them while we watched the parade, mostly school kids in the parade and one band. Also a few speeches from the local dignitaries and a large contingent of Greek Orthodox priests in their high hats and beards. Left about 2 pm for Mirtos and found the room and had a great dinner on the boardwalk of baked tomatoes stuffed with rice.
I loafed over the weekend, just soaking up the atmosphere. This is a farming community once you get away from the tourist beach area. One of the main crops is veggies grown in hot houses made of plastic. Tomatoes, peppers, some bananas. Each hothouse seems to be individually owned by a family and is less than an acre in size. Very labor intensive! The produce is gathered and brought into a broker who then loads up a truck and sends it off to Germany, Russia or another central Europe country. Water is collected up on the slopes of the mountains and piped down to the coastline where the hothouses are located. At intervals, a riser comes up from the pipe and 10 - 20- meters are connected and the water is then piped above ground to the hot houses in 2-3" black hoses.

The other main crop is the ubiquitous olive tree. They are all over the gentler slopes and are all irrigated with the same miles and miles of black hoses. Part of Greece's corruption is the falsification of how many trees one has. Either the Greek government or the EU subsidizes the farmers for their olive trees. (One woman said she received 2000 euros a year for 600 trees, while they made 6000 euros selling the oil.) But no one comes out to count the trees! How ripe can it get! The woman also stated that the subsidy was due to expire in 2013 and will add to Greece's trouble. She couldn't explain the reason for the subsidy.

Greece has met and exceeded my expectations. Still a bit cool, highs in the low 70's, but riding with just a long sleeve shirt and a windbreaker. It is still what I enjoy most, just riding, stopping for coffee, talking with the locals. I did stop and several of the minoan culture spots, but they are just reconstructed piles of rock. Today, I took the back road over the pass on a rough gravel road into the plateau of Lasithi. Google that one up, if you see windmills, you have found it. The water table when I looked under one of the windmills was only three feet down. Supposedly, the whole valley floods in the winter, hence no homes or towns. Potatoes are the main crop there, so they were just getting ready to plant. I then visited a cave this afternoon and it was quite good. Enough for now. Take care, Otto