Ελλάδα

That’s Greek for Greece! I’m not sure when I’ll finish this, but I’m tired of slogging through special relativity, and writing seemed like a pretty good alternative. This, then, is the tale of my spring break travels.

In short, I and a friend spent the week before Easter in Greece, split between Athens and the island Naxos. My travel companion was Chenoa Albertson, who many of you know. For those who don’t, she’s a friend and fellow art major from St. Olaf. She has also been taking Norwegian classes, and is spending the semester in Bø, just west of Oslo (See the map). The motivation was a desire for warm weather, a free week, and cheap flight tickets!

Vigeland Park Monolith

I left Trondheim the evening of the 19th of March, a Thursday, and arrived by bus in Oslo on Friday morning. It was actually a little more exciting than that. I was confused about the bus’s departure time (11 pm), and thought I had an extra half hour and a bus ride down to the station. Around 10:20 I realized my mistake, at which point I began hurriedly packing. I set a PR for packing time of 20 minutes, and then flew through the rain and dark on my bike down to the station. I arrived at the station at 10 til, found the bus at 5 til, and we left at 11. Perfect, right? This episode began an exciting string of close calls with transportation which continued throughout the trip.

Chenoa took the train over, and we met at Vigeland sculpture park. We explored the park for a bit and then took the train an hour south to the Rygge Airport. We were planning to take a buss which would have gotten us there in plenty of time, but we missed it by three minutes, and so time was a little tight. Lucky for us the airport was neither big nor crowded, and security was a breeze.

Three hours later we were in Greece! The sun set somewhere around the time we landed, so our first views of the city were by night. We took a half hour bus from the airport into the center of bustling Athens – prettier at night than during the day, and then walked about an hour north up to our hostel. Our hostel was on a quiet side street, a bit removed from the noise, but still solidly within the center of Athens. We spent the following two days, three nights in Athens in three main pursuits: seeing a bunch of old buildings,

Acropolis and Us

wandering around parks,

Oranges

and eating.

Dinner on a balcony in the Plaka

All three were wonderful. Especially the food. Greek food is full of spices, intriguing seafood, and potent cheeses. A combination of somewhat bland Norwegian fare, three months of cooking for myself, and affordable prices didn’t hurt either.

After a couple days in the city we were ready for peace and quiet. We chose the island of Naxos for its hiking, and for being somewhat less accessible than Paros, and less touristy than Santorini. All three are destinations on my ideal three week tour of Greece (I planned it concurrently, as I read about all the places we just didn’t have time to see). The ferry left at 7:25 am, so we and 10 others from the hostel ordered taxis for 6:15 am. The first came soon enough, but the other two took their time, and so we wasted no time sitting around waiting for the ferry to leave. The ride took five hours, during which we caught up on sleep, and then tried some fast food squid.

Pension Irene II

Our time on Naxos was centered around the main town called, simply enough, Naxos. We stayed four nights in a beautiful pension close to the center of town where we had a kitchenette, bathroom, and balcony, for less than the hostel in Athens! Irene, the landlady, was an archetypal Greek grandma with a very limited English vocabulary. She could understand us just fine, but used single words, smiles, and gestures to get her point across. We had wonderful weather in Athens, but that ended the day of our ferry trip with a three day stretch of clouds and periodic showers. The weather gave us an excuse to sleep in a bit, though we didn’t let it prevent us from exploring. Our first full day we climbed up to a peak above the town to get a view.

The town as seen from the hills

Finally, on our last day on the island, we got some sun. In the morning we rented bikes and set off to explore the interior (see our route on the map). We biked through a couple cute little villages, and a lot of beautiful olive groves. Part of the way was on roads of varying development, but we also did some mountain biking, following hiking trails, which was more exciting. My favorite stop was an ancient abandoned monastery we came across. There was no sign, no fence, no tourist establishment, just some old stone walls to explore. The overgrown olive orchard nearby was equally beautiful.

Our ferry back – another close call – gave us a few hours in Athens before our flight. We spent the time shopping and eating. Of particular interest was a stop at the poet sandal maker for handmade Greek leather sandals. The tiny shop used to be run by Melissinos, who would give away copies of his poems along with his sandals. It is now run by his son, an artist and playwright, who went to school in the states and speaks the best English we heard. It was a bit of a surprise stepping from a street with merchants who have learned just the limited vocabulary necessary for attracting tourists into a shop who’s clearly Greek owner sounds like an American.

The rest of the trip was just a bunch of travel – bus to airport, flight to Rygge, bus to Oslo, train to Bø. I spent a couple days over Easter at Chenoa’s place in Bø. This entailed several more adventures – adventures for another story. Greece was adventure filled enough, and a great start to my travels in Europe. It left me excited for the summer, during which I will be exploring western Europe by rail and backpack. Plans are starting to come together, though there is still much to do. Right now I’m planning a ten day trip to Great Britain, in between finals. Yeah, I have actually been doing some work here. Three more days of classes though, then finals, and then we’re done! Only five more weeks in Norway. Crazy.

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