Aegean Odyssey Day 3

RETHYMNO, CRETE -- Long, lingering day made phantasmagoric by heat, lack of sleep, travel, and alcohol. 

Got up early and flew out of Athens on a 7:20 Aegean Air flight to Iraklion, Crete (here is a glimpse of the coast of Attica as we crossed over it and began to fly southeast). Collected our luggage and were picked up by a shuttle service and friendly driver Demetrius, who was chatty but whose English was only marginally better than my non-existent Greek, causing him to give us slightly suspicious sideways glances anytime we referred to our friend Dimitri during the hour-and-15-minute drive from the airport to our hotel (at bottom is a view of the Sea of Crete from a little ways west of Iraklion). 

Room was not ready when we got it so we went for an early lunch and were pleased to discover at the place we stopped that we could get a liter of decent local red wine for 7 Euros! We had that and a couple of mixed grill plates that included gyros, chicken, pork souvlaki, and a lamb chop. Proprietress Maria also provided us with some great information about the local area and gave us a nice complimentary plate of watermelon, oranges, and figs for desert. 

Went back to the hotel and finally got into our room a little before 2 p.m., upon which we promptly passed out for about four hours. We then got up and walked down to the beach, where I bathed in the surf, always loving the opportunity to scrub myself with sand and wash in natural water. 

After that we got dressed and went out to find a place to eat dinner. We ended up choosing Mr. Gyro and met two nice couples of expat Brits who now live in Crete and, after spending a number of hours chatting with them, were left considering relocating here after we decide we have lived in Texas long enough (from bottom left are Alison, Toni, Michael, and Nathan). 

Vocabulary
Figs: Syka
Oranges: Portokali
Watermelon: Karpousi

More to come! 

Aegean Odyssey Day 2 (Athens)

ATHENS, GREECE -- Landed here about 8:30 a.m. local time and then fairly quickly collected our luggage and cleared customs. Almost always struck when coming in to a major European port of entry how much easier and less stressful it is then coming back into the United States. Then walked across the street to the conveniently-located Sofitel (the lobby of which is shown at right). Staff was very friendly and gracious and let us check into our room at 11 and then had our stuff hauled up to it for us. 

Friend Dimitri Kremmydas met us at the hotel and then took us downtown via bus, allowing us to see the orchards and farm plots that provide much of the produce available in the markets of the city. We then spent several hours exploring a number of downtown neighborhoods, from some of the most chic to ones that have fallen on hard times but still have a great degree of local charm. Highlights included walking through the traditional open-air produce, meat, and fish markets (some glimpses of which appear here); a look at some of the outdoor exhibits at the War Museum and Byzantine Museum; a walk past the parliament and brief stop to pay respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (some of the evzones guardsmen from the site can be seen patrolling below); and a visit to a subterranean archaeological site inside a metro station (also below). 

In the course of all this we had lunch at a traditional Pakistani street food vendor, not what we had expected for our first meal in Greece but delicious and a nice surprise. We enjoyed beef kebabs, samosas, salads, wonderful flatbread hot off the grill, and a very spicy dish of minced organ meats (which Diane would not touch but that I thought was great). 

We also had an enlightening conversation about U.S. and Greek society, history, politics, religion, and related matters. And, as we are both wargamers, we also talked about that a bit as well! 

Got back to the hotel and, after resting a little, walked across the street to the airport to see where we needed to check in for our 7:20 flight to Crete in the morning. Then, each had a Hellas Fix draught beer and a much-needed glass of water in the Artemis Bar and picked at the snacks that came with them (including, much to Diane's amusement, a little dish of bugels!). 

I went up to the sauna and pool for a sweat and a dip and watched the sun go down over the hills surrounding the Messoghia Valley. Then, came back down to the room, made a cup of espresso, and updated this blog and did a little other work before turning in. 

Today's vocabulary: 
efcharisto = thank you (a good first word to know wherever one is travelling)
kalimera = good morning

That's it for now. More to come! 

Aegean Odyssey Day 1

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS -- At San Antonio International Airport getting ready to board our flight to Philadelphia, the fist leg of our journey to Greece and more than three weeks in the Aegean! Will be keeping a running log of our odyssey here and posting interesting and useful information at once a day, Internet access permitting. So, come along and enjoy the trip with us!

There are a few things to note already:

* TSA recently implemented "Pre-Screening" for some travelers and apparently my wife Diane was approved for it (she is not sure how, as she never applied for it, but is assuming it is in part because she is retired U.S. military; I suspect it involved some sort of background check by TSA). Both of us therefore got moved into the pre-screened line, which meant we did not have to remove our shoes or belts -- I did not wear one anyway because I did not know about this -- or have to remove our laptops from our carry-on luggage. This made our trip through security the quickest and most painless one I have experienced in about 13 years. Suffice it to say, this is probably the smartest, best thing TSA has done in more than a decade, and certainly the one that will improve quality of travel for the most people -- and even people who are not pre-screened benefit because there are fewer people waiting in lines with them.

* Don't be fooled by airport bars that are open when you are waiting for early-morning flights, because you cannot get a drink at them! They are not permitted to serve alcohol earlier than 7 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on Sundays. Suffice it to say that those of us who have no values at all are not particularly tolerant of those who turn theirs into legislation or presume to dictate when other people are allowed to have a drink. If we had recalled this from the last time we experienced it we could have brought a couple of vodka minis and used them to spike some "virgin Maries."

* San Antonio International Airport has free Wifi! This is nothing new but a real plus for me and goes a long way toward making them traveler-friendly so it bears mentioning.

Greece, the Ghosts of South Texas, and Trips Past

CANYON LAKE, TEXAS -- Am at home writing this as I try to complete a current project, prepare for an upcoming trip, and reflect upon my most recent big adventure. 

* As many of my friends know, I am the editor of Clerisy Press's America's Haunted Road Trip series of travel guides to reputedly haunted places people can people can visit and am also the author of three of its titles. Two of those, Ghosthunting Virginia and Ghosthunting Maryland, I wrote some years back, and the third, Ghosthunting San Antonio, Austin, and Texas Hill Country, I am fervently working to finish up now. While this latter book has involved a considerable amount of travel I have not posted too much about it here, as it has got its own dedicated blog (and I have updated it 10 times this month alone!). I have spared no effort on this book and anyone interested in haunted or historical sites in South Texas should do themselves a favor and check it out. (Shown at right is the tower at Comanche Lookout Park in north San Antonio.)

* In less than two weeks, my wife Diane and I will also be leaving to spend a month traveling to several locations on Greece! We will be starting off with a single day in Athens and will be doing something fun but yet-to-be-determined with my friend Dimitri Kremmydas, who lives there. Next morning we will be flying to Crete for six days and, among other things, are planning on visiting the Minoan ruins at Knossos, the Samaria Gorge, and the cave where Zeus was believed to have been born. We will then move on to the island of Santorini, site of the largest volcanic eruption in human history and known in antiquity as Thera, were we will spend 10 days, a week of it with our close friends Richard and Laura Allan, who will themselves be flying down from Scotland (Hotel Atlantis, the place we will be staying, is the large rectangular building in the picture below). We will then travel by ferry successively to Rhodes, Kos, Nisyros, and back to Kos, where we will spend a couple of days with my friend and colleague Brendan Cass and visit some of the sites I have featured in my "Swords of Kos" fantasy fiction novels. Then, we will fly back to Athens for a day and, from there, return home! 

* In the midst of everything else I am have also been trying to finish posting to this site the journal I kept during my voyage last September and October from Hawaii to French Polynesia, New Zealand, and Australia on board the Royal Caribbean vessel Radiance of the Seas, for which I served as the cruise lecturer. 

More to come as I complete one project, finish talking about another, and embark upon the next! 

Oak Valley Vineyards

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS -- Last Sunday my wife and I had dinner for the first time at Oak Valley Vineyards (aka "The Vineyards"), a place at the northern edge of San Antonio that we have had our eye one and been planning on going to for about five years. Suffice it to say that we had a wonderful meal there, consisting of a nice chopped salad and then irreproachable and perfectly grilled ribeyes with wild mushroom sauce, very garlicky mashed potatoes, asparagus, and some especially good creamed spinach. We washed it all down with a couple glasses of Prosecco brut to start and then Seven Deadly Zinns red zinfandel with our meals. For desert we had a delicious sticky toffee pudding. 

Overall the menu and ambience of the Vineyards has a very elegantly rustic feel that I would classify as "provincial"  ("country" having a very different connotation in the United States in general and Texas in particular). Anyone looking for fine dining in a relaxed atmosphere in the San Antonio area could hardly do better. 

It bears mentioning that the Vineyards has a terrific wine list with lots of options, including a number from Texas Hill Country, but that it no longer produces its own wine, as had once been the case! This was a minor disappointment, but certainly not one that would keep us from going back to it (anymore than it would keep us from going to any restaurant that did not produce its own wine). 

An especially nice surprise was bumping into friend and local author Sharon Pinkston and her friend Jim, who we were pleased to discover are regulars at the Vineyards! Sharon and I bump into each other at the most unexpected times and places and it makes any excursion that much more enjoyable for me. 

During our visit to the Vineyards we also had the opportunity to chat with proprietor Beth Colley, who along with her husband Tim acquired the restaurant about a year-and-a-half ago. When I told her I was a writer working on a book about haunted places in and around San Antonio and Texas Hill Country, she mentioned that her establishment had caught the eye of a number of local ghosthunting groups and that they had detected various paranormal phenomena at it. As things stand now I will therefore be including an entry for the Vineyards in the "Additional Haunted Sites" of my Ghosthunting San Antonio, Austin, and Texas Hill Country and am looking into whether or not to devote an entire chapter to it. 

We ended our visit to the restaurant with a walk through its actual vineyards, a colorful and pleasant complement to an experience that has induced us to add Oak Valley Vineyards to the places we want to come back to. 

Visiting the Texas State Capitol

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- One of the places I have been overdue visiting during the nearly five years I have lived in Texas is the state capitol building, which I had the opportunity to do on Tuesday, February 25, along with a group of students from the Fischer Schule Haus charter school in nearby Fischer, Texas. It is one of the last few sites I needed to personally visit for purposes of doing research for my current book project, Ghosthunting San Antonio, Austin, and Texas Hill Country. 

Located in downtown Austin, it contains the chambers of the Texas Legislature and the office of the governor and is the fourth building to house the state government. Originally designed in 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers, it was constructed from 1882 to 1888 under the direction of civil engineer Reuben Lindsay Walker. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. It is 308 feet tall, making it the sixth tallest state capitol and one of several taller than the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. It includes a large underground extension that was completed in 1993. 

 

 

 

 

MORE TO COME! 

Exploring the Grimm History of San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS -- Had a great time with Sisters Grimm Ghost Tours and guide Allison Schiess on Saturday, January 25, visiting haunted places downtown in the Alamo City! About half of them were places that I have investigated previously in the course of my research for Ghosthunting San Antonio, Austin, and Texas Hill Country, the title I am currently working on for the America's Haunted Road Trip series of travel guides. A number of the sites were completely new to me, however, and I learned a number of interesting things about all of the ones we visited. 

We kicked off the evening by enjoying a great steak dinner with our guide and fellow tour goers in the elegant formal dining room of the famous and very haunted Menger Hotel. We then proceeded to explore the haunted histories of it and several other sites, including the Alamo, Casino Club Building, Cathedral of San Fernando, Spanish Governor's Palace, and old Bexar County Jail. 

Above left, Allison set the tone for the tour by being attired in authentic 19th century garb. Above center, Diane Varhola checks out the spot on the outer wall of the Roy Rogers Suite that was once used to give fodder to Rogers' horse Trigger! Above right, the original bedstead in the King Ranch Suite where Captain King died and around which his spirit is sometimes seen. 

Above one of the sumptuous lobbies of the Menger Hotel, as viewed from the third floor. Above right, I have no idea what is causing this particular anomaly, but am well aware that a heavy spiritual presence can wreak havoc on electronic devices. 

Above left, this particular photographic anomaly caught me eye because it affected only Allison -- clearly a spiritual magnet of some sort -- and not our two friends from Canada or anything else! Above right, a view of the Riverwalk in which can be seen a couple of orbs, one left and the other above of center. 

Above left, outside the Casino Club Building, a historic structure now used for private apartments that has any number of ghosts sharing space with its living residents. Above center, a statue associated with the old Aztec Theater -- I have no reason to think it is haunted but think it would be cool if it was! Above right, front of San Fernando Cathedral, built in the 1700s by Canary Islanders and today the oldest continuously-operating cathedral in North America. 

Above left and center, the exterior of the 18th century Spanish Governor's Palace, once the seat of government for San Antonio and a bastion against Comanche and Apache raiders. Above right, the old Bexar County Jail, which now houses visitors to the city in the guise of a Holiday Inn Express! It remains haunted by the spirits of men executed on its third floor. 

All in all, we had a great, informative, and sometimes spooky evening with Allison and Sisters Grimm Ghost Tours! Anyone interested in learning more about the sites we visited should do the same and check out grim sister Lauren Swartz's terrific Haunted History of Old San Antonio (and, of course, my own book when it comes out in October).