This post is a continuation of the trip report http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35166201 . In the process I am testing whether Fodor's archive search+index engine works any better after adding a topic tag.

After 4 days in Naxos and 2 dayhs in Santorini, gypsy-style globetrotting father and son arrived for a 3-day sampling of Crete.

After Athens and the Cyclades, this was again a significantly different region to explore and observe. Some impressions follow in random order, inviting parallel experiences and questions.

- late evening ferry arrival into Heraklion. The day before, upon another tourist's recommendation we had reserved accommodations 5 km E of town; so we ignored the aggressive hotel promoters and taxi drivers on the dock. One of us stayed with the luggage, while the other walked into town and found a car rental (E35/day, E20 extra to drop off in Chania). We figured that the cost and freedom was preferable to a downtown hotel and bus travel.

- the odd name Prince of Lillies for our hotel/restaurant was taken from an ancient Minoan painting character, sounded cool to the British owner and guests. On the wall a gorgeous old photograph of farming on the high Lasithi Plateau, hundreds of tiny old windmills driving the irrigation system; apparently all now replaced by electric pumps. The couple at the next table were pig farmers from Newcastle/Tyne; just retired after competition from Eastern Europe drove them out of business. Disappointment beyond the pool and lawn within its walls: the concrete sprawl in the neighborhood, and a dirty beach. Like Perissa on Santorini, this was another example of tourist construction gone awry

- given all the forum comments on Chania and the west end being the prettiest, we rebelled and drove east on the first day; finally finding Elounda and Agios Nicolaos to our liking

- the next day we headed West along the coastal highway (I had seen Knossos years ago); stopped for a swim now and then; but it turned windy, and we got to see the reddish sand clouds blow in from the Sahara Desert far south in Africa

- we had lunch in Rethymno's old town; good food at a sidewalk joint operated by an old Greek lady, dressed as if she had just stepped out of Zorba the Greek. Talking to a French couple at the next table, the hot tip was to get away from the coast, drive up into the mountains, South to Spili, and see the monasteries.

- it turned out to be too late for the monks, but we ended up on the south coast; Crete's Plakias to Sfakia stretch was a surreal experience with the sand clouds blurring the twilight; upon evening arrival into the port of Hora Sfakion, we had to put up at the Three Brothers Hotel with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude of an uncivilized loudmouth owner, the wet moldy unlit stairs to the room 3 floors up, his old witch of a mother refusing us the use of the advertised Internet service; comparing notes with guests in the morning, we suspect this remote village to be hovering precariously between the old and new worlds; the experience reminded me of The Twilight Zone TV series, or of Yves Montand and Anouk Aimee in the 1968 French movie "Un Soir, un Train"

- re the seafood we enjoyed: at this point I don't know when the fishing season was open, and what the EU quota allows. Being Pacific North_Westerners used to fresh fish, we found it hard to get and expensive in Greece (but not as expensive as in Southern Italy); we enjoyed fresh calamari, but the grileed octopus did it live up to the billing; we were told that the southern Peloponnese has the freshest seafood. And we saw African fishing boats land in southern Crete to sell their meager catch of the day.

- puzzling highway construction projects; on the stretch Rethymno to Chania we wanted to get off and visit the village of Vamos in the hills, but found no exit for some 40 km, until we were already on the Souda coast; same experience east of Heraklion; it looks like EU funds financed building the highway, but local funds are waiting to add entrances / exits / refueling stations. Similar experience along the ambitious Egnatia Odos stretch in NW Greece: every 20 km the fast road came to an end and our bus made a sharp turn onto local mountain roads; it looked like somebody at the top project management level didn't know how to fit the pieces together in time and space

- finally in Chania, we enjoyed visiting the farmer's market; inside, at a hole-in-the-wall taverna, some of the best seafood was prepared and served right in front of you; the place was full of local people; by comparison the old town waterfront looked like a tourist trap

- regretfully, we had to take the ferry north, left for our next trip all the advertised attractions West of Chania

Tablerone, since I think we have the same outlook on Greek travel I would be interested in your overall impressions of Crete. I have kept away from it in the past as it appeared to be overrun by package tours more intent on the tan, pool and late night drinking.

Tablerone, I feel your pain. Have also lost my last post regarding Switzerland again ... it seems to come and go. Can't find it by title or my name. Is it just us?

Toni, here is what I can tell you, from trial-and-error, from some knowledge of generic search / index sw, and some information on the Fodor help forum:
- in principle you should be able to find your Switzerland post by first going to the Europe sub-forum (Greece is only a tag word within the Europe forum), then searching for a rare word that you used: Wengen, Alpenrose; but the search engine appears broken for the time being
- you could also start with the entire Europe forum and go back to the dates when you posted it
- have you tried clicking -- maybe in this very thread -- on the hyperlink at your name? It should, in principle, return all the threads in the Europe forum to which you contributed

Toni - Is this the post you're looking for?

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35167108

Yes, Adrienne that's the one. Because I am in a different time zone by the time I rise in the morning and check a post it is sometimes buried. Tableronde, great! I had success as you said, clicking on my name in a post rather than searching in vain via the Search box. Thanks

Table, re Chania -- the Old Town harborside is not a tourist trap, you just don't eat dinner there --- you sit in a cafe for the sunset .... and at the very FAR (east) end of the harbor, just after where the Mole extends out into the water, is APostolis II, acknowledged as about the best seafood restaurant in Chania --- not glitzy not costly, just plain good. We had artichokes in winesauce that made us gasp with pleasure.

Sorry you had to waste a day going east -- 50 miles of concrete package-tour hell in order o reach Elounda -- and gave u less time for West Crete. Maybe next time.

I loved your description of some of the people you met (in your first/previous thread). I find people and their stories so interesting.

Janet, in Rethymno we distanced ourselves from the most visible restaurants on the waterfront, found quality at a good price in the side alleys. In Chania we only had time for a quick visit of the old town harbor promenade.

This was one of the few days when my collection of visual memories tipped to the negative:

- outdoor cafes with full size plastic couches to sit on, not the cute multi-colored wooden seats in Naxos; having invested time into learning to read a Greek menu, I am offended by the large discolored picture menus at the entrance (not indicating whether there is any daily fresh catch); but I give the restaurants credit for not having any aggressive waiters herding people into their joint (like in Athens, Santorini)

- it was mid-afternoon, and we weren't looking for a full meal, rather for a place to enjoy a cup of tea with pastry (like in France, Germany, Austria); found only coffee (too strong for me) and the baked goods of the super-sweet kind, or the heavy cheese- / spinach-filled kind; since then I have adapted by going to a bakery, and carrying my own tea bag along

- the glass-bottom boat salesman promoting discounted 1 hour rides, when the wind was too strong to go out and see the murky bottom; but in Elounda our restaurant table was on a shallow pier, and we could enjoy lots of little fish swimming around

- an Albanian woman walking around with a boa constrictor wrapped around neck; what looked like her little daughter holding out a hat for handouts, while her man was fishing from the pier

- a very old and frail Greek peasant lady, dressed in traditional garb and carrying a one-string bouzouki, begging from table to table

- for some reason tough-looking policemen were patrolling the pedestrian zone by car (why not a bicycle or Segway?); I also remember the muscular toughs patrolling Athens' streets, roughing up an African sidewalk salesman; and quite a contrast to the white-skirted and sandaled uniforms guarding the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier in Syntagma Square; Would anyone know why such display of force if the crime and urban terrorism statistics are so low? maybe a tradition dating back to the age of the colonels?

Yes, I have to come back for a better try.

You seem to be co-minglling Chania and Athens --- the Albanian woman with the snake, the beggar with the bouzouki (probably not Greek, probably Albanian passing as Greek), and the tough looking cops were somewhere in ATHENS --- not in Chania!! I have been in CHania 4 x most recently a year ago and nver saw scenes like this.

As for the Albanian situation, Greece is strugglling to cope -- is anyone aware that Greece has perhaps the LARGEST illegal immigrant percentage of any country in Europe, perhaps in the world -- There are just 13 million greeks and they estimate there are ONE MILLION illegal Albanians in Greece right now -- frontiers very hard to protect.

Janet,
I don't mean to denigrate one of your favorite places based on a quick look. Rather I am highlighting special experiences.
Only my last paragraph above linked the police presence on the Chania waterfront to what I also saw in Athens.

The two beggar scenes were indeed in Chania; and I was connecting to more such scenes in Athens. Which raises the following question: could it be that all the beggars I saw were foreigners, that the Greek are too proud to do it? or is this ancient trade still in, as one sees it in India, Paris, New York City?

As for ILLEGAL migration: one hears about it often and in a negative light; not just Albanians and Africans to Greece and Italy (e.g. http://www.cafebabel.com/eng/article...henians.html); but to other developed countries also.
But there are two sides to such a story: let's not forget that our own ancestors generations ago may have migrated without proper paperwork; we celebrate their adventurous spirit.

I know a great many Greeks who live in Athens, and also in other parts, and they confirm what I have observed since first making extended trips to Greece 10 years ago ... there are a huge number of Albanians now, AND the street beggars are almost exclusively Albanian ... street begging in the Plaka district of Athens was nonexistent 10 years ago --- and nonexistent in Heraklion and Chania 5 years ago.

Furthermore, the pickpocketing and "scams" similar to the gypsy children "gold ring" scams in Paris, also are linked closely to the immigrant influx, according to police reports, although of course the police could be lying.

Greeks have their own style of skullduggery -- international wheeling-dealing in shipping -- but petty theft and begging scams are not really part of their culture.

Of course our ancestors migrated with adventurous spirits, but at least the ones I know about didn't mooch on the streets, they were mainly busy chopping down trees, fording streams etc.

... etc.
killing Indians?
G.

Hardly, Gaspard. Most of my forebears were Quakers who got here with William Penn. Quakers were (and are) advocates of nonviolence, and made treaties with the Pennsylvania Indians. in fact one forebear was John Woolman who was noted for advocating for Native Americans. Later on, the family branch in North Carolina walked 800 miles on deer trails to settle in Indiana, in order to leave behind a "slave state" because of the Quaker opposition to slavery.

The other family branch, in New England, did do some fighting at Lexington & Concord, they were Minute Men but they aimed their guns at Redcoats only.

Before the discussion goes too far off-track, the controversial issue of immigration depends on which side you're on:

- on the weak side: the very poor Romanian or Albanian having just made a perilous journey to the Eldorado, the Irish migrant 100 years ago jumping ship in New York, the Chinese migrant washing the underwear and cooking for the Gold Rush prospectors, the movie characters in Little Big Man or Dancing with the Wolves?

- on the strong side: the Persian invader of Ancient Greece, a Roman legionnaire who marries a Dacian girl and makes Romania one of the remote speakers of a Romance language, a German tradesman settling with his family in southern Russia, an American GI bringing home a Japanese bride; a Jewish family immigrating to Israel?

- Greece has a 3rd category creating tension: the Greeks who left generations ago for Australia and the New World, and have now returned rich to poor islands like Kythera, buying up land and building luxury next to poverty; or the West Europeans building retirement homes on Naxos or Corfu, next to the very poor having tended their farms there for many generations

- I understand that in Greece and Italy official policy toward "illegal" immigrants have fluctuated: benign neglect, leaving it to the local authorities, or expulsion; and like in other countries a temporary residence is more tolerated than a permanent one

- newspapers are great at sensationalizing the incidents and inflaming the mass opinion; check out http://www.spiegel.de/international/...439761,00.html

Whoops, is my comment getting too long? though we should make such observations of the world we visit, and compare it to our own, this topic could move to a separate thread.

I'd like to digress on another relevant subject: the Greek language. In rural Crete English was no longer sufficient, we had to rely on our rudiments of Greek. I got rewarded for boning up on it; without it I would have been in trouble.
This post isn't a crash course in Greek, just a few interesting extracts. We found it amusing that even the language-supersensitive and classics-educated French were using English as the lingua franca.

- re the Romanized transliteration (spelling) of Greek writing, also called Greeklish: anything close enough goes, no dogmatic rule, variations appear in close proximity; for example the Southern Peloponnese town Gythio, Gytheion, Githio, Jithio (J for the fricative initial Gamma)

- if you walk or drive, and need to read maps or road signs, a few basic terms help with orientation: kastro = castle, kolpos = bay, potamos = river, oros = mountain, paralia = beach, agios/agia = saint (often used in vilage names), domatia = rooms, agora = market, akro-polis = upper-city (citadel), chora = main village or town in a region, like Chora Naxos or Paleo-chora.

- those Greek specialty foods at the market or taverna: turi = cheese, psomi = bread, pita = flat bread, tiro-pita = cheese-filled bread, spanako-pita = spinach-filled bread, psari = fish, kalamari is something many of us already know, but if you prefer your squid tender, then you'd better ask for kalamaraki = baby squid, kokkino krassi = red wine, melizana = eggplant, kolokithaki = zucchini, stafili = grapes, rodi = pommegranates, sika = figs; horiatiki / tztatziki = types of greek salad, dolmades = vine leaves stuffed with rice

- countrary to expectation, ne in Greek means "yes" in English; ohi means "no"

- the basic "wh" interrogatives in Engl, or "qu" words in French/Italian become "po" words in Greek: pou = who, which, where, poios = what, pote = when, posos= how many, pos= how come

It helps to have a scientific and/or medical background to understand the Greek (or pre-Greek) origin of some words we use today; many derived meanings went far from the original; a few interesting or humorous extracts:

- alphabet: comes from alpha + beta

- gyros: has to do with a rotating skewer, not with what's on it (gyroscope)

- human, man, woman: android or anthropos simply means human-like; I still don't know how to find a public toilet, but in a restaurant I know how to choose between andron and gynaeikon

- feta used to simply mean a cheese slice, now it means soft cheese, vs kasseri being a hard cheese

- gymnasium: the original meaning in ancient Greece was a place for skilled sportsmen to train in the nude

- exodus (ex+hodos) means way-out; good to know at the airport, on a highway; travel joke on this topic from Germany, where all kinds of color-coded traffic signs are used: lost American driver flags down a policeman "excuse me, officer; all these signs point to UMLEITUNG, but I can't find it anywhere on my map" (the word means "highway construction detour" in German)

- when after the trip the doctor diagnosed my complaint as nothing more than perianal dermatitis, I knew it meant itchy butt

- the Amazons were a race of female warriors in Greek mythology, while the Gorillas were a race of hairy women, possibly from Africa

- scato-logy: scat = animal dung, the study of animal droppings; derived meaning: obscene literature

- helleborus: the name of this noble flowering plant we appreciate in our garden isn't in fact very flattering; hellos/hellos "fawn" + bora "food of beasts" among the ancients was a name given to various plants of both poisonous (to farm animals) and medicinal qualities (reputed to cure madness)

The next installment coming up: Crete to Corfu.

tableronde
thank you for your observations. Especially this one: though we should make such observations of the world we visit, and compare it to our own.
And prepare a voyage very well, not just reading a travel guide or two.
G.

Mygreektrip.it: le piu' belle isole greche a portata di click


Le isole greche sono da sempre tra le mete più affascinanti e richieste dai turisti italiani. E questo è perchè con i loro variegati paesaggi vengono incontro alle necessità dei viaggiatori di ogni tipo: da quelli che cercano un angolo di paradiso incontaminato, ai fanatici dello sport, fino agli appassionati di arte e storia e a coloro che invece cercano avventura e divertimento.
Santorini, Kos, Lesbo, Chios, Samos: isole ideali per una vacanza in famiglia, perfette per un romantico soggiorno ed allo stesso tempo indicate per un turismo giovanile alla ricerca di divertimento.
Per aiutare il viaggiatore a conoscere e scegliere l'isola greca che più fa per sè, in Internet è nata la guida turistica mygreektrip.it. Più facile e veloce di andare in agenzia viaggi ad informarsi, attraverso mygreektrip è possibile reperire, con un solo click, tutte le informazioni necessarie per il vostro soggiorno greco ideale.
Come trovare i voli per le isole, dove alloggiare a seconda delle possibilità del vostro portafogli...dove noleggiare un'auto, cosa vedere, le migliori spiagge dove rilassarsi al sole:mygreektrip si rivela uno strumento indispensabile per ogni turista che voglia godersi al meglio le attrattive delle isole greche. Storia e cultura, informazioni utili, foto dei piu' bei paesaggi, tutto cio' che vi consentirà di godere al meglio delle bellezze dell'Egeo è da oggi sul sito mygreektrip.it. Dalle meravigliose spiagge di Kos alle indimenticabili atmosfere di Santorini, passando per gli scorci senza tempo di Samos, le antiche chiese di Lesbos ed i suggestivi villaggi di Chios.
Se siete alla ricerca della prossima meta per le vostre vacanze e non volete sbagliarvi, mygreektrip.it vi aiuterà passo passo nella scelta della vostra vacanza dei sogni.
Per raggiungere il sito, cliccare qui: www.mygreektrip.it

Grazie, Perla, ma troverete che la maggior parte della gente qui non parla italiano, ma solo inglese

Gaspard, thanks for your comment. In fact I am extending the benefits of my trip by comparing expereiences here on the forum. And I enjoy the DIFFERENCES.

Buongiorno Perla. Ho cercato il tuo sito web, ma non fonzionna bene. Sei un ufficio turistico o un'agenzia di viaggio?

On the positive side I feel encouraged that my thread is getting international participation. And I like this web site's authorship and design. And let's say I forget about 50% of the information being of a promotional nature -- offerte speciali -- which is against Fodor's forum rules. Still:

- your option to switch from Italian to another language hasn't been implemented
- with only 5 Aegean islands you're far from being a "guida turistica di (tutta la) Grecia"
- if you wish to have your image-enhanced website be read in the US, than you'd better move to a more potent server; with my Firefox or IE browser and a high bandwidth location your pages take too long to transmit and load
- your Santorini beach pics http://www.mygreektrip.it/Santorini/...ni-spiagge.asp would have been relevant to the subject being discussed, but regretfully any attempt to see full-size images in your Galleria Fotografica gives an error message. For comparison, have you seen the high quality free images being shared on http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=sant...w=25653611@N00 ?