18. Greece: Lesvos - Skala Eressos

The overnight ferry from Piraeus to Lesvos spat us out at 8am in the island's capital, Mytilini. We headed straight for our destination of Skala Eressos as it was on the opposite side of the island with mountains to be crossed.

The blurb that attracted us here goes like this:
The lush, green island of Lesvos, or Mytilini as it is also called, is the third largest of the islands in Greece behind Crete and Evia. Virtually unaffected by the mass tourism that has turned other islands into amusement parks, Lesvos is blessed with award-winning beaches, traditional villages, more varieties of birds and wildflowers than anywhere in Europe, pine forests, medieval castles, scenic harbours with cafes and seafood restaurants, abundant fish, two of the finest art museums in Greece and 12 million olive trees. Lesvos has long been a favourite location for artists, writers and romantics.

On the drive across the island we found the Limonas Monastery, founded in 1526 by Saint Ignatios Agallianos. It is claimed to be an important spiritual centre on the island with a museum, a library and social services. 

It had dozens of outbuildings that looked either like this or like miniature churches. 

It also had a splendid resident peacock and some very large amphora.

Beyond the monastery the landscape becomes lunar, with bare mountains and strange rock formations. There is not much here besides goats, sheep, fig trees growing in every crevice beside the road and the world's largest petrified forest. Then there is a narrow green valley with a village at the top, Eressos. And at the end of a long, narrow, straight road is Skala Eressos, a seaside village full of restaurants, cafes, shops, bars and many things you wouldn't expect to find in a remote Greek island village such as yoga, massage and Gestalt therapy.

Skala Eressos is said to be a centre for spiritually minded people, former hippies, ex-Rajneesh sanyasins, gay women, families with children and couples, gay and otherwise. I fitted one of these categories and Paul two (you can't keep an old hippie down), so we felt quite at home.

The streets of Skala Eressos which border the beach are closed to cars in Summer and part closed in the shoulder seasons. No-one is here in Winter so it doesn't matter. Above is the main street with the statue in the town square.

It has a mile or two of sand that stretches along the bottom of the valley from mountain range to mountain range.

We arrived on a Monday for a week.  The following weekend was a Greek long weekend and the village suddenly filled up with local Lesvosians.

Skala Eressos is the birthplace of the poetess Sapho and her name adorns a hotel, a travel agent, a real estate company, car hire, bicycle hire, a hairdresser, a gym, rooms for rent and a restaurant.

In antiquity Eressos was an important commercial center and was also home to the philosopher and botanist Theophrastus and the philosopher Phanias who was a pupil of Aristotle. There are still remains of the ancient city and walls to be seen in the tiny archeological museum housed in the old school.

On the beach road, cafes and restaurants have built covered decks that extend out on to the sand so you can sit in the shade and watch the sea or get a bit of beach shade underneath.

Practically the entire waterfront is wireless.

The rocky beach on the other side of the harbor is excellent for snorkling.

We couldn't get a self contained apartment right on the water so stayed at the Hotel Kyma, which was excellent with a balcony and just a few steps away from the restaurant area.

Paul found a relic of a 'genuine' Greek amphora while snorkelling. We know it was genuine because it had a ring of blue paint on it.

Getting a bit bored on Day 5, Paul consulted the aforementioned Sapho Real Estate about this enticing property on the waterfront. The woman who writes up the properties for their website has a nice style:

HOUSE FOR SALE, SKALA ERESSOS

Well 'house' might be pushing it! It has, at some point been a house, but it currently acts as a depositary for defunct shop-display stands, wooden staircases and surfboards! It is, as they say, in need of renovation.

The property is right in the heart of the thriving resort of Skala Eressos, sitting in-between the Aegean restaurant and a cigarette shop. It is, quite literally, a three second walk from the front door to the beach. If it's the quiet life you're after, forget it, however if you want a property with great rental potential, right in the thick of it, then this place is ideally situated

Doubtless in need of modernisation it's a solid stone building...meant to last, and it has! Of course, with the proper permission, there is scope to demolish and have a new-build.

All on one level, the entrance leads to the first of three reasonable sized rooms. This one has probably been used as a living space, there are windows to two of the walls. Adjacent there is a further room which has been the bedroom, the door from here leads straight onto the side street

The third room has been a kitchen, there's water and mains supply Off from the 'kitchen' there is a W.C. Sink and shower.

Whilst being situated on the main promenade the property is set back a little offering a modicum of privacy, this could very much be enhanced/improved. Of course it has a sea view, you're almost sitting on the beach!

There are some creative gardeners around in the cafes. Everything needs to be in pots of course and they utilise all sorts of 'found objects' - this creation was great, sitting on an old weather washed cabinet.

In no time our week was up and it was time to say good-bye, especially to the lovely owner of our breakfast cafe.

Note: No comments on the hat please - too much like Barnaby Joyce for comfort, eh?

17. Greece: Crete - Rethymno & Damnoni

From Paleochora we planned to travel east along the south coast of Crete to the tiny village of Damnoni where, it was said, the fish was good.

But there is no coastal road through the National Park, so we had to retrace our steps to Chania on the north coast, then turn east to Rethymno, also on the north coast and finally turn south to gain the south coast again.  In total, 227 km which took 4 hours as we crossed the rugged, central mountain range twice.

Damnoni was disappointing. It turned out to be only a beach with beach bars and restaurants and not a village at all. The most interesting thing we saw was this donkey carrying a small person down to the beach.

And a larger person back again.

And while our accommodation at the aforementioned fish restaurant was excellent, the restaurant itself was very disappointing. The best that could be said of it was the owner's propensity for dancing and raucous laughter.

The next day, Mr Ingenuity consulted Dr Google and discovered, not too far distant, a resort with public access to the water which was described to be 'a fjord'. And it certainly was.

We spent a great day here, with access to toilets and a bar at the resort which was perched on the side of the rock.

It was called Kallipso.

Paul must have taken a hundred photos and clambered along, through and over every rock while I lazed on a sun lounge.

One of those beds is mine. Usually 6 euros per day for an umbrella and two beds - but no-one came to collect our money and when I tried to pay at the bar, I was cheerfully waved away.

The rock hole on the side of the fjord, opposite the sunbeds, that gave access to an upper path which led back to the resort along the cliff top.

Looking back through the rock hole you can see the bridge strung across the water. Those shadows in the water are scuba divers coming back into the fjord. Goodbye Kallipso - we had a great day.

After two days down south we crossed the mountains again, going north to the historical city of Rethymno. This is the plaque at the doorway of our hotel and below, the Venetian doorway itself leading through to our room and breakfast patio.

Rethymno has been inhabited for 3,800 years and in that time has ben dominated by the Turks, the Arabs and the Venetians. Like Chania, it is therefore a culturally diverse and historically rich city.

The Venetian Fortezza was built in 1580 by the Venetians to protect the city. The walls are still extremely sound, but inside where existed a whole village, little remains except two churches, an amphitheatre and the huge underground storage tunnels for water, food and armaments.

The Fortezza affords wonderful views of Rethymno, its harbour and the sea.

The Rimondi Fountain was built in 1626 and was the main water source in what was then the centre of the Venetian city.

The ancient Monastery of the Franciscan order now houses the Archeological Museum which was fantastic but alas, no photos permitted.

There is a lot of history to see in the area around Rethymno - villages along the old coast road to Chania; the hill villages; the Arkadie Monastery, a World Heritage Building, and of course Psiloriti Mountain, the birthplace of Zeus.

But we left all of those discoveries for another time and happily spent our three days pottering around the old town and its waterfront. The Greek habit of painting tree trunks white.

We thought the Venetian Harbour at Chania was more beautiful than that of Rethymno.

However the actual old town of Rethymno itself was more interesting than that of Chania.

So put both Chania and Rethymno on your bucket list.

Our twelve days in Crete flew by. Our last day was spent in Heraklion killing time to catch the overnight ferry back to Pireaus.

Once back in Athens, we had to fill the day from 7am until 9pm in 37 degree heat.  We went to the local beach. I have never felt so hot.

16. Greece: Crete - Paleochora - the centre of south-west Crete

Paleochora is 75 km south of Chania. The drive took an easy hour and a half over a mountain range at 640 metres above sea level. The road passed through several dramatic, deep, stony gorges like this one, with eagles circling whose homes were very high in the rock face.

Paleochora is a small town built on a small peninsula that has 16 km of coastline - it is literally surrounded by the Libyan Sea.

To both east and west there are significant areas of National Park through which there is no publicly maintained road system.  Some villages and beaches along the south west coast can therefore only be reached on foot, bicycle, motor cycle or by boat. This is what makes Paleochora claim to be the centre of the south west region and some of the best beaches and unique villages of Crete, as well as the Samaria Gorge Biosphere Reserve, are within a radius of 50 km.

The local economy is based on tourism, tomato growing in ugly plastic sheds and olive oil production. Tourist accommodation is excellent and plentiful, probably because people use it as a base to visit the much broader region. This was our apartment block - we were on the upper left.

On one side of the peninsula is the western or 'afternoon' beach with lots of sand, umbrellas and sunbeds.

On the eastern side is the 'morning' beach, very rocky and much smaller.
Just along from this little rocky cove is a jetty for the passenger boats and the best fish restaurant we have found so far - the Caravella. Apparently there are still fish to be caught in the deep waters off southern Crete.  The same can't be said for much of the rest of the Med.

There was a film festival while we were there. A screen slung outside the little town hall in the main street, with local music on the opening night. Unfortunately there was an important soccer match being played on the same night so the film festival had a bit of competition.

The shops stayed open till very late after having had a siesta from about 2pm to 5pm. Everyone, except Paul, was in long legs and long sleeves at night as the wind never stopped during our four days and made the evenings quite cool.

A drive to the port revealed what Paul is convinced was the yatch on which Tony Mokbel fled Melbourne and escaped to Greece.
I, however remain skeptical.