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.