Two Forts

The world keeps on giving, even when you've set yourself up for a quiet day, when being a stranger in a strange land something is always going to jump out at you and make you realise that unless you're in your nice little comfortable home bubble things are totally outside your control. And you have no choice but to go with the flow.

In this specific circumstance its the summer solstice. Longest day of the year. Saturday night.

Apparently therfore the Greeks celebrate by having world music day. This means all over the country (including the Ionioan Islands obviously) they put on events. Here in the main park,  which is nestled between the Old Fort and (yep you guessed it) the New Fort, we are currently experiencing the aural and visual experience of multiple cultures (that's actually in theory only as they all sound the same bazzooki music to this untrained ear). Each are having their shot at dressing up in thier traditional gear and strutting their stuff to their traditional music. The sound system is much louder than the bands across the road restaurant last night and they did not do Zorba the Greek.
Must be pretty uncomfortable in all that heavy clothing, line dancing on the hard cobblestone in this oppressive heat. At least the sun has gone down so the need to shade chase has finished for the day. This was the end of the day gift to us. Instead of sleep, our views from the room with the aircon on and the shutters flung wide provided a priceless perspective of the revelries below. Really wanted to contribute to the multicultural atmosphere by casting an Aussie salute out there from above, however Aussie,Aussie,Aussie, Oui,Oui,Oui may have diminished proceedings instead of enhancing them.
The day had started with grand plans to catch a local bus to a local town and check out their authenticness vibe and maybe a dip at their beach before catching the local bus back again. It was a great plan. Totally scuppered by sleeping in until 10:00am by which time it is already seriously hot and even the locals have their eye on the approaching siesta period. Needing breaky and coffee we wandered into the old town and had the great idea of a little place that does pastries and ice cream. And they have a coffee machine. Non-Blogger asked for the late's to be extra hot and lo and behold....she used the milk frother. The sound was music to our ears, the coffee was great and the pastries... well let's not get too carried away here. Needless to say the experience was better than a traditional eggs on toast, plus cereal, plus bacon plus beans plus sausages plus jam plus butter plus juice and......woops.... first world problem complaining about buffet breakfasts...need to get back on track.
We then parted ways. Gave ourselves a rendezvous and a timeslot of an hour (not so clever of us with all this tech that we don't have free comms...another story maybe). Non-Blogger went shopping. Blogger went fort hunting. To the Old Fort. Given the time constraints, the distance, the oppressive heat it was challenge undertaken with the same attitude as all other castle challenges.

That being it has to present the best views in town, so get to the top. That's why they put them there in the first place. So when their societies collapse and thier personal stories have eroded away to just being particles of dust in the desert of time that is the collective bowl of human history, their mountains remain. So we can climb them as tourists centuries later. Why? Well, because they are there. Anthropologists love wading around in the dust, indentifying specific bits , threading them together, using supposition to construct stories on which UNESCO can build business cases to warrant the expenditure of walkways to enable throngs of tourists to visit the tops of these mountains. All at the cost of 6 euros each.
Not bad value actually (although expect a law suite one day based on they could've done something more about the now worn, slippery rocks). Could have spent more time there but time was of the essence and thus didn't.

Managed to get to the top, be impressed by the views. Lots of dust items ignored  (e.g. the prisoners cells, the church, the armaments, the cafe`, the museum, the private beach etc.). Bypassed due to time constraints as well as a belief that if one could really be bothered,  one could imagine any dustlike story that befitted (say) that well over there (currently dry exposing all the coins previously deposited... why do people do that?).
Dripping in the heat, this blogger made it out alive, stumbing back over the uneven surfaces of the old town to the rendevous. Awkwardly, the place narrows in sections that it's difficult to avoid contact. With a dripping, glowing red unit looming at them it was not too difficult to barge though to get to the meeting point only a few minutes late.
Job done.
Learning from the locals we then hung in the cool of the room to avoid the serious heat belting down outside, emerging at an appropriate time in order to go shopping for a new hat. The old one still soaked in sweat and stained from a weeks wear in the boiling sun.
Did I mention it is hot?
The old town is a rabbit warren of narrow twisting cobblestone streets with no set plan and very few dead ends, ideally suited to getting lost in and then popping out into familiar spots. The buildings are ramshackle 4 stories high, all jambed together with an obvious long history of engineering and construction over the centuries.

A plethora of speciality stores create a kaleidoscope of colours, aromas, languages and skin tones. All for the express purpose of moving euros around. Yesterday the place was jamb packed, today less so. This is because there is only one monster cruise liner in the port, as compared to the previous day's four.
Sitting outside a wine bar in the shade watching people take photos of themselves on the steps leading up to the church was fun.

Then the doors actually opened and we saw the local priests receiving handouts and passing out blessings in response. Got the hat and then after visiting the another shop so many times non-blogger had the idea of asking the gorgeous Ukrainian shop assistant where a good place for dinner would be. That turned into yet another adventure as the instructions were to leave the old town, go through a tunnel and turn left. This turned out to be through the bones of the new fort. So two forts in incl. two tunnels in one day. The fish restaurant turned out to be fine dining and extremely popular. As we were early they let us in and a while later the dripping stopped, shirts dried out and fabulous meals of pasta and seafood were consumed. Reasonably expensive but once again well worth it.

Wandering back into the old town we returned to the same joint for a nightcap and more taking photos of people taking photos of themselves.
Back to room right on sunset to spot a crowd of kids dressed up, chanting on their way to the park. The reasons became apparent as previously described.