The Gay Crete Blog Takes A Look At......2013 A Retrospective Look At LGBT Tourism on Crete, Greece

It is not unusual around this time of year for people do to a retrospect on the past year, and so we have decided to take a look back at the 2013 gay and lesbian tourist scene on Crete.

It seems throughout the world that economic uncertainty has to some extent affected tourism, and indeed in Greece, which is a favourite tourist destination, reporting, and mis-reporting, of the 'economic crisis' has perhaps given prospective visitors the wrong impression to such an extent that many believe that Greece is 'shut'!

Here we take at look at what has been an excellent year for gay travellers to Crete with many more LGBT visitors discovering that Crete has much to offer.
Crete has long been a destination for LGBT travellers even though it often overshadowed by the (nearly) neighbouring island of Mykonos. Independent and package tour gay travellers visit Crete for the opportunities it offers not just for some excellent beaches, but sightseeing, archaeology, and other activities not available on a small island like Mykonos. 

It is always difficult to quantify LGBT tourism because as we all know we don't walk around with labels on our foreheads, and at the Gay Crete Blog we have always assumed the normal 6% (or 10% if you prefer) of the LGBT population visit Crete. This of course, gives easily twice the amount of LGBT tourists as the 'gay' island of Mykonos.

Naturally with an island the size of Crete (about the same size as the state of Delaware), our gay and lesbian travelers are very spread out. This year however, we have been out and about visiting beaches and various other attractions and are pleased to say that we have met even more LGBT visitors than we expected.

The north coast of Crete is one of the busiest and most cosmopolitan areas of Crete, which doesn't suit those in search of a quiet holiday, but has given us a good guide to the number of LGBT visitors this year, and also this area has the greatest number of facilities for gay tourism which probably explains the attraction for them.

Roze Maandag Hersonissos

For nightlife, Roze Maandag, the gay bar which opened very late in the season in 2011, and moved to new premises for 2013, has proved very popular. A small bar with a dancing area it is cozy, almost twee, and this year has been busier than ever. We have heard a couple of visitors have complained about cigarette smoke (smoking is actually banned in Greece inside bars but it still goes on), and at times the selection of music has been described as an 'iTunes Back Catalog', nonetheless the bar has been very popular with both gay and lesbian tourists. Nearly everyone that is visiting seems to be going here for at least a couple of nights during their stay. Couples wanting a slightly quieter evening out are still heading up the hill to the village of Koutouloufari to the famous Vinnie's Garden and Dionysos which historically have been very gay friendly.

Sadly Eros Bar in Malia was not open this year as they had problems with the building. One might be forgiven for thinking this is why Roze Maandag has been so busy but as not all visitors were prepared to make the quite short journey to Malia for a night out it probably has nothing to do with Roze Maandag being busier, more to do with the higher numbers of gay visitors to Crete!

In addition, there have been several independent LGBT travelers staying in the capital of the island, Heraklion, and here too is a new development as La Brasserie has finally come out as a gay bar!

This year has been a good year for visitors from Australia and New Zealand, and on more than one occasion Villa Ralfa, the gay b and b near Anisarras, has been full of visitors from Down Under. 

As an indication of how popular Crete actually is, a gay couple from New Zealand who came to Crete to visit the War Cemetery at Souda, and then travel northwards through the Aegean, visiting Mykonos on the way, cancelled the rest of their island hopping and spent their entire 25 day holiday on Crete.

We also had more LGBT visitors from the UK (one of our traditional markets), than previous years especially during early and late season, some of these booked 'packages' and were staying in AI hotels in Port Hersonisso, which shows a slight lack of imagination as guests in these are hotels are rather tied as to their movements and get to see less of the island than independent travelers. 

Italians were also back in force this year after a dip in their numbers last year, 2012, and conspicuous by their absence were visitors from the US. The number of gay visitors from France also seemed to be fewer than previous years. Germany and Holland gave a good showing though, particularly in the 'independent traveller' group.

Home Hotel, which last year was based in Port Hersonissos, but this year moved to Anisarras,  also proved popular with many visitors, and although it is mixed clientele did have a strong gay following and held a couple of party nights including a karaoke night where the DJ managed to get a completely wrong version of 'Spanish Eyes'! Either way Home Hotel is popular with the local gay community.

Onr of the double rooms at Home Hotel

Of course Home Hotel also has a pool bar, there just isn't space! But Villa Ralfa does have 'clothing optional' areas which the owner will let you use if you want to get a bit of 'all over' colour before you hit the nudist beach at Sarandari near Port Hersonissos.

Talking about beaches, both Kommos on the south of the island, and Sarandari were both very busy. Sarandari is only a small beach and got quite crowded at times but it is a friendly beach because of its size and is a good place to get to chat to other visitors. Kommos is larger and more spread out but even so there was quite a crowd there particularly after about 2pm.

Around Crete there is a wide choice of accommodation at varying prices and there is really no need to pay a fortune for comfortable accommodation in the smaller hotels and apartment blocks and much of it is gay friendly because they are used to people of the same sex sharing accommodation. Historically the package tour industry has to cope with groups and couples of the same sex.

One thing that many visitors comment on is how affordable Crete (and Greece) actually is. With accommodation starting from about €25 per night in smaller Greek run establishment ranging up to several hundred euros a night for a 5* resort style hotel there is something to suit most pockets.

And a good night out can be had for a lot less than many countries in northern Europe, Australasia, or the US, and let's face it we, the LGBT community, are fond of a good night out! Food is relatively cheap and of high quality mainly using fresh local produce, and prices for a beer start at around €2.50!

Looking to the future we have been told that Eros Bar in Malia will indeed be open again next year, and locally there are rumours that there will be a new bar, gay owned and run, opening early in 2014, giving the GLBT visitor even more choice.

And after all that is said, it just remains for us to wish everybody a wonderful festive season and a Happy New Year for 2014 and we look forward to seeing you on Crete next year!

Going Greek - A Look At LGBT Life In Greece

As St. Petersburg effectively puts a ban on LGBT tourists, I decided to take a closer look at the scene in Greece to see how it compares with other countries in Europe particularly now that Spartacus has published its gay travel index for countries around the world! So just for this once the Gay Crete Blog becomes the Gay Greece Blog!

I don't know about you, but I always love the charts and statistics that get produced showing how gay friendly or un-friendly places are and the current Spartacus chart shows some quite amusing results this year, you can find it here at Spartacus World.

Now I was quite pleased to see that Greece scores a resounding zero on the chart although I was a bit mystified by the fact that Greece got a minus 1 for 'locals hostile' when in fact Greeks are some of the friendliest people you can come across and will welcome virtually everyone, the fact that they are not really interested in your sexuality shouldn't really come into the statistics at all! Strangely the UK also got a minus 1 for the same reason, and Peru got a minus 2 for the same reason, and yet I found during a recent trip to Peru that they were some of the friendliest people in South America, particularly when you compare them to the reception you get from people in Rio de Janeiro.

As you would expect Turkey gets a minus 4 overall (the same as Peru but for different reasons), which makes a bit of a nonsense with Out Traveler listing Turkey as an 'Up and Coming Destination', while at the same time getting humpy about the situation in St. Petersburg!

But I digress as we are supposed to be talking about Greece.......

To say that Greek people are conservative, religiously and socially, would be an understatement, and to many of them the concept of 'gay' is almost impossible to grasp, for this reason many Greeks are not, and never will be, 'out', having said that there are many younger people who are, and will even admit to it on their Facebook profile, presumably they work on the basis that none of their family or friends are on Facebook. Of course many visitors to Greece 'worry' about this and the fact that there do not appear to be any anti-discrimination laws when in fact existing Greeks laws already outlaw discrimination.

Naturally enough a result of this conservatism means that Greeks rarely upset other countries so acts of terrorism against Greece are very rare making it one of the safest countries in the world to visit!

Of course there is the occasional skirmish with Turkey, but then the Greeks have long memories and I always put this down to the debacle over Helen of Troy.

So while the Greeks are mainly totally disinterested in your sexuality, this does not extend into other areas of your personal life, and you can impress a Greek by being au fait with your family history for the last 300 years (at least), and they will have no qualms about asking what you do for a living, whether you own your own home, how much you paid for it, or how much rent you pay etc. etc. etc.

As with any other country you are expected to obey the accepted moral and social behaviour and while, undoubtedly, the sight of two men walking down the street hand in hand would raise eyebrows (but possibly be excused on the grounds that you are 'foreign'), it is perfectly acceptable for a man to greet a close friend or relative of the same sex, that he has not seen for a while, or on a special occasion, with a warm embrace and kiss on each cheek. It is amazing at the way some tourists seem to think that they can do anything they like as a tourist, and seem to regard visiting a foreign country as a right when of course it is actually a privilege to be allowed to do so!

Enough of my moralising and tut-tutting.......As you would expect the most amount of LGBT nightlife exists in the largest cities in Greece, i.e. Athens the capital, and Thessaloniki, and since the Greeks discovered the Internet a couple of years ago there has been a burgeoning of web sites, some of them very nice and some of them exceedingly awful. As with most things Greek they are all in competition with each other and I suspect that most of their owners expect to make a fortune by putting up a web site which they will sell at a vast profit at a later date without ever promoting it or updating it. Nonetheless for the LGBT traveller they can be useful, of course many LGBT travellers head straight for Mykonos or Lesvos and would never dream of going to Athens which is a shame, as there is a lot of incorrect information about Mykonos for instance, when statistically there are likely to be more LGBT tourists visiting, say, Crete, than there are to Mykonos. (Ignore one web site that says Mykonos welcomes millions of gay travellers each year as Mykonos only gets about a million visitors a year in total!)

So let's look at some of these web sites.....One of the oldest is Gay Greece and one of the few that has a reasonable translated English version, it even has a section on Crete although I am not in it because I decline to pay for an entry, apparently it is OK for me to promote the Gay Greece web site for free, but not the other way round.....

Then there is Gay Radio and its sister dating site Gay Book Star and then there is the gay chat and guide site Gay Hellas and these are just a few of the general sites. Many of the various bars in Athens and Thessaloniki also have their own site.

For such a conservative country we also have a number of magazines and blogs such as Fagazine, City Uncovered which has a good English version too, and my favourite just for the name and slogan alone Screw - Because Fags Can Read not to mention AntiVirus and 10Percent and our local blog for Crete Lesbian and Gay in Crete

How are we doing so far for a country that is so 'in the closet'??

Naturally most of these sites are in Greek so you will need to have an auto translate installed on your browser, most of these do a reasonable job but sometimes translate peoples' names with hilarious results.

You can also find many of these sites have 'Pages' on Facebook which has the Bing translate on it automatically although it falls flat on its face when it comes across Greek that has been transliterated into Roman characters.

There is a plethora of web sites about Greece generally too, many of these repeat the same things over and over, but one called Travelscope, has taken a slightly different approach, you can read here what they have to say about Crete and prospective visitors to Mykonos might like to take a note of what they have to say about Mykonos here.

Meanwhile here on Crete which statistically almost certainly welcomes more LGBT visitors than Mykonos in an area 100 times greater and therefore, with a lot more to see and do, (unless you really want to spend 10 days in an expensive alcoholic haze fighting for a space on the beach) we will battle on regardless and drop a gentle reminder that we now have two gay bars!

The Gay Baby Boomers – Are We The Forgotten Generation?

I make no apologies for this post as it goes worldwidebut sometimes things just have to be said. I was reading through postings in a group on GTN and it got me thinking about times past...Never a good thing to do when you get older, but at the time I was having a trawl through gay web sites generally and noticed that wherever you go, most of the bars, clubs, and other venues for gay men, seem to revolve around younger people.

I should point out at this stage that I am actually a bit too young to be a ‘baby boomer’, well almost anyway.

Now this could just be me of course, but although us older lot still like to go out and have a good time, do we, when we are on holiday, want to spend our nights clubbing and our days sitting on the beach or by a pool with a hangover, getting fried to a crisp, and then repeating the whole process over again the next night?

Yes, we do like the occasional visit to a nightclub to watch the crass, callow eye candy dance the night away aided by two bottles of beer and a pocketful of illegal substances, but in spite of what they think, we are not dead from neck up, or from the waist down, (as more than one young gentleman discovered when I was visiting Peru and Chile last month).

And while they drink their two beers, us mature ones sit there and consume an entire bottle of gin with not too much tonic as we don’t have malaria as the barman seems to think.

OK, we are on holiday so we can sleep the following day but for most of us sleeping in the sun for hours on end is out of the question. We are more likely to want to spend the day submerged in a tank of moisturiser to try and reverse the ravages that time, (and too much alcohol), has wrought upon us.

And yet many gay ‘destinations’ offer little else to do.

Let’s take the Greek island of Mykonos, probably one of the most famous gay destinations in the world. And don’t get me wrong here, Mykonos is a pretty island, but it is not the almost exclusively gay Greek island that it was back in the 1970’s when I first went there. There is gay nightlife and some gay beaches, and in August it is inundated with Greeks and Italians of both sexes out for a good time. But the admirable burghers of Mykonos, and indeed the businesses themselves, more than certainly discovered that you cannot run an entire Greek island just on gay clientele.

So what do you do on an island the size of Mykonos, once you have visited the museums, a couple of churches, and been to the island of Delos?

Apart from spending evenings drinking, and days sunbathing, the answer is not a lot, and for many of us older gay men this is sometimes not quite enough. We are not so far past it that we just want to sit about and play bingo. We still want to go and see things.

New things.

Different things.

So what do we do?

We invent our own destination. A new destination more suited to our needs. And some of us have already done this in a small way. And because we are not dead from the neck up many of us know how to use the internet so we can travel independently not just follow the crowd and go where a travel agent sends us on a package tour.

The Greek island of Crete, for instance, welcomes many gay visitors each year, although we do not shout about it too much because that is the Cretan (or Greek), way. But for the older gay man, and woman, Crete offers much more than just beaches and clubs.

For a start Crete is a large island with some spectacular mountain scenery dotted with small hill villages just asking to be explored, and although I don’t suggest you take up mountain climbing, there is some great walking, (mainly downhill), that can be done such as the Samaria Gorge, the longest in Europe (yes, Crete is part of Europe), and a wealth of historical sites such as Knossos.

And if it is mythology you are after than what better than Psychro’s Cave where Zeus was born, (and no, I never met him personally, although on a bad day you can be forgiven for asking), followed by a drive around the Lassithi Plateau with chance to see the lammergeyer s that live there (and they are not so difficult to find as some people make out!), so there is something for the keen birder to look out for as well! Around the Plateau are a number of small villages and a couple of larger towns including Tzermiado, where, according to visitors from France, ‘you can get the best goat in Europe’.

Sadly most of the windmills that you see in photographs of Lassithi, are now gone, the water being pumped by electricity generated by wind turbines (!), but around the island you can see the remains of the many stone built windmills from a bygone age, along with some fine examples of Byzantine and Venetian architecture.

But after all this history and physical activity, you need to relax sometimes and Crete has a wide range of beaches including nudist beaches.

And bars.

In fact Crete has two ‘dedicated’ gay bars, Eros Bar in Malia, which has been running for some years, and the newer Roze Maandag (Pink Monday) Bar in Port Hersonissos which opened in summer 2011.

Different in style, they both play similar music but at different volumes! Eros is more of a night/dance club often frequented by Greeks and tends to start late and finish very early the following day so be prepared for a long night out. Roze Maandag bills itself as European, and has a much ‘loungier’ feel to it. You are likely to hear the same ‘gay anthems’ from the same ‘gay icons’ in both bars, but in Roze Maandag you can hear yourself think.

And for a place to stay (and here comes a bit of absolutely shameless self-promotion), there is Villa Ralfa, conveniently located just outside Port Hersonissos, and thirty minutes walk from the village of Pano Hersonissos. Villa Ralfa was Crete’s first LGBT guesthouse and gay homestay, which opened in 200,4 and since then has welcomed independent LGBT travellers from around the world. Of course you may find other hotels on Crete listed as being ‘gay friendly’ but in general these are large ‘all inclusive resorts’ which are really just ‘gay anonymous’ as you are just one or two guests in amongst several hundred. These sort of hotels are naturally the ones favoured by the so called gay travel agencies who really are not interested in true gay owned and run hotels for the simple reason that they cannot make any money by sending you to these, instead they seem to think that everyone will be happy to pay several hundred euros a night for a room without breakfast just because they have booked through a ‘gay travel agency’.

Which lead us on to a final point. The price.

Looking again at various articles it seems that some of the ageing LGBT population are having problems with ‘affordable housing’. Which seems to blow the argument that gay and lesbian people have more money, right out of the water. Sure we may own our own homes but we have been working for 35 years to pay for them. And as we grow older our incomes become fixed either because we are on a pension, or the companies we used to work for have ‘disposed’ of us, or as naturally happens our opportunities for advancement and salary rises no longer exist.

So what is the cost of a holiday on Crete?

The answer is surprisingly little.

Crete (and indeed Greece), has some of the cheapest accommodation in the world and you can get very good accommodation in a family run apartment block from as little as 20 euros per night even in high season. But bear in mind you will often have to book direct with the apartments as the travel agents will mark that up to 40 or so euros per night. Villa Ralfa charges a little more but you do get the pleasure of knowing that almost certainly your fellow guests will be LGBT, (you don’t get money back if they aren’t because they are probably friends of mine and I have them well trained), and we do look after you well, and we know our way around the gay scene, and which are the best places to go for that essential mojito before dinner.

And for food and drink, pricewise probably the best comparison that there is, is South America. A good main course and a glass of wine or bottle of beer will cost you about the same as in Lima or Cusco, or indeed in Santiago de Chile. If you want to ‘splurge’ then there are expensive places, the same as there are everywhere.

So if thinking about a Mediterranean holiday and travelling independently, and want a place to go where there are things to do then Crete, Greece is a very good option for the mature LGBT traveller.

Villa Ralfa Goes ‘On Tour’ Down Under - Part Two.....More Flights, and The Knotty Problem of Finding ‘Real’ LGBT Accommodation.

Having booked the main flights, and trains, for my gay travels down under, your intrepid traveller finds that there can be a problem booking exclusively LGBT accommodation, and that Greece is still a cheap place to stay!

A couple of my fans have mentioned that there are a couple more things which you should have to hand when doing this sort of thing, these are your passport as many airlines want your passport or ID card number when you book, and more importantly lots of ink and paper in your printer! The airlines must save a lot of money not having to provide you with an expensive multipart ticket these days, and do make sure that you actually print out your ‘e-ticket’ and not just the receipt for the booking!

Of course I am well aware how big Australia really is, as I lived there for a number of years, but having booked the train journey from Perth to Adelaide, and then on to Alice Springs where I pick up a two day bus tour to King’s Canyon and Ayer’s Rock, there is the problem of getting on to Melbourne to leave enough time there to see friends and my partner’s mother.

About the only airline that comes up on Google is Virgin Blue and at A$600 one way from Alice to Melbourne it is hardly cheap, (and takes forever because they fly via Sydney), as usual with these airlines everything seems to be an extra!

After a look at my favourite airline site Attitude Travel (http://www.attitudetravel.com/), I discover Tiger Airways. What starts out at A$47 for a one way flight soon turns into A$154 by the time I add my luggage, pay A$8 for a seat, and they add on a ‘Convenience Fee’ whatever that is!

And finally I have to get flights from Melbourne to Auckland, and from Wellington to Auckland to pick up my return flight to Singapore. Air New Zealand proved to be the cheapest choice for Melbourne to Auckland, Jetstar the cheapest and most convenient for Wellington to Auckland. It is amazing how trouble free things can be when you have a credit card that actually works!!

And then we come to accommodation....For much of my journey I am staying with friends and family which is the cheapest way!

But to be honest I also want to do a bit of a ‘consumer survey’ during my trip and see what other LGBT hotels have to offer and whether there is anything I can do better (or worse!). And there are a couple of places where I do not have friends (yet!), like Singapore, Adelaide, Alice Springs, and Auckland.

Now when I say LGBT, I mean LGBT owned and GLBT run, not one of the enormous international chains, or even a national chain, where you could actually be in any hotel in any city in the world and not know where, and where your money goes to head office wherever that is! Let’s face it we are gay and we want a proper gay establishment, not one where the staff have had special training as if we are people with ‘special needs’.

My priorities here are in this order,

1. LGBT owned and run
2. Location
3. Price.

As you know I can be a bit mean so it might seem odd to put price last, but many ‘gay’ hotels are very much boutique style which always tend to be more expensive, although I think some places still believe that there is a ‘pink’ dollar, or pound, or euro, so tend to be more pricey, (I don’t know why they think we have more money as recent surveys suggest that the 6% of the population that are ‘gay’ are responsible for 6% of spending, so they don’t spend any more or less than any other sector of the population).

As for location, there are some very nice GLBT places around but some of them are way out of town which is a bit inconvenient when the bars and local attractions are miles away, unless you have your own transport of course, which I don’t. And a couple of times I have to get up early to get to airports and railway stations!

Searching gay and lesbian directories, and the various sites dealing with ‘gay’ accommodation proved very disappointing for the locations where I wanted it most. For instance, Google produced only one result for Singapore, which on closer inspection looked like the rooms were for rent by the hour, and were sparsely furnished at that, although since then I have seen a review from somebody who stayed there and said it was fine......Fine if you like staying in a bathhouse that is, but when you get to a certain age you need somewhere with a few creature comforts!

Below are links to some of the sites that proved useful although I ended up in going to ‘gay friendly’ places which happened to be located just where I wanted them to be.

Australia proved to be the most difficult, and I don’t think anyone will be surprised when I say that Adelaide and Alice Springs proved to be the worst, New Zealand on the other hand proved very easy!

Trying to book LGBT accommodations in Adelaide did have it’s amusing side, as after the Qguide site proved fruitless (the one place listed came back and said ‘We do not have accommodation’), I tried the old favourite ploy of sending messages to people on line on Gaydar. Out of six messages sent, two didn’t reply, one said ‘I do not know of such things as I am not gay’, (I didn’t understand that one either), two came up with logical suggestions, and the last sent me the following message, and I quote verbatim...... “Hey Tim! Thanks for your message. God! You poor bugger! Adelaide is a complete gay desert! An inbred cesspool of cheating 'happily married' queers and mental retards! Not a normal gay bloke to be found!”. Which probably explains the ‘I’m not gay’ response! In the end I chose a hotel listed as gay friendly, but just happening to be in a convenient place.

I did make contact with someone in Alice Springs who proved very helpful with advice about tours, but as both nights that I would be spending in The Alice were late to bed and early to rise days, I didn’t worry too much and just booked something convenient.

For Melbourne there were a number of listings on various web sites, strangely these proved to be gay-friendly only, when in fact Melbourne has a couple of quite good gay owned/run places the names of which I got from a friend who lives there.

And what about prices?

I deliberately avoided ‘budget’ accommodation as in many cases this is going to be youth hostels or back-packers accommodation, not that I have anything against backpackers, I have met some very nice ones in my time, so I took the lower end of mid-price accommodation. Strangely accommodation in Australia and New Zealand seemed to be the same price in both dollar currencies which for us Europeans means that New Zealand was the cheapest place! Working on this basis a room for two costs around $120 per night in both A$ and NZ$, and in Singapore, S$175 per night for two. As a rough guide NZ$120 is £60 or €70, A$120 is £80 or £90, and S$175 is £90 or €100 respectively. Note that these prices are for two, no reduction for single travellers like we do at Villa Ralfa, (and quite common in Greece and Europe generally!)

For more about where I stayed and what I got up to you will have to wait until I write up all my notes and do some more blogs, but for now I will give you the web sites I found most useful.

http://www.topgayhotels.com/, http://www.qguide.com.au/, http://www.gaystay.co.nz/, proved most useful for accommodation, the Gaystay NZ web site lists a lot of gay accommodation, probably more than there is in the UK, especially useful for those touring around. The Qguide web site is very strange as sometimes it is there and another time not. I didn’t look to see where it is hosted but there seems to be problems with web sites in Australia generally. When I was planning my trip I took this problem to be at my end, only when I got there did I realise this was not the case.

http://www.utopia-asia.com/, is an excellent site for things to do in Singapore and Asia generally, there was a bit of a shortage of accommodation in Singapore so I used http://www.rainbowtourism.com/ , which also gave me useful accommodation in Adelaide.

http://www.galta.com.au, is a generally useful site, it has many listings around Adelaide too but as these were not central and I had a train to catch they were generally too far away!

http://www.starobserver.com.au/ and http://blaze.gaynewsnetwork.com.au/ are both news sites, they are also the home of some free gay newspapers and mags which have a lot of info in them, plus there are some classifieds on the web site. Good for looking at current affairs and events.

http://www.pinkboard.com.au also provides some accurate information and maps on various locations in Australia, while http://www.outinperth.com/ provides information specifically on Perth WA.

This sounds just like the Oscars doesn’t it!!??

And finally my thanks to a long time friend in Melbourne who suggested I stay at The Laird in Melbourne, an Australian pub in the true tradition, http://www.lairdhotel.com/, and also to the fellow members of the Gay Travellers Network, who came up trumps with things to do in Singapore http://www.gaytravellersnetwork.com !!

Villa Ralfa Goes ‘On Tour’ Down Under - Part One.....Bookings Flights and The Pitfalls of Using a Credit Card.

Booking your holidays as an independent gay or lesbian traveller has never been easier and here are some of my experiences and do’s and dont’s, when booking your tickets and accommodation.

Yes, even humble gay hotel owners from Crete, Greece sooner or later need a break from home and as avid followers who hang on my every word, (you do, don’t you?), you will know that I am a great exponent of booking holidays independently, eschewing the conventional travel agents and travel web sites but you do need to a bit of planning, especially if you have a lot of stopovers and side trips to make!

I don’t say that it would have been impossible to book this through an agency, but I think even the most patient of travel agents would have been tearing their hair out after this one.

First off, plan your holiday.

I know this sounds silly, after all you are supposed to be taking it easy, but you cannot start to book anything unless you know where you are going and why! If you just want sun, sea, sand, and maybe a bit of sex thrown in then anywhere where you are going to find these, will do, well almost....Forward planning is essential (as is booking flights well in advance to make sure you get a seat and more often the best prices, and if you work in an organisation, that you will be able to take the time off when you want it).

In my case and this holiday, I wanted to go and see friends and relatives in Australia and New Zealand, catch up with my partner’s two boys and their children, and also visit some places like Alice Springs and Ayers Rock, that I never got to see when I lived in Perth, WA. And also make at least part of the journey across Australia by rail, something I wanted to do even before Michael Palin did it!

But I wanted to do it in a relaxing way with not too much flying and not too many airports.....I am going on holiday after all! And I have a month to do it.

Second, what you will need.

A credit card (or debit card, although some airlines will not take these), with plenty of credit on it, and an expiry date beyond your date of return. I say this because some airlines will not accept a card which expires before your return journey. Or that expires before you leave come to that.

Thirdly, check whether you need a visa to visit your chosen destination.

There are still many countries that require you to have a visa. In this case I am travelling to Australia which certainly does. Fortunately you no longer have to visit an Australian High Commission or Embassy to get this, and you do not need to go through a visa ‘agency’ either, as you can do it on line. (Some more advice on using the Australian on line visa application follows later).

Always apply for visas before you do anything else, they are usually valid for a year, and sometimes they do get refused, so if you have already paid for your airfare you are not going to get it back.

With the benefit of hindsight I will say, ‘Do not even look at flights until you have got the visa’.

So off we go.....

From my point of view it is easier for me to fly from Athens and like most International airport’s the AIA web site lists the airlines and destinations serviced, OK, I have flown Singapore Airlines before, and guess what? They do a flight on exactly the day I want it, giving me time to do a stopover in Singapore to recover from the time difference before I hit Perth. Even better the Singapore web site gives you the chance to book multiple ‘legs’ too, useful, if like me, you want to travel overland, but pick up a return flight from Auckland NZ.

First mistake is actually to go through the process to find out how much it costs....And I haven’t got a visa yet....And the price I get back is superb to say the least.

Putting in the on line application for an Australian visa is not easy. There are pages and pages of it, and lots of boxes to fill in. Make sure you save each page as you complete it and or course, make a note of the reference number!!!! You will need it to recall and complete the application if anything goes wrong, and on the day I did it there was nothing but problems with my Internet connection. At the end of the process there was no acknowledgment screen as I expected. So has it been sent or not? Three days later I am still not sure and trying to navigate through the web site to see the status of the application is well nigh impossible! Finally I enlisted the help of a friend in Perth who called the visa office, (in Tasmania, I believe), who confirmed that they had got it and were processing it manually because something had gone wrong. (Tell me about it!)

By this stage I am worrying about whether my nice cheap convenient flight would still be available! Checking the Singapore web site still shows it.....On day 4 my application for the Australian visa appears on their system, and three days after that I get the visa itself. Fast work there boys!

Too late, the flight I wanted is now full, and, all of a sudden, the flight from Auckland back to Singapore has trebled in price....Disappointment could have set in at this point, but hey, I allowed for a bit of flexibility didn’t I?

Well, actually, no I didn’t. A further check on flights doesn’t really help because returning later puts me too close to Christmas, and leaving earlier is too soon because I have arranged the house and dog-sitter already....And in the meantime I have been checking out my rail journeys in Australia and the Indian Pacific only travels on two days a week, and as I have decided to take The Ghan from Adelaide to Alice, then that trip is also pretty well fixed too.

Always have a Plan B, or C, or D, or Z even.

In this case, depart from a different airport. A quick check shows that Singapore Air, (and other airlines) have more frequent departures from London Heathrow, and although I was trying to avoid the extra flights, it was always in the back of my mind. Being idle doesn’t always pay off!

As we have visas in place and have organised some extra credit on my card, it makes sense to book the flight straight away, working out how to get from Crete to London Heathrow can wait! Available flights are leaving when I want, and strangely the Auckland NZ to Singapore leg that was so expensive before has now gone down!

I work my way through the booking process, making sure that I am not trying to depart from somewhere that I haven’t got to yet, and we arrive at the final screen ready to press the button that says ‘BUY’, except nothing happens.....Go back, click ‘Refresh’, re-send the data, try again....Just a message clearly placed there by my card provider. Close browser, clear data, try again, going all the way through the whole process again...Still no joy. (In the meantime I am also getting a warning message from Singapore Air that my credit card expires before I am travelling and that I will need to take my card to their nearest office to get is validated!)

Now incensed, I call my card provider in the UK (from Greece at peak time!), thinking that they have mucked up the increased credit limit, ‘Not so,’ says the young gentleman I speak to. I read the message out loud to him, ‘Ahh,’ he says, ‘I will put you through to ‘Clicksafe’, and finally get a nice Irish lady, and after explaining things to her she tells me that they are actually a separate company acting as sub-contractors to my card provider. After taking me through security, (one day they will ask something else other than my DOB and if there are any other card holders), she asks me what I am trying to do, I tell her and she says ‘That is what I can see here too’. Sometimes these people are so helpful.

‘You can’t do that with that card,’ she says, ‘Your credit limit isn’t high enough.’

I explain that the credit limit has been increased by the card provider.

‘Ah yes,’ she says, ‘But that is nothing to do with our credit limit. You can only use it up to £50.’

I don’t know whether they have ‘Clicksafe’ in other countries, I sincerely hope not, and if you can avoid signing up with it if you are in the UK, then do so.....

By now I am getting really pee’d off, and have done several ‘Back’ clicks on the Singapore Air web site trying, successfully, to retain the flight and price.

She takes me through a further set of security questions, omitting to ask me my inside leg measurement and the results of any recent sperm count. And finally tells me to try again.

Having not refreshed the screen often enough, the Singapore web site has now timed out due to inactivity! Fortunately for the world at large, starting all over again I finally get to book the flight.

Now you might think this is the end of this story, but of course, this is me we are talking about.

With plentiful flights from Crete to Athens, and Athens to London, during the winter months there is no rush to get on with the connecting flights, but train journeys within Australia, and now that I have had time to look more closely, New Zealand as well, are now priority jobs if I am to avoid flying again for a while after I get to Perth.

Buying through an Australian web site is something of an experience, for a start they don’t ask for the CCV number on the back, and they don’t worry about expiry dates on cards either, even though I am travelling after the expiry date. Even better the Great Southern Railway allows you to book and only pay a deposit, a great help of your credit is limited. And to be honest the whole booking is experience seems more relaxing and laid back, than, say Singapore Airlines, or even Easyjet!

I try to book the Indian Pacific from Perth to Adelaide. Without much information and no informative error messages it just tells me that they cannot complete the transaction and try again later. I try again later, but this time booking The Ghan from Adelaide to Alice. Success, all goes well and I even get the email confirmation for instructions on paying the balance.

I try the Indian Pacific again, still no joy.

I try to book my Easyjet flights to and from Athens to London, that will not work either, but then I manage to book those with a debit card which expires in two days time. Don’t you just love Easyjet?

I try to book flights with Aegean for the Crete/Athens leg with my credit card, no it definitely does not want to work.

I try to book the Indian Pacific again, still no joy. In desperation because it is important, I use my Greek credit card, hey presto, it works. So what is wrong with my English credit card?

The following morning I am emailed a copy of a letter from the security department of my card provider in the UK. They have tried to phone me, they say, which is a lie, because the only number they have is a UK mobile and that has not rung in weeks. In the meantime they have blocked my card for suspicious activity and could I please call them.

To bloody right I can call them, in peak time again too because they only work 9 to 5. I am not sure what happens if you want to report a stolen card outside those times.

Finally after more security questions during which I asked, in a voice heavy with sarcasm, if they would like my vaccination certificates too, and explaining why I am trying to use my card outside the UK, I get the block lifted. Is this something to do with the financial crisis in the UK I wonder?

And with my heart aflutter and a song on my lips, I manage to book the Indian Pacific, and the Transcenic rail journey from Auckland to Wellington.

This is more than enough for one blog, so I will leave you with the pleasant thought that I still have to book some internal flights in Oz and NZ. And I haven’t even started on accommodation yet!

Part Two will deal with the impossibility of finding true LGBT hotels and accommodation around the world, and booking a flight with the Australian version of Ryanair!

Take The Gay and Lesbian Community Survey 2010

So we are being urged to do, in fact there is a link to it on my Villa Ralfa web site here to save you looking any further.

'There are lies, damn lies, and statistics' was once quoted by Mark Twain, originally attributed to Disraeli, but appearing nowhere in any of his writings, the phrase is nonetheless, still true today.

The Gay and Lesbian Community Survey is, of course, a worthy cause in itself, but it will only mean anything if enough LGBT people complete it.

Even then the only accurate piece of information that you can glean from it is how many people actually took the survey!

So why should I be asking you to do it? Mainly because it has now gone international and with the help of the GLBT community in countries other than America we can set some of the statistics right!

From here on, are my personal opinions based on my personal experience over 40 years of being part of the LGBT community, living on two continents and travelling in many countries and meeting hundreds and very possibly thousands of LGBT people. I have also been involved in four businesses owned and run by LGBT people.

Of course you can comment as you wish, but make the comments constructive please.

So let's look at the purpose of the survey first.

The survey results will almost certainly be used to sell things to the LGBT market, some marketeers will use to their own advantage by saying to companies 'You have no LGBT marketing strategy, you are missing out on a lot of money. For the measly sum of several thousand dollars we will advise you on how you can sell to the LGBT community, and train your staff to deal with LGBT clients.' (Makes me feel like I am a person with 'special needs')

Of course we are looking at the value of the 'Pink Pound' or Dollar or whatever here, and bearing in mind that the survey was designed for the US, the bottom income bracket is far too high for many other countries, including Greece, where I live. Immediately then us in Greece will be discounted for the results as not worth marketing to as we don't have any money.

Hardly fair is it?

A good income in Greece is around US$15,000 pa, with many earning much less, especially those in the tourist industry who work for only six months of the year! But does this make us poverty stricken? Well no it doesn't. But what it does do is put into question this whole thing about the value of the 'Pink Economy'.

In my experience, gathered over 40 years, LGBT people are no more likely to be wealthier or poorer than straight people, particularly, as by choice, many GLBT people are likely to be in lower paid work such as social services (which we are extremely good at, I might add).

Taking another example from the survey, 'How much bottled/mineral water do you drink a week?' This is obviously aimed at the countires where drinking bottled water is a status symbol. In my answers it wouldn't let me put in the actual amount as the maximum is 36, and for many people in Greece this answer would be similar. Now before anyone gets their cheque book out to pay for a multi-million euro advertising campaign in Greece selling expensive designer bottled water, let me point out that in general we don't drink the tap water in Greece, and those five 'waters' that I drank outside my home were taken with the five coffees I had outside my home each week, and I didn't pay for them either because in Greece the water comes with the coffee automaitically! (Damn, perhaps I shouldn't have said that...I always like it when companies make disastrous marketing errors. Who remembers that slogan 'You're never alone with a Strand'?).

Another one from the survey. The section about your feelings towards companies and their 'outreach' to the GLBT community. How about a box to tick which says 'It makes no difference'?
And let's face it, if you have, say, an airline with nice flight times, good service, and an excellent safety record, but no 'outreach', and another with crappy planes, bad flight times, and a bad safety record, but excellent 'outreach', which one are you really going to choose?

As a bit of brand loyalty here, if I am flying internally in Greece, I go with Aegean because they have these really nice moist pecan nut cookies, the coffee they give you to go with them is dire, but the cookies are NICE.

I mentioned previously that I had been involved with gay owned and run businesses in the past, from my experience in those businesses, being LGBT owned/friendly/run does not necessarily mean you will attract LGBT clients! Clients go where they want to go and about the only place where it makes a distinct difference is with bars and clubs. You will see around the Internet, (you do use the Internet don't you? A lot of LGBT people do not, which makes an Internet based survey open to doubt), stories of companies seeing huge increases in business after LGBT marketing campaigns, these should be taken with a pinch of salt, after all how can they tell if you are LGBT or not? Is it tatooed on your head? Is there a tick box on the online booking form on the web site? It is more likely that the advertising campaign as a whole led to increased sales irresepective of the target group.

I think personally that they should ask us more about travel and holidays too.

Having said all this, DO take the survey, DO answer the questions honestly, and DO remember to put in the right country. A sudden upsurge in answers outside of the norms that the marketeers are expecting will make then think again about their approach.

DO also complete the last page with the extra questions and DO sign up for the possibility of being in working groups. I was fortunate enough to be involved in one of these last year, employed by an electronic manufacturer who was suffering a severe fall in sales, when he finally got the results he thanked us all by email and said 'I do not know how we got it so wrong'.

You can find a link to the survey through my web site at http://www.villaralfa.com, and you will find Community Marketing Inc here

Gay travel tips for Greece and the Greek Islands

This little article (linnk below) pop ups all over the place, written by Howie Holbein, who runs a travel company called Spirit Journeys in the UK, it is a little on the brief side so not very useful and of course it mentions the old favourite islands of Mykonos and Lesbos.

I tmentions Crete in passing saying it does not have any definable gay scene, which is not quite true, but Howie can be forgiven I think as he has probably never been here!!


http://www.helium.com/items/1602844-gay-travel-greece

A New(ish) Web SIte For Gay Hotels and Bars, Gay Chat and Blogs, Gay Pride London: Gaypedia

There are a myriad of web sites for gay dating, information, travel, and so on, out there on the Internet, and although I don't usually recommend any of them in particular, some are better than others.



My personal 'hate' is the ones that because you are running a gay business, seem to think that you make a fortune and are therefore prepared to pay a fortune for a link or posting, but then you find that many of the advertisers are actually huge multinationals who are just trying to cash in on the 'Pink Dollar or Pound' and whose product is not actually specifically 'gay' at all! In fact I am often certain that the people that run them are not gay or lesbian, just straights trying to pretend they are gay.....



The cost of adding a link or an ad on to a site is minimal, and once it is there it should be there forever, as I feel that the Internet should be a free source of information for everyone, which is why you will find much information given freely on my own web site especially tailored for the gay or lesbian travel ler to Crete, Greece, so when I am approached by someone asking for a link to what is obviously a gay owned and run site, I am only too happy to oblige if I possibly can, after all what is a few minutes of my time to add a weeny bit of code to my site?

Of course we would all like to 'monetise' our site and even mine has some Google ads on it as well as some other 'earners', but these only go to pay for the hosting fees (essential if you want a good reliable a host that provides you with all the stats that you need with a minimum of downtime) and the incredible amount of bandwidth I take during the summer months, so when Ryan from Gaypedia approached me for a link, I was only too please to help, as he was trying to make the site more useful by providing information for his gay users and not just trying to make a bob or two by selling advertising!

What you see here is the end result......Gaypedia is a relatively new gay dating and chat site and Ryan has incorporated features likes blogs and reviews from the outset rather than bolting them on afterwards!


http://www.gaypedia.com

And Now on Facebook!

Just in time for the New Year, I have added a Villa Ralfa page on Facebook, you can view it by clicking on the link to the left. So now you can become a fan of Villa Ralfa the first gay and lesbian accommodation, hotel, guesthouse (yes even I do not know what to call it!), on Crete, Greece.

Not only that but you can of course share this blog with all your friends on Facebook too!

During the next month we will be closed for guests as I have to go back to England for a while to deal with my Uncle's affairs following his death in November (it was a nice funeral, small, but then he was 83 so there are not too many of his age group still about). I am also hoping to get into hospital to get my hernia fixed!

Of course I cannot leave Isla, the new dog, on her own so there are friends from Holland staying instead

We have a few new things happening in the New Year 2010, amongst this is the possible opening of a new gay club in Hersonissos, and also during the winter we will be, hopefully, revamping the web site just to please the several hundred who visit it every month. Naturally we will be answering your emails while we are away and if you want to make booking you can use the sexy new 'online booking' system to book the apartment ONLY.

Hoping that you had a good Christmas, and that 2010 will be everything you could wish for!

A Winter Weekend in Athens, Greece Part 3

Some suggestions of where to go and what to do during a short ‘city break’ in Athens.

Part 3 – More eating out, yet another bar, and Kolonaki.

Continuing the saga of a four day ‘city break’ in Athens finds us in need of a little rest and as many of the gay bars/clubs are closed on Monday we can do this without feeling guilty!

After the customary early evening sleep I head off to Goody’s in the middle of the city. Goody’s is the Greeks answer to MacDonalds, the system of ordering at one desk and walking to another to collect your food is confusing, none of the staff speak English but you can always point can’t you? The food is good though and there is enough of it but it is not cheap. But if you want a good burger then you have to pay for it.

Monday is a much quieter night around Monastiraki and Psirri, I find the bar called Inoteka in the Platia Avisinias that houses the flea market. This bar is listed as ‘gay friendly’ but I cannot tell for sure as I am the only person in there. I can say that is interestingly decorated and warm and cosy, maybe if someone else goes there they can let me know. I can imagine spending the evening there though.

Moving on I find a seat in a bar restaurant in Miaouli Street near Platia Iroon, called Rebekka. Normally you cannot get into these places as they are packed but it is Monday. As I sit with a large bottle of beer (€3) and start to write up my notes there is the brightest flash of lightning I have ever seen, followed by a magnificent roll of thunder and torrential rain and hail stones for the next twenty minutes. Never mind it is warm and dry under this canvas awning.

Tomorrow is my last full day and I want to make the most of it, so I take an early night.

Tuesday comes and another bright sunny day, apart from the odd shower of rain I have had pleasant weather but I do need a coat and a sweater especially at night.

My plan is to visit Kerameikos, which is on Ermou Street near Thissio station. This area used to be very run down but is now a pleasant pedestrian area, but beware of scooters. The archaeological site is actually old graveyards where the good and the great of ancient Athens were buried. I expected it would only take me thirty minutes to go round the site, by the time I had been round the museum I had stayed three hours!

Grabbing a spinach pie on the way through Monastiraki, I head up Ermou towards Parliament House. The streets are packed with shoppers as the January sales started today. Reaching Syntagma Square I look in the post office to see if it is still as busy and chaotic as ever. It is. (There are other post offices less busy near Omonia Square and opposite the National Bank in the square off Athinas Street).

Pausing to take a picture of one of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier I carry on to Kolonaki, which is the most expensive area of Athens and is home to many of the foreign Embassies and Government Buildings. Here you will find all the well-known designer shops and most have sales on. There is also the usual number of street cafes where the rich, famous, beautiful and not so beautiful of Athens come to play.

It is the place to take a coffee and so I do. In my chosen cafe the menu is new and wonderfully produced on heavy glossy paper. The price of a cup of coffee is so close to €5 that it is not worth taking your change, and if you also have something to eat then the prices are cleverly worked out to be enough over €9 that it is not worth taking the change from a €10 note! My coffee is called something like a ‘espressocaccia’ and I choose it because it has more ingredients than anything else! When I leave I take the menu with me but leave it behind in my hotel.

Tonight is my last night and I am staying in the city at Hotel Euripides to reduce the travelling time to the airport the following day. I am intending to get another early night, without alcohol, as I don’t travel as well as I used to.

I am warned by the owner that they have the workman in doing some refurbishment but I don’t mind as I want to be up quite early.

For food I head to Monastiraki and the street by the railway line where a burly Greek ‘komaki’ has tried to get me in three times already, (sorry folks I lost the card and do not know the name!). Having ordered and got as far as the Greek salad I realise I have left my money in the hotel and take a fast walk back to get it. The Greek salad is big enough for three, there is half a loaf of bread, and when they arrive the meatballs are enormous with rice on the side. Another case of two eating as cheaply as one! I am serenaded by two Greek musicians as I am the only person in the place, I buy them a jug of raki and a bottle of beer. They ask me where I am from and laugh when I say ‘Krhth’ as I am obviously English. But of course they have relatives on Crete. I pay the bill €23 all up, a bargain considering I couldn’t finish all the food but did manage to drink the half litre of wine!

Strolling back to the hotel I pass Aleko’s hoping it would be open for a nightcap, it is closed so I determine to get back to the hotel for an early night.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I pass a bar that is playing Boney M which segues into Village People my interest is aroused. Well it is early still and one Metaxa and Cola will be OK. The bar is called Cosmopolis and it stand on the corner of Agatharchou and an un-named street quite close to the hotel. I enter and sit at the bar, it’s busy and the barman is in the middle of pouring a large round. For a Greek he appears to be tall and I think maybe the floor behind the bar is raised, standing up I check, but no he really is that tall, and he is an absolute dream, to watch working that is, what else did you think I could mean? He is now pouring a round of Tequila shots, I look around the bar while I wait, the barman taps me on the shoulder and pushes a shot towards me and then points to a crowd of late 20’s Greek males behind me. Obviously this is a celebration of some kind and being a person that never refuses I drink I clink glasses with them all before downing it in one.

I order my Metaxa and Coke, the barman looks slightly bemused and has to open three fridge doors before he finds the Coke, the Metaxa is enormous! I am handed the drink along with a large glass of water, strange? It is warm in here, the music and the mood of the place are infectious and one thing is for sure it is NOT a gay bar, but then I can drink anywhere.

As I sip my drink and enjoy the music I watch the barman and realise that none of the spirits, which seems to be the only thing they sell, has a mixer. Even the enormous glasses of gin go out straight! But why not? Everybody has a large glass of water which gets topped up frequently, no wonder the barman looked bemused when I asked for Coke, he couldn’t remember where it was! Of course after another drink the rot had set in and it was 3am before I got to bed, but with drinks that size and only €5 each who am I to complain? As ever, it is the unplanned events that are often the best!

I am woken the next day at 9am by the sound of hammering and drilling, it seems the workmen started at 7am and they are amazed that I could still manage to sleep.
Breakfast is included in the price of my room, €25 per night, and I am need of something solid. I make my way up to the 7th floor and the first thing I do is turn the thermostat up on the water boiler. (Remember I have stayed here before!). The breakfast here is a ‘Dutch’ breakfast with juice, cereal, cold meats, cheeses, croissants, dried and fresh fruit, jam and bread. A new addition is a toaster, which is very welcome as Greek bread is often very dry and toasting it makes it edible. While I am making toast, the water boiler is now up to speed and I can make a decent cup of tea, don’t even think of trying the coffee here!

I get back to my room, to find the builders have already removed the doors, lucky I packed my suitcase before I went out last night!

Manhandling my luggage back to Monastiraki Metro station about 600 metres away is a challenge with a thick head but I cope and am soon speeding on my way to the airport. Thirty-five minutes and €6 one-way fare gets me back to the airport in plenty of time for my homeward flight to Crete and as the aircraft takes off I ponder on whether I could actually live in Athens and remain sane.

For relevant links, travel and booking information, and a photo gallery visit
http://www.villaralfa.com/athens.html.

A Winter Weekend in Athens Part 2

Some suggestions of where to go and what to do during a short ‘city break’ in Athens. A series of three articles to help you make the most of your stay.

Part 2 – Eating out, another bar, museums and their opening hours.

Having arrived back in Monastiraki it was time to join everyone else at one of the many cafes, which line the street beside the suburban railway line. This may sound odd, but as the line is ‘sunk’ below street level and there are fewer trains on Sunday, it is actually very pleasant particularly on a sunny day when during the afternoon the sun shines directly on you.

This is a place ‘to see and be seen’ as every man and a few dogs are here sitting somewhere or another. For a change the cafes are so busy they do not approach you to come in, it is more a case of find a space and sit before someone else takes it! Here you will find illegal street traders whose stall is a white sheet, which can be lifted, goods and all, and taken away before the local police move them on or fine them.

You will be serenaded by small children playing the bouzouki or accordion with varying degrees of failure, you will have gypsy flower sellers palming you off with roses that last for about two hours, and lottery ticket sellers trying to sell you tickets!

If you are really lucky you will get a cup of coffee within a few minutes, but you will have to wait an hour to try and pay!

I take my coffee at leisure, an hour and a half, and then decide to head back to the Agora to take some more pictures as background and decoration for a web site I am designing. At the Temple of Haphaestos I am accosted by two ladies from Sapporo in Japan. They are on a European Tour and have managed most of the UK and Italy but need directions to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. They have chosen me because I look as though I can speak an English that they will understand. We chat for a while and I explain that it is easier to walk around the Acropolis than climb up it again and then down the other side. They also want to look at the stadium. ‘Is it old?’ ‘Yes 1936 for the Olympics (I think)’.

Finally I return to base for a well earned afternoon nap ready for the rigours of the evening!

Finding a restaurant in the middle of Athens should be easy, in fact there are dozens around the Psirri/Monastiraki area, but this article is supposed to help you so I will send you to Mitropoleos Street, which starts at the square opposite Monastiraki station and heads towards Platia Syntagma. At present the square is surrounded by corrugated iron fence so find the Everest cafe on Ermou and take the alleyway beside it. The first place you come to is good and normally has tables on the other side of the alley, or continue round the corner in Mitropoleos where you will find about ten restaurants! In summer this street is full of tables serving mainly tourists in the early evening and Greeks later on. In January there are still tables outside but you want to be warm and cosy don’t you? Most of these places are ‘souvlaki’ shops selling mainly skewered meats cooked on the barbecue, other are ‘gyros’ shops which is a similar idea but the meat is in bulk cooked vertically. All have other items on the menu if you ask to see it, but don’t expect them to have everything, particularly things like ‘moussaka’!

After a little wander up and down I selected ‘Sabbas’ as my eating place on this particular Sunday night, mainly because I happened to notice, on the way past, that one of the grill chefs had the most beautiful eyes. (OK if you can think of a better way of choosing a restaurant then let me know). Having ordered chicken souvlaki, with tzatziki to start and a quarter litre of house plonk, I proceeded to knock the ashtray off the table and spill a drink on the table behind me as I took my coat off. There is nothing like making an impression! At first glance the price looks expensive as the souvlaki is €9. So in total my meal is going to cost just over €14, but consider this, if there had been two of me and we had ordered a bowl of salad as well then the two of us could have eaten for €17 all up (well maybe €20 because we would have needed more wine!). As it was there was so much chicken on the souvlaki I had a problem eating it all, I found out afterwards that it was meant to be shared between two. Further up the street you can get a chicken or pork ‘gyros’ in pitta bread with a salad for €6.50 and you will get enough to eat!

Taking my time and writing up my notes for the day took two hours and nobody glares at you for taking the table for so long!

By now it is gone 10pm so I decide it is time to investigate another gay bar, this time ‘The Big Bar’ which is supposed to be a ‘bear bar’. One of the great things about this area is that you can walk places!

The ‘Big Bar’ is located beyond Gazi, which is home to many nightclubs including several gay ones. Personally many of these are not to my taste, the crowd tends to be too young and clucky, the drinks are often expensive, and the music is very often Greek ‘popular’ which is not me either! Having said that if you have the time then by all means go and try one or more, I am only trying to send you somewhere ‘reliable’ after all.

Big Bar is located in a side street just over the railway lines as you head out of the city on Iera Street, (on the way out you pass two very fancy nightclubs, one of which asks you to wear a tie, that’s me off the guest list then). I arrive after about 25 minutes (time for the food to settle) walk, shortly after it opens. It is empty, but I realise this is still early and anyway it gives me time to chat to the owner, Christos. One of the best things about smaller bars is you get information and in this case a free beer as well. Christos is interested in the fact that I live on Crete, and tells me what the Cretan men are like (I already know), apologises for the price of the beer which is €5 a bottle (not really that bad considering I have just come from the UK where they charge €9 for the same thing), and tells me how expensive Greek taxes are. I get a slight suspicion that maybe he would prefer to live somewhere other than Athens, but then many Athenians seem slightly jealous of us ‘islanders’ and one of the main topics of conversation in Athens is whether Crete will split away from Greece. This seems a bit odd as it is barely 100 years since Crete became part of Greece, but then they point out that Crete is ‘rich’ with agriculture and tourism and maybe it could survive on its own.

But back to the Big Bar, Christos tells me that the busy nights are Friday and Saturday when they play rock music, and that Tuesday night is Greek music night and he reels off a list of Greek singers many of whom are pop singers from the 1980’s. The place is closed on Monday as are many other places in Athens.

Atmosphere-wise the Big Bar is a comfortable mix of wood grain, dark colours and vinyl with a big screen for showing pop video clips and a glitter ball (a little unexpected for a Bear bar but actually quite a nice feature and it does add a bit of glitz). All in it is quite ‘cosy and cuddly’ just as you would expect a bear’s lair to be! It is not a big place about six people can sit at the bar with ease, which of course makes it a friendly place to be. By the time I leave at 12.30am there are a few more customers including a chatty couple (one Greek the other American I think) at the bar who know Brighton!

Monday is museum day and come hell or high water I am going to get to see the National Archaeological Museum!

One thing you get used to in Greece is wrong information for opening times and the museum is no exception, everything says that it opens at 10.30am on Mondays. It doesn’t, it opens at 1.00pm. Being optimistic I arrive there at midday. Not a problem there is a nice cafe in the forecourt complete with gas patio heaters. The tactile strip on the paving to help the partially sighted runs straight through the middle of the cafe, just to make life even easier at one end are swing doors and the other end sliding doors! Only in Greece. The large Greek coffee comes with a glass of water of course, and also a small dish of cherry ‘spoon sweet’, two small croissants, and a couple of small almond biscuits. All for €4!

The number of exhibits in the museum seems much smaller than it did in 1969 when I was last here and I think that maybe during the refurbishment in 2001/2003 they have deliberately gone for quality rather than quantity. The museum is well laid out and is not so big that you can get bored if you are not that interested in Greek history. I am there for some hours! Those of us who are advancing in years (22 in my case) with not so good eyesight, always have a problem in museums and this one is no exception. The cards they use for the printed text use a ‘serif’ typeface a couple of points too small to be easily read and even if you have varifocals, the angle of the card at the bottom of the case is such that you end up on your knees (a not unknown position), so that you can see through the reading bit of your lenses. The gold leaf work and jewellery I think are the best exhibits.

So what happens on Monday night? Well that will be investigated in Part 3 along with some links to relevant sites and some pictures

Note: This article was originally published by me in 2008, it has been updated slightly for republication here!

A Winter Weekend in Athens Greece Part 1

Some suggestions of where to go and what to do during a short ‘city break’ in Athens.

Part 1 – The theatre, a bar, a flea market, and a long Sunday walk.

Athens is not a city that many people would think of visiting for a short break, but with airfares and hotel prices at their lowest levels during the winter months this is a good time to think about a short break, but with only a limited time to find your way around how do you make the most of it?

I am lucky enough to have friends living in Athens, but on previous visits (and for part of this visit) I have stayed in the Hotel Euripides, which is in the Psirri district near to Monastiraki. To look at, this is not the most pre-possessing area, however this goes for many areas of Athens, and a lot of other cities! The area was given a facelift before the 2004 Olympics, as was the Hotel Euripides (new bathrooms!) but if you want to stay in a central location with plentiful nightlife at a reasonable price then this, or one of many similar hotels in the area, then you must look past the facade. This area is very crowded at night so for the nervous amongst you I think I can assure you that you will be safe! The area, judging by many of the old fashioned shops, was once the centre of the ‘Rag Trade’ and the remnants of this still exist in the form of many shops, with Chinese looking names over the door, selling wholesale clothing and accessories. There are also a number of wholesale jewellery and craft shops (ardent Ebayers take note!)

On this visit I arrived on a Saturday lunchtime after a very early departure from London Gatwick, so there was plenty of time to pick up a bottle of water and some snacky odds and ends from one of the many local shops, before having a couple of hours sleep. The Hotel Euripides is on a very busy commercial street and can be noisy, so it is wise to ask for a room on one of the upper floors, the 6th floor is particularly pleasant as these rooms face out on to quite large terraces overlooking the rooftops. During the winter months you will be given the remote control to the aircon, which you will need to use as a heater as the nights can be cold!

There are three theatres within five minutes walk, and never having been to a theatre in Greece, I decided that it might be a good idea to give it a try! In spite of it being Saturday night I was able to get a ticket to a show called ‘The Aunt From Chicago’ which has been running for some time, and although, with my limited Greek, I lost the dialogue several times, the show was sufficiently ‘visual’ and similar to a British ‘comedy musical farce’ that I found it hilarious, and if all else failed I could watch the Greeks enjoying the whole affair.

Theatre turn out time is around 11.30pm and to say that the surrounding area was now ‘heaving’ with people would be an understatement. Greek nightlife traditionally starts very late and you can walk through this area, centred on Platia Iroon at 10.00pm with hardly a soul in sight, but by midnight there is not a seat to be had anywhere with still more people arriving!

Further down Sarri Street from the theatre is a small gay bar called Aleko’s Island, which I had tried to visit on previous trip, but as this was on a Monday night it was closed. This time being a Saturday it was open although when I arrived there were only three other customers. Well what can I say about this bar? The owner has obviously been part of the local scene for some time, and arrivals after me were all greeted personally and chatted to as old friends, (this makes the service a bit slow at times, but Heigh Ho, this is Greece), my request for a Metaxa and Coke without ice was met without objection, (some places will hate you for the ‘no ice’ bit as they don’t use any official measure for the spirits and without ice they have to give you more of the spirit!) and resulted in a ten ounce glass about one third full of Metaxa before the Coke was added!

I tried to classify the decor, but couldn’t, although the word ‘kitsch’ did spring to mind. I had trouble deciding whether the fairy lights were left from Christmas or remained all year round. I tried to classify the amateur paintings around the place without success. I tried to classify the music but could only come up with ‘eclectic’, when I arrived it was Tamla Motown, but following a blast of the 20th Century Fox theme it turned into what seemed to be the Andrews Sisters singing ‘I Will Survive’, (I have found at since that was The Puppini Sisters, of course!), and the strangest version I have ever heard of ‘Tainted Love’!

Classifying the clientele was easier, generally older, say ‘fortyish’ going on nineteen, probably something to do with the theatre and mainly regulars. Greek of course, although there were a couple more English guys who it turns out live in Athens, but what a nice bar! After the second drink I was getting very settled watching the ‘goings on’ and after the third I began to feel so much at home that I could have stayed until it closed, but common sense prevailed and I left at 1.30am as I had things to do on Sunday!

Sunday is a day for walking in Athens. In Monastiraki the flea market is in full swing. This takes place in the network of small streets between Monastiraki and Thissio stations, the suburban railway line and Ermou Street. (some of it is open all week, but Sunday is the main day with street traders, licensed and unlicensed lining the narrow streets). The Platia Abisinias has some interesting stalls with a wide selection of odd china, but beware, some of the ‘Tiffany’ lamps were made last month in China and it is not unusual to see someone buy something and see the stall holder replace it with another one ten minutes later! You can however buy ‘spare parts’ such as that brass handle that broke on the chest of drawers when Granny first had it, or replacement (and genuinely old!) crystal drops for chandeliers. On week days you can watch craftsmen repairing and re-polishing old furniture, and I am always amused by the sign that advertises hand polishing, although I have never seen them use anything but a machine!

From the market it is an easy walk through the ancient Agora and up to the Acropolis, entry is free to these sites on Sunday! The Acropolis has changed since my last visit two years ago, it is less complete than it was, and certainly there seems to be even less than my first visit in 1969! I suppose it will be nice when it is finished and I can’t help but think that a couple of hundred Albanian stone masons would have had it done years ago! In the middle of the Acropolis I come across a couple from Perth, Western Australia, where I used to live. By coincidence they live just round the corner from where my (deceased) partner lived back in the 1950’s, and when I mention his name they remember both him and his (infamous) father. It is such a small world sometimes!

The new Acropolis Museum was supposed to be open now, but it wasn’t, and leaving the Acropolis I take the road to the right and down towards Plaka stopping at the Church of the Metamorphosis, I light a candle and stay a few minutes but come out looking exactly the same. On the way down there is a network of narrow streets providing many opportunities for some ‘arty’ photographs and a fair collection of restaurants, but I am heading elsewhere, to the National Gardens and Parliament House.

Entering the Gardens on the southern edge opposite Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus I begin to feel a touch of disappointment as I always do here. I had hoped that maybe with the 2004 Olympics being here, they might have done some replanting. The area itself is tidy as always, and while I can understand that the shade beneath the many mature trees will bring relief from the agonising heat of an Athenian August afternoon, I get frustrated because the network of well laid pathways and small open spaces always promise that around the next corner I will find a secret place or a surprise, but of course I never do!

Having said that there are some fine mature coniferous trees as well as Casuarinas and Saphora Japonicas, various palms, and abutilons. The ‘children’s corner’ still has a selection of ‘budgies’ and canaries along with some fancy hens, cocks, and ducks. There are also some fine looking goats. (The last time I mentioned to someone that I had seen some ‘fine looking’ goats they told me I had been living on Crete for too long!)

After stopping to photograph the fountain by the exhibition hall just to prove I had been there in daylight, I left via a wide avenue of mature jacaranda trees, which, horror of horrors, had been pruned according to Greek Rules; no lateral branch shall be less that 2.5 metres from the ground, no lateral branch shall be longer than 2 metres before it gets pruned. It would not have surprised me if they had pollarded or pleached them, there is nothing to beat a Greek gardener with a chain saw for a bit of pruning!

After several kilometres and 3 hours on foot, meandering slowly through the streets and gardens it was definitely time to think about a little late lunch and a bracing Greek coffee so I headed back to Monastiraki, but more of this in part two!

You will find some pictures on my web site at http://www.villaralfa.com/athens.html

Note: This article was originally published by me in 2008, but has been updated slightly for republication