Europe Trip: Greece Athens and Crete

13 August - 20 September

We depart Turkey and head over to Greece, Athens!

The first thing we notice when we get off the plane it is definitely cooler and we certainly need our fleeces initially for the evenings. I must mention that it is a warm 28 degrees but after acclimatising to 40 degree temperatures in Turkey we are feeling a little colder!! Not a good omen for the up coming winter.......

Athens - we have been told after the grandeur's of Turkey, that we will be disappointed and to be honest I'm glad that we were told this as it gave me a lowered expectation which has been a positive thing if that makes sense. The two countries are very different but do share some aspects of the others cultures as you will be aware the Greeks were in Turkey and the Ottomans were in Greece. So the Acropolis is very cool, and has great views over the city! We have enjoyed having our own timetable having a leisurely breakfast with a nice cappuccino and European food, wandering around the streets and popping down to the sea for a swim along with catching the many sites.

Dionysus Theatre Athens

After three days on the mainland its island time! we jump on a over night ferry to Crete and have spent a week lounging on the south coast where I have learnt about the local turtle conservation efforts and added to my tan from Turkey.

From here we part ways with Anita heading back to The Netherlands and myself up the north coast to Chania. The beaches are a lot calmer than the south coasts, warmer and have more tourists. This is mainly to do with the fact its part of the Mediterranean sea. There is no backpacker in Chania but a local hotel has clicked onto the budget traveller and have created a dorm/apartment set up which is very tidy. I have met some very cool people here and attended a world record attempt for the largest Dakos** 8m long and 1.8m wide in the shape of Crete - the evening has been very festive once the record was declared we all got to eat the dakos of course this would not be complete with out locally brewed raki, traditional dance and music to top it all off!!

**Dakos consists of a slice of soaked dried bread or barley rusk (paximadi) topped with chopped tomatoes and crumbled feta or mizithra cheese, olives and flavoured with herbs such as dried oregano.

Guinness World Record - Largest Dakos - Ag. Apostoli

I have also decided to splash out and take a trip to Elafonisi beach which has beautiful waters, pink sand and a lot of tourists... The Chrysoskaltissa Monastery is also 5km form the beach which we visited briefly but I found it more interesting at Kandanos village

- which suffered from occupation in World War II. During the Battle of Crete resistance fighters had held advancing soldiers for two days, preventing them from reaching Paleochora to secure it. In retribution the occupiers razed the village to the ground. After its destruction, Kandanos was declared a 'dead zone' and its remaining population was forbidden to return to the village and rebuild it. Finally, inscriptions in German and Greek were erected on each entry of the village. One of them read: Here stood Kandanos, destroyed in retribution for the murder of 25 German soldiers, never to be rebuilt again. Today, Kandanos has been rebuilt and reproductions of the sombre Wehrmacht signposts commemorating the destruction of the village are displayed on the local war memorial which was erected in 2000.

The following couple of days (after my beach trip) I have chilled out locally (Ag. Apostoli) at the beach and playing volleyball into the small hours. The hotel manager George has invited myself and another guest for a day out swimming on the north coast in a beautiful spot with no tourists and to attend a local feast (Greek Orthodox at Ag. Ionnis "Gionas") for Saint John. I wasn't sure why there was a feast and my host couldn't tell me but after a search about the religion I found this specific night was to commemorate his beheading.

Createn Goat - Sunset at Ag.Pavlos

Very spoilt - The drive out is fantastic through very old olive groves and areas I would not have gone through on my own accord. The swimming area was full of sea life, a couple of locals out spear fishing explained to us their free diving and fishing tricks apparently if you breath through a straw for a hour a day for two weeks you will increase your lung capacity. They also give us a lesson on the local seaweeds they collect for salad. The sunset is fantastic and the feast is something different again. People still pilgrimage (walk) some in bare feat over the hill (its reasonably steep and has sharp rocks and bushes) and we did have the experience of a devout follower crawling and praying over the threshold onto the church's grounds.

From Chania I have moved down to Rethymnon where I have a three week Helpx stint at a Nature Park. The owners refer to the park as a experimental learning centre and was opened to help the local children have a better understanding of their islands nature and has been extended to include tourists at a cost of 5 euros each. When I first arrived - after a talk about star signs, watering the plants in the phase of the moon I did wonder what hippie commune I had walked into and signed up for the next couple of weeks.

I am camping in the neighbours olive grove and it is bliss to have a space I can call my own. We have all camp amenities in the park which is a three minute walk down the hill through the chicken enclosure and past ROCKY - the rooster who is just a little intimidating but we had him sorted easily enough by taking his breakfast home each night. The park has three other helpers Ina from Germany (we get along very well and hang out together alot) "Mr" Grant from the UK and a greek lady from the north mainland

10 day old Chameleon at the Nature Park

Ina and I are expected to work from 10 until 2 and then from 6 until 8. but when I say work I should say we give tours of the nature park, tend to the animals, water the plants to the moon phase and any odd job that we may see . The tours well - interesting some people are very open about the whole experience and others are just using it to fill the day like they have a tick list but don't want to interact with what is on offer. It surprises me at times how out of touch some people are with their food and outdoors. Its not that I'm becoming a greenie, more that I am seeing how open we are as a people and although we have niggles with town vs country I don't think we are any where near the attitude of well they are just plants and my food (meat and vegetables) come from the supermarket.

Our boss lady who runs the joint seems quite at ease with us and although I'm not quite sure how it happened the three of us have been left in charge of the park for two and a bit weeks. During this time Ina and I have had a lot of fun from just chilling listening to music including the new youtube sensation - what does the fox say, learning kendama (Japanese game similar to ball and cup www.kendama.cz ) grabbing the holiday programmes bows and stealing the archery range in the evenings to teasing our tourists and doing some self learning. Thanks to google, wikkipedia and the National Geographic I now have a full understanding of about 20 of the 400 endemic plants growing here. I have also learnt that you can use sage to help with throat issues, thyme for colds/flu and rosemary for memory....

Abandoned house Myli Gorge

On a random note and side tangent - Carob. Its other common name is St Johns Bread in allusion to the fruit sustaining John the Baptist during his sojourn and meditations in the wilderness. The other odd piece of information I came across was the small hard seeds inside the pods which are incredibly uniform were first used by goldsmiths as measuring devices/weights and provided the term "carat."

It still has me a little amazed to find that all our garden herbs from NZ just grow in the wild abundantly also in relation to the temperatures and the amount of goats that graze freely. I know that it shouldn't be a surprise but when you see the rosemary and thyme covering a hillside like broom....

I love visiting the local gorge (Myli) and spending siesta time here looking at the area, plants, abandoned buildings and swimming. Our days still hit 32 degrees with the evenings cooling quickly and has us all in fleeces by 7:30pm

We have had a couple of bbq's with yours truly as host and chief, and I have to smile at the known trans tasman rivalry. The other guests/volunteers let me know they had Australians prior to my stay who bbq'd the whole two weeks they were here. So they current guests decided to compare Aussie to NZ and after a deliberation - I happily able say they decided the kiwi's bbq is better

When I arrived I was also asked what my goals were during my stay at the park and although I found this a little strange and put me on the spot I did make some short term ones

- Plan a rough itinerary for overland trip back to Germany via the Balkan countries

- learn about the native plants

- learn about herb properties

- get a monetary tip from a tourist (for mad tour guiding skills)

- achieve a rating on the parks trip advisor page 3 or above

Which I am happy to announce that I have achieved.

I still have a couple of days left at the park before heading back to the mainland and up to Mt Olympus and still deciding if I go Macedonia, Albania, Macedonia or back track a little and head to Albania then Macedonia, will decide when I get to the bus station!

Hope that you are all well and coming into some warmer weather.

-Gabrielle