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Greece wrap-up
I have now come to the end of my photographic material from the summertime trip to Greece. Over the course of a dozen and a half essays, we revisited places on Crete (Minoan sites, Heraklion, Psychro cave, other locations, not forgetting the unbelievable sunrise), on Santorini (Oia, including sunset, and other locations), on other Cycladic
Chasing World Heritage: #116 (Mycenae)
The last ruins that we visited in Greece was Mycenae, the center of the Late Bronze Age civilization that was the main precursor to the classical Ancient Greek culture. Mycenaeans’ period of domination over the Mediterranean came around the time when the Minoan civilization – which we encountered on Crete – had begun its decline
Chasing World Heritage: #115 (Delphi)
Delphi was the sacred center of the world for the Ancient Greeks and undoubtedly a remarkable achievement of purposeful architecture, a sanctuary built into the challenging landscape to inspire awe and worship. Unfortunately, very little is left of its former glory, and the visual impact is fairly muted. After experiencing grandiosity of the Parthenon at
Chasing World Heritage: #114 (Hosios Loukas Monastery)
Three geographically dispersed monasteries in Greece are inscribed together on the World Heritage list as the great examples of the golden age of Byzantine art. We could only fit one into our itinerary, and our choice fell on Hosios Loukas, the largest and likely the oldest of the three. The monastery was founded in the
Chasing World Heritage: #113 (Acropolis)
I always find myself awed by grandiose edifices. Beholding the Parthenon up close, unfailingly grandiose despite its ruined state blended with a construction site, made the visit to Acropolis instantly worthwhile. Built in the 5th century BC to honor goddess Athena, the patron of the city, the temple survived rise and fall of empires and
Athens
Common wisdom holds Athens as a single-day destination, with one must-see sight and little else beyond that which is exceptional. Its abundance of ancient ruins may allow a true connoisseur to stretch the stay to a couple of days, but we are far from such connoisseurs. We made Athens the base for the last segment
Back from Italy
This was not exactly a spontaneous trip – we planned it almost three months in advance – but it did come up fairly spontaneously back in August. After returning from Greece, I did not really expect to have either time or opportunity to take another journey this calendar year, but my adventurous better half kept
Sailing around Naxos
It may sound unexpected coming from yours truly, but if there was a day that stood out on our two-weeks-plus-long trip to Greece, it was in a sense the laziest day on the itinerary. For the last full day of our stay on Naxos, we penciled in a day-long boating excursion around the island. There
Mykonos
The second part of our day cruise that first took us to Delos was Mykonos. A renowned “party island”, it may have been completely ignored by us if not for the fixed itinerary of the cruise. We were given about three hours to explore its eponymous Chora, which was barely enough to have lunch and
Chasing World Heritage: #112 (Delos)
For all of the obvious associations between Greece and the ancient cultures, it has a surprisingly modest number of recognized World Heritage sites: 18 properties spread across 37 individual locations. There are none on either Crete, Santorini, or Naxos, so my first chance to improve my visited count came well into the second week of
On Naxos
Our time on Naxos was structured as a sequence of day-long excursions. One of those was a chauffeured private tour around the island, with stops at several points of interest. Naxos is the largest island of the Cyclades archipelago and is relatively sparsely populated (the number of permanent residents here is slightly higher than that
Naxos, Chora
If we fell in love with one place in Greece, it was Naxos. Although it is not exactly unknown, it does not attract as many visitors as some other Aegean islands. That is partially due to its relative un-flashiness and in large part due to the fact that it does not have its own international
On Santorini
The village of Oia enjoys incontestable top billing among Santorini sights – to the point that some travel publications caption a photograph of Oia as simply “Santorini” – but we took time to explore other parts of the island. Our intent to take a closer look at the main town of Fira was thwarted by
Oia
Oia – pronounced EE-yah, the O is silent – is one of the most recognizable destinations in the world and a place that always features on the first-time itineraries of the Aegean island-hopping. The blue-domed white churches are Oia’s calling card, regularly appearing in travel publications and social media adverts. My lasting image of Oia,
Sunset on Santorini
The terrace of our apartment on Santorini was facing west and we were able to add a pretty sunset to the incredible sunrise that we saw on Crete. In fact, the activity of sunset-watching turns the western side of the village of Oia into a madhouse, with most paths and viewpoints congealing into an impenetrable
Crete: Psychro Cave
This last point of interest that we explored while on Crete deserves its own blog entry in part because of the insanely beautiful mountain road that took us there. We climbed significant heights along the way, driving on an uneven one-lane road that looked deserted for miles on end. In a couple of sleepy villages
On Crete
Crete is a huge island, impossible to cover in much detail in less than a week’s time. We did not attempt anything of the kind. Our time on Crete was planned with a slant towards beach-going, with only a few of hours of sightseeing on any given day (including a few non-trivial drives). We stayed
Heraklion
The capital of Crete does not offer much in terms of must-see sights (Knossos Palace, by any measure near the top of the list of Crete attractions, has the name of Heraklion region in its address and is located a few minutes’ drive beyond the city boundaries). We budgeted only a couple of hours for exploring Heraklion
Crete: Minoan Palaces
In our two-plus weeks in Greece this past summer, we have purposefully visited 8 archaeological sites and probably saw just as many in passing. That should not be surprising to anyone, as there are few countries in the world as firmly associated with ancient civilizations as Greece. Crete was the center of the Minoan civilization
Sunrise on Crete
You may have seen this view before, as my lovely spouse, who is significantly more active on social media than yours truly, posted her versions literally as the sun was still coming up. Me, I had to follow my usual process of deliberate cull and development, delaying this post by whole three months due to