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Greece: Lesvos Chios Angistri

Day 1: Saturday June 7, 2008: Departure

We get up at a normal hour today: 08:30. We have a flight in the afternoon, so we have the whole day to do plenty of things. We first have breakfast and then start with cleaning our house, prepare our hand luggage and pack everything. That goes rather quickly and we’re done at noon. We quickly have to arrange something with Maurits and Betty, eat a sandwich with Tuna and a martino and at 13:00 everything is ready. Roel comes to our place to study and he will take Cartouche to hi home tonight; tomorrow he’ll sleep with Betty and Maurits. At this moment they are in Weert (NL) for the weekend.

Linda and Patrik will bring us to Zaventem at 13:30 with our Volvo. It hasn’t come through that we’ll be in Greece tonight. The traffic to the airport is low and we are there within 30 minutes. Quickly say goodbye and we go to the check-in. The plane has a delay of already 35 minutes, so we will go at 16:20. Everything goes fast, there is almost nobody here at the airport, completely different from a departure early morning on a weekday. We slowly walk through the airport, pass customs control; everything is OK (well, indeed after the second try). On this occasion it was a normal, pleasant young guy, that’s something else. We walk to gate A52, but we’re 1.5 hours early, so we decide to drink a Leffe blond. It tastes good, but is really expensive: 8.20 Euro for 2 Leffe. At 16:00 the boarding starts and as usual we’re the last persons. A good, actually very good, flight of three hours and at 21:00 we are walking towards the luggage claim. We receive our luggage quickly, only one strap from the bag pack has been torn and we need to tie it up. Probably it is not worth claiming this damage. We will see when we get back home.

Two tickets for the bus to Piraeus and at 21:30 we’re already on the road for – as always – a joyride through the suburbs of Athens for about one hour. In Piraeus we find hotel Elektra immediately, we walk straight to it, as if we’ve know our way around here for years already. They have a room (203) free for 1 night and we drop off our luggage, take our money and photo-bag with us to dine at Filoxenia: two Mythos, a large bottle of water and 2 chicken pita. These are the first pitas of the vacation and they always are the best. There, we are here and we will enjoy it! Great! Now we are grasping the thought that we are Stin Ellada (in Greece) for two weeks.

We let the stress of the last half year go, the stress from work, and we start enjoying it very much. At about midnight we return to the hotel, quickly watch the late news and then go to bed. It is a little room with a small bed; so don’t move too much sweetheart. We think this is a bed for 1 person and they’ve put a second pillow on it. We have trouble falling to sleep, but we can enjoy a good night of rest after all. Timo sleeps better than Eef.

Day 2: Sunday June 8, 2008: Piraeus, Athens and the ferry to Lesvos

Timo is awake at 08:00 and starts writing the travel report. Eef rests a little while and at 09:00 she is also up and ready to move. From the window of our room we see a clear open blue sky – not one cloud – and the sun shines already at full power. That is why we’re here, no? The first thing we need to make arrangements for is our trip to Lesvos. We select normal economic seats and not a cabin – we will be sorry for this later. We search for the luggage locker and drink two coffees on the terrace of taverna ‘Filoxenia’. We have not yet had breakfast, so we look for something at the bakery next door to the hotel, at least Timo has a tiropita and Eef does not eat at this moment; she’s a bit tired still. We pack everything, a bit exaggerated, because we did not unpack and check out: 50 Euro for 1 night, not a bad address for Piraeus. We take our luggage to the locker and take a metro to Athens city. Only 15 minutes later we arrive in Thissio, well-known to us from previous vacations. It is very warm here, so we sit down in the park close to the temple of Hephaestus in the shadow and rest. We then walk through the area of Thissio, Monastiraki and Plaka. Today it is very busy; on Sunday there are a lot of salesmen here. Now the weather is great, so also the terraces and the streets are full of people. We stop to buy a Hellas T-shirt for our godchild, Aagje, and walk around these areas. When we’re back in Thissio it’s already 14:00 and we have time to eat a choriatiki and pita kotopoulo with nero and Mythos. On the terrace on the corner of Thissio we have Alfa and water. We eat siga siga and we love it: just marvelous. We stay here for about an hour and look around: there is a lot of movement on the streets. We prefer to stay here instead of returning to Piraeus. Here everything is OK but in Piraeus the traffic is busy and there are too much cars, scooters and busses. We sit down in the park and watch birds and people and at 16:00 we take the metro back to Piraeus. This really is the best way of traveling here in Athens: 20 minutes and 1.60 Euro for two persons. We collect our luggage; we had paid 7 Euro this morning for the two pieces of luggage for about 5 hours. Then we walk to the waiting area for the passengers and there a transfer-bus will bring us to gate E2. It takes a while before we locate it, but just beyond the first ferries at gate E7 blue busses are waiting. This is the place we need to be. The bus brings us to gate E2 at 18:00. Our ferry ‘Mytiline’ will sail at 19:00 so we have plenty of time to choose a good spot to lie and rest. We annex 5 seats in a corner: 2 against the wall and three right in front, so we have enough space. The boat starts to fill up and Timo watches the departure from deck and when he returns Euro 2008 has started: Switzerland – Croatia (0-1). The TV is on our right side and one of the Greeks has increased the sound pretty loud. When the match is in play, it’s OK, but during the commercial breaks it is way to loud. For the time being there is nothing we can do, because it seems as if the whole ferry has come to our corner to watch football. Between the two games also very loud we hear: the news – 6.5 on the Richter scale somewhere in the area of Patras. After the news the second game is on: Germany – Poland (2-0): not a bad game. Towards the end of the game it’s time for everyone to try and get some sleep and that is what everybody does. And suddenly the TV is making noise and nobody is watching anymore. We don’t think this is good and it annoys us; there even were people sitting two meters away from the TV and trying to make a call on the phone. Everybody wants to get some sleep and Timo takes the brilliant initiative to decrease the volume. He was at 100! It could not be harder. And now at a low 20 we can try to get some rest. It is 23:30.

Day 3: Monday June 9, 2008: Lesvos

Eef lies on three seats under and between the rails of the chairs, not really comfortable, but yes, this is the best we can make out of it. Timo lies on seats at first, but then decides to lie on the ground and try to sleep. Sleeping goes well until 2 or 3 in the might, so not really very long. Then it is some time awake and asleep, seats, ground until the ferry arrives at the port of Chios. It’s now four o’clock in the morning and there is a guy on the boat trying to sell sweets from the mastic tree: gluka mastika (glika mastika). We are still on the ferry for three hours, so we try to get some sleep. Eef can sleep still and Timo is exploring the boat. We are on deck B and there are also Deck C, D and E: all of them completely in open air. That must be very nice to pass the night on a place like this. Of course nobody is seated here now outside and Timo watches the sun rise silently above the sea. Then we wait some time before the arrival in Mytiline. In the meantime there is not one spot on our body that doesn’t hurts: back, left leg, right buttock and especially the neck. At 07:30 we’re in Mytiline and want to take the bus to Petra. The first bus only leaves at 11:00, so what’s next? An American woman addresses us about the bus schedule; she needs to be in Molyvos, close to Petra. We don’t want to wait for 3.5 hours here, so we suggest taking a taxi together; drop us off in Petra and then the taxi needs to bring her to Molyvos. Everything goes fast and smooth (from 60 to 50 Euro) and all is OK. Lesvos is green with millions of olive trees, spruces and pines. It is a little bit mountainous and it looks very pretty: beautiful island and beautiful weather. Suddenly the taxi driver needs to stop: a flat tire. That’s normal with the way he’s driving. In the centre of Kalloni he needs to replace the tire, but he can’t get the spare one out of the trunk. The nut is broken, so he decides to break everything. We want to help, but he does not want help, so we look around. On a chimney close by a stork has made its nest and there are also two young in there. We find it surprising that they’ve built their nest in the middle of town, but anyway that’s a good sign. After half an hour we’re back on the road and then it’s only 20 kilometer through the mountains to Petra. When we arrive there we quickly say goodbye to the taxi and the American woman. Our fits task here: find a place to stay. With the Trotter in his hands he walks through the alleys – nice, we need to check this out later – and hits after five minutes a suggestion made by Trotter: agro-touristic cooperative of the women of Petra. Timo arranges a room for four nights and we need to walk along the coastal road and then in a side street a woman will be waiting for us: Nitsa Chioti. Timo goes back to Eef who was waiting at the square and from this point we find the street easily. When we walk down away from the major road, we hear “Ela!”. We turn around and there Nitsa is coming, a little, round woman, very friendly. The room is perfect in a small street and it seems to be very quiet here. Little, but very clean with a small common kitchen with fridge and that for only 25 Euro per day. Cool. We unpack, take a shower and have something to eat. At the cooperative there is also a restaurant, so we head there. Krasi, nero, sardelles, choriatiki and something we’ve never seen before. They stuff yellow flowers (from the pumpkin- or eggplant) with the same as they use for dolmadakia, very good. At 13:00 we get tired and we go back for a siesta. We set the alarm at two, but it’s already 16:30 when Timo wakes up. We were exhausted. A major thunderstorm wakes us and it rains very hard. Running through the drops we quickly go out to buy some water, ouzo and rigani-chips, we write our report and after the storm we can explore the village. We walk next to the sea to the centre to check everything out and find the diving school. Now we see Trotter was correct. The cooperative was right next to a square, a small street to the right and then the first door up on the right. We walk through the alleys with restaurants and shops and then arrive back on the main road. We turn back and suddenly see a DAN-flag. Here we need to check it out and indeed we can arrange the dive for Thursday. Actually the woman from Nirvana-travel says so. She can’t reach Jorgos, but asks if we can come back alter today. We walk to the other side of the bay and pass by the diving station; there is nobody there at the moment. We walk to the village and then go to the restaurant of the cooperative. First ouzo with tzatziki and bread. We sit at the window and have a clear view at the sea: a perfect place. We take it easy, enjoy and laugh with some silly jokes. Then we have moussakas and briam, both very good. At 21:50 Timo checks back the travel agency, but no answer yet. Her returns to the restaurant, we empty our aspro krasi, pay and leave. On the way home we hear Holland has already scored twice against Italy: shit. We come home and want to drink something, but we can’t anymore, we’re too tired. We quickly light our first candles, three at once. At 23:30 we go to bed and close our eyes. Sleep tight.

Day 4: Tuesday June 10, 2008: Exploration of western Lesvos

We sleep very tight and long, until 08:30. We eat some bread with cheese and a coffee, nice in the sun. Great. We hope the diving club already answered and indeed Jorgos called back. Perfect, we immediately arrange two dives for Thursday. Yippie. Our next task is to withdraw money. Done. Then make arrangements for a car. On the corner of the street where our room is, there also is a rent-a-car and we check that out. Within half an hour everything is settled – two days 60 Euro. We wait for some moments because they’re still cleaning the car and we get one frappe each. Then we can leave. So we go: first to Anaxos, because on that road we need to tank. With a full tank of 46 Euro we think we’ll have enough to see everything today and tomorrow. From Anaxos we take the road to Skoutaros and then to Filia. A bit further is our first stop; the monastery of Limonas. First we stopped at a smaller monastery of Taxiarchis and thought that this was the one we were looking for, not. Besides it was closed. Two curves further we already see the monastery in the plain. The monastery – a square with a central church – is completely surrounded with smaller churches, a nice sight from the mountain above. Inside there is a museum (we don’t visit it) and a place of the ‘Holy Water’. The church there is only accessible for men, not even for my prettiest darling, who almost looks like an angel. You don’ miss out on a lot, because you can’t even enter the church. There is another church though with beautiful wall paintings and everybody can enter. The monks also have peacocks: 1 dad, 2 mothers and four little ones. In total there are four churches inside the monastery: the monks must be small men, because even Timo has to duck. They mostly meet their own needs, they even have a separate room oil presses and oil barrels. From here we drive to Kalloni and follow the gulf of Kalloni over Parakila to Apotikes. This is a small fishermen’s village with 1 tavern, some houses and boats and two fishermen painting their boat. The position in the mountainous dry landscape in the west of Lesvos is very beautiful. We look around and think it’s great. Then we drive to Agra and then to the village of Mesotopos and then via Eressos – we don’t stop in Skala Eressou, because it’s too lesbian – we move on to the Petrified Forest. We wanted to drive straight to Sigri and then further, but suddenly we are on the road to Antissa and have to make a detour to the Petrified Forest. We arrive there through the windy mountains at 14:00. The wind here is lord and master over the hills and over the thirty windmills (these are new one to provide energy). We need to close the windows of our car or we are blown out of it. The Petrified Forest was submerged by lava from the volcano and it was so hot and there was so little air, that the trees turned to stone. In the shape of trees, trunks those stones are still standing there in a park that is open to the public. There are some rather big trunks and in some of them you can easily recognize the roots and the bark. The stones have different colors, from white and grey to ocher and dark red purple; really worth a visit and the entrance is only 2 Euro. This natural monument is under protection of Unesco. Then we need to drive back to Antissa, because Sigri is a place we don’t see today. At Antissa we take a small road to Gavates. About two kilometers further we take an even smaller road – now a sandy road to see the ancient Antissa. The shaking starts, we stop at a small church with view on the mountains and the sea. Close to ancient Antissa we need to cross a river with the red mega-Yaris. A donkey was looking at it and saw that Timo did a great job. Ancient it was, that ancient Antissa, but more than a bunch of bricks with weeds there was nothing really to see. So we drive back to the river crossing and choose the direction of Skalochori. Still on the sand road, but passing through a beautiful landscape. The dry hills make place for low bushes and then later on for olive trees, walnut trees, oak trees and a marvelous green vegetation until we reach Skalochori. Yes, back on a normal paved road. We drive back rather quickly the same way to Skoutaros, Anaxos then to Petra and so on to Molyvos. Molyvos is on the top of a mountain and there is an old castle and the houses are built against the slopes. Here we walk to the harbor and have an aperitif at restaurant Chtapodi (chtapodi: octopus), a nice restaurant close to the harbor. We drink ouzo Lesvos with grilled octopus and tuna salad. We are having fun here, in the warmth of the sun with water, ouzo and need to send messages to Belgium to make everybody jealous. There are here plenty of swallows and they have their nests everywhere. At two of the doors of the restaurant two couples of swallows have built their nest and surprisingly the Greeks leave them be. In one nest there are four of them and it always very busy if the parents arrive. Those four are still very young, but the three from the other nest are ready to fly. It is already 18:00 when we leave here; luckily Molyvos is only 6 kilometer away from Petra. We park the car, Timo quickly takes a dive in the sea and we write the events of the day in our reports with a Mythos in our hand. We think we’re on a very nice place here. Today they broadcast the match Greece – Sweden, so we need to find a place where we can join the Greek fans. We find a nice bar with three big flat screens and order at 20:00 our first two Mythos (megales bires – large beers). The game starts at 20:45 and the place is filling up, a bunch of young Greeks, some Swedes and the rest adult Greek fans – including us. The atmosphere is good from the very first beginning, but no team is really doing well. It stays good until Sweden makes the first goal 0-1. We decide to not change to another beer than Mythos and order immediately two more. During the break it is a bit calmer and we keep on drinking until destiny strikes: 0-2 for Sweden. That’s not good and the match is then to it’s end and also is the good atmosphere. It’s rather late when we return home, but stay up a bit, drink Mythos and eat two sandwiches with tomato, cheese and salami. We talk a bit and go to bed at 00:30.

Day 5: Wednesday June 11, 2008: Lesvos by car: the other part

We wake up at 08:30 and have breakfast: same as ever: cheese, salami, tomato and coffee. We prepare everything to spend the second and last day in the car. Timo drives the Yaris from the parking place and it’s only 09:15 and we’re on the road already. The first part drives through the mountains, through the green forests to Skala Sykaminea. This is a little fisherman’s village with a harbor and it is located in a quiet bay at the sea. Over the harbor a white church is reigning and provides shelter to many swallows. Under the tamarisks Greek fishermen are cutting sardines into pieces, we think they do that to catch larger fish. One is cleaning a ray and in that pace the Greek life moves on quietly. Along the harbor there are many taverns that lure tourists. We then leave the village by taking the very steep road back up to the main road. Then we head for the monastery of Taxiarchis. We’ve already seen plenty of monasteries in our life, so Timo only quickly checks the inside. A large inner square, a huge iconostasis, but apart from that he doesn’t check further. We did not bring the appropriate clothing either, so some other time. We take the beautiful road along the eastern coast to Mytiline, via Pedi and some Skala. Here they indicate a beach with the word ‘skala’, that is not the case on many of the other Greek islands. We have a great view on small villages, quiet beaches and it is a good road to drive: long, wide and without hills. In the neighborhood of Mytiline there is a village Moria and there should be an aqueduct. The road is under construction so we can’t reach it. About 10 kilometers before this we quickly attempted to visit the thermae of Thermi, but we weren’t able to find them: a bad road sign and we did not want to loose too much time, because the trip today was long. So we move on to the southern part of the island to Plomari – the haven of the well-known ouzo Plomari. We must have visited that village, no? The way there leads us through forests and forests of olive trees. We think Lesvos has the most olive trees of all Greek islands. The road also has a magnificent view over the bay of Geras. We drive through small villages like Paleokopis, Plakados en Trigonas. The road winds through the forests at the bottom of mount Olympos: the highest peak of Lesvos. Right after lunchtime we arrive in Plomari and already from the monastery of Taxiarchis Eef has taken the wheel. Timo’s left arm is already red and he needs to stay out of the sun. The city of Plomari is bigger than we thought, not a bad location with a harbor and the houses are built against the mountain slopes. It is a bit too busy for us, but we want to relax after a long drive. We drink two frappe at the harbor and leave Plomari to see the hot springs in Polichnitos and to snorkel in Nifida. To reach these points we still need to drive a lot of kilometers. First it takes us 20 minutes to get out of the city and find the direction to Megalochori. From there we fear we’ll have to take a bad road for 10 kilometer. But the road to Neohori and Akrassi is a good paved road. It is not fast, because it’s always up and down, sometimes very steep. You’re doing great Eef! We cover the distance to Ampeliko well and then we need to follow the direction of Stavros and Vatera. That’s something else. Timo takes over the wheel for 10-kilometer gravel road through the mountains. Mostly it’s rather slowly driving down, but often it’s steep, even with hairpin turns. Suddenly the road turns into a paved one and we’ve reached Stavros. Back in the world of the living. Locals look strange at us that tourists are coming here. We did see great mountain landscapes in this area. On our way from Vatera to Polichnitos and Nifida we eat the last nectarines. Eef had taken four from the tree in our garden. Nitsa had told us we could as many as we like and they are really tasteful. In Polichnitos it is not easy to find the way to Nifida. Timo uses his best Greek words and then with the explanation we find the way. Nifida has a long-stretched beach with gravel and tamarisks. It’s beautiful, but the beach has not been cleaned yet. All the way at the end there are some rocks and there we snorkel about 20 minutes. Plenty of fish, big ones and many anemones. The high waves make it not easy, but it’s fun and very refreshing. We change and drive back to Polichnitos and quickly visit the hot springs. Nice, some boiling wells and sources with hot water. They come to the surface because of the volcanic activity and then create a small brook that floats into the valley. It’s nice to quickly visit this. At 17:00 we start the return and drive via Vassilika and Achladeri to Kalloni. The road winds through magnificent pine-forests; it looks strange to see that vast forests on an island. The pines smell and we enjoy the ride. In Kalloni there is a salt lake and Timo spots a black stork, cool. From here we drive through the mountains straight to Petra and it is 18:30 at our arrival. We quickly clean everything, take a shower, have an aperitif with ouzo, gavros and rigani-chips. We have to eat something rather quickly now, we feel a little bit weak, so we walk to the restaurant of the cooperative: we eat soutzoukakia, souvlaki, chorta and drink cola and fanta, because tomorrow it’s diving day. We try to do as much as possible in Greek, so also ask where we can use the public phone. We call Betty and Maurits: everything is OK, also with Cartouche. With Linda it’s also OK, because they can leave to Angistri in a few days. That will do them good. We write our diaries, drink 1 Mythos and go inside, because we’re getting bitten by the mosquitoes. Tomorrow we need to get up early and we’re pretty tired because of two days of driving on the island, to explore Lesvos. By then it’s 21:30 and already 5 candles are burning. Just before we go to bed away from our terrace into our room, Timo sees a little swallow on the laundry line. That’s cute. We think he must have been there all the time. Great.

Day 6: Thursday April 12, 2008: Scuba diving

We get up with the alarm at 07:30, because we have an appointment at the diving base at 08:30. We are there on time, but not the Greeks, they arrive late as usual. Jorgos comes to welcome us and has two people with him: Maurios (GR) and Filip (FR, Lyon). First the normal course of action, fill out forms, try on the suits; we help to load and the van leaves to the small harbor of Petra. We dive today on the island of Petra, close by the coast. We, Eef and Timo, Michaël and Natasha and Markos walk to the harbor, only ten minutes and the boat is already prepared to leave. Jorgos explains some things and leaves; Maurios will take over the lead. It’s a young guy, good looking, says Timo, he starts to feel at home on the island of Lesvos. We prepare our gear and are ready for briefing. Everything is siga siga and that is very nice. The first diving spot is Fegameni. The overall depth is going to be about 15 meter and if the air consumption permits it, we will be diving to 30 meters. Everything is still quiet and at ease, Timo has some issues to go down and is a bit nervous, as he often is at the first dive. The fish are the same as they always are in Greece: damselfish, wrasse, some smaller sponges and anemones and especially the beautiful thing is the sun against the high rocks. A little bit deeper we spot some groupers and Eef goes out there and checks them out. She is rather quickly a distance away from the group, but can soon join us. We don’t go to 30 meter, but only to 23-26. Now we return to the boat, we dive a bit shallower and see some starfish. After 37 meter we arrive close to the boat and now have to rest a bit on the surface. First we need to change tanks and we can sleep, smile and eat and drink something. We keep it calm and stay on the surface for almost two hours. Then we put our wet suits back on and enter the water again. Now we’re on the other side of the island: at Saint Georges Island. Now we dive again over the rocks, go a bit less deep and dive a bit longer. Between the rocks, just one minute over grass and then reach the point where there are plenty of amphoras on the bottom. From that point we return and we dive shallower. The animals we see are nothing different from other dives in Greece: schools of damselfish. We continue to find them very beautiful and funny. Bream and wrasses are here too. At a certain moment we dive along a wall, there Eef sees an octopus and Timo a scorpion fish. A bit further we see many tubeworms and one small moray eel; Timo thinks he’s just too late for the picture. This dive is again very beautiful and way more relax than the previous one. After 50 minutes we come back to the surface and can look back on two nice dives. We arrange all the gear and let ourselves dry in the sun. Back in the harbor we unload the boat and load the van. We walk to the diving base and fill out our logbooks and talk about diving, Greek islands with a beer in our hand (Heineken, they had no Mythos). Very nice. Jorgos gives us the mobile number of Giannis, the diver on Chios and then we return to our room. We prepare everything to drink an aperitif: 1 ouzo mini, tiri saganaki, one tzatziki and we get a dessert, pancake with ice and chocolate on the house. We return to our room again and write the postal cards; we send them to the complete gang in Belgium. The ouzo is already causing some thing sin our heads. Either we rest a while – too dangerous – so we go and check the sunset and drink two craft beer (8 Euro, an hip and expensive bar here). Timo is a bit hungry, so he buys 1 pita kotopoulo and Eef buys an ankle bracelet. We return to our room, drink another Mythos on our terrace and go to bed at 22:30. Tired of the diving we sleep very good.

Day 7: Friday June 13, 2008: Petra and the departure to Chios

We sleep long this morning, because we have plenty of time. We have our breakfast with the last toast sandwiches and cheese and self-made coffee. We have to arrange some more things: a stay in Chios for 1 night and we need to pay our stay here. But first we walk up the stairs to the little church on the rock. 140 stairs up and there we have a great view over Petra and the bay, nice to see this. We then go and pay the room (100 Euro), drink a frappe and then go to Nirvana-Travel. They give us the address of a friend Alex in Chios town. We’ll only arrive there at 21:00 and if we need to find a place to stay then it will be very difficult. So we receive the phone number and a copy of the man in a tourist guide on Chios – he is unrecognizable. We need to give him a call when we arrive and he’ll come and get us, because otherwise we’ll never find it – they say. We’ll see. Now everything is arranged we return to our room and it comes to a moment a bit less interesting: pack. But first lunch: bread, cheese, coffee, nectarines from the tree, but first a bit of rest/ Eef tries to get some sleep and Timo goes snorkeling right in front in the sea. The water is flat and in the beginning there is nothing to see, but at about 5 meters in front of the beach there are some rocks and it’s beautiful to snorkel there. Timo sees wrasses, a red fish with a black head, sea urchins, 1 plaice or something similar and after about an hour he comes back. He’s very happy he still did this. And then it’s really time to pack. Eef takes care of the bag pack and suitcase, Timo the photo bag and the hand luggage. Within an hour we’re finished. Then Nitsa comes with her husband picking the nectarines from the tree. They take 2 big bags, 2 huge buckets and 1 giant fruit basket with them in a shopping cart. They thank us and we them. We enjoy some last moments on our terrace and at 15:30 we take the bus to Mytiline. That takes 1.5 hour and it’s good we haven’t selected a ferry earlier, because he just left when we arrived. On the bus there was an older Greek person en Eef helps him. He carried with him: 1 bag, a bunch of little plastic bags and one big box. The guy was unbelievably happy. Tha eisai kala panta! Good luck to you forever! We help him to get on the boat and find a place on the Mytiline: now in the back on the last row. We buy some water, Eef gets ice and a sandwich cheese and ham and we use the ice to drink the ouzo. At 19:00 the game Italy-Rumania (1-1) starts and we watch the game to let time pass by faster. Before we know it we’re in Chios and it’s already dark. We can’t find Michail Livanou Street on the map in the harbor, so we ask it in a tourist office. To “Goody’s” and there it’s a parallel street. There is a lot of noise, many cars, scooters and many people. Timo races through the terraces, almost takes a gorgeous Greek woman with him, but he has enough with his dearest darling and leaves her. In a record time we reach ‘Rooms Alex’. We ring the doorbell and say we’ve been sent from Lesvos by Rebecca. Alexandros welcomes us with open arms. Great. He’s eating with Stella, his wife and two friends. We immediately get krasi and two plates: dolmadakia, choriatiki, salami, but the fish – how good he looks – we don’t take, because that would be over the top. We try to speak Greek with the men and enjoy ourselves very good. Stella brings some more tasty watermelon and at 22:30 we thank them and head for our room. We watch the TV for half an hour: Holland-France (4-1) and try sleeping. It’s very difficult, because there are plenty of scooters, cars, and motorbikes racing through the small streets of Chios. Close to our window there is a disco and that causes a lot more noise. After two to three hours we can sleep and we can use the rest of course. Tomorrow morning we’ll take the bus to Karfas.

Day 8: Saturday June 14; 2008: Chios – Karfas

The noise has slowly gone away when the night proceeds, but yet we’re awake at 07:00. Alex is watching TV, we prepare to go to Karfas, ask the way to the bus station and leave. This is a good and hospitable address, it’s a pity though we arrived here on a Friday, when all Greeks are going out and make a lot of noise. People have never hosted us that well. Thanks, Alex and Stella (she was still asleep when we left). We drag the luggage to the other side of the harbor and quickly find the bus stop. There is already a bus at 08:35: we buy two tickets and enter the bus to Karfas. It’s only 5 kilometers away and we’re already on the bus for half an hour. At a certain stop everybody gets off the bus and we think we’re in Karfas, so we get off too: a very small village with a harbor, nice, but it’s impossible this is Karfas. Timo asks for more information from three elder women, where we are now and where Karfas is. We are in Agia Minas (later this is not true) and Karfas is still another 20 minutes on foot. That is a little bit too far with our luggage. They look for a timetable of the buses and they tell us there is another one at 09:50. At the supermarket we buy water, cigarettes and tickets for the bus. We wait a bit and indeed half an hour later the bus is there. We get on for a ride of only 5 minutes and arrive at Karfas with one hour of delay. We look for a room, problem one; because there are almost only hotels here and a lot of Greeks are not friendly here. One makes the effort to speak Greek and then it still is not good. The older people are very friendly and they take their time. For all other tourists are just big business. Eventually we take a room with sea view from a side, but it’s expensive (50 Euro per night). We unpack our stuff and look for something to eat. The village is not what we expected: one long street, a long beach with parasols, one parallel road and two smaller streets that connect the two. It is not Greek at all, only focused on the tourist. We walk around and see problem two: Island Divers is closed, done, finished, schluss. That was our only reason to come to Karfas. Shit, we will need to try and call Giannis. We drink four Mythos in tavern Pasilinos (or similar) and have some mezedes. Tzatziki with different kinds of cheese, salami, tomato, cucumber and bread. We like it and after lunch we return to our place and want to go out snorkeling. Along the road from Agia Minas to Karfas we had seen some good spots. We look for them, but they are not really good, very dirty, few fish and the water is not deep enough; we feel the bottom, so that’s not good. We return to our room with a bad feeling: no diving, not a nice village, no good snorkeling spots. Maybe we need to leave a day earlier here. In our room we rest a bit and drink something. In the end we’re on vacation and we make the best of it. Ouzo, Mythos and rigani-chips: always a good combination. At about 19:00 we go to eat something at taverna Dionysus, right across the road. It seems there are no normal taverns or restaurants here, no they are huge that they almost look like giant refectory; again everything only for the tourist. We have one gemista and one kotosouvlaki, drink some retsina. We like it a lot and it’s not expensive. Posi! After our meal we drink some more retsina on our balcony and watch football: Hellas – Russia (0-1), again the Greeks loose, that’s not very good. Timo tries to call Giannis with the mobile number we got at Lesvos: he tries two times and no answer and also no possibility to leave a voicemail message, so we have bad luck: no diving on Chios. At eleven o’clock we go to sleep and tomorrow we will rent a car to race around the island. Then we might get a better and more positive impression of the island and see real Greek stuff. Let’s hope!

Day 9: Sunday June 15, 2008: Explore Chios

It’s a beautiful day and today we have the intention to explore the south part of the island: the mastic villages. We buy our breakfast in the supermarket: bread, coffee, tomato, turkey filet and cheese. We quickly boil some water and eat on our terrace with sea view. We can imagine worse places for breakfast. We do the dishes and leave. First we need to withdraw money, and then look for a car. The firs guy only has big cars available, so we walk by. And we find another one: a Hyundai Getz. This is not done for Timo, because it reminds him too much of his work. But he thinks he can cope with this. We arrange the car (35 Euro), but we need to look out for the mileage we do: the first 100 kilometer are free and then it’s 0.25 Euro per extra kilometer. That should be OK. So we immediately leave with the car to the south of the island. We look for the road to Pirgi: the first mastic village. We pass by the coast of Agia Ermoni (the place where we got off the bus), Megas Limonas and then to the inland to Tholopotami. We follow the big road to the south and the road is very good, so we can drive pretty fast. Chios is very mountainous and very dry: you see everywhere grey slopes of the mountains, completely different from Lesvos. On other parts of the island there are many olive trees, mastic trees and pine trees. Via Armiola we reach Pirgi after only 30 minutes. We park the car above the village and want to walk through it. Timo gets out and is bitten by a horse fly, so Eef will need to be careful not to be bitten. In the village itself the animals are not there, so that’s nice. The village is very special: most of the houses are painted with motifs of flowers, birds and special signs and forms in black and white. We have never seen this on any Greek island. The older Greeks are on threshold of their houses babbling or they drink coffee on the terrace of the kafeneio. We walk to the square with a big church and here it’s very very busy. On Sunday morning the whole Greek pensioner community is sitting together. It causes a nice, real Greek atmosphere. And just like in Petra a lot of swallows are flying here and that is always a pretty sight. We then get back into the car and drive to Olimpi, the second mastic village on our journey today. When we get out there, we are swarmed by bees, wasps and horse flies, so wed rive off directly to Mesta. Eef stays a while in the car there, because she doesn’t like stinging insects. If she would get bitten, those bites grow big within a second, so we don’ want to take any chances. Mesta is a small medieval village with little, narrow roads, and they all lead to the main square and the church. Here the same story: many old Greeks on the terraces and nice to see. Timo does not stay away too long and we look in the west of Chios a good place to snorkel. The road brings us through pine forests along beautiful bays of Limonas and Potami and we stop at the beach of Lithi. We drive to the end of the harbor. Here we will see something, we think. Using a few flat concrete blocks we can enter the water and we see it is marvelous directly. We swim under the rocks for 50 meters into the sea: wrasses, bream, two scorpion fish, two fireworms and a dozen of damselfish: cool. Who could have thought that upfront? We see that fishermen empty out their nets here at the end of the pier, because we find a lot of shells, sponges and waste of fish. During snorkeling we had see three small dead sharks, what a pity, probably the fishermen could not do anything with them and threw them away. At 14:00 we leave via Vessa – a while on the same road – to Agios Georgios and there we take a smaller road over the mountains to Tholopotami. We have a great view over the plain and over the island of Inousses, right in front of Chios and thereafter lies Turkey: a really great view. We found without many problems the way back to Karfas. It looks like an invasion. Already a kilometer before the village there is no free spot and even the parking space next to our rooms is full except for one space for us. We have an aperitif on our balcony with ouzo, Mythos, have a bit of bread and our last nectarines. They are not as good as three days ago anymore. At 19:00 we need to fill up the car and have something to eat. We take the car to Mega Limonas and tank for 10 Euro. The gas station was already closed, but the friendly Greek, who just left the station, opened up again and gave us gas for 10 Euro. Great, thank you. Back in the centre we park the car and eat something at estiatorio Angira (The Anchor): calamari and shrimps saganaki with a bottle of Boutari retsina. It’s not the frozen calamari) rings, but clearly fresh and also the shrimps are great: tomato sauce with a little bit of feta: a good restaurant. After that we deliver the car, enjoy our retsina on the balcony and watch some TV and go to bed at 22:30. We sleep very well here, the beds are really comfortable. The Karfas Bay View Studios are a bit more expensive than we normally have in our budget, but this is all magnificent: a large kitchen, a big room and a balcony with sea view. Not a bad choice after all.

Day 10: Monday June 16, 2008: Chios town and to Piraeus

The day starts promising: the weather is great and we have a nice breakfast on our balcony with a view on a very calm sea. We perform all our actions very slowly and enjoy our last moments on Chios. We pay, ask for information about the ferries, the bus and start packing at about 10:00: almost the last time. We are happy we can leave Chios, because already from the first moment it was not our best choice. We watch some TV: BVN (The best of Flanders and The Netherlands) – Fata Morgana (damn this is a wrong choice J) and at 12:00 we want to take the bus. We have paid everything, brought our empty bottles back to the supermarket and we take the bus from 12:20 (at 12:40) to Chios-town. There we buy two tickets to Piraeus with cabin, because we want to have a good night of rest this time. There is only a luxury-cabin, so we have to take this one (140 Euro). We leave our luggage in a tourist shop and then walk through the city. Our first stop is the city park; there we sit down to rest a bit. Before this we had already eaten 2 pita kotopoulo and drank 2 Mythos at the harbor, so first some rest to get everything OK. We stay here for a while until two nutcases arrive. As from now we call this square the nutty square. We walk to the archeological museum and watch there, but as expected (it’s Monday) this is closed. In Chios there also is a kastro, but for the same reasons we don’t bother to go out there. We sit down on a bench at the southern part of the harbor and just look around. After an hour we’ve had it here, so we walk to the other side of the pier. On our way there we pass by an internet café. We stop here to send some mails home and also to Maarten_G of the Dutch diving forum to quickly provide some info about Lesvosscuba. After that we enjoy the view and the sun. We also see a harpoonfisher here in the water with a lot of waves. He doesn’t catch a thing. On our way back we see a boat arriving, Nissos Chios. On the quay we watch the business and the fuzz. When people have come off the ferry, cars are being loaded and about 20 trucks come off or are being driven in. because this happens on a very busy crossroad, arrangements are difficult and a lot of noise because of the horns. Coming and going of trucks and the harbor police tries to arrange everything. It rather quickly becomes an organized chaos. Within about 40 minutes everything is out what had to come off and has been loaded: a great view this is. We sit down on a terrace of an ouzeri and order tomatokeftedes, sardelles, choriatiki and a bottle of Kourtaki. The sardines and the fried tomatoes are really very, very good. It already is 20:00. We need to stay another hour here at the harbor and by then the Theofilos of Nel Lines will arrive, we think. We make a last stroll by the harbor and see the ferry arriving at 21:15. A boat of 150 meters long and 36 meter high; that is what you can call a ferry. We collect our luggage, get off the boat and we are being accompanied to our luxury-cabin. That is great: a couch, 2 bunk-beds, a shower with bathroom and a TV. Marvelous. We buy two ouzo at the bar, drink our last Varvagianni, watch TV and go to sleep at about 23:00. The ferry normally takes about until 07:00 in the morning, so hopefully we can get some rest.

Day 11: Tuesday June 17, 2008: Arrival Piraeus, explore Angistri

Indeed the boat has no delay and we have slept very well, much better than on the lousy seats when we departed 10 days ago. It’s a great move from us, a bit expensive, but we don’t have to pay a night at a hotel. We get off, wait for a bus to the central part of the harbor, arrange immediately the transit to Angistri (one hour) with the Flying Dolphin Zeus and have breakfast in the tavern next to Filoxenia: coffee with omelet (Timo) and a sandwich with cheese and ham (Eef). Quickly we also need to withdraw some money, because we’ve been told there is no ATM on Angistri and at 08:30 we take the boat to Angistri. The Flying Dolphin goes a lot faster than a normal ferry and sails in 40 minutes to Aegina. Then another 15 minutes and we are there. At first we have some trouble to find out where we exactly are, but we find out that we’re in the village of Milos (or Megalochori) and Linda and Patrik (call real quickly) in Skala, two kilometer down the road. We’ve just missed the bus and need to wait for the next one more than 1.5 hour. We don’t do this. We take our bags and walk the 2 kilometer in 20 minutes. It is unbelievably hot, already 30° C that early in the morning and it will get even hotter later the day: 38-39. We rest and Timo looks for a nice room to stay. Thirty Euro per night and we have a clean room and a balcony. A few moments rest and then unpack. We try to find some info to o diving, but there is no diving club here. The closest one is on Aegina. Tomorrow we will take the Angistri Express I to Aegina and look for the club. Now we walk to Milos to see when the boat leaves tomorrow: 10:00. There we drink two Mythos, 1.5 liter of water and come to the conclusion we are in a great place here: nice weather and a great view over the sea. We do our trip for the third time to Skala today; we buy a new mask for Timo and go to do a test immediately. Ola kala! We see the normal wrasses, damselfish and sea urchins and a fish that is always lying on the sand. Also on the sand are plenty of small crabs in shells. Then we return to our room and have an aperitif: ouzo and retsina with dolmadakia, heated in the small kitchen. Great. Timo wants to lie down for a few moments, later Eef too and it’s already 20:30 when we wake up. We make a short stroll to the harbor and we look for an estiatorio for dinner: miso kilo retsina, ksifia, choriatiki, and piperies gemistes. The peppers are stuffed with feta and then grilled, really tasteful. We drink a last one on our balcony and fall asleep like a Greek rock. Kalinichta!

Day 12: Wednesday June 18, 2008: Aegina

Time is already 08:30 when we get up, already three hours of a siesta yesterday and then still sleep that long, that’s astonishing. We have breakfast: coffee, bread and marmalade and cheese. We pack our small blue bag pack and walk to Milos. The boat only leaves here at 10:25 and was first at Skala at 10:15, so it was a bit stupid to come here. Fifteen minutes later we arrive on Aegina and buy water and ice tea. Timo takes some pictures from the colon here by the harbor and of the pistache trees. In 2003 we were here too, but then there was a problem with the digital camera and with the laptop. We have a frappe (sketo and metrio me gala) on the terrace of restaurant/hotel Avra. It’s nice to be here again. The smaller Vassilis is still working here, but the adult is not here, bad luck. We have to try and find a diving shop today, so that’s our next mission. We can’t locate the shop, but we receive a mobile phone number of someone who can arrange the dives. We first walk towards the yacht harbor to see if we see a boat for diving, but no. We do see Vassilis and he buys us 2 Mythos. We talk for a while, but he’s working here and it’s very busy, so we can’t talk long. We take a picture for proof and leave. Timo calls Christos to arrange the dives and he wants to meet tonight at 18:00. We are very curious what’s going to happen. It still is very hot; Eef waits in the shadow on the square until Timo has rented a scooter. That is done quickly and he picks up Eef after five minutes already. Timo did a short drive to test everything and then we leave. We immediately find the way to the monastery Agios Nektarios. We both cover our legs with a dirty skirt and enter. As always you need to be decently dressed to enter a monastery. The ceiling is being renovated and it still is hidden between scaffoldings, just the same as three years ago. There are beautiful icons here and some important people of the Greek clergy are buried here. It’s a beautiful church from architectural point of view from the outside and also on the inside. We drive to Afea, the famous temple and enter there to check everything out another time. This is one of the few sanctuaries for this goddess in Greece. The museum is closed in the meantime, we don’t know why. Everything is smoothly when we leave here after half an hour and find immediately the road to Agia Marina. There we stop a moment for lunch. Two Mythos with gigandes and tiri saganaki. We eat with view over the bay and we have to think how good it is here. We remember from the previous visit how great the view here at Kiriakakis was. It only takes us half an hour to return to Aegina town and return the scooter. Of course we received comments because the gas was low, but that will be because Timo has tried to cut the costs too much: from 15 to 12 Euros. Fill up the tank for only two Euro (Timo says three) was a little low. For this time it’s not the Greek people who make tourist pay. We stay in the shadow, because it still remains hot: our batteries get loaded very good and they are almost on overload. Yes! We are waiting for a call back from Christos and he calls at 17:58. Right on time. We arrange a meeting close to the beach of Aegina in the little park behind the beach. “I’m there in five minutes”, he says. After five minutes a Greek with long black hair arrives on a scooter. A beautiful guy you would say based on that, but he is about 25 kilogram too heavy for that. We arrange one dive tomorrow departure in Skala at 12:00; we will try to dive a bit longer then. He writes some data down and we talk some more. We give a deposit of 20 Euro and then go to find the boat back to Angistri. The Angistri Express leaves at 20:00, but the Flying Dolphin apparently goes faster. That’s what we read. On our ticket we see 21:20 instead of 17:10, so we return the ticket and get our money back. That means we will only leave to Angistri at 20:00. We stay here in the shadow and wait half an hour at the harbor until we can return to our island. The Angistri Express is perfectly on time and there are only three passengers here. The crossing to Aegina does not take long: ten to fifteen minutes and he moors in Skala. This is the last time it goes today, so it was really necessary we ha this connection, otherwise we still had to wait for 1.5 hours. We get off and don’t take the road along the sea, but cross the village. A small side-road and we arrive at our room. We end our day that came up to be very nice, on our balcony with on the background the sound of the match Hellas-Spain. We fall asleep at 23:00 and we don’t see the final result. Then it was 1-1. We’ll tomorrow what it was in the end. Tired but very happy we take off on our journey to the land of dreams.

Day 13: Thursday June 18, 2008: Dive and boot excursion – Limenaria

Timo is already awake at 07:00; he prepares some coffee and arranges some things. He also copies some of the pictures to the portable hard disk, writes the diary and enjoys the side sea view from the balcony. After a very hot day yesterday, it seems to be a bit less hot today, only 35° C. It also is only the second day we have clouds. We had a bit of rain when we arrived on Lesvos. On the balcony a swallow has made its nest. This is the common thing on this trip on all three islands: Lesvos, Chios and now Angistri nest hundreds of swallows. It’s great to watch them. Angistri is a green island. We noticed that especially when we arrived yesterday from Aegina. Between the dry islands Aegina and Moni (close to Perdika) there is a green oasis. No dry slopes, but green ones with small trees. This part of the island we will discover on Friday; we’ll see. That is also the day when Patrik and Linda will arrive. At 10:00 we receive a message that the dive is cancelled because the “diver has to go to Athens immediately”. Bad luck, but we had taken this into account: we had expected this. We quickly change our plans. After all the fuzz on Isla Margarita it’s no problem any longer to change our plans multiple times. We prepare our bag; buy some extra water to walk to Limenaria. No problem: only six kilometer. We take the normal road to Milos (not to coastal one) and then follow the only way there is to the village. The trees here are all every green, because it’s still early in the year: pines, spruces and olive trees. It is a marvelous walk and from time to time we catch a glimpse of the coast and it provides us with beautiful views. Half way down the road we see a little church and here a fire truck is waiting until they are notified of a fire nearby. That seems to be a cool job. We continue our walk and after 1.5 hour we arrive at Limenaria: two houses, 1 beautiful bay of Mariza, one tavern and one church and basically that’s it. At the tavern we have a choriatiki and galeos (cat shark; we did not know this upfront, because normally we would never do this), have some water and aspro krasi. We already had three liters of water on our way down here and we have sweated equally as much. It’s good we did not leave two hours later. We invent here in Limenaria a new sport: cricket spotting. You find an olive tree and the idea is to spot as quickly as possible and as much as possible crickets. Eef is not that good at this, but Timo is excellent at this. After the enjoyment of our game we wait by the church with the golden-yellow domes for the bus. At a bit after three the bus arrives and it only takes 15 minutes back to Skala. We get off and take all our gear for snorkeling. We see plenty of normal fish as always during snorkeling in Greece and suddenly Eef shouts: Dear, an octopuuuuuuuuuus! Timo swims towards her and can take a few pictures, because on this occasion he brought the underwater camera. That is unbelievably great, our first octopus on camera. We move on and less than two minutes later Eef shouts again: dear another octopuuuuuuuus! She saw two during the same snorkeling session. Very satisfied the cricketspotter and the octopusspotter return to their room, take a shower and clean all the gear. Eef had more difficulties spotting crickets, but at chtapodi-spotting she is the best. Very well done. We have an aperitif and Christos sends a message that the dive will not take place. A few messages back and forth he suggests to dive with us, but we don’t trust the situation any longer. This morning the diver could not come and now also tomorrow? We rather loose 20 Euro than worse things could happen. We want to keep it nice and we are having second thoughts; when we don’t feel a thousand percent at ease, we better not do it. We get the mail address from Christos and we will try to arrange everything through a banc transfer from Belgium. If it doesn’t work, a Greek will have 20 Euro more, but nothing bad has happened. Maybe he acted in good faith, but we’ll see about that in Belgium. He had never requested our certification, so maybe that was not a good idea anyway. His last message: I am sorry too. Is nothing I can do about this. He is the only diver on the island and can’t make it. Here is my e-mail: cobramilos@aig.forthnet.gr. If you let me know the exact time and boat you are living maybe I can come to give you your money so you don’t have to arrange all that from Belgium. Sorry again. Regards Christos. We’ll see what we will do. Now we will go to eat something. We look for another restaurant today and have shrimps saganaki, chorta, domadokeftedes. We like it a lot and have some water and aspro krasi with it. We are rather tired of the efforts of the day and go to be at 23:30. Tomorrow is another day doing nothing and rest and relax and enjoy fully our presence here in Greece.

Day 14: Friday June 20, 2008: Angistri

Timo is up already at 07:00 in the morning. He has a cold and has had a bad night of rest and as a consequence also Eef did not sleep well. He sits on the terrace for a while and then goes out for groceries. He tries to give Eef a chance to get some more sleep. He prepares breakfast and at 11:00 he goes for a walk; Eef stays in bed for the time being. He walks to Metochi; a village up the mountain for half a kilometer. He ensures he has water with him, because it’s hot and steep. At the church he stops for a few moments in the shadow of an old tamarisk. He has a magnificent view on Skala and Milos. Further behind a brown rock is Aegina. You can see the huge ferries coming and going from here. He walks through the village and arrives on the coastal road between Skala and Milos. The walk with all stops has taken 1.5 hours and when he gets back home, Eef is also awake. We eat and drink and don’t do much. We play a word game in Greek. One makes a Greek sentence and the other one needs to guess letters and indicate them on the dots for each letter, word. We try to solve a crossword puzzle too. At 15:00 we go snorkeling, but the view is much worse than yesterday. There was a lot of wind the whole night, so there are many particles floating in the sea. Maybe a good thing we are not diving today, Timo has trouble breathing because of his cold and he has a headache. After snorkeling we have an aperitif and then Linda calls they will be arriving with the Angistri Express of 20:00. We drink for another hours and then create a warm welcome: a sign with Kalos Ilthate (welcome) and two Mythos. We go to the harbor at 19:55 and already see the boat at 20:05 coming from Aegina. Great. The last persons to get off are Linda and Patrik and they are very happy with the nice welcome. Of course we’re happy too to see them. We walk to their room and will meet each other at the tavern of their hotel: Akteion. We have ouzo, lamb chops and a mix of mezedes for four: dolmadakia, octopus, feta, cucumber, tomato, kolokitokeftedes, cheese balls. We like it very very much. After a nice evening we have to check out their room and see they have for 30 Euro a luxury room with Jacuzzi. When we ever return here, we need to stay here then. We watch Croatia-Turkey quarter final of Euro2008) and the Turks win after penalties, against our will. Fuck. At 01:00 we sleep.

Day 15: Saturday June 21, 2008: Departure and terrace-day

Our last day here in Greek territory starts with a breakfast on our balcony: bread, cheese, marmalade and coffee. In the sun we take in some more sun and warmth. Before we pack everything we go to Patrik and Linda, we talk a while and drink four frappe: two sketo and two metrio. We like it a lot and we have a nice view on the beautiful white church with the bright blue dome. Also the harbor here is very beautiful. Now there are many people, but especially Greeks and little tourists. The holiday season in Greece has just started. At about 11:00 we start our big clean and pack-action of all our stuff. After one hour we’re done. Just as we are leaving the room, Patrik and Linda come in to see our place: less luxurious then theirs, but nothing more than what we need. We pay everything and give the chocolates and as a memory they give us two pens and a book about Angistri. Kalo kalokeiri: a nice summer and immediately also Kalo Chimona: a good winter. Bye. We then sit down for the second terrace today with two aspro krasi, tiri saganaki, chtapodi psito, small Greek fishes, and domadokeftedes. And again we like it – what would you expect. At a few minutes before two we collect our luggage and take the bus from Skala to Milos: we are not going to do the distance with bags and luggage in this heat. Patrik and Linda join us to say goodbye, but first we drink something in Milos: two Mythos and one frappe. We see at about 14:30 the Flying Dolphin arriving from Aegina. We empty our drinks and walk siga-siga to the end of the pier. Well, Angistri, Patrik and Linda, bye and see you next time. We wave goodbye on the small deck of the boat, we quickly brush away a tear and the boat leaves perfectly on time and less than an hour later we’re already in Piraeus. We have plenty of time, so we have another drink on a terrace here. In about 3.5 hours we have 4 Mythos and eat two pita kotopoulo. At 18:00 we take the bus from Piraeus to the airport and after one hour we’re there. Check in quickly, there are only two couples before us, so everything goes fast. We now in the end enjoy really our last portion of Greek sun, we change in the toilet (yes, Eef too) and then go shopping: 4 ouzo Plomari, 2 Metaxa (7 stars) and some cigarettes for a colleague of Eef. On our boarding pass it says to board at 20:05, but it’s only 20:40 when the plane arrives. In about 30 minutes all is done, so we can fly at 21:20. Then we fly for about 3 hours and 15 minutes to Zaventem and then we’ve had yet another vacation. A good start on Lesvos, a less positive intermezzo on Chios and a magnificent close on Angistri.