The Land of Resin Wine- Greek Holiday Part Three

Before getting into the thick of this post, which will cover the essential topics of what to see and what to consume on Crete, I might as well share my hopeless attempts of making sense of the Greek language, yet another mirror to the always changing Hellenic soul.

The attempt to google a definitive alphabet was the initial failure- well, there’s this version, and that, and some diacritics were used up to a point, but not any longer, then there’s different letters for the same sound, and the difference is historical and makes no logical sense whatsoever if you’re not a scholar of Ancient Greek. The very fact that they often use a year to pinpoint the start of Modern Greek, that of the fall of Constantinople, of course, which has nothing to do with linguistic aspects, is a bad sign already. The need to add the year to a present day Greek’s language resume has always amused me- it would probably be very difficult to provide customer service in Ancient Greek these days, though of course one could ponder the exquisite joys of yelling ’This is Sparta!’ over the phone to a befuddled Athenian who lost the password to her papyrus.

So try as I might, I still could not get beyond the hello and thank you, but I can spend a jolly good time ogling the Greek side of a menu and still not know what the hell I am about to order.

What to Eat and Drink. The drinks part is the easier one: don’t drink bloody continental lagers and ridiculously overpriced cocktails. Fix, Alfa and Mythos are great summer beers, plus there’s the usual array of ouzos and local brandy, going by the name of either raki or tsikoudia. In a slightly confusing touch, raki is indeed the soul brother of Romanian rachiu, so essentially grape brandy, and not of the geographically closer lying Turkish rakı, which is, logically, ouzo. (If you were not confused enough, raki and tsikoudia are known as tsipouro in other parts of Greece.)

Local wines can be a bit pricey in restaurants, but you can always opt for a decent house wine in a carafe or for the nec plus ultra of Greek drinks- retsina, resinated wine, most definitely an acquired taste, but totally addictive once acquired. Legend actually has it that in undiluted form it killed some Viking kings, which is no mean feat, but the only trauma I can vouch for is desperately asking around wine stores for a bottle of the miraculous golden fluid only to be told they have no idea what on earth I’m blabbering about.

The food part is, you’ve guessed correctly, slightly approximative and a tad confusing- but delicious. One has a general idea of what Greek food is, along the lines of tzatziki, Greek salad and moussaka, but the rest of what can be found on the Greek isles comes from the most diverse of sources- quite often old overlords of each particular island, in our case the Venetians (those people did potter around quite a lot in the Mediterranean) and the Turks.

So you can quite often find pasta meals included in the Greek food category without a second thought, and the bean dish which I have always known as Turkish kuru fasülye is also a local staple. Otherwise Crete has all the strengths of the region- wonderful olives, fish and cheeses, and generally all kinds of fresh vegetables and spices. The desserts are of the more Turkish honey sweet variety, like kataifi, but I also encountered small cheese pies which bear a ghastly resemblance to the Hungarian csőröge.

The where to eat part should come as a surprise to no one: try to wander away from the obvious tourist routes and go for tavernas that have at least a couple of locals mingled with the crowd. Because every rule has an exception, one of the best places in Heraklion is located in the very heart of the city, in the Agio Titou square, and happens to be a Turkish fast food- Izmir Kebap. Yes yes, only a hopeless idiot would go for a Turkish kebab place abroad (and not in Turkey), but trust me on this one, it's worth the risk of sounding daft a million times.

What to See. I’ll have to start with a warning: I am most definitely the anti social type of traveler who avoids tourist attractions like the plague. The only such place I ventured to on Crete was the Minoan palace of Knossos, and I paid for it dearly, having to put up with the oafish behaviour of barbaric hordes of tourists. It would probably make the whole visit a lot more comfortable if everyone wishing to enter would be submitted to a quick test of Ancient Greek history and mythology, and only those who passed would be allowed to enter. The rest could eventually be signed up for a short chase by the Minotaur and then sent on their way to never return. This would of course be financially catastrophic for the island of Crete, so there we were, among people who don’t even look at the place, but snap non stop selfies to be immediately uploaded to Instagram: Idiot with Vase, early 21st century.

Idiots put aside, the place is absolutely wonderful to anyone with a genuine interest in Ancient history. It’s not a spectacular place by any means, but I was excited giddy at the thought of Minoans building such a complex structure at a time when my part of the world was inhabited by wild deer and possibly one or two inebriated Thracians.

Heraklion is basically a humbug, but one can spend a pleasant enough evening walking the whole length of the pier in the Venetian port, occasionally spotting plane and boat action and listening to the distant roar of an open air concert performed by what could very well be the Cretan cousin of Avicii. (That man will haunt me to my grave.)

The old cities of Chania and Rethymno are much more exciting though, with lots of nooks and crannies to be explored- a belated thank you to La Serenissima and the Ottoman Empire for making the Mediterranean an exciting place for future generations by their constant meddling, bickering and conquering this and that, thus producing a fabulous mixture of cultures. This was most probably lost on their contemporaries, who saw them as the never ending nuisance that they were, but time has this gift of painting over the ugly parts. Another exciting escape on the northern shore is Agios Nikolaos, which is postcard pretty and claims the fame of featuring in the BBC series Lotus Eaters, and generally being a darling of the European jet set in the 60s and 70s. 

All these places on the north coast are connected by the famous E75 European route, which begins to the east of Agios Nikolaos, in the town of Sitia, and goes all the way to Vardø in Norway involving two ferry crossings in the process (Chania to Athens and Gdynia to Helsinki) and also passing through the fair city of Budapest. 

There's of course so much more to see and do, but one week is definitely not enough for an island the size of Crete (another useful tip here, I'm on a roll), especially if you want to give yourself time to enjoy the beaches as well. And yes, because we shun the mainstream, we did not make it to either Elafonisi (the Barbie pink beach) or Vai (the palm tree beach), but Crete is just too good not to go back- so probably, one day, we'll simply have to give in. 

Cretan Days Have Twenty Five Hours- Greek Holiday Part Two

This is the post in which we’re emulating the (former) Top Gear cast and pretending to give useful and practical advice on a variety of subjects, while still actually pursuing our personal agenda of silliness and what not. So here it goes, touristy review of (the north coast of) Crete, the logistical edition.

How to get there. Sunday’s post had plenty of airport input, so yes, flying is probably option A to be considered. There are two main airports on the island, in Heraklion and Chania, and there are plenty of charter flights to both from pretty much everywhere in Europe. Since we’re Budapest based, Wizz also flies direct from the airport formerly known as Ferihegy to Heraklion in high season, on Sundays. In retrospect, we could say that flying charter to Chania could have been a better option, as Heraklion is frankly a bit of a letdown. I would hazard saying it’s as ugly as its airport, but there are actually one or two arguments in it’s favour, which we’ll touch upon later.

In case you feel particularly adventurous, you can take a Minoan lines ferry from the port of Piraeus to Heraklion- the trip lasts an entire night and can be a tad pricey if you don’t go for roughing it on deck for 50 euros. In case you want to bring along your car, you’ll need 80 more euros for a small one, which might or might not pay off in the long run, depending on how long you stay on the island. If you have time to potter about for a month or so (which is probably the minimum needed to see the significant majority of the island’s attractions) , then it definitely makes sense to ferry in your car if you have one.

How to get around. Two basic things: it’s a darn big island and no matter what you choose, there will be at least a bit of chaos involved. Renting a car is probably the best option if you don’t want to binge on local spirits and feel like going off the beaten track, but as already mentioned,  the general outlook of traffic is a bit on the wild side.  There are car rental points in pretty much every touristy area, and prices are mostly similar, so you shouldn’t run into much trouble in the process.

Long distance buses are also a fairly good option, once you get the hang of certain idiosyncrasies of local travel. If for no good reason you’d like to go from one end of the island to another, the ride would last around four hours, but otherwise most connections from one biggish town to another are between one and two and a half hours and will probably involve at least one stop where something will apparently go catastrophically wrong, there will be much bickering in Greek and some extra people (there are always extra people) will be ushered to another mysterious bus arriving from Zeus knows where.

As per the schedule of Heraklion Bus Station A, taking long distance buses also leads to the expansion of the time space continuum, as there's a bus to Malia at 25:00. Hellenic time travel, because why not. And if this wouldn't be enough, I am still totally tickled pink by the practicality of naming the stations A and B- since most streets and squares have totally unfathomable and unpronounceable names of national heroes and the likes, this one is clearly another kindhearted Greek concession to us weak minded foreign travelers.

Where to stay. Well I’ll just be totally useless at this bit, and go for the whatever rocks your boat solution. There’s really something for everyone on the island, from backpacker’s hostels to five star all inclusive dungeons for those who come to Crete to stay by a hotel pool and overeat souvlaki. Due to laziness, we opted for a travel agency package which planted us in Ammoudara next to Heraklion (quite naturally there’s another Ammoudara next to Agios Nikolaos as well), which is probably great if you want to have a fairly decent (albeit often windy) beach right at your doorstep but can get a tad boring in the long run. In retrospect, I would probably opt for a mid range hotel in Rethymno, which has a brilliant beach right next to the old Venetian harbour and great connections to the Eastern side of the island.

I must confess that the main reason why we chose something close to Heraklion was the airport transfer hassle, which cost us an arm and a leg on Corfu, and involved a hygienically challenged cab driver blasting Orthodox liturgies from the car radio. As it often happens, the situation on Crete is slightly different: bus number 6 goes from the airport straight to both long distance bus stations in Heraklion, from where you can catch a ride to about anywhere on the island within one hour. 

Things That Shouldn't Work, But Do- Greek Holiday Part One

Greece has always struck me as one of those things that should not work- but do. Alright, I hear your complaints here, for the sake of all that is holy, they are teetering on the edge of collapse every fortnight. Which is of course true, but there is truth beyond that as well- in spite of the economical crisis everyday life has to go on, and it does, in its own, unique Hellenic way. 

Take Crete airport as a first example. It's tiny, pretty dirty, and soul crushingly hideous- not just plain ugly, like many modern functional buildings can be, no, it's horrendous, a dingy concoction of concrete and plastic that would probably have the ancient Minoans weep themselves into oblivion if they laid eyes on it. If some ancient volcanic eruption hadn't pretty much wiped their civilization off the map, one look at Nikos Kazantzakis airport would probably do the trick instead. Being ugly is of course one thing, but the whole undertaking looks mindbogglingly unpromising when it comes to the business of sorting passengers and luggage, performing security checks, and handling the rather precise and complex kerfuffle of air travel in general. The approach itself is one of those hair raising projects Mediterraneans love to come up with for the entertainment of befuddled continental pilots- you hover over land, then some rocky bits, sea again, sea getting ever closer, oh Lord we will soon touch it with our wheels, but no, here comes a measly strip of concrete with more holes in it than a Romanian county road and there, we landed. In some pretty spectacular cross wind, mind you, which seems to be the norm in these parts of the world. 

Once landed though, the ahem, well oiled Greek machine wakes up from its morning siesta (yes, trust me, they have it, morning siesta, lunch siesta, afternoon siesta, evening siesta, and night siesta, which we silly continental Europeans call sleep) and snaps into spectacular action. We are quickly ushered into buses, delivered into the stomach of the concrete beast, our luggage promptly pops up on the conveyor belt and off we can go into the sublime heat of the Cretan morning. Since I am a bit of an air travel fiend, I must make a parenthesis here to mention our carrier, the charter specialists Travel Service, whose pilot did a grand job of the rather tricky landing and whose on-board food was far better than most I've had this year, and that includes some pretty big names in the flying business. So there goes our seal of approval for Travel Service and back we are to Nikos Kazantzakis the airport, not the writer. 

Departure from it promised to be a more complicated affair, as large numbers of aimless people seemed to be rambling around the hall with no precise idea of who they are, where they are, and most particularly why they are there. But this is something Greeks are utterly familiar with, it seems, because we soon found ourselves rather uneventfully at our departure gate. That is, most people did, minus the three to five idiots on each flight who usually got lost in the labyrinthine pleasures of the duty free shop and failed to show up on time. This did not faze the airport personnel either, as they patiently gathered these utterly lost souls- I must express my particular admiration for the young lady who valiantly spelled out the most phonetically diverse names possible over the loud speakers. 

To give some measure of these accomplishments, once landed on the airport I will forever call Ferihegy, we were greeted by the surreal sight of a plane load of Lufthansa luggage being piled up in front of the lost and found desk, with two sad faced girls rather hopelessly sorting through them. Now, I do not know who is to blame for the mishap (it's pretty scary to think it was the Germans, actually), but it sure looked like a fine cock up, which is particularly unsettling given the measly amount of flights the airport formerly known as Ferihegy has to deal with since the untimely and sad demise of the Hungarian national carrier. As a completely useless but exciting snippet of information, one of Malev's last incidents took place on Nikos Kazantzakis out of all places, with the plane's tail hitting the asphalt during landing.

The longish airport story is of course partially fulled by my already mentioned air travel fiendness, but I do believe it is quite symptomatic overall for the Greek way- it's all a grand mess that should not sort itself out, but eventually does. Take traffic as another example- if you want to be thoroughly entertained, google travel blogs in pretty much any language, and sooner or later you will find long, expletive ridden descriptions of Greek driving. Well, to be frank, driving is probably a euphemism for the kind of complex, absolutely irrational and borderline life threatening undertaking happening on Greek roads. Traffic rules and indicators are blatantly disregarded, any vehicle or pedestrian can make the most unexpected move at the most unexpected time, and some coastal roads seem to have been planned explicitly as news fodder for being yet another highway to hell. Yet in spite of this, naturally, there is a very low number of implements actually shooting out into the great wide open, which is further proof that in it's inexplicable way, the Greek system is surprisingly functional. I was frozen stiff with horror when in the centre of Heraklion (or Iraklio, since transliteration to the Latin is yet another approximative and not fully regulated project) a woman confidently pushed a pram into the middle of intense afternoon traffic and peacefully progressed from one lane to another with the calmest and most serene look on her face. Needless to say, she made it to the other side completely unharmed- it's probably one of those skills that is exclusive to the locals, and any foreigner who might attempt it will most probably become the next moron on a long list of people repatriated by their consulate with broken limbs and shattered confidence. 

In case driving in these conditions is not your cup of Greek coffee, here comes the great news that buses are actually mostly on time. Not that anyone knows their precise schedule, but once you get used to a particular line you will realize how certain points are reached regularly at pretty much the same times. I do however have the nagging suspicion that locals do indeed know the schedule, but simply find it the kind of esoteric information that non Greeks will be unable to fully comprehend and process- as a general rule, Greek instructions are always leafier than English ones, which is either because Greek fonts are Greekly comfortable and like to take up more space, or we're just not being told some stuff. Like when, finally making some sense of the insanity of Heraklion's centre, we made it to the long distance bus station and asked for a ticket to Rethymno, we were given one and then explained that we will need to undertake a complicated transfer procedure to another bus at some random point in the city, which will be forcefully yelled at us by one of the always seemingly irritated drivers. This seemed fair enough until the evening, when our bus arrived back at a completely different station and we discovered that the city has two main ones, aptly named A and B, situated within walking distance of each other. Given the fact that we were amply on time in the morning, my natural reaction would have been to send anyone in my situation to the other station to catch a direct connection instead of the whole transfer business. But then again, I'm not Greek. 

Now this might seem as (not so) veiled criticism of the Greek way, and that might sound silly from someone coming from a Balkan land of admittedly similar disposition, but I must insist it isn't. I am sincerely amazed and entertained during any Greek stay by how they go about things. During the detailed and exhausting press coverage of the latest Greek near bankruptcy, I saw a graffiti which read 'Europe without Greece is like a party without drugs' and I cannot agree more. Just who the hell actually wants a bus arriving with Teutonic precision during their holiday? Being on time to the beach ruins the whole fun. It IS probably a tad infuriating when the same treatment is applied to some sophisticated monetary agreement, but luckily I am not the head of the IMF to bother with such petty details.

That's probably enough deep analysis for one day, so here come the pictures, mostly of the adventurously approached Rethymno- spelled as Rethimno as well, because why not.