2018 Sep 02-04 Vaasa and a Meteorite Crater (Soederfjaerden)

Saturday evening, arrived and had time to buy groceries and (of course) have a sauna.

If you didn't know, Finland loves licorice (also the ammonium-choride-salty kind, Salmiak). Turns out, dates dusted in licorice taste and have the mouth-feel of, well, soft licorice.

Finland prides itself on design, one rather big porcelain producer is "Arabia", which you can find everywhere, including the grocery store. (Above right)

There was a chips and tex mex aisle.

Sunday 02 Sep 2018 the local highest point

The first full day necessitated a walk up the only hill in the area, for a good view of the surrounding archipelago.

The path up, full of birch trees (reminds me of the Northeast US a bit, really striking, especially with the flowers still blooming), and another guest on the trail:



The view from the top of the archipelago (including the prevalent various sorts of pine trees around):




Further exploring yielded a delightfully progressive sign (imo)

Also saw this Pizza place, "Dallas Pizza Palazzo", which has a sort of oddly proportioned white statue of liberty, and a matching white limo for guests? I hear the pizza is not that great. The sign (left) is a good example of local signage. This is the Swedish-speaking region of Finland, and often signs are first in Swedish, and second in Finnish (other way around in Helsinki, e.g.)
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Monday 03 Sep 2018 A Boat ride and Cranes in a Meteorite crater

The day involved some noodling around on a smallish boat (one can also effectively row it, which I am not a natural at).

500 000 years ago, a crater was made in this region by a giant meteorite impact. 

Since the retreat of the glaciers (post ice age), which were 3km thick, Finland has been slowly lifting up. So given the time that has passed, the crater went from a nice deep region of water to something more swampy and around 1920 (?) the locals decided it made more sense to pump the water out (and keep pumping it) to free up the land for farming:


Cranes love this (although farmers do not love the cranes) and in the summer, they nom on whatever cranes eat and then fly out to the islands at night.

Some video of the cranes flying, complete with noises.

Zoom-less picture of some of the cranes flying away:

(start of) Tuesday 04 Sep 2018

In the morning, cycled into town and back.

Vaasa has a university and about 60 000 inhabitants. The statue of the woman centaur is in front of a university building (former factory building). The dude on the right is in the main town square. I like the yellow building behind him.

2018 Sep 01 Arriving in Finland: Helsinki, Suomenlinna-Sveaborg Fortifications

This trip: Finland, Helsinki and (mostly) Vaasa. Rather than spend all Saturday traveling, I took advantage of a nice feature of Finnair that lets you plan a layover and flew to Helsinki after work Friday, and on to Vaasa mid-afternoon Saturday.

I stayed in a hotel near the airport (and literally adjacent to a train stop) with some interesting style:

  

The late afternoon flight meant a solid morning of touristing in Helsinki, seeing mainly Sveaborg/Suomenlinna.

"The Swedish crown commenced the construction of the fortress in 1748 as protection against Russian expansionism...The original plan of the bastion fortress was strongly influenced by the ideas of Vauban, the foremost military engineer of the time, and the principles of star fort style of fortification, albeit adapted to a group of rocky islands." wikipedia

Hanging out with a fellow mathematician means I was proudly shown the Penrose tilings in the square as we walked in some light drizzle from the train station towards the harbor. Picture on the right is a view of an island with a house on it. Not an uncommon sight in an archipelago here.



Alighting from the ferry, one sees a useful map which explains that this fortress is spread out over several islands, all joined with bridges.






The weather cycled between light rain, dry spells, and heavier rain.
Heading back to shore with the goal to find some lunch, took a slight detour to see "the church" and the view from the church. I was told the architecture is "old Russian", as Helsinki was elevated to capital city when Russia took over in 1809.



Lunch was some Ramen (with corn in it. Odd. Like Germans adding (canned) corn kernels to salad. Why?), followed by tea at a moderately awkward (or, incredibly Finnish) tea shop close to the train station, the Old Tea Shop.  The selection was very good and pricing great (3.50 Euro pp, shared a giant pot of tea, and an extra 1 euro for all the tea cookies you feel like eating). Had a yellow tea (had never had before) and had the difference between teas explained a bit. Basically you have everything from the same plant, with a split between (unoxodized (= green teas)) and (partially or completely oxodized).  Partially gives you stuff like Oolong. Completely gives you black and yellow.

Back to the airport (30 min by train, trains run about every 10 minutes from 9am onwards on the weekends, about 5 Euro each direction) and off to Vaasa!

2018 June/July Kos, Greece: Pt 2: Mountain biking Kéfalos

After a run in with some ants Sunday morning (handled afterwards by our host), we went down to Katerina's Cycle Hire (the only cycle hire in Kéfalos, I think). Katerina is from Australia and has lived on Kos for about 30 years. She just bought the Scott mountain bikes this year in hope of pulling in people interested in higher end bikes, and we were the first to use them. Special deal for the weekend at 10 Euros/day (normally 13), we rented them for the two remaining days.

Sunday July 1st: Mountain Biking: 

Structure of the day (similar on Monday):

1. Cycle up and around a bit, including up to some of where we had gone previously by car and foot
2. then down to the Agios Theologos beach and restaurant for lunch and a swim 
3. continue cycling along dirt and sandy paths, eventually returning "home"

Total distance was around 30 km, elevation change about 350m, I think. Road conditions were not as expected from the previous day's explorations. Display of GPX (elevation and route) of the path.

There are a surprising number of roads around Kéfalos which are wide enough for a car, but never have been paved, and many clearly having suffered water damage. It felt like we were the only ones to use much of the paths we fought along, outside of the people who clearly must live in the occasional house we came across.

There were also some abandoned things. Here is what looks like an old quarry, and abandoned building nearby. For animals?

We saw many goats, some cows, and at some point, a wild(?) turkey.

Ate a well-earned lunch in the early afternoon at the Restaurant at Agios Theologos Restaurant and nearby beach. This was the Agios Theologos salad, with capers and haloumi and local wine-cheese.

   

A lot of restaurants also kind of "run" the beach nearby, having chairs and umbrellas and an employee who comes down to ask you for some money if you make use of them (5 or 6 Euros on average).

After lunch, went for a swim and played around with one of the "free to use" surf boards on the beach. 

Good example of the sort of path, when it was good (not piles of sand, not too steep, not broken into chunks from rains/runoff):

Much struggling later, returning back around Kéfalos, had to take a break to let some goats be herded across the road. Originally a video, so hopefully you can access it by clicking on it. Or here.

Here was a nice view of Kalymnos (island to the north):

Monday July 2nd: Mountain Biking before returning home: 

Given a flight at 8pm, and shuttle pick up around 6pm, we opted for a shorter route, about 4km to a beach, 150m elevation change, and then back along what looked more road-like, with a detour to look at the ruins of a basilica and an island close enough to shore that people could swim to it. Total route around 13km, here with the display of the GPX data (elevation info exact route).

The path the beach degenerated into a kind of thorny goat path and involved a lot more walking than cycling for a good chunk. 

Goal of the ride:Limnionas beach. 

Again, went down to the beach to swim and cool off, then went up to the restaurant for some lunch.

Heading back, view of the cute island in Kéfalos bay:

Ruins of Basilica to the left, island right:

Connie had said we could check out as late as we needed, so we had plenty of time to return the bikes, buy some snacks, shower, slowly and carefully re-pack, and wait on the shuttle. We also showed up 2 hours early to the airport (clearly way too early). 

OH! Right. The Kos airport is owned by the same people who run the Frankfurt airport.  (Fraport)

Parting remarks: 

Even more than Germany, cash is king in Kos. Car rentals and paying for hotels are in cash -- the hotel with our multi-legged visitor was about 30 Euro a night,  and the replacement 40 or 44 Euro a night.

Forgot to post this on day 1. Are these things you hear cicadas? Or, what is the Greek analog? To me, they sounded screechy-er than cicadas.

Kos is really really windy on the North and west shores, and calm on the south. Makes it, I think, a good compromise for people where e.g. one person wants beaches for swimming and sunning and the other just wants to wind/kite-surf all week.

The people were generally friendly and we never had the impression that anyone was trying to take advantage of us. When buying tasty cheese, the guy at the store said hey actually that is going to be (such and such amount --i.e. price in register was higher than labeled, due to the cost of this shipment) Is that ok or should I put it back? That is, even though we can't read the receipt, he let us know about this 20 cent difference.

I don't tend to visit many places more than once, but could recommend Kos -- although maybe rent a car. The bus system is star-shaped or maybe finger-shaped, radiating out from Kos-town, which makes it hard to get from point A to point B without going all the way back to Kos-town, making a 30 minute car ride into a 2 hr bus ride with a change at Kos-town.

2018 June/July Kos, Greece: Pt 1: Kos-town, some of Kéfalos, Kardemena, Pyli

Having been to Greece last summer (still owing myself a turn-my-notes-into-blog from that...) for 9 days, I had a sense that it would not be so hard to pick one island and do a long weekend trip.

Flights were reasonable out of Frankfurt and Kos was the compromise reached.
For orientation, it is close enough to Turkey to see it clearly (Bodrum is a short boat ride away), and re-became a part of Greece in 1948 with the other islands in the Dodecanese chain.

Seriously, that is Turkey there over the water:



I was a bit wary of Kos due to my only having heard of it as a rather touristy place, and was happy to read that there is a wild, removed, taxi-less part of Kos far away from Kos-town, called Kéfalos.

Plan was then to spend the first/travel day in Kos-town (as all transport goes to/from Kos-town, which is kind of inconvenient) and from there to Kéfalos.

 

Day 1: Kos-town

My flight was at 5am. A friend let me nap at their place in Frankfurt for ease of making this happen (yay), but then when I got to the airport (after waking up at 2am), I learned the flight was 2 hours delayed. We picked up an extra hour of delay on the tarmac. A tire was low on air, replaced, and the matching tire had to also be replaced -- but they only had the one spare and had to order another from Hanover, which got stuck in the morning rush hour traffic.

Auspicious start.

Pro-tip: Hoppa.com has (not just on Kos) local partners (here, Python tours) who organize transfers to/from airport. Cheapest, easiest and fastest way from the airport to your hotel. I paid around 5 Euros (1 more than the bus, that comes every 1-2 hours, and a taxi would have been 30-40 Euros) to get dropped at my hotel. 

Had along walk between where we were (Psalidi) and Kos-town, including a late lunch/early dinner of Greek salad and too many appetizers.

At one of the beaches:

On the walk, saw the Roman Odeon (small amphitheater):

View looking away from Odeon: 

Day 2: Kéfalos and some other areas of Kos

Took the first bus to Kéfalos, rented a car (Manolis, they had 3 locations in Kéfalos) to make some later-in-the-day planning easier, and used the car to get a feel for Kéfalos and also visit Kardamena (nice beaches and cute shops) and Pili/Alt Pili (amazing fish restaurant with great view).

Pro-tip: Booking a car (or a bicycle or a scooter or...) online doesn't work so well. Just call the places and ask them if they have a car. Many places have an online presence with phone number, just no further functionality. Car rental didn't require a credit card, or refueling, and with super fancy insurance was 48 Euros for day. 

Views from driving up to and around Kéfalos village, of the bay:

Panorama mode:

View towards narrow part of Kéfalos, where it meets the "rest" of Kos:

Took car to where the road started getting less road-like, parked and walked around.

Also walked along a relatively tame path which supported the claim that Kéfalos was good for mountain biking.

Day 2 part 2: driving around the island. 

Heading from Kéfalos/Kardamena towards Pyli. That island you can see is Kalymnos, known for sea sponges and beloved by rock climbers.

Kardamena

Kardamena is supposed to have the best beaches and be the best mix of good eats, good beach, stuff to do. It is more than just a resort town. Bonus: it is 15 minutes from the airport. Those who aren't put off by sulfur can take a boat from there to the nearby volcanic island.

I took a few pictures of the quaint streets:


sole Asian-Indian restaurant and lush patio furniture.


The mountain in view is on Kos, the highest part of the island:

Old-Pyli: Awesome fish restaurant

I can say that it was worth the trip up to a fish restaurant at the top of a hill, Taverna - Fish House "Old Pyli". The owner is a fisherman, and when you arrive, he tells you to come to the kitchen and pick out what fish you want. We ended up with a fish platter for 2 since we had no strong opinions, which was 3 different fish (cooked whole), plus a few octopus and a few giant shrimp, preceded by a greek salad and followed by some melon. Someone else's picture of such a platter.

Some turbulence during the day...

For this trip I was not so good about reading all the reviews for lodgings. I was getting a bit nervous about the Kéfalos lodgings as the day went on because I had had trouble reaching our contact. Originally had said that we would arrive in the evening, and  she had later written a 1 line response. Were trying to change to check in earlier, when first arriving in Kéfalos, but could not reach her by phone. I read some of the negative reviews later, and one mentioned a cockroach. Others said it was dirty, beds were bad. Mosquitos.

Aside: Mosquitos are a problem on Kéfalos. I might invest in a travel mosquito net, am still healing from a few of the welts I got. 

I was getting increasingly worried, reading these negative things and not knowing if we would find that we could actually check in at the time we suggested.

Before Old-Pyli, managed to check in, cautiously, and everything seemed very clean upon very thorough inspection, although the plumbing is quite old and weird --- no U-Bend/Trap under the sinks or down the drains. Placed something heavy on the mid-floor drain and headed out. 

Came back to this. Those tiles are sort of "standard" tile size, so I would estimate him at the size of my thumb.

Managed to trap him under a glass.

Looked for backup hotel options, calling around at 23:30 on a Saturday. Thankfully the first place  called who originally said they had nothing called us back and said ok actually they do, and offered to come fetch us even. On the ride to her lodgings, we discussed the cockroach and she said she has her apartments treated every 40 days, and that where we had originally book were some of the oldest/first tourist apartments in the area. Also learned she is originally from NYC.
Beds were good, AC worked, place was clean, windows have screens against mosquitos. Balcony, and well-located about 5 minutes walk from the one bicycle rental place.

Part 2 will be all of the pictures from 2 days of mountain biking and swimming in Kéfalos.