Two short nights

Due to the joy of a natural late checkout time (12:00 - no idea how that happened but happy it did) we slept in before getting ready and sorting out the pack up to get home. Complicated by a long stopover with no access to the luggage.

Having some time to kill before the trek actually began, we left the baggage in the basement and went out on the streets for a hefty lunch.

Ended up in a doorway of an upper class establishment for a fabulous meal of benny eggs with a few extras thrown in for good measure. They did not seem to be in any hurry so we effectively filled in the time there. No rushing around, no grabbing snaps of olde worlde remnants. All been done before. Just watched the procession of people wandering by or hanging around, one with an old style tobacco pipe. Had not seen that for a long time. Obviously oblivious to the impact on others in the eatery. Back to the hotel to collect the bags, booked Uber to the airport and got ripped of a bit as they charged another 10 euros on the quoted costs. Not sure entirely how that happened. All of a sudden not so keen on the idea of taxis being booked via Uber.

Some sort of unexplained delay saw the big bird eventually lumber up into the smoky skies as bush fires were burning somewhere. We shot off into the night leaving the sunset to linger over the Acropolis as we plunged into the darkness, taking a slight detour around Gaza which seemed to make a lot of sense.

A few hours later we were decending past the evil tower of Dubai, now a glittering spike of lights amongst a sea of coloured sparkles. Some bright spark in the airport operations decided our bird should dock at the end of the terminal. That's ok they said as the passengers can be ferried to their next door. This means of course those up the front. Those of us down the back had a 45 minute walk to get out the departure gates. Yes really. The terminal is that big. At midnight, a tide of humanity streaming along the never ending raised gantries, this was exhausting, especially with carrying extra carry-on,  needless to say there was a fair amount of carry on the more and more we realised we realised how much longer we needed to carry on. Especially when the advice given about visas was incorrect. Midnight and its 36 degrees.
The stop over hotel is huge, very old (to Dubai standards) and thanks to the time taken to get into it and the poor timing advice to leave in it the morning we only got 4 hours downtime when it could've been at least 6. So another hang around an airport terminal. Plus new rules that involve a bag check looking for water bottles. The world is going crazy.
The seat selection for this last hop was stressful a few months ago and it turns out all is good, great in fact as the seat next to us is vacant. Feels more comfortable than the premium eco seat
on the way out. Behind us the bulkhead gives us space to store stuff as well as under our seat and the one in front. Still have a stewardess cupboard above though of which they don't care how loudly they bang it. Pity the people close to the screaming babies, which screamed all trip. 13 hours of screaming. Wierd parenting going on there.
Arriving in Melbourne and it's a crisp zero degrees morning. Cloudless sky as the sun starts to illuminate the horizon below the old moon and venus glowing in partnership just above it.

Offspring No.2 kindly picked us up, we trundled down to Abbotsford to have fabulous brecky in a Japanese influenced cafe' as the joy riding balloonists drifted by over the river parks nearby indicating that nothing has changed here apart from an eggsistanal crisis (did I mention how cold it is here?)

Three grouse gyros

Our last full day in one place. It was pretty much similar to all the others in that it was spent adventuring and taking a plethora of fo-tos in order to manage to capture at least a couple being blog worthy. Pity any poor recipient of the full slide show when (if ever) compiled.

Due to the high quality (not) of our room we completely ignored the residences facilities and hit the streets in search after a basic breckie. Took a while but it worked out superbly. Found a restaurant in a very leafy square which was surrounding a seriously impressive church. Some of the trees were Plane trees, so sort of felt comfortable with that.

The church was of course Greek Otrthodox so anyone living in Oakliegh would feel at home as well. Hardly any patrons. A couple of elderly local gentleman enjoying an ouzo for breaky was setting the vibe.
The choice of coffee (learning from Albania - late', double shot, large), freshly squeezed OJ, toast and jam was just the right combo after last nights late feast. This blogger was so happy with the coffee that he had a second whilst non-blogger went for a quick shop to get some illegal soap and a potential whole lot of fun with customs at home.
Just as we were wrapping up the place got swamped.  Church service finished it was obviously time for the locals to debrief the service and possibly gossip about the priest. I don't know. Maybe so. What's the difference anyway as we were off to the local square where they hold rebellions in the name of democracy. We'd been there, done that before.  But SIL, FIL1 and MIL1 hadn't and so we joined pretty much every person who'd been in the Plakka last night to stand around in the boiling mid morning sun to watch the changing of the guard.

Love these guys. They are obviously governed very closely and Greece`s Department Of Silly Walks is still well funded.
The crowds were also hilarious. One main complaint though is every two out of three accents is aussie. Everywhere. It's like we've invaded the place and the locals haven't actually cottoned on yet to the fact that they may actually loose their sovereignty because we make up so much of the standing population at any particular moment in time. New Caledonia just realized this recently with the French and look what happened there. Look out Greece, here come the yobbo`s...
With one dad saying to his son, "you can't see - just push your way through the crowd up to the front" and his son trying, stopping two layers in with five to go and realizing that basically his dad is just a dickhead. Then we had the wave of people capturing the event on their devices by holding them up above the heads of those in front and of course blocking the view of those behind them.

This blogger did this as well, one the reasons was to get a shot for the blog (hopefully it will be appreciated). Great stuff. Human nature at it's best....well...at least better than the band of the same name.
All six of us then headed off to the new Acropolis museum, expertly guided by SIL who kept us in the shade for most of the trek ( have I mentioned that it's hot?). We missed the opening of this place last time we were here and struck it lucky in that the lower levels were just released a few days ago.
It was cool due to aircon (and will not repeat the same pun in the same sequence of posts). It was very insightful and they've done a great job of displaying priceless artefacts in a way that hordes of peeps are willing to pay millions per annum to gawk at. We gawked appropriately and made the right noises to each other about how much more enlightened we are because of the experience.

This is what being a tourist is all about. Some of us learned a bit more about ancient Greek mythology (as compared to current Greek mythology ?..I don't know, maybe so). Some of us about past theft of significant local cultural icons and others fascinated by the ancient engineering capabilities of plumbing public toilets. You'd reckon that after 2000 plus years of recognition of the need to deal with this issue they'd come up with an a better way of managing toilet paper in the system, although just now had the epiphany as to why they like to build villages on the sides of hills.. its all to do with the towns sewerage system, driven by gravity which keeps the place clean.. nowadays we pump it back up to the main pipe in the road, back then (i.e. before the internet) people actually had to deal with other people's bodily escretion products from the house above flowing under your house. Yeech. This was also about the time that trade routes to India opened up. Flooding the markets with exotic curries. This would've raised the yeech levels significantly. Then the Persians mauraded through and broke up all the jars, then the Roman's wandered in and tried to apply aqueducts to the solution, the Italians wandered in and dropped explosives on the joint (just so to extend the views of course) and then the archeologists came in and dug it all up and pieced it all back together again.

Just so the milling hordes can do their gawking. And throw coins in the now barren wells. Still don't know why they do that. Maybe it's a sheep thing, or a lemming thing. With the now disturbed ghosts of many millennium past watching, we bade fare the well to OSno.1 and SIL down in the newly opened basement display. Now reduced to a party of four the MIL's and FIL's went in search of another gyros, this time for lunch. Found one relatively close, maybe a notch down on last nights but still great. Not being in any particular hurry we squatted there until they kicked us out. We then bade fare the well to MIL1 and FIL1 who wondered off into the gardens on a loose plan to get to the airport.
Reduced now to a party of two we ploughed back into the Plakka in the midday heat (did I mention that its hot?) to purchase some quality items on offer in the souvenir shops. It seems to be irresistible when it's in your face for so long. Still surrounded by aussie accents. Just can't escape them.

Not too long before we we found a leafy bar with water vapor pumping out from the fans and squatted there. For 3 hours as it transpired as there was nothing else to do but write the blog whilst non-blogger went shopping for more essentials. Not sure exactly what she got but have checked one's own luggage whilst packing. Once bitten twice shy.
It was then back to the room and a subtle takeover of the prime view on the private rooftop bar to capture sunset over the Acropolis on the gopro.

Unfortunately the main view will be of the rooftop party next door on top of a big concrete plain flat wall. Ended up making temporary friends with an American/Columbian couple and their 14yo son. A very pleasant few hours solving the problems of the world. The views were spectacular. They'd put very subtle lighting on the whole hill, so as the world gets darker it gets brighter. Eventually we took the obligatory photos of each other, pulled the pin, went and found a restaurant that we could sit in and have a wrapped gyros. So that's 3 in 24 hours. Pretty happy with that. Just like backpacking in 91.
Another small ice cream to wrap up the day and a short stroll back to the room to collapse once again. 

The last leg

Always seem to waste a day when transferring locales, not the entire day in this case though. We had the annoyance of a total power outage to wake up to, which made it a bit difficult getting everything packed in the dark bathrooms etc. Hopefully as we've now been on the road for a month we have a reasonable notion of what we're carrying and didn't miss anything.
Somehow managing to get 4 grown peeps and all their luggage into such small mules we bade the luxurious compound farewell and went off to the relatives cafe to while away a couple of hours. This was a great way to fill in the time. In no particular hurry, we managed to get in two coffees and a decent brunch doing exactly that. Strange building (for Greece) in that it was made of weatherboards, wide veranda`s and was decorated in old northern European style.  Suggest an influence there from the rich Villa owner.

Like all local places they purport to use their own ingredients. Believable in this case due to thier chooks, ducks, fruit trees and vegi gardens in plain sight. As was the dominating concrete water tower which had developed its own stalactite due to a slow leak. Maybe they'll fix it in Greek time.
It was then off to the airport to say farewell to the newlyweds while the six of us waited an extra hour for the plane to arrive, unload, load and depart for the capital of pickpockets. A very fast hop, jet engines cutting flight time in half had the hosties scurrying in order to serve the best bickies yet and black coffee. Will no doubt be up late again due to that hit. Great views of the island and coastline we had cruised around two days ago.
Once again the social committee organized things nicely, here Uber and taxis are combined so that worked really well with OS no.1 joining blogger and non-blogger in their ride with her luggage in the other. The roads of Athens are extremely well made and the trip into town was 10 times longer than the Corfu experience yet only twice the price.

Our room is a definite come down after having our own palatial wing on the island, so we got out of there and headed over to the others hotel and launched our assault on the town from there. Its actually quite difficult to take a photo in this place without getting the Acropolis in the background.
The city has changed, it still has the same basic landmarks but is now so full of tourists its hard to move. And it's not peak season yet. The amount of shops selling souvenirs has exploded, subsequently it looks exactly the same as every other place we have visited, albeit with different coloured wooden penises.
Using devices to locate suitable places based on recommendations from the hotel lobby we made our way to a spectacular rooftop establishment which was air-conditioned to start with and once the sun set they slid aside the windows and rolled the roof back. One strong gust of wind and stuff flying everywhere the roof was returned.

Apart from a warm bottle of rose` causing some consternation the fare (as an entre`) was fabulous with two servings satisfying the 6 of us easily. We then hit the streets. In order to hunt down a gyros in the Plakka. Took a while to get there (much longer than the standard 10 minutes as advised by gmaps).  The touristy area (which of course we are imbedded in) was chock a block. Full of starry eyed visitors pretending not to notice the brightly coloured wooden artefacts, yet knowing they were somehow going to manage to get one home anyway. Preferably stashed in their companions luggage.

Made it to the Plakka, dived into the throng looking for a wrapped gyros with no luck. All the takeaways shut for the night. Sat down at one place - mostly in order to relieve bloggers aching legs. Recognizing that the food options were exactly the same as every other menu we'd seen over the last week and then on device consultation MIL1 found a suitable place, we apologized, got up and we retraced our steps out of there. The brightly coloured milling throngs left to their own devices (artefacts surruptiously stashed out of site).

Finally hit gyros gold - an extremely popular place with a big table out the front surrounded by stools which due to the high turnover and teamwork we made a place to sit and thoroughly enjoyed the food. Just like we remembered it and OSno.1 was satisfied that the mission was successfully completed. Job done. An ice cream stop around the corner and it was then the call of Go To Bed.

And yes - we were all wearing shoes.

Do nothing day

The day had an underlying theme in that it was kept mentioning that this blogger had successfully circled the sun yet again. It was a nice vibe in paradise.

Getting up before the orb spread its glory across the wider landscape, it was a case of slip out the bed, slip on last nights clothes (so probably a tad overdressed for this adventure), slip out the door, slip out the compound pedestrian entrance (leaving ajar so re-entry was possible) and then strolling down to the same local beach we first went to. Seems a bit smaller when its not full of people. Curiously there were a couple of bods on the other beach just seemingly hangin to watch the sunrise, however the desired destination for this blogger was nicely deserted.

Sunrise on the shadow side of a mountain is a difficult scene to capture, however the ridge up high was doing interesting stuff by creating its own clouds which were picking up the early rays of the rising orb. Also had the dulcet throbs of the ferry sitting at dock awaiting departure. Unfortunately timing did not align and had to break the shoot as the sun hit the camera 10 minutes before the ferry left. There was no gradual getting lighter. It was like a light switch had been flicked on. After watching the ferry disappear into the distance, packed up, walked up all those stairs again, up the steep roads and into the compound, all hot and sweaty again.
So jumped in the pool, dried off and went back to bed. Time check 8:00 Job done.
Was given some subsequent latitude and finally got up for breaky late morning as the young ones were returning from a trip to the local bakery for a selection of locally produced delights for a breakfast feast. Extremely well played by the team.
As this was our last full day in this paradiseilic place, the rest of it was spent lounging around enjoying the facilities and ensuring the leftovers were consumed. Nothing should be left to go to waste.

Today the wind was up, creating a bit of havoc with anything not tied down, Sammi was not allowed to roam free in the pool lest he launched out it (had proven he could climb out by himself) and migrated to next doors pool, or even (given the wind strength) over the cliff and into the ocean proper. Probably where he deserves to be, cruising majesticly around the Mediterranean sea, however his destiny is to spend his remaining days in Copenhagen harbour, thus he was well curtailed.
The up to date very calm waters of the sea were full of white caps, boats sheltering in the calmer waters below. Not even the yatchs were game enough to take on the elements. With brollies flapping wildly, cups flying and general chaos ensuing on the the strong gusts we took shelter from the sun (did I mention it's hot?) under the veranda with short sprints to the pool and back.
Volleyball tournament delayed due to the extreme conditions, luckily Maddie saved the day by providing early afternoon Apperol Spritz. Somehow lunch happened around 4:00pm, this falling into local time mode is almost getting silly. Thanks once again to FIL1 for putting it all together. This was enough to wipe anyone out, so a snooze in the shade on one of the large beanbags was in order, after all, needed all the energy one could muster in order to consume the ensuing G&T's.
The pool volleyball was finally run, it was hard to call a clear winner, but the FILs took claim anyway citing age and experience over youthfulness enthusiasm.
We then then rolled into the last of the margaritas competition entry, skillfully delivered by SIL. Still not sure how he managed to carry the tray up the stairs in the wind, but he did. Another great delivey which was thoroughly enjoyed by all consumers.

And then the judging began. Sitting in the Circle Of Truth it took quite a while to dissect all the entries and this was just based on two key parameters,  presentation and taste. It was also extremely difficult to get the MIL's to actually cast a useful vote, however the pressure of circle eventually wore them down with the overall winner being OSNo.1. A worthy recipient in an extremely competitive field. Good to see no hard feelings and all agreeing it was a good game.

Once dressed for the evening it was team photo shoot time. With a fair amount of pressure to get it all done as the large cat carrier was arriving and they all needed herding again.
Our last supper together was a superb affair at a very local establishment with lots of locals enjoying their traditional fare under laden grape vines.

The family operation did a fantastic job serving delightful traditional fresh fare including wines etc. We did a round table of our personal sparkle for the week and pretty much had all aspects covered. As previously mentioned this bloggers was the generosity, inclusiveness, good humor and love for each other that our hosts have shown us. Two very lucky DILs.
There was also a honary mention for the social committee.
Catching another large cat carry case back to the ranch we then had celebratory iced desserts, a different light group pic, a dip in pool and it was Go To Bed.
Not bad for a day of doing nothing much.

Mucking around in boats (nothing better)

The herding of cats went much smoother this morning. Thanks to a well worked out team plan and prior prep the togs got included and indeed got a good work out later as a result.

Due to a lot of hard work by the social committee we were up, fed, lunches packed, out the door, into the mules and on our separate ways to the same goal by 9:15.  Bad Panda went south full of the DILs & SIL.

The MILs and FILs went north to Argostoli Harbour where we snagged a reasonable parking spot and strolled the final 600 meters to meet our boat hire dude. They were busy, so it took about an hour of phaffing, signing, paying, training, loading etc to get underway. Our vehicles for the days adventure were two runabouts with 30 hp outboards, bimini covers, fold out ladders, built in eskies, all the safety gear stashed away somewhere and generally enablers of a great day out. Basically this would quite simply not happen back in Aus. Bureaucrates there would have conniptions if they found out someone was letting tourists have so much fun without them getting involved. This involvement would consist of introducing enough impractical conditions to ensure the industry would not survive. They'd get a bonus though. Here, however all you need is proof of ID and the ability to prove you can control the vehicle adequately for a couple of minutes. Which this blogger (who is actually qualified for this stuff at home) did, took control of the beast and we headed of for a 3 hour cruise...a three hour cruise. Actually had 6 to muck around in, however with roles of the classic TV show pretty much aligned nicely it was hard to get the tune out of your head once it was implanted.
Free of the harbour restrictions we sped away around the cape and down the coast to rendezvous with the kids at White Rocks beach.

It's a curious name. This beach has been there since the beginning of recorded human history and they call it that. Sure the rocks are white, just seems like an incredibly lazy effort for a people that can call a street Papachristodoulopoulos Drive. They could've called that one Black Bitumen Drive but didn't.
Anyway, we met the second boat, offshore as we're not allowed to beach the beasts for obvious reasons (damage to the craft), but we can use the anchors so we did that and swam between the beasts, visiting each other and generally splashing around. Thanks to your bloggers previous gopro watersafe engineering efforts we managed to capture some really boring underwater videos as well as the usual plethora of pics on the devices. Boring because as it turns out there is not much happening under the surface of that amazing coloured waterway. Lots of sea grass and a few small fish. Figure the big ones are all being consumed by the folks in the restaurants. Still it was worth the effort and lots of fun.
Now that we were teamed up again and that spot seemed a bit crowded the two skippers fired off across the apparently calm waters towards an island a few ks offshore. Little did we realise that the wake of a cruise liner was heading our way. SIL was paying close attention and managed to slow down for the second wave. Your blogger was not (distracted by a gopro) and subsequently managed to get the craft airborne, pretty much creating an underpants cleaning situation for the passengers. Only one broken bimini strap and dented ego were the outcomes. Moored off the island was pleasant.
Larger vessels were parked on the shore and had gangplanks to enable the occupants the opportunity to escape the crowded conditions on-board for a while. With the armada of tourist boats having ploughed towards us like a scene out of a pirate movie,  our lot waited until the next port of call before the need to touch solid land overwhelmed them and they all swam to shore leaving blogger to his own devices (those being a gopro and a stereo).

This beach was an isolated red sand one at the base of some bright cliffs. Little did they realise it was a strictly nudist beach. Which was ok until some dodgy character arrived out of nowhere and demanded they get their gear off. Not really, he just traipsed along the entire length, set up camp and went swimming. Our lot were back on board by then and we were heading off around the corner to moor off another picturesque spot out of the wind and hung there for a bit, swapping between vessels and eventually the girls did a bit of synchronized swimming. Time enough to practice for the Olympics next month.

The two vessels parted ways then, the oldies cutting their way across the rough waters trying to find the best path against the wind and associated chop whilst the young ones headed south into some large swells and a rollercoaster ride to get back to their base.

Arriving back to the compound we still had many hours of daylight to while away. This was achieved with aplomb with  G&Ts by the pool with Sammi earning his keep with transportation of weary travelers over the glistening surface of the refreshing liquid below. Or when unattended, continued his journey of gliding gracefully from one end to the other, seemingly with self purpose and ability.
With both cameras frantically capturing the best angles of the setting sun a game of walk through chess was held between blogger and OSno.1. Certainly out of touch as far as the nuances of that game goes. Stress levels increased by the walk around the pieces nature and the fact that it was being recorded. Good fun nevertheless.

Claire's entry into the margaritas competition was a delightful blend of all sorts of flavors. Fig and ginger predominantly displaying a strong presence and thus creating an aura of mystery and resulting delight with each sip. Have come to realise the best way to consume these bevvies is by working your way around the rim.

The spectacular mountain that dominates the eastern frame of view was showing off again as the sun slipped away, pinpointing particular peaks as it partook its passage.
Dinner was another gastronomic delight put on by the team with master chef Andy at the helm. We have definitely fallen into local time eating once the sun goes down around 10 pm.
Most of the crew collapsed for the night before the TOD reset to zero.

The holiday rythym

There do not seem to be many sparrows in these parts creating the orchestral rhythm of the morning that we've come to expect recently. In order to explore this further the camera was set up before sunrise and left to record whatever happens while this blogger returned to the luxurious bed in the lower wing of the palace that is currently called home. Outcomes will be consumed and critiqued at a later point in time.

Missed out on the 2 point something earthquake that happened later on.

When we all decided to emerge (OS no. 1 was up long before everyone else though enjoying Sammi's company at the expense of the rest of the world) the tripod was over and we discovered later on the solar heating had sprung a leak. Upon reflection the quake may have triggered this. No doubt it was due to fail anyway. Nothing like the quake that devastated the entire island in 52/3 which apparently was a doozey.
The day was pretty much filled in by the occupants moving around the palace as they felt they wanted to. Planning next adventures, having breakfast, dips in the pool (involving lots of Sammi hugs) then maybe having another breakfast 3 hours later because it still feels like it's the morning (time check 13:30..WTF?). Your blogger filled in the time cleaning up yesterdays entry and constructing mechanical washers to support the gopro underwater capability. Could've gone into town with OSno.1 and non-blogger to purchase an Out Of The Box product instead. At $100 au for something that's at home in au it was a wise choice to stay by the pool. They eventually returned happy with their goods. And a new pair of independent coloured togs for your blogger. If these are left behind there will be no forgiveness. OSno.1 showing a natural capability of driving on the wrong side of the road in a manual. Proving the philosophy that we chose years ago when she was on her L`s to be worthwhile. Yay for solid family values (which by the way - we seem to be experiencing a significant amount of this week).

Case in point :  the social committee was always going to come up with some sort of activity. This afternoon was a visit to a local winery. All 8 riders into the mules and we were on our way. The red mule is a Fiat Panda. Apparently it struggles in certain aspects, one being the ability to actually have the required resources to get it to (say) go up a hill with confidence unless the aircon is switched off. So you can get where you want to go hot and sweaty or sit there in cool comfort watching the donkeys overtake you. This is a Bad Panda.
Welcome to the fam SIL. Great line. This is exactly what it's all about.
The winery experience was another memory to be locked away and recalled when desired. The descriptions thrown at us by the host were fabulous. Weaving the history of their business into the locale was brilliant. We tasted some wines which (given the overview) may have rated poorly otherwise got some very positive feedback. The term indigenous vines was intriguing. We Aussies love an indigenous story (we're slowly coming to grips with it being part of our cultue) so upon querying the term here means the varieties have been here since ancient Greecian times. Et tu brut and subsequent consequences may have happened after a big session on this stuff.

In typical large group tourist style (7 aussies and 1 pom) we dominated the aural bandwidth. Pity the poor young couple next to us who we could all tell she did not want to be there (no alcohol) and he did (small amounts). We're just hoping they weren't German due to the unchecked before its put out there about how aurally grating the language is.
The extended family group is melding nicely. A different mix traversed home to the compound. MIL1,Osno1 and the FILs in the back seat of the BadPanda went to the local Aldi equivalent to restock, whilst the others went straight back to jump in the pool.
Everyone then contributed to creating dinner except for two. One was your friendly blogger who made himself scarce by pretending to be busy capturing some long winded event elsewhere and OSNo.1 who was constructing her entry into the margaritas competition. Managed to have a dip in the pool while attending to the job of turning on the BBQ whilst everyone else was contributing significantly.

The bar has been lifted in the comp. It will be difficult to beat the Greecian blue salt rimming the glass (let alone the wow factor contents), however there are two entries to go and three nights to deliver. It will be fascinating to see what they can do.
The meal following was quite simply put..amazing. As it transpires FIL1 has a history as a chef in seafood restaurants. Two nights ago he calmly sat back as this blogger pretty much crucified every item that hit the hotplate. Tonight all offers of help were kindly (albeit expertly) rejected. Quite rightly so. Master chief at work here. It was a privilege to consume the outcomes and to be able to eventually contribute in some way by cleaning some of the dishes that SIL had left for this blogger to do.
Consuming this fabulous fare in this extraordinarily luxurious premises in an incredibly picturesque locale whilst being accepted into such a loving family is beyond words.  Well at moment at least....time will tell if they can be found later.

Double Hatting on two beaches

The day was spent in a most productive touristy way with the 8 riders in two mules covering a fair amount of distance checking out selected parts of this large island. Adventure was in the air and after OSno.1 herded the cats we managed to exit the compound mid morning and headed over the hills to Sammi (the namesake blow-up stayed behind to protect the pool).

Crossing the island involves negotiating mountains, and so the underpowered, overloaded beasts were put to the test as we took in the picturesque views of Grecian countryside with the standard olive trees, olde fort ruins on hills, impressive churches and quiet villages strewn along the winding roads as they're generally perched on the sides of impressive mountains. SIL behind the wheel, blogger providing the vibes and snapping scenes. 

OSNo.1 insisted we go see the caves. When we got there the car park was chockers, the queues extensive however backing out was not an option. Some very clever queue reserving was performed by Claire and so it wasn't as painful as a Disneyland scenario. Worked quite well, didn't time it (guessing maybe 30 ish munutes) it kept moving. The attraction at the end was a 15 minute paddle (12 to a boat) maybe 6 boats in action as we moved around a blue pool of water at the base of a hole in the ground.

They'd dug a tunnel to funnel the hordes to and from the water level where the boats moored and where people boarded, were delighted and then alighted after the paddle. Pure tourist trap. What was obviously once a magical hidden treasure was now something that someone is making sqillions out of. It was pleasant and fun and got some good pics and can tick that off. Nobody was complaining. A slight annoyance by the Pom as our extra 3 riders were Aussies as well..just can't escape them. They're everywhere. The group then split, one went off to suss out a beach while the other went to check out the second cave. This was really cool. Because it was underground and the temperature was a welcome relief from the air above.

It was also so because of its cavernous nature and the stalactites and stalagmites aplenty as well as a natural raised podium where apparently artists perform from to lucky crowds below, this indeed a really cool place. 

After stopping at a Cafe to collect iced coffees and cheese pie we caught up with the other half of the group when this blogger realised that the swimming gear was back at the ranch. Hard enough to herd cats to all move at once. Impossible to get them to do all they should at the same time. So therefore had to suffer the indignity of swimming in his underwear. Good advertising for the manufacturer though (except of course not using the body shape they would normally use to sell their product). Didn't really matter here but beach no. 2 it was a bit of a different scenario. We needed to swim because it was hot (has that been mentioned yet?). Thanks to MIL1 we were all wearing our rock walking swimming shoes. We had no choice. And after a bit of a frolic in more clear, buoyant warm water where this blogger had another epiphany that also left behind was the goggles, snorkel, and GoPro adaptor for water sports (that had been previously constructed the day before beside the pool in the compound) that there were a few missed opportunities going on here.

Remembered to bring both hats though. The beach was great, rock based (not sand) obviously a little local spot so not too many invading hordes. After spending and hour or so there, we sniffed the eucalyptus tree leaves and headed north along some seriously high winding roads.

A quick stop to take in the view down to Mirtos beach which was baking in the midday heat, showing how the waters get their colours to those above. Glad we weren't down there though as it looked extremely exposed with no natural air con to cool the brow. So onto Fiskardo where we landed at Emblisi Beach. And spent a few good hours there. So whilst you have people of all sizes and all ages in all states of undress, flaunting their beautiful buttocks and other bits, trying to hide the specific bits with strategically positioned minimalistic patches of cloth, its pretty obvious when youve got some idiot who forgot his togs and has to use his underpants as swimwear. Its so obvious as his skin is really white where his shorts normally would be. Grose. How uncouth. For all we know he's been wearing them for a week. On one side, and then possibly the previous week inside out. Grose. Like maybe this is actually how he washes his clothes.? Yeech.. do I really want to bathe in the same water as this potentially disease carrying obviously unsanitartised person?.

Must admit it would have looked even wierder had I have been carrying a kids paddle with a GoPro attached, goggles, snorkel and then filmed them all in the process of doing so.

Still... one person had a clear perspex canoe, maybe anything goes these days.

We had managed to find a great spot in the shade of a big tree and had some fun trying to keep the umbrellas vertical when you have no sand to drive them in to in order to expand our shadow footprint as much as possible.

Beaches made of rocks are really hard to get comfortable on. Especially when trying to lay on them wearing your underwear. Because you know that those others nearby who are sunbathing on their blowup lilos, sipping on their Pina Colada's are surruptiously saying to each other, hey look there's the dude that smelling up our pristine water ways by wearing his unwashed underpants. 

This beach is very pretty. Its a cove of which the edges are lined with sedimentary rocks, conveniently cracked horizontally and split vertically by the elements to create layered ledges to which people can lounge around on as well as being in the shade depending on the time of day.

The rocky beach also has a cafe/bar type shack thingy which pumps non obtrusive vibes into the air as well as goods into the bellies of the people between it and the waters edge.

After hanging there for a few hours the crew decided to go to local restaurant for dinner instead of driving home first. Great choice. Whilst we may not have been in our normal dinner attire, at least this blogger was not in his togs. Yes there were wet underwear patches showing through on some of the crews attire but we got away with it.

Being early yet again we had another fantastic dining feast on the edge of the harbour where the rich people land their little service dinghies (which belong to their yatchs which are moored in the harbour), they step out of the dinghies, straight to the restaurant table, eat their wonderfully fresh Mediterranean based food, possibly grab a few items from the souvenirs shops (just to stay in touch with the common folk you know, by actually personnaly purchasing something in a shop ...hmmm...maybe we should just get the opare to do it, after all we are a tad busy dealing with all this expensive linen clothing and the pressures of the fluctuations of the stockmarket).

When we first walked in past this quaint seaside (UNESCO protected?) area with its nicely painted buildings adorned with cascading bougainvillea of all colour varieties it was pretty much empty. After our fabulous dining experience walking back though it was chockers. This blogger was too worn out to think about capturing a pic of the beautiful couple walking along with a stroller carrying an extremely ugly pug. He (in his linen pants and tossed hair look) spent a long time getting the perfect shot of a local touristy ornament, whilst she (dressed in a double layered black lacy dress thing) did a quick check in the reflections on the sunglasses stand to make sure all was in place. Their kid (matching dads tossed hair look) was querying the value/worth of the toy sword he was waving around. Nothing particularly wrong with any of this, just wish photo was captured to avoid the verbiage. They were a great sample of the A listers who adorn this beautiful place.

The trip back to the compound as the sun went home to Aus took about an hour and half. A spectacular drive and yet for some reason the gopro was sitting at home and the slow TV opportunity capture lost. 

Was a fun drive though. They have some nice roads and SIL did a great job in navigation to get us home safe and sound.

We tried to get enthusiastic about the soccer but the lone Pom in the team went to bed instead of supporting her crew  (so we Aussies collectively agreed that it really is a boring sport....no score after 50 minutes of play...uuurrgghhh)