Sheep Guarding Llama

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!

Wednesday. GT2 Day Four. Athens, Greece.

It is another super hot day here in the city. Way too warm for me. Dominica woke me up around eight thirty with the plan being that we should get the girls up and get moving to go do things. We were not sure which things, but things. But the girls did not get up and we let them sleep for a while (for a long while.)

Dominica wanted baked goods so sent me out to Oliver’s Boulangerie to get croissants for everyone. I got myself a lemon and vanilla filled little one, two regular chocolate filled for Madeline & Emily, and a large plain one for Dominica because she had wanted an almond one and they did not have one. But Dominica wanted the lemon one so I gave her that. Then she wanted the plain one, so she had two. No big deal, as I don’t like to eat in the morning. But the bakery goods are so good.

Dominica made the coffee and did laundry this morning. I did some more media uploading and shot a couple of videos outside.

The day heated up quickly and we decided that allowing the girls to sleep was probably the best thing as we can’t let them run out of sleep. And tomorrow we fly to Santorini, which means that we have to be up and moving before three in the morning! Our flight is an hour away, and flies out at six. Tomorrow is going to be rough, but it is our main day to see Santorini so we have to be on our game for it.

The first of the girls woke up at ten minutes to noon! That was Emily. Who was dressed and ready for action around noon. Madeline finally emerged at twelve thirty, also dressed, but upset that she had to get up and immediately went back to bed. Dominica decided to go hide in her room to get away from grumpy teenagers.

It took nearly another hour, but we finally got everyone out of the door. Dominica made the decision that we were renting a cab to take us to Syntagma square to speed things up and so that we would not be so exhausted when we arrived.

First up, she had the girls watch the changing of the guards at the palace. That took about twenty minutes. I found some shade off to the side and hung out there as I was going to expire if I just stood in the sun all day.

From there we walked along the National Gardens and Emily and I went hat shopping and each bought a new hat. She went very Audrey Hepburn, which was funny since she was also wearing a very apropos black dress today. And Emily picked out a woven paper fedora for me.

Then we walked the National Gardens and did some pictures there. And then it was into The Plaka that we went to see old Athens. It’s a neat area, but so ridiculously touristy as to be completed wasted. Worth seeing for five minutes, tops. If it were up to me, I would totally avoid it.

We did some shopping for souvenirs, jewelry, and then lunch. The barkers are ridiculous there and make it completely uncomfortable to try to do anything. And it never feels safe. There are visibly gypsies about, but the barkers are just as bad.

It took us a good hour to find a place to eat. Long enough that half of the places were closing by the time that we tried to eat there. It is tough to find anything but traditional Greek food in The Plaka as everyone is trying to do the touristy thing so they want to do what people picture as Greek food.

We found a cafe that was open and that offered sandwiches and things that the girls would eat. I was crazy hot from the humidity, sun, and lack of air movement in the tight streets of The Plaka. So we sat outside with the fans and it felt good. Dominica and I got salmon sandwiches, the girls both got turkey sandwiches.

After we ate, we got coffee and sat for a bit. It was so nice to just sit and relax. Dominica and Madeline got some iced coffee that they loved. I got a double cappuccino.

Next up was a little shopping. Then the gelato place for an iced strawberry drink for Emily. I managed to resist getting gelato even though it looked wonderful.

We stopped at a jewelry store that we had seen earlier in the afternoon and the girls bought some Pandora stuff that they had been thinking about.

We walked out of The Plaka and along the Roman Forum. Then to the old Agora. And all of the way back to our apartment. It was a good day of walking, about seven thousand steps during our sight seeing.

Today has to be a short day. We were back to the apartment by a quarter to six. I have an eight o’clock meeting that I need to attend. Then we have to pack and get the apartment ready to turn over and schedule our early morning ride to the airport. Then get to sleep as early as we can muster. We need to be in the taxi around three in the morning to get to the airport in time to make our flight to Santorini. We should arrive in Santorini before seven. We are able to drop our bags at our AirBnB there, but can’t check in until the afternoon. So it is looking like a morning at the beach is the plan, the probably going into Thera once we get settled in to the apartment.

Dominica and Madeline napped as soon as we were back. Emily took a shower. I worked on uploading what I could from the day, and clearing the camera of whatever I could to our hard drive. Fingers crossed that we will have more Internet speeds on Santorini, but that is just about impossible. Crete is our best hope, and that isn’t very good. The speeds here have been terrible, but that’s expected so we aren’t complaining.

I got a shower in around seven. I felt much better after that. Then I had about half an hour to prepare for a meeting that I had scheduled at eight.

My eight o’clock meeting went well. And while I was on it I got summoned to a work emergency where I spent another two hours! A very busy night.

While I was working, Dominica and Emily went back to the pizza place for dinner. They brought home a huge burger (for Emily, of course), and an egg salad club for Dominica, and a chocolate banana crepe. The meals were huge and amazingly good. I didn’t want anything and just eating the left over club and fries filled me up completely.

I worked for a bit longer while Dominica was packing. Then at eleven fifteen our Los Angeles data center. When it rains it pours. Of course this would happen this evening. That was fixed a little before midnight. I was racing to finish things up so that I could head to bed. I’ll be lucky to get two hours of sleep.

Tuesday. GT2 Day 3. Athens, Greece.

Dominica made us all get up at eight this morning. Way too early. But my watch says that I managed to get some real sleep last night. So that is not too bad. Dominica was the first one up and showered before she woke me up. Then she woke up the girls who were definitely not ready to get out of bed.

As expected, it is really hot today. The weather was calling for it to be 82F but the sun is bright and the humidity is high. And we have a lot of walking to do.

Madeline ate a croissant and we were off. We had to walk back up the hill that we walked up yesterday, and a long way beyond it. It was blazing hot and we were feeling pretty awful long before we even got to the entrance to the Acropolis. But it really was a short walk from the apartment, this is an amazing location.

We got to the Acropolis and got our tickets. Madeline was half price, Emily was free. We had to leave the camera’s microphone behind for whatever reason. That seemed a bit odd to me. I guess that they want to discourage people making noise or spending extra time up on the hill since there are just so many people up there already?

The hike up to the top was incredibly hot. There was almost no breeze and there is never any shade there. There was no way not to be covered in sweat.

We did the sites as quickly as we could. The girls did the Rick Steve’s Self Walking Tour that you can download. We didn’t stay long, they were going to expire in the sun.

We walked down, then went and found a cafe for lunch. We found a place near the Acropolis Museum. The girls both got Caesar salads, Dominica got a local brunch thing of bread with eggs and tomatoes on it, and I got a salmon sandwich. It was all very good. I got a beer.

The couple at the table next to us were from Baton Rouge and on their honeymoon. They are doing very much the same trip as us. They are just one or two days ahead of us. They flew from New Orleans to Athens. Doing the same three or four days in Athens as us, did the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum. They are leaving today to fly to Santorini where they are doing one night, just like us. Then they are taking the ferry to Crete, just like us. They are staying around Chania, just like us. But they are only there for a few days. But like us, renting a car while they are there. Then they are off to Italy, just like us! But they are going north and down, rather than south to north like we are. They are using Rick Steve’s guides, too. They will be in the Cinque Terre, which we wanted to do but could not fit into our trip, again.

After lunch it was time for the museum, which was very near by. We walked there and did it relatively quickly, too. Definitely faster than we did in 2016 when we did it with Liesl and Luciana. It wasn’t cool enough inside to recover from how hot we had been. That did not help. But it is such a great museum, it was still good to see it all again.

From there, we walked back to the apartment. We were burnt out and needed a rest. Everyone but me napped for a while in the heavily air conditioned bedrooms. I backed up the camera from the morning’s picture and video taking and starting uploading what I could to Flickr. The Internet is not very good anywhere around here, which is likely to be the case all across Greece, so uploading videos is just impossible. Even just uploading photos to Flickr is proving to be decently challenging. It took hours just to upload the ones from today! I did some writing on SGL, I posted on MangoLassi. I got the devices ready for this evening.

This morning’s activities surprisingly only came out to 10,300 steps, according to my watch. But that was almost all hill climbing. Very rough going with rapid altitude changes. So that seems about right.

But five, I was sitting around wondering what we were going to be doing this evening. Everyone was so pooped, but I was ready to head out for more sight seeing.

We ended up getting a thunderstorm this early evening. But only a few drops of rain, nothing of which to speak. But it was nice and overcast for a while.

It ended up being many more hours before we were ready to do anything. The girls were just exhausted. By eight we finally had them up and deciding what to do. Dominica talked them into a tapas style place, it is called mezes here. Small plates so that they can choose a variety of things. But no menu online. Not a far walk, though, and in a direction that we have not gone before so it will be good to see a little more of the city.

We walked down and had dinner at Karderina. The food was excellent and the ambience was absolutely amazing. Gravel floor, wide open walls, cool decor. We loved the place. Sadly, there was almost nothing for the girls to eat. Emily can’t have dairy without medicine so generally avoids it. Madeline is super picky and while willing to try some new foods, almost never likes them. The menu was very large and just loaded with things that we wanted to try, but the girls decided that all that they wanted were French fries. So after three days in Greece, a land of truly amazing local cuisine, they have experiences only pizza, croissants, Caesar salds, and French fries. Dominica and I did not hold back; we got zucchini balls, fried haddock with garlic sauce, some flaky pie pastry filled with savory cheese and covered in honey, and french fries with cheese and eggs. It was all really excellent, a great restaurant choice. I had the house ouzo with my dinner. The girls avoided trying it because neither likes licorice or anise or anything in that flavour family. They miss out on all the good stuff.

After our meal, the restaurant surprised us with chocolate cake and ice cream.

We walked back home. We were pretty warm, so we got the air conditioning running. The girls were pretty tired, so the plan was to grab a bottle of wine and chill out at the house. But the “OK Anytime” across the street was not as “anytime” as claimed and was closed. Madeline found a corner store not too far away that was open for another twenty minutes (it was after eleven thirty at this point) so Dominica and Madeline went to bed, and Emily and I walked to the other side of the subway tracks and found a little corner store and bought a bottle of moscato, the only sweet white wine that they had there. It was still hot and humid, though.

We got back to the apartment and sat on the balcony for about an hour or two having a glass of white wine and just enjoying the people watching in Athens and the cooler air and doing some posting and texting with people back home. It was after midnight when we went out and after one when we came in. I got to sleep somewhere around two in the morning.

End of day exercise: 15K steps and 7 miles of walking in the heat, much of that climbing hills. (Emily’s watch recorded 17K steps over a shorter distance, showing how much taller I am.)