Travel Plan Information

Hersonissos

Crete

May 2008

 

 Dear David,

 Yes I know, you didn’t get anything about the video clip of the fireworks, well I was getting a bit ahead of myself and of course Easter being so late, we hadn’t actually had it when I sent your letter! This month as I managed to get a few photographs I’ve put a link on the page so that you can watch them, even if it is a month late. Taking pictures of fireworks is always difficult as just when you think you have the best and stop filming, the next bit is even more spectacular!

 Over the last month there have been a couple of trips to ‘the City’ (as we call it) to help someone else spend their money, which is always the best way of going shopping. Ostensibly the trips were to buy furniture, but naturally we had to go for a coffee or two and so there was a chance to take a few new pictures, particularly around Lion Square.

 Now I like Heraklion, it is a compact city and has many fine buildings in various states of repair and restoration, and it is still possible to walk around the virtually intact city walls, passing over the various gates and, of course, visiting the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the way round. Most visitors go there just to visit the Archaeological Museum, missing out the interesting Museum of Crete on the coast road, and the fine churches of St. Minas and St Titos, and a good chance to sit and people watch from a street cafe!

 Platia Eleftheria, or Freedom Square, always seems to be a focal point for tourists, possible because it is near the museum, and there are number of large cafes down one side, personally I avoid them because unless you manage to get in the front row you can’t see anyone passing by, so I head for the network of small pedestrian streets between the museum and Lion Square where there a large number of cafes in varying styles and also some very nice ‘boutique’ shops, along with a couple of ‘naff’ souvenir shops. Even better around this area you will not get ‘komakied’ into a place against your will and the prices are often a slightly better, for instance on a recent visit a frappe, a Greek coffee and a beer served with a bowl of mixed nuts, some crisps and some very nice chocky cookies came out at €6 and that included the essential glass of iced water with the coffees. And what can be more fun than sitting on the street watching the people passing by and wondering where they are all going! While you are around this area a wander around the shops can be quite intriguing as there are still a number of ‘specialist’ shops, for example there are shops that only sell ladies tights and men’s socks, or how about a shop that only sells rope, string, and chains? There are also a couple of good haberdashers where you can buy zips by the centimetre and every conceivable type of button you could ever want.

 If you choose a cafe behind St. Minas church on the edge of the square, you can often get to watch an impromptu 5-a-side football match, and if you are going to have a look at St. Titos church then in one corner of the ‘front yard’ you will find ‘Pagopeiion’ which serves some excellent ‘Mediterranean’ salads and other dishes, they also have regular jazz sessions here late at night. A wander around the small back streets yields some interesting erections, and I am always surprised by the lack of noise considering that one is in the middle of a vibrant living city not yet ruined by over-pedestrianisation!

 A walk around Lion Square is essential and note the plate glass paving slabs, a result of discoveries made during the recent renovations. Thankfully they have taken away the awful wrought iron railings around the fountain, of course, in the UK they would be putting these in to stop anyone falling into it!

 From the square down to the Port is 25th August Street where you will find all the shipping line offices and travel agents, ideal for booking your day trip to Santorini or ferries and flights to lots of other destinations. There is also a fine example of Greek pedestrianisation schemes, as 25th August Street is closed to traffic along its length, but halfway down there is a street which crosses it which carries traffic, often resulting in traffic/pedestrian jams, this is also a favourite street for union demonstrations when they are on strike (or about to be, as they plan these things in advance here).

 Now it is May, tourists are beginning to arrive ‘in bulk’, and at last everywhere seems to be open so as I promised I will try to explain the difference between kafenions, ouzeries, meze houses, and restaurants although the lines can be a bit blurred at times.

 As the names suggest kafenions and ouzeries are where you get served coffee and ouzo, they are often only small places with fluorescent lighting and formica tables where you will find older Greeks, usually men, reading the paper and playing cards or backgammon, or just righting the wrongs of the world. Usually the best Greek coffee is served in these places as they make it properly using a real ‘Briki’, a small brass ‘saucepan’ with a tin plate lining, over a low heat, and do not let it actually boil which is a complete no-no, so that it comes out with a nice froth on the top. Around here they say the thicker the froth the more luck you will have! Many of the modern cafes do not use the ‘Camping Gaz’ stove, but the milk boiler/frother on the espresso machine, which is fine as long they don’t ‘overcook’ it, which they usually do! One of the best places around here for Greek coffee is a shop called ‘Art of Tea’ in Koutouloufari, where they have one of the proper ‘hot sand’ hotplates that brews the coffee gently and slowly. As it happens they also have a wide range of herbal teas and culinary herbs for sale as well as those tall brass pepper mills and other brass items for sale.

 In most of these places you will also often get a small plate of nibbles ranging from a few bits of tomato or cucumber through to pieces of feta cheese and olives, these will be refilled regularly if you stay a while, you can also get some ‘interesting’ wines and raki in these places!

 A meze house is where you get mezes! This is the traditional Greek eating out method where you order a number of small plates and share them between you. I mentioned one of these ‘Ta Filarakia’ in the March letter. The surroundings are quite often intimate, in as much that on busy nights someone on the next table will have their plate on the corner of yours, due to lack of space on their own table (a good sign that they have over-ordered), the tables will be wood or formica, and if there are tables cloths there will be a paper or plastic one over the top so you don’t muck it up. The napkins will be paper (and please do not call them serviettes, those are what ladies use once a month). The menu will usually be a pad where you mark of the number of each dish you want and it’s often in Greek only! The wine will come in anodised aluminium jugs, rather like those water jugs we used to get in the ‘dinner room’ at school, or an earthenware jug, and it may be slightly cloudy. You will also find things like cuttlefish cooked in its own ink and ‘volvi’ on the menu, and the raki should be free at the end and served with whatever fruit is in season.

 Meze houses are one of the cheapest places to eat, but sorry to say that many tourists find them a little daunting even though there will usually be someone to help them with the menu, and so miss out on a great deal of Greek food! Experiment is the word that needs to be used.

 A restaurant or estiatorio is up market, until I get there when it becomes a meze house with linen table cloths. No only joking really, but perhaps not. Restaurants have a proper menu, usually printed (although by law the prices must be changeable so they are usually written in by hand on a shiny bit so they can be changed, or in pencil), and are just that little bit smarter.   One problem you can get with places like this is too much food, as you begin by ordering a variety of mezes as starters but then when you order the meat it comes out plated with side salad, rice, potatoes and so on when all you wanted was 4 lamb chops to share between you! If you know that they serve up the meat as a ‘main course’ then order just a Greek salad as a starter. One slightly annoying thing that can happen here also is the appearance of a basket of bread which you haven’t asked for but which you get charged extra for, this is a bit like a ‘hidden’ cover charge. I don’t know for certain but I have been told that ‘cover charges’ are actually illegal here.

 With the season getting under way, we have the usual number of visitors who are coming to look for houses or businesses to buy. I always find this quite amusing as most of them seem to have done little research and many have never run a business before, I am thinking that maybe I should add some more articles to my blog with some helpful suggestions. What do you think?

 The new Easyjet flights (well not new really as they used to be GB Airways) are proving popular with independent travellers, although some visitors have complained that they are paying a fortune in excess baggage charges, but on the other hand they are arriving with only a ‘purse’ as hand luggage when they could have had a bag weighing 5+ kg on board with them, I gently try to explain this but I am sure that many of them completely miss the point! And of course Aegean Airlines are now running daily scheduled flights from Heathrow Airport to Athens with connecting flights to Crete, which at least saves collecting your bags at Athens as they can be checked straight through!

 As baggage allowances are gradually being reduced on all airlines it is worth considering a rethink on what you actually pack in the suitcase too! For instance I have seen visitors unpack around 3 litres of liquid (which equates to around 3kg weight) from their suitcases, made up of shampoos, conditioners, shower gels, skin creams, sun tan oils, etc. I sometimes think that we don’t have such things here and that we all walk around smelling awful! I don’t really think their hair is going to fall out, or their skin suddenly age by ten years in a week just because they haven’t brought their favourite shampoo or moisturiser! Too much sun while they are here will do that for them.

 What would they have done when soap was pink ‘Lifebuoy’ carbolic or ‘Wrights’ coal tar? But of course when that was all we had then we didn’t have allergies, and even better we were really clean and bacteria free!

 I didn’t see the article you mention about prices throughout Europe and Greece being the most expensive, I did hear about it though. As with all price comparisons you have to compare like for like and quite often this is impossible especially with food products. With an average per capita income of €800 per month in Greece it can’t be that expensive or we wouldn’t be able to afford to eat! I don’t know whether it would have a positive or negative effect if I was to do a price survey on basic items and put it on the website but I will stick my neck out and do a restaurant survey for you and put the results on the website, this only seems reasonable as most visitors end up eating out even if they do start off ‘self catering’!

 That’s your lot for this month. . . . . . . Except for a link to some pictures http://www. villaralfa. com/easter. html

Yours as ever,

Hersonissos

Crete

April 2008

 

Dear David,

 A Trip to Ierapetra, The Dikteon cave, Onions, a Meal Out, the Extending Ladder, a Village in The Clouds, Easter Fireworks, and Gay Tourists!

 Yes of course you are quite right, this month is my birthday and I will be nineteen, again. It is also 3 years since Steve passed away and since you ask, yes I do miss him sometimes even still. I think this is only natural after 22 years with the same person, don’t you?

 I am pleased that you think it would be a good idea to publish these letters as a monthly travelogue, and you seem to have been doing your homework on what Crete has to offer for the gay or lesbian traveller! Most gay travel sites only send visitors to Mykonos, which is all very well if all you want to do is party all night and sleep all day, but if you want to come to Crete as a gay tourist and see the sights and walk the walks, then you have to ‘do it yourself’. Any gay travel agents that do have hotel accommodation on Crete usually only have the expensive ‘gay friendly’ (supposedly) hotels on offer, rather than cheaper self-catering apartments or bed and breakfast lodgings.

 With the arrival of April so we get the arrival of the first tourists even though many places are still not open and parts of the Port look like a lunar landscape with piles of builders rubble and timber where desperate attempts are being made to rebuild and refurbish before Easter which is the last weekend of the month.

 As this building work reaches its peak, so does my popularity in the village, to paraphrase a well-known British comedy show ‘I am the only gay in the villa ge with a triple extending aluminium ladder that goes up 7 metres. ’ This to you may seem only a small thing but if you have ever seen a Greek ladder you will know what I mean, as they usually consist of two pieces of 3×2 with planks nailed across as the rungs, none too evenly spaced or level I might add. Why ladders should be so expensive here I do not know, anyway mine came from B and Q in England on the back of a truck courtesy of ‘King’ Philip the roving rabbi.

 Around the house birds are nesting in every available corner, and a pigeon is trying to build a nest in a big flower pot on the top balcony, but at least this year I do not have a pair of those daredevil, boy racers of the sky, swallows. Why is it that swallows only seem to have two speeds, very fast and stop? Mind you the aerial acrobatics and the swoops and about turns are really something to watch. Dog didn’t like them much because they used to swoop down nearly on top of her. And they do like to come indoors too, I have had them swoop in the front door, do two circuits of the lounge at breakneck speed and fly back out again!

 You will please to hear that the onions are in and are doing well, not only mine but George’s, which I planted of course. The first tomatoes are forming on the vines, and my peppers and other salad plants will soon be ready to plant out. I am also growing lupins this year although I not quite sure why!

 Now I did say that there wouldn’t be any more travelogues but as I mentioned a couple of British guys were staying here with a friend in Elounda further along the coast and they asked if I would drive them around for a couple of days so having hired a suitable vehicle from Manos at Orion Car Hire, I trotted off to Elounda to collect them one sunny morning. Elounda takes about 40 minutes from my place, skirting around Agios Nikolaos to avoid the traffic, particularly as it was Wednesday, which is market day. Whenever I go to Elounda I think of that Hayley Mills film from the 60’s, The Moon Spinners, which was filmed around that area. In the opening scenes they are on a bus which rounds a corner and before them and down a hill is a small village, these days the view is considerably altered of course, with 5 star hotels and lots of other development on the hills opposite.

 Finding my tourists at the bus stop was easy and we headed off to Knossos, which they had never been to in spite of coming here several times. This also meant of course that I actually drove back past my own house!

 The trip to Knossos takes about half an hour from my place, provided the traffic is not too heavy, and there is now a new slip road off the National Road, which I missed, so had to go to the Mires turning and come back again! The road works are nearly complete on the Knossos road with the addition of a lot of mini roundabouts, which noone seems to know what to do with, but it was the usual chaos when we approached the hospital.

 I refused the offer of a free ticket to walk around Knossos with them as I have been there six times and sat in a cafe across the road with my crossword.

 Two hours later my charges reappeared suffering from ‘Knossos overload’! It is a big site with many interesting features and you really do have to limit what you try and see on any one visit! Heading back into the city we found parking was best in the car park, it is so much easier to pay €3 than drive round for ages trying to find a free place!

 The museum is currently undergoing massive renovation so there is a small display open in a building to the rear of the old museum, why they didn’t just build a completely new museum out by Knossos I don’t really know. The visitors had a joint ticket for Knossos and the museum. I had to pay €4. The displays contain the best of the finds from around the island, including the ‘Phaistos Disc’. Some of the frescoes are also on show, regrettably not my favourite, the Blue Dolphins’, that have become a symbol of Crete.

 Our next stop was to be The Dikteon Cave where Zeus was born, high up on the Lassithi plateau, where there not any windmills anymore, even though some of the guidebooks still insist in printing a photograph of them.

 Heading East back along the New Road we took the turning for Lassithi and headed into the hills towards Potamies, passing on the way the earthworks for the new resevoir, although there is still some doubt about how much water it is going to collect. I do hope that they take the opportunity to utlilise it as a tourist attraction either for birdwatchers or for sailing or perhaps both!

 I prefer this route on to the plateau as the road twists and turns as it climbs ever higher and unnerves the passengers no end as if they look to the right there is often a sheer drop! Stopping at Kera for lunch turned out to be a mistake for us, but a bonus for the restaurant as shortly after we sat down two more busloads stopped as well. The normal stop for lunch at Kera is the Monastery but we tried a small family run place called Ilias, on the roadside, very passable it was too!

 As we completed the final ascent I stopped where the road passes through a cutting as there is a parking place which makes a good photo stop, as you can look back across the villages you have just passed through and see right out to sea. Unfortunately a reinforcing steel fence has been erected along the crash barrier so the view is a bit spoilt. Either side of the cutting is a row of ruined stone windmills standing like sentinels, these must have looked quite impressive when they had their white sails still attached, but of course in this modern era we use electricity instead of wind power, so we have those characterless wind turbines everywhere. How nice it would be if they could re-use those old stone mills for the same purpose!

 After all that climbing it often surprises visitors as you pass through the cutting and there, before you lies the plateau, which you then have to drive DOWN to! As we hit the plateau we took the turning to the right and passed through a few small villages such as Metochi (where you can get, I am told, a very good meze lunch) and it did not take long to get to Psichro and the Dikteon Cave just outside the village and up the hill. There is a large car park and a couple of cafes as this site does get a bit busy, so I sat with a Greek coffee while the visitors climbed up to the cave, returning shortly afterwards because it closes at 3pm! Hence the mistake referred to earlier, we should have gone straight to the cave and had a late lunch! More recent visitors have told me the cave is still closing at 3pm, and it would be helpful if they put a sign up at the bottom of the hill before the climb up to cave.

 Not deterred we continued our trip around the plateau and descending at the eastern end by a winding, twisting road we rejoined the National Road near Neapoli and then back to Elounda.

 My second day as impromptu tour guide started early again as I always feel it is nice to take a leisurely drive and see the scenery.

 The route for today was to Kritsa to the Church of Panagia Kera, famed for its rich decorations, a short trip to the ancient hill village of Lato, the archaeological site at Gournia and then on to Ierapetra, in time for lunch naturally!

Kritsa is only a short trip from Agios Nikolaos (I resisted the temptation to stop at Lidl on the way past) and the church of Our Lady of Kera has many Byzantine frescoes, I think this was possibly the model for the church used for ‘The Moon Spinners’ as I don’t think the church itself was used as the film set. The visitors did not spend long inside and although I have never been inside I left my own visit for a future time!

 By this time it as time for morning coffee, which we took in Kritsa a village populated by many resident foreigners. The place is pleasant enough with an abundance of cafes and tourist shops but of course at this time of year it was only just opening up so there was quite a wait for the coffee while they found the cups they put away last year I guess!

 On the way back to Agios we diverted to the site at Lato, unfortunately it was closed, however some intrepid French tourists, having taken the trouble to drive there, had climbed over the fence to have a look anyway. My guests didn’t like this idea so we carried on back to the main road, heading for Ierapetra. This is actually the road to Sitia, which I have mentioned to you before so I will not go into too much detail, suffice it to say that on the previous trip I passed the site at Gournia. This time I stopped but sat in the car with a crossword while the visitors did the archaeology. I did find something else of interest though, some of our native orchids in full bloom!

 From here it is not a long run to Ierapetra, which is the main commercial town in the area, is surrounded by agriculture areas and greenhouses, and is the most southerly town in Europe. The town itself seems to be more of a city than Heraklion but with more traffic lights that seem to take forever to change! On the plus side there is a nice local museum, a Venetian fortress, and a small port with fishing boats, this is also the place where the ferry leaves for Chrissi Island. As is usual here the beach front has many places to eat with ‘tents’ actually on the beach a few feet from the water, then a road, and then the buildings housing the kitchens etc. I didn’t make a note of the name but we got an excellent meze lunch for four including the drinks for under €50!

 Now you know me, always ready for a trip into the unknown, and one of the visitors had expressed a desire to visit a nearby village called Agios Ioannis, about 20km away to the east of Ierapetra. The purpose of the visit was to check on a house belonging to one of his friends in England, just to make sure it was all secure and so on. This turned out to be quite an interesting little excursion as after leaving the main coastal road we took a small winding road which climbed steeply into the hills and high above clinging to the side of the mountain we could see occasional glimpses of the village, which if it had been any higher up would have been on top of the mountain, and as it was, was nearly in the clouds.

 As we left the car on the outskirts of the village, the only sounds to be heard were the gentle sighing of the wind and spring water rushing on its way down the precipitous mountain (probably why the village was located here as running water is rare on Crete). We stopped to admire the view down the valley and out across the Libyan Sea.

 Entering the village we became aware that all was not as it should be and as we walked the narrow hilly streets the atmosphere became quite eerie as we realised the place was deserted and that what from a distance appeared to be a typical Cretan hill village, was, in the main, ruins.

 So used we are to the constant hum of humanity that the absence of noise seemed absolute and yet somehow our passing by the open doors and blind windows gave new life to the surroundings and in the echoes of our subdued conversation perhaps we could imagine that we could hear the laughter of children, the wailing of the fractious baby, the rapid click of the dice and counters as the men played tavli in the golden evening light, the rattle of dishes, the trilling of caged canaries, and somewhere close by, the sobbing of the bereaved widow.

 It is enough to say that we found the house we were looking for, and walking further found that some of the larger properties, originally homes to the more wealthy, have been restored and are used as holiday homes, many of them by Italians who perhaps find similarities with their own hill villages. As far as we could work out the only inhabitants seemed to be a couple who ran the kafenion, and the only activity we saw was in the churchyard as a grave was being prepared to receive another son or daughter of the village, long absent perhaps, but finally returning home.

 For my part I felt a little subdued on the way back to Ierapetra, and the conversation certainly didn’t sparkle as you would expect it to with four gay men in the car! Very ‘Englishly’ the visitors decided it was time for afternoon tea and cakes which lifted the slight depression that I think we all felt.

 While down this way I had hoped to take the visitors to the memorial to the Cretan Massacre and then inland through the mountains passing one of the few large bodies of water on Crete, time was against us though and so we headed back to base the way we had come, so there are two more things left to do another day!

 Sorry to say this is almost certainly going to be the last of the monthly travelogues as I will be too busy from now on, but I will write next month and answer some more of your seemingly interminable questions and explain the difference between ouzeries, kafenions, meze houses, and estiatorios!

 As usual I have given some links with pictures and a bit more information for you.  

Some photographs can be found here http://www. villaralfa. com/ierap. html

And a gay blog on Crete is here http://gaycretegreece. blogspot. com/

Yours as ever,