Greece Graffiti

I have a soft spot in my heart for urban artwork...

For instance, from my travels in Italy:


In Greece, they have turned every flat surface into a political statement.
But among the politics, you find some real jewels...


This dolphin would make a great tattoo...


Sad Panda


This one was pretty cool before it got tagged...


Damned emo kids...


Flutterby


Puff the Tragic Dragon


Stencil Art

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Greek Critters

The animals in Greece have been a source of enjoyment.

I've already shown you the goats, which are always a hoot... but there were some other fun critters.


There was plenty of small lizards like this skink that I got to pose for a pic in Kouros.

I did see one snake on the island; just a small garter snake crossing the road, but I wasn't able to get my camera out in time.

Some more 4-footed friends-


Man, that is one fine ass...

There was a field with several calves tethered in one spot...
The Woman insisted that we go make friends with them.


They were very cute little veals...


One thought he was Gene Simmons.

The dogs in Greece are awesome. Tired, but awesome.


Restaurant Dog


Acropolis Dog


Goatherder Dog

And there were quite a few cats... there was the one that helped me order lunch in Apollonas and then this one in Athens who was trying to blend in with the ruins...


No one here but us marble antiques.

One last beastie...
Down in the Ancient Agora (as opposed to the Modern Agora (Carrefour) or the Roman Agora) there was a grassy spot with 4 tortoises roaming the lawn.


Do not walk on the grass (unless you are a turtle).


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Naxos - Day 4

We decided to hit the beach on Day 4...

But first, breakfast.
The regular place (Heavens) was closed for for some odd reason.

We hit a cafe on the city square in Chora, very close to our room.
Soulatso Cafe was the only place open in the are at 8:30 in the morning.

Breakfast special...

Coffee or tea, a waffle, fruit, Greek yogurt, and honey.

It was the best damn waffle I've ever had.

Afterward I went to a dive shop in Agrios Prokopis and rented snorkel gear...
It was bit awkward...
They wanted a picture ID to secure the rental. Maria from Studios Maria had my passport as security, and Nikos at the scooter rental had my Fl drivers license, so all I had to give them was my Fla Concealed Carry Permit.
The proprietor of the dive shop looked at it, figured out what it was, then looked at me like I'd handed him a snake.
He photocopied it and handed it back, then rushed me out the door, perhaps expecting a hail of gunfire if he didn't conclude the transaction quickly.
Dumbass.

We headed up to Ambram...
Remember this place?

Well... Today the water had a little chop, and there was a small squall hanging offshore that held off coming in to run us off the beach until 2:00.

I did a little liveblogging after I snorkeled around the rocks...
I mentioned in that post about the relative dearth of shells and fish.

I had noticed the same thing in Crete back in 2004.
Sherman, set the Wayback, June 2004.
In Crete they have an excuse for the waters being devoid of fish... The overfish the hell out of the place.
And not just with nets.
In Paleochora I came across two old guys that didn't have ten fingers between them.
They were sitting in the back of a fishing boat, with a box with 4 home-made pipebombs.

(I guess that, as a rule, all pipebombs are home made. I've never seen a store called "Pipebombs-R-Us".
Although it is possible that there might be a site on the internet for such things, but I'm not doing a Google search on "Where to buy pipebombs." I have a feeling that would definitely get my IP address and cell phone put on a list in a large non-descript building in Langley VA. But I digress...)

I asked my bartender friend Manolo in Paleochora about the fishermen with missing digits and the bombs.
"That is the easy way to fish." he told me.
Apparently, they got tired of hauling their nets out to a likely spot and spending the day dropping them in the water then dragging them back in the boat and only getting 5 or 6 fish. Instead they go up into the mountains in Crete and find old cached munitions from WWII. They take apart old artillery shells and mortars and use the propellant and charges to make the bombs for concussion fishing.
This is, as we say in the bidness is A Stupid Thing To Do.
Taking apart 50 year old explosives, for any reason, falls into the same catagory.
(Just as an additional aside, concussion fishing was legal in the US until 1985.)

More fishing with bombs, or in this case, a rocket-propelled grenade.

Rocket-propelled grenade Fishing

Ok... Back to Naxos.
The water is not completely dead. There are lots of tropicals and a good number of invertebrates. The soft corals are prolific on any stable rocks, and there are plenty of sea urchins.
But no shells that I could find... No snails, no clams.
It was odd.

I went back to the beach to sit in the sun and dry off and as I sat there I had a visit from the mayor of Ambram.


This dog came over and sat down and looked at me like I owed her money.

When no cash or treats were forthcoming she took off to look for campaign contributions elsewhere... She walked up to everyone on the back, checking for handouts.


Liquid sunshine a-comin'!

Around 2pm the rain decided to come ashore so we packed up and headed for the inn/restaurant on the beach for a little lunch. The restaurant had some decidedly disturbing artwork out on the dining deck...


How'd you like to have your lunch while being watched by this...thing?

Lunch was awesome, as were all our meals...

We headed back to Naxos Chora after the rain passed - we were heading to Athens the next day on the 12:00 ferry.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Greek Rednecks

On the road to Apollonas I saw the obvious indicator that there are rednecks in Greece that have no clue about responsible gun ownership, just like their Southern US counterparts.



I thought it was only the US Southern redneck (Hillbillius Crackerii) that had the need to blow holes in roadside traffic control devices with blatant disregard to established safe gun handling procedures...

I guess it only shows to go ya... there are idiots everywhere.

But where the hell are they getting their guns?

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Naxos, Day 3

Our 3rd day on Naxos...

We decided to get an early start because we were going to explore the interior of the island today. We were going to visit a bunch of old churches, some natural features of the island, make our way over the the east coast for some lunch before heading back to the Chora.


Once again- Pictures & Words

We struck out across the island, passing through Chalki and then Filoti heading to Mount Zeus, the highest point on the island.

Thus began the day we referred to a the Naxos X-Games Day...
The first event- Off-road Scooter Enduro.
Along the way we saw a sign indicating Apano Castle (Kastro) up on a small hardpack road and thought we'd take a look...
Hardpack turned to a rutted dirt road, which after a couple kilometers became a dirt path, then a series of indistinct goat paths up the side of the mountain...
The scooters handled it well; The Woman had no problems zipping along...
Yours Truly's scooter, however, had some issues handling both a marginal surface (dirt/rocky stone paths on a 40 degree angle) and the fact it was valiantly trying to push my not-inconsiderate mass up the side of the mountain.

The path got higher, steeper, and more indistinct and we finally abandon the effort at reaching the summit. The Woman and her mount, "The Flash" zipped down to our origin point where we left the road in record time. Yours Truly and "Old Reliable" took a little longer, even with the gravity assist...


See the castle, waaaaay up there?
And can you see the sign?


Here it is, clearly marking the goat path to the summit...

We passed through several tiny Naxoan villages- this is Ano Potamia.

Count the churches in this picture... there are eleven of them.

We took another detour after seeing a sign for a 8th-century cemetery...


Nice sign...

We parked our scooters and hiked up the indicated path.
And walked, and walked...and walked some more.


It might be up there somewhere... but I doubt it.
We never did find it...

It seems like the Tourism Department has some funny ideas about signage.
They will put up a roadside sign for an attraction, but leave out details like how far away it is.
Another problem is that they will put up a sign indicating a site, but then will not put a sign at the actual location. More on this in a bit.

Some interesting attractions they fail to label at all...
For instance-

Here is the fabled Graveyard of the Dead Volkswagens.

Funny thing about dead cars on Naxos, when they die (or commit suicide) people just leave them where they drop...

This is one that slipped off the road near the "parking area" for the trail to Zeus' Cave.

"Oh well.. Guess we'll have to walk back to town."

There was another one we saw later on the road to Moutsouna...

This one took a beating after it fell off the road.
Hope the driver was wearing his/her seat belt...the ride down must have been like riding in a Cuisinart.

The second X-Games event was the Broken Ground Speed Hike to Zeus' Cave...


Again, the trail started out pretty easy, and was well maintained.

Later- not so much.

Well-maintained trail became dirt path, then smooth, slippery inclined marble, and then a field of boulders with no discernible path at all.
(We figured "up" was a reasonable direction...)


Higher up the mountain there we some bizarre flora growing...
I thought it might be a bizarre corn-triffid-bodysnatcher-pod hybrid. I thought it best to steer clear of these little mutants...


Beware the Triffids.

The Woman, being it much better shape than Yours Truly reached the cave far ahead of me...

Notice the well-marked trail?


Yours Truly inside the cave...


The Woman, Underground.

We made it back to our trusty steeds without incident...
One thing about the flora in Naxos-
Everything has spines or thorns.
Everything.
If you try to go off-piste, you will wind up bleeding.


Thorns and spines...


Spines and thorns...

Moral of that story: Stay on the path.

For the Naxos X-Games Broken Ground Speed Hike to Zeus' Cave- The Woman beat me up to the cave, but I made it back down faster. (That whole gravity assist thing...)

We also visited several churches along the road...


Scouting out the churches.


A rustic Byzantine church, Panagia Drossiani.


A monastery near Filoti.


A tiny church/shrine atop a tall hill...Αγίος Ιωάυυης

You pretty much can't swing a rat on a string anywhere in Greece without hitting a church...

I got a kick out of this one...


Look closely... Do you see it?


Yep. A satellite dish.

Here's another one...


Oh, they are just full up with religiousity here...



We headed off to Moutsouna for lunch...
The trip was, for lack of a better word, and adventure.
This road was only a lane and a half wide in most places, and most of the road had no guardrail.


See the road waaay over on the left side, snaking down the mountain ridge?

This road had more twists and turns than a James Patterson novel...

15 Kilometers of bad road... That sucking noise that you were hearing was me pulling the seat cushion up my ass as I was trying to keep my scooter from heading down the side off the cliff.

We finally made it out to Moutsouna, a tiny little fishing village on the east coast.
Lunch was had at a little place called Το δίχτυ, "The Net", a beachfront restaurant.


The Woman enjoying the View from our table.


Lunch! Tzatziki with fried zucchini, Dakos (bread with tomatoes, soft feta, and olives) and pickled grilled octopus. Tasty tasty...

We toyed with trying to find the "Prehistoric Acropolae" that we had seen a sign for back in Aperathos as we hit the road to Moutsouna... It indicated it should be somewhere along the way, assuming there is any accuracy in this particular sign.

Alas, it was not to be.
After examining a map, our guidebook and rolling the bones it seems like the sign was 35 kilometers from the site of the ruins, 20 more km down the coast from Moutsouna near a town called Panermos. We bailed on the attempt.

We headed back to Naxos Chora...

Once again, the afternoon's X-Games competition, the 50km Endurance Road Rally was a push...
Whatever time I could make up in the S-curves on the road, The Woman would regain when the roads flattened out... Oh well...

We dined at a restaurant called The Flamingo...
The Woman had a Souvlaki pork, chicken and lamb combination, while I had Moussaka/Lamb/dolmas mixed grill dish.
Live Greek music, dancing waiters...

Woo hoo.

Next up: Day 4- Beach Day, wherein we meet the Mayor of Ambram Beach.


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE