Scoutmaster trip to Eurpoe 2007

Europe 2007 2008

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Despite getting to bed very late, I managed to leave for the adventures of the day by 8:30 a.m. Mykonos has a maze of tiny streets with whitewashed houses on both sides. I am told the maze of tiny streets offered protection from attackers. The trim on the houses is almost always blue, and most of the town is on a hillside so there are a lot of steep streets and stone steps, but there are no cars on the tiny narrow back streets. People ride scooters and small motorcycles, and deliveries are made in small three-wheel vehicles that have two seats up front and an open box in the back for cargo. In the harbor, gigantic cruise ships anchor and discharge throngs of day-trippers. This is the first place on my trip that I am meeting and hearing many Americans; they are all from the cruise ships! They have come to shop on Mykonos. Some of the monster cruise ships hold three thousand people, a veritable floating city.

Mykonos has many small upscale shops. The Greek craftsmanship is superb, and expensive. The jewelry stores have incredible one-of-a-kind creations in gold, and silver, and every gemstone imaginable has a setting to dazzle the eyes of passers by. Additionally, reproductions of museum artifacts are for sale, and they too are crafted superbly. There are some souvenir shops with the usual trinkets, but mostly, the shops here are selling high-end stuff to wealthy tourists, but not to me.

Besides the beautiful setting, Mykonos has a few interesting things to see. For example, there are Greek windmills that look nothing like those in Holland, and there are many, mostly small, beautiful churches. Some people come to Mykonos for the resort beaches that dot the island. Some of the resorts are exclusive, and cater to the wealthy, but there are also many beautiful public beaches, and secluded beaches that cater to me. However, I did not go to the beach, instead, I left the island for a day trip to the nearby island of Delos where history and ruins waited for me.

Apollo and his sister Artemis were supposedly born on Delos. How could I miss enjoying myself? From the 7th through the 4th century, B.C.E., Delos had thirty thousand inhabitants. It’s said that Greeks from all over came to Delos to worship Apollo, the Sun God, and his twin sister, Artemis, the Moon Goddess. Delos also served as a crossroad for commerce in the Mediterranean. On Delos, people built statues and great structures, so there is a lot to see. Wealthy citizens in ancient times, hired artisans from Syria to decorate the walls of their homes with stunning mosaic tile tapestries. Evidently, the Syrians were the master artisans of the day.

The most interesting thing to me was the fact that among the ruins on Delos, there is an ancient Synagogue, one of the oldest synagogues in the world. It’s not in the center of the other ruins, in fact, it’s off at the far end of the island, about three miles from the center. Not much is left, except for the clear outline of the external wall, and a few corner structures. There is a stone chair called the “Moses Throne.” Nonetheless, it is the first ancient Jewish Synagogue that I have come across. Needless to say, I was delighted to hike to the far end of the island and back just to see it.

Friday, October 19, 2007

My ship to Santorini sailed at 2:30 p.m., so I spent the morning doing laundry, and relaxing in this most excellent Mediterranean climate. The sky is cloudless; the daytime temperature is summer warm with a constant, delightful breeze, and with almost no humidity. I’d say that the weather this time of the year is simply perfect.

The fast boat, which I took to Santorini, called the Flyingcat, is a jet-powered catamaran. The interior looks like an airline cabin, with rows of recliner seats. It took the Flyingcat about three and a half hours to reach Santorini, and the ride was very smooth. A woman from Saskatoon, Canada, sat in the seat next to me. We had a delightful conversation. Unlike me, she made all her travel arrangements in advance, and so she has her hotel and sightseeing excursions well organized. However, she is paying dearly for that luxury. For both of us, this is our first trip to Greece, and we agreed, it has been an excellent experience.

The name Santorini doesn’t sound Greek; it’s not, of course. The Greek name for the island is Thera, but Italian sailors used to land here and worship at the Church of Saint Irene, hence the name. The islands of Santorini are actually the remnants of a dormant volcano. The volcano erupted in the 16th century B.C.E., and many people think the fabled city of Atlantis was here. The volcano has erupted many times over the course of history, and the most recent eruption was about fifty years ago. Like Hawaii, there are lava fields and obvious calderas. I plan to visit some of the lava fields. Additionally, the eruptions of the volcano, buried ancient cities in ash, like Vesuvius did to Pompeii. One site at the town of Akrotiri, has been partially excavated.

The main town of Santorini, Fira, is atop the cliffs high above the sea and the port. After the Flyingcat docked, I caught a public bus that drove up the side of the cliff on a road with many switchbacks. My intention was to walk to the campground, but as usual, people hawking rooms met the bus. One fellow and his wife offered me a private room for about what I thought I’d have to pay to camp. So I left with them to see their room. The room was not good for a couple of reasons: it was too far out of the center of town, and it was dingy, not exactly dirty, but not as clean as I have come to expect. This was the first time in my travels that I rejected a room. I walked outside the hotel, and doing so, left me stranded.

Just up the road was Mama’s House restaurant, recommended in my guidebook; I had an excellent dinner there, but still needed a place to sleep. It was now getting late, and although I walked around a bit, the other hotels in the area were all closed. The owners had gone home for the night. I passed a nice looking hotel, with a card tacked to the front door. The card had a phone number to call after hours. So, taking the card, I walked back to Mama’s, which had also closed for the night, but to my good fortune the owner was sitting at a table, watching a small portable TV, and doing some paperwork. I knocked at the door, and he let me in. Explaining my situation, I asked if he would call the number on the hotel card to see if they had a room available, and if someone could return to let me in.

John is the name of the owner of Mama’s restaurant, and he remembered me from dinner. John is also the chef; he’s an older fellow, and later I learned he had owned a restaurant in Los Angeles for many years, but sold it to return to Greece. Luckily, John was very friendly and helpful; he made several calls for me, but did not have much luck finding a place for me to stay. Then, out of the blue, he asked if I would like to spend the night at his home, and he said in the morning I could start my search again. John also advised me not to go back to my plan to camp. I agreed to go to his home, and had a wonderful night’s sleep.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

John and I spent a couple of hours talking over coffee in the morning. Among many topics, John explained that Greece has the highest savings rate of any of the EU countries. He said 95 percent of the people own their own homes, without mortgages. Many people will build their homes in stages, and so it is possible to see occupied homes that are not completed. As money is saved, people will continue to build, and it may take several years to complete the process.

On another topic, John discussed the possible economic downturn in the United States. He was convinced that the EU would surpass the US economically, and that Americans do not even realize that there is a world full of people who are adamant to overtake us. He said, if Greece only had the resources of America, it would do a much better job of managing them. America is so blessed with abundant resources, yet, from John’s perspective, Americans don’t seem to know how to husband those resources well. He has a point, and there is some validity to his arguments, but I told him not to underestimate the Americans.

We walked John’s dog, Sandra, and then we drove back to Fira. John let me off near the central section of town with several hotels and guesthouses. I walked only a short distance and spotted a charming place called Hotel Flora, clean, spacious, and inexpensive, so I checked in. Among my fellow travelers staying at the hotel is a couple of Australian women with whom I visited one of the two archeological museums in town. Many artifacts and entire wall frescoes may be seen in the museums. During my travels both in Greece and in Turkey, I have met and enjoyed the company of many Australians.

In addition to the visiting the museum, I wandered over to the cable car station to look around. To get to the old port at the bottom of the cliff, the people of Fira have offered intrepid tourists like me three options. The first option is to walk almost six hundred really big stone stairs. The second is to ride the cable car, and the third option is to ride donkeys! I am deliberating.

In the evening, I took the local bus to the town of Ia at the far end of the island. Ia is a small, picturesque town on the top of the cliffs with great views of the rest of Santorini. People go there to watch the sun set.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Of the several smaller islands close to Thera, the large lava island is called the “volcano island”; its name is Nea Kameni, and nearby is a smaller lava island called Palea. As I think many of my friends would guess, I walked down the cliff face using the six hundred stone steps. At the bottom by the old port, I caught an excursion boat to both islands. On Nea Kameni, a trail leads to three of the most recent calderas. The hike to the topmost caldera takes about thirty minutes, and from the top, the views of Thera and the other islands of Santorini are spectacular. There are fumeroles emitting steam, and some other gases. Around the vents is native sulfur. The hardened lava rocks are not sharp-edged like the lava at the Kiluea volcano in Hawaii. None of my fellow passengers felt the need to offer a sacrifice to Pele.

After hiking around the volcano island, the ship took us to Palea where hot springs flow into the ocean. The waters coming out of the hot springs are brown, and they mix with the blue water of the ocean. Some people opted to swim, but I did not. The swimmers only had about fifteen minutes in the water, and reported back that the swim and the water were not unusual. When we returned to the old port, I opted to take the cable car back up the cliff to Fira. Hiking on the volcano was enough for one day.

Monday, October 22, 2007

The sky was gray when I awoke this morning, and by 10:00 a.m., we had quite a bit of rain. There are no sewer systems in Santorini, because they have sun three hundred days each year, and the climate is normally hot and dry like that of a dessert. So this morning, when it rained, the water ran through the streets in torrents. It cleared up by the late afternoon, but remained blustery.

Philip Sternberg
Scoutmaster, Troop 1131