A Five-Ruin Day (if you count my innards and me separately)

Day 76; Friday, June 19

Well, here’s the little room in Myrtos



I had such an adventure in for a couple of hours early (1:30 until almost 4:00) this AM.

It’s a nice room, and here are a couple of views from the little balcony





But the big adventure was Phase I of totally swapping out all my intestinal flora (using both Mode A and Mode B) for a new batch, which I’m guessing I’m developing today. . . .

I was up in the mountains looking for ruins yesterday, and filled a water bottle in one of those fountains where it just flows clean and pure (?) right out of the hills.

And I figured that by day 75, I’d be safe.

Not even close.


More Minoans

If you don’t count the biological warfare battle I clearly lost, the day’s first shoot was at a little Minoan site about 2 Km from where I stayed.

Here’s the town from the ruins, for example



And here’s some more of the ruin.











And (this makes me a little nuts, which is whey I’m sure I keep mentioning it— there’s all these little treasures all over the damn place.

Here’s a little collection that (I’m guessing here, obviously) some one collected at the site recently, put on a flat rock, and then (perhaps) photographed.







And it would be so cool to have some of these little treasures—real things, made and used by real people, almost 4,000 years ago— that’s 160 generations.

But at least when I left them, about 9:00 AM today (it was already getting pretty hot), they were still all there.


More Minoan (open-air) Museums

Just up off the road, about 200 meters from the main coastal highway, was this great place---





And, once again, two more delicious artifacts---





(The round one is the handle of a pot or jar, I’m guessing)

And more than the two really great ones





The latter one is a metate, the trough part of what you grind wheat into with a little rolling-pin rock.

The more you have used it, the deeper it gets.

I kept looking at this one, wondering about the weight limit on carry-on bags. . . . .


Saw a couple more roadside shrines worth shooting alongside the road—this one is pretty good size— the bottom of the roof line is right at six feet from the street level.





Then I hit a Minoan country villa—

Here are the steps leading up into the place



Next stop was a great Roman acropolis— at Praissos









Here’s the view of the second acropolis below the first one—



I could see 71 wind turbines from up here on two different mountain crests.


And now I’m in Sitia, the NE corner of my jaunt around Crete.

I’ll be poking around here in the AM, then heading west starting about mid-day on Saturday.

Headin’ For the Hills

Day 75; Thursday, June 18


I’m on the south coast of Crete,





working my way east, then I’ll head north and then west back to where I got the car— Iraklion.

I stayed in Ano Viannos last night, after a real circus of confusion. I stopped at the only Rough Guide recommended place, but it was full. The woman who ran it, a delight named Maria, said I should just head down the road a little to Kerakotambos’s place, and I could stay there. Just right down the road.

So I spent about 20 minutes looping through Ano Viannos without finding that place, and only seeing one other place (a hardware store with rooms to rent upstairs, but the place was locked— siesta time, I suppose, and it was above her up on the main road, not below), so I figured I should just head east to the next town, as I couldn’t find a place to stay in town.

I headed out along the main road and about 4 Km later, hit the big Cretan Massacres Memorial— this is the most striking of the many village memorials to all the Cretan hostages the Germans shot for reprisals in September, 1944. This one is much more stylistically like the ones in Central Europe at the big, well-known camps like Buchenwald or Auschwitz or Tieresenstadt.

But the light was really harsh— it was now about 5:00 PM and it was at least 90, so I got out the map and discovered that Kerakotambos wasn’t a domatia (room rental place) but the town down on the coast about 9 miles away.

So as I headed back through town to get on that road, the hardware store was open and I stopped and €20 later, I had a room for the night.

So early in the AM I loaded up to head back to the memorial to shoot it in the better early light.

There was an old man



by the side of the road with a bag of bread from the bakery, so I gave him a ride up the hill to the massacre memorial— where I stopped to shoot







and he got out of the car to take the side road from there up to his little village about a Km away.

On the way up to the memorial I noticed a hillside olive orchard in the slanting early light, so I went back to shoot it,



and then headed back east again, my original direction (although as you read these adventures you might well think that the notion of “direction” and the way I travel have little to do with each other. . . .

And so now you know why I went by that orchard five different times.


Kato Simi

And up off the main cost road a dozen Km or so is an ancient Shrine to Hermes and Afrodite so I went up there, even though I was warned in the guidebook that it would most probably be locked.

They were right, but I had it all to myself— me and a couple of wild goats.












Here’s the town on the way up here to give you a better sense of what you see from the hills above the coast. This was another of the town where the men were murdered by the Germans during the war. There were five or six local villages that suffered the same retaliation for the same event.





On the way back (on a different road, of course) I found these five abandoned, pretty identical roofless buildings and I thought at first they were from the great Greek-Turkish population exchange in the 1920s, but these are so identical that I now think they were part of some industrial idea that didn’t work out.








Introducing Hizzoner, The Mayor

Here’s the unofficial mayor of the town I’m now in for the night—Mirtos.




Loot— Glorious Loot

I got the place to stay pretty early, then headed up into the hills on a big loop looking for some sheep or goat bells, as I have been pretty well captivated by that sound as I prowl these ancient sites (and more ancient hills).

I struck out, but I did learn where to get them, so early next week I’ll be filling up another gym bag, I’m sure. . . .

In this little hill town



there was an abandoned lot full of stuff,



and one of the things was this pithoi— a huge, terra-cotta storage jar. I’ve seen these all over the museums and ancient sites, although I’m sure this one was from the local garden store, as it had been pretty busted up and even spray painted when the old wall was re-painted



so I figured it was ripe for some level of liberation.

And inside the thing, there were some shards (broken pieces) and I snagged one and plan to bring it home.

I’m sure it’s modern, as I’ve seen them in gardens and lots of garden shops, but I got the part of the rim that included a handle, so although it’s a small piece, compared to the whole thing (four to five feet high) it has two of the primary elements.


More Memorials to More Reprisals

And in many of these little villages—this one had maybe a thousand people in it now, there were more of these statues with lists of names on the base or background, and by now you already know the story.

There were 45 or so names on this one alone.



Other memorials indicated that 500 or more were shot all at once—just rounded up somewhat randomly— any boy over 12 or so and every man they spotted, or dug out somehow, or found hiding in the woods— rounded up, taken to the village square, and shot.

This one was September, 1943, and I thought this detail, showing the Cretan’s left foot,



was particularly telling.


The Industrialization of Death

These memorials bothered me a lot more at the individual level, I think, than even the two camps I’ve seen in Germany: Belsen, where Anne Frank (who would have been 80 earlier this summer) died, and Dachau, outside Munich, the first concentration camp.

The camps eventually exterminated 11,000,000 people (Jews, Russian prisoners, Roma, homosexuals, Communists, the insane and the retarded, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others) and were, essentially, the use of industrialization to accomplish mass murder.

If WWI was the industrialization of death for soldiers, WWII was the industrialization of death for civilians.

But each person’s role in the death camps was like parts on an assembly line, and the jobs were disconnected: some people moved the victims into the gas chambers, others turned the wheels that introduced the gas, Zyklon-B, others emptied the bodies out of the chambers, others wheeled the bodies to the ovens, others burned the bodies, and still others distributed the ashes.

But here, in the mountains of Crete, there was no industrial-level disassociation. The soldiers who rounded up the villagers to be shot did the shooting.

They were personally connected, at least for a little while, as they looked at the people who were about to die by their direct actions.

I’m not saying we should feel sorry for the soldiers who did these terrible things, just following orders, after their comrades were killed, and I don’t really know what I’m suggesting, except that death at the individual level seems a different experience than death at the industrial level.

If someone has some thoughts about this, I’d sure like to hear them.

The Middle of Crete

Language Skills

The landlady was sweeping her patio as I went by heading out early so I told her the following— all in Greek!

I share this little story not to prove what a (I was going to use another couple of words in here, but this is a family show) clever user of languages I am, but the exact opposite: to show that a bare minimum of local words can communicate a lot.

(This was all, by the way, without notes: I didn’t get out the safety net of the cheat-sheet in my photo vest or even the G-E/E-G dictionary.)

Good Morning.

I’ll be checking out about 10:00 AM.

First, I’m going to do some shooting at Aghios Triados, then I have to go to Matala to hit the ATM to get some cash to pay you.

I trust that is fine with you.

Was it this grammatically perfect?

Of course not!

Did she get the message?

Well, I’m pretty sure she did.

Here’s the much more literal translation:

Good Morning.

Goodbye 10:00 AM.

One – photos Aghios Triados.

Two, Matala-- Euros.

OK?

See—it’s not that tough. Anyone reading these stories could bomb around here linguistically just as I bomb around on the roads.

It’s no big deal. . . . .


Lock It and Lose It

As I unlocked the car to leave after going back to pay the room rent, the little lock plug slid inside the door and fell to the bottom between the door panels.

Not very convenient--- I looked at the map and there were four Hertz offices on the island--- none near where I was or where I was headed.

Then I leaned through some clever sleuthing, mostly involving reading roadside mileage indicators) that the place I got the car 5 days ago was only 35 miles away and it was the closest.

And it was getting pretty hot by then, too hot to be outside looking at Minoan ruins (when I went by Festos [where I was shooting last evening] on my way out of town, there were 8 tour busses and about 80 or more cars in the lot).

So I figured it’s only an hour or so away, I’ll bomb up there, get it fixed, and come back in time to hit Gortys when it’s cooler.

Long detour on the way north across the island, some real guff from the Hertz guy, although this same problem had happened to many other rental cars) some short snipe hunts on the way back (on a different road, of course—I’d already been on the first one) and so I’ll see Gortys in the AM—as I planned, when it’s cooler.


Striking Out Twice in the Same At-Bat

I went by this little museum I wanted to see in Arhanes, as it was 4:00 and pretty hot again (north part of the island, still) but it closes at 2:30 and was also closed all day today Tuesday), so I’m glad I didn’t waste more than about 20 minutes looking for it.


Use Up All Your Olive Oil— Fast

Driving north and then back south across the center of Crete really brought home what a high percentage of arable land here is in olive trees, so you need to do your part to consume all you can: stir fries, salads, marinating, just slather it on whatever you want to taste better—

And you need to be really diligent about this, because there are whole container ships heading your way with more . . . . .


Language Skills II

Your turn

Here’s a sign I shot along the road mostly for fun but to point out a little cultural language twist that’s amusing.

This is an advertising sign out in front of a road-side diner, and it’s advertising three items:



The diagonal word spells out “Souvlaki,” which is shish-kabob, I think, either on a plate or in a pita. I’ve only been eating out of markets, so am not up to speed on menu items.

The top word is easy—they also have “Coffee.”

The second word is where the fun is— it says, “Toast,” but what they mean is not just heated bread but a toasted cheese sandwich or a burger—“tost” can also mean a sandwich on a bun rather than on bread or in a pita.

This was also the case in the Balkans last year—it took some getting used to when you saw “tost” on a menu or reader board like this.


More Shrines

This is another of the roadside shrines, the ones that cost about a grand to start with, without the column.



This one was more typical than the other one I shot to indicate what you get for almost $1,000, and went over next to it to give a full report on it, and the top of the cross on the main, central dome, is about 6’2” above the base.


Christos! It’s him again.

This is the second version of how you can drive 15 miles only going to a place that’s 3 Km from the main road.

This version explains how you can drive by the same sign 9 times in less than a day.

Act I, Scene I

Elena: Christos! It’s him again.

Christos: You mean the crazy American who took a picture of our café sign?

Elena: Yes.

Christos: So how many times does this make he’s driven by our place?

Elena: Nine.

Christos: Naaah—Can’t be.

Elena: Christos, it’s nine. I kept track.

Epilogue: Elena is correct, but I’d like the chance to defend myself.

You drive by the first time just heading down the road, when you see the sign you think might make a little chapter of a report.

You drive back, shoot the sign, but there’s no room to turn around right there, so you have to go a little further west to turn around.

You drive past it going east again— that’s # 3.

Then that night, after you write up your report, you head into the nearest town with an internet café (the one just west of the café with the sign), try to answer some e-mails, and go back to where you are staying. That makes 5.

The next AM, since you are out of clean clothes, you bundle everything up, take it back to the internet café town (as it also has a laundry), cajole the woman to do your stuff in one day rather than three, and head out (east again) to the big local Minoan and Roman ruins. (Everybody get 7?)

And then, of course, after shooting the sites, you certainly have to go get your laundry— and that’s how you pass the café sign nine times in about 24 hours.

Act I, Scene II

Elena: Christos: Why does he keep driving past our place?

Christos: I think he likes it here.

Elena: I don’t think so, Christos. If he liked it here,
he’d just stay here.

Gortys

The big Roman city here, and the reason I hung around, was Gortys, a huge complex with an acropolis, temples and theaters, lots and lots of walls, and etc.

Then the Christians lost some early martyrs here (the town I stayed in last night was Aiyga Dehka [the holy ten], named for some early and over-eager [in my mind] adherents), about a hundred years or so before Constantine allowed the religion to be practiced openly.

Following Rome’s fall, and the emergence of the Byzantines (the early form of what we now call Eastern Orthodoxy) ore down all the Roman (now, of course, heathen) temples and put churches in their place—and sometimes just tweaked the building some, much as the Muslims tweaked the churches to make them mosques where they captured territory.

So I started at the temple complex, moved up to the acropolis, then found the walls and temple sites among the olive trees.

For me, one of the more interesting things I discovered here was shards of terra-cotta--- unglazed, but fired, clay— by the tens of thousands.

I shot some pictures just to show you how much there was lying about, and to reassure you, it’s all still lying about.













This may be too many pictures of terra-cotta shards for your taste, but I wanted to clearly make the point that there are tons of this stuff just lying around on the ground over here.

In the olive grove near Gortys, the farmers plowed the ground shallowly just to keep the weeds down, and there were thousands of terra-cotta shards all over the field.

Here’s one with my hat included to show you the scale



I also added to my little trove of goat hair and fleece— which I found where the local goats (who live just below the acropolis) would take naps among the trees and shrubs when they were turned loose up there.

I got about enough to make a pretty hard-packed hardball today, so now have about three wadded-up XL Tee-shirts worth.

I can just imagine going through the G-E/E-G dictionary like mad with some Greek Customs Officer at the airport. . . .

“Well. I thought the goat hair was a better souvenir than an ashtray shaped like the island of Crete.”

Maybe I should get another gym bag and just mail the damn stuff home. . . . .