Ahhhh, if only! It’s hard to come back to the rainy English summer after sun, heat, more sun and Alfa beer!
Greece was amazing and expensive. The Euro is not the best currency to be trading dollars for, that’s for sure! Nevertheless, we still managed to have a pretty great time.
Rhodes has an interesting mix of travelers – lots of Eastern Europeans, lots of families, lots of party peeps on holidays in Faliraki (Chavtastic!). I’m not exactly sure where I fit into that mix – I certainly wasn’t there to party Faliraki style.
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| Toes (almost) in the water! |
One of the best ideas we had was to rent a car to see the island. It was a blast being able to get a little bit off the beaten path and see parts of the island that were a little less touristy and a little more Greek. Although no matter where you went on the island, everything is served with chips (French fries) – omelets and chips, souvlaki and chips, chips and chips, you name it, it came with chips. So my dreams of more traditional Greek food were dashed. But this glimpse into a less touristy Greece was very worthwhile.
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| Windward Beaches |
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| Beautiful Water |
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| Old Silk Factory |
Rhodes is not a very large island and it’s possible to drive the perimeter of the island in about 2 hours or so. (Of course with Paul driving that 2 hours is knocked down to about 45 minutes). It’s dry and hot but agriculture dominates the landscape particularly olives, grapes and watermelon. Goats are everywhere. And man is it windy! But the water is clear blue perfection and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such amazing shades of blue.
Rhodes Town is very touristy – and amazingly there’s not a lot of fanfare for the Colossus. The old town is certainly a very cool place to visit with lots of winding ‘streets’ and walkways, most of which are impassable to anything but scooters. Since I wrote about our little visit to Rhodes Town earlier I’m just going to include the pictures that I took now.
Lindos was one of the most interesting places we went. It is an old Greek town which was built over the years on the ancient ruins of Greeks, Romans, Turks and Byzantines. Needless to say the city is chaotic! You get lost in the streets, winding around trying to find the acropolis. The acropolis itself is part Greek, part Ottoman, part everything else but has a spectacular view of the bay and the city below. It certainly is a tourist spot – but it is possible to find some genuinely good places to spend time at. I bought an amazing piece of pottery there which is hand made by a mother and daughter.
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| Streets in Lindos |
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| Best 'iced coffee' ever! Strong coffee with vanilla ice cream. Mmmm. |
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| It's all Greek to me! |
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| Olive tree on the Acropolis |
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| Olives |
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| Acropolis at Lindos |
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| Grapes! |
Did I mention it was hot?
On the last day, I finally found good, amazing baklava at a tiny bakery about 2 miles from our hotel. Apparently it is a special treat and not a particularly summery food but the bakery had had a few requests and had made a small pan. It was delicious. I had it for dinner. I had it for breakfast. And I didn’t feel guilty about it at all.
Ok that's it for now - this blog has taken too long to write. Of course if I hadn't been distracted by curry and beer, I might have gotten it done quicker!
More to come!
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