Two Wheels move the Soul

Christina Beach Hotel pool Kissamos is at the top northwest corner of Crete. Crete is the largest Greek island and a strategic place from a military background. Hitler during WW2 met tremendous resistance here from the Greeks and the allies used it in the fight against Rommel in Egypt. Kissamos is a laid back beach town with access to the west side beaches and is only 38 kms north of Chania. It offers a great alternate location to stay while visiting. We also found out that once a week (Thursday) a ferry goes from here to Gythio on the Peloponnese peninsula and  is a day ferry instead of an overnight from Heraklion to Pireaus. It is 1/3 the price, and completely bypasses the Athens corridor. It is a great alternative. Church built into Rock Cave Our hotel (The Christina Beach Hotel) was excellent with a top floor sea view/pool view from the room. We lazed around the pool while working out the kinks from our Samaria gorge hike and then walked 6 kms to the Port of Kissamos,

Signage at the top of the Mountain gorge How quickly? Each trip we plan at least one challenging hike and this year is no different. The Samaria gorge hike is in a National Park by the same name and is a gorge that drops some 1200M. from snow level in winter to sea level in about 16 kms. Probably the most technical hike we have ever done since for easily ¾ of it you have to position each step since you are walking down rocks that have become polished over time, or rough skree. Rough trail but the there is a handrail in places In addition, the logistics of getting to, and returning from the hike are a challenge, a special bus has to be caught from downtown Chania (only 2 per day) which takes you slightly over an hour to climb into the mountains. Then you hike down to a remote beach community that is serviced by a once daily ferry/barge that arrives at 17:30 hrs. But it may not arrive at that time, that’s just approximate. Once it arrives, as with ours it still had 2

In a European Heaven- The French are the cooks, The English are the police, The Germans are the mechanics, The Italians are the lovers and The Swiss organize everything. In a European Hell- The English are the cooks, The Germans are the police, The French are the mechanics, The Swiss are the lovers and The Italians organize everything! I wish they'd consider the Greeks in this one. credit goes to this blog http://signalsminusnoise.blogspot.gr/2007/08/european-heaven-hell.html

Chania is about 138 kms west and north of Heraklion and a port town of its own. It as well was a Venetian port, and is a very beautiful place. A walled city, Venetian fortress, and a waterfront that just begs to have supper at, which we have .

Venetian Fortress in Heraklion Situated in a bay near the centre of Crete Heraklion was a Venetian port with Fortress. It is now the Capital city for Crete and a major port and commercial centre. It still has its artifacts and has a mixed commercial and leisure marina side to it. We took the old Town walking self-guided tour that eventually led to the museum  and entered to see some beautiful sculptures and frescoes saved and partially restored. This was free! Sculptures from Knossos Palace 2000 BC Fresco Then after wandering around we decided to go for  a late lunch and were lucky to have selected a Greek tavern that had only Greeks ( and us) in it. The food, virtually all fish, was excellent. The place is called Tabepna Oyzepi, and is on the corner by the Venetian castle and small traffic circle there. We had our favorite grape leaf wrapped cabbage roll type things with curry and sour cream, and Sandra had the Shrimp Saganaki and I had the Mussels Saganaki. Done qu

Oia at dinner Santorini is an island rich in history. First, in the 2 nd century BC it was a single island with a volcano that erupted so violently that the area directly outside the core collapsed into the Aegean Sea and 5 separate islands were formed. It is thought to be one of the possible “Atlantis” city locations. The main island now is in the shape of a crescent and it is stunning. You first arrive at a ferry port some 1000 vertical feet below the modern day living space of Santorini and snake up a brutal little hairpin turn road to reach just outside the town of Fira (Thira).  The villages, all white, look like snow on the tops of the cliffs. From there to the northwest is the village of Oia out on the far northwestern point of the island, and to the south west the ancient site of Akrotira, where there is an archaeological dig and site to visit in place. They refer to it as the Pompeii of Greece. It is a very worthwhile site to spend time at. Also, adjacent to Akrotira

The drive from Pervaza to Athens requires you to drive under a part of the Med at a narrowing point on the coast. There is a large bay inboard of the Greek coastline here and it creates a very beautiful barrier to coastal access. I’m not sure when the tunnel was built but it sure is cheap to pay the toll on a moto .70 cents E instead of 3.2E for a car. Even a better discount is the Korinthos bridge, the vehicle in front paid 13.20 and we paid 2.20. The road is marked as E55 and for a bit we seemed to be on some goat trail, not sure if the GPS took us there on a ‘shorter route’ calc or not. I did get back on the more main highway in a bit and headed on it to almost Agirnio when a free Autobahn section opened up on the way to Antirrio the north end of the bridge. We enjoyed this for a while but what was most interesting is the beautiful country that is in this area. As we got closer to the bridge a gorge opened up to the east that was every bit as gorgeous as the Red Rock Canyon

Porto Katsiki So we have been staying at our great hotel Ionian Theoxenia for 2 days now and found a great place to eat in Elena’s . Actually it’s Statros , his name but she does the cooking, and she runs the apartments they have next to the taverna. Gorgeous Scenery And she promised if we came back another night she’d prepare her stuffed paprika’s ( peppers) so we extended our stay. It's still early for tourism in Kanali so she doesn't make her whole menu available. Her Chicken Souvlaki and pizza with salad were excellent so there was no risk.  That gave us the opportunity to head to Lefkada island on a day trip. When visiting Massimo and Elisa in Venice they had recommended seeing it and it’s easy to get to without a ferry. The concierge at our hotel provided lots of good local knowledge about the island and generally placed where things were and we set out to explore. We sure continue to appreciate having the V-Strom as some of the steep back windy sections of o

Our route out of Montenegro is a backdoor road to a small border crossing at Muriqan and we literally had to take a goat trail again to accomplish this task. Along the way the road turned to gravel, donkey’s had broken their tethers and were wandering around, and close to the border, Montenegrins’ were displaying Albanian behavior by dumping their trash and rubble just off the road into Albania. Now Albania was a communist dictatorship for quite a while and it’s apparent that everything was very poor. The road network was terrible and according to some most travelled by horse and cart. In fact we saw a lot of horse and cart traffic still. Our friends Mike and Ruby reported terrible roads in 2006 when they went through, but some recent reports were more favorable so we had picked a route and wanted to get to southern Albania in 1 day. On entering the country some of the first practices I saw were farmers dumping animal manure into a water source just outside Skhoder. They dumped

Pivaska Canyon Road, near Durmitor NP After watching the weather, and taking a rain day in Sarajevo we decided to head for the Pivaska canyon road. The forecast was for it to get better as the day aged. The route takes a high pass over some mountains toward Foca and it was here we encountered some rain, with it quitting after we came down the pass from the top. Well prepared for it, the rain was of no bother at all and by Foca I installed our helmet cam for what lay ahead. The road from Foca to the Montenegro border does become a goat trail, complete with goats and a herder, which we hadn’t seen since the French Alps in 2011. The border crossing was one of the easiest yet, complete dispelling a number of  comments written by some on the H U site, one specifically about the Eco-tax, and another that EU insurance doesn't cover Montenegro. Now the fun began. A warning on the highway to drive carefully. Well the Pivaska Canyon route follows a canyon to Niksic and along the

Mixed Grill Meal in Mostar at Hindan Han OK, let’s talk something more uplifting like food. One of the things we love about travel is the opportunity to try the cultural ethic foods of the regions. Here in Croatia (Hrk) and Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH), they have many Slavic cultural dishes. In Rovinj, Sandra was the first to try Cevapi, Cevapi which is sausage like shaped small meats of a mixture generally of beef and lamb mixed, (shaped by hand) and grilled. It was very good, and while I had an excellent Italian pasta dish, Sandra always shares so I learned to like this as well and have had it since. In Mostar  we tried  two dishes on subsequent evenings, the first a mix of meats from Bosnia (this was what was left on the shared plate after we both helped ourselves) and secondly a mixed Bosnian dish called Mostar Servrhan, which was cabbage rolls with a minced meat filling (called Japrak ), stuffed peppers, cevapi and potatoes. It was absolutely excellent and very re