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…
My next and final stop in Crete is in the largest city on the island, Heraklion. This is also where I’ll be ringing in the New Year. The Christmas music hasn’t stopped unfortunately. Anyway, this post is light on sites, but rich in hostel drama. Excited? Don’t be, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but here we go. Heraklion has a pretty awesome Archeology Museum. All the cool artifacts from most of the ancient sites ended up here. I…
Making my way east across Crete, my next stop is the town of Rethymno. This city was built almost entirely by the Venetians in the 13th century. Even though it’s a bit sprawling, it feels like more of a small town to me. There’s not a lot going on here, but there were some interesting sites in town. My first stop was the Archeology Museum. Right outside was this, what I assume is a Venetian Gate. There was no information…
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…
I had quite the odyssey getting from Eleusis into Athens. I don’t know if the traffic is always like that or if it was bad luck because of an accident, but holy crap! There was a lot of sitting still, eventually an illegal U-turn and an epic reroute (thanks to my excellent map skills), driving every crazy residential back alley in the suburbs, until I finally finished my twelve mile drive in just over three hours. Whew, I don’t ever…
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…
After a VERY early morning ferry and some long driving I made it back to where I started, sort of, Thessaloniki, on the Thermaic Gulf and Greece’s second largest city. So far, every town I’ve visited in this country has the craziest streets. They’re steep and they twist and turn in ways that seem to make absolutely no sense. Plus alleys and staircases taking off in a million different directions. It can be very confusing and it makes for some…
The next stop on my Australian adventure is gonna give me a little break from all the hiking. It also marks the start of seeing a new state, Queensland. Welcome to Brisbane! It’s Australia’s third city, at least that’s what I heard it referred to as. There’s really not a whole lot to see here, but I thought there was enough to spend a day wandering around the city. I actually spent three days here, but only one exploring the…
G’day and welcome to Sydney, the capital of New South Wales and what is probably Australia’s most famous city. I arrived into the city late afternoon and discovered that driving in downtown Sydney is not fun at all. After missing one turn, several inconvenient one way roads, and a couple of no right turn here intersections, I suddenly found myself driving across the Harbor Bridge and having to make a ten mile loop around the outskirts of the city before…
I left the Snowy Mountains that didn’t have any snow yet and headed northeast through some really beautiful grassland until I reached the Australian Capital Territory. It’s a smallish territory created specifically to encompass Australia’s capital city, Canberra. I wanted to see the capital, of course, but I was most excited about all the museums. I started at the main one, the Australian National Museum. Right in the lobby was the Muttaburrasaurus, Australia’s own native dinosaur. They named it that…