Rhodos Greece : Sept. 8 - 12

Saturday, September 10, 2005

If you have read Brian’s amusing and totally fictional epic of today’s events, please continue for the true version of our adventures. To revisit this amazing fictional story click here now (Bob, The Car, and The Crappo Grapes..)

True to Brian’s nature, he had a car and was raring to go. He got us all up by 7 am. (I guess that the theory of relaxation and down-time for the Greek Islands was only a dream.) By 7:15, three of us were heading down to the lobby for breakfast. Brian wanted all of us to skip the most important meal of the day because he was still full from dinner on the previous evening. Also remember he was more than ready to start driving after not being at the wheel since Florida. He also had a problem with us enjoying Susie’s wonderful pastries at breakfast. My argument was that if we didn’t have then at breakfast when could we eat them? Anyway within 30 minutes, we were on the road to explore the large island of Rhodes.

Our first destination was the Valley of the Butterflies near Petroloudes. For four months of the year one species of butterfly (Panaxia Quadripunctaria), inhabits this small valley. We were the first visitors for the day (surprise, surprise…..) and it was still relatively cool for Greece. The butterflies settled onto trees and rocks, were extremely well camouflaged. At first we thought we were not going to see anything and felt a little ripped off because it cost 15 euros for us to enter the site. However we quickly were surrounded by hundreds of orange winged butterflies. It was an amazing experience! I didn’t like when they hit my face though. Brian tried to take some video footage of the all the insects but unfortunately the camera battery was dead from Brennan’s high flying adventure the day before. We walked up the path to an area with another ticket booth and a café. Brian insisted it was the end of the valley but I thought we should check further, just in case. Brian gave me “the LOOK” and I capitulated only to discover later that we had only walked halfway. So if you ever go to this valley, remember to walk all the way to the top! We drove up to the mid-level parking lot and planned to walk from here but by this time a tour bus had pulled in and the lot was a fair distance from the trail. So we passed on the upper half of the valley. Brian had places to drive to and things to see, so we were off to Kamiros.

The ancient city of Kamiros was one of the original “big three” that later united to form the city of Rhodes. It was an interesting site to wander around although it wasn’t at all near the size of Ephesus. It was probably more representative of what a typical Greek city would have been like. There was a large temple to Athena, many Hellenic style houses, baths, meeting places, etc. Some restoration work had been done and it was possible to see the outlines of the buildings and streets. However the walls of the buildings were only a meter or so high. It was necessary to use some imagination to fully see the ancient city. I liked that we were allowed to wander unrestricted throughout most of the site. Sierra was in her glory, studying about ancient Greece and archaeology.

From here we decided to see the ancient castle of Kritina before making the trek eastward to Lindos. We found the site without much difficulty but actually getting to it proved to be a little harder. About 2/3 of the way up the hill, we were stopped by an old Greek lady. She was sitting outside of an old white trailer and I thought it might have been a ticket booth. She handed us a well worn, plasticized piece of paper with the message that she helps to keep the castle clean and would you buy some of her grapes to compensate her, written in 6 different languages. By this point, we felt somewhat obliged and she wasn’t overcharging for her produce, so we bought some. After parking the car, and just meters from the castle entrance, we were stopped by another little old Greek lady selling grapes. She had been sitting in a small cave just off the path. We tried to explain to her that we already bought grapes from the other lady but in her little bit of English, she quite firmly said that the other grapes were “crappo” and hers were much better. She even had her picture in a guidebook of the island to prove it. Well by now, we were so amused that we bought even more grapes! Thankfully there wasn’t any charge to get into the ruins. Although every visitor who entered the castle was carrying a bag of grapes!! They turned out to be quite delicious and we sat at the top of the ruins, overlooking the sea and many small islands, and ate grapes.

From here our day turn a wrong turn, literally. We drove through a hilly area in the central portion of the island to a town called Eleoussa. It was past lunch time and three of us were quite hungry as we hadn’t feasted as much on the grapes. The owner of the rental car agency had recommended a restaurant in Eleoussa and we stopped there. Unfortunately they didn’t have gyros on the menu and that was what we wanted. Brian also had trouble with the prices of the other items. So off we went in search of the east coast of the island. Where we ended up was on the west coast of the island back near the road for the Valley of the Butterflies. Somehow we managed to take the left road instead of the right road out of Eleoussa. Normally we would have realized our mistake but there weren’t any towns to act as markers and all the scenery looked the same, dry and brown with scrubby trees. In the distance we saw the ocean but incorrectly assumed that it was the east side. I was the first to realize that we had made a full circle and boy did I get some ribbing. In my defense you have to understand the conditions under which I was working. The maps were in Greek primarily which was as difficult to understand as Russian. The road signs popped up without warning and did not give much time for turning. The top of the road sign was written in Greek and underneath that word was the English version of the word. So sometimes I had to read through 5 or 6 words before I found what I needed and then give Brian a quick instruction to turn before we passed the sign. As well the map was done in very small print, so I had to keep putting on and taking off my reading glasses. It wasn’t easy.

Eventually we made it to the east coast and by this point Brennan was starving. He was completely out of energy and was getting very grumpy. Brian was just as grumpy because he figured that everyone could live off of grapes. It had been almost seven hours since we had breakfast and we wanted more than grapes! Brian was swearing at stupid drivers and refused to stop at any of the snack bars or supermarkets along the highway, in case they got by us. There was a lot of tension in the car……. Eventually we got to Charaki beach and Brian wanted to just head into the water. The rest of us revolted and insisted on lunch or by this point an early dinner. So we stopped at a beachside restaurant and the prices were astronomical so we then tried a grill on the main road into town. They advertised gyros but most of the items on their menu were not available. So we climbed back into the car and went in search of another place to eat. It was so hot and all the getting into and out of the car was not helping anyone’s mood. Brian dropped us off at the end of the road near the beach and we let him go away in a huff. After trying yet another restaurant and discovering it was expensive too, we were a little worried that we wouldn’t get anything to eat. We walked along the boardwalk and found a smaller café that had more reasonable prices, at least for that area. The kids and I shared two gyros with chips, a junior hamburger and three pops and it came to 20 euros. In Rhodes city, it would have been half that price. Brian cooled off, in more ways than one, by snorkeling in the nearby bay. After lunch, we joined him and everyone was much happier. It was the first major blowup of the trip and I guess that wasn’t too bad after a month of being together 24/7.

Part of the stress was due to the fact that we had set up a time for Brennan to meet with his buddy Trevor in cyberspace. They both have the computer game World of Warcraft and they can play at the same time on different computers. As they play, they can write back and forth to each other. We had to be back in Rhodes city for Brennan to be at the internet café to join Trevor. With the time differences between them, the lack of internet cafes where we can hook up the laptop and Trevor being back at school, this was their first opportunity to do this.

Because we took so long to cross the island, we decided to skip the ancient city of Lindos. We were told it had a fabulous acropolis but when it came time to make the decision of snorkeling or visiting another ruin, we needed to get into the water. Sorry Lindos, maybe next time. We also weren’t sure how long it was going to take us to get back to the city.

To redeem myself, I was the perfect navigator on the trip back. I didn’t miss a turn and I got Brian through the maze of one-way streets without incidence. I did it with the old city as a guide and a MacDonald’s as my main reference—no street names required!

Brennan made it to his meeting with Trevor. Yeah!! In hindsight, Sierra and I should have gone out to the Turkish bath in the old city. We never got a chance to do one in Turkey because we were never at a bath at a convenient time or else it was the day for boys not girls. When I discovered that there was a hamman (bath) in Rhodes, I figured it was our chance. Well we were tired after our adventures around the island and decided to try it the next day. That was a big mistake because it was closed on Sunday. Sierra decided that she will just have to come back as an adult to do a Turkish bath.

The day ended with another very late dinner and then we crashed.

Rhodes : September 11, 2005

Today was truly a relaxing day. We slept in late, had a great breakfast, wandered around the old town, found the Turkish bath (closed so sad), had lunch and spent several hours at the beach. This was remarkable for Brian because he’s not good at doing nothing. A lot of the time was spent floating in the very salty water. It was so easy. Brian enjoyed it so much that later we discovered that he was very sunburned on his face and chest. Brennan christened him Lobster Man

In the late afternoon, Sierra interviewed Susie and her family about Greek culture, politics and other social studies related topics. She got lots of information for her project. Thank you to Susie, Stamatis, Mary, Petra and Ianni for giving us your time and insights on Greece. Early to bed tonight. Next stop the islands of Santorini! ( NEXT PAGE )