polly229

Part 1 - Meteora

My husband and I left May 2 for our annual Business Class flights-complements-of-Delta to Greece. Despite the undesirable routing which included a Paris to Athens leg on Air France, the trip over was relatively uneventful. (Note: Business class on Air France was a bad joke – for heaven’s sake, don’t ever pay for it!)

I delayed some of the planning this year, in part because we were negotiating with Delta on a change for our return because I suspected our 50 min. layover at De Gaulle on the return flight might mean a Paris sleep-over. Once that was resolved, I waited to see if the Delta pilots were going to strike. And I left some things open intentionally. For the most part, both the late planning and lack of planning worked out satisfactorily, if not always ideally. Maybe the worst call I made was deciding not to cram a sweater into my bag at the last minute. There were many occasions when I wished I had more than my light jacket.

Since we were picking up a car and heading toward Meteora on arrival about 2PM, I made reservations in Halkida for the first night, figuring it was a pretty short drive. The drive was quick, the BW Lucy was an adequate hotel, and we made the correct choice of using the old bridge to get there without wandering through town. I’m sure the short time we were there isn’t enough for a fair assessment, but I wasn’t too impressed with Halkida. Unfortunately, we made a bad restaurant choice and started our trip off on the wrong culinary foot. But in 16 hrs. we were on the road again.

I decided to spring for an automatic this year since my husband didn’t particularly enjoy the return to standard transmission last year after nearly 30 years of no gear shifting. Good choice since I did most of the driving after the first day. This left my techie husband free to play with his GPS, which, after providing directions that got us thoroughly snarled in the center of Trikala, then informed us we had arrived at our destination. (This was the first of the name-calling and incriminations of the trip, though not the last. But to the credit of the GPS, it did manage to get us out of the Trikala mess and back on the road to Kalampaka after a reprogramming. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so clever about locating the hotel in Kalampaka, Elena’s Guest House. There were good signs for Elena’s but the B&B itself had a subtle sign, so we drove past twice before finding it.)

If I can’t reserve on the Internet, it’s a deal killer. Since several accommodations I had in mind required phone calls or faxes, Elena’s won by default. But the choice was a good one. New, exceptionally clean, and moderately spacious (by European standards) and comfortable for 40 Euros a night, without breakfast. Since we avoid bread except when it’s very good but crave Greek yogurt, we opted out of the 5 Euro breakfast and ate yogurt from the nearby mini market that we kept in the refrigerator in the room.

As soon as we unpacked a few things to let the wrinkles hang out, we headed to Meteora. It was late afternoon but there were still 4 more hours of sunlight to stop at various monasteries and overlooks to enjoy the view. There were quite a few climbers on the rocks and we first took the colorfully bedecked crevasse on one of the rocks to be a campsite with a LOT of laundry hung out to dry. Later we read about St. George’s Day and the sacrifice of clothing and realized what we had seen. Meteora wasn’t what I had anticipated – at least not the monasteries. I must have formed my expectations from pictures of the ruins of the older ones. Nevertheless, it was a spectacular setting and well worth the trip.

polly229

Part 1 – Meteora con’t

Having had 3 mediocre meals thus far, we really hoped to do better for dinner that night. So we stopped at Paradissos in Kastriki, recommended by Fodor’s, on the way back. It was fairly good – particularly for one of those places obviously set up for tour buses with large eating areas both inside and out. We really like eating “meze style” and had an enjoyable dinner of a bit of this and that.

The next morning we visited St. Stephen’s and Grand Meteoron before heading back to Kastriki for lunch. We just stopped in another one of the tour bus places, so we got what we deserved - it wasn’t nearly as good as Paradissos. No menu, just whatever they had on the grill and a Greek salad. Reminded me a bit of my daughter’s story of Christmas night on Santorini when they walked into one of the few open restaurants on the island and were told “we have a nice pig.” They asked for the menu and the reply was “we have a nice pig.”

We had thought we might go back and visit another monastery that afternoon but decided that the secret of Meteora is location, location, location and that the edifices themselves were not all that different from numerous other monasteries we had seen the previous year. So we decided to go back to Kalampaka (where we probably should have eaten lunch), check out the town and shopping, then walk part way up the footpath to Meteora located near our hotel.

How did we spend two weeks in Greece last spring and manage to miss the siesta thing? Certainly there were a lot of museums that closed at 2 or 3 PM, but since they didn’t reopen, that was really just a short day. It was in Kalampaka that we first realized many shops close in the early afternoon and don’t reopen till evening. So our shopping plans were drastically curtailed. After a frappe, we headed back to leave our meager purchases and find the footpath. As luck would have it, I tried a different approach to Elena’s that involved walking two extra blocks down a steep hill and the same two blocks back up for the footpath, so we decided to keep heading upward, shopping bags in tow, since we didn’t plan to go too far anyway.

To make a long story short, the afternoon was pleasant and the views were great, so we kept walking just a little farther and a little farther. After a particularly steep part of the path, we looked up and noticed one of the little carriers on a cable that the monasteries use to transport goods, sometimes people, and we realized there was a monastery on the rock we hadn’t been able to see from the Kalampaka side. Further on we saw a wall in the distance that my husband was pretty sure was the retaining wall on a pull-out we had stopped at the day before. A bit further along, the stone-paved path ended in the trees and we realized we had climbed pretty close to the top. We didn’t have any idea how much longer the path would meander before we emerged wherever the footpath leads, and although we thought we still had maybe an hour of light, I started thinking about how I’d hate to trek back down that steep path in the darkness, so we turned back. I’m still frustrated by having gotten so close to the top – I think – and not finishing. Wish we had started that trip instead of the brief shopping and frappe in town. If anyone reading this has taken the path and knows where it ends, about how much farther we had to go, please tell me.

We, had dinner at the Apxontapiki Taverna a couple of blocks off the square (where we had the best meal of the trip so far), and packed up to head for Nafplion the next morning.

polly229

Part 2 – Nafplion (and Corinth on the way)

We weren’t sure how long it would take us to drive to Nafplion from Meteora, so I didn’t make reservations for a hotel for night 4. Although we took a big bus tour to Mycenae and Epidaurus last May, with a stop in a parking lot in Nafplion (which is what inspired us to go there this year), we didn’t go to Corinth and I didn’t know much about it. But someone on this forum mentioned having gone and been very surprised at the extensive ruins, so I thought maybe we could drive to Corinth, spend the night, and see Ancient Corinth the next morning before driving to Nafplion. If we didn’t get as far as Corinth, we’d stop sooner. My Internet search efforts for hotels along the route were not too fruitful, so hoped something would turn up when the need arose.

Although driving on the mainland is sometimes a bit more adventuresome than I might like, I got used to being passed on hairpin turns and left in the dust on the national highway while driving at 140 in a 120 mile zone. If we had a “diversion” (meaning we got lost), I don’t recall it, so it must not have been serious, and if the GPS was busily tracking our progress, at least my husband was wise enough to keep it to himself. And about 5PM we arrived at the exit to Corinth. I didn’t know what to expect, whether a village or a proper city, but a city it was. Driving down the main street, we suddenly spied a building with a large hotel sign on top and I pulled around the corner and found a place to park. The girl at the desk of the Ephedra gave us keys to a couple of rooms, which proved adequate, and we took one for 50 Euros a night, breakfast extra. It was then that she told us that most of the hotels in Corinth, neither a great tourist or business destination, rent rooms by the hour. She was not a great fan of her own city and advised us to drive to Ancient Corinth or to another nearby town for dinner, but we were through driving and decided to make the best of whatever Corinth had to offer. After finding a more legal-looking parking spot, we walked down the main street to the water and then around the side along the bay. We found a quiet taverna overlooking the sunset on the bay, had a good dinner, and returned to our hotel via a bakery with some delicious little treats.

The next morning, after another visit to the bakery, we drove to Ancient Corinth without incident. We also were impressed with the extent of the ruins and the little museum and were glad we decided to stop. The area was loaded with places for lunch and we picked Marino’s because nearly all of the customers were local Greeks. Good choice. And then we drove on to Nafplion.

We had 3 maps, each with different strengths and advantages, and used them all in turn. But all the maps in the world won’t help if roads have no identification. After heading off on the wrong highway, the result of my not checking the map before I started, we made it back to the correct section of the “good” highway. After leaving that, I missed one turn due to bushes obscuring the sign, but otherwise we found a Nafplion sign at nearly every intersection, though the route seemed to be a bit more circuitous than the map would indicate. After threading through a couple of small towns I’d rather not have driven through, we reached Nafplion with all its weekend traffic and tourists. We finally found a place to park at the far end of town, partially on a sidewalk, and started looking for the Byron, where we had reservations.

Trish

Polly229, I'm pretty sure if you had continued walking you would have made it to the Aghia Triada Monestary. When I was in Meteora last year I stayed at Koka Roka and I believe it's just up the street from Eleana's guest house and that is where the path to that monestary starts.

polly229

We passed Koka Roka a couple of times walking into town, so I'm sure we're talking about the same path. Aghia Triada, huh? We couldn't recognize anything from the parts we could see since we were almost under it. (Got a book but found after I got home that many of the photos aren't identified, so I've got a lot of my own photos of monasteries shot from afar and have no idea which they are, either.) Did you do the footpath climb? I'd love to know how close we got, but I guess I'd be pretty groused if I learned we'd have reached the top in another 10 min. or something. I assume the top of the footpath is actually the bottom of the rock, so I'd still have had a way to go to reach Aghia Triada.

Trish

Polly, I did do the climb in a long skirt and long sleeves no less. I was trying dress appropiatly for the monastaries. The walk took about 30 min or so. When you get to the top of the path you are at the bottom of the rock of the monastary and then you have to climb a bunch of stairs that wind their way around the rock before you get to the top where there is a garden area and entrance to the building. If you want a good look at the path and the monastary you can watch the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only. I have a picture of it also on my virtual tourist page but I didn't include any of the hike.

polly229

Part 2 - Nafplion con’t

Greece seems to be to be a bit map-deficient, and nowhere is that more evident than when I try to find maps of cities and towns prior to departing. If it isn’t Athens, forget it. I always take print-outs of any available maps from hotel websites, travel guides, whatever I can find – but they range from blurry to vague to seriously incorrect. So it was armed with two of the questionable maps that we headed out, sans luggage, to find the Byron. We managed to get close but finally had to ask directions at another hotel. It would have been easier to locate from the waterfront area but since we were parked more than halfway up the hill at the west end of town, we approached from that direction. It was no surprise to learn, when we checked in, that if we tried to move the car at that point, we’d probably never find another parking place. So we wandered around town checking out the layout, eating gelato, and photographing odd pigeons with feather “pantaloons” that went down their legs. We also discovered a route involving a stairless street UP and only a short flight of stairs DOWN to the Byron, so when we moved the car to what was probably an illegal place in an area at the east full of day-trippers’ cars after 8PM, moving the luggage was pretty easy. (I gathered on hearing the complaints and heavy breathing from some people moving in the next day that we’d been lucky.) After a good taverna dinner at (B)Vasilis Basilhs, we were able to find what appeared to be a legal spot in the same area and moved the car. I shudder to think what Nafplion, reputedly a hot spot for the weekend for Athenians, must be like in July or August.

Our room at the Byron was typically European small but livable, quite clean and pleasant – and, lucky for us, only one flight of stairs up. We skipped the rather basic 5 Euro coffee & toast breakfast and had yogurt, muffin, and coffee at Popeye’s (yep, that’s the name) on Kapodistriou (I believe) near Vasilis Basilhs for 4.50 Euros.

We really enjoyed wandering around Nafplion – despite the fact that we always seemed to be climbing a hill. Old town is charming. The second afternoon we decided to visit the Palamidi but weren’t sure where the road was and weren’t interested in climbing the 999 steps or whatever. Rather than do something sensible like ask, I drove up the road between the Palamidi and the Akronafplia and parked in a lot there. We saw a number of people leaving their cars and starting down a road in the direction of the Palamidi that had been closed off to vehicular traffic. After all, following like sheep had gotten us on the right train in Amsterdam the previous fall after an announcement in Dutch only. This time the sheep thing didn’t get us to the Palamidi but on a beautiful walk along the coast at the base and beyond. A little serendipity isn’t a bad thing.

After the scenic walk, we got back in the car and drove down the hill. Found a sign directing us to the Palamidi, drove there, and had a pleasant hour exploring the ruins and enjoying the view. By then we had surmised that continuing on the road past the lot where we had parked previously, we would get to the Akronafplia, so we went back. As we started up the hill, a pack of dogs that had been attacking the car ahead of us turned their attentions on our car. I was very afraid I might hit one of them but also concerned about what they might be doing to the car since they were banging and slamming into it. Luckily, they finally gave up on us and attacked a car behind us. We didn’t find any damage, nor did Thrifty when we turned the car in, but they certainly made a lot of noise as they lunged against it.

Following a late but excellent dinner, we returned to our room to pack and get some sleep before our drive back to the Athens airport, which unbeknownst to us, would involve getting lost in Argos and my being locked in a toilet.

polly229

Well, Trish, I guess we were almost to the base of the monastery when we turned back. Rats, wish we'd kept on a little longer, then. I had taken off the skirt I wore that morning but was not wearing the clothes, particularly shoes, I'd have chosen if I'd know I was going to hike most of the path. I do have photos of the monastery from above, but since we never emerged from the trees before we turned back, I didn't know which one it was. (My husband now claims he did know - not the name but what it looked like - after I told him you said it was Aghia Triada. Not sure if I believe him or not, but I admit he has a better sense of direction than I do. But all we could see was the top edges of some buildings and the "bucket" on the cable taking something to the monastery.)

polly229

On the way to Rhodes

We had a mid-afternoon flight to Rhodes so we’d have plenty of time to get to the airport – and get lost once or twice along the way. So after another leisurely yogurt and honey breakfast, we hauled our luggage up the short flight of steps and down (thank goodness) the long cobbled street to our car. (I need to check the wheels on our bags after so much cobblestone rolling. Some years ago we actually had the wheels on one bag become triangular, and I wonder if, despite better wheels now, that could happen again.)

We almost immediately did get lost, too. Confused. Disoriented. Whatever. According to our maps, particularly the easier-to-read one with only larger towns marked, there was a better road back to the National Road from Nafplion. It appeared that had we ignored the first sign to Nafplion and headed on toward Argos, we would have come upon a better road that didn’t take us through all the small towns with narrow streets. Driving through them was like threading a needle and I was eager to avoid that again. So we followed signs to Argos when we left Nafplion.

Now, my husband has a good sense of direction and excellent luck. Having no idea where he is or how to get where he’s going, he turns here and turns there, seemingly at random, and shortly finds himself at his destination. Parking places materialize as he drives up. So I tend to trust his directions. But apparently the Driving Muse missed the plane to Athens. (Maybe she knew he had the GPS and figured she wasn’t needed.)

I was never all that great at multiple choice tests and even worse at true-false, both of which navigating in Greece remind me of. When we saw a sign saying “Korinthos”, the question was whether this was a good road back to Corinth and the National Highway, ultimately Athens, or if it was a narrow and winding route through more of those small towns. We decided to give it a pass and see if we could find signs that said “Athina”. And ultimately we did – both Athens and Corinth, in fact. And we turned. When we got to the next Athens turn, we turned. But the next sign was Corinth only. What to do? We continued straight ahead – right smack into the center of Argos. The traffic increased, the streets became narrower, the motorcycles became more reckless, and the taller buildings blocked out the sky so that GPS couldn’t phone home.

polly229

On the way to Rhodes, con’t

My husband doesn’t know what “road rage” means, even though he accused me of it several times in the next 20 min. Road rage is when you cut people off or tailgate out of spite, get out of your car and kick their car, or shoot them. It isn’t raising your voice, cursing a country’s signage (or lack thereof), making ugly remarks about technology and the people who rely too heavily on it – that’s just ulcer prevention. I won’t go on any more about this. I’ll just say that we finally got to the National Road by a different route than we had arrived in Nafplion but still not a particularly good route until we got to the “green” (so marked on the map) E65. Either we never found the “red” E65 or the map misled us about the road quality. Our digression took about half an hour, the time I had expected to save by avoiding the small towns.

From there on it was pretty smooth sailing. Except that we never found a place to eat lunch and thought it might be a good idea to do so before we got to the airport. As we got closer and closer, we decided that we should pull into one of the service areas along the highway and see what we could find to sustain us until we got to Rhodes. Unfortunately, the service areas are catered by the same company that provided the lousy food we got at the National Archeological Museum in Athens the preceding year, but we got a couple of different mediocre cheese pies that would hold us. And we figured we might as well make a potty break of it as well. My husband went first, then came back and started phoning the rental car people that we were supposed to meet at 2PM to tell them that we were going to be there at 1:30. I headed down the stairs to the restrooms.

I should have known when I tried to close the door and had trouble getting it to latch. It was one of those knobs very common in Europe but which I’ve never seen here that looks like a smallish conventional door know but doesn’t turn, it has a large push button on the top. I pulled and jiggled until the door latched, flipped down the little locking lever, did my thing, unlocked the door and prepared to leave. But the door wouldn’t open. I could not budge the push button on top no matter how hard I tried. I began banging more violently and banging on the door to see if that would jiggle something loose. No luck. With walls to the ceiling and a door to within 2” of the floor, crawling out wasn’t an option. So I continued banging until the side of my hand was killing me. I wasn’t sure if anyone would hear me if I yelled and I wasn’t sure what anyone could do anyway, other than dismantle the door – which I figured might take so much time that not only would we not be early with the rental car, we might miss our flight to Rhodes. My hand hurt too much to keep on hitting the button much longer and the only hard thing I could find in my purse to bang with was the camera. Surely using a camera to bash in a latch wouldn’t be so great for the camera and wouldn’t make my husband happy, either. Even if it worked.

polly229

Rhodes

After about 10 LONG minutes, shortly before true, hysterical panic set in, the latch popped open and I was free. (Not sure how common this is, but a few days ago when I was talking to a Dutch friend, she told me some years ago she had the same experience with the same sort of latch.) I drove the last few km to the airport with an aching hand and arm, and we flew to Rhodes.

We took a taxi to the Spot Hotel in the Old Town, unpacked, and began exploring the town, which immediately captivated us. It’s a wonderful town for wandering aimlessly, getting lost, discovering strange and fascinating things, finding yourself again, and wandering on. We had dinner at the Rooftop Restaurant on Plateia Evereon Martyron, just down the street from the hotel. It was the least memorable meal on Rhodes, except for the meatballs served charred on the outside and completely raw inside (which we sent back for further cooking), but the view was great and a nice introduction to the town.

This began our week of walking and eating, walking some more, which is what I often tell people who ask me what we did on a trip. And nowhere do I find walking and eating more pleasant than in Greece.

Some of the memorable eating in Old Town took place at Myrovolos, a bit tricky to find the first time but easier the second when we realized that turning off Ippoton (The Street of the Knights) onto Lahitos at the garbage cans was much simpler than winding through from Plateia Ippokratous. (The restaurant has an enclosed courtyard and the main dining room is upstairs, so it’s harder to spot than the tavernas with tables outside.) Myrovolos was our hands-down favorite of the trip, particularly the Medieval salad (I think - the one with the chicken), the vegetable-stuffed eggplant, and the chicken in filo. Reasonable prices, large portions, and a favorite of the locals. We also liked Thomas & Charlotte’s in the New Town (which was not a long walk) well enough to make a second visit, and we liked Taverna Kostas in the Old Town. The Spot Hotel was exceptionally clean and quite pleasant for a budget hotel. We chose a larger room on the front of the hotel overlooking the street, which was a bit noisier because of the occasional motorcycle zooming through after midnight, but after the first night we didn’t notice it once we were asleep. The usual basic toast, jam and juice breakfast but there was also yogurt and honey and the coffee was good. Although we had only reserved for the first 3 nights, we ended up staying for 7.

The Rhodes portion of the trip was where some of my lack of planning proved a failure. I had originally planned to spend one day more in the Peleponnese and one day less on Rhodes, but by the time I was ready to make flight reservations, the Wed. flights were 75 or more Euros pp more than the Tues. flights for some reason, so I opted to fly Tues. and figured we’d spend part of the time on another island.

polly229

More Rhodes

Thought I tried to check ferry schedules on the Internet, I wasn’t too successful. The closest I came to finding what I thought was an updated schedule was for Dodekanisos Express, but on closer reading, I noticed that Schedule A was for the month of Jan., and Schedules B & C weren’t dated at all. So I decided that we would just see what we could find after we got there. I noted some hotel suggestions for Kos and Symi and figured we’d do whatever proved most convenient. By the time we reached Rhodes I had decided that Kos was probably farther away and had more to offer than we could do justice to for two or three days. Lee, the hotel owner, said he felt Symi was more of a day trip destination and recommended we go to Tilos for a night, then on to Nisyros for a night and see the volcano. Since I’m very fond of fire-in-the-earth things, that sounded good to me and my husband concurred.

On our first full day on Rhodes, we headed out to see what we would do on days 4-6. After a couple of hours of making the rounds of the travel agents and ferry offices, we had learned that the only fast boat, the Sea Star, wouldn’t start going to Nisyros for 10 more days and the slower ferry didn’t arrive until 11PM. Furthermore, we couldn’t spend only one or two nights on Tilos because there was no more space left on the Sea Star on Fri. because of children on school trips and it didn’t go on Sat. So we concluded that our best option was to do a day trip to Tilos the following day, a day trip to Symi later.

Unfortunately, the Tilos boat left about 2 hrs. late, which gave us only 4 hours on Tilos. And it was loaded with the children who hadn’t been able to get on the Fri. boat, I guess. By the time we arrived on Tilos, we were extremely tired of these children, so we opted not to join them on the buses that went to Megalo Horio. No taxis were in evidence, so we had a nice lunch at Taverna Michalis, a typically leisurely Greek lunch that took the better part of two hours and wandered around Livadia and the shore till time to return. All in all, it was probably the low point of our trip, including the boat ride back with the noisy kids again.

polly229

Northeastern Rhodes

We rented a car to be delivered to a parking lot inside the walls near our hotel. While waiting for the car we heard the story of another hotel guest who had accidentally driven his rental car into the wrong gate and hadn’t known how to get to the parking lot. In addition, it was illegal for him to be driving where he was. A policeman directed him to a lot nearby and he parked, then found his way back to the hotel. Next morning he had a ticket for 65 Euros because the lot was for residents only. Not wanting to repeat that, we spent a few extra minutes walking to the gate we were supposed to enter on our return (different from the one we had to use to exit the walls) and scouted landmarks. A good move. I seriously doubt we’d have found it easily otherwise, particularly since you have to make a turn around an old building (probably Venetian) that forms an island, past an oddly located do not enter sign that could mean the short piece of road around the building. (A resident told us that it is assumed that most of the prohibition signs date from the time of the Venetians, the Germans, some other occupier, and are no longer valid, so they are mostly just ignored. And we did notice that the sign for the lot we were told to park in said exactly the same thing as the other signs at other lots – parking for residents only. We were assured it was okay, had been for 2 or 3 years, and we didn’t get a ticket. But obviously you have to consult with a local to be sure which signs mean what they say and which can be ignored.)

The first day we drove up the east coast to Lindos. We planned to arrive later in the afternoon, when the crowds had thinned, though I’m not sure whether there were a lot of tour buses while we were on Rhodes or not. (Didn’t see many, mostly just cruise ship passengers – a LOT of them some days – in the Old Town.) We decided to pass by Lindos and eat lunch in Pefki at Mare Matto, which was quite good. This appears to be the part of Rhodes that the Brits gravitate to on holiday; on the mainland and in Rhodes Town the bulk of the tourists appeared to be German, some Dutch on Rhodes. Then we drove back a few km. to Lindos and explored the acropolis, encountering few other tourists. The ruins were interesting and well worth the trip and the views were nice. When we came back down, we briefly explored the town, which I found to be a bit claustrophobic. We made our way through the labyrinth of the town, with only a couple of wrong turns before we got back to the area where we had parked. Back in Rhodes, I did the obligatory stall in traffic (after almost 30 years of not shifting gears) and was surprised that the normally impatient Greeks sat quietly while I located 1st and started the car. Because of our previous reconnoitering, we were able to find the correct gate and park without problem.

Driving on Rhodes was considerably less harrowing than on the mainland – or even on Crete the previous year. Once we left the town of Rhodes, there was very little traffic and most of the other drivers seemed to be tourists as well, judging from their rather subdued speeds and the fact that they stayed in their lane, didn’t straddle the center line. (Speed limits on Rhodes were lower than on the mainland, not that I suppose that means much.) I was also surprised at how close everything was compared to the mainland and Crete.