Rhodes — our 6th and final island of this month-long tour in Greece. Rhodes was the only island that I had visited before. Ferda and I arrived by ferry from Heraklion and met Ferda’s parents who arrived on the ferry from Fethiye. It was her father’s first time out of Turkey. We walked together to the bus station and went straight to Lindos the same day they arrived.
In the top right of that photo (above) is the Lindos acropolis, “a natural citadel which was fortified successively by the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Knights of St John and the Ottomans” (wikipedia). Here’s another view of the acropolis from the north.
The impetus for this whole trip to Greece (in June!) was my cousin Andrew’s invitation to the house that he rented for a month in Emprosneros. I did a little research and learned that Crete has some nice walking opportunities. People particularly recommend the Samaria and Imbros gorges which are conveniently on the western part of the island not so far from where we were staying. After Ferda and my rather enjoyable spring Likya and Zengibar walking tours, I put together a four-day walking tour from Imbros to Xyloskala via both the aforementioned gorges, staying the nights in Hora Sfakion, Loutro, and Agia Roumeli. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Somehow the only ones Ferda and I were able to convince to join us were my cousin’s kids, Philip and Antonia. Anyone’s who older might be a little more sensible than to think it’s a good idea to walk around Crete in the summer?
The only photo I have of the four of us is at the end of the walk.
So now you know — we survived and are even still smiling after four days together.
Andrew greatly facilitated the transportation by dropping us off at the top of Imbros Gorge on the first morning and picking us up at the top of Samaria Gorge at the end. That meant we didn’t get an early start the first day, but Imbros Gorge is a short, casual walk — about 3.5 hours all the way to Hora Sfakion.
The ferry from Santorini arrived in Heraklion at 3am. Charming. Oliver and I pedaled out of the city and slept for a couple hours in the large paved Knossos parking lot. Also charming. In addition, of the month I spent in Greece, the hottest days were my first two days on Crete with high temperatures of 38°C. What a way to start bicycle touring on Crete! Don’t be discouraged, however. I cycled about a week on Crete, and I quite liked it.
Knossos is a Minoan palace. Excavation started in 1900 when archaeologists knew a lot less than they do now. Restoration/reconstruction, apparently conducted largely by a fellow named Evans, was, to put it generously, haphazard. For example, repainted Minoan artwork is not necessarily (ever?) in the room where it was actually discovered. This makes visiting the site kind of strange because I wasn’t sure what to believe. Also, it was too hot and too crowded.
For some time Oliver has been saying that he’d like to go on a bicycle tour. The timing was perfect for him, but I warned him that it wouldn’t be easy — unpleasant ferry times and too much heat. Who would want to cycle the Greek islands in June anyway? Well, I had plans to meet my cousin and his family in Crete so why not make a little trip out of it? It was Oliver’s first bicycle tour, and what turned out to be difficult for him wasn’t the heat but the hills. The climbs were not very long or very steep (for me), but it’s quite different if you’re not used to it.
We started with a bus from Antalya to Bodrum, camped one night, and got the ferry the next morning to Kos. We spent about 12 hours in Kos, but that was our choice. Within Greece the reasonably-priced ferries (Blue Star and similar) seem to run once or twice a week so you take what you can get. As an example there are daily ferries between Santorini and Crete for about 93 euro/person, or you wait for Blue Star (on Wednesday or Friday only) for 16 euro/person. On the other hand, the ferries between Turkey and Greece mostly run daily and are all expensive so we could have stayed in Kos as many days as we liked (by arriving earlier).
To get to the start of our Zengibar Yolu walk Ahmet, Ferda, and I drove from Antalya to Konya. A number of things seemed familiar to me. We drove the new Derebucak road which I had bicycled before it was turned into a highway. We had a sazan balığı (carp) lunch in Beyşehir, a stop Ferda and I enjoyed before on a bicycle tour. On that same tour Ferda and I were disappointed that Çatalhöyük was closed. We had a little better luck this time. And of course we’d been to Konya before.
Just like last time the fish tasted better than it looked.
Above the modern village of Fasıllar (ancient Misthia (aka Mistea, aka Claudiocaesarea)) we find this 70-ton Hittite (from the 14th century BCE) carved block with a couple lions.
