Greece summary

Top 10:
1 Non Greek meal
2 Pregnant or recently pregnant one eyed cats
3 Rainy days
4 Kittens
5 Times we psychically wanted to order the same thing.
6 Orders or aubergine imam.
7 Times we peed on ourselves. (Much more common when you squat everywhere.)
8 Orders of bad wine. White, red. It doesn't matter.
9 Alcoholic beverages on the night before my birthday- each.
10 Comments about how clear the water was.

For your entertainment I broke down Nicole's and my budget. However it does not include personal purchases such as clothes and whatnot. We spent accordingly:
7% Coffee and liquor
22% Hotel and hostel
27% Transport (not including airfare)
43% Food
Thank you all for reading about Greece! Gritseis! (I wish you all health.)

Sifnos- By Nicole

After a short ferry ride, we got off the boat in Sifnos in the port town of Kamares. Ok, town might be an exaggeration. The entire island has a population of only 2,500 so Kamares' collection of whitewashed houses, apartments and hotels straggling up the hill from the port and curving around the shallow, clear beach is actually best described as a village. Our hotel room was the biggest yet, with high ceilings, a small kitchen and a balcony overlooking the bay. We got situated and then set out to do what we do best – eat. We got and ice cream and walked around, checking out our dinner options. We later ate our most disappointing meal of the trip next to a loud table of 20 Germans. After all the Greek food we had been eating, not one dish was better than mediocre and the wine was hardly drinkable. We decided to call it an early night.
The next morning we finally ate rich and creamy Greek yogurt in a form other than Tzatziki, enjoying it with roasted almonds, Thyme honey and apples (Sara) or bananas (Nicole) on our balcony. Our plan for the day: explore the island and find a restaurant worthy of celebrating Sara's birthday the next day (we didn't want a repeat of the previous night's disappointing dinner).
We drove to the capital of the island, Apollonia (which I then spent the rest of the trip confusing with Pollonia on Milos) and decided to head directly to Kastro, an old walled village nearby with nice views and a well-known jewelry maker. There were a few adorable cafés at the entrance to the village, but we walked on and quickly became slightly disoriented in the empty, serpentine pedestrian streets. Like Venice, only with out water and people, we walked in circles, not really sure what we were looking for, but not finding anything anyway. The few natives in the village were painting and renovating and the only others out and about were a group of German tourists in sturdy hiking boots. It felt like a ghost town. We did stumble upon the jewelry maker who was busy renovating, painting and unpacking in preparation for the tourist season – he told us he would be ready to open in four days, but we could still come in and look at his wares. He made beautiful things and I believe him when he told us that his prices for gold jewelry were so much better than the competition and for 18k and his quality, etc., but that unfortunately didn't change the fact that
neither Sara nor I were in the market for rings over 500 Euros (+40% = USD). We headed back down to the cafés for our daily iced coffee.
Our next stop was Vathy, a small resort town (village) to check out the chi-chi hotel and restaurant, but decided that, while the food was probably good, it felt too lifeless. As there was nothing else to see there aside from a few German and French tourists rocking the European Speedo look on the small beach, we headed on to start looking for lunch. We ended up back in Apollonia to find everything closed and the only lunch option was "toast" (grilled-cheese sandwich of sorts) or cheese pie at a café or the one taverna that was open. Tired, annoyed and hungry, we went for the taverna and ate food that was just ok with service that was less than enthusiastic. Although the island hardly has any roads to choose between, we managed to get turned around on the way back down to Kamares. Sara then sat down to update the blog and I went for a walk, determined to check out all of Kamares' restaurants to find the ONE for the next evening. Walking around the bay, it was painfully obvious that we were a month "too" early – all the vacation rentals were still borded up, the shelves of mini-market promising organic and gluten-free products were bare and the beach
bars empty. It was a nice walk and I found a place to eat later – Delphini. That evening we dined on stuffed eggplant, slightly fishy swordfish and freshly made spinach pie. As an alternative to ouzo, raki found its way to our table again as our digestive after than meal. We then met up with some of the locals for a few drinks at the Old Captain, a beach bar across from our hotel where we rung in Sara's 30th (oh wait, I mean 25th) birthday with vodka tonic, lemon drops, blow jobs and something else......before moving the party up to our balcony to toast with our own concoction of Sparkling Christmas Raki (the cinnamon-honey raki we found on Crete plus Martini Spumanti sparkling wine) – much to the displeasure of our Swiss neighbors who asked us to move the party inside as they were sleeping with the balcony door open. Ooops.
The next day we took things slow, enjoying an iced coffee in the shade of some juniper trees on the beach of the little fishing village Faros while talking about what 30 meant to both of us and our hopes and dreams for this next year. We spent the hot afternoon curled up with our books (as Sara had a migraine headache) and then had a low-key yet tasty Italian dinner of Strozzopreti in a slightly spicy tomato sauce with Italian sausage and Peccorino Romano – our first non-Greek food in nearly 2 weeks.
We awakened the next morning to torrential rain – the Greek islands must have been sad to see us go! We packed up, dashed across the street through the rain to have breakfast at a covered café and then the sun came back out for our ferry trip back to Athens. We returned to a hot Athens just in time to dash into the Poet Sandalmaker's workshop to pick up another pair of the sandals which had served us so well over the last 14 days (I still have the tan lines on my feet!) before heading to our old room at the hotel in Plaka. We had dinner at the Taverna with the yummy okra and chicken and then returned to the hostel to lie awake in the dark listening to younger folk playing drinking games in the hotel courtyard below.

Our last morning in Greece included Gyros for breakfast, two of the worst (sweetest) coffees of our trip and a mad dash for last minute purchases before heading to the airport to fly back to Frankfurt (via Paris). We almost got stuck in Athens when the flight computer crashed, but after over 1.5 hour delay, they got us up and running just in time to barely miss our connecting flight in Paris. Air France put us on the last flight to Frankfurt and we finally arrived at my apartment without losing any luggage at 1030pm, tired, hungry, and missing the islands a little bit, but happy not to be on the road any longer.

Milos 2- By Nicole

Our second day in Milos started with going to rent a car so that we could explore the island. When we returned to Ioanna Pension, our host greeted us with "Potatoes! I give you potatoes!" We followed him to his field and he dug out a bunch of beautiful golden potatoes directly from the earth. He then proceeded to give us freshly picked lemons and fresh eggs from the chickens we could here clucking behind out room. We asked him how many cats he had – 25 – and then he announced: "I show you NEW cats!" and marched around a shed to proudly present 3 very cute little kittens guarded by their wary, one eyed momma. ("I show you new cats" became our phrase of choice for the rest of the trip!)
After oooh-ing and aaaah-ing over the kittens, we took off to explore the island. On the map, the island's roads are color-coded red (paved), yellow (not paved, bad condition – not allowed by our car rental company) and black (walking paths) so we headed toward Pollonia (red roads) to see what we might find along the way. After a few tries, we found one of the archeological sites marked on the map (Filakopi). What we also found there was an amazing little inlet carved into the soft sandstone cliffs – a sheltered little beach roped off in an attempt to discourage the curious from
climbing down to soft stone to the sand to peer out through the archway of rock separating the beach from open seas. Well, no one was there, so we climbed on down and took a look around! Very cool! All sorts of things carved into the sandstone walls and the water lapping gently at the beach.
After climbing back out before we were discovered, we checked out the archeological site – what to the uninformed looks to be carefully stacked rock walls among the undergrowth turned out to be the remains of a bronze-age Minoan town where some interesting pottery, statues and tablets had been found over the years. Not much the wiser, we returned to the car and decided to make crowns out of the local wild flowers: status. We picked our bunches and set off in the car in search of a suitable location to make our crowns. We found a little inlet half encircled by about 8 deserted summer cottages with a tiny fishing boat floating in the middle. It didn't look real – everything was so small and quaint it felt as if you had stepped into a fairy world. Perfect place to make our flower crowns!
We returned to civilization (Pollonia) crowned in our wreaths to find a place to eat lunch. We turned a lot of heads with our flower crowns, two of which belonged to the taverna owners where we decided to have lunch amid exclamations of "Brava!" and questions as to where we had out lovely wreaths. To the delight of the taverna owner, Sara wrote down our order in Greek and then we dined on some of the best Eggplant Imam, yummy fried baby calamari (I got to eat the tentacles because they were too icky for Sara), fresh Greek salad and decent white wine. This day was not even over and it was already my favorite day of this trip! What more can you want than beautiful sunshine, magical flower crowns, fun discoveries, lots of laughing with Sara (I show you new cats!) and really good food? I don't know – maybe what we did the rest of the day: got a little bit lost on the possibly not allowed yellow (unpaved) roads, picked wild sage and thyme while wondering what that buzzing noise was (we were really close to a rather large collection of little blue beehive boxes – one of the sources of the very delicious wild flower and thyme honey we had during our stay) and deciding to enjoy another delectable meal at the same taverna for dinner that night :-)
Our last morning on Milos, we made a wonderful breakfast of our hosts' edible gifts seasoned with fresh thyme from the hillside. We then relaxed for a bit after taking the car back (Sara schmoozed with the kittens and I took pictures of the room and ground so that I can rate this great place on Tripadvisor!) and then our host brought us to the ferry – next stop Sifnos!

Milos

We were picked up by a charming man in Milos. He packed us into his newish Honda and drove us out of town a bit to his home which had a rentable in-law unit. His house was surrounded by his farm where he grew potatoes, onions, squash, tomatoes, melons, artichokes and peppers- to name a few. Our space had a tiny kitchen and we were excited to cook dinner. When I saw that he had a basket of artichokes he told us to take two. He then gave us zucchini. He promised in the morning he would give us potatoes.
We left our things and walked into town for dinner as the store was closed and we couldn't get ingredients to make anything ourselves. We ordered house white, tzatsiki, bitter greens and a fresh fish from the grill. The tzasiki was sparkly. As it was old. When we told him he suck his finger in it to taste it. Then stuck the same finger in again. He pronounced it just fine and told us it was the vinegar they put it it. Ehw.
The fish was amazing. AMAZING. The local cats seemed to think so as well. They hung around including a pregnant one eyed cat.
We headed home and slept well.

Ios

A couple things I neglected to mention in Heraklio:
The night of our dinner Nicole- having already drunk some wine- asked the waited how bad the house red was. He gave us a sample and we ordered a bottle.
A thought on the greens that we ate throughout the islands:
Bitter, but I would still rather eat the Stamnigatha (stewed greens) than nettles.

Our ferry to Ios was uneventful. We arrived at the port at 12:30pm. It was slightly rainy and smelled of Central Oregon when it rains. Fresh and somehow warm. We were picked up by a young British guy named Ben who drove us to the central part of town. From there we carried our luggage to the hostel where we were staying. Rain water was running down the white washed alleys. It was a nice place with a great view. We left in search of lunch which was challenging as most places were closed. I was surprised how many bars there were. Clearly that island is for partying. There had to be at least 15 bars. Lunch was good. Dinner was better although their Aubergine Imam was very salty.
We played cards on the terrace until we got too chilled and then went inside. We had planned on going out with a group from the hostel but we were 5 minutes too late and although we walked around, we couldn't find them.
he next day we had an amazing breakfast and headed down to the beach. The rain had left a rich earthy scent behind. We walked around and enjoyed the sun until we had to leave to catch our ferry.
As might be expected, ferry food is crazy expensive. I paid 2.50 for a small bag of potato chips. The nice thing is that they come in flavors like Oregano, Mediterranean Herbs and Olive Oil.

Crete: Days 2, 3 and 4

We woke up and Cole prepared hard boiled eggs, sliced bread, tea and olives for breakfast. All of which were eaten on the adjoining porch. The day consisted of shopping, window shopping and eating. More amazing food, pictures and stumbling on historic sites. We decided that Hania was so charming we couldn't bare to part with it and extended our stay another night. We were transferred to a different room. The shower head was much better. We enjoyed out last day in Hania walking through the old market and basking in the sun on the beach. Dinner was one of the best. I cannot emphasize enough- If you come to Greece you absolutely must try the stuffed eggplant. So amazing.
A fair over view of Crete would be to say,"Watch out for the free Raki after lunch and dinner." It may come with dessert and be in an adorable bottle but that stuff is like lighter fluid. Ask Nicole. Being adverse to wasting alcohol she obligingly drank mine when I could not. This is perhaps why her dwarf name was Dopey.
We left for Heraklio in the "early" morning but missed the bus we intended to take. A stroke of luck since I really wanted a pic of the fish market...
Two and a half hours later we got to the major port city. Very cityish.
We dropped off our luggage and left directly for Knossos. The ancient Minoan palace. Luckily it was a free admittance day so we sprang for the guided tour. Our guide was struggling with her English and ended up repeating each sentence at least twice if not three times. After the tour we partook of some of the most expensive orange juices on the planet.
Returning downtown we took in some of the sights and stopped for a luxurious coffee with Baileys break.
We then trekked back to the hotel where we opened our replacement bottle of red from Hania. Dinner was very good.
The next morning we left for Ios.
Top 10 Crete:
1 Missed bus
2 Shots of Metaxa
3 Layers of sunburn
4 Hours on the beach
5 Carafs of Raki
6 Dwarfs embodied (Sneezy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Dopey, Happy, Bashful)
7 IN.KA markets
8 (.5) hours on the ferry from Athens
9 Times we commented on how clear the water was
10 + visits to the internet cafe.(Refer to #5)

Crete- Day 1

Our ferry left for Crete at 9:15pm. We came prepared with an already opened bottle of red wine, playing cards and reading material. Not much to say other than it was a long trip and we tried to sleep on the same couch. We arrived at the port near Hania around 5:30am. A bus ride later we were manuevering through the steets looking for the proper street names, lugging what seemed like an excess of baggage. A key had been hidden outside our pension so we were able to drop off our stuff and leave. We brought along a sleeping bag, some remaining pitas and a can of large white beans in tomato sauce. Chilly, we ate out breakfast from a can and watched the ocean.
We had been told that out room would be available at 10am. However- upon meeting up with the owner we discovered we had until noon. Making a quick change in a spare room we headed out to the beach. There we enjoyed a freddo cappuccino and the view. Laying in the perfect sunshine was all we needed to jumpstart out day. We returned to the pension, got our room and showered, changed, etc. We then headed down te winding alleys to find a late lunch.
Interesting to know: Crete was at times sahared and fought over between the Venetians and the Turks. As a result there are many mosques and small winding alleys.
Dinner was bread, more beans- they are actually delicious for canned food- and wine which we didn't drink as it was corked.