Salamina Get-Away

 One Saturday past we packed a small suitcase, picked up the 2 daughters and headed back to the island of Salamina.

It's 3 hours by road from Poros. Half an hour from Athens. 

 We lived there in the late 80s when the girls were very young. K was serving aboard a minesweeper which when in port docked at the big Naval Base on the island. We had just finished a 3 year stay on Crete 

That was 34 years ago.

We were going back for a memorial service and looking forward to a road trip with our  two girls.

They're good fun, a load of laughs.

And a lot of the time that's the way it was. Some of the time it wasn't .

Our chauffeur was a little bit on the short-fused side. There were roadworks and a detour near the Korinth Canal. 

All he had to do was follow the yellow signs but he wouldn't, couldn't, see them and he had the three of us yelling, straight ahead, turn left, turn left. The lorry driver on his tail was not amused by his indecision and gave a long loud toot as he passed us.

That was just the beginning. We had to leave the national road and find our way to the car ferry across to the far tip of the island. 

Who can remember a route after 34 years. So Danae and I had google maps up on our phones and were getting different directions. We managed to get there and in good time but you could have cut the tension in the car with a knife.

The last few kilometres were down a narrow back road past a line of  *Apache helicopters. Just before it reached boiling point we emerged onto a quay with a line of cars ready to load on the ferry. 

*Probably weren't Apache but they were big army helicopters with a few sets of blades

Driving off the car ferry on Salamina we knew we had to turn left and that was it.

We discovered Salamina has no Sign Posts at all to tell us where we were going. The bloody Google Maps girl, Siri, Georgia, Alexa, whoever she is, kept on telling us to turn right or left but didn't make it clear whether it was simply that the road swerved to the right or that we actually had to make make a right hand turn onto a different road.

We wanted to see the house we lived in. No chance of that! K and I didn't recognise anything. 

By this time anyway the chauffeur didn't believe a word we said and was yelling at us at every turn 'are you sure' No of course we weren't bloody sure!

This was the beginning of our tours around the island. We would think we were almost at our destination and suddenly we'd realise we were going round in circles. At some stage we reached the coast road and eventually found the hotel. Just before dark.

The Straits between Salamina and the mainland .  About the same distance as Poros and the mainland. The tickets however were half the price.

We made the car ferry right on time.

The evening view from our balcony . 

The hotel Votsalakia and Suites was rather nice. We had booked 2 double rooms but they put us in a 2 bedroomed suite with jacuzzi. For the first time in 25 years I could tuck my 'babies' into bed and sing them their wake-up song in the morning. 

Grumble, grumble. 

'Leave us alone mother. We need coffee'. 

We arranged to meet our nephew in the evening to eat together. He told us there was a souvlaki shop 2 minutes down the road. Literally. We piled into the car just as he arrived and followed his car. 20 metres down the road. At least we all had something to laugh about. It was more or less next door. Really good souvlaki. 

The next morning early we set out for the Naval Base. The Memorial service, 5 minutes at the end of the long Sunday liturgy, was being held at the Navy church on base. 

🎵🎶 Here we go looby loo

Here we go looby light 🎵🎶

One minute into the 5 minute journey we were lost again. I think we went 3 times around that part of the island before K pulled up beside a taxi driver and asked the way. 

Follow me to the traffic lights at the end of this road he said. 

We did. 

At the traffic lights the taxi driver put his hand out the window and pointed to the left. 

Our driver however was in a panic and didn't see the signal. 

Once again he had the 3 of us yelling

Turn left

Didn't you see his hand

Turn left. 

Very reluctantly he did. 

And 'Lo', there was the harbour and the base entrance. 

And poor Nels who had been waiting for us for half an hour.

 

Nels with the other 'little Greek girls' as they were once known.

We almost got lost in the Navy Base as well. It's huge.

We passed a line of frigates

Then a line of submarines.

Even our Navy veteran wasn't sure where to go but we did find the church, St Nikolas, patron saint of sailors, in plenty of time.

Memorial over, Greek coffee drunk, sweet bread consumed we got directions to a cafeteria for a decent cappuccino. 

'Go straight' they said.

And we did. We found the row of waterfront cafés quite quickly. A miracle! 

Cappuccino consumed, cigarettes smoked and supplies of cheese and spinach pies obtained from the bakery, we all got into the car again to go home to Poros.

By this time we had worked out that Alexa wasn't much help but without signposts we didn't have much choice.

After a few more circles

🎶🎵 Looby-loo and shake it all about 🎶🎵

We all breathed a huge sigh of relief when we found the car ferry.

The rest of the trip was not uneventful but we got home without any more major blow-ups.

The now grown-up Kiwi-Greek girls.  

They acted just like the naughty little Greek girls they're known as.

They annoyed each other yelling out

'Mummy, she's hurting me, tell her to stop'.

They made grimaces behind our backs and held their breathes going through the tunnels.  I had to scold them severely and tell them to behave themselves . Or else

I'm not sure I want to do all that again. It was quite an.............um, experience.