Our Greek Revival 2025

  View of the Old Phoenix hotel complex from the hillside above it. Our studio was in  the building at the far left, downstairs from the owner's home. What we wanted most from our stay in Crete was to recapture some of the feeling of the Greece we remembered. The Old Phoenix provided that in many ways. It was small and family run, in a stunning setting. Manousos and Lisa, who were our hosts, were very kind and welcoming. Lisa, who was German, had studied in Toronto, so she had a very good command of English. But they were both friendly. While we were there, Lisa's parents, Eric and Maria, were visiting from Munich, and we also chatted with them, and with Lisa's and Manousos' daughter Maria, named after her grandmother.   I really liked the studio that we rented. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the inside. But it was spacious enough for us with a large double bed, an ensuite bathroom with shower, a kitchenette, a table and chairs, a loveseat, and a bookcase...

The harbor at Loutro I don't know what it is about Loutro that so enchants me. It has done so since we were first there in 1984. Back then it was only a small fishing village with just a few houses and guesthouses, not even a hotel. But I've longed to go back ever since. While we knew that Loutro had grown, expanding so that the entire harbor is now filled with hotel after hotel with multiple restaurants and bars, there was still something magical about it that enticed us. It's such a lovely spot. And it's still remote. It's on the south coast of Crete , and you can only get there by boat or hiking in. No cars. We didn't stay there on our first trip. At that time, we had taken the ferry to Agia Roumeli , a village at the end of the Samaria Gorge that has been a popular hike for decades. Based on a Rick Steves ' suggestion, we did not walk the entire gorge. Instead, we took a ferry to Agia Roumeli and walked up to the narrowest part of the Gorge, which was n...

  The view of the harbor from our balcony Chania has remained in our memories from our first visit there as a place of radiant beauty, and it hasn't changed much at all. Perhaps the buildings are in a better condition with fresh paint now, but overall, it looks much the same. The biggest difference is that in 1984, fishermen would bring their boats into the harbor. I remembered a fisherman sitting by his colorful boat cutting up sea urchins on our first trip. Today we were told the fisherman dock at a marina outside of the harbor. The photos of the Old Venetian harbor tell it all, capturing the feeling we had looking out across the water and walking along the pavement along with other tourists. We stayed at Chania one night before heading south, and then again on our return before we flew back to Athens. At the visit before we headed south, there weren't a great many people, but on our second stay, two cruise ships were docked our in the bay beyond the lighthouse, and boy, was ...

 After we returned home, I read that the Parthenon was totally free of scaffolding for the first time in 200 years. Obviously, that happened after we left, and the article mentioned that in a few weeks more scaffolding would be erected. So the attempt to keep it upright continues. When we visited in 1984, the scaffolding was at the back, so it's unfortunate that on this visit, it was in the front. It's so sad that while the Parthenon, built in the 5th Century BCE as a temple for the Greek goddess Athena , survived unscathed until 1687, but during a Venetian siege , the Ottoman Turks used it as an ammunition magazine, and an explosion blew out the roof and walls. Over the years it has been reconstructed, sometimes badly. For example, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the restoration involved using iron clamps to hold the marble together--but the restorers failed to put lead on the iron, and thus, over time the iron rusted and, once again, the Parthenon was in danger of falli...