The minoan heritage of Crete as represented in the archeological museum of Heraklion, portray however a totally different world of imagery. 

greek-ortodox icons

The greek-ortodox tradition with icons is also present in Finland, but since we have been brought up within the protestant wing of the church they felt still new and interesting to us. Here is an example from the south coast of Crete.

From Chania to Paleochora

From Chania we took the bus over the hills to Paleochora on the southcoast. The aim was to walk through the national park Samaria Gorge.
The picture is from the entrance to the Samaria National Park; a rough scetch over the west of Crete written in two kinds of letters. The greek alphabet triggered many questions about signs and sounds during the trip...

One sound we would have liked to escape though was the meaowing of the hungry skinny cats in Rethymnon. But that as well seems to be an ancient one, judging from this sculpture of a cat with an empty bowl in the Heraklion archaeological museum. The cat sculpture was even accompanied by a small clay figurine holding the hands over the ears...

Chania on the northwest coast of Crete has a venetian heritage with many narrow streets. It is also something of a cultural crossroad where east meet west and south meet north. In the synagogue of Chania we attended a meeting and contemplated the various religious traditions in modern society: How are we to be able to meet and reach an understanding with so many disparate traditions behind us? In Chania there is beside the synagogue also an old mosque, and a greek orthodox church. In the synagogue the guide told us about the fate of the jewish congregation of Chania during World War II. They were to be deported to concentration camp in Germany but were lost in a storm at sea, only one girl who had been on an errand in Chania was not present in the synagogue the day of the deportation and she escaped to tell the story of the deported congregation... 

Images from Crete, Santorini, Serifos and Athens

Now some months after the trip to Greece I am sitting here watching all the colourful photos we made at Crete, Santorini and Serifos. Here the autumn is sending its first greetings and I enjoy being inside the cottage, dreaming of a new odyssée next summer...

Chania colours 

connections once more...

One setback I have discovered with this phone or the mobileprogrammes or whatever: I wrote the two last posts about Serifos on the new Nokia mobile with camera and video. The publishing-function did not work through the phone. That is why I am now sitting in the Malabar behind the billiard-table writing this on the only public internet-connected computer on the island. The posts were there as drafts but I had to go in here on the blogger-site and publish them. Someting for the engineers at Nokia to work at or what? Otherwise Greece is clearly nowadays a wellconnected European country. Vodaphone is of course here one of the telecom-companies that provides most services. Luckily all the other phone-services with Elisa in Helsinki functions well. I have checked my bankaccount, written sms and e-mail to the folks at home. In Santorini the connections were superfast, in Chora Sfakion the internetcafe-keeper explained the system somethimes gets splashed with water and has to be frequently rebooted, but otherwise everything ok...To me it is just interesting to see if, where and when you can connect to internet and write crap or no-crap on this blog...:-)

Serifos

The first day at Serifos we walked up to the chora (town) at the mountaintop and almost got lost in the labyrint of narrow streets, eventually we found the little marketsquare, amazing place! Windy apparently half abandoned but appearences may of course be decieving...On the way down a gardener offered us four apricots, gratis! Charming! After that we off to the beach and there we lost the key to our room in the sand...The keepers of Alexandros Vassilia where we stay luckily had an other. That sofar, the island is calm and pleasant and I figure I ought not to write this, it is maybe one of the few islands with an unexploited authentic feeling, I wish it could stay like this, although the neighbouring tavern-owner is hammering away all day long, repairing and prepairing...

The main attraction at the Livadakia beach at Serifos occur after sunset, when the moon rises...

On our way to Serifos

Today we left wonderous Santorini and jumped on the ferry to Serifos. I write this in our room at Livadakia beach, we are abot to go and explore the town in a little while. From the ferry we saw many white choras -on Ios, Paros, Milos and Sifnos...Too bad we had to leave them behind this time. But I still feel lucky to know that there are still so many more dreamy islands to explore in the aegan sea...

Santorini tour

Sitting here on the top of the volcano. Connections still working. Yesterday we stayed in Rethymnon in a genuine house named Irina Rooms. The place was close to the seafront and all the tavernas. The elderly lady who rented the room invited us into her own livingspace, and served lemonade. A very nice place to stay and a very nice gesture on her account. Things like that make you want to return, even though the standard of the room was average. Rethymnon is a swinging town with a not-so-silent nightlife. Actually yesterday we wondered if there were some kind of minoan sportsgame going on in the street outside our window. Maybe some modern version of that game where you are supposed to jump over a bull...According to the frescoes in Knossos that is what the old cretan sportsmen and women used to do. >

P.S Later when we got home, we read in the finnish newspapers the reason for the "minoan games" in Retymnio: Students at the Rethymnon Universitydemonstrating.


Heraklion is modern so the daytrip to Knossos by Heraklion offered both ancient sights and many a modern construction.

By the way: I figured out the main attraction of Chora Sfakion only when leaving the town: The bus to Rethymnon drove through some amazing montainslopes with seaview.

Here in Santorini we have now that much longed for room-with-a-view: The sea on both sides and a very very blue and white church right beside it.

The place is called Fotini Villa, and amazingly enough not at all too pricy.






Tomorrow we will go exploring outside Fira, the Santorini Capital. I will try to write again, maybe from Serifos, the island we are planning to visit next. Here a picture of a couple admiring, like us, the view...

Greetings from Chora Sfakion

One week in Crete, but stunned with blue waves at Elafonissi beach near Paleochora on the Cretan southcoust and exhausted by the walk through Samaria Gorge I have not had enough time nor opportunity to write earlier. Many photos I have made though and they will be posted here later. Right now I am sitting high up om a mountainslope in an internetcafe owned by a nice russian lady. She says she has been having this internetcafe some years but originally she comes from a small place outside Moscow. I just wish my workingspace at home could have the same view as here. I have splendid outlook over the libyan sea, a crisp wind but still good connections. No glasswindows that separate me from the breeze, only the usual wooden construct of the taverns around here.

We just ate some pastries from a bakery in town and are planning to go to Rethymnion in the afternoon. Sebe is down at the pebble-beach contemplating the waves.

We flew in last saturday to Chania on the northcoast and spent three days there, most of the time in the old venetian part of the town. A very good place to start exploring Crete because it has good connections by bus to many other places and nice narrow streets. The beaches are ok also.

Paleochora is so far the best experience of this trip. The small town has two beaches, one the east and one the west and with a bit of walking (1 hour) two more less crowded. Paleochora is also the gathering point for everybody who plan to walk the 7-hours walk through the Samaria Gorge. My feet are aching and i feel muscles in my legs I did not know existed. Raised on the flatlands as I am, the trail downwards took its toll, but the scenery was really outstanding: The gorge itself, but also the small clearwater creek that flow through it, the pinetrees, the sun and the pink flowers...

Well I am happy sofar with the trip and I am very content to know that we have one week more to go. We have a loose plan to go to Retymnon, Heraklion and Knossos from here and then head for Santorini. I hope to find an other internetcafe for the next post.

Testing some new connections...

Some things are clear: I will have to take my e-mails with me in a phone.
We bought the Elisa-connections that will allow us to mail things
to this blog from the mobile phone. Convenient, but some new things to
learn for me, who usually have to think more about the content in articles
and photos, than phone- and computerconnections. Sebe on the other hand
likes to figure out such stuff. I believe...

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Now I have finsished another number of the folkmusic magazine and we will soon be off.