Sydney

On my way back to Auckland, i stop over in Sydney for three days. It's great to leave gray, rainy, cold Europe behind and come to such a marvellous place! And three days are just enough to walk around Sydney's city centre, check out the harbour and spend time on some of the dozen beaches.

Day 1:

• Arrival at the airport, take the train to Central Station.
• Check in at the youth hostel, which is okay: clean, good facilities, quite new. Lacks a bit of atmosphere, but you don't need that to sleep well.
• Walk through Central Business District, Hyde Park, National Domain, Botanic Garden to the harbour, to the Opera House. Then through 'The Rocks', Sydney's oldest quarter to the Harbour Bridge, there climb on top of one of its pylons.
  
• Walk back through the centre, get tired, nevermind!, check out Darling harbour, Chinatown, have dinner at a Chinese Noodle Bar.

Day 2:

• Take a bus to the eastern suburbs.
• Starting at Coogee beach, walk north along the coast (find myself in the 'Sculpture by the sea' festival) to Bondi beach, then further to South Head, the harbour entry point with cute lighthouse.
  
• Take the ferry back to the centre, find a hidden but very crowded food court in Chinatown, where there are five Caucasians among two hundred Asians, and have some proper dinner.
• Take a walk to the harbour and enjoy the skyline and Opera by night.
  

Day 3:

• Take the ferry to Parramatta, the most western suburb you can reach in the harbour. Stroll around there, but didn't find the historic city centre. Anyway, how historic could it have been?
• Take the ferry back and the next one to Manly, the most eastern suburb on the North Shore of Sydney.
• Take a stroll along the beach, and finally take a rest in a small bay.
• Take the evening ferry back, make my way to the food court, have "sizzling king prawns", feel good.
• Chat to some german blokes at the hostel (every second person speaks german...), prepare to leave.
  

Chania and Athens

After a nice conference outside Chania on Crete in Greece, we stay a day longer to explore the ancient parts of Chania. Those basically consist of a very nice downtown area that opens up to an old Venetian harbour. By the way, if you ever come to Paleohora on the south coast of Crete, don't go to the fish restaurant that's directly at the quay! They will rip you off: "Uh, this is our last day, wo only have fresh fish". Yeah, right, for 35 Euros a kilo, which is not being spoken of...

On our way back to Germany, we have a five hour stay in Athens. We decide to leave the airport and head downtown to visit the Acropolis and stroll through nearby parts of the city. Well, Acropolis is not the greatest experience since it is being restaurated at the moment and views from almost every angle are blocked by scaffolds and cranes. That doesn't hinder the Greek to charge 12 Euros from every visitor. They have a museum on top but you are not allowed to take pictures of the statues/bas-reliefs together with people in the front. Whatever...