To Athens, Crete, and back to Athens

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Here's some more blurb on my mission to get to Egypt...

Day 10 (Feb 4th): I left Kalambaka and took no less than three buses, and one whole day, to get to Delphi. This involved over an hour's wait at Trikala, but a seven hour wait between buses at Lamia! I spent the time exploring the place, although almost everything was closed as it was a Sunday. The buses totalled 16 euros.
Delphi turned out to be a charming small town which stood on a hillside overlooking a wide valley. I found a town map there which showed a youth hostel, but then discovered that it was closed, it not yet being 'tourist season'. So I searched the town for a room and, thanks to the aid of a local, I found one (20 euros). I ate in a taverna by a window overlooking the valley, and snow began gently falling through the darkness outside.

Day 11 (Feb 5th): Snow had not settled and I headed off to look at the ruins of Delphi which included a theatre and a stadium, and all of which had a clear view down the mountain valley. I then took a bus for Athens (13 euros), which was uneventful except for a conversation I had during a break with a canadian and an israeli from another bus who said they had found the greeks to be less than helpful. This matched my experience, but I was still hoping that it would improve if I just kept trying!
Arriving in Athens though, I found no information at the bus station about where to go to find the city centre, or accomodation, or anything. I asked a woman at a counter where to go for tourist information and she told me there was no such thing. This exasperated me and following a struggle of a 'conversation' I headed off in the direction of the centre hoping to find what I wanted. How can Greece be so backward as to have no information whatsoever in a bus station where many people arrive for the first time in the capital city?
Knowing the name of the street with the YHA hostel on it, I asked various people as I approached the centre and eventually found it. It was a friendly place run by a greek-german woman and was the cheapest accomodation so far at 10 euros.

Day 12 (Feb 6th): I set out into the streets of Athens with Kurt, an american I met at the hostel who had come to find his greek roots, learn greek and possibly get some boatbuilding work. He had been in town for a couple of days and he showed me the way to Plaka, a historical area of narrow streets and shops and cafes, closely overlooked by the Parthenon atop its great rock. We then split and I sought out the newly built, but ancient style, Panathinaiko Staduim, the largely fallen Temple of Zeus, and Hadrian's Arch. Then, as every tourist does, I looked around the Parthenon and its surrounding buildings and theatre. The Parthenon is essentially still standing, it being a large rectangular structure consisting mainly of rows of columns. The whole site is home to a long-term restoration project, there being substantial cranes, or hoists, which move on rails on concrete bases either side of the Parthenon and elsewhere of another building, as well as in an area of various heavy pieces of stonework. It will be worth visiting again in the future. After this I found some caves near the city which are thought by some scholars to be the site of the prison where Socrates was held (for jeopardising social order by promoting independant thought!). I then walked to a hillside area called Pnika where the ancient Athenians used to meet to listen to orators and discuss civil issues.
In the evening I went with Kurt and another american who now lives in Istanbul, Joseph, to a bar for a couple of jars.

Day 13 (Feb 7th): I successfully bought a ferry ticket to Crete, but in doing so was told that there were no longer any ferries crossing the Mediterranean from Greece to Egypt. Not via anywhere. If this was true it would be impossible to carry out my original plan and this notion depressed me a bit. However, I held on to the fact that people are not always right, and also that if I tried hard enough I would find a way to do it.
I made my way to the Ancient Agora which was once the very centre of every day Athens in ancient times (here Socrates would have walked, having his debates with people), and is now a site of ruins, most of which are over 2500 years old. Here I met a very interesting girl, Lisi, who I went to a cafe with afterwards for a chat. She was Austrian and was yet another law student, and we had some very thoughtful and philosophical conversation. It was stimulating to meet someone with a similar mind. Unfortunately though we had to curtail our potentially endless exploration of ideas because I had a ferry to catch. This I did and by 9pm I was sailing to Crete.

Days 14-20 (Feb 8th-14th): Here I had a break from travelling as I stayed with my Aunt (Suzanne) and her husband (Tony). They have lived on Crete for about seven years in a village called Kefalas, near Hania, at the western end of the island. They had their house built there to their design, incorporating a separate flat specifically for guests, and with a perfect view of the aptly named White Mountains, as well as the sea.
There were few expatriots in the area when they moved there, but houses are being built, or converted, continually. The expats are mostly, though not entirely, english, and on the whole seem to be happily accepted by the locals, who are noticably friendlier than their counterparts on the mainland.
On my second day there we all went for a walk with two other english couples and two canadian backpackers who were staying with a friend of Sue and Tony's in Kefalas. We made our way through a relatively low mountain area near Hania to the coast, encountering a disused monastery on the way and eating lunch by an old hand-cut quarry by the sea. Three of us also explored a cave, with the benefit of a candle found near its entrance, which wound it's way ever deeper until we had to turn back for want of time, never knowing just how far we could have gone.
Suzanne cooked some delicious meals (cooking is definitely her forte) and we also ate out quite a lot. I experienced some delicious greek salads and rabbit and squid among other things. The cretan wine is often brown, rather than red, and has a sherry like flavour; I got used to it after a while. Also after any restaurant or taverna meal, the waiter will bring everybody a small sweet and a glass of sikoudia, which is a spirit similar to ouzo. When I first arrived in Crete I found sikoudia unpleasantly harsh, but after a few days I began to quite like it at the end of a meal.
Sue and Tony gave me an excellent introduction to Crete, showing me local towns and villages, the mountains and parts of the coast. Although it was much warmer than England, it definitely wasn't summer and it really deserves another visit in warmer weather.
Also, with Sue and Tony's welcome help I researched possible ways of getting to Egypt without resorting to flying. The upshot of various enquiries and quite a lot of internet searching was that there were essentially only two ways to do it. One would be by a ferry from Italy to Tunisia, and then through Libya; and the other through Turkey, Syria and Jordan. I rejected the first as it would be backtreading (to Italy), but it is still an option for the return journey, and possibly by taking a ferry from Tunisia to Marseille, in France. So I set my sights on doing the journey through Turkey, Syria and Jordan. I needed to obtain a visa for Syria before I got to its border, so I would have to return to Athens to visit the Syrian Consulate there. Thus I took a ferry back there on the Wednesday evening, arriving in the morning on Thursday 15th February. It had been a very leisurely break on Crete, but now it was time to get travelling again.
With

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