On the way, and the first day


Nearly a day after setting out on foot to our local railway station, I stepped onto the island of Syros, the capital of the Cyclades. The journey of bus to Heathrow T5, flight to Athens, taxi to the port of Piraeus is almost becoming a commute now, having now completed that journey three times. The overnight stop at Faros 1, I am becoming a recognised regular, like Hazel. On the taxi ride from Athens airport, one of the stadiums was bathed in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, like many buildings and landmarks around the world. 

The next day, after a very early breakfast at Paros 1, I walked to the port gate where my Blue Star ferry waited for me.

The leaving time of seven thirty was optimistic as expected and after much gesticulating and whistle blowing the last vehicle and human was aboard. I stood at the stern, watching all of this, and as we set off, the rear door closed, accompanied by some computer sounding music, while a seaman hosed it down with disinfectant coming out of a hosepipe.  The ferry was busy, I bought a couple of coffees during the three hour journey. 

As we neared Syros, and the port town of Ermoupoli, a heavy shower enveloped the ferry, luckily by the time we could  disembark, it had stopped and I walked up to my apartment to meet my landlord for a week. The apartment is nice, but has no heating apart from using the air conditioning. It has views of the old town, which like Castro on Sifnos is built on the summit of a mountain. My landlord was surprised I planned to walk up there, as he was that I had not taken a taxi for a 400m walk from the port!

So I walked up to the old town, luckily there are steps up to it, instead of taking the meandering road. These steps would have been a raging torrent during that cloud burst. There are no drains in this part of town. Unlike Sifnos the buildings in the new part  are not all white, the town is large, and the port much busier than the sleepy one of Kamares. Back to the old town, here there are pretty buildings, but a lot of them closed up, I did not find a shop or taverna open. Very Castro like. There was a lovely small church hanging onto the mountain that I went into and lit a candle.

There was a larger church at the very top, it had a very modern looking bell tower. A plaque nearby, described the efforts over the year to maintain it, despite numerous lightening strikes. Maybe it would have been better not to have such a prominent tower…


I could have taken a thousand photos. It was very pretty. As another rain shower beckoned, I took the hint and walked down to my apartment, by way of a supermarket.


Comments

  1. SylviaS5 March 2022 at 17:32

    So I interesting, Paul. I can almost hear the sea and the rain! I love the pictures too. Sylvia

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael Ellis6 March 2022 at 08:25

    So pleased you aree having fun exploring. Ww look forward to seeing you soon.

    ReplyDelete

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