Ramblings from Greece

Friday   So I had another lovely meal with Hazel, Mike and  Ronnie, last night with their friend Yan. Today it’s still windy here. I took Ronnie on a shorter walk, we went along towards Apollonia, but we turned around when we got to the big concrete dam. On our return leg, we came across an English couple walking all the way, so I gave them a couple of tips about the walk. I hope they made it ok. We shared a spanakopita by the Old Captains Bar, which wasn’t open yet. Turned out Ronnie shared another one with Mike later on. A spanakopita is a puff pastry pie, with cheese and spinach inside. I then did a little walk on my own, but first took a photo of this lovely painting on the harbour wall, which is new. The next thing I wanted to do was visit Kamares Oude Vuurtoren. You can see this when your ferry comes in to dock. You can also see a path to it, I just have never got there. You basically start by a little beach where Mike and Ronnie swim in the summer. Turned out, I wasn’t ...

Thursday   So I wanted to do the Kamares to Apollonia walk with Ronnie, but in the end we just did the return leg. I did try and do the walk with him in March, from Kamares but the valley was partially  flooded, so we had to turn back. Today,   Mike drove all of us to Apollonia and I set off with Ronnie, as Hazel and Mike had chores to do together. It was certainly not as windy inland as it was in Kamares. The walk starts along the road back to Kamares, and then turns off, on a side road to a hotel. Unfortunately I could not see where the footpath started, I think the pile of building rubble created by nearby building works meant the path was hidden. So we did a diversion of our own making, hoping we would see the path and get back on track.  We carried on, and by a church that I knew that was on the path we managed after a bit of clambering, got back on the path. I did remember that the last time I successfully did the walk a fallen olive tree barred the way, I had ...

  Tuesday night - Wednesday  So my last night on Serifos. After dropping the car off, I decided to give the Italian taverna a visit in the town. I had a really nice meal and had a wander about afterwards, before returning to the Captains bar for a farewell drink.  Every time I have been to the bar, there has been different people serving. But this time the owner was there. The waitress who was serving with him, might have been his girlfriend, a very attractive blonde lady. I had quite a chat with him, yes he closed the bar in the winter, but there were other places open. He liked living in Livadi, unlike the car hire guy, who liked the peace and quiet. After a while he went into the bar, he put some headphones on, he was doing his DJ thing. It was all 1980’s stuff, but he did not introduce the music, he was a silent DJ. I managed to order my next drink, with my shaky Greek, I got a smile from his waitress, she understood!  The following day, slightly jaded, I packed ...

  Tuesday So on my last day on this lovely island, all of the islands I have visited have been unique, this one is no exception. It’s not a big island but it is very mountainous which makes it seem bigger. I really liked Hora yesterday and was looking forward to seeing what the other villages were like. So my first stop was Panagia which you get to via Hora, I stopped when I could see it from above, it looked a lot smaller than I expected. Quite a lot of it is derelict or empty, I only met two people, an old lady who was muttering to herself, and a guy putting his washing out. It was so small, I am not sure what old folks do for shopping. Where I parked, the nearest home was clearly a beekeeper, with all sorts of bee keeping stuff in the porch area. The roses were doing very well in the run down areas though! So on todays trip I am sort of going from the centre of the island ( Panagia ) moving around the interior, and then heading to the coast and going clockwise all the way back t...

 Sunday night - Monday So I had a lovely meal last night, the place I thought I was going to go to was only a bar, so I had to pick another place, but it was good. There seems to be lots of Americans around, I think some of them are having boating holidays, a huge yacht came in before dusk, I imagine there would be a big number of people on it. I got a few sunset photos, the moon seemed bigger last night, it rose above a mountain. There is a big concrete apron by the harbour, it has a couple of benches on it, but is largely unused, until children race around on it. It’s a pity it’s not being used for some community presence in some way. That’s my only criticism of the port area. The Horas can be seen on the right hand side of the photo. This morning mindful that the sun set behind me, I opened my shutters early and got a couple of sunrise photos that were quite good. I might try again bit later tomorrow morning. I decided to still walk up to the Horas, but started early  to av...

  Saturday  night and Sunday  So last night I walked into town having read up on good places to eat. I underestimated how far my first of two possible choices were, but the walk was worth it.  I was basically eating at a place called Lydia’s and Lydia was there in person. I was the only customer, she is by the beach, probably a kilometre out of town. I had some wine, a Greek salad and Souvlaki. It was very good. I walked back into town, I was going to have some more wine, but I really did not fancy any of those places. So I just walked home. I did catch a few decent photos along the beach. I also saw this very strange plant growing on someone’s pergola, it reminded me of the plants you might find in South Africa. So after handing the car back and having lunch at the harbour, the ferry arrived and I got on. It was a lovely day to sit outside and watch the Mediterranean go by. I had forgotten, but as we were in the way to Piraeus, that we would be stopping at Sifnos, o...

   Friday night and Saturday   So last night after having dinner, I decided to go into the port to try and get some sunset photos. Trouble is the sun was setting behind the mountains, not on the seas horizon. So I decided to have a drive around the island. I ended up in new territory, and  in a very small village by the sea called  Firopotamus. It was a delightful place. It had a colourful church, some houses and a ruin right by the sea.  As I wandered around I could hear people laughing, I looked down, there was some kind of gathering and I heard them all say “cheese” and they were taking a selfie of themselves. By the church as I clambering to take a photo of the ruin, there was a young couple sitting, looking out to the sea. It was all very lovely. As I wandered around, I thought about a cruise ship which had been in the port of Milos for a couple of days and was steaming off when I was in the port tonight. I am not a cruise ship fan, not my ideal holida...

  Friday   It’s interesting to reflect first on what I have seen on the Western side of this island today. It’s not so built up at all, hardly any buildings, there is little sign of tourism and it’s refreshing to see that. The downside is that the electrical ( oil fired) power station is there, plus the airport, which I did not see. So to get there, I followed the horseshoe coastline from the port, all the way round, to the now infamous power station. The beach here is deserted, no sign of anything going on at all. Nearby is a lake called Achibadolimini. It’s not clear to me wether it’s freshwater or sea water. The first thing I hoped to see was a beach called Empourio.  It did not take me long to realise that the roads in general on this side of the island, especially coast roads, are very narrow and the surface can be challenging for a Fiat Panda!  So the view was in the distance. I had in mind to visit several beaches along here, but after trying a few of those ro...

  Thursday   So today I have been around the right hand blob of Milos, imagine the island if you can, as two blobs  joined together with a narrow piece of land, or better still have a look at Google maps! I had an idea what I was going to see, and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. I took lots of photos, I can’t put them all on the blog, but if you have time have a look at the link to Google Photos.  The first beach is not really a beach at all!  Its called Sarakiniko.   It’s a strange white moonscape with a mostly hard surface which is in some very unusual shapes, it’s very odd indeed. Unlike other beaches I have seen, there were other people about, I imagine in the summer, it gets very busy. I would not want to lay on this surface, it must be very hard! But there was a little area with sand.  Amazingly there were plants growing in these rocks. Not many as you can see, but there were some. It must be a very hostile environment to say the least. When I got ...