History

Meteoric Rises and Ukrainian Elbows

4 April 2024

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Categories: Travel

Arriving in Athens so late this time I was worried I wouldn’t be able to catch a train downtown as the subway kind of shockingly shuts down at midnight and doesn’t run again until morning. Thankfully once I’d collected my luggage and made my way to the station I saw that the last train had yet to leave. About an hour later I was stepping out into the area south of the Plaka district and heading for my short overnight before picking up the rental car. I’d skimped a bit on this overnight amenities wise but it actually worked out well as they had a small coin laundry downstairs and after breakfast I had time to do a load before my car pickup. Freshly laundered I clattered my way down the cobble sidewalks with my suitcase and over to the subway station where the rental car pickup was. To my delight this car had Android Auto so I was able to connect my gps instructions to the screen and save some pain but to be honest getting out of Athens and onto the highway north was a breeze. That afternoon’s destination was Delphi, the home of the Pythian Oracle.

Delphi is just close enough to Athens to be bus-tour doable but I’d gone for a self drive in order to include some further destinations as well as to save myself bouncing back to the capital repeatedly. The drive itself was a mix of modern highway with extortionate tolls, side roads small enough I might have questioned if I was heading the right way if I hadn’t seen bus tours heading back to Athens and steep mountain roads winding up and around blind corners. Getting to Delphi this way also involves passing through the closest ‘ski country’ to the capital and even though I’d been aware of this in advance it was still odd to see signs for end of season ski and snowboard sales. Apparently the resort on Mt. Parnassus was still running, if I’d had a couple extra days I might have gone for a ski just to say I had. A couple of the mountain towns I passed were incredibly interesting looking but even at low season seemed to have nowhere to easily park. I think if I went back I’d probably make an effort to spend an extra day in the area though.

Delphi itself is a relatively modern small town by Greek standards as the residents were built a new town around the turn of the 20^th century after an earthquake in exchange for removing themselves from the area over what is now the archaeological park. It’s nestled around the curve of a mountain pass with steep one way streets scarcely having room for cars much less the behemoth tour buses. Again I was thankful it was low season in this instance as I managed to snag a super affordable room with a valley view out towards the Gulf of Corinth and by some miracle also lucked into free street parking a few cars down from the entrance. Less positive due to low season was the sanctuary/museum closing early and unless I felt like rushing my whole visit into a 30 minute window I’d be waiting for morning. Even here a lot of things were closed but what was open was at least staying open past 3pm (other than the museum/site.) In the end I wandered the town as it quieted down for the evening while scouting out a place for dinner, buying a few souvenir gifts. I met a number of the town dogs and cats and eventually just found a spot in the church square and spent a happy hour reading a book/enjoying the view.

Dinner was a phenomenal meal overlooking the valley for sunset. I sadly couldn’t get right on the cliff being a single diner but I still had a great view as I sampled a local cheese done saganaki style and some local lamb and herb sausages. I lingered quite a while but eventually the monotony of overhearing nearby Americans grew too much after a nice long period of not hearing much English around and I headed out into the streets. There definitely wasn’t much in the way of nightlife at this time of year though with a mostly older crowd around, I’d been hoping for a pub type situation but in the end I just took another walk then called it a night in order to be up and at the ruins first thing. This seemed to be the best way to do things at this time of year (and to be honest would probably work well in busier times as well. Hit the sights early and spend the later part of the day getting to the next destination.

Come morning I tossed everything in my trunk then headed off to the ticket office managing to sneak into the site just before a tour group of French high school kids who’d obviously stayed either in town or nearby. It was an incredible experience to be at the sanctuary as the sun was really only just beginning to shine in earnest. The kids were getting a big lecture at the entrance so it was only a couple of people up exploring the site proper.

Delphi was the site of the Pythia, oracle of Apollo and one of the most important sources of prophecy to much of the ancient Greek world. The legend is that the priestess ranted while huffing fumes from a chasm beneath the temple and her attendants then translated them into (moderately) decipherable prophecies to be interpreted by the visitors. The truth of all this is of course questionable (there are some thoughts the rantings came from a poisonous drug) but regardless Delphi was a powerful religious site for several periods in antiquity. Eventually the site was abandoned for centuries before new settlements formed in the area and covered the ruins until the aforementioned land swap.

Standing on this steep hillside I remembered my drive from Athens the day before and was struck by what an epic journey it would have been on foot from most of the other centers of that ancient Greek world. Probably a week’s walk from Athens and much further from Sparta or Macedon or the islands. No doubt made harder because you’re lugging whatever offering you’re bringing to the Oracle. You arrive in this impressive place up overlooking the valley, you get your vague prophecy to interpret how you will, then you turn around and go home. There was more to it than that of course. At the highest heights there was a whole industry around it here as well as theatre, quadrennial games nearly as important as the Olympics etc. And of course if you were a mere mortal you might be waiting around a while for your turn at the Oracle so hospitality as well.

Having the upper tiers of the site more or less to myself made it easier to try and imagine the walls rebuilt, the marble shining and the statuary truly epic as gifts to the oracle dominated the site. Once I’d finished exploring the site the nearby museum housed some of these gifts that still remain. As a side note, one of the nice things about Greece has been the fact that at most of the sites I’ve visited the nearby museums actually have some of the artifacts so you can see them at least close to in context. Of course, some of the mega treasures are in the national museum in Athens (or in various conqueror’s collections… or stolen by the Brits.)

Thanks to my early start I’d seen the sights and done the museum well before lunch time so I grabbed a ham and cheese pastry and charted a slower course up through the mountain valleys and off towards Kalabaka and the monasteries of Meteora!

Once I’d gotten out of the mountain valley I ended up back on the same highway I’d left out of Athens but this soon gave way to an odd secondary road that seemed to snake off and on a brand new/uncompleted highway. Seems like a very odd way to build a new expressway… 20km or so of basically unused road then a large section where it disappears and I snaked across some back ways. It’s new enough that it doesn’t feel like something that was abandoned during Greece’s big crash a while back. The off again on again led to some more speed camera shenanigans as the limit yoyo’d through these secondary sections but (fingers crossed anyway) I avoided the nonsense.

If you’ve never heard of it Meteora is a region of rock formations in the inland valleys of Thessaly. These picturesque pillars of stone jut out on the edge of a flat fertile valley and clinging to them sometimes seemingly in defiance of gravity are a number of ancient monasteries. Monks and hermits have apparently been retreating to the valley for almost a thousand years and more elaborate monasteries started to be built in the 1300s. There were as many as two dozen at one point but now six fairly large ones remain and are open to tourists by schedule.

For most of their existence access to these retreats was only by rope ladders, baskets or nets lowered to the valley floor from above and just getting up was a test of your faith and courage. These days there are (no small number of) steps carved into the rocky pinnacles. Some of these were ridiculously intense as you see from the pictures, one in particular was definitely 10 stories down from the parking then 12 more back up (then reverse it to leave.)

What you find at the top are no simple huts but elaborate courtyards, finely decorated orthodox churches and chapels and simple accommodations for the brothers or sisters with spectacular views. If you remember the villain’s lair from For Your Eyes Only it was filmed around/in one of the monasteries.

I won’t blather on about it, the place was gorgeous and it’s best seen in photos.

I’m not bad with heights but hard nope to that cable car

The one positive here is that things were open on a split day for some of them so I actually managed to see 3 of the 6 the same afternoon I arrived from Delphi which made the step climbing a little less intense. I’m not sure if I would have made it up to all 6 had I done them all the same day. (7 actually since I was a genius and mistakenly climbed down to one I’d already done from below, despite a friend warning me she’d made the same mistake on visiting.)

In between all this climbing I settled into a very nice little hotel called the Theatro Hotel Odysseon where every room was themed with a stage play. I was in the Madame Butterfly room with some mildly questionable Asian decoration but otherwise very nice and with a small terrace looking up at the rocks. Nightlife was also a little more hopping here and I managed to find a pub with a delicious wood fired pizza and some cider and wiled away a few hours people watching as a rainstorm hit. At this point it was definitely starting to hit that the trip was almost over and I’d more or less done the planning to maximize what little time I had left.

The following morning I had a delicious included hotel breakfast (god I miss the feta and pastries) savoured the freshly rain washed sunshine and headed up to do the rest of the climbs. They definitely made the first day look easy but the views were worth every step.

The Grand Meteoron Monastery is the oldest and largest of all of them and is truly an impressive complex but they all have something worth seeing. Each of them asks for a 3 Euro donation for entry, something that is made plainly obvious everywhere but of course I ended up walking up behind an American couple who were flabbergasted that this remote monastery didn’t have a credit card reader for them. You’re also expected to dress ‘respectfully’ with what that means being the usual religious sexism nonsense. Not really a problem at this time of year but I can imagine getting up there in the heat of summer and not particularly wanting to cover my aching legs.

Thanks to an early start I’d finished seeing what I was going to see before 11 and set out on my next transfer, this one being a bit of a marathon drive from up in the middle of the country down across the gulf of Corinth and on to the Peloponnese peninsula that juts out SW of Athens. This again took a number of mountain switchback roads to get up to the main highway followed by a truly epic series of short to long tunnels as I crossed the spine of the country. Greek mountains, while mostly not very high, do occasionally have some impressive isolation and you can see how the ancients would have thought them the homes of the gods.

As I got closer to the west coast I was slightly disappointed to not have a chance to go to Corfu only an hour or so further on but I needed to get back closer to Athens for departure. I definitely think I’ll be back in Greece at some point and I’ll come at a time of year that’s nicer for the north. I caught the occasional glimpse of a bright blue Ionian sea on my right with one of my best views being at a fuel stop of all places, at least until the impressive bridge crossing the gulf. (It has to be said that between the tunnels, the expressway and that bridge I ended up spending double on tolls than the car rental itself cost me for that day.)

Eventually after about 5 hours I arrived at my destination for the night: Ancient Olympia. The birthplace of the games is unfortunately a kind of charmless modern town (again only about half open due to low season) but it’s reasonably isolated from anywhere major so it was best just to plunk down for a night to see the site of the original games. The positive was that the site was totally walkable from town so the next morning I again just threw my bags in the car and went for my explore.

I will nerd it up here and say I’ve played a video game that recreated a few of the sights from Olympia and it was fun to see how they’d done so from seeing the real thing. The site has remnants of the temples/altars from the celebrations of the ancient games but also the practice and training facilities for the competitors, the baths and the workshops of the artisans working in the area. And of course, at one end of the site there’s the ancient stadium. The competition floor is huge and the spectator areas are small grass banks but you can still see the judging stand and there’s a marble starting mark still there for you to line up on. Overall it was worth a visit but the actual interpretation on the grounds left a bit to be desired, I was glad to have my guide book

The area around Olympia (and most of the last hour of the day before) had seemed… I don’t want to say run down but perhaps a region that was in decline. Lots of stores that appeared to be shut down not just for the season, half finished buildings etc. By contrast as I headed further south that afternoon I’d clearly passed into an area where plenty of folks both domestic and foreign had their getaway pads. The coastal road I followed wound in and out of a number of small bays and there were many small clusters of boutique hotels and ‘cottages’ from simple to palatial. Again most were closed for the winter but they became more and more plentiful the further south I went. At a certain point they all changed to a similar construction of stone block almost castle feeling structures where even the large ones under construction were aping this ancient looking build style. I’m guessing it might be a matter of insulation for the hot summer days? Or who knows, maybe just tradition, the area is known for these towers after all.

My main destination for this day was the caves of Pyrgos-dirou which are a huge network of caves filled with an underground lake. You end up taken on poled boat through almost 2 kilometers of caves and apparently this only represents a small fraction of the cave system, most of which is still being explored. The caves are super impressive, stalagmites/tites are everywhere and the water is completely transparent. If you’re a taller person or even average height you may find yourself ducking (often at the last minute) as your guide swings you around through the pillars.

The experience itself was bizarre though. I showed up about 90mins before the website said they closed, had no issues checking in at the gate and getting a ticket before driving down to the cave entrance. Parked and was told to wait a while… not entirely sure why as everyone I ended up on a boat with was already there at the time. For off season there was a truly ridiculous number of maybe staff? Maybe construction? People around. Multiple women nattering in the gift shop entrance, 5 or 6 surly men smoking who I think were all the guides and another 5 or 6 people that seemed like they worked there but I couldn’t see anything they were actively doing.

Eventually we got taken over to get a life jacket and loaded onto the boat, as a solo traveller and a bigger guy I was put at the front. I was pretty thankful for this both for advance warning of low bridges incoming and because my guide had some truly TRULY horrendous body odour. I felt for the people sitting at his feet at the back because when I had to climb past him after the tour I gagged. Due to time of year he also didn’t speak English but I didn’t mind much as I knew how the caves were formed and I caught enough to understand he was mostly giving out the fanciful names for particular formations (Zeus’ bolt etc.)

The last section of the cave is traversed on foot and then you emerge on the edge of a crystal blue bay as the waves roll past. It was absolutely worth the trip out of my way, triply so as a person who really just loves neat caves.

Unfortunately, at this point it was decision time. I needed to have the car back in Athens by noon the following day. Either I could stay somewhere near the caves and see something else in the area or I could travel part of the way back and see some more historical sites. Part of the problem was nowhere nearby being particularly affordable stay wise. It wasn’t a situation when I wanted to splurge on a hotel knowing I’d just be there for the night and having to leave at 7 the next morning. In the end I decided to head halfway back to Athens and visit the onetime republic capital of Nafplio.

Not going to lie, it had been a tiring couple days and by the time I got to Nafplio I was tired and sore and made extra grumpy by a booked room that had lied about it’s location. While I had a car and it being a couple KM from the old town wasn’t the end of the world the extra time looking for the place when I desperately wanted a shower and a meal wasn’t appreciated. Actually getting that shower lowered the grumpiness at least 50% though and I had a brief explore of the old town center before dinner.

Nafplio is a pretty town right on the coast and loomed over by a giant fort that’s well lit at night. The old town is a mix of narrow cobbled roads and wide plazas and is apparently a weekend getaway hotspot for Athenians. It was Saturday night and absolutely hopping when I was there even on a relatively chilly march day. It made for some interesting people watching between family holidaymakers, some obvious stag and stagette types and the occasional person walking past in what I’d describe as renaissance masquerade-wear (genuinely not sure if they were on their way to a fancy dress party or street performers heading home.) After a fairly middling dinner I treated myself to a nice gelato and strolled around for a while. This sort of place in Europe is always funny with the super high-end boutiques often sharing a building with a super tacky souvenir store. I’d be interested in visiting the town again on more than a flying visit but it definitely wouldn’t be tons longer.

The next morning, I got another early start and headed to the ruins of Mycenae for my final archaeology stop. This one was definitely more of a ‘mind’s eye’ ruin than some of the rest as the only really visible things remaining are the (impressive) gate stones and various pits/depressions. That said it was a fascinating spot because you could see the defensibility of the place. Excellent sightlines in all directions, clear view down to the bay side forts that would have given lots of advance warning for attackers by sea and tough approaches on land. It was one of the really ancient centers of Greece having fallen from prominence in the collapses around 1200BC. Near the site is also the Treasury of Atreus, a hillside tomb with a massive dome.

Thankfully I’d timed things pretty well and got away from there with plenty of time to get back to Athens. Unfortunately for me I’d forgotten that the wide boulevard I’d picked the car up on had been closed for the changing of the guard Sunday morning… to make matters worse I’d also picked the day of the Athens marathon to return the car. This led to me having to force my way onto a side street and some frankly stressful narrow lane crawling until I lucked into a spot in front of a coffee shop about a block from the rental return. When I told the agency where it was, I had to walk them over and they made some comment like “next time you need to bring it to the door” and I just wordlessly pointed at the cops still blocking the road completely at the nearest corner.

The rental place being in a subway station came in handy again as rather than fight my way with a suitcase past the marathon runners multiple times I scooted underground, dumped my bag at my final hotel and headed off to the national archaeology museum I’d missed on my first Athens stop. This one was fun for content as it’s got some of the greatest treasures of the land (and the originals of some of the things I’d seen reproductions of) but the building itself is pretty tired and is apparently closing in phases for needed complete rebuild.

Believed to be one of the better small copies of the giant Athena that stood in the Parthenon

With that done it was time for one last walk around the acropolis area, some last-minute souvenir shopping and a final souvlaki and baklava. I ran into an odd street festival procession with people dancing and Greek ‘bagpipes’ wailing away. At a sadly early hour I headed back to my hotel to do a final pack. Unfortunately I had to be at the airport by 5 which meant not having subway access. After a relatively fitful sleep I was up at 3:30 and kindly provided with a packed “breakfast” by the hotel I grabbed an uber taxi to the main square where the airport bus made a relatively fast path to the airport and I was checked in right behind a swath of Canadian schoolkids.

Getting to Zurich was relatively uneventful though I’ll never get used to prices in Switzerland (though god some of the chocolate looked tasty.) I did have a good laugh when taking the shuttle to the international area there was a stereoscopic video presentation of Heidi yelling at us about “hope you saw all these sights!” This time the travel luck wasn’t with me though and on the long hop from my stop in Zurich to Toronto I ended up next to a hulking Ukrainian dude who for the first hour of the flight insisted on watching videos on high volume on his phone…. Constantly elbowing me whenever I started to drift off and then talking across me to the woman sitting on the other side of me. The only saving grace was it was a bulkhead seat so my feet weren’t cramped but I was desperately wishing I had a sleeping pill. It was frankly amazing how fast the flight from Toronto to Winnipeg went by comparison, and typical Winnipeg small town I ran into a friend on the flight.

Greece was for the most part lovely. I would definitely visit again however I absolutely wouldn’t go at this time of year. I definitely missed out on part of the experience but, at the same time, I hate when things are super crowded and I think I’d find Santorini hellish in another way if I went in July. September/early October might be the ideal time for me for visiting the islands at least. Spring would work too but the ocean would be warmer in September for the diving side of my travel personality. That said, the quieter time definitely led to a few great experiences and some good prices so it wasn’t all bad.

The Greek people were almost universally super friendly, eager to welcome you and happy to struggle to communicate with you if they didn’t speak at least a bit of English. Bus drivers were perhaps the exception but then, aren’t they always. Probably the highlight overall was Crete, I knew I’d love Athens, other sights were great but Crete was both gorgeous and a total surprise to me versus my earlier thoughts. Thanks again to Jay and Kim for that recommendation.

Hellenic Adventure 2024

29 February 2024

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Categories: Travel

Hey, it’s the Parthenon!

It’s adventure time again, hello all 10 people that read these travelogues. I know some of you cringe a little bit with how seat of my pants I sometimes travel and to you I apologize because this trip has definitely had some of the lowest planning effort of any of them. There were a variety of reasons for this but it mostly came down to not being comfortable booking a trip until the last minute then randomly deciding to go to Greece after flights for my initially planned revisit of Thailand doubled in price. Greece has always been on the list to visit but I’ll be honest this trip basically came down to seeing what was a decent price over a period I could fit between on call weeks and here we are.

So hey, Greece! Souvlaki! Zorba! History! Windex! (scratch that last one, I bought travel health insurance.)

My flight out was actually at a sane hour and included a long enough layover at Pearson that I didn’t have to sprint down the latest convoluted path between domestic and international. I’d been happy to see that my randomly assigned seats had all been acceptable and I didn’t have to shell out extra money for seat selection… was less enthused when I got a text 30 mins before boarding Toronto to Munich that my seat had been changed. It turned out I’d worried for nothing though as I ended up getting moved into Economy preferred for free and had a row of 4 to myself. Always nice for the overseas hop. Turns out the flight was about half empty. I was surprised but I wasn’t going to argue. As usual I didn’t sleep more than a few disjointed 15 minute periods and was running on fumes by the time I made my way through EU customs and over to my next gate.

In the end I didn’t nod off at the gate either, partially through worry they’d change my gate and I’d miss it as the signage/announcements in the area weren’t very good (decidedly un-German of them…) and partially due to the strange man who sat down across from me after about 30 minutes with a large produce bag full of ripe bananas… slowly eating at least 6 of them over a relatively short period of time. Eventually we boarded and again had an empty seat next to me this time, not a bad round of airplane luck.

I’d done enough research to know the cheapest way into town from the airport in Athens was via the subway built for the Olympics. For the record, when available airport trains are the best. Even if you have to take a cab for the final hop you get a nice introduction to the mood of the city you’re visiting. The Athens one is particularly handy as it’s just a spur station on one of the main lines and as such took me straight downtown.

**The busy old town neighbourhood not far from my hotel**

I was less enthused about my hotel’s directions which basically just said exit at one of these four metro stations then “you can enter off such and such a street or alternatively ‘this other street'” which isn’t the most helpful when it’s a) dark b) greek alphabet signs most of the time c) you haven’t been able to buy a local phone card yet. In the end I bit the bullet and used a day of rogers roaming to get through things. Just as well. Both entrances were terribly signposted, I’ll try to snap a pic when I’m back in Athens later but essentially it was a small van sized archway into a corridor on the right and I just happened to look up far enough at the right moment a scooter went by and illuminated a dirty plastic sign way up on the interior wall. (The gps tried to send me through another business on another block.) Luckily when I found got into that courtyard there was a bright modern sign showing the way to a tiny but sparkling clean hotel with a great location.

**Wasn’t expecting to get such a great view essentially just off the plane.**

Given that it was about 7pm local at this point and I’d been up something like 32 hours I did the sensible thing and (almost) immediately went out for food knowing that I’d crash when I crashed so fueling up first was the best bet to make that sleep beat any jetlag. I was kind to others and showered off a full day of travel first with a solid 20 minutes under a surprisingly nice waterfall shower but then got dressed and hit the streets. Heading south towards the Acropolis (into what was clearly the happening area) I peered down alleys for likely spots for a bite. Pretty much every cafe I saw was packed and I really wasn’t looking for a big roast meat and potatoes type fill up so when I stumbled across a place called Zeyroun I was sold. I later found it listed in multiple food guides to the city.

It might have been sacrilege to not start out with a greek meal my first night in Athens but instead I had a Zeyroun wrap which reminded me of an Iraqi dish I had once but forget the name of. It was a mildly spicy ground meat and tomato and za’atar blend baked into a crispy flat bread. The cook then freshly resizzled it, threw yoghurt and baba ghanoush and some other goodies on it and brought it out to me at an outdoor counter seat. The flavours were both familiar and exotic and I absolutely devoured it, belately remembering I hadn’t eaten since the overseas flight and not much of that (because Air Canada.)

For the issues I’d had finding the hotel it was immediately clear that I’d have no problems finding my way back as just downhill the cross street turned into a pedestrian only lane that led directly to a view of the fully lit Acropolis and that was was full of people having a fun friday night. My one semester of Russian now coming back to me and helping me decipher the Greek alphabet a bit (cyrillic being essentially a superset of greek iirc) I memorized the name (as most of you know I’m a memorize the map/learn the lay of the land/screw gps person) and set off to explore as long as my fuel lasted.

**The tiny Orthodox church surrounded by the pedestrian shopping/eating district.**

It wasn’t super long, another two hours I think but I walked up to the lower wall of the Acropolis mount, explored a few snaky lanes and large church plazas and made my way up to the Greek Parliament and watched a changing of the guard. In the main square I listened to two incredibly talented street musicians doing old rock standards then gave into the inevitability of sleep and started heading back only to find one of the best pianists I’ve seen in recent years hammering away on an organ on wheels. Since she was conveniently close to a gelato stand I grabbed a cup and found a step to perch on. Hanging out watching street musicians has actually become somewhat of a trip opening night tradition for me on my travel adventures and this one will be a hard outing to beat.

Still, it was a tired tired traveler who got back to the hotel and climbed into bed after just barely remembering to take off socks and set an alarm for the next morning.

Come morning I made the lovely/terrible discovery that even my little mid tier hotel’s feta was going to make going home to domestic brands very sad. Even for a euro breakfast bar it was a bit odd but delicious proper greek yogurt with drizzle of honey and some granola + some charcuterie was hard to say no to. At some point during the trip I’ll succumb to the lure of an sausage egg mcmuffin though.

While browsing one of the books before getting out of bed I realized I’d inadvertently done the first 3rd or so of Rick Steves’ Athens city walk so after trying and failing (due to shop hours) to get a traveler SIM card for my phone I set out to finish that listening to the guide. While I find Rick’s stuff does lean a bit ‘older crowd’ it was nice to get some cultural background to some of the things I was seeing and I do think his major city/capital guides are great.

This trip took me back down into the plaka ‘old town’ section and along past several churches including the home metropolitan of the Greek Orthodox faith, down to the ruins of Hadrian’s arch and a look through the fence at the remnants of the temple of Olympian Zeus. Several sources had pointed out the view of the latter from the fence line wasn’t much worse than paying the admission and you’d also get a better overhead view of the site from the acropolis.

Athens is kind of shockingly compact, at least in terms of things that appeal to tourists. The fact that most of the history is SO old and that the city dwindled away to relatively nothing for some of the intervening years means almost everything that most people are dying to see is clustered around the Acropolis. I plan to expand my horizons a bit upon my return at the end of the trip but to be honest I didn’t have to do anything but walk until I headed to the ferry terminal to head to the islands.

As I listened to the audio guide I got a better feel for some of the winding lanes I’d traversed the night before and some of the pre-trip neighbourhood discussions felt a bit more real. One of the most interesting was “little Analfi” a tiny neighbourhood built for craftsmen from that island right under the acropolis wall and bearing convincing resemblence to the kind of homes you expect to see in a greek islands setting. Many of these ‘island cottages’ are apparently now owned by well to do Athenians who want a downtown pied-à-terre. Very neat however as at points you’re squeezing in the narrow path between two bright white walls and expecting to walk out into the set of Mamma Mia only to look up and see the Acropolis looming overhead.

Eventually I snaked my way through the market streets and made my way into the Ancient Agora site. It’s a surprisingly small area and almost entirely fully ruined, especially compared to the Roman forum but it was impossible to forget that many of the roots of democracy started where I now standing. (cue Kent Brockman.) Some parts of the area have been reconstructed, others could probably use a little more TLC but with some imagination you could still visualize just how impressive this must have been 2500 years ago.

Reconstruction of the Stoa – Once a merchants arcade

As I exited the Agora and made my way back to Monastoriki Square I had a decision to make. I was dying to see the Acropolis mount itself but I’d discovered the winter hours were far more limited and I wouldn’t be able to go up just before sunset as I’d hoped. At this point I’d walked a ton already and I’d have to hustle to get to the gates in time to have enough time… add in that fact that I’d have to climb to the top on my defective and tired feets and it felt like a coin flip, but in the end I couldn’t wait. I’ve been wanting to see the Parthenon in person forever and it felt wrong to wait another day.

In relatively recent times most of the roads right around the mount have been converted to pedestrian only pathways and making my way up basically meant passing a giant flea market of vendors and restaurants before reaching the entrance to the ‘park’ itself. I mean you’ve all seen pictures, it’s definitely a bit of a climb (especially for a prairie boy who doesn’t see hills too often) but wow is it worth it. Reaching the Propylaia (entrance gate) was incredibly cool but as I emerged onto the top of the hill and saw the Parthenon and Erekthion I was blown away. This definitely wasn’t one of those ‘man I thought it would be bigger’ moments. I wrote a couple papers on these buildings in university (and the ‘Elgin’ Marbles) and seeing them in person was definitely one of those damned Plamandon life list things I can cross off.

As I walked around the site it somehow felt more real than other ancient places I’ve been. You’re walking where some of those big names you learned about in school days actually walked. All of those cobbles are smooth and slippery because people have been coming here for a shockingly long chunk of human history. Even in the dark times for Athens this has been a special place. If only the damned Venetians could have kept from blowing up the Parthenon. I’ll let photos do a bit of talking here as it’s been a few days and the history nerd in me could still go on ad nauseum here. Let me just say that the architecture is still gorgeous and impressive and even the scaffolding and crane of the ongoing restoration didn’t diminish that (though I’ll have to go back and see it again if they ever finish the project.)

As I saw the staff preparing to herd us out at five o’clock I had definitely drunk it all in, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I pay for another admission when I get back to Athens. If nothing else there are some lovely views.

My feet were absolutely done as I made my way down the steps. For those who don’t know my grandmother and mother handed off terrible arches to me to the point where I need orthotics and standing on uneven or hard ground can get pretty excrutiating relatively quickly. The combination of a ton of walking and the rest had left me in need of a rest so I climbed nearby Mars/Ares Hill and sat to watch the sunset. Unfortunately I ended up swarmed by a tour group of elderly folks some foolish guide led up there to repeatedly trip and fall. Regardless we were thwarted by some suspiciously rainy looking clouds rolling in before sunset (this has become a theme.)

**Ares/Mars Hill – pre-octonegarian invasion**

I’d managed to grab my first (amazing) souvlaki wrap from souvlaki row earlier for lunch so I wasn’t exactly aching for food so I walked a bit further and made my way back to the hotel, had a shower and flaked out for a bit… I just wasn’t expecting to nap quite so hard as I did… which led to me exploring the very cool Psyri neighbourhood for dinner at around 11. I ended up passing an american style barbecue joint and while I rationalized it (correctly it turned out) by imagining I’d have less choice on the islands and might not get a break from greek food for a bit… to be quite honest I mostly just thought the guy on the street eating a brisket sandwich looked like he was really enjoying it. Final verdict was a solid A brisket, the fries were very disappointing though. As a Winnipegger who enjoys his greek burgers and fries back home too much, the fact that most fries I’ve had here have been undercooked and sad is disappointing. Perhaps that was why they only won “11th best” bbq in europe.

The next morning armed with a store address I managed to snag a SIM card and moved back over to the parliament square to see the full changing of the guard ceremony. Honestly while neat it was a bit underwhelming from the distance I had to stand so I ended up leaving before they’d fully cleared the area and made my way to the Acropolis Museum. This is a fairly new museum that contains many of the finds from the mount and surrounding areas and is absolutely fascinating. It’s an interesting combo of finds from around the acropolis and a dedicated geometrically offset floor that does an exact layout of the parthenon, reproductions of the friezes and the pediments and a whole bunch of brit-shaming. I imagine most people are familiar with the Elgin marbles but whatever your feelings about Elgin taking them in the first place being in that lovely gallery with a sightline to their ancestral home it’s pretty clear where they should be now.

The battle against the centaurs from one side of the Parthenon

Kind of frustratingly because of the limited winter hours I didn’t really have time to fit in another museum that day once I was done. I don’t really get why they chop back from 8-8pm all the way to 9-3:30. Since the changing of the guard was at 11 I couldn’t have really been there any earlier either. At least stay open til 5, it’s not like the rest of Athens seems to do the siesta thing much. In the end I spent the rest of the day doing the entirety of the round the acropolis walk, browsed some shops (though any purchases will wait til I return to Athens) and people watched.

One thing I did love was getting to snag what was apparently one of the best galatabourikos in town. House made phyllo ballooned and filled with rich thick custard. I learned how to make one from dear departed friend Jim Pappas and his wife Barb’s greek cooking class eons ago but it’s kind of a pain to make so it’s been forever. This one was simultaneously flaky and rich and melt in your mouth and I devoured it all. Cheers Jim, thanks for introducing me to this tasty treat all those years ago.

One thing I notice on every visit to Europe and particularly in the mediterranean countries is how many more people smoke than in North America. Greece seems to take it to a new level though with many people seeming to love to stand in a cafe entrance and smoke as though the wind blowing across the square wasn’t just filling my face and ruining my snack. One friend I mentioned to says this will get worse out of the capital as well as enforcement of the indoor ban gets lax.

With that my time in Athens had come to a close (for now.) I’d purposely scheduled a shorter stop up front on the trip knowing I could do some more when I come back for the flight home. For my final meal I climbed back up the hill to a little taverna I’d passed the first night, got a table by the stairs overlooking the old quarter and had a delicious little crock of baked feta smeared all over grilled pita and accompanied by another lemonade with honey and ginger.

I went to bed happy but sadly knowing I had to be up at 5ish to catch the ferry on to my next destination.

Tower of the Winds in the Roman Forum/Agora area further west.

Cambodacious

8 March 2020

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Categories: Food, Travel

Those of you who are CJS grads of my era will remember an incredibly frustrating project in Core “English” class called your life list. For those that aren’t basically it was a bucket list of (I think) one hundred things you wanted to do before you die. It was an incredibly stupid project that we spent a ludicrous amount of time on in senior year. Now don’t get me wrong, I think getting kids of that age to at least pay some cursory attention to that sort of concept isn’t a bad idea but:

This project required 100 ‘Meaningful’ things you wanted to do in your life AND was going to be posted in public in high school, I don’t know about you but that meant nothing EXTREMELY personal was going on there. As with most of my friends I was grasping at straws after a few dozen… by 70-100 I was straight up making crap up. No 17/18 year old has or even should have 100 goals yet, we’re still discovering who we’re going to be as an adult.

The thing for me is that a big portion of the project involved displaying your 100 things in some meaningful way, some of us just did a poster with some sort of random hook to it (mine was a trombone and my items were on music notes I think?) and some people went ridiculously overboard. I forget how much this project was worth but I recall it being a not insignificant mark in a required ‘english’ course that was essentially being given out for how meaningful my dreams were and my skill at elementary school arts and crafts.

Yes I am still bitter about this (and other things about that class, never got my credits for gunther!) 20+ years later. Sure glad I spent that time on that instead of you know… my real english class that taught me how to write well for university… or Physics! It may not surprise you to note that I believe my parents talked to this teacher at PTIs and were told something like “Tristan does not hide his disdain well and needs to stop rolling his eyes.”

That said… this giant rant serves as a preamble to the fact that one of my legit number one things on that stupid list was “See the sun rise at Angkor Wat” and by god I checked it off. You’re welcome 17 year old me!

Let’s back up a bit though. My mostly nice stay at the Bamboo ended on a bit of a sour note as I realized the maids had thrown out or taken my packing bags. Thankfully I wasn’t so overpacked that it was an issue. As previously discussed in the blog I’d sprung for some air travel to pack as much as possible into the last week and a half. So while it’s theoretically possible to go directly to cambodia from the Phu Quoc area, it involves a fair bit of time on a bus, extended border transition times and then transfering in Phnom Penh to get to where I wanted to be in Siem Reap. It just made more sense to fly there via a quick hop back to HCMC then onward to Siem Reap, then direct from Siem Reap back to Hanoi for my flight home. Thankfully the flights lined up quite well and I was delay free and ended up touching down in Cambodia around 4pm.

First off, Siem Reap has an adorable airport that seemed very new. The other main reason for making sure I got to Cambodia this trip was that I’d sprung for the extra money for a multiple entry Vietnam visa. The Cambodian visa on the other hand was pay on arrival in USD. After getting extorted with a $5 fee at an atm for some yankeebux (I’d spent my reserve the week before paying Dr. Phu.) I stood in the brief line with the other foreigners to pay (most of the plane had been full of locals and Vietnamese who don’t require a visa) I waited for my name to be called. Despite being warned that they have trouble with western names and to pay attention it still took me 3 calls before I realized that Arz-ee was me. Turnabout is fair play and all with how I no doubt butchered the names of everything I tried 😉 Somewhat hilariously the dude asked if I wanted to skip the line, I remembered reading in my guidebook that five bucks can usually get you ahead, but turning around at a mostly empty customs hall I told him I’d take my chances and was in fact through in about 3 minutes. I suppose that scam works better when there are planeloads of chinese tour groups but about a quarter of the arrivals board was cancelled flights that day.

I’d booked in at an eco-guesthouse that offered free airport pickup and the very smiley Mr. Thon was waiting for me with a sign. Stuffing me and my bag onto his Cambodian style tuktuk (essentially a regular motorcycle with a permanent trailer) he took me into the city proper with a running commentary that I could hear about 50% of over the rush of the wind. He told me it was a shame I was here this week instead of next as the new Angkor Eye (a large ferris wheel in the vein of a smaller London Eye) was opening the following week. As we got closer to our destination I wondered if he was taking me somewhere to be killed as we zigzagged across bridges and through lanes until finally turning down a dead end path that…. surprisingly was lined with guest houses out of nowhere.

My place was called the Babel Guesthouse and is run as sustainably as possible by a Norwegian Couple. The lobby contains a shop full of various Hippie home and beauty products, the idea being to refill rather than buy more plastic. This extended to water bottle which is an ethos I can get behind to a point… except that their public refill bottle was just under a thin cloth cover. If you’re going to want me to not buy water it needs to be at least somewhere in the zip code of cold. I’d been places in Thailand that did the same and they had ceramic jackets they could put over the bottles with a bit of ice to keep the water significantly colder. Other than that it was a fairly nice place with a small courtyard bar where you could watch soccer and get a drink/food. The breakfast was apparently nice but I never partook as it wasn’t free and I was usually out of there too early anyway.

After checking in and arranging my (gulp) sunrise excusion to Angkor Wat the next day I set out to explore the town and get some food. Siem Reap is not a particularly large city, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100k people though of course usually swollen with tourists. While it was busy enough, I walked past several large hotels that looked mostly empty and even one that appeared to be shut down. Crossing over the canal that bisects the city I by chance spotted a restaurant called Chorney Tree that was highly rated in my guidebook and pulled up a chair and I was absolutely famished after skipping lunch.

Last year when I was in Berkeley for a wedding with my food friends we went to a cambodian place for dinner one night and we were all blown away by the flavours. In a trip I knew would be filled with a ton of great food I was probably looking forward to Cambodia the most. That first meal was phenomenal. Beef loc lac (tender thin pieces of marinated beef served with a bright tasting lime and black pepper sauce, crispy fried egg, rice and veggies) and a steamed egg and pork bao. Even later in the evening it was still very hot so relaxing with a great meal under a whirling fan was lovely, especially washing it down with a beer and a fruit smoothie as well as some crispy banana chips made with those amazingly sweet se asian bananas.

Walking a bit further after dinner I discovered the main Siem Reap night market and pub street which is basically tourist central after dark. There is a proper market but it’s surrounded by all sorts of restaurants, numerous upper floor bars blaring at each other across narrow alleys and even a kickboxing/wrestling ‘arena’ (there is apparently a full sized kickboxing arena in town as well that has more traditional events.) I had a quick look around but as I’d arranged to leave for the temples at 4:30 the next morning I went to bed basically the moment I thought there was a chance of sleeping.

Man four A.M. is early, especially when you’re in vacation mode. I mean I’d mostly been getting up at a reasonable hour this trip due to none of the hotels having blackout curtains or being particularly well soundproofed… but 4 is another matter entirely. Up, showered and (quasi) awake I made my way out front where my driver was waiting with a similar tuk tuk to the one I’d taken the day before. Bleary eyed as I was I didn’t actually make note of any of its identifying features which was an issue later. By 4:45 we’d arrived at the Angkor ticket office for the national park which contains the temples. Nominally it opens at 5am but I guess they start a bit early, unfortunately I didn’t notice the small sign that said the 1 and 3 day passes were different lines and only just managed to change lines before the first of the tourbuses arrived and started disgorging more hordes behind me. One can only imagine how much busier it would have been with another 10 buses with Chinese folks. Tickets are fairly pricey, but one can imagine they’re the main way the conservation is funded so I’m a-ok with that. It was $62 us for a three day pass so I grabbed one despite not being sure if I’d be doing that much time.

It was still pitch black as he ran me down the road towards the park entrance and it was with fairly vague directions that I was pointed at Angkor Wat itself but even ahead of the main crowd there was a trickle of visitors confirming I was heading the right way and eventualy I found myself at the edge of the moat water. February is firmly in Cambodia’s hot and dry season and space at the water’s edge was at a bit of a premium but I was still kind of shocked at how many people were trying to cram around the water in hopes of grabbing a reflection shot of the sunrise. It was a fairly long wait and as dawn approached swarms more people arrived and people started demanding those in front get down. Unfortunately I was standing in mud but managed to find a dry spot because there was no way my knees were going to handly crouching for 45 minutes. Occasionally people up front stood to stretch or take a shot and some loudmouth Australian who had just arrived kept yelling out crap about ‘sit down, do you think you’re special’ or the like. I mean I get it, let’s try and let as many people enjoy the best view possible but give people a break. Eventually he yelled ‘Your mother would be ashamed of you’ and I yelled back something in the vein of “my mother taught me to be places on time” and got a few claps and cheers from folks at the front.

Sunrise itself was slow in coming but absolutely magical. For the most part people kept their yaps shut once it arrived and you just heard the occasional hushed whisper or whirr of a camera shutter. I can’t really described it but those ancient towers slowly coming into view in front of the growing dawn light made it easy to imagine you’d been transported through time.

Once dawn had well and truly arrived I gave in to my aches (should have done this when you were younger T) and got up and walked around the moat towards the main temple. Angkor Wat is the only one of the temples in the region to have been continually used since being built (in the 12th century originally as a Hindu temple) and is thus the best preserved. It’s also the largest single religious monument in the world.

I’d actually walked in complete darkness over the floating bridge that is replacing the causeway during repairs and through the 5km long outer wall but now that daylight was here the galleries and inner area were opened and I could explore in earnest. The pure symetry of the place is what strikes you first after you start to comprehend the sheer scale.

In addition to the spires and long raised galleries Angkor Wat is famous for the intricate bas-reliefs that adorn the walls. The most famous of these is the ‘churning of the ocean of milk’ a representation of the reinvigoration of the universe comprising dozens of painstakingly carved asuras and devas.

Interestingly a lot of the modern restoration work has focused on cleaning out or reimplementing the original drainage and cleaning systems from construction as earlier restoration efforts caused as much damage as they fixed. Other efforts involve keeping plant life at bay, more on that later.

I spent what felt like ages exploring the place but it was still quite early when I made my way back towards the floating bridge and discovered that while I had a vague idea of what my driver looked like I had zero idea which of a probably fifty tuktuks was mine. Eventually I spotted a dude in a red shirt in the distance which turned out to be my driver Tam. This time I made sure I looked at the ad on the back of the seat to better spot it later.

A couple KM north lies the south gate of Angkor Thom, once the capital of the Khmer empire until it was later sacked by the Ayuthaya kingdom of Siam/Thailand. Unlike Angkor Wat this was an actual townsite and large number of people lived here before it was abandoned, though most of the later buildings were not stone and don’t survive today. What remains is gorgeous though, a number of temples and terraces in noticeably different styles.

The main temple of Bayon, probably the second most famous after Angkor Wat itself had a number of monkeys hanging around outside. They were surprisingly unpushy though there were a few warnings around about being careful. Though in much poorer shape than some other temples (and currently undergoing a major restoration effort of the upper levels) there’s still a vast maze of passages to discover. The towers carved with massive faces are very impressive.

From there I snaked through and walked the long causeway to the Baphuon temple which was one of the few you could climb to the top (up some absolutely mentally steep wooden stairs that covered the originals for preservation purposes.)

View from top of Baphuon back down the Causeway

Phimeanakas was just to the north of there and was apparently the royal palace area for much of the era of the city. It’s guarded by the terrace of the elephants from which one could once see the royal processions from the victory gate.

A quick stop for lunch and a giant bottle of water helped me recharge a bit as the full heat of the day had arrived and it was probably pushing 35c with not much of a breeze to speak of. I was glad I’d had some time to adjust to the heat before getting here.

Some of the more sheltered carvings have been well preserved

Our next stop was Ta Prohm, known as the Tomb Raider temple due to being used to film several sequences in the original Jolie film adapatation of the game. This is one of the temples where the conservation work has focused on maintaining the balance between invading nature and keeping the temples whole. Large trees and vines grown around, through and actually on the temple buildings and walls and if you catch a courtyard at a deserted moment it’s easy to imagine you’ve just emerged from the jungle to find a forgotten ruin.

Ta Promh with a tree growing on top of (not through) the temple

We Finished the first day’s exploration at Banteay Kdei and Sra Srang. Banteay Kdei was a monastery but is in poor repair now, apparently due to using lower quality stone than many of the other monuments. Sra Srang is a large resevoir with terraces which was used as a bathing area for the royal family and every time I went by it on this trip there were a number of kids swimming.

My driver offered to drop me off at pub street and I agreed thinking a drink and a snack might be nice, but when he forgot and took me back to the hotel I sucumbed to the lure of a shower and a nap. I must admit it was nice that the guesthouse had their own crew of trusted drivers, they make a point of paying them a solid wage (it probably cost about 30% more than if I’d hired a random person) but the guys did a good job at steering you around properly, dropping you at the right place and time to avoid as much of the crowds as possible and chimed in with the occasional fact that added some context.

Once I’d recharged I walked back over to the night market and explored more thoroughly before eventually ending up down a side street at a tiny place that smelled amazing when I stopped to look at the menu. The resulting meal was almost as good as the night before, Khmer Spiced chicken skewers and ultra crispy spring rolls. Walking back I noticed a movie theatre which just like the ones in Vietnam was essentially a giant chaotic motorbike garage under the teeniest of lobbies and a couple screening rooms. I finished the night in a random bar along the pub street having a couple drinks and just people watching now that it had cooled down a bit.

I’m pretty sure I was out the moment I hit the pillow though with the nap I did manage to stay awake until a reasonable hour, thankfully day two was going to start a bit later.

The End of the ‘World’

16 March 2019

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Categories: Travel

Getting out of Lisbon was a piece of cake. We slightly overdid our lead time due to mild concern about how often the metro would be running on a sunday but after a wait we were plunked down on the train and headed south towards the Algarve. One of the best views of the journey came not long after departure as we crossed the river over the massive bridge that’s basically a shorter twin of the Golden Gate. The sunny and breezy morning had the sailboats out en masse and it again brought to mind a shadow of what this harbour would have looked like at the height of Portugal’s golden age of exploration.

Further south after we’d emerged from Lisbon’s suburbs we passed into the more arid sunny region. Most of the journey we spent passing olive groves then later just endless orchards full of oranges. Even in the towns you’d see people with massively prolific orange and lemon trees bursting with fruit. To a Canadian that’s just such a foreign site. Given we were crossing pretty much the entire bottom third of the country the journey was over surprisingly fast and I had to prod Mom awake as we pulled in to the tiny station at Albufeira.

The Algarve area of Portugal is the entire south coast and is incredibly built up with small communities. It relies almost entirely on tourism but is also an increasingly popular retirement destination for people from colder climates. Albufeira itself is one of the more populous small cities but to be honest most of them run into one another so it’s hard to tell where the borders even are. Despite the sprawl there’s still a lot of wild looking coastline here and it’s a very pretty region.

A short cab ride later we were back at the oceanside at one of the weirder large resort hotels I’ve ever been to. Mom set about checking us in with the documents while I inspected the lobby. I was more or less instantly laughing at the barrage of rules posted everywhere and (correctly) assumed they were aimed at drunken Brits as everything was in English. There were more usual signs like ‘don’t wear swimwear into the lobby’ and ‘no smoking in the lobby’ but also ‘no feeding the cats,’ ‘do not buy fruit’ and, most ominously ‘We are a family resort and any behaviour like a hen party is not tolerated.’ It was an absolutely sprawling resort and clearly had absorbed several nearby hotels as well.

The place was in off-season mode and clearly understaffed, after finding out they’d ignored our request for two beds we had to have a room change and were told we were getting a ‘free upgrade’ of which we really couldn’t see any sign once we were in the room. It turned out to be a simple room about the size of a large Grand Forks hotel room but with a small kitchenette built into the back wall. It had obviously recently been remodelled, was quite confortable and nice, but was definitely on the small side for one of Dad’s places.

Heck, even finding the room took some work as (defying pretty much any resort convention ever in my experience) you accessed the room on the balcony side and the arrows really didn’t make that clear (the rooms near the elevator had normal room doors.) There was also only an elevator on one end of the entire massive block which meant that most of the older elevator crowd for your entire floor was walking past your balcony door… and only window… which you wanted to have open for the view and breeze… so they could pretty much always see in to your whole place. Since it was one of the small rooms there was no couch either so people walking by just looked in to see you lounging on your bed late in the evening. Honest to god just a terrible design. Yet, we could see the waves crashing in to the point, the beach at the foot of the hotel was a lovely sandy cove nestled in between limestone cliffs and the sunset that night was spectacular.

Portions of the hotel were clearly run as an all inclusive and the bars and restaurants were quite expensive for an a la carte guest ($25ish Canadian for a very so-so looking buffet) so we never ended up eating at the restaurant. The main pool was supposedly ‘closed for maintenance’ but no one touched it while we were there and it just sat there looking gorgeous and empty. They clearly just didn’t have the staff to watch it, the one open pool was far too small for even the limited number of guests but also wasn’t heated. The ‘don’t feed the cats’ sign was explained when we a sudden swarm of (well fed) ferals on our way to dinner.

Walking (surprise surprise) up the hill we ran into a group of Albertans who clued us in to the closest good supermarket. We’d actually run into some Nova Scotians on the train as well when I noticed the Blue Bombers shirt he was wearing (a gift from a Winnipegger daughter.) The top of the hill had us arrive at the section of Albufeira known as ‘The Strip’ a multi-block section of restaurants, bars and souvenir shops that seems to be trying to channel old school Niagara Falls or Atlantic City. We quickly discovered (as I feared from some research) that the place was somewhat of a Brit Stag/Hen trip destination and was a bit… trashy. On a sunday afternoon at an off time of year it was fairly tame and large sections of the strip were even totally shut down (in some cases permanently looking, in others renovations were underway) but pretty much all the restaurants open had touts outside trying to get you in.

Reaching the top of the strip we headed down one of the main boulevards and serendipitously found a very nice little bakery (something we seem to have a knack for) and got some bread and morning muffins before walking further down to find the Pingo Doce supermarket. Despite the heavy load of drinks and things we’d bought to stock the hotel room for the week we started walking back and in fact made it most of the way back down the strip before deciding to grab some lunch (after all this time my first Piri Piri of the trip.) We spent the rest of the night settling in, exploring the weirdness of the hotel a bit more, playing cards and enjoying our first english tv in a while as they had our first non-news English channels of the trip.

The next morning we walked the 3km along the coastal road into Albufeira’s old town proper. Along the way we admired a number of vacation homes large and small, many with elaborate flower gardens blooming all about. The coast is a strange mix of ultra developed more modern sections and more run down micro-condos. Overall it’s really quite pleasant and the views from many would be spectacular, especially the couple right at the top of the sea cliff before we walked down the long hill to the main beach.

Albufeira’s old town is nestled on and above a wide sandy beach known as Fisherman’s beach though the town’s boat traffic is now in a modern harbour/marina a few clicks east. With Mom’s coffee addiction having her near collapse we settled down into a seaside cafe and enjoyed the breakers rolling in. Weather wise the wind was up and it was probably one of the colder days of the trip. Nothing by our standards of course but the cafes all had wind shelters up and the locals were bundled up like it was -30, we zipped up our hoodies.

This guy kept looking down to keep an eye on everyone

Further back in the maze of streets of the old town you could see what had once been a small fishing village but was now more or less entirely tourist. A spacious and quite pretty main square is surrounded by restaurants and bars. I noticed that one of the gelato places had my favourite (Amerena sour cherry, see Rome post years ago) and instantly bought us each one which we quickly dispatched while roaming the cobbled streets. One end of the town has a tunnel bored through the rock leading to the next small inlet and beach. Wikipedia tells me that this was once the main visitor beach (as fisherman’s was covered in boats) and it would make sense, though on this day it was particularly windswept.

Overall the town proper had a lot more charm than our end of things, though that’s not really surprising. It definitely had a bit of the same bar vibe though.

I’m worried that I’m sounding a bit snooty when I call places trashy but it’s sort of hard to describe if you haven’t travelled to places like this. You have to remember that to Brits going here for a boys or girls weekend is way cheaper than it is for us to go to Vegas and for a certain type of Brit (and to lesser extent French/German/other) they treat it much the same way. The point for them is to maybe get a bit of sun but mostly to pub crawl and get absolutely blasted. As a result many of the bars are just trying to look like British football bars, one site actually told me ‘Albufeira is known for its irish pubs.’ Riot police have even been called in to deal with mobs of them at times.

Honestly the closest analogue I can probably give for most of the people who are reading this and don’t get it is imagine a Daytona Beach gearing up for Spring Break vibe, except it probably hits that every weekend during high season/christmas season. Thankfully at this time of year that wasn’t going to be a problem, but the vibe was still there. Also thankfully, like Daytona the scenery still manages to be beautiful despite the commercial surroundings.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my time here, but if I returned to the Algarve I’d try to stay in a different town with a more laid back vibe (and probably have a car the whole time.)

Upon arriving we’d noticed that there were a number of tours further afield and with the sea temperature not really conducive to much swimming (though I was going to dive on Friday) we thought maybe we’d do one of them. Gibraltar sounded appealing as I’d always been kind of fascinated by the place and Mom had been there eons ago with Granny and had found it worth the trip. Unfortunately a bit of research into the tour revealed that you started stupidly early, spent your first 2 hours gathering other people from other hotels, then when you arrived the tour didn’t include going into Gibraltar at all, you had to pay extra or do your own thing. Since we kind of wanted to see a bit more of the coast anyway we decided to rent our own car.

So at lunchtime the next day we loaded up our new Citroen estate and headed west to explore the rest of the western Algarve. It was a cloudy day that seemed to be threatening to break into storms at any moment but in the end we never actually saw any rain. Navigating was mostly painless, everything was super well marked and we bopped our way along the coast to Sagres, Portugal’s (and Europe’s) most southwesterly town. Once the final staging base for many voyages around the horn and to the new world it’s now mostly known as a surfing destination.

As with the rest of the Algarve it’s small beaches nestled between outcrops of cliff. Yet here the cliffs are even more impressive and the waves crash in much more aggressively as it faces the open Atlantic more directly. The surfing is particularly good as a result I’m guessing, though I think that’s also a factor of the availability of multiple beaches facing different ways off the point so there’s probably a solid beach for almost any wind direction. That said we also saw a couple of looney bins taking some crazy curls right next to a sheer rock wall so it’s not like some surfing types need anything.

We explored the fortress on the point. It turned out to be more of a fortress wall protecting the entrance to a towering point. It’s the former site of Henry the Navigator’s nautical school though to what extent it existed is the subject of some debate. Henry himself was definitely a driving force in starting Portugal’s age of exploration and helped develop the newly designed caravel that would drive those travels. What exists of the fort at this point is mostly remnants, battery platforms and stupendous views. The caves and holes in the rocks lead to some excellent blowholes as well, one of which they’ve surrounded with a concrete echo chamber to really augment the sound of the surf.

We walked the entire perimeter of the fort/point before moving on as we wanted to see the literal end of europe before sunset. Cape St. Vincent is just a couple minutes down the road and is the southwesternmost point in Europe. These days there’s a small lighthouse and gift shop. If anything the cliffs here are even more impressive as they tower over the crashing green waves. It’s a wild place and you can really imagine just how scary it must have been to stand here and look out into the void you were about to cross, particularly as the sun set and the waves grew darker and darker.

With night fallen we set out home to our hotel and made ourselves a pasta dinner/had a slightly early night before the big trip the next day.

Yikes, what happened there?

15 September 2008

Toast

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Categories: Things Toast cares about..., Travel

Apologies for the interruption, the internet connection in Big Sky was the shit (I was only able to steal wireless from another condo at long range) so updating was so inconvenient that I became lazy. Who wants an update without photos anyway!

Besides which, time was pretty packed while we were there and evening mostly involved hopping in the hot tub then having dinner and flopping down on the couch to watch brutal NBC olympic coverage. I’m pretty sure posts would have been along the lines of “Big Geyser Pretty… water HOT!” anyway.

Old Faithful was fairly faithful, only making me wait a while during which I toured a lot of the lesser but awesome geysers. So many people get out at the parking lot and just see old faithful then leave that they miss a lot of the neater pools. As usual, death by korean or japanese tourbusload was around every corner.

Death was also around every corner on some of the paths, apparently the ground is only a thin crust in places an stepping on some section involves immersing your leg or entire body into water or mud superheated to the point where it can cook the flesh of your bones. To get that lovely mental picture out of your head, here’s a shot of an elk to make you go “awww.”

Also on this point of the trip was my second run at whitewater rafting, which was a blast as always. The river in question is known as the Gallatin, and while it was incredibly shallow at points it still gushed fast enought to be a lot of fun. The cute young lady guiding us was only a bonus.

Not me, but the same spot we rushed through the day before this was taken.

My friend Chris and his girlfriend Jodi came along with us on this ride as they happened to be passing through and we had a blast, I of course was probably the most soaked. This didn’t matter tons at first, but on the ride back to the lodge it became apparent that a recent wearer of my wetsuit had had a serious B.O. issue and the water was bringing back the memories so to speak. Given that this sign was at the top of the run I guess I should be lucky that’s all I smelled.

Got to love the grammar/missing word. I like to believe the missing bit is “is encouraged.”

That more or less wrapped up the trip though, not long after we headed back to Manitoba at full speed, stopping really only to see the Little Bighorn Historic Monument.

This is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go though I was expecting it to be typical American ignore the Native side completely but it was surprisingly fair. Unsurprisingly this is as a result of a fairly recent redevelopment that changed it from the Custer Memorial to the new name. The old views are still seen in some of the markers on the site, but in the tours given (and the audio tour you can buy for a nominal fee [highly recommended] you can hear the modern interpretation.

The classic view of the battle as some form of heroic last stand is without much doubt a total fallacy, the final lines shown by clusters of cartridge casings seeming to show Custer’s group disintegrating into total panic as his overconfidence led to the near total destruction of his command. The sheer cowardice of the cav and the stupidity of Custer in ordering a charge on a village that he had not even reconnoitered properly is really evident and it’s easy to see how an organized resistance from the skilled first nations shooters quickly caused panic in the cavalry troops.

What surprised me most was the Cavalry monument… I believe it was built around 10 years after the battle by the regiment and lists the names of those “who fought and died in battle against the Sioux.” From the years of bullshit and the media frenzy of the time I would have expected it to say something about a massacre or butchery as is far from rare on items of the time. Perhaps the regiment was being honest in saying they new damned well it was a true battle and honestly felt a little ashamed at the way things were being painted.

In any case I heartily recommend anyone checking out. It’s an interesting piece of history and a moment that marked the beginning of the end of any armed resistance of indigenous peoples in North America. It’s also a rather hot place generally, pack some water if you’re doing any of the hiking trails (and ankle boots as there are apparently rattlesnakes) but there is also a car loop that the audio tour covers.

NOTE: I wrote 80% of this on Aug 23, but I haven’t finished and posted it til now, my bad. School starting sucked. Regular updates to resume.

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