A Minoan house in Konosis
Joanna and I on the edge of the cool valley
Another pic of the cool scene when we got lostMost of our next day in Heriklion was spent figuring out how to get off the island and where to stay. It looks like the best option was to fly from Heriklion – Shanghai – New York – Moscow – Brussles – Istanbul – Bodrum and then a 14 hour bus ride from Bodrum to Kayseri, ending with a Camel ride from Kayseri to Urgup. We chose the next best option which was Heriklion – Athens – Istanbul – Kayseri (overnight there) – bus to Urgup.
After spending the day coming up with these fantastic flight options, we headed to the palace of Konosis. The guide book suggested we get a guide – which isn’t hard because at almost any site you visit there are 50 guides asking if you want a guided tour.* There were two guides at the door, one didn’t seem to speak English and seemed barely legitimate, the other (a women) seemed to speak English well. She said that if we waited 35 minutes we could go with her. That was fine with us. While we were waiting we watched the guy who didn’t speak English well hussle everyone that came through the door and then went into the palace to hussle more folks. Our woman stood there and did nothing. We liked our choice. About 45 minutes into our wait, we watched the woman go off with a small German family – for a personal tour. The other guy who was hussling generously offered to show us around, but he wanted us to wait until he found more people. After about an hour, we finally started our tour.
The tour was actually pretty interesting. The Palace was base of the Minoan civilization. Its pretty old (over 3500 years), but its still pretty decently preserved and you could still see the labyrinth of the city. It didn’t take too much imagination to see how they lived. We lucked out with our tour guide – in terms of the unintentional comedy that he brought about. He started off by saying two things:
“You see, they had no protection, this means they didn’t fear the peoples and the peoples were welcome, this means two things, they didn’t have wars and they didn’t fear the peoples and the peoples were welcome.”
“This is important, they respected the natures….AND!!!! the womans (with emphasis and a huge smile on his face.”
The tour could have stopped there, because it pretty much consisted of him repeating one of those two phrases…as if he had never mentioned them before. Towards the end, “respecting the natures AND!!!! The womans” ended up winning for most times repeated, with greater emphasis each time.
After the palace visit we decided to visit a small town just outside of Konosis. We of course got lost along the way because there are again, no street/road/direction signs. While getting lost, we happened upon an amazing valley full of vineyards, olive trees and general picturesque views. Once in the town, we found a surprisingly untouched place where all the locals seemed to know each other, everyone seemed to hang out at some sort of café and was deep in conversation. There were small shops all over the place and everything seemed to be very nice. I am convinced that we walked into some sort of movie set, because nothing can be that clean and nice without a) industry or b) tourism. Someone is paying these people to just hangout. We had a dinner in the main square and a crepe in one of the shops.
* except the Acropolis when its closed
After spending the day coming up with these fantastic flight options, we headed to the palace of Konosis. The guide book suggested we get a guide – which isn’t hard because at almost any site you visit there are 50 guides asking if you want a guided tour.* There were two guides at the door, one didn’t seem to speak English and seemed barely legitimate, the other (a women) seemed to speak English well. She said that if we waited 35 minutes we could go with her. That was fine with us. While we were waiting we watched the guy who didn’t speak English well hussle everyone that came through the door and then went into the palace to hussle more folks. Our woman stood there and did nothing. We liked our choice. About 45 minutes into our wait, we watched the woman go off with a small German family – for a personal tour. The other guy who was hussling generously offered to show us around, but he wanted us to wait until he found more people. After about an hour, we finally started our tour.
The tour was actually pretty interesting. The Palace was base of the Minoan civilization. Its pretty old (over 3500 years), but its still pretty decently preserved and you could still see the labyrinth of the city. It didn’t take too much imagination to see how they lived. We lucked out with our tour guide – in terms of the unintentional comedy that he brought about. He started off by saying two things:
“You see, they had no protection, this means they didn’t fear the peoples and the peoples were welcome, this means two things, they didn’t have wars and they didn’t fear the peoples and the peoples were welcome.”
“This is important, they respected the natures….AND!!!! the womans (with emphasis and a huge smile on his face.”
The tour could have stopped there, because it pretty much consisted of him repeating one of those two phrases…as if he had never mentioned them before. Towards the end, “respecting the natures AND!!!! The womans” ended up winning for most times repeated, with greater emphasis each time.
After the palace visit we decided to visit a small town just outside of Konosis. We of course got lost along the way because there are again, no street/road/direction signs. While getting lost, we happened upon an amazing valley full of vineyards, olive trees and general picturesque views. Once in the town, we found a surprisingly untouched place where all the locals seemed to know each other, everyone seemed to hang out at some sort of café and was deep in conversation. There were small shops all over the place and everything seemed to be very nice. I am convinced that we walked into some sort of movie set, because nothing can be that clean and nice without a) industry or b) tourism. Someone is paying these people to just hangout. We had a dinner in the main square and a crepe in one of the shops.
* except the Acropolis when its closed
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