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The trip to corfu was one of the longest trips we had to take. We had to take a ferry from santorini to athens, that took about 9 hours. A train from athens to patras, that took about 3-4 hours, and then another overnight ferry to the island of corfu. We ended not getting into the port of corfu until about 5 or 6 in the morning. So seeing the sunrise above the clear waters of corfu was beautiful, but getting up for it wasn’t : D However, the boat from patras to corfu was really nice. We got to sleep inside on carpeted floor, and we even had outlets so we could plug in our laptop -what luxury!

Getting off the boat, ruth and I decided we would take a shuttle for one to one the hotels into the main towns on the island (and one of the most popular beaches on the island). The “hotel” was called the pink palace, besides being notorious know as the place to party hard while on the island, it was in a pretty good location and they provided a free shuttle to the hotel, something that might not seem important, but at 6 am, it’s one of those perks that is a pretty big selling point.

so somewhat reluctantly, we got on the big pink (literally) shuttle to head to the pink palace.

driving to our hotel, i had forgotten how beautiful the island of corfu was. i had been here before in 2000, and had actually stayed at the pink palace then too. i had forgotten lush the green this island was, and unfortunately had also forgotten why i hated staying at the pink palace the last time i was here. by the end of our stay on corfu, i was reminded of both.

when you arrive at the pink palace, they sit you down and give a spiel about how fun it is to stay there, all the cool drinking events they have available to you, and how “awesome” they are. haha, it’s pretty entertaining listening to them talk about how cool their hotel is. it’s like going to a giant pink fraternity party that never ends. that might be cool for some, but ruth and i weren’t totally excited about staying in a place filled with 18-22 year old american and aussie party goers…

of course we had gotten the free ride from the port, so i listened to the whole pitch before striking out into the small town looking for other places to stay. i walked around for about 1.5 hours looking for places, and found some good ones, but the hitcher for us was that the pink palace had FREE WI-FI… i know it doesn’t sound important, but boy after not having internet access for over a week, it was the deal breaker for us. so we, hoping to getting a better deal than what we were offered during the pink palace sales pitch, booked our room online, then headed back to the palace to check in. at least we thought it was going to be that easy…

The women who checked us in was incredibly rude. She was mad that we booked online, saving ourselves a bit of money. She loomed above me, making faces and interrogating me ferociously on why I had booked online instead of just booking at the counter. Sheesh, she needed to relax, why, we were paying customers!

We finally got it all figured out, although our interrogator obviously didn’t like us very much. It was then we got our next fun surprise. Our “beachfront” room was tiny, run down, and the beach was more like a rocky cliff and declined into the water. It was the worst stretch of beach I saw in all of europe. Welcome to the pink palace!

 

after our first overnight ferry ride from santorini to athens (which turned out to be one of the nicest boats we were on the entire trip) we arrived in athens a little tired, but excited to be going to corfu. we caught the first train to patras and once we got there we realized that because it was sunday everything was closed and we had the whole day to burn until our ferry left for corfu late that night. so what did we do? we went to the movies. after seeing the dark night we headed back to the boat. as soon as we got on the boat we showed them our ticket and they immediately sent us to this tiny little area where the deck passengers were allowed to sleep. this was only the beginning of all the strange places we had to sleep on boats in greece. they really do a good job of making you feel like a second class person. on some of the boats if you had a deck ticket you weren’t even allowed to sit in the lounge, those were reserved for cabin passengers only. yet another reason we were happy to get to italy and go back to train travel.

got back later last night, and boy does it feel good!!

don’t worry, still going to post all the rest of the pictures and videos from the rest of our trip for those of you that are watching out there. lots of good stuff still to come, we still need to post the rest of our trip from italy and spain

well, this was to be our last day in santorini. we actually weren’t all that impressed with the island, and we needed to get a move on to corfu, so we were leaving on this evening for the island of corfu. although i was looking forward to getting a move on, i wasn’t really all that excited about the traveling we were going to have to do to get to corfu.

to get to corfu, we had to take a 9 hour night ferry to athens, then, arriving in athens around 6am, get up and go take a 4 hour train that would take us to the city of patras, then that night, taking another 7 hour ferry to corfu. it was be a lot of traveling and it seemed like the ferries we were taking were getting worse and worse. at the start we were able to sleep inside the passenger area, but more and more, ferries were corralling us 3rd class passengers into smaller and smaller areas or just making us sleep on the top deck under the weather.

anyway, we spent that third day relaxing. we checked out of our hotel and went back to the beach to hang out again. then later that afternoon we packed up our packs and headed to the port to away our ferry out of there. here are some pics from that day.

 

since we had already seen the town of fira, there wasn’t much left to do at this point but find a beach and hang out, which we were fine with

our hostel was about a 20-30 minute walk to one of the main beaches on the island. it was a black sand beach so we were excited to see that, but we were really looking forward to just hanging out, lounging on the beach all day working on our tans…

quick story though before we get to the pictures. i personally had really started feeling like a tourist when we got to greece, but when you hit the islands it gets really bad, and santorini really made it obvious to me -on the island of santorini, they only care about one thing… money. they’re quick to take it and once they do you become invisible to them, like you never existed (not everywhere, but for the most part this is at least partly true).

during our day on the beach, we decided to get lunch at a restaurant near the water. it wasn’t too expensive, and they had what we wanted, gyros, so we decided to eat there.

they were perfectly nice when we got there. they brought us bread, and we snacked on it as they took our order and then brought our food. that’s when our nice little lunch started getting not so nice. the food was terrible. i mean really bad. trying not to make it a big deal, we decided to just let it go and just pay and leave. when they brought the check though, we noticed that it was 2 euros, about 3 dollars more than it should have been. not a bit frustrated, i asked the owner why this was. talking to me condescendingly, she let me know it was because they charge a $1.50 charge for bread per person. now pretty mad, i asked her how come she didn’t tell us she was going to charge us for the bread when they brought it to us. again, condescendingly and now calling me “love,” she told me everywhere is greece charges for bread and we should have known the bread wasn’t going to be free. well that’s not true, we’d probably been to more of greece than her and not once were we charged for something brought to our table that we didn’t order, be it bread or anything else. she then pointed out that bread was listed in the menu as 1 euro per person. ridiculous… so she expected me to know that even though i didn’t order the bread and didn’t see it in the menu (who looks for a bread charge in a menu), i should have known i was going to be charged for it.

oh well, rather than argue and create a scene over $3, we just paid it and left. but that was my first experience on the trip where i was really treated poorly, like a worthless tourist who could be treated bad and tossed out because there’d be plenty with money coming in after me… unfortunately this wouldn’t be our first experience like this on the trip, especially in greece and italy.

some shots from our second day in santornini : D

 

to we got up early to catch our boat to the island of santorini, greece. we were both really excited to finally be going to one of the greek isles. the ferry ride took about 5 hours and was pretty uneventful. after arriving on santorini we headed to our hostel and settled in. we decided to spend our first day exploring the capital of santorini, and really one of the only densely populated areas of the island, a town called fiera, about a 30 minute bus ride from where we were staying.

fira was really beautiful… narrow alleys, many views to the oceans below, blue capped white buildings, but one thing that was also quite noticeable was the island’s tourist based economy. of all the places we’d seen, fira and the island of santorini were the worst when it came to feeling like a tourist. the alleys were lined with shops and markets selling overpriced towels, jewelry, food, and other touristy goods, like cheesy t-shirts and hats. we had been other places where it was pretty bad, but since santorini is so small it was hard to escape it. this place thrived upon tourism, and it was obvious. more than one place we were treated poorly, but more on that later.

some pictures from the beautiful town of fira on the coast of the island of santorini : D

 

well i can’t believe that our trip is almost over. we get back to seattle late on tuesday night. but before we get back i (ruth) want to write about one of my favorite things we did on this trip. we were recently in florence, italy and a guy we met in greece told us that we had to goto the palio in siena, italy while we were in florence, siena is about an hour south of florence. the palio is a horse race that has been going on for over 300 years. there are something like 17 different horses and each section of the town cheers for a different horse. and for those of you who don’t know i love horses, i used to be obsessed with them when i was in high school and if i had the time and money i’d probably own a horse by now. so to be able to go and see them race was very exciting for me. one of my dreams has been to be able to goto the kentucky derby, but after this race the kentucky derby might be a bit boring.

we got there in the early afternoon and after walking around for a bit we went into the main square and staked out our place to watch the race. after a 2 hour parade of all the teams, which got boring after about 30 minutes, the horses finally came out and the race was about to begin. well there was this one horse who was not that excited about lining up so close to the other horses. because unlike horse races in america, they didn’t have a starting gate for the horses to go into, they all had to line up next to each other, and some horses don’t like that idea. so after 3-4 false starts this horse was finally able to line up and the race began, although i think his rider fell of about 3 seconds into the race. as soon as the race started everyone went crazy. everyone wears a scarf or carries a flag for the horse they are going for and we were lucky enough to be standing near a bunch of people who were cheering for the winning horse. there were italians running around screaming and running into people trying to see the race. as soon as the race was over, about 3 minutes later, people from the winning team started crying and people from the loosing teams started crying. i’ve never seen more grown met just bawling because their horse just won, it was hysterical.

unfortunately we didn’t have a place to stay in siena that night so we had to hurry to the train station to catch the last train back to florence, which was only at 9:15. i would have loved to stay and party with the italians because apparently there are dinners all throughout the city in celebration or you can goto the bars where all the loosing teams are. i’m glad that we got to go and at least see the race and experience all the excitement and i would defiantly recommend that if you are ever in italy you should go see the palio. here are some pictures and a couple of videos for your enjoyment…

siena, before the race from erfon on Vimeo.

siena, the race is about to begin from erfon on Vimeo.

 

deciding to make the best of our situation, we decided to grab our swimsuits and head to the beach. so we packed up, and hopped on a bus to the beach.

the beach in crete, at least the one we went to, really was beautiful. it had sand which was a big plus, and the water, although a bit too cold, was clear blue and felt great once you got used to the temperature. i spent about 2 hours just wondering around the waves, getting pushed around, and swimming. ruth was in and out too, but spent most of her time in the beach chairs where the sharks couldn’t get her

at the beach we also learned for the first time, nothing in greece is free. as we sat on the public beach, a guy approached us and asked us for 5 euros (about $7.50) to sit on the beach chairs. i was surprised, neither ruth or i had every experienced paying to sit on a beach chair. but we paid, it was either that or lay in the sand….

later that day we walked around the small crete town we were staying in. it was abuzz with locals and some tourists walking around. we got some great gyros and then gelato, and enjoying the warm night air (finally), i think crete grew on us a bit.

we walked all the way down to the pier to figure out where our boat was going to come in, we were leaving the next morning at 8am, so didn’t want to risk getting lost.

here are some pictures from our 2nd day…

 

finally, the sun! i think that’s what ruth and i were both feeling when we stepped off the plane and the sun hit us on the island’s tarmac in crete, greece. sure we’d gotten some sun here and there during our trip, but not a lot. it was a bit depressing to leave seattle and take the weather with us wherever we went. it was in the 80’s in seattle, everywhere we went it was mid sixties, maybe mid seventies…. finally, we knew we could retire our jackets, pack our jeans in the bottom of our bags and move our bathing suits to the top.

the plan was to get to crete and leave that same evening for the island of santorini, then head to the island of ios, only several hours away from santorini. on this part of our trip, we’d leave trains behind for buses and ferries. soon after we got off the plane though, we discovered that our plan wasn’t going to work they way we thought….

we arrived in crete expecting to leave the night we arrived for santorini. there was no accurate information online regarding any ferry schedules, so we had to get crete and ask when the boat was going to leave. well we found a travel agent, and with him we began our frustrating journey of ferry travel in greece.

the travel agent informed us that there was a ferry that left when we wanted, but it was full. there would be no other ferry leaving for another two days -perfect- now we were stuck in crete with no place to stay and wouldn’t be able to leave for two days…. we were upset about this, but since there was nothing we could do, we swallowed it and decided to just make the best of it. crete was pretty afterall, it might be fun.

it was also during our chat with him that we figured out that we weren’t going to be able to go to the island of ios like we had planned. we needed to be in croatia to meet chris and andreja (ruth’s brother and his wife) by about the 8th of august, and the ferry we needed to take left from bari italy, about a twelve hour ferry ride from the island of corfu, an island about 15 hours northwest of athens (6 hour train ride, then a 7 hour night ferry). we were currently about 13 hours southeast of athens by ferry. of course the really crappy part is, ferries almost always leave at night, so if you need to take two ferries in a row, you burn 24 hours just taking the first one. you’ll leave at night, get somewhere early in the morning, maybe 5, 6, or 7am, then your next ferry will leave that same day around 10, 11, or even midnight or 1am. so we were literally 4 whole travel days away from where we needed to be in croatia…

with this in mind, we decided to skip ios and go straight to corfu after santorini since we could take a ferry from corfu to bari italy, then from bari to croatia.i was pretty bummed about this because we had spent a lot of money getting to this part of greece expecting to be able to spent about 8 days lounging on the beaches of santorini and ios. instead, we were going to spend 2 days in crete, 3 days in santorini, 2-3 days in corfu, then about 48 full hours traveling to pirovac croatia. that’s just too many ferries and trains and buses in a small amount of time. we just didn’t realize when we got to greece how much time it takes to get from place to place. traveling greek islands is a blackhole for time.

anyhooooo, that first night in crete, we booked our ticket out on the ferry, found a pretty cheap hostel to stay in, then as we usually do, wondered around getting a feel for the island.

 

Alas, our time in instabul was coming to an end, and we were excited to move on. Our next destination would be the island of crete, greece, and we were looking forward to finally getting some sun, beach, and getting at least a few shades darker.

We departed july 29th to catch a flight to crete. our flight left early though, so we had to get up early and catch a bus to the airport. luckily for us, the sky’s opened up right after we left the door to walk to the bus that morning, and it poured and poured for our entire 15 minute walk. by the time we got to the bus, we were both soaked. that was fun

we didn’t get too many pictures from that day since we were traveling. here are a few though.

PICTURES ARE IN THE 28TH ALBUM!!!!