THE CYCLADES - Part One

SANTORINI

Apologies to readers of the last blog.  Crete is not in the southern Aegean but separates the Libyan Sea off the coast of Africa from the Sea of Crete to the north.  

The next leg of our journey was to the Cyclades, which separates the Sea of Crete from the Aegean Sea.  This archipelago has been inhabited for millennia.  Herodotus writes of these separate island states in his Histories as allies of a pan hellenic resistance to the Persian conquest of Ionia (today the Turkish coast of the Aegean).

The Cyclades are centered around the Island of Naxos
and Santorini is just below Naxos.

Signature among these islands is Santorini (called Thira in Greece); on the list of any must see travel locations.  I generally avoid these locations, at least during their peak season, as they are commercialized and loved to death.  Santorini (name comes from Saint Irene) is a volcanic caldera; remnant of a massive explosion ejecting 86 cubic kilometers (ckm) of material - one of the largest in history; magnitudes larger than Mt. St Helens, WA (. 25 ckm); Mt Pinatubo, Philippines (5 ckm); or Krakatoa in Indonesia (21 ckm).  There were few larger in world history: Mazama, OR (112 ckm) and Yellowstone, WY the grand-daddy of them all had one almost 2500 ckm!  It is speculated that the Thira explosion in 1600 BCE contributed to the collapse of the Minoan culture on Crete, 60 miles away; blanketing the island with ash, killing crops, and causing mass starvation and exodus.

Today the island is an insta-gram destination.  The defensive architecture to resist Ottoman invasions by moving from the coastal plain up to the rim of the caldera, massing all their buildings together and down inside the caldera, and painting them white to reflect the sun has created iconic images that everyone must capture (including us).

Iconic blue Orthodox Church Domes on Santorini

Fortunately, we avoided the summer when MOAs crush the narrow streets and overlooks with selfie takers, the nouveau riche of the East pose for wedding photos with fans blowing chiffon and coiffed hair, and the rooms along the caldera buzz with thumping "music".  It can take hours to get a restaurant table, when done you're hustled out for the next in line, and hawkers are everywhere to squeeze out the last euro for some meaningless memorabilia. Everything is transactional. Even the workers we did speak with hate it, whether 30 year residents or newly arrived from Albania.  

In the summer there are 3 - 4 ferries/day from Crete to Santorini and the fast one takes only two hours. In off-season there is only one ferry per day and that takes over 6 hours. So we chose to fly from Crete to Athens and then back south.  We arrived at our unit hugging the cliff in the main town of Fira.  It was dark so there was no view to be had, and the wind was ~25 mph driving the volcanic grit in our eyes and creating dust devils on the cobbled path.  Looking for a place to eat we found only one sit-down restaurant open with martinis at EU$20 and main courses at EU$35.  Entering, the thump thump thump "music" brought back unpleasant memories.  When we asked what else was open we were dismissed with "nothing".  We wandered the main street with mopeds, fast food stalls, closed nail and hair salons, and shuttered offices offering tours, wedding photography, and scooter rentals. We finally selected take-out Indian food.  I instantly took a dislike to the place - and we hadn't even seen the view.

Morning view from our terrace

Fortunately, Robin previously read about a 6.5 mile hike from Fira to Oia at the far end of the caldera rim.  We started off in the commercial town of Fira, but soon were walking alone up and down a four foot wide cobbled path carved out of the lava rock or between white plastered walls, with stunning views west to the blue waters, the caldera rim, and distant islands.  Along the rim we could see other white towns like snowfields cresting a mountain summit.  

View of Oia at end of Caldera Rim looking like snow on the top.

Stairs to old monastery on rock outcropping

The weather was perfect for hiking, and we met almost no-one, in contrast to wall to wall tourists a couple months earlier.  With the tourists gone, it is construction season and beasts of burden carry sacks of plaster up and down the same trail.  

Burros on narrow foot path delivering construction material

After a few hours we reached the town of Oia and had a delightful meal overlooking the rim with a conversant waiter, and a bottle of excellent Greek white wine.  

View inside empty restaurant with white plastered buildings cascading down rim.

My reticence melted away.  This organically laid out town in dazzling white with blue domes and winding paths is truly stunning in the sun.  It justifies the hype.  If you decide to go to Santorini do NOT stay in Fira, but in Oia, and come in late September and early October to avoid tourists, but have a few more amenities open.  

We have our insta-gram moment, sans others.

Our second day here we drove to other towns and sites on the island.  Besides a very good archeology site of a Minoan town, the main event is the caldera rim.  

Remains of wealthy resident's house in ancient Minoan town of Akrotiri.  
This was a major trading town with Crete 60 miles away.

The rest of the island is agricultural.  Earlier in the season several good wineries offer tastings and tours.  Greek wine has changed considerably since I first came in 1980.  Then it had a very resin taste (think Retsina).  There are 100s of wine grapes unique to Greece, and we didn't have a bad one.  As our waiter said, "you can have Chardonnay anywhere".

The back side of the caldera is flat and agricultural.  
Mostly grapes for Santorini wine.

Our last night here was another wind storm.  In the middle of the night I got up because a plastic bottle was caught in a gyre outside our bedroom window, and was constantly crashing off the walls. When I opened our door to collect it all the terrace wicker furniture was overturned and blown against our entry.  In the morning, my suitcase that was below a cracked window, was covered with grit.  We leave as we arrived.  Iconic place; lovely imagery; no need to return.

View of caldera in the morning after a wind/dust storm.

All photos by Robin

Next Post:  Cyclades Part two:  The Island of Naxos.

CRETE

Greetings friends and family!

I decided to revive my blog as several have asked for updates and pictures on what we are doing post house sale and road trip.  Sending via email, as we did during the road trip, limits any photos.

On return from our road trip friends on Lake Sammamish graciously allowed us to home-stay at their place while they were out of town.  It was wonderful to be in an actual home on the water after two months of hotel rooms and restaurants.  It reminded us of our place on Mercer Island.  Thank you so much.  It was a respite.  But only for 10 days.

Morning view from Lake Sammamish Home

A week ago Wednesday we took off for the EU.  We arrived in Athens in the evening and the next morning we flew to Heraklia on the island of Crete in the southern Mediterranean. Before the city states of Classical Greece, Herodotus, Alexander the Great, and even before the Mycenae of Homer's Iliad and Troy, the Minoans (1800 BCE) settled southern Aegean.  The City of Heraklia has an excellent archeological museum that covers this culture and artifacts which we toured on arrival. 

Famous statue of mythical snake woman I remember from Art education.  

On the morning of our departure we walked The Palace of Knossos, the main archeological site of this period.  Our limited knowledge of Crete was from our architectural and Western Civilization history courses.  But as a young person we didn't have perspective yet to make historical connections.  First there's Greek mythology of Western Civilization located on the isle of Crete: Minos (son of Zeus), the Minotaur, the labyrinth, and Dadelus and Icarus. (Remember all those? For a thoroughly enjoyable book to bring this to life listen to the audio version of Circes). The palace, which we studied in architecture, is also referred to as the Palace of Minos, though one is real and the other myth.

The site is unique in archeology because after its discovery in 1900, the British archeologist decided to reconstruct parts according to his hypothesis of what it looked like in all its bright colors.  He also described the use of the spaces, which has since defined future Minoan archeology, many of which are questioned by scholars today.  While a little Disney in character, it's an evocative place.

Reconstructed Palace of Knossos.  So remember this from school.

After Knossos, we drove to Reythemno, normally an hour drive W along the N coast.  Of course we took a circuitous route across the mountains to the S coast and returned.  It took about three hours.  The whole E - W spine of Crete is mountainous and rural, with peaks up to 7,500' and cut by dramatic gorges to the S coast.  In the winter the peaks are snow capped.  The landscape is classic Mediterranean; rocky, dry, scrubby and lovely. 

Crossing the Cretan Mountains

Arriving in Reythemno in mid-afternoon we drove our way along the Corniche row of restaurants to the end of the harbor where our AirBnB was located.  Our third floor room overlooked the bay and Venetian lighthouse.  It seemed so delightful on the website.  Unfortunately Reythemno is a college town, and even off-season there were lots of students that hung out in the bars and restaurants directly below our room until 3:30 am to the thump thump thump of the electronic "music".  Although our bedroom was in the back, and had several "sound proof" doors between us and the deck, the noise permeated the core of your body and gave our hearts arrhythmia.  For three nights we seriously got NO sleep until around 5:00 am. 

Nighttime view of corniche from our room 

Exhausted, the next day we managed to walk around the harbor to the lighthouse and the quiet back streets.  It's a cute town, but not worth more than a couple days; and be sure to sleep away from the Corniche. 

Our second day in Reythemno we drove across the mountains again to the hamlet of Hora Sfakion, population 265 in winter.  The weather was overcast with some drizzle at the pass, and the hamlet was all but shut down.  

Hora Sfakion

In summer it's busy with boat ferries to outer islands for swimming and bus transit station for one-way hikers of the Sameria Gorge. We planned to do this 10 mile downhill hike, but it was closed it for the season.  It's deep, steep, narrow, and rough; too dangerous in the wet, and not enough visitors to warrant services to return hikers to town. An interesting historical factoid is during WWII German paratroopers invaded the island and drove the Greek, British and ANZAC forces south through this gorge resulting in a Dunkirk like evacuation of over 40,000 troops from Hora Sfackion.  This occurred over several nights to avoid the German air cover.  There's a small monument here to their heroic retreat.

Our final stay in Crete was in Chania.  This time we drove directly there in one hour.  We highly recommend this historic and beautiful city.  Like all of Crete, the inhabitants and conquerers have left their mark over the millennia.  Minoan, Mycenae, Phoenician, Hellenic Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, Ottoman, and even briefly Russian and German.  Crete achieved its independence with Greece in 1821. However, the consistent architecture is Venetian with Ottoman infill along narrow cobbled streets. 

Narrow street of Chania with Mosque and Venetian Buildings

And while most  restaurants were closed, we found a charming Italian one at the harbor's end with one of the best bottles of white wine we've had, overlooking the lighthouse and mosque.

Alas, Robin likes her wine.

Our final day in Chania was cool and overcast. We again drove across the mountains to Elefonsis on the SW corner of the island.  It's out of the way and there's no real town here, but a long sandy beach with large areas for camping in tents or RVs.  The weather was perfect for late November on our last day in Crete.  It was 70 degrees and sunny.  The camping areas were virtually empty and with only a few couples walking the beach, which is known for its pink sand intermingled with black and beige.  The lapping waves sort the sand by its weight into stripes of color against the crystalline clear turquoise waters offset by black lava rocks.  

Striated Sands of Elefonsis.  

Though we didn't anticipate swimming, it was too inviting.  So Bill put on his best European nonchalant attitude and went swimming au-natural.   The water was about the temperature of Lake Washington in July.  After drip drying in the sun, and not impressing a middle-age german woman strolling by, (Guten morgan!) we packed up and returned, again via a different route.  

Next blog, The Cyclades Islands of Santorini and Naxos.  

Efkaristo for reading.