Let Me Go Home

 I dislike Athens in the morning

By midday I hate it

Don't ever make me come into this big noisy, dirty overcrowded city ever again.

We disembarked from the early morning Catamaran around 9.30.  It took 20 minutes of pleading, arm waving and cursing to get a taxi to stop and take us up to the Navy Hospital in Central Athens.

Lots of taxis but they don't stop for 2 pensioners.  Those parked right on the harbour were looking for prey, long  rides to the airport with unknowing tourists paying inflated prices.

It took us half an hour through rush hour Athens traffic to reach the Naval Hospital.   I'd had enough well before that half hour was up.  The taxi driver was good, weaving in and out of bus lanes, taking side streets but he couldn't avoid the crush of traffic.  Sex shops, cabarets and Indian restaurants all the way up Syngrou Avenue. I could smell the curry even at this early hour.  High rise offices with people at desks behind ground floor windows.  How do they get there, where do they live.

Coffee shops every few yards, a tiny window selling coffee and sesame rolls  with 2 tables and chairs on the pavement right next to the endless cars and motorbikes.  All the tables full, friends and passersby hanging over for a chat and a fag.  It's always coffee time for some.

Then the scenery changed, Hadrian's Gate, the Pillars of Olympian Dios (Zeus) , the National gardens, Parliament buildings, tourists in short shorts, sandals, summer dresses, the Hop on Hop off bus, everyone with a small backpack and a phone poised to snap photos.

Up into the narrow streets of affluent Kolonaki, rows of trees , every spare space underneath filled by a motorbike.   Streets so constricted I was in awe, watching as we scraped past motorbike mirrors, goggling at the boutique dress shops and high priced opticians.  Plusher, comfortable cafeterias.

And finally the Naval Hospital . 

We couldn't take the metro . The nearest one has a long up hill walk to the hospital.  We no longer know which line to take, even how to buy a ticket. We have turned into country mice.  The buses are long snake-like, concertina-ed affairs. We've never been on a tram.  Their routes are a mystery.

Even the hospital has changed, updated,  more comfortable seating, but new rules too. Endless corridors, lifts and doors which need codes. The latter for Navy personnel, not for us.  

Hospital corridors.  The same all over the world.  Filled with anxious patients waiting to be seen by some glorified doctor

It took us 15 minutes to find the doctor's office and we were 2 hours late for Ks pre-op tests before his shoulder operation.  We were lucky, the doctor was still there to print out and stamp the tests and send us down to the labs, blood, x-rays, cardio. More stamps. 

Plenty of seating .  I watched the people, our bags and the papers while K traipsed from floor to floor.

Young sailors, girls and boys in Navy whites, retired officers, white haired, tired and mostly overweight. It was hard to reconcile them with stiff backed military officers they used to be.  'Those left behind' certainly do grow old .

Finally it's all over and we have half an hour to catch the return Catamaran. Did we make it? Of course not, even though it took 2 minutes to flag a taxi with a driver who'd driven rallies.  We missed that bloody Catamaran by one minute.

So it's a 4 hour wait till the next one. 2pm and all we'd had to eat was a half litre of water between us.  I found K a seat in the waterfront waiting area and trotted off to find coffee and a sandwich.  Oh boy did I feel like a little country mouse again.  

There are no longer little canteens offering only the traditional basics,  cheese and ham tost (toastie) and simple coffee. I had to dodge traffic and search across the road for a few hundred metres where I found a huge shop called Bread Factory.  I wandered in wondering what I would find. Everything from a loaf of bread to  huge varieties of those ubiquitous cheese pies, donuts and 10 different pizzas sold by the slice.   I went to one serving area which looked as though it served coffee.  It did but I had to pay for that further around at another counter. Then off to another area where they had endless rows of gourmet 'rounds' (no longer called sandwiches), sourdough  bread with salmon or chicken or salami and sauces which 'someone'  wouldn't eat.  Finally I found something plain with chicken and lettuce and some little spinach pies.  Acceptable and not too pricey.  I balanced all those in my hands, dodging pedestrians, scuttling quickly across crossings with lights holding up endless lines of cars and oversized lorries and offered my findings to K. 

I think I saved 2 lives. We were both happy-ier. Our first coffee of the day and a bite to eat

4 hours actually went by quite fast.

 Boarding time.  Damned if we could find our seats.  I finally went and asked for directions. We were looking at the seat numbers on the 2pm tickets. Our tickets had been changed for 6pm with different seating 

In line for the catamaran

Got the seats sorted. Donned jackets because the aircon was freezing.  Now we're off.  I'm finished. I hope.

One hour and we'll be back on Poros.  

Mission accomplished.

Next day..... 

Or maybe not. The cardiologist has asked for more tests. It looks as though we might have to have them done at a hospital in Piraeus, or Athens .  The mood is  dark

And it looks like rain

Two Islands

 Poros is often described as Little Venice?  And I always think 'Why?'  Because of the narrow Strait between the island and the mainland or because of the narrow canal dividing the 2 islands.  Or both? Neither of them make Poros into a Greek Venice. 

The canal... 

Canale Stretto

This is the 'narrow canal' dividing the small island with its main harbour and old town 

And the larger island with its pine forests, beaches and tourist hotels. 

Blink and you've missed it.

It gets stilted up in winter and has to be dredged.  Only small fishing boats can use it, the fishermen ducking down as they pass under the bridge. 

Looking towards the harbour for small fishing boats 

The Grande canale

Between the island on the left and mainland on the right

The orange arrow shows the position of the narrow canal dividing the 2 islands

Spheria... the island in the foreground with its harbour and old town

Kalavria is the larger but less populated island 

A Poros gondola plying the Grande Canale

Poros By Night

A few photos of summer nights on a Greek island... 

Poros waterfront by night

My photographer with her Mama.

 A summer's night cruise on her father's water taxi

The Clock Tower

'Super' Catamarans

Looking down over the Navy Base at dusk

Sunset over the Sleeping Lady

(over her boobs) 

Full moon over Poros town

 From the Oceanis rooftop cocktail bar. 

The last blood red full moon

Rising above the olive groves 

Our view of it from our terrace 

Thanks to all my photographers

Monastery and Ancient Ruins

 Summer sightseeing

All the Greeks I know like visiting Orthodox Monasteries especially when they're dedicated to a Saint who performs miracles

I lit some candles for myself and family

We visited this one last year and went again yesterday 

It's in the hills near the Navy resort 

Soaring stone buildings

All very impressive 

As in most Orthodox Monasteries women have to cover their trousers with a wrap around skirt 

There was a lot of grumbling about old fashioned ideas

One of the past Archbishops preached that everyone was welcome whatever they wore.

The Monasteries have not adopted this doctrine

K buys small plastic bottles and fills them with Holy Water and Oil to take back to the family

 

All the outside walls are covered in huge murals

World tourism day

Last year's outing coincided with World Heritage Day and all museums and archeological sites were free to visit.

The friend with us is a forceful character. She insisted we visit some nearby ruins even though both our husbands complained loudly.

They didn't get out of the car but We walked around the ruins of Ramnous

An obscure site well off the tourist track

There are the remains of a temple to Nemesis Goddess of Justice who punished arrogance and vanity

There's not much left to see

But me

If you're extremely energetic and it's not Midsummer you can clamber down a rocky path to the sea and the ancient port below.

I didn't   

Different Culture

 

It's all Greek to you....

This is the playground sign

Opening hours 

8.30am to 11.30pm

Good little English or Kiwi children would be in bed by 8 or 9?  I wonder if it's still like that, or even those times have changed.

11.30 is actually quite early for Midsummer here.  1am would be more like it.  Hot sultry evenings are for adults to socialise and children to play.  Early morning hours are the coolest 

Those Ukranian children I said were so well behaved.....

they actually generally are. We saw them all eating in the restaurant today.  No screaming or complaining.  

Friends who stay in the same building as them say they let off a lot of steam thundering up and down the stairs. 

Just regular kids 

Rainy Day

 Rainy days and Mondays  don't  get me down. Not when I'm on holiday.  It's a bit damp and I didn't pack an umbrella .  Who cares

We wake late, make coffee in our room .  Sit on the balcony with our hot coffee and watch a few braver souls dodge the downpour on the way to the cafeteria. Then it's just a matter of filling in time till 1pm when the restaurant opens. Everyone else is on the same timetable.  It's better to wait till 2. At 1 o'clock there's a queue and a bustle and rush for trays and tables. 

No need to rush. There's plenty of food for everyone.  Also for the busload of children from war torn Ukraine.  We see them on the beach and in a long orderly queue waiting for ice cream. They're amazingly well behaved

Cold wet sandy beach

Though incredibly there are a few swimmers

Just looking at that choppy grey water is quite enough for me

News flash....the only news I've heard in days

82 year old died after a violent fight over sun chairs with a 76 year old on an Athens beach.

I heard the oldies here discussing it in depth. The 82 yr old was once an officer in the Greek navy.  

I thought he might be German. They're so possessive of their sunbeds

Another day

The sun is shining again. But we went into town and stopped at the Chinese Emporium and bought an umbrella, just in case.

We had to go shopping at Ks favourite electrical shop for a special spray.  The car windows were left open during the storm and now one groans and sticks on its way up and down.

Fixed now he says!

I sat on the beach and finished my 3rd book. 2 whodunnits and a memoir of an English girl in a French village

Now I'm reading 'What am I Doing Here' by travel writer Bruce Chatwin .  A personal selection of stories and travelogues.  Published in 1989, the year he died, aged only 48.

His ashes are buried near a Byzantine church above the greek village of Kardamyli.  His friend and  Philhellene Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor  lived out his latter years there in a house he had built nearby. 

Late Summer Holiday

 No wifi in our room and it's sketchy on the balcony. Not even data works.  I eventually get to read blogs and sometimes write one 

No news.  That's good news.  Its all very strange, life without wifi, social media, but I'm getting used to it. Except at night when I used to listen to YouTube in the sleepless hours. Now I pass the hours with my thoughts and try to relax by counting sheep, or listening to my breath and Ks snoring.  

The first few sunny days.  Crazy people out there in the sea doing water Zumba. I watch for a few minutes and put my head back in my book.  

The weekend was busy

Families with young children. We heard their happy voices at the far away playground well into the night

The playground is well kept, lots of unusual games.  Right next to the helicopter pad. I've never seen a helicopter land in all our years of holidays here 

I managed 2 swims before the weather changed.

The first swim .  The water was warm but there was a strange breeze and a tide which pushed me back.  I had to battle to move through the water and reach K who was just a few metres away. 

It was a very strange experience. It would have been frightening but I could actually touch the bottom.  Keeping afloat was tiring and it wasn't long before I was battling back to shore.

The next day the sea was back to normal.  I swam a little, just to say I'd done it, then got out to read and muse in the sun

Now we seem to have a wi fi signal. I'm sitting on our small balcony listening to night sounds and drinking a Spanish red 

We went out for supplies today. K got his raki and some greek white wine. This Spanish red was cheap, in a box. It's actually quite good. Not plonk.

Cheers BigEars