Lows and highs

 Monday night - Tuesday


So good to my promise I went back to the taverna that I looked at in the afternoon. As earlier the manager rattled off what he had in English in seconds. I decided to try the sausages in tomato sauce, the Greek sausages not surprisingly don’t taste like English ones, I think they have a stronger Germanic taste, but these were very good. I had a Greek salad and half a kilo ( that’s 500 ml ) of red wine. After I had finished, a bunch of German guys came in, we had a chat and I recommend the sausages, before their orders  arrived I scarpered, I joked why I was doing so, with the guys.  The taverna was nice and quirky, it’s just so nice having places like this to visit, instead of the chain restaurants becoming more prominent in the UK.

 


It’s a lovely sunny day, with super blue skies, but a bit windy still. While having breakfast I read up on a little island off the coast of Andros. It’s called Giaros and is currently off limits to the general public.  The island has a huge brick building which housed political prisoners under the regime 1948-53, about 10,000 of them. The seas around it are protected and it’s become a bit of a wildlife haven.
So I decided to walk a bit further around the coast, there is a massive beach further away from Gavrio. The bigger supermarket was open and I passed a bakery where I promised myself to have lunch in, on the way back. Along the road were fig trees, with figs on them from last year, which will increase in size and ripen. Lots of pretty flowers, yellow broom bushes brightened up my way. There was a nice path in places, then it would inexplicably stop, to start up again a few yards on. I got to the beach, it was lovely, waves lapping up against the sand, nice and shallow. There were a couple of men working on a beach lounger area and bar. The other side of the road, there were apartments or rooms. The beach is called Agios Petros.


After here was a promontory which had a path going through it between brushwood, with more flowers around. A lot of this looked like shrubs that might have died in the heat of last year, but there were signs of recovery. The path continued right to the end of the promontory and in the distance I could see a Sea Jet ferry heading to the port. I think I could also see the island of Kea.



 I retraced my steps and had a spanakopita with a coffee for lunch. Just where I turned off to my room, I then found the car hire place, so I am ready to pop in there tomorrow. The funeral service worked really well online, I was surprised at how good it worked out. The operators clearly had a lot of experience, deftly using two cameras to best show to remote viewers what was going on.

After the funeral, I walked to a tower about an hour away called St Peter, said to be 2,000 years old. The walk started at my temporary home and climbed steadily to start with. I could not have undertaken this by car, as there an unwritten rule that you can only drive on surfaced  roads. Very often my route went on dirt tracks. On the way there were several houses being built. As I went higher there were amazing views of Gavrio and it’s beach and as I went further round towards my goal, the beach and promontory I visited earlier today. You can imagine why the tower was built where it was, it has a commanding view of where intruders might appear from. Eventually I reached it and it is still very imposing despite its age, being  built from local slate. 



Afterwards I decided to go higher and look at the local village, it’s church and fabled spring. This meant more climbing ! I saw the spring, it was mostly dried up. The church was nice, but sadly locked up. I sat down for a minute and suddenly a throng of walkers turned up. Apparently they were Dutch. A lady on her own came up to me, she was a walking guide, she was trying to find her way down, tomorrow she is guiding a Welsh group. She lives on  Mani on the Peloponnese. This reminded me of Paddy Leigh Fermor, he lived there.  Later on as I navigated my way down I saw her again, I hope she has more success tomorrow! I saw several beehives today and beekeepers with their white suits on. There were some lovely herbs flowering, fragrant Thyme for example. Despite the wind a lot of the time I managed to keep my fleece tied round my waist. Even in just a couple of days this island has grabbed me like a long lost soul. I think part of its reason for not showing signs of being overrun by tourists, is because it’s a bit awkward to get to, and has no airport. I am looking forward to seeing much more of it using four wheels, but also using my two feet as well!



 

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