After a ridiculously short flight of fifty minutes, I’m now on the island of Rhodes. This particular group of islands right off the coast of Turkey is known as the Dodecanese islands. Flying was a much better option than an eleven hour ferry. Rhodes is best known for its almost completely intact medieval old town. Most of what you see in Rhodes today was built by the Knights Hospitaller in the 14th century. It was a very important base of…
The ferry times to and from Milos are not at all convenient. I left at around 2pm and arrived on the the next island at 7pm, checked into my hostel, grabbed dinner, and got ready to explore the next morning. Now, welcome to Chania on Greece’s biggest island of Crete. I’m starting my exploration of Crete on a Sunday, everything is usually closed on Tuesdays, and it’s Christmas week, so I’m making a mad dash to all of the places…
The airport in Athens is about twenty miles out of town. Thankfully, they have a good metro system and a train that goes all the way to the terminals. I hopped on a little plane and was off to explore some of those famous Greek islands, starting with the Cyclades. I’ve already been to a few Greek islands on this trip, but the remainder of my Greek adventure will be all island hopping. Naxos Greece has a total of around…
I know, that was my first thought too. That’s a lot of vowels! Ha! Heading east from Delphi I made my way to the big and narrow island of Euboea. Access to the island is really easy, you just drive across a short bridge into the city of Chalcis and there you are. I’m not staying in Chalcis, but I did stop for a minute to check out the archeology museum there. The museum focused on the culture of the…
Just a short drive north from Nafplio and I’m in another ancient and famous Greek city, Corinth. It struck me recently that when I was young and learning about the history of this region, the true stuff and the mythology, the stories are so epic, the cities are epic, the characters are epic, but it all took place in such a teeny tiny little patch of earth. The cities are pretty small, Greece is pretty small. It’s really messing with…
It was a pretty short drive from Sparta to my next stop in Nafplio on the Argolic Gulf. So short that I had plenty of time to explore a couple of sites on the way. This region is the home of the really ancient Mycenaean culture. I had to drive up and over some mountains to get here which gave me some pretty incredible views on the way down. I first stopped to take a quick look at ancient Argos,…
After my early morning ferry ride from Corfu back to the mainland, it was a fairly quick drive to my next stop in Lefkada. There was plenty of time to see some sights along the way, so that’s what I did. Roughly half way to my destination were the ruins of the Necromanteion, a former temple dedicated to Hades and Persephone, the god and goddess of the dead. The temple was built in the 3rd century BC, but was destroyed…
Leaving Ioannina my first thought was that it was nice to be driving on a straight road for a change. Ha! I left early and drove for about an hour to the ferry port in Igoumenitsa, then drove my little car that doesn’t smell like it’s burning onto a very big ferry bound for the island of Corfu out in the Ionian Sea. After about an hour and a half I was in Corfu Town. It was still early when…
Just a couple of short train rides, first north to Brindisi for a quick connection and now I’m in Matera, one of the oldest inhabited places on earth. One source I read claims that it’s the third longest inhabited place on earth. How they know that is beyond me, but in any case, civilization has been in this spot for around 7000 to 8000 years. A long long time! It was afternoon when I arrived, so I only had time…
When I said in my last post that I was going to spend a whole day on a bus, I meant a whole day. I had to make my way from Sicily in the west all the way to the Salentine Peninsula (Italy’s boot heel) in the east. I left Catania about 930am. The most exciting thing that happened was the ferry crossing from Sicily to the mainland. About 530pm I arrived in Taranto for a four hour layover. So…