Russell's travel tales

Friday 6th – Heraklion / Knossos and about in Crete

A really nice breakfast again down in the hotel.  We seem to be getting cooked breakfasts and not continental as expected which is more points for you Renee.

We headed off to see if we could catch a bus to Knossos to see the birth place of civilisation as we know it.  We find a bus stop in the square and a machine to disperse tickets and a young lady only to willing to give us a hand to play the machine.  Our tickets are still being printed as the bus arrives but no problem and we get on board for what works out to be a 20 minute bus ride.  Knossos is a bit more organised and it costs us E3 to get in because Ngaire lied and said we were Poms and over 65.  It was hard to believe that people would think I was over 65 but we did have one Pom and two over 65ers in the group.

Three of us decided to get a guide.  It cost us E60 but as we had come so far we really wanted to get our value out of it.  It was a bit like another Pompei only 2,000 years older.  If it really had been as the people had surmised then it was truly amazing.  Clay water pipes and a water delivery system.  The columns were actually trees placed routs end up.  The place was a huge palace with supposedly 1440 rooms.  One and the largest of three such palaces in Crete of very similar design and the only one that was being restored.  The weather was quite cold and just as we finished it began to rain.  Fortunately it didn’t come to much.

We caught the bus back into town.  For some reason we couldn’t work out this cost us nearly double what we paid coming out.  It may have been because we had to buy tickets off the driver.

Back in town three of us had a cheese pie for lunch and Doug a filled roll.  Wouldn’t be in a hurry for a cheese pie again, pretty dry and mostly pastry.

We agreed to meet for wine and nibbles at five and each of us went off in respective couples to explore the city.  Margaret and I got up on what I thought was the old wall but what could have been a brilliant tourist attraction was nothing.  I think back to my walk around the wall of Chester and this was nothing.  We found some famous authors grave “Kazantzakis Tomb” on the highest part of the wall but that was not much more than a marble slab and a wooden cross in the ground. We dropped back into the city and wandered before going back to the hotel.  Ngaire had found an even cheaper wine E2.90 for 1.5litre plastic bottle.  I reckon tomorrow it will be 2litres in a plastic bag.  We still had no problem demolishing it with a few chippies as we reviewed all our photos.

We headed out for a meal at about 7.30 and found some upstairs restaurant.  There was hardly anyone else in it so maybe that was a sign.  It was so so but nothing special.  Doug had barbequed Chicken.  I had a beef Frap thing without the Frap and the girls shared a Pizza.  We went for a wander after tea but not much around and a very cold wind so it wasn’t long before we were back in our hotel.

Really hard work we were tired.

Saturday 7th May – Our last day on a Greek Island

A lovely day but that cold biting wind remains.  A big breakfast before we venture out.  We are off to Athens today so need to be back at the hotel by one to get a taxi out to the airport.

The Archaeological Museum is first stop.  Unfortunately that was under renovation but apparently most of the good stuff had been taken out and shown in temporary accommodation.   It was all stuff that had been found at Knossos.  Really interesting.  Somebody must have been good at jig saw puzzles as a lot of the stuff had been glued back together. Nods was fascinated with an etching of a love triangle although she didn’t want to be the one in the middle.

We headed back into town where if you stayed in the sun and sheltered it was really nice.  Got in the shade and unsheltered it was bloody cold.  We wandered through town again and down towards the fort that was guarding the port on the water front.  The waves were crashing too high to be able to walk around it and it was all closed up anyway.  Ngaire & Doug had tried to get around it yesterday and were beaten back by the waves then as well.  We headed back into town and had a coffee at Starbucks,  yes I know you would never see me in one in Wellington but we were desperate for a half way reasonable coffee.  It was ok and good for that part of the world.  It was back to the hotel to pick up our bags and off to the airport.  Our plane was half an hour late but a very enjoyable short flight to Athens in an Airbus A320-200.

Arriving at Athens we decided to be adventuresome and catch the Metro into town.  By the time we had our tickets we worked out it was E7 cheaper than the taxi and still left us with a bit of a walk at the other end.  Not to worry we were here for adventure and that’s what we got.  When we got out of the train at a change over station I discovered I no longer had my wallet.  A pick pocket or just lost it from my pocket I’m not sure we did go through an interesting pack squeeze to get out and of course us with our suitcases made it worse.  Bugger shit dam.  I had about E120 in it but of course my only card.  I rang throught to NZ and had my card stopped and am going to have to rely on Margaret for the rest of the trip.  There are positives in everything.

We hopped off the Metro at Metaxourghio and found our hotel straight away.  Renee there was talk of upping out rating on the hotel as the sun was shining onto out balconies and it was beautiful and warm. Some even thought the new rooms were bigger.  I think that was just the effect of the smaller rooms we had had on the islands.

Doug went out and brought this horrible bottle of wine which we managed to polish off before for setting out to find somewhere to eat.  We found this really nice Chinese restaurant upstairs and down some back alley.  The food was awesome and there was talk of breaking the never repeat rule.  I had spicy chicken, Margaret a fantastic lemon Chicken, Doug sweet & sour prawn and Ngaire Sweet & Sour Pork.  We all cleaned our plates.

We went out and found a hole in the wall machine and back to the King Jason.  We have the next two days to explore Athens.

Tired again, it is tough as you know being a tourist.

Tuesday 3rd May – Rhodes, The largest and most fertile of the Greek Islands

I didn’t get a bad sleep, waking at most of the stops but getting back to sleep very easily  Not sure if the others were so lucky but I tell them it is because I don’t have a conscience.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We arrive in Rhodes around 11am  We decide coming by ferry was really a good choice as the alternative had been to fly back to Athens and then back out to Rhodes.  The ferry was only E34 and saved a nights accommodation against what we suspect would have been close to E500 for flights.  We had a really nice breakfast on the boat almost by ourselves.  When we spoke to the purser about how quite it was he mumbled something about them changing the schedule and it not working.

We birthed at the furtherest point in the harbour from our hotel.  A lack of taxi’s caused some loud Greek squabbles amongst the locals and a Taxi driver that could of just driven off with a fare that had obviously pre booked him but chose to slug it out verbally with others.  We suspect he was trying to get additional passengers going the same way.  We ended up walking to the road and waiting on a crowded bus stop before eventually hailing a cab.  It was only E7 to the hotel but the driver didn’t know where it was and had to call in somewhere and ask.  A real surprise because The Best Western Plaza Hotel was a reasonably large Hotel in the centre of town.  A great choice Renee and we ended up scrapping over whether we should give it a 10 or a 10+.  I was on the side of a 10+ as although it was reasonably old it had wi-fi and free internet in the rooms, fantastic.  The minus was they wanted to charge an additional E2 per day for the use of the safe.  We dropped our bags and were off to explore the city.  Really noticeable when we came in was the huge walled older city.  However we headed off down the waterfront first which as only two minutes away from our hotel.  Margaret was keen to find Colossos but we were only a few thousand years to late as apparently he had been destroyed in an earthquake shortly after he had been erected in 293BC.  We were able work out where he once stood but the thing we did notice is that the Greeks seem very non appreciative of their heritage.  Most of it seemed as though it was being left to deteriorate. The good thing for us was it wasn’t commercialised and you just came across it where ever it was, normally covered in long grass.  The harbour area was very pleasant with a huge number and variety of boats  We found a nice place for lunch and a beer before venturing into the old city.  This was fantastic to a Kiwi boy like myself. Walls moats and fortifications all very impressive but still being  used today.  Cars and bikes passed through and the place was full of little shops and cafes. Hundreds of them.  Margaret slipped into a jewellery and came out with some bit of stuff.  When we finally came out of the old city we had somehow lost our bearings and were at the furtherest point from our hotel again.  We did a lot of walking.  We stopped along the way for cold drinks.  I ended up with a litre of beer in a glass boot..  Not really what I thought I had ordered.  We headed back to our hotel for a bit of a rest before going out in search of dinner.

We found surprisingly a Greek place called Zobra the Geek up a side street.  There were heaps to chose from.  I had a pasta dish which I couldn’t finish, Margaret & Noddy had ham & bacon crepes and Doug spare ribs.  All very nice but we were not that hungry.

Home and off to bed.  All the walking had worn us out.  It is hard work.

Wednesday 4th May – Rhodes, A walking tour of the city

We woke up Wednesday morning to a beautiful day, slightly windy but warm.  The breakfast at the hotel was superb with a very wide range of different things.  We thought we were on continentals,  but managed to have bacon and eggs without getting told off.

Then we were off walking.  Ngaire had done a bit of work and had a plan all mapped out for us.  It was off to an old Greek Stadium up on a hill.  This was quite fantastic and you could sit there and try and imagine what it would have been like back in its time.  I decided the bend at the end made it unsuitable for chariot racing but not everybody agreed with my assumptions.  It must have been close to 200 metres long.  We then came across a theatre with some fantastic acoustics where (we observed this from watching a tour party) if you stood on a specific spot and spoke your echo came back at you.  It was quite an open theatre so I was very impressed that the ancient Greeks were able to make stuff like this.  Then up the hill to the acropolis (not sure what a acropolis actually was but they were all over the place).  Some old ruins but also about four restored columns with stone work across the top.

We then headed back towards the city diverting off when we saw a sign to some ancient burial couches(didn’t know what they were either).  We were just ready to give up on looking for them when we saw a sign.  We walked over to it to find a bunch of ruins fenced off, overgrown with weeds and the area used as a rubbish dump.  Not unexpected but a real disappointment. We walked on, had some lunch at a nice little bakery and then discovered we were completely lost.  We asked some ladies in a shop to show us where we were.  It took them a heap of time and calling more people over before the worked out where we were and when we asked them which way we should walk they just laughed and said take a bus or taxi.  Not much help.  We walked to the coast got the trusty compass off the iPhone and worked out where we were.  I was too scared of RK to turn data roaming on and use the map function.  We did have a distance to go but we had plenty of time.  We came back around the tip of the point and past where our ferry had birthed.  Just to break the monotony we headed into the walled city and the markets and had an ice cream and wandered the markets a bit without buying anything.  Well done girls.  We headed back to our hotel and Ngaire & I went off to book us on a trip to Lindos the next day.  Quite funny really as we were given this big spiel on why we should take the tour and not the local bus or hire a car.  It turned out their tour didn’t go on the Thursday and he then wanted to rent us a car.  We booked at another agency and had to be at the Grand Hotel at nine the next morning.  On the way back to the hotel we picked up a bottle of red wine for E2.90.  The shop owner popped the cork for us.  We brought some cheese and nibbles and headed back to our room for a session before tea.

Doug sorted out a place for dinner.  These places were starting to look a bit the same.  I had lamb chops which were really good.  Doug had a pork chop, Margaret an omelette and Ngaire a Greek platter. She didn’t like the stuffed pepper.  The stuffing was ok but the pepper itself was bitter.

Back to the hotel for nae naes.  To tired to party.  Holidaying is tough.

Thursday 5th May – A trip Lindos

Up early with our bags packed and ready for another great breakfast.  We were waiting at the Grand for our bus and were the first on.  This allowed us to get the front seats and therefore the best view.  We spent the next hour picking people up until we had a full bus.  So much for the theory that a private tour was quicker than the public bus.  It wasn’t really that far, about 44 km from Rhodes and we were there at 10.45 where we were dropped at the top of a hill and had to catch a free bus down to the village.  We had to be back at our bus by 2.30 for the home trip.  So much for our supposed guided tour.  Ripped off again  Margaret and I decided to catch a donkey up to the castle, about a 10 minute ride.  It was an experience and we did we did feel guilty and sorry for the donkey but placated ourselves by say saying we saved the donkeys from a couple of big fat Americans. Opps I didn’t mean to say that loud.  Lindos was really quite an amazing place, so well situated up on the hill with at least two natural harbours.  You could see why it developed as an important place in those times.  Very very picturesque it was and obviously a lot of history.  We spent a lot of time exploring the ruins.  It was then time to head down to the beach.  Lots of people on the loungers but not too many in the water, that told you something.

The free bus back up the hill didn’t turn up so we grabbed a taxi.  A Mercedes 350s for the shortest taxi ride I have ever taken.

The bus had us back at the Grand by 4pm after a long jaunt again around hotels dropping people off.  We found a café on the side of the road for a beer and ended up staying there for tea.  We weren’t that hungry and were only looking for something light.  I had sausage and chips the other three had jacket potatoes.

We headed back to our hotel picked up our bags and were off to the airport for a short trip to Heraklion, the main city in Crete.  Still quite a procedure with us having to show our passports on more than one step in the process.

We were staying at the Lato Boutique Hotel at about E9 from the airport. Renee lots of discussion on the rating for this place I would have given it a 9 but Doug only wanted to give it a 5.  The rooms were small but it was comfortable, it had free wi-fi in the rooms, a decent shower and a great breakfast.  I’m going to stick with the 9.

My team at work wanted me to Skype into our work for the Monthly Meeting which was a 12pm task.  All seamed to work well but for once it appears the meeting started early so my prep time was less than I would have liked.  I hope it came across ok for them.

Life is tough

Thursday 28th – Off to Mykonos

Up at 5.15am, although somebody did ring me from NZ at  2 am, I hadn’t worked out how to keep my alarm on and the phone silent.  Maybe flight mode would have done it.  Our transfer  cab, was there as we went into the lobby but we rushed up to the breakfast bar,  grabbed some food in our hands and back down to be whisked away, each couple in our own shiny yellow Mercedes to the Hydrofoil waiting for us at Piraeus.  It took about 15 minutes so it was a pity we never had more time for breakfast as what we had grabbed was great, our ferry departure time was 7.25am. Not a lot of folk travelling, a few Aussies, Japanese in travel groups etc, we had been allocated seats but were able to move to a better table with a view.  The port was huge and a very large number of ferries, cruise ships and other boats, quite amazing.  A large number of islands and all the houses were the same off white colour and at first glance looked like cliffs.

Doug was reading out about Mykonos and said was famous for loud music, English breakfasts and over priced merchandise.  Oh and is also the gay capital of the world.  Sounds  like we are going to have some fun.

Two stop offs for the ferry on the way, Syros and Tinos.  Both quaint  looking places.  We arrived at Mykonos to quite chilly weather and the promise of rain, no one to pick us up and all the Taxi’s full.  We were dropped down at the old port but managed to find a Bus that took us to the new port much closer where we were able to walk into the town square and catch a cab up the hill to the New Aeolos Hotel, our home for the next two nights.  Anita made us a coffee and very welcome.  It was raining by now so we headed to our rooms for a bit of a rest.

Renee your points go back up.  Our hotel was a lovely friendly place up on the hill. Ten minutes down a track to the Square and slightly longer back up (every one told us we would need a taxi back up but we were hardy Kiwis so it was no problem to us).  I forgot to mention Renee that our ferry tickets were waiting for us at our hotel in Athens and again here in Mykonos for the next leg.

We spent the afternoon walking around the town in the rain although it did clear up a bit later.  All white with little narrow streets and alleys.  Amazing what you found behind the white walls. A real butchers shop, a green grocer but as it was good and even with all the good stuff we saw we spent money only on food.  Maybe that was because everything was so expensive.  Opps I lied then as Margaret brought an umbrella for E12 which we could have brought in Athens the day before for E3.  We had dinner at Madoupas on the waterfront.  I had the Mykonos sausage, Margaret an omelette, Doug salmon and Ngaire pasta.  With bellies full of really nice food we walked back up the hill to our hotel.

29TH April – The day William & Katherine got married

The day dawned cold and windy.  We could have easily been at home and in fact when I checked the temperatures Mykonos was only going to 1 degree warmer than home at 14.  However it did not rain.  Margaret & I had decided to take the boat to Delsos, a nearby uninhabited Island with an ancient Greek City on it that once used to house 30,000 people.  It was a little like Pompei but more run down.  Very surprisingly it was not run like a big tourist attraction and it was great just to be able to mosey around checking stuff out.  There was a museum on site where they had a lot of the treasures from the place and some explanations as to what had gone on there.   We were still going to have to do some research to get more information on its history. Strange but most things here are written in Greek.

Doug and Ngaire spent most of the day out at the only inland town,  Ano Mera where a monastery was the biggest thing in town.  They got there on the local bus.  It was an adventure for them but not worth the visit as they could not even get in.  A lovely new school but no kids. Good coffee sitting in the sun, lots of eating places around a square but no people to use them…..

We ended up back at the hotel where the girls were able to watch re runs of the wedding.  We decided on a late meal down in town and then we would see what night life was around.  We chose Maria’s for dinner, a really nice place where we were able to sit outside.  Meat balls for me which were fantastic and just melted in your mouth, Margaret had beef burger stuffed with yellow cheese, she avoided the feta..Doug had lamb cutlets and Ngaire Mousaka..delicious and coffee to follow< Rusty & Ngaire pigged out with an extra…local icecreams in a waffle cone.  We then went wandering but we were still far too early.  Some of the bars had light music going and all the coloured lights but there was nobody in them.  You could tell we are getting old when we headed off home up that dammed hill AGAIN.

30th April –  Mykonos to Santorini

A perfect day bloomed.  No wind, not a cloud in the sky, but still a coolish feel to it.  Summer was close.  The hotel had provided us with pretty light continental breakfast of Greek yogurt, cornflakes, fruit, boiled eggs, bread,  thin sliced ham & cheese, fruit juice plus tea or coffee and that sort of stuff.  Apparently if you paid more they would make toast.  We had restudied our map and worked out there was a part of town we hadn’t really explored so off we went.  We were catching the ferry at 2.55 so decided we needed to be back at the hotel to pick up our bags by 2pm. And a taxi to the port which we fear ripped us off big time as it was E8 plus…. The day had really warmed up and it was very enjoyable exploring again the narrow streets and alleys.  Margaret ended up buying a shirt.  Looks nice too. Lunch at Opa’s of beef balls and local made tomato sauce plus a beef sausage on kebab bread and then our last time up THAT hill to the hotel.

The ferry this time was full and we were really stuck to our allocated seats.  Quite chaotic really to get on with all the tour groups etc and of course our cases. stopping at Pyros, Eos and then our port Santorini..oh what delight awaits us here for our two night stay we wonder????

Off the boat and we are sitting at the bottom of the gigantic cliff,  very impressive with a zig zag road making its way up the side.  We decide to grab a cab (E17) to the Albatross Hotel at Katerados. 6 out of 10 for the Hotel Renee.  In fact we have re evaluated our rating system based on the Shanghai hotel being a 10,  King Jason would be a 5 and the New Aeolos being a 7.  The Albatross was not flash but does the job, it also had these mini showers where when you drop the soap it’s a mission to retrieve it with a wet curtain sticking to half your body, actually in Ngaire’s case she reckoned the curtain stuck to the crack of her ass..  No WiFi is also a pain in that part of your body.  We had to muck around a bit as Sandy our agent in Santorini had to sort out our ferry tickets to Rhodes.  First of all our ferry was not going to be running and then it was again.  We have some tickets for it but have yet to get aboard.  Sandy was really helpful and we arranged through her a rental car for the next day.  E30 a day including insurance.  While I had been sorting the tickets the others went out to explore the local surroundings and came back with a bottle of wine and some nibbles.  That didn’t last long so we headed off to find somewhere to eat.  Kypa-Nikh’s, another traditional Greek place.  Doug and I had pork fillets which were beautiful but too big to finish.  Ngaire had a lamb dish while Margaret a Moussaka.  We had our left over pork put into doggy bags to be our lunch the next day and headed back for a reasonably early night.

Playing the tourist is very very tiring.

1st May – Santorini in a Hyundai i10

We were told it was only a 10 minute walk to the town centre but after walking for nearly thee quarters of an hour knew we had gone the wrong way. The weather wasn’t that flash so we headed back to the hotel to ring for our rental.  We were going to have the car for 24 hours from when we picked it up and thought we would be smart and explore the main town first and get the car later.  Silly us, we got the car at 11.30 and we were off.  Doug described the Hyundi i10 as 10 inches from front to back, well it was a little bigger than that but not by much and we all fitted in comfortably.  Driving on the right hand side of the road caused us a bit of fun every now and again.  Bike was misheard as right but we managed without any serious mishaps.  Having our own motor was fantastic and we covered the whole island at least twice.  Our navigator was a bit shit or was it the map and the street signs but he ended up chucking the map over the back seat so in the end we just drove.  We had lunch at Perissa,  a nice beach on the south west side of the island.  It was still a bit fresh so there was nothing much to see on the beach and nobody swimming at all.  We had picked up a couple of rolls and our lunch was pork roll from our doggy bag of the night before.  However we did have the best coffee there since leaving home.  We headed off and found an ancient village with narrow roads tracks and alley ways similar to Mykonos.  Back in the car and we headed up a road on the side of the hill to the monastery and radar station at Pyrgos, the highest point on the island.  They had a sign up there taking no responsibility for uncontrollable cancer carcegenics from the radar. A really great view although it was restricted quite a bit by the haze. Back in the car and this time we found the main town Fira but as we could not find a parking space we ended up driving right through so we kept going to Oia at the northern end of the island.  Again we ended up driving right through because we didn’t get a park and at the northern end drove down this steep road to a quaint little port sitting under these high cliffs with rocks, some of them quite huge just sitting there waiting to come loose and drop on the restaurants and people below, scary. The road was less than 10 years old and prior to that the donkey and a steep track was the means of transport.

We headed back to Fira and found a park this time. Fira was perched on the side of the cliff above the old port.  The port had no road to it, just a donkey track and the cable car.  You could see the donkeys walking up the track.  We didn’t test it but there were 589 steps according to the numbers we saw at the top. But this was certainly where a lot of the pictures come from.  Nice white houses attached to the side of the hill and little windy paths between them.  This place is renowned for having the best sunsets in the world.  Of course Doug would never agree with this and the West Coast of NZ has much better.  We were not going to prove it either way as the haze (or cloud) was still about.  We had dinner where we could sit and watch the sunset.  I had Garlic Spaghetti,  Margaret a Shish Kabab, Doug & Ngaire shared a hot spicy mussel dish and salad. Margaret had her Gin and tonic for TA with her feet up.  As mentioned the sunset was disappointing and we headed back home for an early night.

Pottering around is very tiring.  

Monday 2^nd May – More driving around Santorini

We were not catching our ferry until 10pm tonight so had a full day to fill in.  We decided to keep our car for another day so headed off early for the furtherest point on the island.  A lighthouse which we were able to drive right too.  We wandered around there and then set off to see if we could see an archaeological site called Akrotiri that had been closed since 2005 because of an accident.  The was nothing to see except Red Beach.  Not really exciting, very rocky but some red rock formations of interest.  We then headed back to Perissa for the good coffee.  While there saw a postcard for a beach called Kamrai which was over by the archaeological town of Ancient Thirasia past the airport.  It was a lovely beach and you could start to see how nice it would be to book into one of the hotels across the road and live there as a beach bum.  According to every one we were still a week early but there was some eye candy on the beach.  We spent probably 3 or 4 hours here wandering and had a nice lunch before heading to a wine museum.  We bulked at the E7 fee here and my vote didn’t count as I was driving and not allowed to sample the wares.  Apparently they had a 300m tunnel and tape players in English.  When we got out we could sample 4 wines.  Well could have.  We drove through to Oia again which was a reasonable distance only to be told when we couldn’t find an easy park to go back to Fira.  We had been looking for a particular restaurant on that road called Akropolis but couldn’t find it.  As said my navigators were not up to it.  We ended up at some little place where I had a Cod fillet, Margaret and Doug Greek sausage and Noddy, salad with spinach pie.  We didn’t mark it high but my cod was good.

It was then we put some petrol in the car and down to the port.  We ended up using E30 of gas.  The port was very quiet when we got there as we were an hour and a half early but we made good friends with a café worker from Albania and time went quickly drinking coffee and ouzo.  We watched a 9.15pm ferry come and go.  Quite an interesting operation as the boat backs in to the wharf, drops the ramp, cars trucks and people stream out.  The new lot walk on in a rush, cabs pull up within minutes to go and the boat leaves.  The port almost closes down until the next one, ours The Blue Star Line’s Diagoras.  What a fantastic ship/ferry.  It was huge, palatial and very clean with only a handful of people on.  It even had escalators.  It was easy to find a row of seats to coil up on and go to sleep which is exactly what I did. We had breakfast of eggs, bacon etc etc in the dining room all by ourselves…..

PS: I have to tell all that “Garson” our car driver was real good, he only scared Nods once and that was more the road than the driver and the view from the top was well worth it. Our navigator did get poxy a couple of times and he was the only other male in our group.

Being a tourist is harder than working

Wednesday 27 April – Athens

As usual Airports and flying is a pretty boring time and totally in contrast to our time in Shanghai where we seemed busy the whole time and when we weren’t we were that tired we only wanted to sleep.  We flew out on an Airbus 346 from Shanghai and although a shiny new plane did not have as much room as the Boeing 777-200 we had left Auckland on.  For me I could never quite get my legs comfortable. 12 hours to Munich a 3 hour wait and then 2.5 hours to Athens on another Airbus A321.  We decided to take a cab (fixed price E350] to our hotel as it was raining and a bit chillier than Shanghai.  We were the only crazy’s  in shorts but hey we were on holiday.  The King Jason Hotel was not up to the Shanghai standard Renee.  You may lose some points on this. You had to stand on the loo to shut the door but it did have a much more up close and personal feel.  You had to run the taps for 10 minutes to get the water hot.  Cosy but had every thing we needed.

We booked in about two and the headed out to check out the sites.  Totally different, much older buildings and pretty run down.  Narrow streets and heaps of graffiti, we found a Metro and headed to a busier part of town.  Metro similar to China but you purchased your ticket by time. E1.40 for 90 minutes of  travel.  You had to validate your ticket before starting and the 90 minutes started from then.

Emerged from the underground to rain and started walking through a shopping area. There were few veranda’s and difficult to avoid the light drizzle.  It cleared up after about 15 minutes.  All pretty low rise and older but funny enough similar shops to what we had seen in Shanghai.  It is a small world.  We found a flea market and poked our way around there for a couple of hours.  Mostly leather, bracelets, shoes and the norm but there was a couple of bike shops.  We picked out a restaurant for tea which had a name resembling ouzo and had some really nice food.  I had an Anchovy fry-up and  Margaret a pasta dish and we shared. Ngaire  had a crepe with cheese and other stuff and Doug had a pork knuckle. All the food was really good and the guy kept bringing out ouzo’s for us to try, plus we were given free bread and a chocolate type crepe dessert.. We brought the first one which was ouzo, the next tasted more like whisky and the 3^rd was one that apparently the people from Crete drink like water all the time and don’t get drunk.  It tasted bloody awful and explains why the Gambitsis folk may have left Crete.

After eating we ventured away from the restaurant with map in hand to find our hotel  and as we were all again very tired and we were being picked up at 6am to get down to our ferry we hit the sack.  As we are hopefully coming back to this hotel in eight days we decided to each leave a bag behind and go light on our Greek Island adventure.  I also did manage to get my first posting onto the blog and check my emails before crashing.

Shanghai – Saturday 23 April

What a day but first I really should say a big thank you to Renee Olsen from the Flight Centre at Dukes Arcade.   She has done a great job of putting our trip together so if I mention Renee thought this blog that will be who I am talking about. We managed to sneak our way into the Koru Lounge in Auckland so a few snacks there as we went through some last minute briefs with Doug & Ngaire and gave them their documents.

The flight left on time and we were soon in the air.  NZ480 bound for Shanghai.  The realisation that we were on holiday finally starting to sink in. A pleasant fight but the screen on the in house entertainment system was crap and everything seemed to be happening at night.

Shanghai – Saturday 23 April

We arrived at Shanghai early (7.30am Saturday) to a beautiful but smoggy day and found our way to the Maglev.  This rocketed us into the edge of the city reaching a top speed of 431 km/h.  We thought we would catch the Metro from there but after standing in a queue that hadn’t even got in the station door for a while we though we would grab a cab.  We negotiated a price of 180RMB (around$45kiwi) for the trip amongst many taxi drivers vying for our custom.  We managed to squeeze all our bags and us into this not so big cab and head off.  He obviously did not know where he was taking us and we then had to talk to a call centre and explain where.  An interesting time where we made our own lane down some of the roads. Constantly had horns blown at we think us and every now and then he took booth hands off the wheel to show us how big Shanghai was.  The road in many places was set well above the ground level.  We had a bit of heated discussion when we got to our hotel as he then wanted 300RMB and wanted the money before we got out of the car.  We gave him 200 as that was what we had in notes, got out in the middle of the street and headed for the hotel.

It turned out we were at the wrong wing of the hotel but they stole us any way said they were giving us an upgrade and it wouldn’t cost any more.  That’s what we did so hope it all works out Renee.  We got our room straight away dumped our gear and were ready to explore what promised to be a wonderful city.

Our closest station was Shanghai Railway Station so we headed off there. 4 minutes away.  We got in this queue and after going down these raceway things found ourselves at the front of the station only to realise that everyone else had tickets and we didn’t.  We could then see there was another place next door for buying tickets but these raceway things only went one way.   After some stuffing around as we appeared to be locked in this corral area we found a gate that was not locked and we could head the other way down one of the chutes.  Lined up in the room full of automatic ticket booths and were struggling our way thought that to find the main station and the Metro were too different places.  So off to the Metro we go a few 100 metres back the way we had come.  We found a nice lady in a booth and managed to convey to her that we wanted 4 tickets to Najini Nth Road Station.  The fun had just begun,  We need to get on Line 1 and into Peoples Square (3 stops) and change to  Line 2 and go 1 stop.  After more fun with the machines and a long walk to No 2 line we were there. The trains were long and almost standing room only we shared odours with the locals as we got up close.

We emerged from the station to be greeted by a couple of locals that wanted to take us to their shop.  We couldn’t shake them as we headed down the road so eventually did end up in their shop.  They didn’t have what we wanted and we escaped although we could have brought an iPhone for about $NZ160.  An impressive looking copy I am guessing. They recommended a restaurant across the road which didn’t look much and nobody spoke English but turned out to be good.  The Chinese beer was great and we have had it a few times since.  We headed off down he Bund which was a very popular spot along the old town side of river.  Hundreds of people walking along wedding photos but possibly the most popular event was a white guy with a long green spiked Mohawk.  The Chinese loved having there photograph taken with him. The Huangpu River was a huge river with all sorts of shipping going past and on which Shanghai is built around. The Bund was touted as the spot where you can see the old and the new Shanghai. Across the river was the new and some really amazing and tall buildings.  Unbelievably high.  We found a tourist tunnel expecting to walk through and be able to see the river bottom but no we end up paying 100 RMB which did include a ticket to get in the Science & Technology Museum and we ended up in little pods which took us through a tunnel with noise and a laser light show.  We emerged at the other side found a Metro station and headed to the Science & Technology museum.  However after getting off the train we walked straight into the Fake Market where you could buy lots of gizmos clothes and allsorts of things.  Doug brought shirts Margret shoes and Ngaire and I nothing.  If it was the end of our trip and we had room in our cases we would have brought heaps.  We headed up to the Museum,  There was heaps in it, a fantastic building and a wee bit like Te Papa.  We were all feeling very tired at this stage as it had been a enormous day, especially those that didn’t sleep much on the plane.  We headed back to the Metro and our hotel.  It took us a while to find somewhere to eat as most places didn’t have a menu.  Eventually we found a Japanese restaurant and ended up with a really enjoyable meal.

Back to the hotel booked a tour of the water village for the next day and fell into our beds.  All reported the best night sleep we had had for ages.

Sunday 24 April – Tour of Water Villages

Woke up for a 7.30 breakfast as we were being collected at 8.40 for our tour.  Jo our tour guide was waiting for us when we got down stairs.  There were 8 of us on the tour, us four, a Nicaraguan couple now living in California.  He worked for an electronics firm which had stuff built in Shanghai.  And a Chinese couple.  It was a good group and if the Chinese couple had been able to speak English we would have all had a great time.  First stop was just over an hour out and was a garden in XXXXX.  It was a garden built 500 years ago by a communications official that had nothing else to do and wanted something to pass on to the next generation.  He must of got it right as thousands of people were still pouring through the gate 500 years later. It was a very nice tranquil place.  We then headed off to the last bit of what was a walled city and up onto a high arched bridge.  Made high to fit the Emperor’s barge under with all his concubines.  We were then off for lunch before getting a look around the number one silk works in all of China (and the world).  It was really interesting and we got to spread out a silk worm cocoon to help make a bedspread.  We ended up buying a bedspread which is being shipped home.

It was then off to Zhouzhuang The number 1 Water Town of China, or the Oriental Venice made famous by a New York painter who painted the right angled bridges and sold the painting to an oil Baron who then presented it to the Chinese Premier.  A fascinating smelly little town.  We got punted around the cannels.  Well not really punted but propelled by an oar out the back which was sort of twisted to get the forward motion.  They were also famous for their pork as the Premier liked it.  Headed back to the hotel arriving around 6.30 and headed out to Mr Lee’s for a meal.  Really interesting with us all eating our noodle meals with chop sticks.  Another early night.  What I have learnt is that is tiring being on holiday.

Jo was a brilliant guide.  Interesting, good English, a good general knowledge and a great sense of humour.

Monday 25th April

We thought we would have a sleep in but were down for breakfast at 8.30.  We weren’t in a hurray as we wanted to travel outside the rush hour.  After breakfast it was off to the Metro.  We were becoming experts by now but were still having a bit of trouble with the ticket machines.  Some were coins only, some gave no change and some just didn’t seem to work.  The only good thing was the locals seemed to have similar problems.  We headed for The Peoples Square for no other reason than we had transferred through there on the Saturday and never got a chance to go up top and look.  Well nothing much up top anyway.  We were often accosted by young Chinese looking for someone to practice their English on.  That was always a lot of fun.  From the Peoples Square we just started walking and taking in the local culture.  After a while we thought we would go looking for the Yu Gardens which were supposed to be part of the early Shanghai.  We found where they were but couldn’t find an entrance but did end up in some temple.  While the girls were in some diamond centre Doug and I were sitting out side when I got suckered into buying a couple of Rolexes.  I finally beat him down to 80 RMB but later found out the 20 RMB he had given me for change was probably monopoly money.  Well it might as well have been.  I count myself lucky as he tried to swap the 100 RMB note I had given him for another one as he claimed the one I gave him was ripped.  I told him to get lost which was just as well as he would have been giving me a fake there as well.  All good fun as 20 RMB was only $5 any way.  Ngaire did even better she came out and got her two watches for 35 RMB.  Fortunately the girls hadn’t brought any diamonds.  Well not that we know of.  We mucked around in the area, had some lunch where Doug ordered these Durian cakes.  Very vial tasting things.  The waiter watched me eat the one I was forced into eating and laughed the whole time.  Some more sightseeing and by the time we found the gardens it was too late to go in.  Something for tomorrow.  We went and explored another park and then home on the Metro.  We found this really impressive restaurant not too far from our hotel and ate a really top notch meal before heading back to the hotel for another early night.

This touristy stuff is really tough.

Tuesday 26th – Our last day in Shanghai

We headed off just after nine for the Yu gardens.  We found a faster way than getting home the night before and were there shortly after 10.  The gardens were lovely and we got to participate in a tea ceremony.  We then headed back into the crowd and ended up at apparently the oldest Tea house in Shanghai, 185 years old for another tea ceremony.  All these healthy teas should have fixed all our ailments.  In spite of Doug’s ribbing I went and brought a Man Bag I had seen the day before.  I needed something more styley than the pack I had been carting around knocking people in the subway with.  I am sure I got more attraction from the girls with my new bag.  We wandered off towards the communications tower which towered about half a kilometre into the sky.  It was always hard to see the top because of the pollution.  We managed to find a ferry to cross the river.  It cost 40cents NZ.  We had a late lunch in a huge shopping mall with an amazing assortment of foods.  We went to a bakery with some really nice bread and pastries.  We headed for the tower but decided 150 RMB was more than we wanted to pay so gave it a miss.  You probably couldn’t see that far with the smog.

Somebody said the temperature was 31 Degrees today.  We shot back into the mall and wandered around before catching the metro back to the hotel where we had left our bags. We grab a taxi to the airport so we could see different stuff to the trip in.  Driving in Shanghai is always interesting, lane markings don’t mean much and horns been blowen constantly, we saw heaps of very large apartment building.  We joked that there were maybe more people in one of these than  in Hastings.  We got to the airport far too quickly, less than an hour and over 3 hours before we could start checking in.  It gave me my first chance to really catch up on this Blog.  However have been struggling to find wifi convenient to upload this.  Heading for the plane and Athens with a two hour stop-off in Munich. Should be there in 18 hours.

Renee full marks for our Shanghai hotel.  Apart from no free internet it was excellent.  By the way a Taxi to the airport was 190 RMB less than $40 NZ.

Next stop Athens

Well we have both finished work and maybe we can start to feel we are on holiday. We haven’t packed our bags yet but think we are all organized. We better be ok because there are no shops open tomorrow. We leave Wellington at 8pm so day at home tomorrow. I still need to cut the lawns so hoping the weather holds. We are sitting here watching tele where maybe we should go and pack.

Margaret & I and Doug & Ngaire are off on a bit of an adventre for the next six weeks.  We leave on Friday so the excitement is starting to build.  In fact Doug & Ngaire take off from Hastings on Thursday Morning and head up to Auckland via Matamata and Katikati.  The Itenary is: Wellington, Auckland, Shanghai, Munich Athens, Mykonos, Santotini, Rhodes, Crete, Athens, Olympia, Delphi, Athens, Istanbul, Gallipoli, Troy Ephesus, Pamukkale, Hierapolis, Antalya, Konya, Cappadocia, Ankara, Gordion, Bursa, Istanbul, Munich, Singapore, Auckland, Wellington.

With this hit of cold weather today it can’t come quick enough now.  I had better start packing my bag