Sold Everything ...

We stayed on the island of Rhodes in a small town called Kremasti. Rhodes (Rhodos or Rodos in Greek) is the biggest of the Dodecanese islands and lies between Crete and the near East in the Aegean Sea. It's named the sun island because there are hardly any days when the sun doesn't shine. Good example? The fact book tells me that the island sees over 3,000 hours of sun per year. Yes, I did come back more brown than usual.

Kremasti is a quaint little town away from the massive hordes of beach tourists - which was excellent. For the most part, we stayed close to home and could be found in many of the nearby restaurants eagerly devouring grilled feta cheese, pita bread with gyros, pita bread with chicken, dolmades, kalimari, lamb and yoghurt or baklava. We took care to self-cater in our studio apartment a reasonable amount and, after a few nights in, developed a fondness for fried cheese balls and Matt's own specialty, meatballs with feta cheese, olives and tomatoes.

Where we stayed was easily located near to the airport but also close enough to Rhodes Town where we did much wandering around its ruins, the Old Town and the beautiful harbour. We also spent a lot of time on patios or in restaurants trying out moussaka and saganaki and drinking Mythos beer.

In case you haven't picked up on it by now, the food was frickin' amazing. Definitely worth a special mention.

Strangely enough, in Rhodes Town we were 'kidnapped' by a travel company promoting a trip package; they held us hostage for nearly four hours while they performed their massive sales pitch. It was quite odd. To be fair, what they were selling was most excellent. We couldn't afford it so didn't buy in, but if they'd hit us up at a more financially stable time we probably would've jumped on the mu'tha.

Anyway, the point of this story is that at the end of it, Matt won a free holiday! However, after reading through how to redeem the prize we may not be eligible; the requirements state that we have to have been married for three years and own a home, among other things. So ... we're trying to think of any married friends we have here that would be willing to help us scam a deal.

On our penultimate day in Greece, we caught a boat which left from Mandraki Harbour in Rodos to the town of Lindos where we watched topless sunbathers and swimmers from a rooftop patio, giggled at the donkeys carrying tourists up a big hill and hiked up, up, up to the top of the ancient Acropolis where the Temple of Athina Lindia once stood. T'was magnificent.

As for local quirks, having read somewhere that cats wander the streets freely and in abundance, I kept a running tally of cats versus dogs for the seven days we were there. The final score? Cats - 34. Dogs - 21. It was interesting, though, watching the dogs trying to cross the street; they actually knew how and even looked both ways!

All in all? Warm weather, fabulous people ... and did I mention about the food? Worth repeating - the food was phenomenal! Love the language; picked up a few phrases here and there and even conversed with the locals somewhat. Kalimera! Good morning! Poso kani? How much? And, my favourite - ef haristo. Thank you.

And so, even though the blog's been updated and you've read about our trip to Greece, somehow I still feel that words aren't enough ... ya gotta see it to believe it! As per usual, Matt's got the best of the best pics uploaded on his flickr site so check 'em out!

Ahh, Greece. Ya got me. Andio! Bye for now ... but definitely not forever.

# posted by @anatingor @ Saturday, October 14, 2006