Hi all!
As promised earlier, here is a short report about some facts of public interest.
Bike rental report:Very bad news on this account: Odyssia bike rental seem to have gone out of business. Their office is shut down and the space in front of it is being used as an extended storage and parking area by the neighboring businesses.
So I compared the remaining players:
Easy Ride: New bikes, but expensive
Alianthos: Only very limited selection of Enduro bikes
Monza: The least expensive (can't say "cheapest", because nobody is cheap anymore), but be sure to make a test drive before renting a bike there: some of them are OK, but some are operational only by Greek standards... However, they are helpful if you want to change the bike you already rented.
Auto Moto Sport: Haven't tried them (they had only scooters standing there)
All in all renting a bike gets more and more expensive while renting a car gets cheaper. Next time I'll rent a car (as has been proposed by several forum members before). So as this might be the last time I got myself some
legit ride...
Road report:As I said yesterday, the newly blasted road to Rodakino isn't accessible by bike, as it is interrupted by the Finikia "river". But you can ride it from the Rodakino side (past Akropolis Apts.), and turn around at the "river"bed and go back.
Nice views there.
Very good news: The road from Kali Sikia to Alones has not been paved and it doesn't look like it's gonna be anytime soon.
Go through Kali Sikia and after Kali Sikia there are some flat buildings that look like barracks on both sides of the road (a bit off). Turn left there (quite steep uphill on a concrete road which turns into gravel soon). Then stay on the main track and you drive through a nice and quiet area that looks almost like an
alpine pasture.
From Alones you can go to Argiroupoli (on paved roads). After Argiroupoli turn left (direction Asi Gonia) to get to the springs. Very
nice place there.
On the way back you can find some more gravel in the Kato Poros / Agios Georgios / Roustika area, but, as usual, it's a bit labyrinthic there.
The road to Preveli beach is very nice as well. I don't describe it in detail as I suppose it's well known.
Beach report:The sunbeds seem to have expanded on both ends. On the town end there are now sunbeds
until Lamon Hotel and all through the
far end.
Maybe that's no change to last year, but I think at my last visit 3 years ago there were no sunbeds at the last section of the far end.
Charge for 2 sunbeds & umbrella: € 5 (Micro Ammoudi and Preveli: € 6 )
Restaurant report:We visited Medusa, Lysseos, Kastro (2x), Manoussos (next to Medusa), Panorama(@Mirthios), Sunset (Tassomanolis), Sofia (the one at the harbor)
The house wine has got better everywhere compared to 3 years ago. Back then I was not always satisfied, but now we always got good wine.
Kastro is definitely worth a try. Their Kleftiko: Yum!... and their roast lamb... YUM!
Nice view as well.
Lysseos is not as cheap as I had it in memory, but still good.
Sunset: We had very fresh fish there (caught on the same day, you can tell if its eyes are clear). Not really cheap, but delicious! Their fish soup is good as well.
Breakfast: We had English Breakfast at Gialos Bar frequently: very good value for € 4,50
Misc.:The geese are still there. I counted 7 of them.
The doughnut man sells in Micro Ammoudi as well.
Cardphones: Most of them are out of order. The one at the beach opposite of the Alianthos Hotel works, but only just (very low volume). The only operational one I found was at the middle section (halfway to Paligremnos Apts.). And they didn't accept the card I bought in Ierapetra. I had to get one at Plakias Market.
Looks like OTE is more interested in people using their mobiles and has cut down on the maintenance of the cardphones.
Cash dispensers: On Friday the only working one (at the town hall) was out of money. So I had to go to Spili.
Internet connections: Ostraco: 64 kbps ISDN, Forum: 128 kbps ISDN (too slow to send many pictures)
Burning CDs: No way! There is not a single publicly accessible PC in Plakias that has a CD or DVD burner. Which means that you have to go to Photoplakias to burn your pictures on CD if you need more space on your camera. Charge: € 6. Go figure...
I have taken a copy of the current bus schedule for the Rethymno area at the bus stop yesterday (schedule is dated May 9th, 2005). If there is request, I can scan it and publish it in the following days.
Some more pics:
Butterfly in Butterfly Gorge (near Ierapetra)Finikia "river" at Souda beachYesterday morningYesterday morningYesterday morningYesterday morningPlakias sunsetI wish everybody a nice holiday in Plakias!
