Greece

Today was our last day on Crete. I really enjoyed Crete. It may not be the “paradise” spoken of by our taxi driver on Santorini, but it’s a pretty, amazing place. The north side has all the cities and is fairly green and beautiful. The center has surprisingly tall and steep mountains. The south side has beautiful beaches. We spent the day at one of those beautiful beaches today. Driving from Chania to Elafonisi Beach is a challenge. The roads are windy and very narrow. In some places they are so narrow only a single direction can proceed at a time. We passed through what looks like a railroad tunnel, barely wide enough for the microbus we were driving. The road takes you through a few small towns where you are sometimes forced to pull to the side into a driveway so traffic coming towards you can get by. If you get carsick easily, this may not be a good trip for you. ...

The Megaron Hotel continues to impress. Breakfast was perfect. I finally got to try the fried donut balls with sesame and honey. They were excellent. There was a ton of fresh fruit, some Greek yogurt, an omelet bar, a ridiculously well stocked dessert bar, and everything else you could think of. Fried meats like bacon and sausage? yes. Sandwiches? yes. Salads? of course. And like all the good places, they provided plastic gloves for everyone to use as they approached the buffet. ...

We got up early to see if there was a response from the boat tour company. They replied during the night. They’re not running the boat that does tours of the volcano this time of year, but offered to have us take their other boat (at twice the price) to visit some beaches. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out either, so we had a day of relaxation ahead. Taking it Easy We got up, packed our bags, and walked to a nearby bakery for breakfast. This one doesn’t have a beautiful view and doesn’t really cater to tourists. That made it a lot cheaper, but it was also a lot more complicated for us to order. I ordered something I had never seen before called “salty pancakes”. Brett got an omelette. Charmaine and Jess each got a Greek yogurt. The portions were huge, as they always are in this country. It was a real job eating all our food, but we managed to do it. ...

It’s pretty cool here right now, so we didn’t see the need to get up super early to start our big hike. We got up at a reasonable time, walked around town until we found a nice breakfast place overlooking the ocean, and then started walking from Fira to Oia. Breakfast was pretty good, but it was more expensive than it was worth, in my opinion. I guess that’s what you get when you go to a place with a nice view. Instead of the typical Greek yogurt, I went for some coconut yogurt with mangos and chia seeds. It was tasty, but I definitely could have used a bit more food before setting out on our hike. ...

The day started early. We had to drive back to Athens in time to catch a flight to Santorini, and that meant leaving the hotel before 7:00. Breakfast doesn’t start until 7, but we hoped to sneak in and get a doggie bag for ourselves anyway. No. The lady setting up the buffet wasn’t going to fall for our tricks and excuses. We did finally talk her in to letting us grab “a role” before walking out to the car. ...

We went to bed a little later than usual last night. We enjoyed a sunset session from one of the viewpoints above Meteora, then drove down into Kastraki and had a late dinner at a local pub. The Gyros continue to be pork or chicken only, no sign of lamb anywhere. Despite the late-ish night, we still wanted to be up for sunrise at one of the overlooks. We got up around 6:00 and headed up into the hills/rocks. It was nice, but it wasn’t magical like the previous night had been. Part of that is probably because the newness of the view was starting to wear off, but the real difference was the lack of clouds. People underestimate the value of clouds when taking landscape photos. ...

We went to bed a bit early last night. For some reason staying up through the night on a flight will do that to you. So we went to sleep around eight and woke up around five. That’s a bit earlier than we were hoping, but the traffic noise was starting to build and it didn’t seem like we would be able to fall back to sleep. Today is Sunday. A lot of things seem to be closed on Sunday, even in Athens. We walked around the hotel in search of an ATM, an electronics store (hoping to buy a plug adapter), and to find some breakfast. We found an ATM at a bank across the street from the hotel. Across another street from there is a bakery called Bread Factory. We had no choice but to buy some pastries. The pastries were good, especially the mini Pain au Chocolat. ...

We picked up Brett and Jess then picked up Steve and headed to airport. Steve took our car back to his house and will get it to Dave when he comes into town. The plan is to have Dave use the car while he is in town and we are gone. Dave will park the car at the airport when he flies back home, which is just a few hours before are supposed to arrive. So it will only need to be parked at the airport for a couple hours. We brought an extra key fob with us, so Dave can lock his key in the car when he parks it. I think it’s a great plan. I guess we’ll see how well it works over the next little while. ...