Today marked
our one month anniversary of travel, and the halfway point for Ian’s trip. We rented a car, and drove to Lindos, halfway
up the eastern side of the island.
Although we had been there before, the unparalleled beauty of the site,
and the advancement in reconstruction efforts made us very glad we had returned
for another visit. We also enjoyed a
scenic drive across the island to Ancient Kámeiros, which had closed at 2:00,
as do almost all sites in Greece
in this, the off season. This left us
with three hours of car time and nowhere to go!
We attempted a couple of beaches, then headed off to Rhodes airport for
our flight to Crete.
Our day
didn’t start as early as we had planned back in Canada. Breakfast is not available until 9:00, and
our car did not arrive until 10:30. Luckily
for us, Sunday is the only day of the week that cars are allowed inside the
walls of Rhodes, so our car was delivered to
us right on the Street of Knights. The car
representative came into the delightful garden of our hotel, and the paperwork
was completed, then he kindly suggested a route – Lindos first, then to
Kámeiros, since it is close to the airport.
He also suggested the Valley of the Seven Springs and the Valley of Butterflies. I had packed the heavy books back into my
suitcase, which makes it unmanoeuvrable but gives us the right number of pieces
of luggage for an airplane, and forgetting that it was heavy, bent to pick it
up and dropped everything else – camera, GPS, purse, backpack, all went sliding
across the cobbles of the courtyard.
After everyone from the rental guy to the desk clerk to the other guests
eating breakfast rushed to help me, I bid a very embarrassed adieu to Dimitri,
(a desk clerk who looks exactly like our son James, as I told him after a I
shared a very nice bottle of wine with Ian last night!), and away we went.
The map
supplied by the car rental company doesn’t give highway names or numbers, which
isn’t as illogical as it sounds, since none of the highways display numbers,
and few of the streets do either.
Therefore, I use the GPS as a backup to my map, and was puzzled as to
why I couldn’t get Lindos to come up, when I had been able to do so while
sitting in the courtyard. The map didn’t
help either, so Ian finally pulled over, and found he couldn’t even find Greece! To our horror, the memory card that has the
maps of Europe on it had popped out of the
GPS! Gimli was working blind, and so was
Ian. We searched the car, to no avail,
and realized it must have come out when I threw my possessions about. Back we went to Rhodes
town, Ian parked at a gate, and I literally ran back to the Street of Knights,
up past the startled tour groups, and into the alleyway, where I had to stop
and go slowly, in case it had come out on the way to the car. I searched the ground, realizing with a sick
feeling that because the streets are paved with flat stones set on edge, the
tiny memory card could be between them anywhere on the street. Frantically searching the ground, I walked
back into the hotel, and the first thing I saw inside was the chip sitting in a
flower pot’s saucer! I don’t know how I
happened to notice it, but thankfully retrieved it, dried it off a bit, and ran
back to give Ian the happy news. Ian,
meanwhile, had managed to park the car, and had come to help, but I had run out
the other gate, so he didn’t see me. Five
minutes later, he was back at the car, and the entire near debacle had only set
us back about 20 minutes, or so Ian generously informed me. (Ian is really sweet when problems are my
fault, and not due to stupid devices, or worst of all, anything he did
himself. Since he is way nicer to me
than he is to himself, we play this game where I try to make everything my
fault. This time, it really was.)
Off we went,
not having to stop at any ceramic stores, as one must when on tour, and soon we
were at Lindos. Our first stop was the
amazingly beautiful church, painted from floor to ceiling with images
representing key events from the New Testament, and full of the scent of
incense and beeswax candles. A tiny
woman in black asked visitors not to take pictures, and to donate to the
church, both of which we did, or didn’t, as requested. Ian was very impressed, as there was a
funeral in the church last time he was there, and he hadn’t seen it
before. Last time I saw it, I got a big
lump in my throat, and this time, I also got a big lump in my throat. There is something about seeing such an
amazing art work, created out of love and devotion, even more than personal
expression, that really moves me.
After that we
ignored the donkeys – I don’t do donkeys, although I had a lovely conversation
with one – and I began my second vertical hike of the day, up to see the
amazing acropolis at Lindos. The town of whitewashed stucco blocks is as
picturesque as ever, and the amazing turquoise sea seems to go on forever.
 |
| This fellow and I had a real connection. |
As we began
the steps up to the Crusader’s Castle, we paused to marvel once again at the
carving of a trireme at the bottom of the stairs. If you’ve seen the famous statue of Nike on
the stairway at the Louvre, you might be interested to know that many experts
think that both works were done by the same sculptor.
We decided that we had better abandon both our plans for a swim and the trip to the Mycenean Graveyard, as we had to return the car at 5:00 and it was after 1:00. The trip through the pine forests was beautiful, and I was relieved to find that place names were spelled out in both Greek and Roman letters.
We were
surprised to find that, like Lindos, the site close at 2:20, with the last
admission at 2:00. We were just in time
to see the curator drive away. We tried
unsuccessfully to peek through the fence, walked the fence line as far as it
was safe, and then a bit farther, and then we tried to figure out what to do
next. After several unsuccessful attempts
to see other historic sites which were either closed, or poorly indicated, we
decided to spend our last couple of hours on Rhodes
at the beach – after all, we were both wearing bathing suits under our clothes.
Unfortunately,
the sea was very rough and muddy, so it didn’t look too appealing for a swim,
but we found some concrete bunkers left over from World War II, so it wasn’t a
total loss. They were ugly and covered
with graffiti, but yellow blooms of portulaca
were growing over them.
We went to
the airport, waited for the check-in desk to open, and cleared security. I changed out of my bathing suit, and managed
to transfer several burrs from my socks to my underwear, so this gave me
something to do for the next little while!
Suddenly, we
both realized that neither of us had printed the voucher for the car we had
rented. We booted the laptop, but couldn’t
find the saved copy, and had no idea how we were going to find our car. Equally distressing was the fact that the
gate for our flight wasn’t posted, and we couldn’t find any information, even
though it was 6:10, and our flight was supposed to leave at 6:20. At exactly 6:15, the gate was posted, and the
little plane – a Canadian Dash 8! -- took off on time.
We landed at Iraklion airport, and
spent an hour finding a connection to figure out the car situation, and Ian
eventually did! However, by this time we
had to make our entire drive out to Elounda in the dark. The GPS took us straight to our hotel, where
we were too late for a meal, and ate cookie dust from the bottom of one of the
packs. Our room was institutional but
clean, and we were relieved to have made it as far as Crete.
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