Interlude 8. Rhodes–Piraeus–Santorini–Chania: October 9–12
We planned our 2024 trip through Greece with breaks throughout, during which we could stay in apartments and live semi-normal lives for a few days between multi-day hikes. Trekking Hellas hikes are extremely well-organized and the hotels are always comfortable and hospitable, but it is tiring to move from place to place every night, and keeping up with laundry can be a challenge.
So every week or two, we’d stop someplace, live in a house, and catch our breaths. We picked our break locations for geographic convenience, historical interest, and nostalgia. These interludes were just as much a part of the trip as the hikes.
We left our house in Kritika at 11:00. Our ferry to Piraeus departed at 18:15. That was a lot of time to kill.
We ended up sitting for several hours at a restaurant across from the ferry port. Fortunately, our computers were functioning well and we had plenty of work to do, so it wasn’t a wasted day, but I do find these genuine interludes tedious.
We’d assumed we’d be able to board the ferry three hours ahead of departure, as we’ve done in Piraeus. Alas, this ferry didn’t originate in Rhodes. I don’t know where it started–maybe Sitia, Crete?–but it came to Rhodes from Karpathos.
Apparently Rhodes, large though it is, isn’t a major ferry route terminus. Some Blue Star ferries continue east from Rhodes all the way to the island of Kastellorizo, or Megisti, a tiny place just off the Turkish coast that nevertheless still belongs to Greece. It’s now famous as a “secret” tiny island paradise.
Anyway! Around 3:00, we headed over to the ferry port, only to discover no ferry. We would have to wait some more.
The ferry finally arrived and we boarded. Our cabin was at the bow of the ship this time, which would’ve been fun except that the window was completely salted over and most of the voyage was in the dark. But the ferry was comfortable as always, and we had a pleasant dinner in the fine-dining restaurant.
And something interesting did happen!
Around 10 pm, we stopped at the island of Kos. I went out on deck to at least lay eyes on Kos–former banking haven of the ancient world.
There I witnessed a crowd of people being walked off the ferry and lined up by police. I couldn’t see them well, but they looked like mostly young men in track suits. A bus parked next to them.
The police first loaded the women (in head scarves) and small children onto the bus. The men stood in line in pairs, their backpacks dropped on the pavement behind them. As we sailed away from Kos, the police were loading them onto the bus two by two.
Were these migrants picked up somewhere in the Mediterranean and dropped off at Kos for detention? Kos is right next to Turkey; perhaps there were plans to take them there.
The next morning, we awoke to find ourselves sailing past the Attic peninsula. We’d made good time, and were coming into port a good hour ahead of schedule. Ordinarily that would’ve been great, but in our case it just meant an additional hour to kill with all our luggage. Oh well!
A thing to note about Piraeus: the port is absolutely huge. It has to be, because lots of the ferries and cruise ships are huge. Our Blue Star ferry docked on one end of the port. Our Seajets ferry to Santorini would dock on the far end. So we started walking.
We found our next dock before 11:00 a.m. Our Seajets fast ferry wouldn’t leave until 5:00. That means another day of killing time.
We dragged our suitcases out of the port and into Piraeus itself, which proved surprisingly hilly for a “flat” part of Athens. The sidewalks are also narrow and lumpy, with trees in the middle of them and lots of cars to dodge. It’s really not a great place for whiling away time with suitcases. But we found a nice café, where I played solitaire.
We had lunch at a German pretzel/American western establishment.
We got ice cream at Il Pinguino.
Piraeus is the main commercial port of Athens. It is separated by a little penninsula from a smaller harbor called (now) Passalimani, but in antiquity Zea. Zea was the harbor for triremes, the warships of the ancient Athenian navy, while food, merchandise, and passengers came and went from Piraeus.
A big innovation of historical significance was the building of the so-called Long Walls, in the 5th Century BC, after the Persian Wars. These connected the harbors—Piraeus, Zea, and Phalerum—with the walled city of Athens. This made Athens somewhat immune to siege, since its fortification had a “gate” straight into the sea, and thus access to the rest of the world. These walls had a lot to do with Athens surviving 27 years of the Peloponnesian War, the war with Sparta. It was only when the Spartans blocked the harbors in 404 BC that Athens was conquered.
Our ferries came and went from Piraeus, but we had lunch next to Zea. Zea is now full of pleasure boats.
Then we dragged our stuff back to the port to sit around on the ground and await our ferry. It eventually came, and we were on our way to Santorini!