Eventually after learning our gate number being at B30, we then left the lounge at 2:55pm and promptly went to our departure gate, which looked like it involved going on a bus.
When it came time to board the plane, at first we thought that B31 and B30 (both next door to each other) were for the same flight, but at some point, Tahia casually asked “What is Kos?”…
- Days 0-1 (March 27-28, 2024 – Athens, Greece): “The Inconvenience Of Connections”
- Day 2 (March 29, 2024 – Athens, Greece): “MJF In Athenians”
- Day 3 (March 30, 2024 – Nafplio, Greece): “Scaling Back Expectations”
- Day 4 (March 31, 2024 – Pylos, Greece): “Exceeding Expectations”
- Day 5 (April 1, 2024 – Ancient Olympia, Greece): “Marble Mountains”
- Day 6 (April 2, 2024 – Eptalofos, Greece): “Fish Out Of Water”
- Day 7 (April 3, 2024 – Mykonos, Greece): “What Is Kos?”
- Day 8 (April 4, 2024 – Mykonos, Greece): “Not So Party Island”
- Day 9 (April 5, 2024 – Naxos, Greece): “Back To Low Key”
- Day 10 (April 6, 2024 – Fiumicino, Italy): “Lots Of Airport Time”
- Day 11 (April 7, 2024 – Los Angeles, California, USA): “2 Sopes De Cabeza”
Days 0-1 (March 27-28, 2024 – Athens, Greece): “The Inconvenience Of Connections”
It wasn’t until about 12:25pm when Julie and I finally left the house with our stuff all ready for our upcoming Spring Break Trip to Greece.
We first had to pick Tahia up to get her out of school during her lunch (so she’d be missing the rest of today and tomorrow before getting Good Friday off).
However, there’d be no way we’d be waiting additional days to get out of dodge knowing that when you travel when everyone else does, we’d be in a world of hurt in terms of crowds, germs, inconveniences, delays, etc.
In any case, we’ve done this drill before last November when we went to Italy, and in this go around, we’d be flying ITA Airways again with no checked luggage to Rome.
However, we’d then have to catch a connecting flight to Athens since there’s no direct flight from the West Coast of the USA to get there.
While the last time we did a flight to Greece back in 2010 involved flying to Philadelphia first and then flying direct from there to Athens (original plan was to connect in London Heathrow before an eruption in Iceland cancelled our flight at the last minute), this time we knew that we’d be getting better food and lounge access in the Fiumicino Airport as opposed to some Micky-Mouse layover in the states.
Nevertheless, we also knew that we wouldn’t be arriving in Athens until pretty late on Thursday night (it’s Wednesday now), and so we wouldn’t be able to do any sightseeing on this day either.
Anyways, after getting Tahia out of school, we then made the drive out towards LAX, where we got to the LAX shuttle at 1:15pm, and then we promptly got over to the airport to get our boarding passes.
Unlike the first time we checked in with ITA airways, the ticketing agent only asked us to weigh the roller carry ons when he realized that we weren’t checking anything in.
Moreover, he also asked if we had Global Entry so he could get us on with TSA Pre check-in.
That was something Julie refused to believe that we had with our Global Entry, but I guess she finally realized that we had this benefit all along as long as we checked in with this a priori.
I guess in this case, the ticketing agent was nice enough to help us on our behalf, but I think in all the past times we’ve done this, we just never bothered to pursue upon check-in.
And boy was this a great move that the ticketing agent helped us with because TSA security was as smooth as I had ever seen it. Not only did getting out boarding passes happen without much fuss, but we got through TSA screenings without taking off our shoes, pulling out our computers, etc.
So by 1:45pm, we were already beyond the TSA check and in the secure area ready to go to get some overpriced LAX food while we had close to another hour before it was time to get to our gate board the plane.
As expected, the food at LAX was around $20 for say a Umami Burger (Julie got two of the truffle burgers – one with a conventional bun and another as a sandwich) along with truffle fries that tasted nothing like truffle (costing another $10).
Meanwhile, we paid another $22 for a pork quesadilla at a Mexican place, which was also overpriced, but at least there was a lot more food for that one, which might have turned out to be a better value compared to the Umami burgers, which were tiny.
Once we were done with that quickie meal (knowing we’d be fed on the plane, which made me wonder if we wasted money), we then got to the gate shortly before the 3:20pm boarding time.
They actually started lining up for boarding a bit before that, which was kind of efficient as they had multiple lines based on row numbers (kind of Southwest style but a lot less chaotic).
Then, we promptly got onto the plane without hassle with all our carry-ons in the overhead compartment and only the snack bag, Tahia’s backpack, and my laptop bag underneath the seat.
From there, we were settled into our flight, and we took off on time, which was a surprise (as we had been accustomed to delays in the recent past).
In fact, I knew that we made the right call to pull Tahia out of school early for this reason as things have gone as smoothly as it could possibly go for an international flight.
Anyways, the flight was not comfortable (as expected) as Julie lamented not bringing neck pillows (though I wasn’t too worried about that), but I was woken up to have dinner on the plane, which I knew might mess me up in terms of catching some shut-eye on this flight.
And so after having the dinner, I was in no mood to sleep, and so I wound up spending the first half of the flight watching Oppenheimer and Barbie, which were two of the most talked about movies this year and last year, I guess.
Oppenheimer was thought-provoking as there seemed to be a huge point of emphasis on the Red Scare of McCarthy-ism trying to screw “Oppie” and discredit him from his accomplishment of being successful in carrying through the Manhattan Project.
Of course, he himself was worried about putting the genie back in the bottle, so to speak, because he also knew that the atom bomb had the ability to destroy the world, and it haunted him for it.
And that was the very thing that the right-wing folks working the government and security side of things were getting him for as he then became a hinderance for continuing with the H bomb program (something they feared the Russians would beat us to the punch).
In light of what has been going on with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s aggressive military expansion and bullying of other countries (including Australia), we’re still feeling the effects of imminent world doom, which made the story all the more relevant.
Anyways, after that heavy topic was finished (which was a three-hour movie that was mostly dialog), I then watched Barbie, which was a pretty hilarious self-aware take on double standards with a very tongue-in-cheek cynical swipe at modern society’s attitudes.
I was pretty entertained by that one, and it was quite a nice contrast to the heavier undertones of Oppenheimer.
Once that movie was done, I then had a bit of a struggle catching some shut-eye, but apparently I did manage to get a few more winks eventually until about 90 minutes were left to go on the flight (so I ultimately got a little over 3 hours worth or so; it’s better than nothing).
Eventually, the plane made a rather hard landing at the Fiumicino Airport to the west of Rome, and by around 12:10pm on Thursday, we got into the terminal pretty efficiently.
Unfortunately, during the flight, Tahia was sniffling a lot, and it turned out that she was coming down with a cold.
Julie was roasting Tahia for not masking up at school at taking care of herself (the masking bit was something Tahia denied not doing, but we knew she was lax with that), and well, she already got off to a bad start on a trip where we picked Greece largely becaues of her.
Not only that, but we were hitting the southern parts of Greece, exclusively, which I knew was affected by drought and wildfires, and so we wouldn’t even be hitting the mountainous areas of Meteora and Mt Olympus, which I thought was a shame on this trip.
Instead, Julie wanted to spend time on the islands of Mykonos and I at least wanted to throw in Naxos since we were making the call to do the islands instead of going further up into the mountains for at least some chance at successful waterfalling on this trip.
Regardless, we had a few hours of layover before our connecting flight to Athens, Greece, and we took advantage of that time brushing and rinsing with mouthwash (using only the TSA-approved limited quantities), and then we went looking for Italian food.
We saw one little deli with a briefly-heated panino porchetta (something I knew we don’t have back at home though it was far from the quality we had on our foodie tour in the Trastevere area last November), and then we checked out the lounge in the departure gate A area.
Over there, we saw that there was a much bigger selection, and there was even a second Venchi over there, which we made it a point to get later after checking out the Prima Vista Lounge (which was a little different than the lounge we had last November) at around 2:05pm.
This particular lounge was a bit smaller, and it was quite busy, but at least we loaded up with more gluten-filled carbs as well as some arugula and spinach for greens (something missing on our meals to this point).
Next, we then waited in line to have some Venchi though I was a bit surprised at Julie’s choice of getting a mango and hazelnut gelato instead of sharing a hot chocolate (saying it was too warm for the hot chocolate).
Then, we promptly got to the A37 gate where we were to board our ITA Airways flight to Greece, which involved waiting for what seemed like forever in a stuffy bus before shuttling over to our smaller plane.
Actually, they were already starting to get people onto the shuttle buses before the scheduled boarding time of 2:50pm, which was also a surprise, and we were worried that we were a bit late.
At least we were able to board the backside of the craft at 3:20pm, which made us getting our carry-ons overhead not much hassle, but it turned out to be a pretty full flight just like the international one was.
The next flight over to Athens was the inconvenient part though, as we knew that it was going to be around sunset by the time we’d arrive at the Athens Airport, and then it would take over an hour to get to Syntagma Square, which was around where we were staying in the city.
At least we did arrive on time at around 6:30pm, and I did manage to get a few more shut-eye on this leg of the flight.
However, there was a passenger who kind of clogged the aisle and made it hard for us to get our stuff off the overhead compartment as she asked us to wait to do that (perhaps unaware that she was making it more awkward and a bigger hold up for when it’s our row’s turn to de-plane).
I could only imagine how much more annoying and tense these moments could be had we waited another 24 hours to get to Greece so Tahia would miss less school, but we’ve been through this drill before.
Anyways, we promptly got out of the terminal area, and then we paid 5.5 euros per person (around $20 USD) to get onto the X95 bus, which was scheduled to leave at 7:10pm.
It wasn’t the most comfortable ride as all the seats were pretty much taken, and Tahia refused to sit when she had the chance (not a smart move considering she was now fighting a cold).
But when all was said and done, we finally got to the Syntagma Square at around 8:25pm (giving us an idea of when we should be back at the square to return to the airport to pick up the rental car in a couple of days).
It was still a bit too hectic to try to do a little sightseeing and scoping out the square with our carry-ons, so we promptly walked straight down to the Electra Hotel, where we were quickly checked in, and then we finally settled into our room at 8:35pm.
Now, Tahia could finally get some sleep after showering and brushing, but she was too tied to her phone, which finally prompted Julie to change her password.
Then, at 8:50pm, it was just Julie and I checking out the view of the Acropolis atop the roof of our hotel, which was really nice (and the hostess was gracious about letting us check out the terrace even though it was a candle-lit dinner kind of place).
Then, we checked out a little bit of Athens at night as we headed towards the Monastiriki Square to get to this receptionist-recommended street food spot called Bairaktaris.
Along the way, we also picked up some vitamins and cold meds at one of the numerous Farmakeiron (pharmacy) shops, and then we picked up some pretty nice takeaway gyros and souvakis or kebabs.
We then promptly took it back up to our room at 10pm, where Tahia briefly woke up to have this food, which she devoured (as she was picky with the other stuff earlier today), and then we finally cleaned up and got legit sleep by around 11:30pm-ish.
And so passed this rather hectic day of traveling where tomorrow, it would be time for a hectic day of organized- and self-touring of Athens…
Day 2 (March 29, 2024 – Athens, Greece): “MJF In Athenians”
It was about 4:30am when I awoke to the alarm, where I hit the snooze button a couple of more times before I was up for good at 4:50am.
Still feeling like I could have used more zzzs from the hectic and long travel day yesterday, the mindset today was that it was going to be a full day of sightseeing in Athens, which was our lone day of touring this city on this trip.
The day after that, we’d have to go back to the Athens Airport to pick up the rental car and self-drive our way throughout the Peloponnese.
However, our waterfalling prospects looked bleak considering how little rain had fallen over the past few months in Southern Greece.
Nevertheless, I spent the next hour or so wrapping up with the blogging and photo organizings of yesterday’s happenings before I attempted to go up to the roof of the hotel to see if I could get some sunrise shots of the Acropolis.
But when I went up there at 6:05am, I saw that the doors to both the rooftop restaurant were closed as was the door to the pool.
So there’d be no sunrise views of the Acropolis from the hotel (unlike the last place we stayed at the first time Julie and I went to Greece nearly 14 years ago).
So I returned to our room, got some Duolingo Greek rounds in, and then by about 6:35am, I went up to the rooftop restaurant for our included brekkie while Julie and Tahia were still getting ready.
It turned out that the rooftop restaurant was very nice with gorgeous views of the Acropolis.
The breakfast was also quite good, and I guess I knew at that point that this place was a total splurge (Julie telling me earlier that it costed us over $700 USD for our two-night stay here).
In any case, I tried out the different cheeses, got the natural honey from a large honeycomb, got some eggs, bread, and even some fruits.
Indeed, it was a full breakfast though there wasn’t a whole lot in the way of authentic Greek stuff for brekkie.
They even offered up freshly-squeezed orange juice, which was quite good.
When Julie and Tahia finally arrived, they, too there impressed with the brekkie experience, and I openly expressed that we probably should pick up our rental car tomorrow morning later than scheduled so we could have one more go at brekkie here.
The brekkie didn’t start until 6:30am, and we knew it’d take at least an hour to get back to the airport, but our scheduled pick-up time for our rental car was around 7am.
So I’m sure we’d have to pick up closer to 8:30am if we leave the hotel at 7am (though we’re still unsure whether to take the slower X95 bus back to the airport or try our hand at mass transit taking the M3 to the airport express train).
Nevertheless, we enjoyed our brekkie and took our time knowing that our paid organized tour of the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum didn’t start until 9am with about an 8:45am meeting time.
Therefore, we just lived it up a bit while perhaps overeating on the carbs, which there was definitely no shortage of at this brekkie buffet.
I know my joints weren’t going to appreciate the gluten assault, and the same was probably going to happen to Julie.
In addition, Tahia didn’t want to get tempted with too much sweets since she was trying to stop herself from letting her cold get worse.
Anyways, by about 7:45am, after finishing up with brekkie and taking some people shots atop the rooftop restaurant, we then returned to our room for some last-minute preparations for the day.
Then, we pretty much walked towards the southeastern side of the Acropolis, where the meeting place was for the Fresko Yogurt shop.
We ultimately got there at around 8:20am, where we followed some slippery smooth cobblestone and marble streets through what appeared to be the Plaka Neighborhood on the way there.
None of our walk rung a bell to me about whether we might have seen this before on our first trip, but then again, it was so long ago that perhaps the memories had already faded.
Nevertheless, we did do a little bit of exploring the pedestrian street past some purple-flowered trees towards one of the entrances of the Acropolis as well as the closed entrance to the Acropolis Museum.
The museum’s building did ring a bell as I swore we had seen this place before probably when they first opened up or something.
But by 8:45am, we joined up with our tour where there was a fairly sizable group of mostly Americans and an Indian family.
The guide’s name was Ioannis, where we learned that one in three Greek males have this name, because it happens to mean “John” in Greek.
So Ioannis promptly got us walking along the pedestrianized street that we had just visited earlier on, and we made some frequent stops where he would narrate to us in shaded spots.
It turned out that he had forgotten to bring his folder so there would be some photos of stuff you can’t see up close anymore, and we’d have to rely on his phone from time to time, but I’m sure we’ll make do at that point.
The closer up the Acropolis we went, the more crowded it became with other guided tours, but we did learn and appreciate quite a few things on this tour as opposed to a lot of stuff we didn’t grasp the first time around (probably because we just went on our own).
Indeed, we saw a theater that apparently was capable of accommodating 18k attendees back in the day, and we also noticed a decorative column with a victory insignia usually crowning its top (a way of showing your wealth apparently).
We also learned that every temple in Greece typically houses a statue for worship, but only by select people like priests, and so there’d often be an accompanying altar for everyone else to give sacrifice while worshipping said god somewhere nearby.
As we continued to go up closer to the main west entrance to the Acropolis, we also checked out a “music hall”, which was another outdoor theater that looked quite impressive.
Apparently, it’s a venue that specific acts get to perform at, including various European classic acts as well as Foo Fighters and even Alice Cooper.
Eventually, we made our way up to the very crowded main entrance where we then squeezed our way up through the pretty elaborate stairway entrance surrounded by columned buildings that were apparently meant to signify victory.
The victory was supposed to be an intimidation measure by Athenians saying to entrants that the Athenians are better than you because they defeated the Turks or Persian Armies back in the day.
They also figured out a way to join up with other Greek City-States to fend off future Persian attacks (except one where they holed up on the Peloponnesse before Corinth and let Athens get destroyed before coming back when things got better for them).
So a lot of the monuments and symbols of strength at the entrance of the Acropolis was basically Athenians pulling an MJF (an AEW wrestler) whose famous catchphrase was “I’m better than you, and you know it!”.
There were other complications from this mentality that rubbed other city-states the wrong way, but long story short, a lot of what we were seeing around the Acropolis was pretty much all about their stance that they were better than the other Greek city-states.
We also learned quite a bit about the first medical practice, and why they used the snake around a pole as a symbol of healing (contrary to our usual mentality that the snake meant something evil, which was actually something from Christianity).
And so as the day was pretty much warming up (it was apparently unusually warm for March during our visit), I knew that didn’t bode well for our aspirations at waterfalling the Peloponnesse starting tomorrow and for most of the rest of the Spring Break trip.
Nevertheless, as we checked out the Athena Temple and the Parthenon, there were some interesting building techniques being shown regarding the curvature of the bottom and the top to create the illusion that the Parthenon was alive and rising.
We also saw an olive tree and some hole in the roof of part of the Athena Temple, which was where they’d parade sacrificial animals or something as part of the offering to get something in return whenever they want something from the gods.
Anyways, it was quite crowded up at the Acropolis, but at least from doing this tour, we seemed to get a bit more out of the understanding of why things were up here, especially Tahia who seemed to be more into it.
Eventually at around 11am, the Acropolis part of the tour ended, and we had about 15 minutes to check out some views on our own, especially near the Greek Flag looking towards some of the surrounding mountains and monuments.
Looking in the other direction on the south side of the Acropolis, we could see the sea in the distance, as we understood that Athens was protected by mountains in three directions and the sea in the 4th direction.
No wonder why this was geographically a strategic spot to have a city-state though after the Turks destroyed Athens at one point, this place became less politically important but more important for matters of culture.
By about 11:15am, we then started the Acropolis Museum part of the tour as we were now a smaller group of just about 7 people.
We first had to squeeze our way back out of the Acropolis area, and then we made our way down a different exit than when we came in towards a loop walk that went around the Acropolis back towards the Acropolis Museum.
By the time we got to the museum, there was another long queue, but this time it was to get past the security, and the group line and the non-group lines were about the same size.
So it wouldn’t be until about 12pm when we finally got past the security and got our tickets.
Then, we proceeded to go up to the third floor of the museum where we checked out the reliefs and frescoes that were taken from the elements of the Acropolis and housed for safer keeper in this museum.
Thus, we better appreciated how much things were destroyed (by an apparent lone canon ball that hit an armory which the Turks had used the Parthenon for) or put in the British Museum.
We learned that the centaurs were supposed to represent darkness and disorderly conduct, and that there was a depiction of some kind of parade where mortals and gods were pay tribute to Athena as well as Poseidon.
Apparently, Athenians were proud that Athena and Poseidon fought for the right to have their name represent their city-state, which again made the Athenians feel like MJF (they’re better than you, and you know it!).
Energy was running low as we got to the end of the third floor part of the tour and we started to go further down the museum as we were essentially doing the tour backwards given how busy the lower levels were.
So we checked out more statues, and eventually we got to the first floor, where apparently you couldn’t take photos of the main gallery where you could see how the statues had color.
Although we tend to associate these marble statues with being white, that was a consequence of the weathering that went on, and that the statues having color would have really made these artifacts more vibrant.
Eventually at around 1:20pm, we were done with the tour, tipped Ioannis, and even got some pointers about where to have lunch (he recommended some place called Thespis).
We also learned from Ioannis that March had been their hottest and driest month in history, which was again not a good sign for our waterfalling.
In any case, we then proceeded to walk towards the Thespis Restaurant, and we ultimately got to their outdoor seating at around 1:35pm.
Along the way, we couldn’t help but notice a bunch of abandoned buildings full of graffiti, and I wondered how much of this was the result of the Global Financial Crisis that happened shortly before our first trip to Greece in 2010 (the GFC was more in 2008-2009).
We didn’t go too crazy with proportions at this restaurant as we got some roasted cauliflower and broccoli veggie dish accompanied with grilled octopus, and also some kind of tagliolini, which was an interesting seafood take on a pasta.
It seemed like Tahia was struggling with staying awake as jetlag definitely kicked in for her, but all in all (aside from the roasted stuff being somewhat burnt), it was a fine lunch costing around $70 USD.
From there, after we were done with lunch at 2:40pm, we then walked around the northern side of the Acropolis to pursue the views of the Acropolis from the so-called Mar’s Hill.
Along the way, there were more abandoned buildings full of graffiti, and there were more hidden alleyways that were probably worth exploring though we could only detour so much without losing Julie.
I know it was definitely an unexpected part of Athens that we certainly didn’t experience the first time around, but sometimes when you’re older and wiser, you slow down and try to get all the intangible benefits from that pace as opposed to when we were younger.
When we got to the Mar’s Hill, we promptly got onto the hill, which was surprisingly treacherous due to how slippery smooth the rock outcrop was.
But you couldn’t deny the fine views back at the Acropolis’ main entrance and their victory columns whereas the other directions only showed hints of the Parthenon and a lot of fortress walls.
After having our fill of the Mar’s Hill at 3:20pm, we then went back down to the main walk and went around the southwestern and western walkways around the Acropolis towards the Ancient Agora.
We eventually got there at around 3:45pm, where we actually got in for only 15 euros total (I had expected us to pay 10 euros per person), and we then promptly checked out the Stora’s museum first.
Apparently, the Ancient Agora was the centerplace of commerce and some culture even though the Acropolis was the main icon of the city-state of Athens.
Once we had our fill of the Stora, we then walked over to the Temple of Hephaistos, which was the familiar columnar building reminding me of the Lincoln Memorial in some ways (though of course, the stuff in the National Mall was a bite off the Greeks).
Anyways, our impression of the Ancient Agora was much like that of the Roman Foro, which seemed to be like the centerplace of life in Rome.
Of course, in this instance, we’re talking about the Greeks, but it was evident from the large field of ruins and statues that this was indeed the center of life in Athens.
After having our fill of the Ancient Agora, it was about 4:35pm, and we promptly headed towards the Monsastariki Square, which somehow didn’t ring a bell to me from our first trip here though I did remember the Hadrian’s Library.
We then checked out some popsicles at Mona Lisa before slowly making our way back towards the Electra Hotel.
However, before we got there, I think we were running low on energy, and so we ultimately had an early dinner at 5:35pm at this place called Athinaikon.
I think Julie originally wanted to try out Ella, but ultimately decided that this other spot was more popular.
And so we did that as we had a couple of different fried balls (one with spinach and another with shrimp and crayfish or something like that) along with a pasta of some big prawns.
We were definitely struggling with staying awake at this time, and so our dinner was a simple affair that ultimately costed us around $50 USD.
Once that was done, Julie and Tahia went back up to the room at the Electra Hotel while I did a little more self-exploring of the Syntagma Square.
It turned out that the Parliament Building was glowing pink due to the setting sun, and it was just in time for the changing of the guard there (though I didn’t bother crossing the street for a closer look).
Then, I returned to the Electra Hotel, where I then went up to the rooftop restaurant just to see if there was anything special going on with the sunset across from the Acropolis.
Well, it looked like I had just missed the sunset, and the Acropolis was in mostly shadow, but it was impressive nonetheless, while the place up here was happening.
I also learned that the swimming pool was closing at 7pm, which was only in 15 minutes, and I’m guess Tahia and Julie missed their opportunity to check out the pool here (though Tahia was still fighting a cold so probably didn’t feel like going in the water anyways).
By about 6:50pm, I had my fill of sightseeing and returned to our room, where the rest of the evening was kind of a blur as we were all fighting jetlag where even the outside noise didn’t seem to stop us from getting tired either.
So before I knew it, after showering, brushing, and crashing, it must have been around 9:30pm or so when I was knocked out.
I wasn’t sure if Julie and Tahia did the same when I was out, but nevertheless, tomorrow was going to be the start of our self-driving and exploring the Peloponnesse in a more stretched out timescale compared to our first trip here (when we only did it in 2 days)…
Day 3 (March 30, 2024 – Nafplio, Greece): “Scaling Back Expectations”
It was 3am when I awoke without the alarm (actually, I had gotten up at 2:30am and wasn’t able to go back to sleep for the next half hour).
Definitely, there was jetlag that had kicked in.
So I spent some time wrapping up on the blogging about yesterday’s happenings, and during that time, Julie also had gotten up at around 4am.
Once all was said and done, when I had wrapped up with my blogging, I was also done packing up my belongings, and Julie and Tahia also did the same.
So it was about 6:15am when we made it up to the entrance of the rooftop restaurant, but the door was still closed so we just killed time for the next 15 minutes until the restaurant finally opened its doors at exactly 6:30am.
We then enjoyed the brekkie for one last time, and we also enjoyed the views of the Acropolis again – something that I guess just doesn’t get old, as you show one photo of that icon, and you immediately know that you’re in Athens.
The original plan was to be out the door before 6am so we could pick up the rental car as soon as possible (maybe around 7am or sooner), but this was one of those calls where I knew that we couldn’t miss out on this brekkie experience.
Besides, the rush was originally motivated by fitting in a lot of sightseeing on this day – from Palamidi Fortress to Epidavros to the Aidonia Waterfall and possibly Mycenae (or Mikines) before settling in on Nafplio at the end of the day.
But losing at least a couple of hours already meant that I had to scale back expectations, especially given the drought situation that Southern Greece was facing – so I already decided that getting to the Aidonia Waterfall wasn’t going to be justified.
Whether I’d regret this decision or not was going to be a matter of how the remaining targeted waterfalls would perform later on in the trip, but in my mind, the decision was made to experience Nafplio like we had never done before, and then see what’s left.
Indeed, after stuffing ourselves again with a hearty breakfast of eggs, mushrooms, bacon, a Greek salad, and Greek yogurt with actual honey, I couldn’t resist getting the gluten-filled breads and donuts that I didn’t get to try yesterday.
Plus, we also had another helping of freshly-squeezed orange juice, which I’m sure didn’t help my already bulging belly from this trip.
So it wouldn’t be until about 7:20am when we were done with the brekkie, promptly went back to our room to grab our belongings, and then go down to the reception to check out.
Instead of trying to save money and figure out the bus and metro/train situation from the Syntagma Square, we decided to just eat the 46 euros and get the fixed-rate taxi back to the airport to pick up our rental car from Enterprise.
When time is of the essence, we couldn’t mess around with figuring things out with the transport situation, and thus the extra expense was justified (with Julie pointing out that this was a benefit of booking with a hotel instead of doing an apartment on our own).
And so we smoothly got our taxi who was waiting already at the Electra Hotel, and we got to the familiar airport at 8am.
I had to do a little walking since we were dropped off at the car rental return part of the Enterprise Lot, and it was suggested that I make the contract at the arrivals terminal.
From there, we finally got our car, which was a small black mini-cooper, at 8:30am, and we then quickly loaded up the car, set up our Garmin Nuvi GPS, also started recording with GaiaGPS, and then we proceeded to drive off right onto the highways.
Right off the bat as we headed on the A6 towards the E8, and eventually the A7, we were hit by at least three or more toll collectors along the way.
While the costs were already adding up (they were generally between 2-3 euros at a time), at least they took credit cards, and I also agreed with the principle that you pay for your use.
Unlike our freeway situation where taxpayers (including those who don’t drive) foot the bill, paying for your use makes so much more sense, and it’s why the expressways in Europe are as smooth and issue-free as they are.
So Tahia got herself comfortable in the back seat while Julie and I were enjoying the nice weather.
I also was checking out the interesting rocky and knobby mountains that I knew kind of was a stereotypical dry-climate geology that we’re used to in California and the Southwestern USA in general.
Something that was encouraging was that I did notice in the distance of one of the mountain ranges (which I think might have been the Archea or Aroania Ranges) there was actually snow at the very top!
That gave me some glimmer of hope that perhaps at least one of the waterfalls that we’re targeting in the Peloponnesse would be flowing.
However, I also knew that given Greece’s multi-year drought with this month of March being their driest and hottest on record, that it would be a long shot.
Eventually when we got to somewhere southwest of Corinth and southeast of Ancient Nemea, we then got off the A7 expressway and proceeded to drive some narrower country roads, which were well-signed and pointing us towards Nafplio.
Along the way, I had already noticed that there were signs for Mycenae nearby as we followed this country road (which indicated that we weren’t far from the target of Aidonia Waterfall), but I also thought we didn’t have time to do that one.
Palamidi was the top priority followed by Epidavros, and we stuck by the plan even though we were two hours behind what I had originally planned for.
Further along the road, I also noticed signs for Epidavros, but that was meant to be a bonus after Palamidi was over, even though we’d be backtracking for a half-hour east of Nafplio once we were done with Palamidi.
Eventually at 10:35am, we finally arrived at the rather busy car park for the Palamidi Fortress, and seeing how people were haphazardly parking on the narrow road downhill from the actual limited-sized car park for the fortress, I knew that parking would be tight.
Indeed, we kind of suspected that with today being a Saturday and that Easter Sunday was tomorrow, there was also a bit of a local crowd factor at play as well.
Nevertheless, we managed to score a nice parking spot right in front of the entrance to the Palamidi Fortress, and then we promptly got out of the car and started taking pictures even before getting into the paid area.
It was only 4 euros per person (no child discount for Tahia), and then we promptly walked past the Leonidas’ Bastion down towards the St Andrews’ Bastion, and eventually out towards the Upper Bastions (I believe the Falkonas’ Bastion).
Then, we worked our way backwards from there already dazzled by the impressive views over the city of Nafplio below (where it looked like there was some kind of weekend market going on) while also getting a load of an island fortress Bourtzi as well as the Acronafplia.
The water down below the cactus-filled vertical cliffs were also impressively blue, and we even spotted some kind of hidden beach beneath the south side of the Acronafplia Fortress.
A sign here indicated that the Falkonas’ Bastion was the weakest part of the Palamidi Fortress as some parts of the walls were only 3m tall, and this allowed multiple invaders (from Venetians to the Turks) take over as late as 1825.
As we got our fill of the ruins of the upper bastions, we then backtracked to the St Andrews Bastion, where we checked out the views over Nafplio Harbor while also checking out a small church as well as a tight prison that we had to crawl through to get into.
Then, after having our fill of the views of this spot, we then backtracked to the Leonidas’ Bastion, where there were more “rooms” as well as views towards the inner mountains in the direction of Agia Paraskevi.
By about 12:25pm, we were back at the car after having had our fill of the Palamidi Fortress, and we had to make a decision whether to continue with our original plan to get to Epidavros or go right down into Nafplio and spend the rest of the day there.
We let Tahia make the choice, and I think she said she was hungry and wanted to chillax instead of going to Epidavros (though I don’t think she understood her choice at checking out perhaps the best-preserved theater left in Greece).
In any case, Tahia made her choice and we promptly drove down into Nafplio, where there was a bit of a traffic jam near where the weekend market was taking place.
At that point, we saw parking all along the Port Authority and realized that the lots over there were really busy, and even then, we were pretty far from our accommodation.
We eventually had to fight through more traffic and sketchier narrow alleyways near our accommodation at the Hotel Agamemnon towards some “locals” parking beyond the Amphitryon Hotel.
It wasn’t really a parking space (more like carving out a part of the sidewalk on a narrow mountain road), but we just left the car at 12:50pm, and then we proceeded to walk down to the Hotel Agamemnon to see if we could check in early.
Well, when we got to the hotel, it turned out that our room was just ready, and so we promptly got into our room with our belongings at 1:10pm before we had to go find legit parking after dropping off most of our belongings in the room.
Once that was done, we returned to our rental car, and then drove down to the Port Authority Parking all along the Nafplio Harbor, and immediately saw that all the spots were taken and also being competed for.
There was one tour van that was right in front of us and got lucky with a spot, but nevertheless, we parked way down by some railroad just north of the roundabout.
Indeed, we mercifully got out of the car, and then went right for a lunch spot, which Julie decided should be some pizza joint called Scuola.
We ultimately got to that restaurant at 1:45pm, and it turned out that it was directly south of where we had parked at the Port Authority.
Well, the food ended up being super big proportions, and we wound up getting way too much food – Tahia got her own pasta dish (that was full of pork and mushrooms), Julie got a pizza that was Margherita-like except they had fresh mozarella cheese, and I got a “calzone burger”.
I think we could have gotten away with only two items instead of three, but we just ate the good parts and left things like most of the crusts as well as the fries that came with my calzone burger.
Heck, when there were kid beggars that came by and asked for money, we gave away a couple slices of the pizza that we couldn’t eat (though the last girl that showed up only wanted money and didn’t want any of the food we could offer her).
And so after getting done with that gargantuan meal at 3pm, we then walked (more like ambled) our way down the harborside promenade towards the Hotel Agamemnon.
Once there at 3:35pm, Tahia decided that she needed to nap, and so it was just going to be Julie and I exploring the town of Nafplio and do the Rick Steves’ city walk at 4pm (after Julie was done eating her Antica Gelateria gelato).
I couldn’t help but notice the heavy Italian presence in the foods here, and I suspected a lot of that had to do with the Venetian occupation of this place in centuries past.
Nevertheless, Julie and I proceeded to walk past the Antica Gelateria via an alleyway that was behind our room, and then went past some church that was quite ornate inside.
From there, we then walked to the Syntagma Square (Nafplio’s own version of it apparently as “syntagma” meant “constitution”), which was lively with kids playing ball with a hint of the Palamidi Fortress looming high above.
Then, we pretty much walked east down some charming arcades full of shops and tavernas before making it all the way towards the city hall somewhere near the Nafplio Railway Park.
Then, we went down towards some gate with a statue beneath the start of the steps up to the Palamidi Fortress (an option I guess if you didn’t have a car), and then we headed west along more arcades and promenades back towards the Syntagma Square.
I was trying to recall the path that Julie and I took when we first came here some 14 years ago and didn’t know what we were doing, but I only remembered wider boulevards and some random taverna that we ate at there.
If I had to make a guess it was probably one of the few streets that accepted vehicular traffic, but I couldn’t totally be sure.
Anyways, by about 5:25pm, we were back in the room after Julie was done buying some pair of hand-made sandals that were way less than Birkenstocks and actually made of real leather.
We all then dozed off for a bit as jetlag was definitely set in, but we still wanted to do some twilight touring of the city later on.
Julie actually wanted to stop at a taverna for dinner, but I was still so full and had heartburn, that I had no appetite.
Nevertheless, it was about 7pm when we finally pried ourselves out of the room, and did a little more strolling around both the promenade as well as parts of the Rick Steves’ walking tour that we had just done earlier.
Julie eventually got some kind of salad takeaway from a random taverna, and we took whatever twilight photos that we could before retreating back to our room after the skies went black at around 8pm.
And that was pretty much the end of our day where we were way scaled back from our ambitious itinerary, but I guess that’s kind of how things go when we had to contend with the Easter crowds as well as a bit of jetlag and overeating kicking us in the rear.
Tomorrow, we have another busy day as we have to make the long drive to Pylos with hopefully a waterfall to visit, regardless of whether or not the waterfall’s flowing or not.
After all, I always say that a trip doesn’t begin until we see a waterfall, and well, tomorrow’s gonna have to be the day since we didn’t have a prayer for doing it today…
Day 4 (March 31, 2024 – Pylos, Greece): “Exceeding Expectations”
It was about 4am when I awoke to the alarm, where I was definitely feeling the spring forward on this day as I had lost another hour of sleep thanks to daylight savings time.
It also didn’t help that we had some pretty loud neighbors and the walls were paper-thin so I hazily recalled getting woken up some time after midnight last night and then some bumping of the walls (later Julie told me that it was her that did it to shut them up).
I was also still feeling heartburn throughout the whole night, and I was still feeling some of its effects even at the moment as that calzone burger and the huge proportions from Scuola Pizza still got to me.
Indeed, I was just not feeling great all around, and now I had to get through the vagabonding routine of packing up quietly, blogging, and then getting ready to retrieve the car, which was quite a walk away given the crazy parking situation yesterday.
Nevertheless, Julie and Tahia eventually got up at around 5am and promptly tended to what they had to do to get ready.
Meanwhile, I got out of the room with my belongings and proceeded to make the hike to get to the car at 5:25am, where it was still dark outside.
I was surprised at how many people that I noticed out and about outside, and when I finally got to our parked car at 5:45am, I couldn’t help but notice some chatter inside a car parked next to ours.
There was a steamed up car window, and I wondered if they were up to extracurricular activities or something, but regardless, I proceeded to start the car and get going.
Sure enough, by around 6am, I pulled up close to where Julie and Tahia were had just gotten out of the hotel, and they proceeded to go up the ramp where I found a temporary parking spot between a couple of trees.
We then proceeded to load up the car and start the pre-dawn drive towards at least the Polilimnio Waterfalls, which was the first waterfall that we would pursue on this trip.
I always say that a trip doesn’t begin until we witness a legit waterfall, and this one would be it, though it wasn’t the first one targeted on this trip as I decided against doing the Aidonia Waterfall yesterday given the parking situation and our energy levels.
I still wasn’t sure if I’d regret that decision, but given that Greece was said to have had its hottest and driest month of March (and the weather calendar showed that they hadn’t really gotten much rain in both January and February), I thought the move was justified.
In fact, I wasn’t even that bullish on the Polilimnio Waterfalls having appreciable flow, and the only hope that I had to hold onto was that across the Nafplio Harbor, I did notice there was snow in the mountains in the distance.
So that meant this part of Greece must have had some appreciable amount of rain and snow at some time, and maybe, just maybe, there might be waterflow in the Polilimnio Waterfalls.
Anyways, the pre-dawn drive began with a bit of a curvy and dark drive as we went around the Nafplio Bay and through the mountains towards the city of Tripoli.
Having learned that poli means “city” in Greek, perhaps the meaning of this city was “three cities”, and that the city of Tripoli in Libya might have something to do with the Greeks having had history in North Africa across the Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, the drive went smoothly though we did have to pay some more road tolls along the way on the A7 before we finally stopped the car for a rest stop somewhere due north of Kalamata.
There, we picked up some takeaway savory pastries for brekkie while also making a much-needed restroom break as well as a petrol fill-up.
For just a half-tank of gas though, we filled up around 64 euros worth, which was quite an expensive gas (at a little over 2.15 euros per liter), but I figured the car would at least be fuel efficient considering the young lady doing the fill up didn’t speak English.
Once we were back in the car, we then proceeded to leave the expressway near the Kalamata Airport and head west past Messini towards Pylos.
The drive again went mostly smooth with daylight definitely out by this point, though we were stuck behind a lorry for perhaps the last 6km of the drive before finally leaving the Kalamata-Pylos Road somewhere near the village of Kazarma.
There was a well-signed road that went towards the village of Kharavgi before getting onto a fairly rough unpaved road leading towards the Polilimnio Waterfalls.
Even though the road was narrow, there were plenty of signs guiding drivers along the way at every decision point so it gave us some confidence that we were going the right way despite worries that the car might have trouble on this road.
However, we eventually got to a rather deep rut cut through the unpaved road at a signed fork in the road, and that was where we decided it was perhaps better that we didn’t chance it.
So we saw that there was a temporary pullover spot to the left, and we just parked the car there at 8:20am.
At that point, Julie and Tahia decided to stay in the car and not join me for the Polilimnio Waterfalls, and thinking that this wasn’t a difficult hike or anything, I just took off with my camera and phone with no water or pack.
Anyways, as I proceeded further down the road, I could see that the decline I was on was pretty sketchy for the Mini-Cooper car that we had rented, but mercifully, the trailhead parking was only about 10 minutes walk away, where I got there at 8:30am.
It was a little troubling that there were a couple of seemingly abandoned buildings along the way, but there was a residence right at the trailhead with a docile dog just chilling out over there.
Once I proceeded to continue going downhill past the barricade (blocking vehicles), I then realized that the dog was following me, and that the dog was going to keep me company on this hike.
It was nice to have the dog accompany me because I was hiking alone, but in any case, I would continue to descend the well-defined path past some picnic shelter with signs saying that this path was not completely safe due to falling rocks and slippery terrain.
I wasn’t sure what kind of danger I was putting myself in with this hike, but I was about to find out soon, especially since I was hearing the sounds of flowing water, which delighted me because I was worried about drought affecting this experience.
Sure enough, when I got to the bottom of the well-maintained descent, there was a fork in the trail with a sign indicating that there were at least a couple of waterfalls in either direction.
So I first started by going downstream since GaiaGPS made it seem like it was shorter, but before continuing downstream, I was already happy that there was a nice waterfall flowing right beneath this trail fork!
Indeed, that already blew my pessimistic expectations, and now I was pretty much savoring the experience as I knew the Polilimnio Waterfalls would involve quite a few waterfalls down here, and that this wasn’t going to be a short excursion (clearly I was unprepared).
Anyways, after having my fill of this first waterfall at 8:45am, I then went downstream towards Panago’s Lake and Stathoula’s Lake.
It didn’t take long before I saw another small cascade spilling into what seemed to be a “lake”, and I presumed this one to be the Panago’s Lake because there was a sign saying something about someone having drowned here.
I then continued a little further downstream, where there seemed to be a tall-but-hard-to-see cascade dropping steeply into a twisting canyon.
The trail seemed to get real dicey real fast, and I only made it down to an outcrop where any further scrambling meant some near vertical scrambling with dropoff exposure.
I had no interest in making it down to that lake down below, and so I knew it was time to get back up to the trail and then start going upstream, which I promptly did at around 9:10am.
The dog was still with me the entire way, and I could see that the dog didn’t even want to go down this cliff so I’m sure I didn’t miss much.
Anyways, by about 9:35am, I made it to what seemed like the first waterfall further upstream from the signed trail fork where I saw the first waterfall of this excursion.
This waterfall was also nice looking, and it was just past what seemed to be a rickety bridge.
I presumed that this was the Polilimnio Waterfall according to GaiaGPS, but I also noticed that there was signage leading towards “Kadi” in another 220m.
Anyways, after getting past a second bridge (that appeared to have been partially destroyed by a falling tree), the trail then proceeded to disappear across the waterfall.
I saw that the dog actually kept going up the waterfall, and it was clear that I had to keep to the left to proceed past this obstacle, but that also meant getting my feet wet.
Well, I went all the way this way to pursue the best waterfall of the bunch here, and my notes pretty much said that I had to at least get up to Kadi before considering turning back.
And so I went ahead and kept going up the rocky scramble and then along the stream, where I continued to see some of bolts acting as footholds and handholds against the slippery smooth boulders (again affirming that I had to keep going).
Eventually, I got to the next obstacle, which was a sloping cascade that I apparently had to climb up because I saw the dog making its way further up this cascade.
Using the Trail Runners to test the grip on this surface, it appeared to be rough enough that I could keep going, but by this point, my feet were already wet and I had to accept having wet feet at this point.
After getting past this waterfall obstacle, I could see that there was a very tall waterfall up ahead, and I presumed that this had to be Kadi!
Sure enough, by 10am, I finally made it to the impressive Kadi, which was said to drop some 25m, but it was surrounded by tall vertical cliffs and there was a huge plunge pool right in front of it.
I had no intention of swimming here, but I just tried to bask in the glory of this place, which made the effort all worthwhile.
Now I wasn’t too keen on going back the way I came because now that meant having to climb down waterfall obstacles and going back across rickety bridges and then going back uphill to the trailhead and then back up the road to the car.
Plus, it looked like there was still more to pursue as there was some waterfall called Mavrilimna according to my Gaia GPS map.
So I proceeded further along the the trail, which was now clinging to a steep cliff with those metal handholds and footholds to assure that I was going the right way.
There was indeed a lot of risk to this part of the hike, but I just took my time, and it appeared the dog was still coming with me.
As I got to a “switchback” of the handholds, I noticed there was one nimble guy going down towards the base of Kadi (which at least indicated to me that I could keep going this way as I had my doubts).
I think at that point, the dog had a new companion, and so while he was going down to the waterfall and the dog with him, I kept going up where now there were also bungy cords and ropes in addition to the metal “steps”.
But as I got up to the top of Kadi, I saw that there was another cascade up there though it still wasn’t the Mavrilimna Waterfall.
Up here, I saw that the guy that passed me on the way down was now passing me on the way back up as he was quite fast, and I guess he was content to see Kadi and then come back up.
I also noticed that the dog refused to continue further, and so I was now pretty much on my own, but at least I knew that the path I was taking was doable.
Eventually, I got to another nice cascade and swimming hole, which Gaia GPS called the Lake Kadis, and I wondered if this was the Mavrilimna or Mavrolimna that was stated in the signs.
Well, it wasn’t according to my maps, and I actually still had to keep going away from the parked car instead of towards it, and given that it was getting late (and I didn’t want Julie and Tahia worrying about me more), I just stuck with completing this loop.
Sure enough after getting my feet more wet climbing past this waterfall obstacle (where there was a metal ladder continuing the ascent) at around 10:25am, I finally made it up to the road that I knew would hook back up to the fork that we had parked at.
Finally, I had some cell reception and I could WhatsApp Julie telling her that I was on my way back to the car.
Apparently, they were chilling out by the trailhead but didn’t go down to at least one of the Polilimnio Waterfalls, to which I told her that they had missed out.
Anyways, I followed the flower-lined path with the odd cacti and olive trees along the way, and finally at 10:55am, I made it back to the parked car just as Julie and Tahia were also making it back up the final uphill to the car.
And with that, we finally wrapped up this excursion so I definitely needed to change out of the wet Trail Runners and wet socks.
As we drove out of the dirt road, there was some tractor work going on, and we had to get past them, and then we got back to the village of Kharavgi.
Just as we were about to turn back towards the road, there was a lady speaking Greek to us asking us to stop.
We weren’t sure if we were supposed to pay to see the Polilimnio Waterfalls or not, but it turned out that the lady was offering some kind of purplish drink that she made.
We were worried that this drink had liquor or something in it or of it was some form of ouzo.
It turned out to be a sweet juice-like drink that she said in her limited Engligh that it had no alcohol and that it was made of honey, lots of olives, and some kind of olivia or something like that.
That seemed kind of random that she’d stop us and offer us a drink like that, but we thanked her for it and continued with our drive (though in hindsight, I wondered if she wanted to see if we wanted to buy some of it from her).
And so we continued with the drive as we headed west towards Pylos, but along the way, there was a nice view near a place signed Tina’s House or something like that.
And with the fine weather we were having this morning, we could see the red-roofed town of Pylos down below as well as the nice blue waters of the Ionian Sea.
We were actually getting reception from Italian radio stations as I could recognize Italian being spoken, and even one of the songs being played with yet another Taylor Swift song (“Are we over now?” I think was what Tahia said while “Cruel Summer” was played in Nafplio).
I wanted there to be a Greek song that I coudl get into that would define the trip, but with two Taylor Swift songs being played on back-to-back days, I was worried that Taylor Swift was going to have the songs of this trip (much to Tahia’s delight)!
Anyways, we then continued to follow a large white bus as it headed south of Pylos and towards Methoni along a pretty narrow road where cars had to scoot past each other to proceed.
But eventually at 11:55am, we finally made it to the car park for Methoni, and unlike Nafplio, there was actually plenty of parking here.
We then proceeded to pay the 4 euros per person or something like that to get into the castle grounds, where we were reminded that the castle closes at 3:30pm today.
I’m sure we wouldn’t have a problem with that as we followed the tour bus crowd into the castle, but as they were going a different route on the sprawling grounds, we made a beeline towards the structures up ahead on a more direct path.
This place seemed to be a little more of a longer stroll amongst the ruins and castle walls, but we eventually got to a real photogenic “door”, where we then found ourselves on a scenic causeway leading to an impressive tower jutting out into the seas.
It was real windy here, but the water was very blue, and that castle tower seemed magical as you don’t normally see castle towers edging out into the sea via a bridge.
So we gladly took our time just basking in this spot, and it reminded us that sometimes when you self-drive and just go for off-the-beaten-path places like this, you’re richly rewarded with magical experiences, and this was one of those moments.
Indeed, this was turning out to be quite the good day as I got my waterfall experience, and the Methoni Castle certainly was the highlight of the day so far.
Anyways, after checking out the tower, we then headed back while still snapping many pictures along the way.
Then, we saw an alternate view behind some kind of tall building with archways (almost looking like minarets) before take the route that the tour bus crowd went in reverse (along the western wall of the castle).
Finally at 1:30pm, we got back in the car, but that was when we smelled that the shoes I had worn for the Polilimnio Waterfalls really reeked!
It pretty much smelled like what my Keens smelled like, and I realized that we probably should have let the shoes and socks dry in the wind on top of the car here.
Instead, the fungus and bacteria probably marinated in the heated up car (even though we were parked in the shade), and now the Trail Runners would forever smell like this. Not good.
Nevertheless, we then drove back the way we came towards Pylos, where we then checked out the Pylos Castle as we got there at 1:50pm.
Sure enough, there was that familiar bus that we had followed to get here, and we just found some makeshift parking spot, where we finally made good on trying to air out the shoes and socks and soles as we explored the Pylos Castle.
Now the first order of business after paying the 3 euros per person, was to find the WC.
The nearest one was locked, and after doing a little exploring around, I met one of the employees who told me that we had to go up to the Acropolis of this site, and then find the WC there behind a big lemon tree.
So we climbed up to the Acropolis gates, and then went around a large courtyard and saw the aforementioned lemon tree before finally finding the rather hidden WC.
Once that was done, then we climbed up to the walls of this Acropolis where we could see in the distance some rock stacks (including what seemed to be a large natural arch in the distance).
And then we proceeded to take more pictures while also checking out some of the indoor displays in the Pylos Castle site.
There were quite a few neat artifacts here, and apparently part of some city that was here had apparently been submerged by the sea (though I doubt it was anything analogous to Atlantis).
Eventually, after having our fill of the indoor parts of the museum, we then checked out the large pink building, which turned out to be some kind of church.
And well, after having our fill of the Pylos Castle complex, we then returned to the car at 2:35pm, just as there was a horde of younger high schoolers out and about here.
And with that, we finally headed down to our hotel in Pylos (Karalis City Hotel), where we managed to find parking right across the street from the hotel itself at 2:45pm.
After checking in and confirming that the parking across the hotel was indeed belonging to the hotel, we then got into our room at 3pm, which was very nice as it was a corner room with views over Pylos and the bay here.
The good day seemed to continue to keep yielding hits as the unit was beautiful (even making us wonder if this was one of our best stays), and we continued to air out the stinky shoes while also trying to enjoy the views from here.
Anyways, we ultimately walked into Pylos towards some recommended place called the 4 Seasons, which served up traditional Greek food.
When we eventually got there at 3:20pm, the place was busy with lots of Greek being spoken (so we knew that this was a nice local hangout), and we proceeded to have some basic dishes for our apparent “lunner”.
We wound up having some kind of red mueller (sp?), which was one of their fresh fish caught off the sea.
Tahia also had a go at having moussaka, and we algo got some boiled spinach.
The food hit the spot, and it didn’t break the bank, and at least it was much healthier fare than the heavy Italian stuff that we’d been having throughout this trip.
By about 4:30pm, we were done eating, and then we walked back to the accommodation.
But since I had my own room keys, I promptly grabbed my pack and then got back into the car at 4:50pm where I was going to pursue the Kalamaris Waterfall on my own to cap off this day.
Julie and Tahia were going to chill out in the room (I’m sure they’ll be napping).
So I proceeded to drive north and towards the Kalamaris Falls trailhead, and at first I didn’t see any signage for it so I paid close attention to my Gaia GPS map.
But eventually when I found the correct turnoff in Gialova, I then went towards the Gialova Hills, where there was a signed fork in Greek for Katarraktis Kalamaris.
I then proceeded to follow the smaller road down to the right, and pretty soon the road went unpaved and single-lane.
That road was also pretty rough with some water damaged ruts, and I was once again worried about whether the Mini-Cooper would make it.
So as I was white-knuckling my way to the trailhead, I eventually carefully made my way to the trailhead where there was already a car parked here at 5:15pm.
I proceeded to gear up, noticed another car pull up but then keep going (they must be locals), and then I proceeded to go down the trail where some signage said that it was only a 5-minute walk to the get to the falls.
Once again, I had my doubts about whether this waterfall would be flowing, but since it was a short walk, I just followed the trail as it passed by an olive grove and also had some flowers in bloom along the way.
I eventually got to some kind of dam with flowing water, and I knew that I had to go upstream from this spot.
Fortunately, I saw that there were some carved steps and handholds continuing the way, and eventually I got to the Kalamaris Waterfall at 5:30pm, which was quite tall.
It was too bad that I couldn’t see the whole waterfall in one go, but it was nicely tall and actually flowing better than I had expected.
Indeed, the nearly perfect day just got better, and I had my fill of this place at 5:50pm after trying to document the experience as much as possible.
I thought to myself that this waterfall probably deserved at least at 2.5 rating given its flow and height though I also thought that Julie probably wouldn’t like this kind of waterfall.
By about 6pm, I got back to the car, and then proceeded to drive back to Pylos.
Luckily, I got the same parking spot that I had right in front of the hotel when I got back at 6:25pm, and then I pretty much spent the next hour or so downloading photos and map tracks while Julie and Tahia were still mostly napping.
By 7:45pm, we decided to walk back into town just as the skies because overcast (so much for the sunset), and we proceeded to go to this place called Desire for some crepes.
The place smelled like smoke though and we decided to sit inside and ask the staff to close the door (which helped a little bit with the cigarette smoke smell).
But aside from that, we had a Greek Salad (lots of tomatoes in this though) and a savory crepe with gyros in it.
Then, we finished off with a sweet crepe of chocolate and strawberries with vanilla ice cream, and when all was said and done at 8:50pm, the whole thing probably costed less than $30 USD.
I swear we can’t get away with paying that little on any meal (even takeaways) back at home, but I guess that’s kind of the cost of living shock we were getting even making Europe seem cheaper by comparison.
After making the rounds walking around the Pylos town center, which was light on the sightseeing and more about the local ambience, we were back in the room at 9:05pm.
At that point, we finally got to unwind on this eventful day, and get cleaned up and look forward to tomorrow’s excursions as we were headed to Ancient Olympia…
Day 5 (April 1, 2024 – Ancient Olympia, Greece): “Marble Mountains”
It was about 5am when I awoke to the alarm though I could have slept in some more.
I guess at this point, the jet lag was definitely over, and we’d have to re-adjust to the time when we get home in just under 6 days.
Anyways, I had some catching up to do as far as blogging about yesterday, and I pretty much spent the next couple of hours doing just that.
And it still wasn’t enough time to even get to the photo organizing part so I now had a backlog of at least a couple of days due to the early start from yesterday to leave Nafplio and end up in Pylos.
By about 7am, we had loaded up the car and emptied out our nice room but not before taking a few more photos of the view.
Then, we had a breakfast where the proprietors were really nice and accommodating to us as they checked to make sure that we had everything we needed.
It really felt like we were the only guests in this accommodation because we were the only people eating and everyone else were staff.
We tried out some traditional breakfast stuff (some kind of cheese roll and Greek yogurt) as well as the usual bacon and eggs with toast.
Tahia was bummed that she didn’t get to see the owners’ dog Bella this morning, but aside from that, we got into the car by 8am and headed out north towards Ancient Olympia with a stop at the Neda Waterfalls.
The drive north was pretty uneventful except for a detour that we had to make to get into the town of Filatra because there was a road closure along the Kyparissias-Pylou Road just before the town.
Aside from that, we just noted that there was the Ioanian Sea pretty much in sight to our left for most of the way until both GoogleMaps and the Garmin Nuvi had us go east on the E55 at Kalo Nero (we had even overshot the turnoff at one point).
From there, we briefly went east on the E55 before we took the exit for some road labeled Kakkavas (Road 1729), which I knew would be a bit of a long and winding drive getting us closer to the village of Platania and ultimately to the village of Figaleia.
I knew in the back of my mind that there was some confusion about there being two ways to drive down to the trailhead for the Neda Waterfalls.
And sure enough by about 9:35am or so, we got to a signed turnoff indicating that it was another 3km to the Neda River.
So this was the steep and very narrow road leading down to one of the parking spots for the Neda Waterfall hike, but my notes indicated that this was the rougher road.
Even my Gaia GPS map indicated that there were dashed lines towards the bottom indicating perhaps a 4wd road or so, which was something I didn’t want to risk too much with our rental.
So after a bit of deliberating and checking out the context of where we had to go at some overlook at this turnoff, we ultimately decided to continue driving towards Figaleia.
This involved a bit of more of a winding drive going down into the canyon and over the bridge spanning the Neda River before climbing back up the canyon into the village of Figaleia and its narrow alleyways with white stone streets.
Then, we got to the next signed turnoff for the Neda Waterfalls, and we took this way, which seemed to be paved for the most part except for a few water damaged unpaved spots that we had to be careful with.
There were also some rocks protruding from the unpaved parts of the road, but for the most part, it wasn’t too bad of a drive.
We wound up driving this switchbacking road for roughly 1.7km or so (at least according to my maps), and we ultimately got down to a fairly spacious switchback, which I presumed was where the parking for the Neda Waterfalls would be.
We got there at around 10:15am, and we were gearing up to get ready for the hike, but as we all started walking down, we noticed that the road was still driveable and wasn’t all that bad.
Plus, there were still a couple more switchbacks to descend.
So Julie and Tahia went back up to the car to drive down while I stayed on foot and followed them.
However, they eventually got to a narrow part where there was the trailhead, and that was where Julie stopped the car as she couldn’t go any further.
By the time I caught up, I saw that she would have to back the car up, and that was where I had to take over while Julie watched me from the outside to make sure I could execute a three-point turn in the tight confines of the road.
Instead of parking back at the large switchback where we should have left the car in the first place, we ultimately parked at a makeshift turnout where we made the three-point turn in the first place.
And thus, we finally got to a point where we could leave the car and start moving on foot towards the Neda Waterfalls.
But we also crossed the old bridge above the Neda River, where we then noticed that there was another car that was parked in a small lot over here.
And from the looks of it, this car wasn’t a 4wd either.
So maybe the TripAdvisor Reviews about the route from Platania down to here along a 3km route wasn’t as bad as they say because this other car was able to make it.
Plus from the looks of it, the road to get here (at least the end of it) wasn’t all that bad though we can’t vouch for the conditions of the road leading to this end.
Anyways, after having our fill of taking photos of the ancient bridge over the Neda River, we then finally started going up to the trail and hiking towards the Neda Waterfalls at 10:40am.
The hike was pretty much an up-and-down affair as the trail pretty much initially climbed and clung to a ludge before continuing to cling to a ledge as the trail descended.
I couldn’t help but notice that there were remnants of some kind of railing below the trail towards the dropoff, and I guess perhaps the authorities here abandoned maintaining a railing.
Nevertheless, the trail was for the most part shaded though it was already pretty warm even in the shade here.
The canyon down below was reverberating the sounds of rushing water of the Neda River, and since we were going downstream above the river, I wondered if we’d be above the Neda Waterfalls and have to climb down alongside it somehow.
Well, after passing by two couples coming back from the falls (making me wonder how the second couple got here without a car since there was only one car at the other car park and we saw no other car on the route that we took; maybe they walked from one of the towns?), we ultimately got to a the first drop of the Neda Waterfalls at 11:15am.
This was a gushing and modestly-sized drop but there was a bridge fronting its pretty deep blue plunge pool.
We had to be a bit careful with the slippery marble surfaces that we had to traverse to get down to the bridge, and that was always a tricky affair as we came to find out throughout the waterfall hikes and even some vistas that we’ve done so far on this trip.
In fact, all this slippery smooth marble that we kept encountering on our hikes made me realize that perhaps all the marble being used to make the statues throughout Greece (and ultimately throughout the Roman Empire) has a lot to do with the geology of this area.
After all, the ancients pretty much just used what was available to them, and perhaps the presence of all this marble in these mountains turned out to be the convenient building material they wanted as it seemed to be durable and readily quarried.
I bet even to this day there’s marble to be tapped for building materials for whatever purposes (whether it’s to maintain the historical sites here or to export perhaps or even make new, modern stuff with the marble).
Anyways, I did notice that the Neda Waterfall was technically not on the main river, but it was on a tributary feeding it.
Yet this waterfall had a nice gushing flow to it, and I wondered if this falls would ever go dry.
Actually, we were originally supposed to visit this waterfall on our first visit to Greece back in 2010, but not-so-great-weather and limited time prevented us from doing this back then.
Nevertheless, after having our fill of this waterfall, I couldn’t help but notice that there was another waterfall further upstream of this first one.
I bet that was the bigger of the Neda Waterfalls, and so we promptly went up towards that other waterfall.
There was a signed fork indicating that straight ahead was some kind of cave tunnel, but we also saw that there was some trail closure indication in that direction so we didn’t bother pursuing that any further.
Instead, we just kept ascending closer to the base of the bigger of the Neda Waterfalls, where we then had to cling to downsloping marble (where even one broken bench was kind of in the way) as we had to negotiate the slippery terrain there.
But once we finally made it to the big waterfall at 11:30am, we saw that the falls was still under shade for the most part but the light was starting to creep closer to the main falls.
That made for some tricky photography with my Sony Mirrorless camera, which can’t seem to handle this dynamic range in real-time (unless I shoot in raw, and then postprocess it in Lightroom or Photoshop).
However, the phones seem to handle this dynamic range better.
In any case, we didn’t really want to get wet to stand mid-stream to look at the falls more directly, and so we were content to get our views from some rocks and logs that allowed us to witness the falls without wetting our sandals and shoes.
We didn’t want to get our shoes wet because that would have made the marble surfaces of the trail even more slippery.
Anyways, after having had our fill of this spot (and having this waterfall to ourselves), we then headed back down towards the trailhead.
By about 12:10pm, we were back at the car, but I knew that we still had more to do today (especially since I wanted to visit the Nemouta Waterfalls just east of Ancient Olympia, which was where we were spending the night).
And thus, we drove back up the curvy and somewhat rough-in-spots road to Figaleia, and that was where we saw one couple almost back in the town, which confirmed my suspicions that they walked from town all the way down!
I think that was about a mile in each direction, but Julie did notice that there was a camping in Figaleia, and that was where they must have been overnighting here.
Anyways, we next drove north from Figaleia along the Road 1413 and 1410, but it was continuing to be winding and twisty, and that started to cause Tahia to get motion sickness.
We ultimately got to the town of Nea Figaleia at 12:55pm, where we stopped the car so Julie could pick up a few more bottles of water (only 1 euro for three 1.5L bottles) as we were running out.
That also bought Tahia some more time with her motion sickness as she was still trying to sleep it off as we resumed our drive at 1pm.
Next, we eventually made it back to the E55 near the town of Tholo, and then we continued to head north along the mostly straightened out and smooth road towards a signed turnoff for Ancient Olympia near the town of Krestena.
From there, we followed some local roads past the village of Makrisia before finally making it into the familiar town of Ancient Olympia.
At that point, we stopped the car right in front of the Leonidaion Guest House, which was our accommodation for the night, at 2pm.
We found out that we were a little too early to check in as the proprietor (I think his name was Damiano) needed a half-hour for our room to be ready, but he recommended that we have lunch in town.
That was perfect since it was getting late for lunch, and so we dropped off our stuff in his luggage storage, and then we proceeded to walk along the main drag of Ancient Olympia towards this place called Pheidias, which we got to at 2:20pm.
It turned out to be a pretty nice traditional Greek lunch where we had some kind of meatball with feta cheese and meat sauce, a spicier dolmades (grape leaves wrapped around rice topped with cheese), a saganaki (fried cheese), a gyro mix of chicken and pork, and some included pita bread with nice fresh hummus and some kind of reddish dip.
The lunch really hit the spot as it wasn’t too much food, and the cost was pretty reasonable.
Tahia was enjoying the company of the owners’ cat and dog (both of whom were adopted strays), and the folks here were really friendly to us.
At 3:30pm, we were done eating and returned to the car at the Leonidaion Guest House, where Julie and Tahia were helped by Damiano to bring our stuff up to the room, but Damiano also gave me some advice about going to the Nemouta Waterfalls.
He told me that the key was to get to the town of Lalas and then go to Nemouta Village from there.
I know when looking at my maps and trying to route with GoogleMaps during the trip planning, it kept wanting to get me to the place from a different more easterly approach.
Now I couldn’t find Lalas on my maps, but I definitely kept Damiano’s advice in mind.
He also gave me his business card with his phone number just in case something happens (because you never know, especially with the tires and the roads to pursue waterfalls as we’re finding out on this trip).
And with that, I headed out but I was pretty much just relying on my Garmin Nuvi routing and my Gaia GPS visual check.
It turned out that the Garmin Nuvi kept trying to route me through some other weird roads, and I eventually just figured out that I had to drive north out of Ancient Olympia towards the E074 road.
After a bit of back-and-forth, I finally headed east on the E074 Road, where I then saw a faded sign pointing left towards Lalas.
Remembering Damiano’s advice, I promptly took that road (again, the GPS wanted me to keep going east on the E074), and followed this mountain road northeast as it climbed pretty high in the range.
After getting through the town of Lalas, I then continued further along the Route 1418 before I saw a signed turnoff pointing to the right (near some church) towards Nemouta, which was another 8km away.
So I followed that rural road (Road 1419) until I got to the narrow lanes of the village of Nemouta, and then as I got through that town, I finally got onto the winding switchbacking road down from Nemouta towards the Nemouta River Canyon down below.
Unlike the road down from Figaleia, this road was pretty much paved (or at least graded) the whole way down so it was assuring to see that this place does see quite a bit of maintenance.
However, I did notice that there seemed to be quite a bit of fire-scarred and bare trees all along this part of the drive, which made me wonder if the Greece wildfires last year had hit this area.
Thus far, I had been pleasantly surprised by how vigorous the waterfalls were even though most of Southern Greece was under drought (and a multi-year one at that).
I still wondered if I made a mistake not pursuing the Aidonia Waterfall near Nemea when we were staying in Nafplio earlier on in this trip, but that’ll have to be for a future trip when we might finally get to see Monemvasia (which was too out of the way for us on this trip).
By about 4:30pm, I finally made it down to the bridge over the Nemouta River where there was space to park the car.
The last bit of road was a little unpaved and somewhat rough, but it wasn’t all that bad, and actually this entire valley was flatter and wider than I had anticipated (though the drive down from Nemouta was indeed steep).
In any case, I was surprised by how many people I was seeing down here (one couple was hiking back to their camper or RV parked further up the road) while other people seemed to be locals.
Anyways, after gearing up (and wearing the putrid Trail Runners with a new pair of socks), I proceeded to backtrack towards the stream that I knew had the first of the accessible waterfalls.
Once I found its fairly well-signed path (at least with a sign warning of rockfalls), I then followed its path across a couple of crossings over the side stream before getting past one fallen tree obstacle and finally down to the stream in front of a massive wedged boulder.
As I approached the opening beneath the massive boulder at 4:55pm, I had to unsling the day pack because the rocks were quite steep and smooth in order to get past this “tunnel”.
So I promptly did that, and then got to an opening where I got a clearer look at this first waterfall of the Nemouta ensemble.
I didn’t continue scrambling any further to get right up to its base as I was content with my views here and didn’t want to add any more risk knowing that there were still a couple more waterfalls to pursue in this valley.
Once I was done documenting this first of the Nemouta Waterfalls, I then carefully scrambled back down to my day pack, slung on my pack, and then backtracked back to the car and the bridge over the Nemouta River.
Now, there were a lot of locals before the bridge having a conversation, and I smiled at them (and they smiled back) as I kept going over the bridge in the direction of the remaining waterfalls.
I saw that there was a sign apparently naming (in Greek) the three waterfalls that I was about to pursue (including the one I just visited), and I then followed a path that went into some locals’ property.
I noticed that there was some kind of fence that seemed to block any further progress, and I went around it onto a white bouldered embankment before a low-hanging tree blocked my progress there.
A local farmer noticed what I was doing and told me that it was ok to open and close the wire fence (which was there to keep the chickens from running away).
And with that, I was on my way along the well-defined tractor path through this persons’ farm as I went past some goats and then past some grove of olive trees.
Eventually at 5:45pm, I got to the first of two waterfalls (that the farmer confirmed I would be seeing – one on either side of the river), which was a tall, two-tiered falls with some limestone characteristic to it.
It was nice and refreshing to stand at its base near the spray as I was pretty much sweating to this point as today had been quite warm.
After having my fill of this waterfall, I then backtracked to the fork and continued on the main path eventually leading me to some fallen trees fronting a half-sand half-bouldery scramble along the river towards the next waterfall.
Shortly after seeing that there were some limestone alcoves with stalactites and stalagmites across the river, I then saw the second waterfall at 6pm, which was perhaps the smallest of the three waterfalls.
It was basically yet another side waterfall spilling towards the Nemouta River, but this one was also accompanied by another small spring parallel to it.
Once having my fill of this falls, I then backtracked to the car, where I saw the farmer opening and closing the chicken wire fence.
He told me that there was another two more waterfalls back up the switchbacks, but he said those involved a bit of scrambling and bushwhacking (at least that’s what I gathered in his broken English as he struggled to communicate that).
I recalled Damiano telling me something about that too, and so I didn’t mind not doing those two other waterfalls (for a grand total of 5).
Anyways at 6:25pm, I got back to the car and proceeded to drive back to the Leonidaion Guest House in Ancient Olympia.
I pretty much went back the way I came, though the Garmin Nuvi had me skip the highway and took me to Ancient Pisa before the road dead-end by some Olympic Institution.
That was a waste of time, and it wouldn’t be until about 7:25pm when I finally resisted the Garmin Nuvi long enough to get me back to the Leonidaion Guest House, where Damiano helped me back into the last tight spot in front of his place.
I was back at the room at 7:35pm, where I finally got settled and unwound the day.
By 8pm, we walked back into the main drag of Ancient Olympia, where there were quite a few tourists (mostly from large groups) out and about there.
We wound up buying stuff from a few souvenir shops (and being coerced into going into some of the jewelry shops; one with some olympic torch replica and tiara), before finally settling in on this place called Orestis for dinner.
We got there at 9pm and enjoyed some fresh local fish as well as some Greek salad and some toasted pita bread with some freshly crushed olive dip.
The dinner hit the spot (though Julie and Tahia were too full to help me finish the fish), though this was probably the latest dinner we’ve had on this trip.
This restaurant was actually quite busy, and I guess even in Greece, they have the late dinner thing going (it’s not just in Spain, I guess).
Eventually at 10:10pm, after settling our bill (which was a reasonable 68 euros for what we got), we were finally back in the room to call it a day.
Tomorrow, we have a timed entry for 8am to the Ancient Olympia Archaeological Area, as it was going to be all about the archaeology there as well as Delphi on the way up to Eptalofos for one more night on the main part of Southern Greece…
Day 6 (April 2, 2024 – Eptalofos, Greece): “Fish Out Of Water”
It was 5:30am when I awoke to the alarm as my body continued to be adjusted to Greece time.
I then spent the next couple of hours getting all packed and trying to catch up with the blogging about yesterday’s happenings.
I still didn’t get around to organizing photos again so that made it at least three days of backlog to get through for that effort.
Anyways, when all was said and done, we were busy loading up the car at around 7:45am, and then we promptly had ourselves the basic included brekkie at the Leonidaion Guest House.
Instead of Damiano this morning though, we had a woman watching the reception and brekkie area, and I think that was Damiano’s wife.
Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for us to have our brekkie, and eventually we drove towards the Ancient Olympia Museum and Archaeological Site.
At first, the GPS (both GoogleMaps and Garmin Nuvi) were misleading into having us drive some forbidden staff-only road, but we eventually figured out that we were supposed to drive towards the museum’s parking area.
So once we got there at 8:30am, we then proceeded to walk past the museum, and then hike a little bit to get all the way to the Archaeological Site.
We saw tour groups entering from the road on the right, and I suppose we could have walked down this way from our accommodation, but time was of the essence on this day as we also had a long drive ahead of us before Delphi and then staying at Eptalofos.
Anyways, with our audio guide on our phone, we proceeded to get through the ticket check (our time slot was 8-9 today), and then we proceeded to walk the grounds along with a couple of other large tour groups.
Unlike the first time Julie and I were here, which was basically a bunch of random wanderings among the ruins with no real context or explanation of what we were seeing, this time, we let the guide chatter to us as we were strolling.
This particular guide was not bad in that we got bite-sized sound bites of what there was to explain for each ruin, and there was a map readily available as we went.
As we went through the first half-dozen or so stops (somewhere near the Nymphaion), we were chatting with some Californians that ditched their tour group.
They were apparently from the Central Valley (at some town called Snell), and we were briefly chatting about Greece as well as Italy, plus some pointers about Columbia State Park or some other Gold Rush-era place near Sonora, California.
In particular, one guy I was chatting with one of the guys who did the self-driving thing in Italy (upon learning that we were self-driving Greece).
He told me that he had to eat some $800 USD in fines for driving in ZTL’s (basically pedestrianized zones that only locals can drive).
I don’t think it crossed his mind that there were hidden cameras at all of these ZTLs, and when I explained to him what they were, I think his mentality changed from this being a scam to realizing that maybe driving in city centers in Italy wasn’t a good idea.
I think that experience made him shy away from self-driving in Europe, and his mindset shifted when I told him that Italy wasn’t necessarily the worst of the places to get fined, but it was pretty much all of Europe that you had to contend with this.
Anyways, after we were done chatting, we pretty much did a large loop around the complex with the biggest highlight being the archway to the Olympic Stadium.
We managed to get a few moments alone checking out the arch and the large rectangular grounds where the stadium’s field was before a tour group started to go through the archway.
From there, we continued the clockwise loop tour where we checked out the Temple of Zeus (or what’s left of it; though they didn’t let you get up to the ruins), and then Pheidias’ Workshop or something like that.
Pheidias’ Workshop was being actively maintained but we could still get into it and take pictures “inside” it.
By the time we pretty much completed our loop of the archaeological grounds, there were lots of tour groups listening to their guides, plus there were even more groups coming towards the grounds.
So getting the early start here was indeed the wise thing to do.
Next, we took our time checking out purple flowers lining the path leading back towards the Ancient Olympia Museum, as these trees were flowering in much the same way we think of cherry blossoms (though this was more like pear blossoms I think).
Eventually at 9:45am, we got to the museum, which actually looked quite busy inside.
I don’t know where Julie got the info that the museum grounds wouldn’t be open until 10am, but clearly there were lots of people already inside.
So we promptly got into the grounds, and then proceeded to walk from room to room checking out the very artifacts that were excavated from the archaeological grounds.
Indeed, there were lots of pieced together potteries as well as some precious metal trinkets and partial re-creations of what was found.
There were also partial statues that were interesting, including the most striking room at the heart of the museum.
In that room, there were statues were set up in the triangular parade form that would have sat atop the entrances and exits of the massive Temple of Zeus.
One side depicted the Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs while the other side showed some Chariot Race.
Of course, each of these depictions had big statues with tallest ones in the middle as the others laying down off to the sides with the odd horses and chariots in between.
Since we didn’t have an audio guide for this part of the museum, we pretty much went quickly through this part of the museum though the other interesting parts involved the partial statue of victory (which I think depicted something about Nike, which meant victory).
Julie and I definitely got more out of this visit to Ancient Olympia than we did the first time, but I don’t think Tahia appreciated the audio guide much because she said there were inaccuracies in the narration.
Leave it to her to determine what’s accurate and what’s not when it came to her knowledge of Percy Jackson.
At 10:30am, we were done with the museum grounds, and then we proceeded to return to the car just as there were even more tours entering the grounds.
We then proceeded to drive off north towards the E074 heading west towards Pyrgos before continuing north along the E55 which was pretty straight shot along with numerous passing lanes and traffic lights.
It wasn’t exactly an expressway, but traffic was moving though it wasn’t very clear when you could go 90km/h and when you should just plod along at 50km/h and 60km/h.
There were lots of other drivers easily exceeding these speeds and seemingly ignoring the speed cameras so we just tried to blend in with these guys while passing slower vehicles (especially the long trucks) when we could.
Throughout this drive, we were pretty much listening to some local Greek music, which seemed to have a bit of a tinge of Middle Eastern music (the Turkish influence here definitely seemed to be heavy in their culture).
As much as I wanted to have a song or two to help us remember this trip by, I don’t think there was one I could hold onto let alone know the name of such songs since we couldn’t understand the Greek nor was there a digital radio display saying who or what was the song.
Anyways, we also managed to get a call from a Greek number that I didn’t recognize, but before casting off as a scam, Julie reminded me that the number did come from Greece so we ultimately answered it.
It turned out to be a proprietor from To Balkonis Tis Agoriani, our accommodation for tonight, (or at least someone representing this place) and they wanted to confirm when we expected to be showing up (I estimated 6pm or 7pm at the latest).
Good thing we picked up the phone because we kind of knew that this was going to be a small mom and pop kind of place unlike most of the accommodations we had been staying at throughout this trip so far.
By the time we got to Patras, the road now became a conventional freeway, and we took it towards the long bridge separating out the Peloponnesse from the rest of the Greece (in much the same way that Corinth defined the northeast entry/exit point).
Once across the bridge, we then took a scenic drive east through towns like Nafpaktos, Eratini, and Galaxidi towards the town of Itea.
Lots of the villages and towns were clinging to slopes and cliffs with the sea right below them, and they were very reminiscent of what we saw looking down from the Corniches near Nice looking towards Monaco (albeit less developed here in Greece).
By about 2:10pm, we eventually made it to one of the small parking spaces lining the mountain road near the ruins and museum of Delphi.
Tahia really looked forward to coming here because of the mythological significance of this place (something that Percy Jackson tapped into).
In any case, this place (as it was when Julie and I first came here) was striking as there were impressive mountain backdrops among these ruins.
Actually, I recalled that when Julie and I were first here 14 years ago, we were only one of a handful of people strolling the grounds.
But these days, this place was inundated with lots of tourists (most of them speaking foreign languages like German and Italian, along with the large American tour groups).
That was quite apparent when we got through our ticket check at 2:30pm, which was actually before our timed entry of 3pm, so I guess the staff didn’t really care or that maybe we were close enough to our time for them to care.
It was definitely a different experience that I could recall, but with our audio guides, we were at least taking time to get a better understanding of what we were seeing.
That said, this Keys audio guide was worse than the one we were using at Ancient Olympia as this one was pulling a Marta with longer narrations and a thick Greek accent speaking English.
I don’t think we got as much out of the audio guide experience other than the narration telling us the theories behind how Delphi got its name.
The one relating to dolphins was a bit of a stretch, but the one about this being a birthplace or some sort seemed more plausible.
Anyways, these groups showed a pretty well-preserved temple and treasury along the ascending walking path, and there was even a theater.
However, we couldn’t go higher up the grounds for a better view of the theater nor could we get up to the stadium.
Nevertheless, we had our fill of the grounds by 3:25pm, which we did in a counterclockwise circular fashion, we then walked a bit further to the west in pursuit of the Delphi Museum.
I definitely don’t think Julie and I did that museum the first time around, but now that we’ve got the audio guide for it, we proceeded to get to the building, which we entered at 3:30pm.
Similar to how we did the Ancient Olympia museum, we pretty much went from room to room and getting to the artifacts that got our attention.
We were kind of tuning out the Keys audio guide for this one, too, which tended to drone on again (i.e. pulling a Marta) so we only really paid attention to it when we got to a statue or artifact that we cared about.
The highlights of this museum was pretty much the sphinx (clearly there was an Egyptian influence here), some of the larger marble statues, and then there was the bronze charioteer that was apparently pretty famous and well-preserved.
By about 4:05pm, we were done with the museum visit, and then we spent the next few minutes having a couple of sandwiches at the Museum shop.
By about 4:35pm, we were back at the car though we noticed that the Delphi grounds were definitely a lot quieter now than they were earlier on just a couple of hours ago.
Next, we tried to drive closer to the Temple of Athena, which was actually a detached part of the Delphi Archaeological Grounds.
After a little bit of a struggle finding the legitimate spot to park to minimize the walking (we probably could have saved time just walking there instead of trying to find the parking for it after going down a bad detour), we finally got there at 4:55pm.
Then, we walked down the switchbacking path (I swore it was a shorter walk the first time we were here), and then we got to an overlook of the Temple of Athena before going right down to the grounds surrounded by some Treasury of Marseilles.
This was one of the few circular buildings in the Delphi site, and it was a nice photo subject though by this point, Tahia was starting to get bored.
I guess her expectations of Delphi (I wasn’t sure what they were actually) wasn’t quite what she envisioned, and I got the sense that strolling amongst ruins and going through museums wasn’t exactly a fulfilling thing for her despite her Percy Jackson knowledge.
Anyways, after having our fill of this spot and watching a German tour group come and go, we eventually got back to the car at 5:30pm.
From there, we then drove up a mountain road rising up above Arachova towards Eptalofos.
As the road climbed higher, we noticed the temperature dropping a bit but I also noticed that the trees were noticeably pine trees as opposed to the drier vegetation and olive groves we had come to know throughout Southern Greece.
Eventually by about 6:10pm, we finally arrived at the place called To Balkonis Tis Agoriani, and it was pretty spot on for that 6pm prediction that I made about when we’d arrive.
This place was besides a narrow mountain road right above the town of Eptalofos, and I got a little guidance from one of the older proprietors who didn’t speak English about where to park.
Once that was settled, we then got our key and proceeded to go up to the next floor where we got to our basic room and we managed to get a little bit of a view from the balcony (literally the translation of what this place was called).
It was very windy outside, and the wind threatened to slam the wooden shutters and our room door so we put some stuff to prevent that from happening.
Anyways, by about 6:25pm, we were settled into our room, and then by about 6:35pm, we decided to go downstairs to check out the town a bit (as much as Julie and Tahia wanted to sleep in).
We had a feeling that this town had a dead feel to it, and that our options for dinner here would be limited.
I think the brief Google Translate conversation we had with the proprietor mentioned something about a place we could have dinner at next to the pharmacy in the center of town, which was also where the waterfall was.
I wasn’t sure if we really got the gist of what she was trying to say, but Julie decided we’ll just figure it out as we go.
And so we walked down the descending road going around our accommodation and then going by a few more residences before reaching what appeared to be the town square of Eptalofos.
Down here, there were numerous tables and chairs for outdoor seating as well as a couple of trees with lights wrapped around them.
Meanwhile, the square was surrounded by businesses though most of them seemed closed, and it made us wonder if we might not have dinner tonight.
Nevertheless, we went ahead and followed a sign in Greek for “katarraktis” or “waterfall”, which followed a channel stream flanked by walkways on either side.
On one side, there was an archway made of lights, which I’m sure might be quite a cool thing to check out in the twilight.
Anyways, sure enough, after getting past a couple of tunnels for the stream to flow under, we got to the end of the path, which was right in front of the Agoriani Waterfall.
Unlike the other waterfalls that we saw on this trip, this one was modestly-sized though there were trees kind of obstructing the least mistiest views of it.
So we took our shots of the falls and documented what we could before heading back down into the town center.
Then, as we walked around, we did see some locals just chilling out, and so we used Google Translate to try to ask about what our dining options were.
There were some ladies chilling out by the Mini Market, and one lady who had pretty good command of English told us that there might be one place up the “road” in town that we might get pizza.
Otherwise, we’d have to drive some 20km or so to get to the next village that might have something more substantial as far as dinner was concerned.
She told us that this town tends to have their businesses open during the weekends, but today was a weekday, and that’s why the town was closed for the most part.
And so we pursued her advice on walking up to the local spot that might be open, and sure enough, I saw one building with some people chilling out inside.
When we walked in hesitatingly in a sort of fish-out-of-water manner at 7:10pm, Julie asked if this place was open for dinner, and it turned out that they were.
Although the menu was Greek, the lady knew enough English to get by, and we ultimately ordered a “lamb ribs”, a pork chop, and a Greek salad.
While it wasn’t fancy, I knew that we’d at least be full and not go hungry tonight.
In any case, as we were waiting for the food, I came to the realization that every one of our trips has one of these off-the-beaten-path moments where we’re in some place that no tourist would likely go.
And Eptalofos was it for this trip.
And while some of these off-the-beaten-path spots were richly rewarding (Methoni Castle and Pylos comes to mind), you do get experiences like this one where I’m sure people are wondering what we’re doing here (as we were).
That said, I was drawn to this place for the waterfall, and this place gave us the excuse to talk about Delphi.
Funny how you have lots of tourists down the mountain by the ruins there, but up here, you hardly have any non-Greek tourists.
Well, sometimes you go on these trips to try to live like a local, and we certainly did that in this case.
Anyways, after our food came out, which was basically meat with fries, we definitely had a filling dinner.
When we got out of the restaurant after paying less than 30 euros for the whole thing (a very reasonable price) at 8:05pm, I saw that it was twilight back in the town square.
So, I decided to go back to the waterfall to enjoy the twilight ambience as the lights were on.
Sure enough as I went through the lit up archway and ultimately to the lit up waterfall, I took a few more shots and a video before having my fill and returning to the To Balkoni Tis Agoriani.
By about 8:25pm, I walked by up to our room to rejoin Julie and Tahia and to call it a night.
It was going to be a cozy night as this place definitely can get quite cold, but at least we had a hot shower (though nothing to hold up the shower head), and we could sleep comfortably in the down comforter here.
Tomorrow, we have a long drive to return to the Athens Airport en route to Mykonos, and hopefully, we might find the closest waterfall there is to the city of Athens along the way…
Day 7 (April 3, 2024 – Mykonos, Greece): “What Is Kos?”
It was about 5:30am when I awoke without an alarm, which meant my body clock was definitely adjusted to Greek time by now.
Inside the small room without a desk, I made do with a night stand and a couple chairs to kind of make my own little office while the rest of the ladies were still asleep.
So I used this time to get caught up on yesterday’s happenings, but I still didn’t have enough time to do any photo and video organizing except to try to get through some videos from our day transiting between Nafplio and Pylos.
Anyways, we loaded up the car by about 8am though someone came out to tell us in Greek that there was breakfast in the hotel (thinking that we might be leaving without it).
I tried to assure him that we’re just loading up the car and having the brekkie right afterwards.
In any case, once that was done, we then entered the nice, charming eating area, where the guy (who I presume was the husband running this place) offered up coffee or hot chocolate.
Tahia appreciated the hot chocolate (at least while Julie was still upstairs getting ready) and he even added more sugar on top of an already sweet drink (so I had to put the brakes on that)!
Nevertheless, once Tahia and I were seated, the lady we saw last night (who I presume was the wife of the husband running this hotel) was bringing out stuff to us.
It seemed like she was preparing a lot of this stuff, and this was the first time that we were actually having stuff being prepared personally (whereas other brekkie things were kind of buffet style).
She brought out stuff like pastries, jams, a Greek yogurt, some kind of apricot juice, olives, cherry tomatoes, and bread.
She also brought out a spinach-stuffed pie thing that I know Mary, Julie’s brother’s girlfriend who’s half Armenian and half Greek, had made and brought over one for Xmas dinner this past year.
It was a filling breakfast, and this couple was really nice to us and quite sweet.
Julie and I pieced together that since we were in a town that I’d imagine not many foreign tourists would go to that we were probably the only people staying here (well, Julie thought she heard one other couple that came in late last night).
So it felt like we were getting personalized treatment.
But we also figured out that whoever called us yesterday morning on the drive to Delphi must have been someone who was helping this couple since she spoke pretty decent English and sounded younger.
That helped smooth over the communication issues over the phone (and quite heady on the proprietors’ part) to do that, and then we worked things out in person with the hosts once we got there.
Anyways, the brekkie was memorable, and I wondered how long this couple had been running this establishment.
Whatever the case though, we thoroughly enjoyed this brekkie experience, where this place was more about the homey, cozy feel of what the proprietors provided more so than the accommodation’s basic amenities itself.
At 9am, we finally started to drive off and disobeyed the Garmin Nuvi GPS, which wanted me to return to Delphi back the way we came up yesterday.
However, we followed GoogleMaps, which had us go north and east towards the National Expressway A1, and along the way, we saw signs for Mt Parnassos Ski Area, which kind of made sense because we did see remnants of snow atop this mountain range.
Of course, having been to Delphi yesterday, we also understood that Mt Parnassos (or Mt Parnassus) is the main mountain that Delphi was nestled within whose mountainous backdrop I thought was what made that historical experience.
This mountain was also said to figure prominently in Greek Mythology as well as Homer’s Iliad, which might explain why I know of this name subconsciously but couldn’t quite put my finger on its significance.
Nevertheless, after descending the winding mountain road down the northeastern slopes of Mt Parnassos, we then followed the E03 where the road became a bit straighter.
Finally, we veered onto some road leading off the E03 towards the town of Kastro where there seemed to be a lot of tour buses as well as gas stations.
Apparently, this road must be part of the driving route to get to Delphi, and I suppose we could have stopped here for gas though I wanted to save time and fill up closer to Athens knowing that I can return the car with 7/8 tank full.
Indeed, once we finally got onto the A1 expressway (E75 according to Gaia GPS), we then followed this very straightshot road pretty much trying to follow the flow of traffic.
At 11am, we ultimately made a gas stop somewhere between Athens and Chalkida, and we topped up there.
Then, we continued to follow the expressway towards the A6 (E94 according to Gaia GPS) instead of taking some random local streets that the Garmin Nuvi tried to get us to do.
Actually, Julie finally figured out where to find the Valinari Waterfall on her GoogleMaps and it eventually agreed with the Garmin Nuvi GPS for once.
That said, I was also keeping an eye out on how Gaia GPS was drawing track lines relative to the pre-trip waypoints I had on there.
Eventually, we got off the expressway at exit (exodos) 15, and then we followed the quite busy city streets of the E054 towards a seemingly random traffic light turnoff to our left.
Once there, we then followed this narrow bi-directional alleyway towards some hills where we could see nice homes clinging to mountainsides (not unlike something we recalled seeing in Chefchaouen, Morocco, except this was less dense).
By the time the road got onto a wide, residential boulevard, GoogleMaps tried to take us right and up the other side of the canyon that I knew would contain the Valinaris Waterfall.
However, I could see from the Gaia GPS that it was wrong and that we had to backtrack back to the wide boulevard and just keep taking it up the road to where the waterfall was.
When we got there, we could see that there wasn’t any signage for this waterfall as we just had to know it was there.
However, there were a couple of ladies that just pulled up right in front of the apparent trailhead for the waterfall that just knew it was there.
So we kind of used them as assurance that we were indeed in the right spot as we watched them quickly go down the apparent trail right behind some mound of dirt right across from some abandoned or fenced property.
There was plenty of street parking along this part of the wide residential boulevard, and so we promptly stopped the car at 11:55am, geared up, and then proceeded to make our way down that trail.
Upon getting onto the trail, we could see that it was well-used and initially quite wide, but then we could clearly see that there was the target waterfall below, and thus we had to take one of the steeper scrambling paths to our right.
It was made easier for us that we saw the couple of ladies that were already down the trail, but they were already on their way back up.
We briefly talked to them and they seemed very surprised that out-of-towners like us would know about this waterfall (which kind of confirmed to me that this was really a locals’ spot).
Of course, she was kind of disappointed at the flow of this waterfall since she said they hadn’t been getting much rain.
However, I’ve seen waterfalls go dry in our travels, and I was simply amazed that this waterfall was flowing as well as it did despite the drought.
I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
Anyways, they continued to make their way back up to their car while Julie, Tahia, and myself continued the steep scramble down the well-used path to the base of the Valinari (or Valinaris) Waterfall.
By the time we made it to the bottom at 12:15pm, we pretty much had this place to ourselves as we were basking in front of the double-segmented waterfall.
Aside from the odd graffiti and a few empty cans left behind here (further proof that local spots also tend to get trashed), we documented the experience and also marveled that there was a waterfall like this so close to the Athens Airport.
Once we had our fill of this spot, we then scrambled back up to the residential road though I made a brief detour to the top of the Valinari Waterfall, where I saw there was a pool up here perhaps for chilling out (plus a few more empty cans).
It was hard to see the waterfall from up here, but I don’t think that was the point of why there was a scrambling path here as the pool pretty much told me the reason why.
Anyways, it was 12:45pm when we returned to the car as we made sure to have our belongings ready for the flight to Mykonos by the time we had to return the car at the airport.
Of course, just as we were about to get back in the car, we noticed some other guy in a scooter pull right up to the same spot that the ladies that were parked at were at earlier on.
Clearly, this spot was pretty well-known to people in the know despite the lack of signage, and I watched that guy disappear down the trail.
Anyways, we next followed the local road back down the way we came though there was an easy-to-miss turn that GoogleMaps had us take that brought us back to the main throughfare (though we could have just kept going on our original trajectory in hindsight).
Nevertheless, after backtracking along the busy street, we then got back onto the A6 expressway, paid more tolls to get on (we had gotten used to this by this point), and then made our way back to the rental car at around 1:20pm.
The return was without any dramas, and we then got our belongings and headed into the Athens International Airport where our next order of business was to figure out where to drop off our luggages and figure out our gates and all that jazz.
We actually paid the 18 euros to check in all of our roller bags because we knew it was going to be a small plane (so 54 euros or $60 USD worth of checked baggage was pretty much on par with one big luggage).
I guess it wasn’t completely possible to do the no-check-in scheme on this trip because of small planes like this, but it wasn’t a big deal.
That said, we were starting to get worried about returning on the international flight back to Fiumicino and then back home later on as it might be costlier since we bought stuff to add to our pack weight.
In any case, we got through all the security formalities and into the Sky Serv lounge at 2:20pm, where we pretty much had lots of gyros and other Greek fare in their lounge (which took our Priority Pass).
Eventually after learning our gate number being at B30, we then left the lounge at 2:55pm and promptly went to our departure gate, which looked like it involved going on a bus.
When it came time to board the plane, at first we thought that B31 and B30 (both next door to each other) were for the same flight, but at some point, Tahia casually asked “What is Kos?”.
That was when I realized that the line we were in for B31 was incorrect and we had to quickly make our way over to the B30 departure gate line, which just formed.
Whew, that was close!
Anyways, after waiting in the bus for a while at 4pm, we were then finally taken to our small plane with a combo of a twin propeller and a jet, and we finally boarded the plane at 4:20pm.
This plane only had two seats on either side of the aisle so I had to sit with a well-dressed stranger, who Julie at first thought she was sitting in the wrong seat, but the lady was fiesty in telling her that it was Julie who was incorrect.
When I sat next to her, I smiled and tried to alleviate that tension by saying hi to her and respecting her space.
Nevertheless, the flight pretty much took off on time, and then we landed and de-planed pretty much on time at 5:10pm.
After collecting our bags (we were the last ones to grab it from the conveyor belt since we had to use the restroom), we then were taken by the hotel’s shuttle to our accommodation at the Semeli Hotel.
By 5:30pm, we were busy checking in and getting a tour for tomorrow, and finally at 5:40pm, we were settled in our room, which was a humble size for a place that’s 400 euros a night, but we did have a somewhat partial distant view of the Aegean Sea over some white buildings.
By 6pm, we tried to use what daylight was left in the day to start getting oriented and walking around Mykonos.
The first main target of our sightseeing was to check out the famous line of windmills, and after pretty much haphazardly wandering about the maze of alleyways of Mykonos, we finally got to the windmills at 6:20pm.
The maze of walking lanes in town was definitely reminiscent of wandering the lanes of Chefchaouen in Morocco.
In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I swore we were in like a quieter version of a medina in Morocco.
Nevertheless, we knew that we were on the Greek Islands because all the buildings were painted white (primarily to be reflective of the hot sun, I’m sure), but there was a combination of blue as well as some red on the shutters and doors.
That made things a bit different from Santorini (which were primarily blue and white) or Chefchaouen in Morocco, where they used sky blue paint instead of white as the main color.
I’m sure it was part of the experience to wander aimlessly in these lanes, but once we were at the windmills it was quite windy and even a little chilly due to the windchill.
The sun was definitely rapidly sinking on the horizon so we were kind of looking against the row of windmills when looking towards the Aegean Sea.
There were also lots of cars around which kind of took away from the charm, and there definitely didn’t appear to be much in the way of parking space out here (so it was a good thing we opted not to rent a car on this island).
Nevertheless, after spending quite a bit of time taking photos of the windmills and using them as subjects, we then got to some part called Little Venice, which really wasn’t much of a canal.
Actually, it was more like a bunch of restaurants and shops against a low sea wall that acts as a walkway and it tends to get splash from the waves whipped up by the winds here.
Once we had our fill of the Little Venice spot, we then walked into the maze of walking lanes again, where we eventually haphazardly made our way to Matagianni Street, which was perhaps the main walking throughfare in Mykonos.
We were actually going along Mitropoleos Street, which seemed to be backtracking, and then we found the familiar lane that we had gone down earlier that had a few churches with red doors and shutters.
Eventually, we got to the Matagianni Street, where we could hear chanting in the distance, and when we got to the source, it came from a church (as opposed to a mosque as I had originally thought) blaring the chanting over loud speaker.
I honestly couldn’t tell what the primarly Greek religion was because it seemed to be a cross between Muslim and Christianity (with all the crosses on top of domes or even minaret-like towers).
Anyways, we then made our way over this street towards the Old Harbor, where there were rows of restaurants.
As the sun was setting, however, I wanted to see the sun set while Julie and Tahia wanted to go right to a restaurant, which they settled on Raya.
Meanwhile, I was busy doing a quick photo run against the cold sea breeze towards the ruins of Mykonos Castle, where I managed to catch the sunset.
From there, I then backtracked to the Raya restaurant, where we ended up getting a grilled octopus appetizer as well as some kind of meatball pasta for Tahia, a giant prawn pasta in some kind of curry for Julie, and a sea urchin pasta for myself.
We also got a glass of white wine to share.
I knew the sea urchin would have a subtle taste so I made sure to eat that first, but then I had to help Julie and Tahia finish off what they couldn’t finish with their dishes.
We ended off with an ekmek dessert, which seemed like a stringy version of baklava or something like that, which was quite sweet.
I suppose we could have gotten a “souffle” (something I don’t think was a real one as it was probably more of a lava cake) though we eventually wanted to try something local.
When we were done with our meal at 8:45pm, we paid something close to 150 euros, which was definitely a splurge and perhaps the most expensive meal we’ve had on this trip so far (everything was less than 80 euros per meal to this point).
And with that, we pretty much followed the Matogianni Street to a T-intersection and then followed the Panachrantou Lane back to the outdoor theater and Semeli Hotel.
Apparently, Julie was about to go the wrong way following GoogleMaps when we got to Panachrantou Lane, but having seen the map at the old port, I knew the way to go.
Other people we noticed were also following us and they asked if they were going to the Semeli Hotel.
And then a third couple followed us as well as they were apparently unsure of which way to go as well.
In any case, it was about 9pm when we got back to the resort, which kind of set up our expectations of how much time we’d need to get back to the Old Port for our ferry to Delos tomorrow morning.
And so ended this eventful day, where we finally got to experience Mykonos, and it kind of whetted Tahia’s appetite for checking out Santorini (which will have to be a future trip to Greece as we simply didn’t have the time to do it this time around)…
Day 8 (April 4, 2024 – Mykonos, Greece): “Not So Party Island”
It was 5:15am when I awoke without the alarm (which was set to 5:30am).
Throughout the night, there were sounds of cats apparently making lots of noises, which caused us to close the windows and make the air stuffier inside.
Actually, maybe it was a good thing that we kept the windows and doors closed because apparently a mosquito or two managed to get in and bite Tahia.
Anyways, I spent some time getting caught up as per the usual morning routine throughout this trip, and I even started catching up on some of the photo organizing backlog from days past.
Heck, I managed to get through the rest of the photos from the Pylos day, and then the videos from the Neda and Nemouta day.
By 7am, I went outside to enjoy the views caused by the low light of the rising sun, but that was when I checked on the stuff we left outside to dry.
And unfortunately, everything was damp probably due to the humidity from the sea.
That was a real thing in terms of trying to disinfect the smelly shoes as now it was going to reek even more, but also the underwears that were drying were also damp.
So we’ll have to leave the stuff outside a while longer to ensure that the sun gets on them and that the sea breezes will de-humidify and dry out the stuff.
Anyways, we got to the 8am brekkie, which was actually quite varied and good.
There were an assortment of stuff with gluten in them, however, including a couple of different types of savory Greek pies (e.g. the spinach-stuffed on as well as a cheese-stuffed one) as well as pizza, and a bruschetta with capers and cheese topping it.
Some even had a tomato with cheese topping it though that one had more of a lectin issue and not a gluten issue.
Of course, there were lots of different breads as well as pastries that were all tempting.
Then, there were lots of savory things like eggs, bacon, a mini-hot-dog-like sausage, mushrooms, Quiche Lorraine, Croque Monsieur, and more.
Moreover, there was a salad bar, where we got some beets, regular salad, olives, cheeses, and of course, Greek yogurt.
As if that wasn’t enough, we could also pour freshly-squeezed orange juice and even make a mimosa out of it!
Indeed, the choices were a bit overwhelming, and we savored this experience though we knew that we only really had about an hour to enjoy this food before we had to get back to the room and get ready for the day no later than 9:15am to walk to the Old Port.
That was because we had to catch our 10am ferry to Delos Island, and we needed to check in half-hour beforehand.
So we got back to the room at 8:55am fully stuffed, and then we started heading out at 9:05am.
We took our time strolling through the Panachrantou Street all the way to the Old Harbor (becoming Florou Zouganeli along the way), which seemed to be more photogenic and atmospheric than the “catwalk of Mykonos” along Matogianni Street.
We then got to the Manto Mavrogenous Square, where we proceeded to walk along the harbor towards the dock for the Delos Express ferry, which we already saw parked at the dock when we got to the waterfront at around 9:25am.
By about 9:35am, we had already exchanged our confirmations for actual tickets, and then we proceeded to board the boat as we took our time trying to stay in the shade.
By about 10am, the boat took off on time, and pretty much everyone was chilling out outside the backside of the boat on the top floor.
The inside of the boat was empty, and it sure felt like it was going to be uncrowded.
In fact, Julie and I noticed that all throughout the night there didn’t seem to be much of a night life that this island was notorious for, and so maybe later tonight, we’ll have to scope out those spots.
By about 10:30am, we got off the boat and then proceeded to queue up at the ticket office to pay separately for the Delos sight (as our ferry tickets bought in advance didn’t include the site).
Of course, as we were pulling up to the harbor, we did manage to see lots of ruins as well as the odd houses that seem to contrast that Delos Island was uninhabited.
Nevertheless, with proceeded to turn on the audio tour, and then we pretty much checked out the sights in a clockwise manner, as we checked out the ruins along the way.
As we made our way to the left side of the Delos sight (as we faced east and headed north first), we first headed to the Agora of the Competaliasts, which seemed to have some remnants of a pedestal as well as other marble foundations.
We then headed north past some long scaffolding towards the Oikos of the Naxians and the Temple of the Delians on our way towards the impressive Terrace of the Lions (the latter of which was one of the photographic highlights).
When we got to the Sacred Lake part of the audio tour, we noticed that there were columns and other interesting building artifacts to our left and so we deviated from the audio guide which would have had us miss it.
It turned out to be a fruitful detour as there were numerous wildflowers among ruins, and we ultimately took some people shots here before heading down to Lake Market.
Afterwards, we then got to the northern end of the Sacred Lake, which was basically a lot of trees with the odd palm tree in the middle.
From there, we then checked out some more ruins around the Lake Houses before heading south towards the museum, which was closed for our visit today (it turned out that we probably didn’t have time to do it anyways as there’s only one ferry in and one ferry out today).
Eventually, we detoured towards the Stoibadeion or the Monument of Karystios, where we got a kick out of a couple remnants of a pair of giant phalli (clearly noticing the scrota of each).
I don’t know what the fascination was with male sexual organs, but it was not lost on Tahia when we found this spot that seemingly most people had already missed.
