I love traveling and anything to do with traveling. I love planning a trip, packing, waking up early in anticipation of adventure. Love meeting new people and seeing new places. I love it all. However going to Greece was… challenging. A six hour flight to PA, from there an eleven hour flight to Athens Greece, and then an hour flight to Crete was a pain in the ass, literally! One of the flights was late and I barely made it to the next. On one of the flights I sat next to a very smelly guy who was eating a hot dog with extra onion. People are animals.
By the time I arrived to my destination, sweaty, overdosed on airplane food, and with the crook in my neck, the only thing I wanted to see was a bed with a fluffy pillow. To add to all the craziness my luggage was lost somewhere in Germany. I was totally freaking out. Not only my clean pajamas were in there (that at the moment seemed like the best thing in the world), but also most of the photo equipment.
My trip to Greece was not purely for fun, but work as well. I would guess that other photographers will agree with me. We not only take our job home, we plan our vacations so we can work as much as we can while there. I could not resist booking shoots in Greece, but I will tell you all about it in part two of this blog.
I fell in love with Greece as soon as I woke up the morning after my trip. Sun was spilling through the curtains and warming up my frozen by Washington weather body. The sky was completely clear and so so blue. I could hear roosters somewhere near by and bells of goats and sheep in the neighbor’s yard. Somehow all of this was comforting and throughout my stay not once did I mind roosters waking me up in the morning.
My husband and I stayed in a small village called Mouzoraus, near the Navy base. One of the first days there we walked through the narrow streets of the settlement that winded up into the hills. During the day it is unusual to see people outside so we had the whole place to ourselves. I could not hide my fascination with all the ruins of the old buildings. Anything from a monastery to a simple hut contained centuries of history. One could not help to wonder about all the generations of people that lived out their lives there and contributed to everything I could see. Every corner had a shoot potential. A stone wall, an old gate, shimmering white granite building, stretches of sandy beaches… I was in photographer’s heaven!
Some of the near by villages were even more beautiful. I was so glad to be able to explore the non-tourist kind of spots. We met a lot of locals and got directions to places not many outsiders go to. People in Greece are beyond nice. If you look up “hospitality” in the dictionary you will see a picture of a greek. They welcome you to their home and do not allow you to leave until you are fed and comfortable. They treat you like a long lost friend and bring out the best wine, fruit and whatever else they might have. Almost everyone speaks English so you will not be starved for a conversation either. So many nights we would sit on the porch of our neighbor’s, Andre, house eating watermelons from his garden and drinking home made wine.
I could go on and on, telling you the smallest details, but I am a photographer and truly do believe that pictures say a thousand words.
