In case you haven’t guessed, I’m a bit of a history buff. Especially civilizations that aren’t a part of common WASP history: the Indus Valley, the Maya, the Minoan. It was the latter that led me to Greece.
Greece was my first walking tour trip but that happened by happenstance. I knew I wanted to visit Santorini where Akrotiri is located. I had to fly into Athens so that was also on the itinerary. But I needed something to flesh out the trip, and discovered a walking tour through the countryside in Crete. I wanted to visit Knossos as well, so, well, why not?
In the end, the hike through the Cretan countryside was my favourite part of the trip…if might have had a run for its money if the excavations at Akrotiri hadn’t been closed 🙄 But it was, and as it is, the hiking in Crete set a pattern to my future travels — most of my personal trips had an active component — be it hiking in Croatia, walking in Andalucia or kayaking and wrangling spiders in Costa Rica.
I’ve written about my trip to Greece in one of my suprisingly popular posts, What does green smell like, and I posted my favourite photo in a post about chance and perspective. But here are a few of my other favourites.
An Athenian vista 
The feet of the Ancients 
A corner of the Acropolis 
Chania…I want to go back to Chania 
Knossos – a disappointment 
The fearless explorer 
The top of the Gorge 
The cats…I felt bad for the cats 
Apparently an extra holy church 
A glimpse of Mediterranean Blue 
My faithful companion
My faithful companion is a dog that kept me company up an entire hillside, pausing when I paused to catch my breath admire the view.
Other memories from Greece are the sound of bees and the scent of green. The table olive oil was the best I’ve had in my life. The burn of the raki, of course. And the Mediterranean blue…or Libyan Sea blue. The pictures do not do it justice, but when I first caught sight of it coming out of the Samaria Gorge, my breath stopped for a second.