May 10: Heraklion-Athens-Eptalofos
The previous week, we’d been to a wedding in Rethymno and then spent a few days visiting Kavousi in eastern Crete, where Amy worked on a dig back in 1990. We’d returned to Heraklion the previous day to see the town and meet up with our son and his wife before they flew back home.
We’d been using the services of a driver named Aristides to get around Crete. This morning, Aristides sent his wife to our hotel to take us to the airport, which was about five minutes away. Aristides himself had bigger fish to fry; as a long-distance taxi driver, he could make real money transporting tourists between cities instead of doing little jaunts to the airport.
Though the Heraklion airport is sometimes hailed as the worst airport in Europe, and some of our other passages through there have been decidedly godawful, today we had no trouble. We didn’t have to return a rental car, check-in didn’t take 90 minutes, and security was virtually empty. (Heraklion is due to have a new airport in 2027.)
We boarded our flight to Athens, but, as per usual, we had to sit on the tarmac for almost an hour before Athens air traffic control would allow our plane to take off. This seems to be standard now; I think it has to do with smog or something, or maybe they just have too much traffic. The Athens baggage claim was true to form as well, taking a good 40 minutes to produce anything.
But we finally emerged and greeted Giorgos and Stephanos, who had been waiting for us for the past hour. Also texting us, but I’d missed their messages.
Tip for American travellers: You need to get and use WhatsApp; that is what folks use (in our experience, from Greece to Nepal); we were looking at regular SMS and missing a lot of communications.
The Trekking Hellas van was parked in the lot right across from the terminal. We climbed in for the two-hour ride to the trek’s starting point, the town of Eptalafos.
After sunny Kavousi, the mainland was gray and cloudy. Crete had been cold for May, but the mountains of the mainland seemed to be still in winter. Concerned about my limited mountain wardrobe, I checked the weather forecast and discovered that evening temperatures would be in the 30s! I briefly wondered if I might freeze to death on Mount Parnassus.
The winding mountain roads were socked in with mist. We passed through the town of Arachova, which was packed with tourist buses even in early May. And then we were in Eptalofos. It’s also known as Agoriani; it’s a good idea to commit both names to memory, because local people will use either one.
Eptalafos (the name means “Seven Hills”) appeared deserted except for Alexandra, owner of Guesthouse Alexandra. We told her that we planned to eat at a restaurant in town. She shook her head dubiously. Maybe it would be difficult, she said. When a Greek person says “maybe” and “difficult,” she means “definitely” and “impossible.”
Because we are optimists, and also because we’d sat on our butts all day and had nothing better to do, we ventured out to explore the town and prove Alexandra wrong.
As we stood outside one restaurant, pondering the menu and debating whether it might open in an hour or so, an old man stopped and regarded us. “Mangiare?” he said. “Yes!” we replied. “No!” he answered, giggling as he walked away.
At least that was helpful.
At that moment, Alexandra emerged from the mist on her scooter. She was on her way home, but she’d left food for us to eat in the kitchen. We were to treat the guesthouse as if it were our own home.
Since we’d pretty much exhausted the entertainment value of Eptalafos, and it was cold, we went back inside to see what we had for dinner. At this point, we realized we weren’t just the only guests at Guesthouse Alexandra; we were the only people, period.
Alexandra had cooked some Barilla penne with Barilla tomato sauce. She’d left out a couple of salads and a block of feta cheese. It was a fine meal! We ate, washed the dishes, and then raided the kitchen cabinets for anything entertaining. We found some Campari and a bottle of Beefeater with about an inch left in it. Mixed with tap water, this made a passable if austere negroni. Chris lit the fire in the large, empty living room. We were huddled up in armchairs when Alexandra returned with paper towels. She expressed astonishment that we had washed the dishes, but we pointed out that she said to make ourselves at home, and this is what we do at home.
Alexandra and Giorgos both agreed that these mountain towns have a balance problem. Eptalafos is either completely slammed with tourists, such that no one can move, or completely deserted. Guesthouse Alexandra is huge, with space for dozens of guests, which suggests that Alexandra must sometimes have to accommodate loads of tourists. Maybe they stay there during ski season? But much of the year, there aren’t enough visitors to even cover the expense of turning on the heat.