Settling in for Xmas in Crete

Approaching Crete or is it Vancouver Island

So it was only one storm but it left an impression on us. Really we've had very good weather and not much rain at all. We left Santorini early Saturday morning 4: 25 am but really it was 5:30 am because the ferry was an hour late. It was windy and Gabriele will admit that she was a little nervous in light of the weather we'd had. But we found a central location and although the crossing was a little rocky it was uneventful.... she's experienced worse crossing Hecate Strait. We arrived in Iraklio (Heraklio) at 10:30 am, 18 degrees, clear skies with a gentle breeze off the ocean.

Throne room in Knossos

We did the last of our Xmas shopping in Iraklio...... western consumerism has caught on.......”city sidewalks, busy sidewalks” everyone loaded down with Xmas shopping. We jostled along with the crowds soaking up the atmosphere ....not the least bit stressed. We were led to believe Xmas isn't that big here., they don't exchange gifts until January 1, so they can enjoy shopping a little longer and alot of people do seem to enjoy shopping. Sometimes you'd like to be a shopper but you do have to think twice when you know you have to carry it home and you already have to much in the backpack. So we did laundry instead .... important to have clean clothes for Xmas.

Appreciating the perfect Minoian male

Visited Knossos the Minoan Palace outside of Heraklion. Site of the first recorded flush toilet. Only it didn't have a handle to push, just relied on constant running water. And it is rumoured that the Queen bathed in sheep's milk and honey rather than water. 

Chania pronouced "Hania" lighthouse

We then bussed it to Chania, the Venetian port on western Crete. Had thought that we would spend Xmas there, but it was way too noisy and felt too much like a tourist hub. (If you ever meet a front man working for a restaurant that say's he has cousins in Canada, run away quickly.) We're tired of being tourists so we hightailed it out of there to find a more rural setting to celebrate Xmas. 

We are now in the middle of an olive grove outside of Kissamos. Situated between tiny villages that seem to go back to back. You leave one village behind to simply enter another. We have views of the sea and moutains, much more our style. And quiet, we're back to listening to roosters crow and dogs bark rather than people yelling, motorcyles roaring oh and our all time favorite: church bells ringing. Have we mentioned the large number of churches per capita in Crete.

Enjoying the crystal clean aqua blue waters

Holiday...... crazy shoppers.

Crystal clear aqua blue water

Went swimming today at one of the most beautiful beaches in western Crete which by the way we had all to our selves.... wonder what everyone else was doing. A lot of the locals were busy picking olives but we thought there would be a few others enjoying the beach on such a beautiful winter day. In the summer these beaches are packed.

Ahhh... the endless beaches (note lack of tourists)

Gabriele and Dave's travel tip number 201: do not rent a hotel room beside (or near, although this is hard to do in Greece) a church. They all have bell towers You just don't know when they will ring.
Merry Kissamos from Christmas,


The Merry Wanderers

Stairs, Storms and Strikes December 16

Goat pens and Duck ponds

The cutiet Billy (Davey) Goat ever

December 6

Last week we re-located to Halkida, a more urban area. Some might even consider it a suburb of Athens. Halkida is an hour out of Athens on the island of Evia. The Pelion was much quieter and more isolated and instead of walking ancient paths in the mountains we're walking ancient paths pounding the pavement in Athens. Last week was still warm and humid here but today winter arrived.....feels more like fall to me.... it was 5 or 6 this morning which is normal for this time of year.

the nanny goat escaping

 Natalie lives in a two hundred year old farm house that her grandfather had bought as an investment. It used to be surrounded by vineyards, olive groves and orange groves but clearly suburbia has gobbled up a good portion of the original estate. We are using the stakes from the old vineyard to build a goat pen. Last week we moved the compost and this is to become the future duck pond.

No olives but lots of oranges. She still has an orange grove in front of the house and the trees are loaded. We've been squeezing fresh orange juice every morning and eating at least one a day along with learning how to incorporate oranges into our meals and make Greek style jams and marmalades.

Took the bus into Athens yesterday and spent a whole day being a touris,t and we weren't the only ones. There were still tour buses everywhere, the Acroplis was crawling with people ........ if it's this busy in December what must it be like at the height of tourist season, all I can say I'm glad we're here now with a few less tourists. Of course one day is not near enough time but it's good to break these kinds of things into manageable chunks.......so, so much history to digest and make sense of.

The  Plake- tiny little houses directly below the Acropolis

The Acropolis entrance

the theatre

The temple of Zeus as seen from the Acroplolis

 Highlights...the bustling markets, the Plaka with these tiny  whitewashed houses built on top of one another, the Temple of Zeus and of course the Acroplis.

My favourite .....the chandalier

We didn't make it to any museums (hoping to do that next weekend) but you might say we're living in a museum. Natalie's grandfather was a sea faring man and collected things from all over the world in his travels. There is no shortage of interesting things to look at in this home and on the property. They even have a cache of coal ??? maybe Black Peter stops by here in case he needs some for those naughty children???? Natalie's house is all decked out for Xmas already, hope you all are moving into the Xmas season with happy hearts and good cheer. We're thinking of you and hold you all dear in our hearts.

The huka (hooka) pipe I don't know what he's smoking

The Happy Wanderers

Meditation and Olives November 15 - 21st

This should have been posted the week before the last post. Somehow it got stuck as a draft... so I'll publish it now just a little late.... oh well.

So we arrived in Platania by bus Sunday night.... wow these bus drivers can handle some tight corners and narrow streets, I don't know that I would want to drive here. Dimitri met us at the bus and then off we went to his farm in the hills. He is quite isolated 9km from the nearest town, Promiri. Of course it was dark so we couldn't really orient ourselves until morning.

 

 

Our rustic accomodation

  

Sometimes you have to climb the tree. Our host Dimitri in the tree.

We've had six days of olive picking.....I wasn't expecting to work quite so hard. Olive picking is labour intensive work but very satisfying. We start the day at 7:00 am with an hour of meditation and yoga. 8:00 – 8:30 getting ready for the day, feeding the animals etc. 8:30 – 9:30 breakfast and then it's off to pick (raking olives off the tree), sorting and cleaning olives. We usually work until 2:30/3ish and then we have a big dinner, rest for half an hour and then go back to work until it gets dark.

 It still seems strange when we ask Dimitri where he keeps the lemons to be directed to go and pick fresh ones from the garden. The same applies to herbs that grow wild such as rosemary, bay leaves, thyme and anise. We are still able to pick fresh greens for a salad or fresh beets. There are also a fine selection of wild fruits such as medlars and baumbeeren . There would be carrots and artichokes and onions except that the wild pigs got in and rooted them out. Any we think that having deer is bad. The pigs are like mobile undirected freewheeling rototillers that dig up anything remotely edible.

We've been soaking up Vitamin D everyday have had no rain except a brief thunderstorm which passed through very quickly. Temperatures start to be quite warm by 9:00 (20ish), then cool down suddenly after 3:00. I still sometimes think I'm living a dream and will wake up at any moment. 

The Happy Wanderers 

Baumberren a very tasty snack.

Kalderimi, Wood Fired Stoves and more Olives

Kalderimi- Turkish word for cobblestone path

The kalderimi is a network of cobblestone trails that since ancient times connected the mountain villages of the Pelion. We had read about these in the Lonely Planet and had planned to do some hiking along these in our free time. It is after all one of the features of the Pelion. The ``Friends of the Kalderimi`` who are also mentioned in the Lonely Planet maintain the trails.

Dimitri (our host) is a member of this organization so we were lucky enough to join this group for their Sunday hike and to see first hand what they are currently working on to extend this network of trails. Most of the walk was through one olive grove after the next but there are portions where bush whacking is involved. This would be a great project for WWOOFers but we won't take 'that on', not this trip. Really nice people, beautiful day followed by a really great meal.

the bee keeper

             

                                                                                                                                                                                  The whole pennisula seems to be covered in olive groves. Dimitri's grove is small in comparison to most because he is subsistence farming and has a small property. He also has an organic vegetable garden which still needs watering, fruit trees and beehives from which we extracted honey this week.

Liquid gold

mitri keeps 4 hives of bees. Since the weather is still warm the bees are very active. The hives need to be checked regularly, on so Dave was volunteered to assist. A little apprehensive (from a childhood wasp nest experience) Dave stuck a bee keepers hat over his head and joined the buzzing of the bees. We lifted out 16 frames full of honey. Amazingly, the bees are willing to share and only sting if you crush one (which seems easy to do since there are so many of them crawling all over the place, but doesn't happend very often). Breathing a sigh of relief, we then had to extract the honey using, what else, a honey extractor. This is basically a hand powered centrifuge. Insert 4 frames filled with honey, rotate the handle and the honey is sprayed onto the sides of the extractor and is then collected into bowls. We filled 26 1 litre jars with honey that tasted absolutely wonderful. Since there are still plants flowering, the bees aren't lacking for pollen. And how do you go about cleaning this huge extraction device, well you simply give it back to the bees and let them clean up all the mess. The wonders of nature. The humans are stuck cleaning up the spilled honey off the floor with a mop.

Dimitri like many people in Greece, still uses wood as his main energy source. He uses a woodstove for heat and baking. And outside he has a clay oven which he uses for baking bread. This week Dave and I decided to do some baking and were surprised with our results. Dave made a delicious pizza in the clay oven and now wants to build one when we get home. I baked pies in the wood stove. I must admit I was a little apprehensive not being able to control the temperature with a dial. Life is lived at a slower pace in the mountains of the Pelion and we are enjoying this feature along with the fresh olive oil and feta..... simply the best.

The cats like the clay oven too.

Along the kalderimi 

 

 

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The Happy Wanderers

Meteora the Gates to Enlightenment

We arrived in Kastraki “dead” tired.....who planned this trip??

We had just settled into our room when I heard a familiar sound ....buck, buck, cluck, cluck..... walked out onto our balcony and there below us the flock of chickens with several roosters to keep the hens in line. A sigh of relief all is well in the world, it had been a long 24hrs. travelling but here at last.

The view from our balcony.

Kastraki is at the base of the incredible rock formations known as Meteora the sacred cliffs. The grand scale of these is equal to the Rocky Mtns or Gros Morne. Geologists are still uncertain as to how they were actually formed but the theory is that they were carved by a river.

Rock climbers come from all over the world to scale these rock faces.

 

On these rocky outcroppings are six working monasteries. At its height in the 14^th century there were 23 some of them built right into the cliffs but all of them were built as strong holds only accessible by rope ladders. Incredible to think that they hauled all the supplies for building and living up to these heights....we certainly experienced how easy it is to drop materials while working at these heights. They are doing maintenance and construction during the off season, and we were nearly showered by bricks while hiking up a ravine to Varlaam. The libraries in these monasteries are full of archives and artifacts that document the beginnings of the Greek Orthodox church...they have become museums. There is also evidence of habitation in many of the larger caves where monks would live and pray in solitude.

A working monk.....

It amazed us how easy it was to access them by foot. Initially we were told we should take a taxi but then our hostess, a lovely hard working woman, explained the local trails. So we set off with a bottle of water and some biscuits...... six hours later we were ascending down into Kalambaka, exhausted but feeling accomplished, even though we only made it to three of the six monastaries. We promised ourselves we would ease into this adventure ..... no such thing. Hope you're all well so long for now.

Tim, Samantha and Sam opening night.

Nov 9, 2010
We' ll be leaving the country shortly, a good time to reflect on our Halifax visit and play around on the computer.
The last few days have been almost constant rain and not just that pleasant coastal mist some might call rain but horizontal blowing sheets of rain. Dave arrived without a rain jacket... we very quickly remedied that. But this also resulted in more time spent indoors at coffee shops, at the market and at home at Samantha's and not very many pics.

Windhorse Farm the week before the rains.

Also at Windhorse Farm. We picked a whole bag of  chantrelles along these forest paths. 

Samantha and Tim being goofy....

Braved the weather and went over to Dartmouth via the harbour ferry. Had some very good coffee and the rain did take a break Sunday afternoon.

Halifax has just recently acquired a wine bar and an olive oil tasting shop. The olive oil shop was really something else and good preparation for the next leg of this adventure.
The Wet Wanderers signing off, should be in Greece next time you hear from us.

Ebbs and Flows

 Unfortunately haven't had time to learn this program better. So I'm starting with pics. and not enough I know.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

It has been a week of high's and low's. The untimely and sudden loss of a dear brother in law has been a stark reminder of how precious life is and to live each day to the fullest. These developments may delay Dave's travel plans but I`m glad that Dave can be there for his family. We hope to still be able to fly out of Halifax November 9^th.

I on the other hand have had the privilege of helping Samantha install her grad show here in Halifax. It has been an amazing experience. In many ways I have a very conventional view of art and what constitutes art. Being out here among so many artists that are pushing the boundaries and focused on promoting thinking through the art experience has been very eye-opening to say the least. One of my favourite parts was watching the public interact with this piece and how they responded, the questions,the thinking. And this of course is what the serious artist hopes to accomplish and achieve in putting such a piece out there. I am so proud of her and was moved to tears several times over the course of the evening. Although Samantha sees this as an ongoing study she can be very proud of her accomplishment. My pictures do not do the installation justice since it is such a massive piece. So I will give you an abbreviated artist talk. The piece is called simply ``Mass`` and was created by stream of consciousness pinpricks, 1,300,000 pinpricks, which she counted while creating. This resulted in a beautifully textured landscaped that cascaded and flowed into the gallery. She was thinking about how desensitized we`ve become to big numbers eg. Government debt, gallons of sewage pumped into the ocean, barrels of oil produced, used, student loans etc. This image was created with several such big numbers in mind one being the population of Halifax.

Today we`re out at Windhorse farm, a retreat center two hours out of Halifax. No phone, no internet very rustic, tucked away in the forest. Truly a lovely place to relax and unwind. Today was a beautiful crisp fall day with blue skies and sunshine, yesterday on the other hand it felt like snow. We`ve walked in the forest picked chantrelles (mushrooms); Samantha is enjoying a well deserved break. Tomorrow is back to Halifax and I`m hoping to post this.

The Lone Reflective Wanderer

Farewells

October 24/2010

Blogging is something new for me so you'll all have to suffer the growing pains with me. Less than a week to go, I can't believe it. We've worked hard to get to this point and had a few detours getting here but nonetheless we're almost ready. It all seems a little unreal. It's turning into a week of farewells and send offs.....last night we hosted our annual fall bonfire..... these get together's just warm my heart through and through. Thanks everybody.... How am I feeling ..... a little apprehensive, excited and overwhelmed. Next time you'll be hearing from us, we'll be in Halifax and we'll have Sammy add her artistic flare.... that will make the blog more aesthetically pleasing. The soon to be, Happy Wanderers