We spent all yesterday scootering around Rethymno, which is in central Crete. We were going to try to make it to Anogia, touted by LP as a traditional Cretan village, but it turned out that scooters couldn't make it up the mountain so we ended up going south instead. The scooter rental guy wouldn't even let us go. He's like, "Anogia? Why do you want to go there? It's boring. If you go, we will have to send search out for you." So we ended up going to Spili (mountain town in central Crete), Plakias (boring beach town), and Frankigastello (smallish Venetian castle on the southern shore). Got a good Crete map here. The fun is in the scootering, though. Being the passenger on the b**** seat, I get to see the scenery go by, and that's very fun. Especially because I apparently don't get motion sickness on scooters.
Before I came to Greece, I thought this was a lush country. It's not. It's very barren and reminds me of Colorado, or a very warm Scotland -- lots of rocks, dry dirt, big hills, scrub, and no trees. Anything even resembling a tree is an olive tree/bush, and the only animals I've seen on this trip besides dogs and stray cats are goats and sheep. The landscape makes for stunning scenery, but it's obviously a hard country (to farm, at least). Small towns still manage to poke up every couple kilometers, though, and there's always a couple of old guys in the local ouzeri wasting time and watching the world go by. Impressive, considering LP tags the domestic unemployment rate at 9.6%. I'm not sure if they count self-employed farmers and goatherds, but that figure is close to what Canada expects during a bad economic year.
We're in Chania until tomorrow night, when we take the overnight ferry back to Piraeus/Athens. Chania is probably the most picturesque city we've been to on Crete -- the old town is very Venetian, with cobbled roads and pink and yellow buildings. There also seem to be a lot more genuine artisans here. Instead of the main pedestrian routes being 100% touristy stuff, it's about 70% touristy stuff with 30% extremely expensive, but beautiful, crafts. I'm not really in a position to bring a 300 euro chessboard back with me, but I'd really like to. We hung around a restaurant for most of the siesta hours and then clambered up to a bastion on the edge of the old city wall, which gives you a good view of the city's churches, rooftops, local drying laundry and solar-powered hot water tanks.
Side note: It seems like our accommodations are getting better over time, or at least the bathrooms are. In the beginning, in Mykonos, we had a shower that was literally stationed over a toilet. Now we have a shower in a new bathroom that has a weird modern shower curtain thing that unfolds, almost umbrella-style. It's all very strange.
Also very strange is the preoccupation with souvenirs depicting humping. I don't just mean your run-of-the-mill Greek calendar or coasters depicting some questionable acts, amphorae-style; I mean humping everything -- turtles, goats, pigs, humans, etc. And in all mediums, too: ceramic (salt and pepper shakers), wood (corkscrew and bottle openers, statues), metal. It's kind of disturbing. The ceramic turtle shakers were actually really cute, but for the abovementioned activity.
I also went souvenier-crazy today, so there's probably more than enough even for the people I secretly forgot. I hope. I wanted to find the evil-eye charm factory where they make the glass blue charms that you see everywhere, but JP pointed out that it's probably in China. Oh well. I find the idea of a Chinese factory turning out Greek evil-eye charms strangely satisfying.
Before I came to Greece, I thought this was a lush country. It's not. It's very barren and reminds me of Colorado, or a very warm Scotland -- lots of rocks, dry dirt, big hills, scrub, and no trees. Anything even resembling a tree is an olive tree/bush, and the only animals I've seen on this trip besides dogs and stray cats are goats and sheep. The landscape makes for stunning scenery, but it's obviously a hard country (to farm, at least). Small towns still manage to poke up every couple kilometers, though, and there's always a couple of old guys in the local ouzeri wasting time and watching the world go by. Impressive, considering LP tags the domestic unemployment rate at 9.6%. I'm not sure if they count self-employed farmers and goatherds, but that figure is close to what Canada expects during a bad economic year.
We're in Chania until tomorrow night, when we take the overnight ferry back to Piraeus/Athens. Chania is probably the most picturesque city we've been to on Crete -- the old town is very Venetian, with cobbled roads and pink and yellow buildings. There also seem to be a lot more genuine artisans here. Instead of the main pedestrian routes being 100% touristy stuff, it's about 70% touristy stuff with 30% extremely expensive, but beautiful, crafts. I'm not really in a position to bring a 300 euro chessboard back with me, but I'd really like to. We hung around a restaurant for most of the siesta hours and then clambered up to a bastion on the edge of the old city wall, which gives you a good view of the city's churches, rooftops, local drying laundry and solar-powered hot water tanks.
Side note: It seems like our accommodations are getting better over time, or at least the bathrooms are. In the beginning, in Mykonos, we had a shower that was literally stationed over a toilet. Now we have a shower in a new bathroom that has a weird modern shower curtain thing that unfolds, almost umbrella-style. It's all very strange.
Also very strange is the preoccupation with souvenirs depicting humping. I don't just mean your run-of-the-mill Greek calendar or coasters depicting some questionable acts, amphorae-style; I mean humping everything -- turtles, goats, pigs, humans, etc. And in all mediums, too: ceramic (salt and pepper shakers), wood (corkscrew and bottle openers, statues), metal. It's kind of disturbing. The ceramic turtle shakers were actually really cute, but for the abovementioned activity.
I also went souvenier-crazy today, so there's probably more than enough even for the people I secretly forgot. I hope. I wanted to find the evil-eye charm factory where they make the glass blue charms that you see everywhere, but JP pointed out that it's probably in China. Oh well. I find the idea of a Chinese factory turning out Greek evil-eye charms strangely satisfying.
