Archiv der Kategorie: Europe

Greece

Digital Nomad Stop #3: Peloponnese

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It was hard and easy at the same time to leave Kalymnos. Hard, because I (still) suck at goodbyes, even after all the travelling I have done. Easy, because the island was getting really empty, Masouri was turning into a ghost town, aaaand I was going to meet my dad in Athens at the airport for the next part of my Greece adventure!

I took the night ferry to Athens which was really comfy. Proper digital nomad-style, I spent my day working at a café in Piraeus and at the airport. Definitely preferred the airport with super speedy Wi-Fi, good seating and charging options!

My dad’s flight was only due in the evening, so we picked up our rental car and spent the night near the airport before heading off to Leonidio next day!

Photo from a couple of days later… It was a rather grey day, but we stopped at the Corinth Canal which was cool to see and at Acrocorinth which is basically like a castle with nice views. Sun came out just in time for us to enjoy this part of our trip!

We arrived in Leonidio in the pouring rain and the next couple of days were a bit…challenging…weather-wise. I was able to get quite some work done and dad made the best of the situation. Luckily, weather improved and we were able to head out for some climbing soon! I really enjoyed climbing in Leonidio, but I must say that climbing low/mid 6s is much better in Kalymnos. There is also just much more choice. We spent about 10 days in Leonidio and I think I could have spent another 10 days there, but then might have gotten bored.

One day, we climbed the only multi-pitch in the lower grades „Mignonette“ 5c which was one of my favourite days in Leonidio. It was a really nice climb, especially the last 3 pitches and the crux pitch. The views were amazing and it was just overall really enjoyable with the right temperature and right amount of clouds. The hike down was a bit long, but given the amazing views, we did not mind at all!

Another one of my highlights was our day trip to Kyparissi. It’s a 1h15 drive along a brand new coastal road but feels like a world away from everything! Actual peace and really the feeling of being in the nature, which I was sometimes missing in Leonidio when hearing traffic noise up at the crag. The drive itself was already beautiful and the routes were some of my favourites of our time in Leonidio. Loads of musical notes, which means amazing climbing and great rock!

We also explored some of the monasteries that are built into the rock – the prettiest one was the Saint Nicholas of Sintza Monastery. Super nice! There were lots of cute little towns and pretty drives. We stopped by Kosmas at one point and took some adventurous backroads which sometimes worked out well, sometimes less so!

All in all, we had a great time in and around Leonidio – but still wanted to see a little bit more of the Peloponnes. So after about 10 days, we drove to Nafplio, stopping at the ruins of Mycenae on the way. Unfortunately, we were just a little too late and they were closing for the day. But views from the outside were pretty cool with photogenic clouds in all directions!

Nafplio itself is a cute little harbour town that is supposed to be one of the prettiest towns of Greece. While I haven’t been everywhere in Greece, it is definitely a really nice and photogenic town. We enjoyed exploring the streets and went on a beautiful coastal walk. The castle was also definitely worth a visit and provided us with amazing views!

As we had some more time left, we decided to embark on yet another mini road trip. First, we went to see the ruins of Epidaurus, which were alright but overall not that amazing. We then drove across to the East coast and hopped along the coast and back to Nafplio with lots of photo stops along the way at little beaches, towns and viewpoints. Another worthwhile adventure!

And suddenly, our time on the Peloponnes came to an end. It was time to return to Athens – for dad for his flight home and for myself to take the train North… To part 3 of my adventures in Greece.

And for all of you who would like to see more photos of the beautiful Peloponnes, check out my Flickr album!

Greece

Digital Nomad Stop #2: Kalymnos

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Kalymnos, rock climbing paradise… Before 2021, I had never heard of this little Greek island – even though I have visited both of its famous neighbours, Kos and Rhodes. But as I researched where to go and as we are still in the middle of a pandemic… choices were a bit limited and Kalymnos soon seemed like the obvious choice!

I started my trip with a flight from Vienna airport, which – in season – has direct flights to Kos. From there I took a ferry to Kalymnos, arriving around sunset time.

The best time to arrive, especially if you were staying in an apartment in Masouri with a view of Telendos, like I did! I never quite got used to how beautiful my daily sunset view was.

Off to a great start… or so I thought. While I loved the apartment and immediately met lots of people to climb with, I also lost my first and at that time only client on my first proper day as a digital nomad. Oops! They felt sorry about having to let me go… but just didn’t have any work for me anymore. I soon got lucky again though, found two new clients and just enjoyed the first two weeks without work, climbing loads. It was hard to go back to working a couple of hours a week once I had work again! But in the end, it worked out really well: I spent most week day mornings climbing, finishing around 14.00 and then putting in a couple of hours of work and I also chose some work days, where I would only focus on my clients and get as much done as possible. The weekends were free of course and ideal for longer climbing sessions or trips to crags that were further away!

Some of my highlights on Kalymnos were:

  • Climbing a multi-pitch route and rappelling down into Grande Grotta afterwards, which meant rappelling 70m in the air! Super cool, and quite an interesting first rappel for me!
  • Visiting Telendos, climbing at Lambda and Irox and having dinner in the harbour afterwards. Unfortunately I never made it back to Telendos afterwards to climb at Eros – so that’s one for the tick list once I return to Kalymnos!
  • Trying deep water solo. It was more of a fun day out than lots of climbing for me, but we had an awesome group. It was a cool thing to try, but as I don’t really like jumping into water from high up, I was a bit too scared to try hard on the routes.
  • Sending three 6cs, one of them being a tufa route, which were so much harder for me than wall climbing! Unfortunately, I got scared for no reason on the 6c+ route which I was trying to send on one of my last days and time ran out to get back there and try again. One more for my „Kalymnos 2.0 tick list“.
  • …and of course, meeting so many amazing people and having a total of 37 wonderful climbing days, climbing 176 different routes! (Yes, I counted them and sorry not sorry I love stats.) I couldn’t have chosen any better place to start my nomad life!

Click on the pic below to get to my Flickr album of Kalymnos for more pics!

England, Spain

Travel in Times of Corona: UK and Spain

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In June, it was time to try and go travelling again! Despite all rules and regulations, we decided to drive to the UK to visit friends and family. We had to spend 5 days in quarantine upon arrival – a time period that got extended when the mail service lost my day 5 test-to-release… In the end I ended up paying for a really expensive additional test to get myself released. Overall, I did 4 corona tests in/for the UK and spent 8 days in quarantine despite the fact that I’m fully vaccinated. So annoying!

Once released, I took a train to Reading to meet up with my friend Andi who I hadn’t seen in 7 long years! It was really good to connect again and spend some relaxed days together.

One day, we went into Reading and checked out the few sights that the city has to offer. Some old ruins and buildings and an interesting museum. If you’re in the UK for tourism, Reading is definitely not the place to stop by… but if you find yourself there for one or the other reason (like myself), then it’s a nice town to see!

Another day, we went on a day trip to Oxford which is an easy 1h train ride from Reading. I expected a pretty old city, but what I didn’t expect is to find such an overwhelming amount of beautiful buildings and streets to wander through! One day was almost not enough, we actually ended up rushing a bit…

It felt a bit like a town straight out of a Harry Potter movie and I definitely could have spent a couple more hours there. Unfortunately, some sights were still closed due to corona regulations, so we mainly walked aroud and looked at old historic buildings from the outside.

After a couple of days of freedom in the UK, it was time to hop on a plane to Alicante, Spain, where I had booked a one-week rock climbing course. Fortunately, Spain accepted my vaccination certificate and I didn’t have to quarantine or do any extra tests this time! I spent a week in a beautiful villa in the hills North of Alicante, with beautiful views…

I very much enjoyed the quiet atmosphere and relaxing evenings up there. I also had to get a lot of administrative things done to prepare my next chapter in life (more about that soon), so the evenings and the rest day were never boring and actually filled with work. Annoyingly, I also had to find a way to get tested before returning to the Netherlands, which was not that easy given my remote location and that I was only going to be in Alicante on the weekend where a lot of things would be closed. I did eventually find a solution with a quick test immediately before my flight Monday noon, but it felt a bit risky and I was definitely nervous until I got my (negative) results!

Enough about corona bullsh*t rules. The climbing itself was really good! I had booked a performance coaching course combined with an introduction to trad climbing. So part of the week was focussed on improving my climbing technique while 2 days were spent on trad. While it was fun to learn something new (trad), I wonder if I went into it a bit too quickly, given that I had only started climbing not too long ago. In hindsight, I should have probably just taken a full week performance coaching course as my climbing skills definitely improved, but I felt like I definitely could have used 2 more days of coaching.

However, by the end of the week, I definitely felt like I had improved my technique and learned a lot. I didn’t have enough time to improve my max. send grade, but I did validate my improvement a couple of weeks later in Berdorf when I sent my first 6c (+).

After the course, I had 1.5 days to see Alicante which kind of turned into one full day, as I ended up being too hungover the next day to do anything else but show up at the airport for my quick test and flight. But Alicante is small anyways! You can actually easily see everything in one day. I started the day a little later than intended with a walk through the old historic quarter ‚El Barrio‘. Cute little streets, flower pots and lots of steps! Really pretty and some nice views over the city as well!

The views only improved when I walked up higher to Santa Bárbara fortress which thrones above the town. It was quite a sweaty hike up in the summer heat, but the fortress was nice to see and the views were beautiful in all directions!

After a late morning coffee and snack, I then explored the harbour area with a pretty promenade and great views with the fortress sitting in the background.

Despite the high temperatures, I gave Playa Postiguet a miss, as I was by myself and didn’t have anyone to watch my valuables. I walked around town a bit more, past some old buildings and parks – but realised soon that there was not that much more to see and that I had ticked off the most beautiful parts of the city already!

In the evening, I met up with some people in the hostel and went to watch the football world cup finals. Loads of fun, especially as everyone migrated to the beach afterwards and the whole thing turned into a beach party! So good to have some fun again after all the lockdowns and rules. Next morning, I headed to the airport and was pretty happy to get negative test results so that I could get onto my plane back to Amsterdam.