Sunsets & beach walks in Frangokastello

As I knew this place as a perfect stop to enjoy from peace and beach walks, I spent in Frangokastello many days again. Last year I learned to know an extremely friendly (so Greek!) family in there and I was happy to meet them again. Frangokastello is about 70 km from Chania in the south coast.

Preveli and the old Venetian Bridge

Preveli and the Old Venetian Bridge is a fascinating place for me. You can do many beautiful walks around like the one I did last year to the palm beach or few weeks ago in Kourtaliotiko Gorge.

When I was trying to find more information about the bridge I found this beautiful photo from the bridge and since Ursa Major is the most important star group personally for me, I really loved it!

Fasolaki - simple ingredients, but so tasty!

I gotta share this recipe with you since it is one of my favorite Greek dishes, why not try to make this at your place? Usually this is made without potatoes, but I think its a perfect match, especially for a winter food..

Tea, Red Beach and touring around the rocks

Spent some nice days again in Matala and this time Harald and Renate came too so of course we were little touring around. They havent been before at the Red Beach so was time to go there with them.

Surroundings in Matala are great too, it´s not just a little hippie-village :)

Paradise in the Gorge of Kourtaliotiko

Was time to put our happy hiking team together again, meeting up with my Austrian friends Harald and Renate :)! We stayed few days at the ancient Preveli Bridge and started to hike towards the Kourtaliotiko Gorge.

The name of the gorge comes from the Greek word "kourtala" which means claps and there is special point 20 meters from the north entrance where you can hear like hand claps and these are consequence of the wind being funnelled through the high caves of the gorge and breaking the sound barrier. I have been driving up the road through the gorge many many times and mostly there is always wind, but now we had just sun without a wind, so no hand clapping!

The Minoan Palace Phaistos

Got a beautiful sunny day to visit Phaistos or Festos/Faistos, the Minoan palace dated back in the 15th century B.C. The Palace of Phaistos with its superb architectural composition and its almost perfect construction, is considered to be the finest and most typical of all Minoan palaces.

Phaistos was one of the most important centres of Minoan civilization, and the most wealthy and powerful city in southern Crete. Materials used are trimmed blocks of limestone and alabaster, mud-brick, rubble and wood and there were also many ceramic old pottery work to see, interesting!

It is open all year around, in winter the opening time is 9-16 and it will not be crowded. Beside me, there were two other people walking around in the beginning of December. Like I said it was a nice sunny day, but it got so hot over there I guess due the stones getting warm. I can only imagine the heat in summer, mamma mia!
 

Rock on @ BabaYaga

Since it is winter and not to many actions around so it was a BIG MUST to get back to Matala when the wind was gone. You could not miss the rock n roll evening at BabaYaga

So end of November these boys from Athens came to play with their group called Beggar´s Blues Diary and they were rocking with full power indeed :)

You can meet the boys on their website www.beggarsbluesdiary.gr/

Escaping the wind to Kokkinos Pirgos

Enjoyed many good non-windy days in Matala, but sometimes when the wind starts to blow, it´s time to look for a new place. Found this village in the south of Crete called Kokkinos Pirgos (or you may write it also Kokinos Pyrgos). The name of the village stands for "Red Tower" which comes from the old times when there was a red tower built from red clay. The tower is not there anymore, but the name stayes. It is just a sleepy Cretan fishing village with a beautiful beach and I found a nice corner without the wind, perfect!
   

Matala - see the world in colors :)

Back in MATALA :) ! The place and village of hippies. Season is also over here, but few bars are still open and the beach is empty, this is what I prefere!

First 1000 km on Crete

Jassu everyone,

It´s been so nice to be back in Crete and weather has been more or less beautiful and December has started great! After the one week rest in Tsoutsouros we went to Ierapetra, the most southern city of Europe, spent few days in Koutsounari beach and up we went again to Elounda and Agios Nikolaos. I have a Finnish friend living there and we spent again nice evening together. I guess the only who was not so pleased was the cat in the house, totally not thrilled to get the doggy in the house! Well, they actually did well and I am happy that my dog is scared of cats, so there was a peace in the house of my friend.

Like the title said, first 1000 km done, tells already that I have made already some touring and now working on the photos. See you in Matala, peace!

Lost a shoe?

 
*Last update 22.4.2015, more than 100 lost shoes by now...

First beach stop in Crete

After the long cool ferry trip was such a pleasure to drive in the early morning in Cretan roads with mist and sun. Was really tired after the sleepless night and wanted just to have some calm place to enjoy the first days. So......50-60 km south from Heraklion there is this little village called Tsoutsouros. Season was finished and the beach was empty but still few other campers had a stop there. Perfect stop for some easy relaxed days :).

New window, back in business:)

Finally we got the new window in my van so we said goodbye to Athens and kalimera to Crete <3.

Eat, Pray and Love in Athens

Eat, Pray and Love - well this was just a name of a dish in a vegetarian restaurant where I had an excellent dinner :).

 
Was time to celebrate one more year- party and I can recommend this restaurant who seeks a vegetarian restaurant in Athens. Restaurant Avocado at Plaka, you can visit their website at www.avocadoathens.com .The owner is an Iranian man, very friendly and smiley person who was approaching clients and asking if everything was good and doing some talking. Avocado exists three years now and I guess it has found its place in Athens. It was quite busy in there, international and local clients, I thought I even heard a couple some tables away talking Finnish!

Days in Athens

My visit in Athens is not seeing the end yet, so I´ve been going the less rainy days in the city and more rainy days I´ve stayed at the campsite.

All taxis are yellow and wow I cant believe that I had a moment a blue sky!!

Visiting Acropolis

Yes, finally I managed to visit this ancient place, better late than ever! Well since I am still waiting to get my new window I have time to explore little this city. Weather has been pretty much grey, cool and one day we had huge rain with hails and I was told that such a rain hasn´t been falling in more than 20 years..

rain, rain, rain with hails! Photo from my roof window.

All good things come to an end...

...Sunday morning was getting windy and I was outside of my camper and didn´t manage to react when this one blow literally blew off one of my side window to the rocks...

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

From Athens to Monemvasia

Greece <3

After arriving to Greece I was hurry to get to Athens since my fridge didnt function anymore, but before I had one night stop at the Corinth Canal, I liked the spot I found last June and returned to the same place (earlier post is HERE ).

So I do not have any wonderful photos from Akropolis or Athens by night (at least not this time)...

France - Italy - Greece

We have arrived in beloved Greece <3! So we left France and Italy behind and took the ferry to Greece and I am happy to get back in this country :).

But before getting here I still spent few days In Briancon France, which is the highest city in European Union at an altitude of 1326 meters. I didnt have time to look too much around, which is a shame since this city definetely would deserve a closer look. Briancon is also a ski-resort, and its known of having 300 days sun on the year!

Briancon, the highest city in the European Union

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, on the pilgrim route

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert is a medieval village in South of France and its on the Chemin de St Jacques pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. Very picturesque village with around 300 habitants, but it is really living from the tourism which you can find plenty, certainly during the summer. It is also chosen to be one of the most beautiful village in France.

I was there already in the morning and all the alleys were basicly empty, but in the afternoon the terraces of the restaurants were getting more full when people were getting out to eat.

Few kilometers before the village you will see this beautiful bridges, one of them called The Devil´s Bridge, protected by Unesco and it is also in the route of the Santiago de Compostela.

Wine grapes, family and village life

When I was getting to South of France, I could see that the collecting of wine grapes has started. I was walking one day at the wine fields with doggy to see little closer their work and also to see matured grapes of the village Saint George D´Orques. I also had family to visit me, my brother came over with his girlfriend and we spent some nice moments together with playing and singing.

wine fields at Saint George D´Orques

Le Viaduc de Millau

I have always been fascinated from bridges and once again I passed The Millau Viaduc which is having a worldwide record of beeing a tallest bridge in the world with one mast's summit at 343 meters and the lenght of the bridge is 2460 meters. The bridge carries the road over the Tarn river and saves quite some time without the need to drive the old road!

Construction of this bridge costed aprox 400 million euros and 14 December 2001 was the laying of the first stone, exactly 3 years later 14 December 2004 was the official inauguration.

La Canourgue - medieval village via Gorges du Tarn

Before arriving to medieval village La Canourge I was driving via Gorges du Tarn, a beautiful scenery road which you should not miss if you are around! It is very touristic, surely in July and August, but in September it is perfect do drive around. You can do plenty of outdoors activities such as kayaking, hiking, rock climbing..Wild camping would be very difficult in Tarn, but there are many campsites to choose from.

fête du village - Village party

Found a very nice spot for campers in Puy-Saint-Martin, it used to be a tiny campsite, but now its a free spot reserved for campers. Basicly came there just to have a lunch but then I found out that there was a village party coming so I stayed there for a long weekend. Commune offers this spot free of charge and you have water and all the emptying services. There is a small box to leave money to support their  kindness and with this money the commune is paying the costs of water etc.

Puy-Saint-Martin camper stop, after 7 pm in the shade

Slow days in Vassieux-en-Vercors

I spent several days in this tiny village of Vassieux-en-Vercors (altitude 1100 m, 80 km south-west of Grenoble). Beautiful scenery road to get there if you come from north and the road is getting even prettier if you are heading to south from there!

Today there is living 350 habitants with one bakery, a very little grocery shop, few bars and one pizzeria (very tasty pizzas!). You can make nice hikings around there and the commune is offering a spot for campers with water and emptying free of charge. To support their camper spot it is recommended to buy as a souvenir a sticker of Vercors at the price of 3 euro. And of course I do have one now :)

Camper spot in Vassieux-en-Vercors

Touring in France

Below some mixed photos from "tour de France". I was camping three days in this cozy camper spot in Montreaux, only 20 km from Switzerland. Excellent spot if you have your bicycle with you, beautiful roads next to the canal "Rhone au Rhin", hop all the Dutch people :)

 

French doggy poop

France deserves credit for their doggy poop bag system! Often while walking in cities or villages, you see a system where they have made an attachment to walls or entrances to parks etc to get your own poop bag with you - free of charge! Well this gives comforts too all citizens, with or without dogs.

Other thing what many communes offers is that you can pick up your bags freely from the town hall, how great is that! I got this set of four rolls and the holder.

 This is something that many countries could take as a model!

Rouffach - village with storks

I had one night stop in this little village called Rouffach, parked next to the church, but there is also a campsite and a real parking spot for campers, but I lost the sign on my way, so I parked just in the village. Quite soon when I was walking around, I found the camper spot, was not that far away either...

Lovely little village with many storks around! It also belongs to the route of Alsatian wine road which offers many nice small villages of course with their Alsatian wine (mostly white).

Soufflenheim pottery village

Soufflenheim, my first village stop in France. You would think still being in Germany when you are in Soufflenheim, the name doesnt sound French, houses looks like in Germany and even the dialect they speak is not giving any hint of being in France! But you do find already your typical French baguette and croissants from your local boulangerie :).

Soufflenheim is located in Alsace, 60 km north from Strasbourg, near German border and its known from its potteries. Pottery has been done here already since the bronze age, the land is provided the needed clay.

On the road 2014

I was spending nice summer days in Finland for 6 weeks and hitted the road again 1.8.2014, this time via Sweden and Denmark. For years I have been taking the ferry (Finnlines) directly from Helsinki to Travemunde (D) but this time the tickets were so higly priced without good offers and I was counting that I managed to drive with half of the price to Germany via Sweden rather than taking the ferry Finland - Germany.

Fiskars village

Fiskars is a global brand, but also a picturesque village, where the brand Fiskars started at 1649. It is also the oldest company in Finland with its long history! They do produce tools for garden, home, office etc.

Nuutajärvi - Hulluus ja hurmio

 I went still back to Nuutajärvi with my friend and enjoyed some days more in there. Got a good guided tour in the Glass expo - Hulluus ja hurmio (Madness and ecstasy) by a girl called Jasmi, thank you for this tour Jasmi! Each artist made a co-operation work with a writer, poet or with a musician, either that the text has inspired the artist´s work or the text was chosen after to fit with the art work. I liked the presentation and the feeling of this expo, especially when there were all these stories behind of each work present. Im not sharing all these stories, please go and have a look and hear the stories yourself :)

Nuutajärvi - Glass Village

My friend is a glass designer and I had a chance to spend few nice sunny days in Nuutajärvi, where they glass-blow her work too. Was interesting to see glass-blowers working and also to have a look in the history of Nuutajärvi (Thank you Janne for the museum tour) and see exhibitions. Little bit culture in my life, how welcome that was ...

Old Porvoo

Porvoo is famed for its old town, old wooden houses, the spirit of medieval time. Every summer it is a must for me to go there and now since last few years I always camp there some nights beside the river "Porvoonjoki" right front of the old town.

Up to north Italy-Austria-Germany-Finland

highway in Italy

The heat in Italy was unbearable, four days on the row +37, no wind, so I was happy to start driving more north and getting to Austria where I met the fresh air again, even snow!

Goodbye Greece - Ciao Italy, Patras - Ancona

Ferry which brought us to Italy. It was Superfast XI but I bought the tickets via Anek Lines, who is also operating their tickets. Very handy thing that you can do "camping on board", so dont need a cabine, you can stay comfortably in your camper. Much nicer for me and MUCH nicer when you travel with a pet! Tickets costed about 270 euro - one way, including camper and one person...

The impressive Corinth Canal

I was camping several days beside the Corinth canal and enjoying looking ships passing by. The canal was built between 1881-1893, but nowdays it is too narrow for the modern ships, since its only 21.4 meters wide! The lenght is impressive 6.4 km and it was fascinating to look bridges getting up and down by looking the next beauty or the best getting in to the canal.

Paralia Astros and last beach stop

Paralia Astros was the last beach stop before driving to Corinth, so doggy´s and my last swim was here! Very quiet beach and also the village was oddly calm. So many cozy bars with nice looking terraces, but basicly nobody to see around (???). On the top of the village is an old castle, nobody around there either...

Ariana Beach and picturesque Gerakas

Few days camping on this tiny Ariana beach wich is located 6 km from the picturesque village of Gerakas. Gerakas is like in a little "fjord" and yachts like to make there also their overnight stayes. No wonder!

Ariana Beach

Back to Monemvasia

I was in Monemvasia already earlier in September 2013 and it was a nice place to come back. Still I made so many photos in here, this "rock of Gibraltar" is showing every time its beautiful sides!

Ferry from Kissamos to Gytheion

Anchor is pulled up and ferry ready to go! See you again Crete!

Was a sad feeling to leave from Crete, such a nice island it is, but I can always get myself back there!

The ferry leaves from Kissamos Crete every wednesday 7:30 am and had two stops (Kissamos-Antikythira-Kythira-Gytheion) before arriving to Gytheion Peloponnes at 15:30. Price for my van was 138 e + 23 e a person, so total costs 161 e one way. Earlier on the phone they told me that it would costs 21 e a meter and 33 e per person, so it was not totally correct information. In the ferry there was plenty of place in half May, so no need to book tickets in advance. You can buy the tickets one hour before the ferry leaves from the harbour or you can but them in Kissamos in two offices who sells ferry trips. More information you can ask in Lane Sea Lines office Kissamos tel 2822 02350. Pets are not allowed to take inside the ferry, so we stayed all 8 hours on the deck. Lucky there was no rain, but in the end I was really ready to leave the ferry behind!!!

Summary of Crete

After spending more than seven months and 5000 km driving in Crete from October 2013 until May 2014 “the list” of positive sides must be obviously longer than the negative sides. For me this was my 10th visit to Greece and second time with a camper, but first visit with camper in Crete and I think now that it was a very good choice to drive in this beautiful island.

For weather vise Crete is better than Spain or Portugal, or I was just lucky this year. Few bigger stormy days, some rainy days, but often the rain came during the night, so I could keep dry feet and the doggy dry fur. Maybe the wind is keeping the rainy clouds often away, but sometimes the wind was really disturbing and you could just wish that the wind gives you a break next day...

Last days in Crete

End side of Falasarna Beach

 As the days were ending in Crete we enjoyed still some beautiful days before leaving the island behind in Falasarna, west side of Crete. Big beach and very peaceful place. Good spot to stay if you take the ferry from Kissamos directly to Peloponnes (Gytheion). We did long walks with doggy and she had plenty of running on the beach...

One night stop at Kalives

Kalives or Kalyves is a pretty seaside village 20 km east of Chania. Queit and good stop if you need to catch a ferry next day from Chania. I noticed that most tourists were from UK, but also heard some Scandinavian languages. I think its ideal village for those who seeks a peaceful holiday out of noise, there is beautiful beach and many tavernas to choose from. Hotels looked more fine than Im used to it with swimmingpools and well taken care gardens.

River passing in Kalives

BabaYaga - animal friendly rock bar

View to the beach from BabaYaga, on the left the famous Matala rocks

As I have written about Matala already few times before, I never mentioned this nice bar, where I have spent good moments - Babayaga rockstation bar in Matala beach. It´s runned by an Italian chap, Roberto and his Greek girlfriend Sophia is his second hand in there. BabaYaga is truly an animal friendly bar, one time I was counting that there were more dogs than people - well, one reason for this was that they did BBQ and loads of bones left for all doggies.As it´s name tells, it is a rock bar, good music and also live music time to time, since Roberto himself playes guitar too. The bar is open all year around, in winter every thursday-sunday. Rock on!

Touring with mom

This village name works only for the Finns, means Village for perverts in Finnish

My mom was visiting Crete in April and we were touring together for a week. We had sun, rain, wind and loads of laugh :). After the Spinalonga Island, we started to drive to south-east in Kato Zakros and walked through the Dead´s Gorge (my fourth time already this winter, but always such a nice experience to walk there, see PHOTOS IN HERE), spent good moments again in Taverna Glaros. We had a stop in Ierapetra, one easy going day in Tsoutsouros beach in full peace and then we went to Matala for two nights, meeting the hippies :P. Last night a stop in Zorbas Island next to Heraklion and so was the week over!

Spinalonga Island

Finally I managed to get myself to the Spinalonga leper island, I have been around the island during this winter several times and always "pushed" my visit further or there were no boats going. So now I had this chance when my mom was coming touring in Crete for one week in April. My earliers bloggings from Spinalonga you can read HERE and HERE . Someone told me that Spinalonga is the third visited place in Greece, first is Akropolis, second Knossos and Spinalonga would be third. I dont know if its true, but this I was told... To Nisi television serie (in Finnish - Saari) has sure made this Island more visited!

Hiking in Havga Gorge

This would be the big view if you arrive this point of the hiking!

Unfortunaly I did not, since I felt blocked just behind this beauty. I was walking this gorge alone and was not sure which way to try to get up. I got some tips from my Austrian friends (Thank you Harald and Renate) and they told me that the last cascade is little bit tricky to get up, but still I didnt manage. The places I did already see on this rather unkown gorge, was beautiful so was anyway all worth it! Its unkown gorge and even more unknown after this big ball. You need to swim there and you would need some climbing tools with you to manage to get over it, so most people would end their walk anyway in here (well I ended just before the ball already). Was pleasant walk and sometimes you needed to balance over the rocks. Crisscrossing the gorge to one side to another and looking the best place to walk. I did enjoy, but I have now saved the pleasure to "meet up with this ball" another time, something to wait :).

Where is Kuksa today?

365 days of Kuksa 28.4.2014 - 27.4.2015

These coming photos will be for my "Kuksa", (what is a Kuksa? Read more in  HERE wikipedia) this special wooden cup which has followed me since 2009. I will shoot every day one photo "where is Kuksa today" and you can follow its journey in my blog. In the photos the codes you will see are GPS-coordinates which are telling Kuksa´s exact location. I will continue my regular updates about my travel too...

The cave of Zeus

Psychro Cave - Diktatean Cave - according to the myth, Zeus was born in here. Cave is located in Lassithi, Psychro and it is 1025 meters above sea level. The cave is impressive to visit, rich of stalagmites and stalactites. Its the most famous cave of the 3000 caves in Crete! Since of its myth of Zeus, this is why the Dikteon Cave was already famous in antiquity, dedicated to the worship of the greatest of the gods, as the many offerings found there indicate...

BBQ at Zorbas Island

BBQ chef Eric

 Passed many good moments at Zorbas and every Saturday evening they make barbeque, how nice! For me it was almost like beeing in some pub in Holland and after not using Dutch since last summer was so nice to speak it again (zo gezellig avondje :P)!

Hiking with team Zorbas Island

Zorbas Island is runned by a Dutch family, Eric with his family has been doing the business with renting apartments, having a bar/taverna next to rental houses with swimmingpool and excursions of hiking on Crete last 15 years, so by now they are really experienced. Many customers comes back to Zorbas Island year after year and that doesnt suprise me. They are having a great team working at Zorbas and the food is real home made food from fresh products (!), an extra thanks to Helen for filling up our stomachs, we enjoyed every bite :)!. Every saturday they do a BBQ, all year around!