Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday. GT2 Day Nine. Aptera, Crete, Greece.

Today’s plan is to be our first official beach day while on Crete. I got up around eight thirty, having stayed up until two in the morning chatting with folks back home and uploading media from the trip. My “as we travel” YouTube channel playlist is updating to yesterday, now.

Dominica got up just after me while I was in the shower. I did some media work this morning first thing, then shot a little establishing footage to kill off the phone battery so that I could get it charging to prepare for the day out.

Emily got up at nine thirty and came downstairs at ten thirty. She said that Madeline was still asleep and had not moved yet.

We decided on the beaches at Paleochora, on the Libyan Sea, as our destination for today. There are two beaches in the village and it looks just awesome. Since no one was up and moving early this morning, it seemed like the logical place to go since we would have to drive a little while to get there. That way we could do our driving during the hottest part of the day, and be in Paleochora for the cooler part of the day and during the golden hour for photos. Emily agreed that that was a good idea.

My battery for my watch got charged up last night. This is my second time having to charge it since getting to Europe. I charged it last in Athens as it was low when we started the trip. So it is holding up well. Other than lacking a map function, it really is an ideal travel watch.

Paleochora is on the south shore of the island, where Dominica and I have never gone. It is a good choice for us because it is a village with lots of amenities, and with two world class beaches right in the village. One faces east, and one faces west. The village is nearly equidistant between Athens, and Libya! We will see how the drive is, though, as we have to go over the mountain pass to the south side of the island.

Emily, Dominica, and I were all completely ready to go a bit before noon. But Madeline was still asleep. Emily had checked in on her and she had not stirred yet. So we were waiting on her for a while. Dominica tried to wake her up at twelve thirty to get her moving.

Emily woke Madeline up a little after twelve thirty to get her into motion. While going to wake her up, Emily discovered our third centipede at the house (the first one was the first night by the television, the second was last night on the wall by Dominica and my bedroom), this one was high on the wall on the other side of our bedroom over the stairs, so we can’t get to it to kill it (it probably did that strategically.) But Emily declared that it was a small scorpion on the wall, rather than a centipede. From a distance, we could only tell that it was about two inches long, not what it was. She said it was definitely a scorpion, and alive and moving, so Dominica was pretty much ready to just pack up and move house given the revelation that a small scorpion was running around on the wall; her family has a history of severe allergies to scorpion stings. So we were in a bit of a panic until I identified it as a small, every day centipede running around and nothing to really worry about. Emily said “what’s the difference?” So today we learned that Emily does not know the difference between centipedes and scorpions. Crisis averted.

Also, today, Dominica realized that the reason that I grew up always closing toilet lids is not just because it looks so much better, and because it keeps things from accidentally falling into them, but primarily because when I was young I learned that toilets are a key entry point for dangerous snakes (as well as some insects and similar things that you don’t want) into your home and that keeping the lid down can be for pest control and safety. So she had me record a YouTube video explaining the history on that.

One thing that we’ve really noticed at this house is that being up in the mountains in a rural area, the cicadas are absolutely out of control. They are so loud that we have a hard time talking over them, recording videos can be difficult, and it makes it very hard for Madeline to sleep because they keep her awake.

By one thirty we were finally ready to head out onto the road to the southern shore.

The drive was pretty long, almost two hours. We went west on the highway past Chania, then we turned south and drove up over the mountains through the pass. Dominica had to work really hard to handle it, it was a very long, very mountainous drive and she does not handle that well. She had taken some medicine and had her wrist bands and we blasted the air conditioning for as long as we could for her.

Central Crete up in the mountains is really beautiful. What a great drive it was. Some really neat small mountain towns along that way, like Kanandos. I wish that we had time to stop and explore some of them, they seemed like great little locations that have escaped the tourists that most of Crete sees so much of.

It was about three thirty when we got to Paleohora (it is spelled many ways in Latin, but its real name is Παλαιόχωρα.) What an adorable little village. We came down from the mountains and were right into the peninsula with the village instantly. The highway just turned into the main road and after a few blocks it felt like I was driving on a pedestrian way so took a side road, found the western beach and just parked because it seemed like driving around the village was going to be a problem.

The town is super quaint, loaded with little seaside shops, cafes, restaurants, galleries, a beach on either side of town (one faces east, and one faces west). It’s a very beach town, but with lots of local character.

We went straight to the west facing beach as it was already afternoon. The girls camped out in chairs. We had to pay four Euros per chair, but that was actually not so bad as it gave us access to the chairs for the day and no obligation to buy anything else.

I would have hung out there for a while, but Dominica needed Ibuprofen, which we have been looking for for days and now she has run out and the sun is giving her a migraine and it is an emergency. So I set out on foot to see what I could find. Sadly, though, it was siesta and every pharmacy in the village was closed. All of them. I went to every one listed on Google Maps. And when that didn’t work, I walked the entire village going up and down the streets to see if Google had missed any. It hadn’t. But at least I had a chance to scour the town and I took loads of pictures while I was out. So not all wasted time. Good exercise.

I got back to the girls at five. The pharmacies that we knew about were set to open at five thirty. They were hungry and wanted to order food. The complication being that leaving the beach would mean giving up our chairs and we needed them. A restaurant catered to our area so we decided to just go with that. Veggara ended up having good prices and really good food. Both girls went for “Cowboy Burgers” which were hamburgers with eggs on them. Dominica and I both got tuna clubs with fries. All of the food was really good. Thirty two Euros for the four of us, delivered to us on the beach.

After we ate, I returned and got the Ibuprofen from the pharmacy. They sell 600mg over the counter here, which is the dosage that Dominica and Emily both use, but they normally have to take three 200mg American pills to do that. Dominica estimated that the amount that I bought for two Euros and sixty five cents would have been close to twenty dollars in the US. And would require three times the space. European Ibuprofen is way better for travelers, you get so much more with so much less of your valuable travel capacity wasted. Plus the huge money savings, of course.

Emily also sent me out to find a crepery in town. Google said that the village had none, but that seemed completely impossible. And we were right that Google was wrong, I found one no problem. If this one had not been found, we were planning on going to the Sugar Lab which is supposed to be open until eleven on the drive back to Xavia. And if that was closed, there is supposed to be a twenty four hour crepery in Xavia itself.

Dominica and I went in the sea for a while. The water of the Libyan Sea is amazingly clear and cool. It was really nice. The beach here is fantastic. I was probably in for close to an hour.

Once I got out of the water, it was time for Emily and Madeline’s beach photo shoot which was the primary reason that we were here. And now it was the Golden Hour, so time for the photographs.

Photographs went well. The setting is gorgeous. Once we were done, we cleaned up from the sand, put our stuff into the car and went to Καρακατσανης for crepes. Emily got chocolate and banana, Madeline got chocolate and strawberry, Dominica got banofee. Dominica’s was definitely the best. I got nothing, knowing that I would have to eat more leftovers than I had wanted in the first place. I am not huge on crepes to begin with. But these were quite good.

After crepes everyone was tired, from the drive and the sun, and it was time to head back home. The middle of Παλαιόχωρα turns into a pedestrian area in the evenings, so the streets that we had driven down earlier were now all outdoor seating. Very nice. I love this village. This is my kind of Crete.

By the time that we were in the car, it was dark. We tried returning to go back home but found that all of the roads that we had come in on were now closed, blocking us from the island. We were trapped on the peninsula. Google Maps kept directing us back in circles to the same blocked roads. The village had no obvious way out.

There was a road up into the new town and up into the mountains that I had seen on the map earlier and had wanted to try, but Dominica really didn’t want to take it. But eventually when there was no other option I insisted that we try that before doing something crazy and ended up finding a really easy way out of town and back to the highway. This is clearly the way that they village wants people to be going, but provides no signage or any kind of information to make that reasonably possible. And Google Maps is not updated to even consider it as a possibility. A bit ridiculous. Dominica was starting to panic that we were literally trapped on the peninsula for the night.

We did the nearly two hour drive back to Aptera or Ἄπτερα in the dark. Very little traffic. I was surprised to find a handful of these little mountain villages had squares full of late night diners sitting out enjoying the nights. They seem like surprisingly lively little places that look absolutely fantastic. Totally my style of living.

It was eleven when we got home to Ἄπτερα, to the Stratos house. We found several more centipedes tonight. Four were discovered immediately. I was able to kill two no problem. But two were completely out of reach. This is not making the girls happy. This is a total of seven centipedes that we have found since getting here, and we do not like centipedes. Even Emily is pretty freaked out by them, and she has never encountered them before.

The girls all went straight to bed. I stayed up to get some media uploading. First the Flickr images from my mobile phone. Then wrapping up some videos going to YouTube. I did some normal work, as well. Then I kicked off more Flickr updates and called it a night, heading up to bed. I was surprisingly tired tonight, too. But then again, I did loads of walking in the head that no one else did (about eight thousand steps), and I did the three to four hours of driving alone on mountain roads, I did the photography, and I didn’t get the time to relax on the beach. So maybe it is not so surprising that I am pretty tired.

It felt like we had not been home for very long when I was heading to bed. Maybe an hour and a half. But in reality, it had been three hours. I did not try to go to bed until at least two in the morning!

Our tentative plan for tomorrow is to go to Xavia (Chania) to walk the old town, do some shopping (Dominica really wants to get a blue opal necklace like on that she saw on Santorini but is definitely not going to buy one there), eat, and explore the city. We still have never gone into the city proper, although Souda is part of the metro area and Emily and I have been there twice, now.

Sunday. GT2 Day Eight. Aptera, Crete, Greece.

Today is our first full day in Aptera near Chania, on Crete. It feels so much like being back home. It is awesome. Everyone slept in a lot this morning. I woke up at eight, but stayed in bed until nearly nine. My watch says that I got plenty of light sleep, but only an hour of deep sleep. I was woken up during the night by high winds slamming a shutter open so had gotten up and inspected the house and locked the shutters during the night which likely affected it. Dominica slept till just after night.

I came downstairs and started blogging this morning, chatting online, catching up on MangoLassi, etc. Uploading videos now that the pictures have been uploaded. Today is “officially” a “do nothing” day. We are all very tired, well everyone except me, and need time to recover. But having time to manage the uploads, charge devices, catch up with people, do my blogging, rest my muscles, enjoy the quiet, is very good. Dominica got up and started doing the laundry as well.

Emily first appeared at a quarter after noon. She said that she was feeling a bit better. She came down, made some lunch for herself, peanut butter on toast, and hung out in the living room with me for about two hours. But after two hours she was starting to drift off and fall asleep on the couch so went back upstairs to lay down.

I did tons of blogging today, there was a lot to be done. It was a super quiet day. Lots of breeze, and some kids around the corner that we could hear echoing in the mountain, but just about no sounds in the house. One of the most quiet days that I have had in a really long time.

I didn’t hear a peep from Emily again until a quarter after five. At some point mid afternoon Francesca told me that she had talked to Madeline, but I had not seen or heard from her all day.

Around five we decided to go check out the Cretan Corner tonight, and see if we can get dinner there. It looked so good last night when Emily and I drove by. We checked their website but they do not open until six thirty, because they observe siesta which is common in all of Greece, so we needed to wait for a while. Emily came down and five thirty and asked about dinner and agreed on that plan.

I finally saw Madeline at 5:45 when Dominica got her out of bed to take a shower so that she would be ready to go out to eat.

One thing that we have noticed is that this house is really full of cats and bees. We’ve found five cats that always are trying to come in now, and bees are constantly flying through the house. I rarely notice them unless Dominica or Emily are downstairs because they are terrified of the bees and are constantly screaming, jumping up and running away, and talking about them. When I’m alone they just fly around and don’t bother me, so I forget that they are there.

Just after six thirty we set out for the Cretan Corner, which is just down the hill. We stopped at the mini market at the bottom of the hill for supplies first. That only took a few minutes. They have a fair selection of stuff in there. That will be handy. We live in an odd, but interesting little community here in Aptera. It seems like we are so remote and that nothing is here, but there is a surprising amount of stuff lurking around every corner.

It was probably seven when we sat down to eat at the Cretan Corner. There are several restaurants on that corner and all were quite busy, even on a Sunday night! Very surprising. We got a seat by the back railing with an amazing view of the valley to the south. Madeline ordered chicken souvlaki, which she said was “okay”, but holy cow did she eat a lot of it. Emily got the chicken gyro and went nuts on it, she said that it might be the best meal that she has had in Europe so far. Dominica got a sea bream, grilled that she asked the cook to de-bone for her, which they did. And I got vegetarian spaghetti which was quite good. Very basic, but great quality and full of veggies. I was happy. I got an Alfa beer on draught. Dominica got some yoghurt with honey for dessert and I got some amazing baklava. The restaurant brought the girls each strawberry ice cream as a surprise.

We lingered after dinner for a while; it was so nice there. They invited us to come next Saturday to see the dancing like Emily and I saw for a minute last night. Emily and I have talked about it already and are hoping to make it to that.

We came back up to the house, but were only there for a few minutes before Emily asked if the bakery in Souda was still open, which it was. It was only about nine forty five. So she declared that we were going there. Dominica stayed at the house, but Madeline came with us. We drove out to Souda and got some more bakery items. Emily and Dominica got chocolate cake. Madeline got a chocolate cookie. I got an almond paste bar which was excellent and lighter than it seemed like it would be.

We were back home by about ten thirty. The house was way too hot, so I ate outside. Dominica was already in bed when we got back. The girls hung with me in the living room till about eleven, then went up to their room themselves.

I worked on the blog a bit, wrapping things up for the day. And uploading the few additional pictures that I had taken at dinner to Flickr. Then worked on uploading a few things to YouTube that had already gone to Instagram this afternoon. Then had to back up and clean off my phone.

The plan for tomorrow is to go exploring and to find a beach. We have not done a full “beach day” yet since getting to Europe, unless you count three days ago where everyone slept on the beach but that really wasn’t much of a beach day in the normal sense and it was not a sand beach like they are thinking. No idea which beach or even what kind of beach day we are planning for tomorrow, so we will figure that out more in the morning.

Luciana and I Snapchatted today, as we do almost every day. Liesl called me on Instagram tonight.

Saturday. GT2 Day Seven. Aptera, Crete, Greece.

We woke up in Iraklio this morning in our small hotel. Decent enough sleep, this place is nice and cheap. If we transfer through Iraklio again in the future, and I suspect that we will, this place will probably be what we use. Perfectly acceptable accommodations, in a perfect location for both the ferry terminal and the airport.

Dominica and I got up and got packed up and ready. The car rental people, Athens Car, are coming to pick me up at ten thirty to go get the car. And we have to be checked out of the hotel by eleven. I needed a navigator to be sure that I would be able to make it back to the hotel to pick everyone up, but Dominica needed to work with Emily to get the rooms checked out and everything packed. So Madeline was assigned the task of going with me. Dominica went to wake her up at ten to get her ready to go, and she thought that it was seven thirty in the morning.

While driving out to get the car, our driver told us about the history of the area, which is Nea Alikarnassos. Which is where refugees from the ancient Greek city of Alikarnassos or Αλικαρνασσος on Asia Minor came to when Turkey expelled them in 1922 after the war. Interesting history.

We got our far, a Fiat Panda, for just $156 for the entire week, and that is with the full insurance included! A great car, with insurnace, for little more than the cost of insurance in the US! And zero hassle. Not a single surprise fee or problem, and they picked us up at our hotel to get the car. Just such great service all around.

We drove back to the hotel without much trouble. I stalled the car once the first time as I tried to exit the parking lot. Ugh. I love driving stick, but hate it when you have to learn a new car. And hate that my feet as so large that they don’t fit next to each other on the pedals.

Dominica and Emily were checked out and waiting for us at the hotel. We managed to fit three of our four backpacks, plus my CPAP bag, and my little orange Amazon tiny backpack into the trunk. And one backpack and the girls’ purse bags went in the back seat with the girls. They are small (the girls) so they all fit just fine. Dominica rode up front and we set off for Chania.

I knew nearly every turn through Iraklio. It’s been three years since we drove this, but it almost feels like yesterday. Crete really feels like home. It is so comfortable being here. And after a few minutes with the new car, driving here is super easy again. I feel the craziness of being a Greek driver coming back to me.

We got onto the highway, GR 90, aka the E75, and headed west. It’s a super easy drive along the highway once you are out of the city. And went pretty quickly.

We were going to be early to get to Aptera, where our house is for the next week and a half, so we decided that we should stop off in Rethymno for lunch either in the old town or along the beach, so that we would have food (we did not have breakfast today) and not have everyone be sugar crashing during the part of the afternoon when there is no real way to get food in the Mediterranean world. It is a bit tough having three people who are all super food sensitive both in dietary requirements and in timing, that are also on a schedule so that they get hungry at exactly the times when food isn’t available, and two of whom hate planning for food ahead of it being an emergency making it almost impossible to address. This is going to be a mounting challenge as this trip progresses.

We drove into Rethymno and it was so familiar, especially once we got to the beach area. This is where we often came for food and for the hospital because Luciana had ear infections while we were living here. We drove right down to the beach, no problem, and parked in the same parking lot that we used when we attended the parade with the kids three years ago. From there we walked the beach until Emily spotted a menu that looked good to her and we dove in there, to the Down Town Restaurant, right on the beach, for lunch.

Emily went for her “tied for first place” favourite meal of a chicken Caesar salad, which did not have anchovies in it like it normally would because this is a tourist area and the owner said “too many tourists didn’t like it”. So the American’s are even changing the local cuisine, that’s how many tourists come here. And Madeline went for the Down Town Salad, but found that prosciutto wasn’t for her. Dominica went for the vegetable risotto, because they could make it with no onions, and it was pretty good. I went for the vegetable spaghetti and thought that it was just amazing. It was an avocado cream sauce which is a Cretan specialty and just so yummy. I devoured that and hope to find it again while here. Not something you would normally expect me to order, but so glad that I did. Healthy, light, and delicious. Loaded with veggies and mushrooms. It was just perfect.

Parking for our time there was a total of two Euros. Oh how I have missed European prices.

Forty five minutes later of a gorgeous drive along the coast and we were in Aptera, just a few minutes east of Souda (home of NATO’s command center.) Our house is up in the mountains (Dominica always manages to pick a place that requires driving crazy switch backs up a mountain), on a super hard single lane, super steep rural road. Totally crazy location. Emily took some videos of the drive, including that part of it, but we will have to drive it a few times with her filming the whole thing because it is completely nuts.

We found the house without too much trouble and had no issues at all getting in. The house is positively gorgeous. We love it. We did some videos before making a mess of it, too. The pool is great, the views are great, the living spaces are great. There is even a wonderful patio area with a grill, outdoor table, etc. It’s really nice and spacious. The house is absolutely perfect. Although being up on the hill makes it a big challenging to do anything like going to a grocery store or whatever. Any activity requires leaving the house and driving somewhere, we are pretty isolated. So for just holding up in a gorgeous house, it is ideal. For doing stuff around Crete, it’s a bit of work for every trip in and out.

We discovered a little mini market at the bottom of the hill. That will come in handy. Shortly after getting in and dropping off our stuff and making the first videos we let Madeline go lay down and Dominica, Emily, and I drove back out the way that we came to go to a grocery store and stock up on supplies.

We had to go to a little village off of the road down by the beach and found a little grocery store. They were pretty well supplied, though, and we were able to get bread, cheese, turkey slices, sheep ice cream, bottled water, and other basics. Nothing fancy, just enough so that we can eat when we are in the house and get through tonight.

We came home and made sandwiches. Emily and I sat outside and ate together. One thing that is funny about this house is that it is surrounded by cats. So many cats that the house instructions even say not to let them in the house, feed them, or encourage them. And we quickly saw why, there are at least three that regularly try to come into the house. And given how the house is situated, there are basically three doors that are always open to get air flow, and a few windows, all of which allow for cats to just casually wonder in. The cats are all very adorable, for sure. They seem super friendly and healthy.

Emily also tried her first Loukoumi, or Greek delight. Which she liked. She’d never had that or Turkish Delight previously.

After everyone had eaten, it only took about half an hour before we started to think that we were going to be struggling to have things to do. Other than Madeline, who really is perfectly happy to read on her own for indefinite periods of time. Dominica can pretty much do that as well, but not to the same degree. But Emily and I are extroverts and were ready to do something within an hour of getting to the house. We could sense the isolation already. Both of us did spot a pool bar located at the bottom of our driveway (which sounds funny, but it is farther away than you would guess) and that looks promising, but we have no idea if anyone is there or not or if it is really open. So something to investigate. Fingers crossed that it is really open because if so, that will be super cool. If not, pretty lame.

I got Flickr uploads started. Our Internet speeds here are not too bad. Pretty rough for uploading video, but not too bad for normal things and pictures. We will survive for the week. We do have to restart the access point every few hours, however.

Emily and I decided to take a drive to find a bakery. We were raring to go, and Madeline and Dominica were ready to hibernate. So it worked out. We hopped into the car for our second excursion from the house and set off to the west to go to Souda where Google Maps suggests that there are some late night bakeries. Ever since experiencing the bakery last night, Emily is ready to go to one every day now. Greek bakeries and crepes are her awesome new discoveries so far on this trip.

On the way down the mountain we found a poor, lost goat in the road who had no idea where he should go. He kept going in circles obviously trying to find his family. So sad.

Before we left our little area, Emily and I decided to go the opposite direction at the mini market at the bottom of the hill and check out a little restaurant listed by Google Maps as Cretan Corner and highly rated, supposedly. You never know how accurate these Google Maps places are. It turned out to be a crazy, highly lively real intersection with a couple of restaurants packed with people, and one place with live Cretan dancing going on. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. So wild. We totally have to check this place out soon.

We got to Souda and tried to follow the map. We parked by the grocery store landmark that Google had given us and walked around looking for the twenty four hour bakery that the map showed. I walked right to where it was supposed to be and it was super obvious that no bakery had ever been there. Very frustrating. We found another bakery by the grocery store but it was not the kind that we were looking for and they were closing up as we pulled up, anyway.

I had one other place to try, that supposedly would be open until eleven tonight, that was roughly on our way back. It was called the Sweet Corner Bakery and Cafe and is next to the BP on the main road in and out of town. It turned out to be real and open, so we went in.

It was way more “dessert” focused than we had been looking for, but had a great selection of desserts and had pizza, sandwiches, and more for other times that we might be looking for something. We probably spent twenty minutes figuring out what to get for everyone. We ended up getting sixteen dollars of desserts and treats to take back to the house. A successful outing.

We got back to the house and gave everyone their desserts and we all ate together in the living room. Then, everyone was tired and it was off to bed, I stayed up maybe an hour. I took a shower and made sure that Flickr uploads were still moving along, and was waiting for the air conditioning in our bedroom to catch up and cool things down because I do not want to lay in bed and start sweating. It was a pretty hot day. Nothing like we had in Athens or Santorini, but pretty warm.

I checked the weather reports and found that we have been in a record heat wave the last few days. So the insane heat that we faced in Greece was not normal at all. Corsica was way over 103F tonight! Crazy temperatures for Europe, and it is only mid-June. It is still just late spring! This summer is going to be very rough.

Friday. GT2 Day Six. Kamari, Santorini, Greece.

Six o’clock rolled around earlier than normal today 😉 Emily was up before me, all made up, dressed up, and ready to model on the beach. I got up at the last possible second, threw on whatever clothes I had ready, brushed my teeth and walked out the door.

It was nice and “cool” this morning with the sun just barely up. There were a few people on the beach, but very few. We walked down south on the beach a bit farther than we had been yesterday and spent a good hour and a half doing a photo shoot on the beach, on the “boardwalk”, in the restaurants and so forth. It went really well and we got a chance to walk around a lot of Kamari. We got to play with the local dogs, too.

We went back and picked up Dominica and Madeline around eight thirty. It took them a while to get out the door, so it was after nine when we went back to our restaurant at the Nostos Hotel which we liked so much yesterday. All three girls got the same things that they did yesterday, and today I got the Greek breakfast as well. So good. This restaurant is definitely our top thing to miss when we leave here. And our great apartment.

After breakfast it was time to return to the apartment, pack up, clean up, and upload the last stuff before we had to go.

I forgot to mention that yesterday, the SD card for our Panasonic Lumix FZ300 that has been taking most of the amazing pictures from this trip failed on us. Luckily it was a physical, rather than an electronic, fail and we were able to work around it. The write lock mechanism broke on it and failed in the “write protected” mode so we can’t take pictures on it any more. The first thing that we did was go to the mini market in town and buy three 32GB cheap SD cards so that at the very least we would have a way to keep taking photographs no matter what, because we can’t easily buy SD cards here that can write fast enough to keep up with the video record rate on that camera (it records at 100MB/s, and the good SD card that we have can write at 80MB/s, and these cheap ones are 20MB/s.) But later at night, we figured out that we could try “bonding” the write lock into the “unlocked” position using nail polish and a pin. So I did that and we will see in the morning what the status of it is. But we are hopeful as that seems like a brilliant solution. Online people were recommending using Scotch tape to do something similar but that adds a lot of “sticky” risk that could damage the inside of the expensive camera and laptop, especially given the heat that it would need to be operating in and how often it is added and removed (a few times every day.) So we really wanted to avoid that. Not to mention the issue of not having any tape.

Because of that, all of the pictures from Fira last night were shot with my Samsung Galaxy S9 phone, and not with the Panasonic Lumix FZ300. This morning we tested out the SD card fix and it appears to have worked. So we are back to using it this morning for the photoshoot and for Oia this afternoon.

We had to be out of the apartment at eleven this morning. So our morning was very busy between the beach photo shoot, breakfast, and packing up. We hauled our luggage to the bus station and rode the bus back to Fira. Then we hiked a couple of blocks and found J&K Bag Drop and paid ot have our luggage stored for the day. What a brilliant idea, we are very glad that Dominica found this or we would be having a terrible day.

We simply dropped off our bags and walked back to the bus station again and got the connecting bus to Oia. So the trip from Kamari to Oia was nearly two hours between the waiting for buses, and the time on the buses themselves. A very long, and very hot trip. The Kamari to Fira bus has space to stand and lots of air conditioning, so pretty nice. The bus from Fira to Oia is a more “luxury” bus so is terrible. You have less space and there is essentially no air so in the brutal heat it was unbearable. It was all that Dominica could do to handle the ride. Absolutely awful.

Once in Oia, we got dropped off and had to figure out how to find the big areas by the cliffs. There were no directions or anything. Very odd. It wasn’t too hard, though, but not at all obvious. We got to the cliffs and, as we had guessed, it was absolutely mobbed with people. We are really here just for Emily to do an “Instagram photo shoot” that is considered a requirement of being in this part of the world these days. So we went up and down the main strip and took a load of pictures. We were likely there less than an hour before Emily declared that she was done and it was time to go. None of us complained, I would have been happy to have skipped Oia entirely as I had predicted based on Fira yesterday that it was going to be awful and a terrible time, and no one wanted more than a couple of minutes there. So we went back to the bus stop as quickly as we could having done nothing in Oia but take some pictures quickly. It is truly an awful place. Gorgeous buildings, but at this point all fake like a terrible day in Disney World. Not as bad as Venice, but the next worst place I’ve encountered in Europe after all of these years. Other than truly spectatular views (which are totally spoiled by the tourists), it has zero redeeming qualities. The absolute worst kind of place to go, sadly. It is so sad because you can tell what a wonderous place it must have been once upon a time.

Getting back to the bus stop was easy. But we got there and there was a massive line for the bus, and the line makes you wait outside in the sun light! The buses were supposed to run every twenty minutes, but they were not. We were out there for over forty minutes before the bus arrived. Our bus this morning said that the outside temps were 36C, basically 98F, which is definitely record temps here. When the bus finally came, it couldn’t hold the people in line, so we were left waiting for another bus! While we were waiting, lots and lots of other people had the same “get out of Oia” thoughts that we did and the line stretched all the way across the square. My estimation is that it would have taken four buses (so an hour and a half of buses coming and going, if none were delayed as they always seem to be) to just bus out the people already in line and they must be adding another bus worth of new people to the line every fifteen minutes. Clearly their island transportation infrastructure is past the breaking point and this is only the shoulder season. I can’t even imagine the hell that Santorini must be in the high season when the temps are higher and the crowds twice as big!

The bus back to Fira wasn’t quite as hot. Dominica had to sit in the very front row to keep from getting sick. The girls ended up in the next to last row and I took the very last one, sitting with strangers, so that I could watch over the girls. It wasn’t so awful back there, I felt a little better this time.

We are very, very glad that Emily decided to call it a day when we did because we had budgeted a certain amount of time to get back to the port with our luggage so that we could catch our Ferry and here were the details: the ferry to the port leaves Fira at 2:30, 4:00, and 5:30. Our ferry is at 5:30, so the latter of those times would cause us to miss the ferry if it was at all on time, so that is out. That leaves the options of the 2:30 or the 4:00 buses with one giving us an hour and a half to kill at the port, and the other leaving up three hours to kill there! So the two thirty was really out, and would come so soon that we might as well have skipped Oia as there would not have been time to walk around. Our obvious choice had to be the 4:00 bus to the port, which means we would have to leave Oia in time to get back by four. That means that with buses coming back every twenty minutes, we should have a lot of options as it only takes thirty minutes to get back by the bus.

So while in Oia, we were under the impression that we had at least an extra hour to kill, if not more, before needing to take the bus back, because otherwise we would be stuck killing the same time, but in Fira by the bus stop. But since Emily was ready to head back (we had said that we’d just look around the bus stop area and find something to do like coffee or gelato near there) early, we got into the insane bus line that ended up blowing an hour right there and if we hadn’t decided to come back super early, we would have missed the bus to the port because the Oia to Fira buses were so screwed up!

We got back to Fira, went straight to the luggage drop, picked up all of our stuff, and went right back to the bus stop to wait on the 4:00 bus. While waiting we met Jennifer Lopez (yes, her real name) and Liz who were next to us while waiting and were planning to take the same bus as us to the port. They heard us talking and Jennifer had asked if we knew which bus it was and we got talking and asked where people were from and it turns out that both of them are from Richfield Springs, which is just sixteen miles from where Dominica and Francesca grew up. Jen is 38, so just two years behind Dominica in school. They knew some mutual friends and likely marched together in band. Our handyman, Jim, in Dallas is from Richfield Springs as well. So we hung out with them on the entire bus ride to the port. What a small world. They are going to be in Richfield Springs while we are in NY in July, too. Jennifer currently lives in Madrid and has for ten years and is a choreographer there. Liz lives outside of Boston, but is a tour guide for women going to Crete.

Once at the port we had an hour and a half to kill. So we found a little cafe, it was good but, of course, over priced. We had sandwiches and fruit smoothies and waited until it was time for the ferry. Of course, the ferries were all late and we ended up spending probably forty minutes standing inside a crazy hot building with no cooling or air movement waiting for our ferry to arrive. So we boarded well after six, instead of at five thirty like we were supposed to.

Once we were on our ferry, the Golden Star, everything was very comfortable. The trip took about four hours. Dominica, as always, had to sit by the railing and not move for the entire trip. Emily, Madeline, and I spent most of the trip in the air conditioning just inside of the door. Not much to do, but thankfully T-Mobile worked for the majority of the journey so I was almost always with Internet access while we cruised. That made the time pass. And I did a lot of pictures and videos.

It was very dark once we arrived. We disembarked from the ferry and I immediately knew exactly where we were. I recognized the restaurants, hotels, roads, etc. I was able to walk us directly to the hotel without missing a beat, even though no one else from the ferry was going that way. It is one of the places in Europe that I remember most vividly, which is weird as it is such a random location – the Iraklio water front. I went for a midnight walk, alone, to exactly our hotel and all of the places around it even all the back streets, back in 2016 on the one night that we were staying here in town! So weird.

We got checked in to the Pasiphae and got into our rooms, 26 and 27. The girls have their own room here, and it turned out to be like twice the size of ours. But given how much the AC struggled to cool it down, I am glad that our room was very small.

We were only in the rooms for a few minutes when the girls decided that they were hungry and needed to find food tonight. There were not many options in this area, other than one seafood place that I knew about and knew that would not work for Madeline. So I did some research and found a couple of options on the map and we all set out to walk there.

We found one late night bakery, Elite Special Bakery, near the hotel. Emily wasn’t totally sure about a fancy dessert place like that, although she did want something sweet, so we hit the mini market open next door first and got water and some staple supplies (we will have a car by tomorrow so we can carry things with us now.) Then we walked around a little looking for a place that would serve actual meals but managed to find nothing. So we returned to the bakery, and were very glad that we did.

The bakery had an amazing selection and the girl running the shop was so nice. We got sweets, and savory cheese turnovers and sesame puffs and all kinds of things. I got a gelato, too, Twix flavour that was just amazing. Everything that the girls tried they loved, and now Emily is addicted to Greek bakeries. Madeline has been rolling her eyes all week about the number of times that I mention Greek bakeries, but now they understand why. This place was just great, and we ended up with so much food for less than eight Euros! It was our dinner for tonight, and breakfast for tomorrow!

We returned to the hotel. No uploading of stuff tonight. The Internet is really weak and there is nowhere to set up my laptop safely. So I uploaded to Flickr just the pictures from my phone so that people would know that we are safely on Crete and figured that I would get to the serious uploading from the house on Crete tomorrow evening when we get there.

Thursday. GT2 Day Five. Kamari, Santorini, Greece.

Our morning started quite early, crazy early. Our plan was to be out of the door at three to catch our cab to the airport. We were giving ourselves plenty of time because so many things can go wrong on a transit day and we are do tight for time with all of our connections over the next few days.

Dominica and I were up and ready by three. The girls weren’t even awake. So Dominica had to wake them up and get them moving. The cab came at three fifteen while I was taking out the trash for the last time. And we were off to the airport! Today is going to be a very, very long day.

The ride to the Athens airport was familiar. I remember this stretch of businesses from our trip to this airport to fly to Romania three years ago.

We got to the airport in plenty of time and we had a lot of time to relax. We had to totally rebalance our bags for this flight as the flight allowances are totally different for each airline. Three flights, three totally different bag configurations to get the same luggage to work. Such a bad system.

The girls could not eat this morning as it would affect their flight. We had time to kill so I got myself a cheese pie from a local place and just had that. Pretty small and light.

Our actual flight was at five thirty. We were bused out to the plane and were seated about mid-plane, right over the wing. Originally it was me, Madeline, and Emily on one side, and Dominica sitting across the way. But someone with a foot injury needed that aisle seat and asked her to trade for her window seat, but Dominica can’t sit anywhere but an aisle and I can sit anywhere, so I got smushed against the window with strangers while the three girls sat together on the other side. This was good, though, as I was able to take pictures out of the window while we flew.

The flight from Athens to Santorini is just under thirty minutes. It’s nothing. Just up and down. Possibly the shortest flight that I have ever done. So easy.

We were on the ground and the sun was coming up. We grabbed a taxi from the airport as the local bus would take all day and not be all that cheap anyway. From the airport the local bus would be nearly eight dollars to Fira, then another eight dollars to Kamari where we are headed. And it would be hot and crowded and take hours. Or the taxi was twenty five dollars and we were there in about ten minutes, dropped off right at our AirBnB rather than needing to walk ten minutes once getting off of the bus. So that was a good deal for us, even though it cost more. Our cab driver popped into one of our videos, too.

Our host was waiting for us at the house. She took our bags and is holding them for the day. So we are free to do things on the island for the day and will check into the house this afternoon. It was about six in the morning when we landed on Santorini, and we can check into the AirBnB at one. So almost seven hours that we can kill.

We started by walking around Kamari by the beach looking for breakfast. Dominica was quite hungry and needed food right away now that we were off of the plane. We found an English place (the girls are struggling with Greek food so something different would be good) that did full English breakfasts, called Liverbird (for real), but they did not open until nine to serve food, and it was just after eight, so that was not going to work for us.

We continued to the beach and walked out on the beach itself for ten or fifteen minutes. Did some early pictures, then walked down the beach street, which was basically a boardwalk style affair. Loads and loads of restaurants, hotels, and shops on the water in Kamari. Only none of them are open at this time. None. We walked for a few blocks before we found one place with some people in it and asked if they were serving yet and they were! So that is how we chose our spot, but what a spot it was. We ended up really loving it.

Madeline ordered the Italian breakfast, which is just continental. Emily got the Italian but with fried eggs added because “she doesn’t eat just bread for breakfast.” Dominica ordered the Greek breakfast which looked truly fantastic. It was our Mediterranean style breakfast with cucumbers, tomatoes, salty cheese, some toast, fruit salad, olives, and the most amazing Greek yoghurt with honey ever. I just had Greek coffee because I had already eaten this morning and did not need more food (or more expense.) The place was really nice and the service was great. We really liked the place. And right on the beach. And because we had breakfast there, we had access to their beach chairs for the day. That could not have worked out better.

So once breakfast was over, I set up the girls on the beach where they just wanted to chill for the morning. I dropped off my stuff and just grabbed my camera and some water that we had left over from Athens and went for a walk across the island. No one really wanted to do anything and Google maps said that four hours should be enough time to make it to the other side and back walking and I figured that this was my chance to see the island and get some exercise since the girls were likely to just sleep or maybe read. Since I cannot nap on a beach, as I need my CPAP, that was out. I would be unhappy just sitting around.

The girls thought that I was crazy, but I set out and just started walking. I went up the main street and then took the main road towards the port across the island. It was hot, very hot. Officially in the high eighties according to my watch’s weather service, but I have a feeling that it was in the nineties. Definitely super humid, but as I ascended it got slightlly cooler as the wind picked up. But it never got cool, and there was basically no shade anywhere. And nowhere to buy more water.

It was a really long walk. I did eight miles when all was said and done. It was all uphill the one way, and all downhill the other. Much of it, away from the coast, was a really streep climb, too. It was slow going and the climb involved a lot of roads that had blind corners. Thankfully traffic was pretty light. I felt pretty good, though, even in the heat. It would have been good to have had a bit more water with me, though. I should have drank at least another litre during the climb. But I portioned out what I had and knew that I would have plenty once I returned. It was not that long of a walk, overall.

My walk gave me some spectacular views, I could see all of the east side of the island while hiking up. And once I got to the top of the ridge I could see Fira, Oia, and out to the islands in the caldera. Our plan is to get into the house, then set out for Oia tonight to see the sunset from there. So this is a chance for me to see where we are going, but really experience a different part of the island.

One thing that I was surprised by is how full the island is. When you look at pictures, people always portray it as being pretty empty except for the famous villages. This is not at all the case. It is packed. There is plenty of room for new development, but there is solid population everywhere that there can be (there are several mountains and rough terrain that would be pretty hard to populate.) There is a good size population on the island, I am amazed that it can support as many people as are there considering that there is almost no local produce and no good local water sources.

It was a neat walk and I am very glad that I did it. But boy was I tired when I returned. I had not anticipated how much climbing there would be. But, all the more exercise for me. I was feeling good the whole time (other than the way back with my feet, downhill is always so hard on your feet.)

I got back to Kamari early enough to go looking for the girls. Internet access is poor on the island, so reaching Dominica was hard. I could not be sure where they were. I went around town trying to find them, but had to stop at a mini market to get water before I could get to the beach where I had left them. I checked the time and there was not enough time for them to make it from the beach to the apartment before the appointment time, so I figured that they had to be past me on the way back and so just returned.

I ended up getting to the apartment right on time, but the girls were not there. But Matt (I think that that was his name, he only spoke Greek) was waiting for me. We got the luggage together (I couldn’t believe that I was able to still carry it after my hike which I had not taken a break from for even a minute yet) and got the apartment turned over and I got all of the information before I got a text from Dominica that they were on their way. So I went outside and found them coming down the street. So they were able to go right into the house as soon as they arrived. It turns out that they had been sleeping all of this time on the beach and had never explored town, gotten lunch, found a pharmacy or anything (and were late for the apartment appointment after waiting seven hours for it.) I had located the pharmacies in town, but did not think it good to carry anything extra on my long hike.

I had been waiting all day to be able to take a nap. Since I only got about one hour of sleep last night I was ridiculously tired. Everyone had a lot more sleep than I did, most of them got two or three hours last night, then several hours on the beach. They were all hungry and dying for lunch by the time that we got into the house, but I needed sleep, not food. So the girls immediately set out in search of food, we couldn’t even do a two minute video walkthrough of the house they were so starved (I have no idea why they didn’t eat anything in the many hours that they had free time prior to this) so they left and I took a shower (desperately needed) and went to bed.

I had a hard time getting to sleep, the middle of the afternoon in bright sun in a new place is not the easiest place to fall asleep, and it took a while to get the temperature of the room low enough that I could sleep. By the time that I was nodding off, the girls were back and Dominica woke me up throwing lugguge on the bed and doing laundry. So I took at least two hours to fall asleep.

I had told the girls that we had to be out the door at five thirty to make our plans of getting to Oia to see the sunset. But when I woke up, I found everyone else asleep with no alarms set. So I had to wake everyone up and get them moving. It was about six when I woke up and took forty five minutes to get them out of the door. So by the time that we got down to the bus stop in Kamari, we were looking for the 7:15 bus, which never arrived.

We ended up on a bus around 7:40, which was super late. It took twenty minutes to get up to Fira, the capital. On the way, I talked to Emily about skipping Oia tonight and just doing Fira because we are almost guaranteed to miss the sunset in Oia if we try to go there tonight and will be on the bus for it instead of in the town, and Fira and Oia compete for the most famous sunset, so there is little reason to skip the one in Fira just to go to Oia. Originally we had planned on doing Oia tonight and Fira as our trip tomorrow because we have to be there for our ferry. But we decided to do Fira tonight and Oia tomorrow instead. (Good thing that we did, we decided later, we would never have made it to Oia once we discovered how the buses work.)

I met some people from Michigan riding the bus who are staying in Fira for a week who warned us that Oia is terribly boring and to not try to spend the day there. They had spent three hours and it was too much time as there is simply nothing to do.

We got to Fira just in time to see the sun setting, which truly was amazing. But Fira is hot and totally overrun with tourists. And there appears to be nothing to do. The city is a fair size, so I am sure that if you spend some time away from the touristy road along the ridge that it has all of the nice stuff of any Greek town. But the part of town with the sunset it a train wreck of tourist and super trashy touristy shops. Souvenirs and imported consumer crap that you can buy anywhere sold in one shop after another on one side of the road, and unlimited cookie cutter blah restaurants on the side of the road with the views. It blows my mind that people fly to places like Santorini, and then go shopping for products that they could get cheaper on Amazon back home.

We did some pictures, walked up the main street, saw the sunset, fought the crowds, sweated a bit. It took about thirty minutes before we were done with Fira. Nothing more to see. There is nothing, at least up on the ridge, of note. Just awful. All of the restaurants had amazing views, and none had menus that grabbed our attention or were special. Almost all of the menus bordered on the identical. There is little way to tell one restaurant from another other than the style of their chairs.

We picked one that had lower prices listed and some chicken wraps. The girls are not taking to Greek food so finding American style sandwiches is important. The prices at the one that we chose were half the price of the one next to it, so that was good. If you are not careful, you can spend a fortune for some pretty likely mediocre food in Fira. This isn’t a place where businesses compete on quality, they compete on having a flashy menu and/or open seating and nothing else. There are unlimited tourists and limited numbers of seats with sunset views. So no one is there because of the food, it’s just a place to sit and watch the sunset. So the prices are very high, and the quality is meh. All as expected. No surprises, just very sad.

Both girls opted for a chicken wrap with honey mustard. Emily ate all of hers, Madeline ate about half of hers. I tried a bite without the chicken and it was okay, but certainly nothing special. It would be deemed “marginally acceptable” in an American cafe. Dominica got the “Greek sandwich” with feta and veggies on bread with an olive tapenade. Hers was very good, but pretty basic. I got a vegetarian mousaka which was very good. I really enjoyed that. It’s the first vegetarian mousaka that I’ve seen since we got to Greece and that is something that I do like a bit.

After we ate, we just decided to walk back to the bus station and return to Kamari. Thirty minutes was way more than enough time to exhaust ourselves on seeing Fira. We were all tired, and fatigued, and not impressed at all with Fira. But we were glad that we had gotten some food into us, and that we had seen the sunset. But the experience was very two dimensional. With all of the tourists and tourist shops, it’s very little different being in Fira compared to seeing a picture from Fira. You get nothing more from being there than you get from just seeing what it looks like.

The bus ride back was uneventful. We got the last row on the bus and I stood. The guy who collected the bus fare helped us find the right stop. Once back, Emily wanted to find crepes on the beach. That was an easy walk, as all of Kamari is right on the beach. We explored the direction that we had not gone yet and found a different crepe place than we had spotten this morning. King’s Cafe had one of the coolest beach seating setups we have ever seen. All kinds of awesomely unique seating out on the beach with wooden paths leading between the tables. It was super cool.

We picked a table and the three girls ordered crepes for dessert. I think that everyone decided that it was the best crepes that they had ever had. Madeline certainly ranked them her all time favourite.

We lingered there a little while, but everyone was pretty tired still. So before midnight it was back to the apartment and directly ready for bed. I kicked off Flickr uploads before bed. So many pictures to upload.

Emily and I have plans to be up at six in the morning as she wants to do a beach photo shoot as it is our only sunrise morning in Kamari and Santorini. Dominica and Madeline plan to sleep in for a few hours more. We loved where we had breakfast this morning so much that we are planning to go back there again tomorrow. Dominica especially wants her Greek breakfast again. And, of course, we will hit Oia tomorrow.

We love our apartment here. It is the most gorgeous house. It is only a one bedroom, that Dominica and I got with air conditioning. The girls are sleeping on a pull out couch in the living room, which would be fine but there is no AC out there and it is exceptionally warm today. (Tomorrow would be even warmer, but we later learned that this is a serious heat wave and the island is breaking temperature records, so this is not normal for the area.) We have a gorgeous wrap around terrace. A really nice kitchen.

We closed up the apartment once it was late and dark and ran the AC with the bedroom door open. And the girls had a fan blowing on them. So we had a slightly colder room, and they had more air movement. Everyone managed to sleep that way.

So far, after one day here, Kamari is way nicer than Fira, and our apartment is amazing. But the island overall is incredibly touristy and even Kamari is completely dedicated to servicing tourists.

By the end of the day, my watch and phone had recorded over 25,000 steps, and 11 miles walked! No wonder I am tired, all of that in the sun, heat, and going up and down hills!