So, being all moved up to Blackpool and with some extra time on my hands until university starts up once more (8 days now - yes I'm counting), I've taken back to reading, and gotten quite back into the flow of things. In the past three days I've polished off the final three of Nathan Long's brilliant continuance of the Gotrek and Felix series, and I've loved them! I'm ashamed to say it took me so long to get around to them - they were a Christmas present from Katie - but I'd forgotten just how good they were!
Now that they're finished however, I have five omnibus' left on my shelves in the 'to read' pile. The Grey Knights, by Ben Counter, Thunder and Steel, by Dan Abnett, The Lost Gaunts Ghosts, by the very same, Brunner, by C. L. Werner, and Dwarfs, by various. Whilst the Lost isn't necessarily a new to-read item, I did re-read the previous two arcs last month, and want to continue through at least to the end of the third arc before giving up completely.
Anyway, having had so much enjoyment from Ben Counter's Soul Drinkers omnibus (I'll wait for the omnibus to get through the third-sixth volumes), and as I'm aiming to read The Emperor's Gift by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (another Grey Knights novel), I've decided to give the Grey Knight's pole position. Dwarfs will likely come next as, despite thoroughly enjoying the Red Duke by C. L. Werner, which I believe may be the only novel I've read of his (and I intend to read the Grey Seer Thanquol omnibus and Dead Winter when they are both respectfully released), I have a taste for the smaller folk from Gotrek & Felix.
I aim to delve through these five tomes within the next week, as not only do I go to university soon, but I'll also be getting my loan through, meaning more books will be attainable for me, and I'll be attending Games Day, meaning that up to December's Black Library releases will be available on pre-release (which is always a plus!). From this selection I intend to gather Fear To Tread, the latest Horus Heresy by James Swallow, Path of the Outcast, the last of the Eldar Path trilogy by Gav Thorpe, Shadows of Treachery, a Horus Heresy compilation, Pariah, the first of the third trilogy of Inquisition novels by Dan Abnett (HIGHLY anticipated), and Garro: Sword of Truth, another Horus Heresy also by James Swallow. I may add The Great Betrayal to that list, by Nick Kyme, depending how my reading of Dwarfs goes; as he is the main contributing author there.
Amongst titles already out by Black Library, I would like to get The Emperor's Gift, as previously mention, by ADB, Wrath of Iron by Chris Wraight, Angel of Fire by William King (though that may wait until a paperback volume), The second Blood Angels omnibus by James Swallow, and the Thorn and Talon CD, which as it didn't arrive at Games Day last year, I didn't have the opportunity to buy.
Yesterday, I visited the local library with my family, and it has spurred me to branch out from Black Library, more so than I already do. Having seen some of the awesome covers via Jon Sullivan's facebook page, I intend to try some of Neil Nasher's Sci-fi work, alongside Laurel K Hamilton's Anita Blake novels. Whilst I read most of the series last year before I shipped out to university, I got to around four novels from the end of the series (currend end, I may point out), and didn't have the funds to continue. So, now it remains to be seen whether I try to start the whole series over, or start from a few novels back from where I tapered out.
I also have an urge to return to some of my reading roots; namely crime novels. James Patterson's Women's Murder Club played a heavy part in my reading life a few years back, as did His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Quadrilogy. So I intend to revisit these gems sometime in the new year, maybe before if possible. I would also like to try and track down Graham Mcneill's Ambassador's Chronicles - the first two books I ever read of Black Library. The Lord of the Rings, Dan Brown's Angels & Daemons trilogy and the other two of his make, and the Harry Potter books all call out for re-readings. I'm also interested in trying out Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant, which just form the title sounds interesting.
Both the Hunger Games second and third books, and George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series call out for continuation (in fact I've only read the first of the seven Game of Thrones books...despite owning the first three!). Not to mention a host of Forensic Science book's I've earmarked on the UCLan library website to supplement my studies (and in some cases form the study themselves!). As such I've decided to construct a reading list, much in the style of my friend Abhinav (http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/reading-list/), and hopefully he'll forgive me for the thievery! Come the week I begin university, I'll start it up (as hopefully by then I'll have finished these five omnibus' and can start afresh), and update it with more books to read as they come into my mind/sight!
I think I've taken up enough of your time right now, so see you next time!
Friday 31 August 2012
Thursday 30 August 2012
Kefalonia - Part Eight
Sunday 29th July
Happy Birthday Jack! 8 today eh, and boy does time fly! It seems like only yesterday we arrived here on the island, and now everything we own is packed into suitcases and ready to leave once more! I've been down into town one last time for supplies - two small bottles of water and pastries for both of us! Not long after that we were sat on the sea wall at the bottom of the drive, waiting for our transfer to the airport. Wildlife was aplenty once more - a tiny lizard appeared on the wall next to my knee, and in the wake of a large yacht I spotted some large marine animal - be it seal, turtle or dolphin, unfortunately we couldn't tell before it disappeared!
Upon loading our luggage into the coach's hold, we were informed by the rep that the flight had been delayed by an hour! On top of this news, when we arrived at the check-in desk, there was a long hold up as they struggled to check our baggage allowances! Really, that kind of thing should be on an easily-accessed system! Never-the-less, we managed to get our bags accepted (a good 5kg under our allowance) and get through passport control. Sadly, the passport officer refused a stamp for Katie's first proper holiday abroad.
After 1:45pm we boarded the plane, a full hour after we were meant to have taken off. Such is life! Soon though we were in the air, bidding goodbye to the lovely island of Kefalonia. Waiting on another delicious in-flight meal, we purchased headphones and settled in to watch a promising film, "We Bought A Zoo", headlining Matt Damon and Scarlet Johannsen. Given a choice of beef with dumplings or roast chicken, we both went for the latter, though no doubt the first would have been tasty. A little bit of broccoli, some carrot, one mini sausage, a ball of stuffing, some roast spuds and a lovingly moist piece of chicken later, and I have to say, Mr. Martin sure knows food!
To complete the in-flight meal the warm lunch was accompanied by a roll with butter, a slightly bitter (but still tasty) orange marmalade pudding, a small pack of crackers and a slice of mature cheddar, desserted by a tiny square of flavoursome chocolate. To do away with the fancy words - yum! Soon after the film ended: We Bought A Zoo is quite a nice film - very warm-hearted and funny, a very feel-good family film. All in all a great way to pass two hours! Katie and I estimated that we were over France by now, at the very least mainland Europe, as during the movie we were able to spy the alps poking through the cloud cover below off to one side of the plane.
Well, we landed back home in England at 3:45, dead on time according to the pilot, and wearily disembarked. After a fair wait for the suitcases and a brief stop at the toilets, we emerged from arrivals to Mum, Grandma and Jack waiting for us. Before we knew it, we were piled into Grandma's car and off back to Coventry, staring out of the windows in wild wonder at the mass of clouds, so unused to them as we were! Not much else of note followed that day, besides handing out holiday gifts, and so here my account of our holiday comes to a close. Katie's first foray on an airplane, what may well be the last excursion on Jamie's trip that I have, a gorgeous array of food and a host of delightful vistas, will all linger in our memories for a lifetime. Thank-you Kefalonia!
Happy Birthday Jack! 8 today eh, and boy does time fly! It seems like only yesterday we arrived here on the island, and now everything we own is packed into suitcases and ready to leave once more! I've been down into town one last time for supplies - two small bottles of water and pastries for both of us! Not long after that we were sat on the sea wall at the bottom of the drive, waiting for our transfer to the airport. Wildlife was aplenty once more - a tiny lizard appeared on the wall next to my knee, and in the wake of a large yacht I spotted some large marine animal - be it seal, turtle or dolphin, unfortunately we couldn't tell before it disappeared!
Upon loading our luggage into the coach's hold, we were informed by the rep that the flight had been delayed by an hour! On top of this news, when we arrived at the check-in desk, there was a long hold up as they struggled to check our baggage allowances! Really, that kind of thing should be on an easily-accessed system! Never-the-less, we managed to get our bags accepted (a good 5kg under our allowance) and get through passport control. Sadly, the passport officer refused a stamp for Katie's first proper holiday abroad.
After 1:45pm we boarded the plane, a full hour after we were meant to have taken off. Such is life! Soon though we were in the air, bidding goodbye to the lovely island of Kefalonia. Waiting on another delicious in-flight meal, we purchased headphones and settled in to watch a promising film, "We Bought A Zoo", headlining Matt Damon and Scarlet Johannsen. Given a choice of beef with dumplings or roast chicken, we both went for the latter, though no doubt the first would have been tasty. A little bit of broccoli, some carrot, one mini sausage, a ball of stuffing, some roast spuds and a lovingly moist piece of chicken later, and I have to say, Mr. Martin sure knows food!
To complete the in-flight meal the warm lunch was accompanied by a roll with butter, a slightly bitter (but still tasty) orange marmalade pudding, a small pack of crackers and a slice of mature cheddar, desserted by a tiny square of flavoursome chocolate. To do away with the fancy words - yum! Soon after the film ended: We Bought A Zoo is quite a nice film - very warm-hearted and funny, a very feel-good family film. All in all a great way to pass two hours! Katie and I estimated that we were over France by now, at the very least mainland Europe, as during the movie we were able to spy the alps poking through the cloud cover below off to one side of the plane.
Well, we landed back home in England at 3:45, dead on time according to the pilot, and wearily disembarked. After a fair wait for the suitcases and a brief stop at the toilets, we emerged from arrivals to Mum, Grandma and Jack waiting for us. Before we knew it, we were piled into Grandma's car and off back to Coventry, staring out of the windows in wild wonder at the mass of clouds, so unused to them as we were! Not much else of note followed that day, besides handing out holiday gifts, and so here my account of our holiday comes to a close. Katie's first foray on an airplane, what may well be the last excursion on Jamie's trip that I have, a gorgeous array of food and a host of delightful vistas, will all linger in our memories for a lifetime. Thank-you Kefalonia!
Thursday 23 August 2012
Updates!
So I haven't blogged for a while, for over two weeks in fact, but this is entirely not my fault. For once. The Wednesday, Thursday, Friday following my last blog day was spent busily doing things with Grandma at hers, and the Saturday was my birthday (the 11th!). I was 23, and gained the new Warhammer 40k rulebook and templates, a DS Lite, Pokemon Soul Silver, a giant Queen memorabilia and history book, some nice monies and clothes and a trip to watch the Women's Basketball Semi-Final at the O2 arena, oops I mean the "North Greenwich Arena". The atmosphere was amazing, and made me wish whole-heartedly that I'd gotten tickets for more events, despite the cost! Anyway, soon following this we were back in Coventry (the very next day, in fact), where the internet was no longer running. Therefore explaining the lack of posts recently.
So, now we're moved up into an apartment in Blackpool for the time being, whilst we search for a house - its a beautiful place, seafront and huge! It's not long before I'll be heading off to my induction day for uni (10th September), and Katie will be starting work! She's got a six-month contract at the same place my step-dad works, which will be nice for some money-saving! For now, however, we are concentrating on exercising lots, and eating healthily (slimming world to the max at the moment), whilst making the most of our downtime before we get thrown headlong into working once more.
For now, I will be finishing off the Holiday diary (only one more part left to write up *sadface*), working on army lists for my hobby, and reading! Currently on Elfslayer by Nathan Long, a Gotrek and Felix novel, and am thoroughly enjoying it!
So, now we're moved up into an apartment in Blackpool for the time being, whilst we search for a house - its a beautiful place, seafront and huge! It's not long before I'll be heading off to my induction day for uni (10th September), and Katie will be starting work! She's got a six-month contract at the same place my step-dad works, which will be nice for some money-saving! For now, however, we are concentrating on exercising lots, and eating healthily (slimming world to the max at the moment), whilst making the most of our downtime before we get thrown headlong into working once more.
For now, I will be finishing off the Holiday diary (only one more part left to write up *sadface*), working on army lists for my hobby, and reading! Currently on Elfslayer by Nathan Long, a Gotrek and Felix novel, and am thoroughly enjoying it!
Thursday 9 August 2012
The Fallen Princes Competition!
To win an awesome prize of a signed set of all there of Gav Thorpe's Crown of Blood trilogy, just go over here
http://thefallenprinces.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/crown-of-blood-trilogy-competition.html?showComment=1344505885153#c619044573013878019
and follow the instructions! Simple!
http://thefallenprinces.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/crown-of-blood-trilogy-competition.html?showComment=1344505885153#c619044573013878019
and follow the instructions! Simple!
Tuesday 7 August 2012
Dreaming of the Subconscious
There are dreams and there are dreams; one, an aspiration that you strive to achieve at some point in your life. It could be big or small, vastly far-fetched or something easily achievable. The other is the illogical gatherings of your subconscious, portrayed to most through a variable and often undecipherable format whilst we sleep. In this blog, I'd like to discuss the latter.
It started with a dream I had this night just past, I cannot recall it anymore, only the sensation, that it was completely wrong in so many ways from any possible reality that may have been similar, remains. As so often is the way of dreams, they linger for a few moments in that half-sleep we experience when awoken from them, but details soon seem to drain away back into our subconscious. Some points stick around longer, and some whole dreams occasionally embed themselves into our waking memory.
I myself have several dreams I can recall that have reoccurred several times in my life; one involves a small country farmhouse where my family and I are attempting to seal the windows and doors from a pack of raptors, another features wolves outside my first house's bedroom window and a third revolves around an odd house that I've never seen before, with a giant pirate ship moored in the lake behind it. Needless to say I've never been on a pirate ship, but it's a wonder where these images comes from.
Is it random things from my imagination that are dredged up in the depths of sleep? Or is it relatively ancient memories that are lost to me (there may have been a pirate ship or giant mansion in a childrens program that I've since forgotten, for example). Is it influenced by the food we eat or by the mood we in when we go to sleep? Maybe it's altered by the thoughts we entertain just before bed, or barely audible sounds that our brain doesn't consciously register at night? Could it be smells that interfere with our dreams or temperature of your body as you sleep? Who knows, surely not me.
This all leads me to ask the relevant next question, what is your subconscious? The first website I find upon asking this question for google states that "The subconscious mind stores all of your previous life experiences, your beliefs, your memories, your skills, all situations you've been through and all images you've ever seen." Now, whilst I accept some of this at face value, I'm inclined to believe that my beliefs aren't determined by my subconscious...I like to think I decide what I believe and what not to believe. When given the god question I don't really have an answer of much merit either way. According to this same website, the subconscious is the minds autopilot, which rings true again, because your bodily functions continue without conscious thought, and there are some reactions so ingrained that you have almost no control over them unless you think hard about them before they happen.
I don't think there is really a point to this blog, as there is no definitive answer to what it is and what controls our dreams. I just thought I'd highlight some key things I thought of this morning. I may attempt to keep a dream diary, and write down connotations like what I had to eat beforehand and what I can remember thinking about before bed (if possible), and see where it leads me. But otherwise, I shall at least continue to ponder the question of dreams.
It started with a dream I had this night just past, I cannot recall it anymore, only the sensation, that it was completely wrong in so many ways from any possible reality that may have been similar, remains. As so often is the way of dreams, they linger for a few moments in that half-sleep we experience when awoken from them, but details soon seem to drain away back into our subconscious. Some points stick around longer, and some whole dreams occasionally embed themselves into our waking memory.
I myself have several dreams I can recall that have reoccurred several times in my life; one involves a small country farmhouse where my family and I are attempting to seal the windows and doors from a pack of raptors, another features wolves outside my first house's bedroom window and a third revolves around an odd house that I've never seen before, with a giant pirate ship moored in the lake behind it. Needless to say I've never been on a pirate ship, but it's a wonder where these images comes from.
Is it random things from my imagination that are dredged up in the depths of sleep? Or is it relatively ancient memories that are lost to me (there may have been a pirate ship or giant mansion in a childrens program that I've since forgotten, for example). Is it influenced by the food we eat or by the mood we in when we go to sleep? Maybe it's altered by the thoughts we entertain just before bed, or barely audible sounds that our brain doesn't consciously register at night? Could it be smells that interfere with our dreams or temperature of your body as you sleep? Who knows, surely not me.
This all leads me to ask the relevant next question, what is your subconscious? The first website I find upon asking this question for google states that "The subconscious mind stores all of your previous life experiences, your beliefs, your memories, your skills, all situations you've been through and all images you've ever seen." Now, whilst I accept some of this at face value, I'm inclined to believe that my beliefs aren't determined by my subconscious...I like to think I decide what I believe and what not to believe. When given the god question I don't really have an answer of much merit either way. According to this same website, the subconscious is the minds autopilot, which rings true again, because your bodily functions continue without conscious thought, and there are some reactions so ingrained that you have almost no control over them unless you think hard about them before they happen.
I don't think there is really a point to this blog, as there is no definitive answer to what it is and what controls our dreams. I just thought I'd highlight some key things I thought of this morning. I may attempt to keep a dream diary, and write down connotations like what I had to eat beforehand and what I can remember thinking about before bed (if possible), and see where it leads me. But otherwise, I shall at least continue to ponder the question of dreams.
Kefalonia - Part Seven
Wednesday 25th
Following what had to have been the worst night's sleep yet, we relaxed, expecting the car pick-up to arrive at any minute (the man who delivered it had said about 0900). At 1430, I rang the Avis Kefalonia office and was told, mighty helpfully, 'maybe they'll pick it up this afternoon'. Well, given as it's past noon, I'd hope so! Ignoring the obvious lack of aid from the Avis call operator, we went for a dip in the sea, covered for the first time in factor 30! The water was lovely and cool in the afternoon heat, and we lounged just outside the bay for the first time, in the wind-chopped surface waters. Unfortunately for me, clearly 30 isn't enough protection - my skin began to peel in a thin band across my shoulders post-swim. We'll have to see if I can dredge any more out of the 50 bottle, and shore up the damage with a hefty dose of after-sun.
Refreshed from our swim, we meandered into town and perused the souvenir shops for gifts before heading to our chosen restaurant of the evening - the Taverna 'To Perasma'. All the reviews on trip advisor were true - the food there is wonderful. I sampled a truly different starter this time ; Skordalia, which is pureed potato (like mash but, more in the style of a thick soup) laden with garlic. Katie didn't enjoy the richness of this dish, which was fine with me - I enjoyed the entirety of it. For mains we both tried new things; chicken from the spit for madam, whilst sir chose Chicken Schnitzel. Both meats were deliciously moist, and mine was accompanied by the sweetest and tastiest mustard sauce ever (it was laden with honey). Post-dinner we back-tracked further into town to purchase tomorrow's snacks from the bakery, and an ice cream each from the supermarket (really a corner shop). Back at base, we discover the source of the load Oasis music we awoke to this morning - our new neighbours. Hopefully they won't keep us up tonight, I could do with some sleep!
Thursday 26th
Not much to report today; we ate lunch at the cafe F'iore D'amore and did a little further shop-browsing. One shop keeper gifted me with a Greek-style pen holder, in the shape of a cross-section of an Athenian Greek temple. Georgia, the keep, told us that its an antique - she's had it in the shop for nigh on eight years, and had resolved to give it to someone who was interested in it. I had originally picked it up and examined it when we first entered the shop, so we were given it to take home, after she made us promise to remember her. It just about made our day, and reminded that, despite their driving habits, Greeks are some of the loveliest people you'll ever meet. This evening we were surprised to find Kioni, our hire car, back in the parking lot outside the apartments. Unless she's haunting us, or pining for us to use her once more, someone else must have been given the pleasure. If I find out who, I'll warn them about inclines and third gear!
We returned to the Odyssey hotel tonight, as we had promised Karen. Katie dined on an Armenian Mezes followed by Spetsofai (eggplant wrapped in bacon followed by Greek sausage and pepper in a spicy wine sauce), whilst I had a familiar Pocket Feta, rounded off with a saliva-inducing Spaghetti Bolognese. We were slightly restless afterward, so once we'd said our goodbyes to Karen, we ambled into town to buy an ice cream, enjoying the pre-penultimate night air. It's going to be interesting returning to the UK after staying here; everything is pretty damn-near perfect. Ah well, those worries are for Sunday afternoon, for now, I'll enjoy our little slice of heaven.
Friday 27th
Another slow, relaxed day - making the most of the time we have left. Following some sunbathing on the terrace (on Katie's part; my part was to read, of course), we took a jaunt into town for lunch. We both had Pitta Club's, which were gorgeous and very filling! After a little rest and a cool down in the apartment (it's quite a task walking up that steep drive in this heat you know!). we went for a dip. I used some of the spf 50 dregs on my shoulders as some form of protection (which didn't work - what healed is now slightly peely again; hopefully aftersun to the rescue), and we took our snorkelling gear. We took a route right form the beach this time, to make a change, but found nothing of any note bar the seabed, so pursued our usual path out of the bay, hugging the rocky coast. In the typical law of the universe, we used the last few shots of our underwater disposable camera just before we saw the bigger and impressively-coloured/patterned fish, but we can hope our precious few pics are good enough (they'll have to be!).
As promised, this evening I treated Katie to dinner at the primary seafood restaurant here in Agia Efimia - Poseidon. I had meatballs for starters, of which nine turned up(!), all of which were succulent balls of perfection. Katie had a stuffed pepper, followed by the peace de resistance; Fishermans Spaghetti. This was the long stringy pasta (obviously), accompanied by mussels, squid, octopus and shrimp, topped off by two king prawns, all in a tomato-based sauce. I sampled the cheese and bacon-stuffed chicken breast. Uninspired, as it was s seafood restaurant, I know, but then I'm not that big a seafood lover; I prefer to observe marine life, not eat it!
We mooched along the front after tea, nosing at the boats as has become our nightly way, admiring the two new additions to the port (or, more correctly bay, as they were too large to fit into the marina); one large, two-sailed ship, complete with rigging and a fine-blue lacquered finish. The other a crisp white, multistory luxury yacht with a full waiting staff and crew, dressed up to the nines in their spiffy white uniforms. It's alright for some! Stopping off at the bakery for breakfast supplies, the charming baker-lady whom we've come to know gifted us with two fresh cookies for, as she put it, "her long customers". So it was with bellies full and spirits high we returned to the apartment to face our last day here in Greece, and the penultimate evening draws to a close.
Saturday 28th
This morning was spent in a duel-role; we packed our suitcases (as much as possible at the time) and sunbathed on the terrace. Between which we feasted on ice creams and pastries (and a beer, in Katie's case) - if you can't do it on holiday then when can you, eh? As midday approached we returned to our lunchtime haunt of yesterday and had another double dose of Pita Clubs, whilst watching some of the first Olympic events; of particular note were our swimmers, who we were heartened to see at least one doing well. It was an odd experience, for once the roles reversed; in a foreign country watching the Olympics taking place back home in England! It soon became apparent on our walk home that today was hotter than most (we found out afterward it had topped off at 39 degrees C at the hottest point). Dilly-dallying until late afternoon to avoid the worst of it, we went for our last swim at about 1630. Floating about performing the occasional somersault, back flip or barrel roll, we wiled away the time and, after an adventurous swim to see how far out of the bay we could swim (which was quite a distance, and seemed longer upon turning to swim back against the tide and wind), we trudged back up the hill to the apartment.
Today, not only being the hottest we'd had yet, was also a day for wildlife! On the apartment driveway Katie (A.K.A. eagle-eyes) spotted a tiny lizard scuttling along. Just as we left for dinner that evening, we noticed a preying mantis crouched in one of the snorkeling masks! These are the main two alongside the plethora of dogs, cats, wasps and fish that we encountered here everyday. Finishing off our holiday as we started it, in Spiros, I enjoyed a Mezes starter followed by a Kefalonian Meat Pie (so finishing EXACTLY how I had begun). Katie had a Saganaki Shrimp (shrimp and feta in a tomato sauce) and a green Mediterranean salad. Finally, unable to put it off any longer we returned to Myrto for the final time, pausing only once along the way for me to scatter low-value cents into the swimming bay for snorkeling kids (or adults) to find. An early start in the morning, and a long day, so time for a (relatively) early final night.
Following what had to have been the worst night's sleep yet, we relaxed, expecting the car pick-up to arrive at any minute (the man who delivered it had said about 0900). At 1430, I rang the Avis Kefalonia office and was told, mighty helpfully, 'maybe they'll pick it up this afternoon'. Well, given as it's past noon, I'd hope so! Ignoring the obvious lack of aid from the Avis call operator, we went for a dip in the sea, covered for the first time in factor 30! The water was lovely and cool in the afternoon heat, and we lounged just outside the bay for the first time, in the wind-chopped surface waters. Unfortunately for me, clearly 30 isn't enough protection - my skin began to peel in a thin band across my shoulders post-swim. We'll have to see if I can dredge any more out of the 50 bottle, and shore up the damage with a hefty dose of after-sun.
Refreshed from our swim, we meandered into town and perused the souvenir shops for gifts before heading to our chosen restaurant of the evening - the Taverna 'To Perasma'. All the reviews on trip advisor were true - the food there is wonderful. I sampled a truly different starter this time ; Skordalia, which is pureed potato (like mash but, more in the style of a thick soup) laden with garlic. Katie didn't enjoy the richness of this dish, which was fine with me - I enjoyed the entirety of it. For mains we both tried new things; chicken from the spit for madam, whilst sir chose Chicken Schnitzel. Both meats were deliciously moist, and mine was accompanied by the sweetest and tastiest mustard sauce ever (it was laden with honey). Post-dinner we back-tracked further into town to purchase tomorrow's snacks from the bakery, and an ice cream each from the supermarket (really a corner shop). Back at base, we discover the source of the load Oasis music we awoke to this morning - our new neighbours. Hopefully they won't keep us up tonight, I could do with some sleep!
Thursday 26th
Not much to report today; we ate lunch at the cafe F'iore D'amore and did a little further shop-browsing. One shop keeper gifted me with a Greek-style pen holder, in the shape of a cross-section of an Athenian Greek temple. Georgia, the keep, told us that its an antique - she's had it in the shop for nigh on eight years, and had resolved to give it to someone who was interested in it. I had originally picked it up and examined it when we first entered the shop, so we were given it to take home, after she made us promise to remember her. It just about made our day, and reminded that, despite their driving habits, Greeks are some of the loveliest people you'll ever meet. This evening we were surprised to find Kioni, our hire car, back in the parking lot outside the apartments. Unless she's haunting us, or pining for us to use her once more, someone else must have been given the pleasure. If I find out who, I'll warn them about inclines and third gear!
We returned to the Odyssey hotel tonight, as we had promised Karen. Katie dined on an Armenian Mezes followed by Spetsofai (eggplant wrapped in bacon followed by Greek sausage and pepper in a spicy wine sauce), whilst I had a familiar Pocket Feta, rounded off with a saliva-inducing Spaghetti Bolognese. We were slightly restless afterward, so once we'd said our goodbyes to Karen, we ambled into town to buy an ice cream, enjoying the pre-penultimate night air. It's going to be interesting returning to the UK after staying here; everything is pretty damn-near perfect. Ah well, those worries are for Sunday afternoon, for now, I'll enjoy our little slice of heaven.
Friday 27th
Another slow, relaxed day - making the most of the time we have left. Following some sunbathing on the terrace (on Katie's part; my part was to read, of course), we took a jaunt into town for lunch. We both had Pitta Club's, which were gorgeous and very filling! After a little rest and a cool down in the apartment (it's quite a task walking up that steep drive in this heat you know!). we went for a dip. I used some of the spf 50 dregs on my shoulders as some form of protection (which didn't work - what healed is now slightly peely again; hopefully aftersun to the rescue), and we took our snorkelling gear. We took a route right form the beach this time, to make a change, but found nothing of any note bar the seabed, so pursued our usual path out of the bay, hugging the rocky coast. In the typical law of the universe, we used the last few shots of our underwater disposable camera just before we saw the bigger and impressively-coloured/patterned fish, but we can hope our precious few pics are good enough (they'll have to be!).
As promised, this evening I treated Katie to dinner at the primary seafood restaurant here in Agia Efimia - Poseidon. I had meatballs for starters, of which nine turned up(!), all of which were succulent balls of perfection. Katie had a stuffed pepper, followed by the peace de resistance; Fishermans Spaghetti. This was the long stringy pasta (obviously), accompanied by mussels, squid, octopus and shrimp, topped off by two king prawns, all in a tomato-based sauce. I sampled the cheese and bacon-stuffed chicken breast. Uninspired, as it was s seafood restaurant, I know, but then I'm not that big a seafood lover; I prefer to observe marine life, not eat it!
We mooched along the front after tea, nosing at the boats as has become our nightly way, admiring the two new additions to the port (or, more correctly bay, as they were too large to fit into the marina); one large, two-sailed ship, complete with rigging and a fine-blue lacquered finish. The other a crisp white, multistory luxury yacht with a full waiting staff and crew, dressed up to the nines in their spiffy white uniforms. It's alright for some! Stopping off at the bakery for breakfast supplies, the charming baker-lady whom we've come to know gifted us with two fresh cookies for, as she put it, "her long customers". So it was with bellies full and spirits high we returned to the apartment to face our last day here in Greece, and the penultimate evening draws to a close.
Saturday 28th
This morning was spent in a duel-role; we packed our suitcases (as much as possible at the time) and sunbathed on the terrace. Between which we feasted on ice creams and pastries (and a beer, in Katie's case) - if you can't do it on holiday then when can you, eh? As midday approached we returned to our lunchtime haunt of yesterday and had another double dose of Pita Clubs, whilst watching some of the first Olympic events; of particular note were our swimmers, who we were heartened to see at least one doing well. It was an odd experience, for once the roles reversed; in a foreign country watching the Olympics taking place back home in England! It soon became apparent on our walk home that today was hotter than most (we found out afterward it had topped off at 39 degrees C at the hottest point). Dilly-dallying until late afternoon to avoid the worst of it, we went for our last swim at about 1630. Floating about performing the occasional somersault, back flip or barrel roll, we wiled away the time and, after an adventurous swim to see how far out of the bay we could swim (which was quite a distance, and seemed longer upon turning to swim back against the tide and wind), we trudged back up the hill to the apartment.
Today, not only being the hottest we'd had yet, was also a day for wildlife! On the apartment driveway Katie (A.K.A. eagle-eyes) spotted a tiny lizard scuttling along. Just as we left for dinner that evening, we noticed a preying mantis crouched in one of the snorkeling masks! These are the main two alongside the plethora of dogs, cats, wasps and fish that we encountered here everyday. Finishing off our holiday as we started it, in Spiros, I enjoyed a Mezes starter followed by a Kefalonian Meat Pie (so finishing EXACTLY how I had begun). Katie had a Saganaki Shrimp (shrimp and feta in a tomato sauce) and a green Mediterranean salad. Finally, unable to put it off any longer we returned to Myrto for the final time, pausing only once along the way for me to scatter low-value cents into the swimming bay for snorkeling kids (or adults) to find. An early start in the morning, and a long day, so time for a (relatively) early final night.
Kefalonia - Part Six
Tuesday 24th
Huzzah! Katie's feeling better. After an unbroken night's sleep, we take the morning easy, reading and eating paine au chocolates until about 1100. Armed with our trusty map, an ice cream (for Katie), the camera, some euros and Kioni, we followed the bay around Agia Efimia, and out towards Sami. As the last day we have the car, let me just say that, flaw's aside, she's an economic little trooper. Given that we started the day between a quarter a tank of petrol and empty, and only added twenty euros (nudging the needle to just over halfway), and the amount of driving we did (which, you'll see, is a fair bit), she still retains about a quarter tank! I want a Chevrolet Aveo for my next car now (though new- without the hiccoughs Kioni suffers from).
First off, she has a tendency to be inconsistent. Sometimes, she loves third gear, and will rocket along quite happily in it for an age. Others, she'll slow down and moan like a baby until you change up or down. Fact is she sometimes won't even accept fourth in it's place, the fussy madam! Secondly, inclines. No, we're not even talking vertical climbs, in fact, the worst we encountered were only 10% inclines; but gentle slopes. Even a hint of a change in the horizontal/vertical orientation and she slows right down if in third or fourth and climbs in the manner of a stubborn mule. Third, second gear. Between 20 and 25 kph, she'll whine like crazy, but put your foot down a tad more and tadah! silent, smooth running! And don't get me started on first gear - try to idle along in the most basic of automobile functions and you'll shunt forward then slow suddenly without warning a moment later.
But, despite all the gear issues and attitude, she's got a brilliantly tight turning circle, augmented by a very responsive power steering, and second gear has a feisty kick when employed properly (all useful for these crazy Greek roads). The air conditioning works well enough and she's deceptively spacious - all in all, she's served her purpose well here on the island. Anyway; our trip.
We stopped to add fuel just outside of Sami, continuing through the town before striking out south on the mountain pass road, past Drograti caves. Around about the highest point the pass road reaches between Argostoli-Sami, 674m above sea level, we turned left, heading along the southern face of Mt. Roudi. Just after a quite randomly-located chapel, the going got much harder. After circling a bowl of flat land (yes, I know how contradictory those terms are, but it was a bowl-shaped area, flatter than the mountains around it, okay?), and bypassing a European Union radar station, we entered the proper mountain road. Or maybe lanes would be a more apt word. Flanked either side by towering firs and pines, the path wound back and forth with frequent hairpins and a constant lack of safety barriers. By more luck than judgement, we managed to reach the top without encountering another vehicle (though we did spot a playground about halfway up, and two downed telegraph poles!).
Eventually though, we reached the sloping plateau that served as the car park, the immediate area dominated by several large radio masts. A road ran around the fenced off metal spires, which we parked at the side of in true Greek fashion. To fully orientate and acclimatise ourselves to the altitude (1,384m above sea level, to be precise), we took a stroll around the circuit. Before we left the car we were marveling at how the cloud was rolling past a tree-level through their branches, so close were we! As we rounded the buildings that formed the foundation of the masts, it became apparent how far up we actually were - from the cliff we were stood on, nothing but cloud ws visible below! Completing the round trip, we took off down a dirt track that led away from the masts, directly opposite them across the plateau. A few twists in the path and we came across a couple of lone benches to one side, bare, unobstructed (nLots of it.
Further on, aside from two diversions involving a yellow butterfly and a beautiful red-winged cricket, we found a break in the trees that allowed us a view north, amazingly enough (though we only guess it at the time and confirmed the fact later), of the bay that hosts Sami and Agia Efimia! Photo opportunities were aplenty here, though the weather took a dynamic shift just before we turned around to head home. Thick, grey cloud swept down across the path and through thre trees - this time actually about us, not just close above. Everything took on a (-n even more) surreal quality, looking more and more like a horror story setting. By the time we got back to the car, the tallest radio mast, which rose close to 100 foot in height, had all but disappeared in the thick bank of cloud that had rolled in. And we were parked next to it, no more than a few foot from its base! Needless to say, visibility was low.
Carefully we descended, pausing at the random playground for some childishness and photos before continuing down. Between the playground and the chapel, the visibility was so low we were expecting to emerge into an apocalypse - the only people left alive on the island, left to fend for themselves against a horde of mindless, once-human creatures. Alas this tale is neither that exciting nor that morbid. We emerged, intact and not alone, as the intermittent traffic attested to. Reaching the mountain pass road once again, we clove west, heading for the island capitol. Continuing the bout of mundane, we took refreshment and did a little shopping there, before following the long coastal route north along the Gulf. Crossing over the western shoulder of the island between the relatively small Mt. Agrilla and Mt Imerovigli (455m and 994m - relative to Mt Aenos, that is), we found ourselves above the poster-bay of Kefalonia - Myrtos Beach. From the views we had, it's understandable why it has become so famous - cyan blue waters lap gently at a truly golden-yellow shoreline, the encroaching seaweed beds that are found everywhere starting fairly far out in comparison to other places we've seen. The only deterrent we could see was the road down, which in light of Mt Aenos roads, was an easy drive. But, we had a better target in mind.
Not far past Myrtos we turned off the road at what first look is a tarmac drop off the cliffside. Luckily for us it isn't and twists down to the gorgeous spur of land dubbed Assos. Unfortunately for us, Katie was feeling a little off-colour again, so we didn't take the steep walk up to the fortress that resrs there, but we sat and ate an ice lolly each and observed the sheltered inlet that serves as the villagers port, pool and beach all in one. It is (and was) a little slice of paradise. Soon enough though we piled back into our vehicular trooper and traversed the width of the island's headland to get back to our apartment, pausing just outside Agia Efimia to take a picture of the sign pointing down a lane to "Hectors" (my Grandma's dog is called Hector, for those of you who didn't know).
Back home, I sadly emptied Kioni and did a double-check through all the areas, ensuring we hadn't left anything behind. After a rest and a read we changed and headed out in a different direction - at the bottom of the drive we turned left up the road, searching for a well-hidden restaurant a couple, who had been on our minibus from the airport and were also staying in the Myrto apartments, had recommended highly to us. Well barely had we turned the corner than we were accosted by Karen. She approached us across the road, with a look in her eye that put us both in mind of the questionnaire/survey/religious convert people in busy town centres, that seem only to pop up into your path when your either really late or eager to get to a certain shop. You know the type.
Anyway, Karen was the complete opposite of the usual promotion/marketing sales rep. Ok, sure, she gave us the spiel about the hotel and restaurant, but was surprisingly unique and refreshing. We unanimously decided whether or not it was the recommended place, to give it a try. Karen came up to the hotel with us and waited on us, returning regularly throughout the night to make sure everything was alright. We shared a Feta Pocket for starters, which was the fancy, up-market name for the Feta cheese with pastry, honey and sesame seeds and, whilst I'm not saying Finikas' version wasn't nice (because it is - it's delicious), the Odyssey one was better. The whole dish lighter, and the honey just in enough quantities to off-set the Feta. Perfect. For main course, Katie had pizza carbonara, which is exactly as it sounds - carbonara with pizza replacing the pasta! I had BBQ pork ribs, served on a bed of the best french fries ever. And the sauce - so fruity but not over-sweet; just right! The hotel itself was beautiful, clean (like pretty much everything except the cars here in Greeg), and bright. We sat on a terrace-balcony overlooking the road, with a panoramic view of the bay spread before us. We were definitely going back.
Just a short walk back and we have time for a chill-out before bed. The next door "Up" dog (the spitting image of the lovable lab from the Disney classic) eyed us sleepily as we passed. Tomorrow old faithful Kioni gets taken from us, spelling the doomed countdown until the end of holiday. Until then, though, more sea, sun, and good food!
Huzzah! Katie's feeling better. After an unbroken night's sleep, we take the morning easy, reading and eating paine au chocolates until about 1100. Armed with our trusty map, an ice cream (for Katie), the camera, some euros and Kioni, we followed the bay around Agia Efimia, and out towards Sami. As the last day we have the car, let me just say that, flaw's aside, she's an economic little trooper. Given that we started the day between a quarter a tank of petrol and empty, and only added twenty euros (nudging the needle to just over halfway), and the amount of driving we did (which, you'll see, is a fair bit), she still retains about a quarter tank! I want a Chevrolet Aveo for my next car now (though new- without the hiccoughs Kioni suffers from).
First off, she has a tendency to be inconsistent. Sometimes, she loves third gear, and will rocket along quite happily in it for an age. Others, she'll slow down and moan like a baby until you change up or down. Fact is she sometimes won't even accept fourth in it's place, the fussy madam! Secondly, inclines. No, we're not even talking vertical climbs, in fact, the worst we encountered were only 10% inclines; but gentle slopes. Even a hint of a change in the horizontal/vertical orientation and she slows right down if in third or fourth and climbs in the manner of a stubborn mule. Third, second gear. Between 20 and 25 kph, she'll whine like crazy, but put your foot down a tad more and tadah! silent, smooth running! And don't get me started on first gear - try to idle along in the most basic of automobile functions and you'll shunt forward then slow suddenly without warning a moment later.
But, despite all the gear issues and attitude, she's got a brilliantly tight turning circle, augmented by a very responsive power steering, and second gear has a feisty kick when employed properly (all useful for these crazy Greek roads). The air conditioning works well enough and she's deceptively spacious - all in all, she's served her purpose well here on the island. Anyway; our trip.
We stopped to add fuel just outside of Sami, continuing through the town before striking out south on the mountain pass road, past Drograti caves. Around about the highest point the pass road reaches between Argostoli-Sami, 674m above sea level, we turned left, heading along the southern face of Mt. Roudi. Just after a quite randomly-located chapel, the going got much harder. After circling a bowl of flat land (yes, I know how contradictory those terms are, but it was a bowl-shaped area, flatter than the mountains around it, okay?), and bypassing a European Union radar station, we entered the proper mountain road. Or maybe lanes would be a more apt word. Flanked either side by towering firs and pines, the path wound back and forth with frequent hairpins and a constant lack of safety barriers. By more luck than judgement, we managed to reach the top without encountering another vehicle (though we did spot a playground about halfway up, and two downed telegraph poles!).
Eventually though, we reached the sloping plateau that served as the car park, the immediate area dominated by several large radio masts. A road ran around the fenced off metal spires, which we parked at the side of in true Greek fashion. To fully orientate and acclimatise ourselves to the altitude (1,384m above sea level, to be precise), we took a stroll around the circuit. Before we left the car we were marveling at how the cloud was rolling past a tree-level through their branches, so close were we! As we rounded the buildings that formed the foundation of the masts, it became apparent how far up we actually were - from the cliff we were stood on, nothing but cloud ws visible below! Completing the round trip, we took off down a dirt track that led away from the masts, directly opposite them across the plateau. A few twists in the path and we came across a couple of lone benches to one side, bare, unobstructed (nLots of it.
Further on, aside from two diversions involving a yellow butterfly and a beautiful red-winged cricket, we found a break in the trees that allowed us a view north, amazingly enough (though we only guess it at the time and confirmed the fact later), of the bay that hosts Sami and Agia Efimia! Photo opportunities were aplenty here, though the weather took a dynamic shift just before we turned around to head home. Thick, grey cloud swept down across the path and through thre trees - this time actually about us, not just close above. Everything took on a (-n even more) surreal quality, looking more and more like a horror story setting. By the time we got back to the car, the tallest radio mast, which rose close to 100 foot in height, had all but disappeared in the thick bank of cloud that had rolled in. And we were parked next to it, no more than a few foot from its base! Needless to say, visibility was low.
Carefully we descended, pausing at the random playground for some childishness and photos before continuing down. Between the playground and the chapel, the visibility was so low we were expecting to emerge into an apocalypse - the only people left alive on the island, left to fend for themselves against a horde of mindless, once-human creatures. Alas this tale is neither that exciting nor that morbid. We emerged, intact and not alone, as the intermittent traffic attested to. Reaching the mountain pass road once again, we clove west, heading for the island capitol. Continuing the bout of mundane, we took refreshment and did a little shopping there, before following the long coastal route north along the Gulf. Crossing over the western shoulder of the island between the relatively small Mt. Agrilla and Mt Imerovigli (455m and 994m - relative to Mt Aenos, that is), we found ourselves above the poster-bay of Kefalonia - Myrtos Beach. From the views we had, it's understandable why it has become so famous - cyan blue waters lap gently at a truly golden-yellow shoreline, the encroaching seaweed beds that are found everywhere starting fairly far out in comparison to other places we've seen. The only deterrent we could see was the road down, which in light of Mt Aenos roads, was an easy drive. But, we had a better target in mind.
Not far past Myrtos we turned off the road at what first look is a tarmac drop off the cliffside. Luckily for us it isn't and twists down to the gorgeous spur of land dubbed Assos. Unfortunately for us, Katie was feeling a little off-colour again, so we didn't take the steep walk up to the fortress that resrs there, but we sat and ate an ice lolly each and observed the sheltered inlet that serves as the villagers port, pool and beach all in one. It is (and was) a little slice of paradise. Soon enough though we piled back into our vehicular trooper and traversed the width of the island's headland to get back to our apartment, pausing just outside Agia Efimia to take a picture of the sign pointing down a lane to "Hectors" (my Grandma's dog is called Hector, for those of you who didn't know).
Back home, I sadly emptied Kioni and did a double-check through all the areas, ensuring we hadn't left anything behind. After a rest and a read we changed and headed out in a different direction - at the bottom of the drive we turned left up the road, searching for a well-hidden restaurant a couple, who had been on our minibus from the airport and were also staying in the Myrto apartments, had recommended highly to us. Well barely had we turned the corner than we were accosted by Karen. She approached us across the road, with a look in her eye that put us both in mind of the questionnaire/survey/religious convert people in busy town centres, that seem only to pop up into your path when your either really late or eager to get to a certain shop. You know the type.
Anyway, Karen was the complete opposite of the usual promotion/marketing sales rep. Ok, sure, she gave us the spiel about the hotel and restaurant, but was surprisingly unique and refreshing. We unanimously decided whether or not it was the recommended place, to give it a try. Karen came up to the hotel with us and waited on us, returning regularly throughout the night to make sure everything was alright. We shared a Feta Pocket for starters, which was the fancy, up-market name for the Feta cheese with pastry, honey and sesame seeds and, whilst I'm not saying Finikas' version wasn't nice (because it is - it's delicious), the Odyssey one was better. The whole dish lighter, and the honey just in enough quantities to off-set the Feta. Perfect. For main course, Katie had pizza carbonara, which is exactly as it sounds - carbonara with pizza replacing the pasta! I had BBQ pork ribs, served on a bed of the best french fries ever. And the sauce - so fruity but not over-sweet; just right! The hotel itself was beautiful, clean (like pretty much everything except the cars here in Greeg), and bright. We sat on a terrace-balcony overlooking the road, with a panoramic view of the bay spread before us. We were definitely going back.
Just a short walk back and we have time for a chill-out before bed. The next door "Up" dog (the spitting image of the lovable lab from the Disney classic) eyed us sleepily as we passed. Tomorrow old faithful Kioni gets taken from us, spelling the doomed countdown until the end of holiday. Until then, though, more sea, sun, and good food!
Saturday 4 August 2012
Kefalonia - Part Five
Friday 20th
Today has been a lazy one - we laid in, recovering from the long, but very worthwhile, day before, and preparing for much the same tomorrow. Katie has read an entire bones book, and I have finished two of my own! We wandered into town to claim breakfast and some souvenirs about 1200. On our way back we stopped at the ice cream parlour for a treat - Mango Sorbet and banana for me, cookies and cream with pestachio for Katie. The mango and banana were, quite simply, the best fruit-flavoured ice cream I've ever tasted. Yum!
After a siesta and some further reading we decided to skip swimming today (we more than made up for it the day before and after!), and at about 2100 took a trip back into town to the supermarket to get ingredients for a home-made dinner. Back at the apartment we feasted on a smorgasbord of feta, cheddar slices, cheese triangles, smoked turkey, cooked bacon, sliced cucumber, grated carrot, baby tomatoes, two soft-crust baguettes, a pack of crackers, some liver pate and olives (for Katie). She also had a few mythos beers whilst I had some peach iced tea; originally we had bought some pastry-based goodies for dessert, but by the time we finished were so full we left them for tomorrow!
Saturday 21st
Up with the alarm at 0700, I roused her highness and began collecting the necessary belongings together for the day ahead. By 0731 we were in the car and away, Katie demolishing a danish pastry in a fit of breakfast fever! We pulled into Argostoli port authority car park at 0825, having made good time across the mountains. Finding the glass bottom boat, Captain Makis welcomed us - a mountainous Greek with a giant grey beard, straggly hair and a jovial attitude - a good man, all told. Being the first to arrive we selected pride of place on the sun deck at the back of the ship. Soon a few coaches pulled up alongside and in no time at all we were full and chugging out of port and into the sea proper. After a brief introduction to the itinerary from the Captain, whose Greek-accented English made our verse sound coarse and barbaric, music began revelling from the ship's speakers, and the engines ran to full.
From Argostoli bay we headed north to the local fisheries where, through a combination of light and temperature level control, they ensure a certain species of fish that breeds only once a year, breeds once a month! It was intriguing to see the thrashing waters within some of the fisheries as they clamoured to reach the feed that was being thrown into them, but overall the diversion was disappointing, as no dolphins were forthcoming. Our first proper stop was a beautiful cove surrounded by white-lined cliffs, accessed by coasting along above a few choice reefs. Here we disembarked in awesome style- jumping off the back and sides of our vessel. We chilled off collectively, some people snorkeling, but the majority just floating about like some Mediterranean remake of the final Titanic scene
Before long Captain Makis called us on board, raising the adjustable back decking to vertical once everyone was clear of the water. Hailed by a wide variety of 60's to 90's music, including Elvis Presley, Kylie, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, Whigfield and the Village People to name but a few, we passed over our second point of interest (but not a stop, as we didn't); a wrecked ship. According to history this trading vessel ran aground on a reef in the sixteenth century, spilling its load of amphora-filled urns to the seabed. Back the amphora was the choice material to build houses, and so the broken pieces of pottery were stuck together in clumps, as they can still be seen today. Continuing on from the wreck, we crossed over the mouth of the Argostoli Gulf towards Vardiani Island, or Rabbit Island as its commonly known; the place of my triumph! Rabbit Island was another cool-off stop, with a twist.
Captain Makis appeared on the sundeck after we had all entered the water, bearing two bottles of wine. These, he told us, were for whoever could claim them from the sea first. He cast the first right in front of me, directly in between the middle of a triangle made up of myself and two other men. The three of us dove after it, my snorkeling mask serving me well enough to see the first man's hand narrowly miss the vintage bottle. Luckily I had flippers on in preparation for snorkeling which propelled me quicker and easier than normal forward and down, hand clasping the bottle tight. Unluckily, the flippers granted speed, placed my bare back where the bottle had been but a moment before, and the second man's hand raked my skin. I surfaced, triumphant, to Makis' congratulations, and surprised Katie by catching her eye across the water and raising our prize for her to see. Ah, victory!
Not long after, we raised anchor and skirted the island to make for Xi beach, a famously shallow and colourful beach that attracts visitors from all over Greece. Due to certain minerals in the area, the entirety of the beach sand is red - from iron flakes that rust in the sea water! Within then minutes we had a make-shift camp of beach umbrellas and a marquee set up (to accommodate the food preparation tables). A net was thrown up over the anchor line that kept the ship in place in the shallows, and soon a large game of haphazard volleyball was underway in the surf. Little by little the players came and went, until just two of us were left. Abandoning the game altogether as hopeless now, I joined Katie lounging in the shallows. Captain Makis eventually called out for food preparation volunteers, and we both mucked in, chopping cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and onions for a Greek salad the size of a bath.
Divided into two pots, one was given the gift of cheese - feta cheese to be exact; a chuck larger than my head was lumped in and then crumbled into the mix. Makis sloshed out generous helpings of his own white wine from a large tub (the same vintage that I had won earlier that day), and a few minutes later explained the Greek way of diplomacy; the circle. The hungriest people would, by their very nature, speak loudest and be closest, and therefore be served first. Naturally, Katie and I were of the first to be given nourishment. Several chicken kebabs, a slice of bread, some wine and a load of Greek salad later, we lazed on the sand, digesting. By now it was 1430, and as the heat became too much (indeed, it was impossible to walk barefoot on the sand at this point), we hit the surf again. Hawkeye that she is (with the help of the contacts that I badgered her into wearing today!), Katie spotted that dessert was being served, and promptly sacrificed the cool of the sea to dare the hear and bring back a trophy of fresh watermelon for us to feast on. Needless to say, she persevered (three times in fact!).
As the melon dwindled, Makis and his crew brought forth tubs of water, mixed with copious amounts of clay from the beach's tiny cliff. This we smeared across any exposed (and some not) areas on our bodies. Once dry we were instructed to rub vigorously to flake it off, before washing off any remnants in the sea. Containing a natural exfoliate, our skin was, as the good Captain put it, soft as a baby's rump! Alas, the day had to end sometime, and it was with reluctance we packed our camp back into the tiny dinghy the crew used as storage space. Sat back, relaxed on the sun deck, we basked in the euphoria of an excellent day as Captain Makis turned us east toward Argostoli. On the sundeck with us were three couples; one young foreign couple that spoke almost no English and certainly no Greek, and two middle-aged English couples, clearly friends, on holiday together. Finishing off our sundeck crew was an almost-anorexic older lady, German or dutch I would guess from her accept, and gloriously tanned like a piece of old leather!
It was this last, foreign lady that suddenly shouted out in exclamation as we reached half-way along the Argostoli peninsula; "Dolphin!" It took us all a moment to get over the shock of her outburst, and a further one to process exactly what she had said. We all jumped up, turning to follow her gesture, but to no avail. If there had been one, all that was left were some bubbles in the waves. We all stared out to sea forlornly, disappoint. For a moment, at least. Two large black mammals erupted from the surface of a breaker, accompanied a second later by our cheers, whoops, whistles and claps - Makis had told us earlier they liked noise, and we dutifully responded to their presence with a cacophony of sound. Sadly, the two black dolphins we had glimpsed did not return, but in their place came a pair of graceful greys. About three metres in length, these performed for us for a time just under the bow wave of the boat, speeding along just before the prow, occasionally popping up to the surface to our applause and adoration. It was, by anyone's definition, a perfect end to the day.
Returned to port, we profusely thanked Captain Makis and left a happy comment in the tour guest book, before setting off for home in Kioni. Although I took us the long way down a (admittedly very badly signed) one-way street and made several wrong turns, we made good time home. A shower and little rest later, we ambled into town to Spiros for a quick bite. I sampled the Special Pizza, while Katie had a Greek version (basically a Greek sala on a pizza). Food consumed we thanked the staff once more and left a generous tip (they had been very nice and more friendly than they had to be), and paid visits to the supermarket and bakery for supplies for tomorrow's day of rest. Well, it was to be Sunday after all.
Sunday 22nd
A truly lazy day today, as indicated at the end of yesterday's log. Aside from a jaunt into town this evening for some dinner ingredients and a trip down to the sea for a swim in the late afternoon, we've stayed in and read all day. s of feta cheese, oregano and olive oil as standard, and it tasted great! Just like the real thing. We've no solid plan for tomorrow, so for now we're going to kick back and read until sleep takes us!
Monday 23rd
Just a short entry today; we haven't been very active as Katie isn't feeling well. We've been through another few books today, and I've taken a trip into town for some shopping - the ingredients for tea, mainly! I did a very basic pasta with tomatoes and cheese mixed in, and despite the simplicity it was delicious. Tomorrow was meant to be western-island-exploration day, as the last with the car, but I've put my foot down as far as plans go - if Katie's not up to it, we won't go. Simple. It's not a waste in my eyes, as we still get to lounge around in a beautiful apartment and gorgeous weather, even less of a waste if it means she feels better! Here's hoping she gets better soon, eh!
Today has been a lazy one - we laid in, recovering from the long, but very worthwhile, day before, and preparing for much the same tomorrow. Katie has read an entire bones book, and I have finished two of my own! We wandered into town to claim breakfast and some souvenirs about 1200. On our way back we stopped at the ice cream parlour for a treat - Mango Sorbet and banana for me, cookies and cream with pestachio for Katie. The mango and banana were, quite simply, the best fruit-flavoured ice cream I've ever tasted. Yum!
After a siesta and some further reading we decided to skip swimming today (we more than made up for it the day before and after!), and at about 2100 took a trip back into town to the supermarket to get ingredients for a home-made dinner. Back at the apartment we feasted on a smorgasbord of feta, cheddar slices, cheese triangles, smoked turkey, cooked bacon, sliced cucumber, grated carrot, baby tomatoes, two soft-crust baguettes, a pack of crackers, some liver pate and olives (for Katie). She also had a few mythos beers whilst I had some peach iced tea; originally we had bought some pastry-based goodies for dessert, but by the time we finished were so full we left them for tomorrow!
Saturday 21st
Up with the alarm at 0700, I roused her highness and began collecting the necessary belongings together for the day ahead. By 0731 we were in the car and away, Katie demolishing a danish pastry in a fit of breakfast fever! We pulled into Argostoli port authority car park at 0825, having made good time across the mountains. Finding the glass bottom boat, Captain Makis welcomed us - a mountainous Greek with a giant grey beard, straggly hair and a jovial attitude - a good man, all told. Being the first to arrive we selected pride of place on the sun deck at the back of the ship. Soon a few coaches pulled up alongside and in no time at all we were full and chugging out of port and into the sea proper. After a brief introduction to the itinerary from the Captain, whose Greek-accented English made our verse sound coarse and barbaric, music began revelling from the ship's speakers, and the engines ran to full.
From Argostoli bay we headed north to the local fisheries where, through a combination of light and temperature level control, they ensure a certain species of fish that breeds only once a year, breeds once a month! It was intriguing to see the thrashing waters within some of the fisheries as they clamoured to reach the feed that was being thrown into them, but overall the diversion was disappointing, as no dolphins were forthcoming. Our first proper stop was a beautiful cove surrounded by white-lined cliffs, accessed by coasting along above a few choice reefs. Here we disembarked in awesome style- jumping off the back and sides of our vessel. We chilled off collectively, some people snorkeling, but the majority just floating about like some Mediterranean remake of the final Titanic scene
Before long Captain Makis called us on board, raising the adjustable back decking to vertical once everyone was clear of the water. Hailed by a wide variety of 60's to 90's music, including Elvis Presley, Kylie, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, Whigfield and the Village People to name but a few, we passed over our second point of interest (but not a stop, as we didn't); a wrecked ship. According to history this trading vessel ran aground on a reef in the sixteenth century, spilling its load of amphora-filled urns to the seabed. Back the amphora was the choice material to build houses, and so the broken pieces of pottery were stuck together in clumps, as they can still be seen today. Continuing on from the wreck, we crossed over the mouth of the Argostoli Gulf towards Vardiani Island, or Rabbit Island as its commonly known; the place of my triumph! Rabbit Island was another cool-off stop, with a twist.
Captain Makis appeared on the sundeck after we had all entered the water, bearing two bottles of wine. These, he told us, were for whoever could claim them from the sea first. He cast the first right in front of me, directly in between the middle of a triangle made up of myself and two other men. The three of us dove after it, my snorkeling mask serving me well enough to see the first man's hand narrowly miss the vintage bottle. Luckily I had flippers on in preparation for snorkeling which propelled me quicker and easier than normal forward and down, hand clasping the bottle tight. Unluckily, the flippers granted speed, placed my bare back where the bottle had been but a moment before, and the second man's hand raked my skin. I surfaced, triumphant, to Makis' congratulations, and surprised Katie by catching her eye across the water and raising our prize for her to see. Ah, victory!
Not long after, we raised anchor and skirted the island to make for Xi beach, a famously shallow and colourful beach that attracts visitors from all over Greece. Due to certain minerals in the area, the entirety of the beach sand is red - from iron flakes that rust in the sea water! Within then minutes we had a make-shift camp of beach umbrellas and a marquee set up (to accommodate the food preparation tables). A net was thrown up over the anchor line that kept the ship in place in the shallows, and soon a large game of haphazard volleyball was underway in the surf. Little by little the players came and went, until just two of us were left. Abandoning the game altogether as hopeless now, I joined Katie lounging in the shallows. Captain Makis eventually called out for food preparation volunteers, and we both mucked in, chopping cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and onions for a Greek salad the size of a bath.
Divided into two pots, one was given the gift of cheese - feta cheese to be exact; a chuck larger than my head was lumped in and then crumbled into the mix. Makis sloshed out generous helpings of his own white wine from a large tub (the same vintage that I had won earlier that day), and a few minutes later explained the Greek way of diplomacy; the circle. The hungriest people would, by their very nature, speak loudest and be closest, and therefore be served first. Naturally, Katie and I were of the first to be given nourishment. Several chicken kebabs, a slice of bread, some wine and a load of Greek salad later, we lazed on the sand, digesting. By now it was 1430, and as the heat became too much (indeed, it was impossible to walk barefoot on the sand at this point), we hit the surf again. Hawkeye that she is (with the help of the contacts that I badgered her into wearing today!), Katie spotted that dessert was being served, and promptly sacrificed the cool of the sea to dare the hear and bring back a trophy of fresh watermelon for us to feast on. Needless to say, she persevered (three times in fact!).
As the melon dwindled, Makis and his crew brought forth tubs of water, mixed with copious amounts of clay from the beach's tiny cliff. This we smeared across any exposed (and some not) areas on our bodies. Once dry we were instructed to rub vigorously to flake it off, before washing off any remnants in the sea. Containing a natural exfoliate, our skin was, as the good Captain put it, soft as a baby's rump! Alas, the day had to end sometime, and it was with reluctance we packed our camp back into the tiny dinghy the crew used as storage space. Sat back, relaxed on the sun deck, we basked in the euphoria of an excellent day as Captain Makis turned us east toward Argostoli. On the sundeck with us were three couples; one young foreign couple that spoke almost no English and certainly no Greek, and two middle-aged English couples, clearly friends, on holiday together. Finishing off our sundeck crew was an almost-anorexic older lady, German or dutch I would guess from her accept, and gloriously tanned like a piece of old leather!
It was this last, foreign lady that suddenly shouted out in exclamation as we reached half-way along the Argostoli peninsula; "Dolphin!" It took us all a moment to get over the shock of her outburst, and a further one to process exactly what she had said. We all jumped up, turning to follow her gesture, but to no avail. If there had been one, all that was left were some bubbles in the waves. We all stared out to sea forlornly, disappoint. For a moment, at least. Two large black mammals erupted from the surface of a breaker, accompanied a second later by our cheers, whoops, whistles and claps - Makis had told us earlier they liked noise, and we dutifully responded to their presence with a cacophony of sound. Sadly, the two black dolphins we had glimpsed did not return, but in their place came a pair of graceful greys. About three metres in length, these performed for us for a time just under the bow wave of the boat, speeding along just before the prow, occasionally popping up to the surface to our applause and adoration. It was, by anyone's definition, a perfect end to the day.
Returned to port, we profusely thanked Captain Makis and left a happy comment in the tour guest book, before setting off for home in Kioni. Although I took us the long way down a (admittedly very badly signed) one-way street and made several wrong turns, we made good time home. A shower and little rest later, we ambled into town to Spiros for a quick bite. I sampled the Special Pizza, while Katie had a Greek version (basically a Greek sala on a pizza). Food consumed we thanked the staff once more and left a generous tip (they had been very nice and more friendly than they had to be), and paid visits to the supermarket and bakery for supplies for tomorrow's day of rest. Well, it was to be Sunday after all.
Sunday 22nd
A truly lazy day today, as indicated at the end of yesterday's log. Aside from a jaunt into town this evening for some dinner ingredients and a trip down to the sea for a swim in the late afternoon, we've stayed in and read all day. s of feta cheese, oregano and olive oil as standard, and it tasted great! Just like the real thing. We've no solid plan for tomorrow, so for now we're going to kick back and read until sleep takes us!
Monday 23rd
Just a short entry today; we haven't been very active as Katie isn't feeling well. We've been through another few books today, and I've taken a trip into town for some shopping - the ingredients for tea, mainly! I did a very basic pasta with tomatoes and cheese mixed in, and despite the simplicity it was delicious. Tomorrow was meant to be western-island-exploration day, as the last with the car, but I've put my foot down as far as plans go - if Katie's not up to it, we won't go. Simple. It's not a waste in my eyes, as we still get to lounge around in a beautiful apartment and gorgeous weather, even less of a waste if it means she feels better! Here's hoping she gets better soon, eh!
Thursday 2 August 2012
Kefalonia - Part Four
Thursday 19th
A fair night's sleep; as normal I woke up about an hour before the alarm and waited for its tones to signal it was time to emerge. With the car parked we scooted out of Agia Efimia at about half seven. I'd felt ill upon waking this morning, and wrestled with an upset stomach through most of the plunging cliff-side roads. Eventually we arrived in Fiskardo - it's changed a lot yet again since I came in 2007; the harbour has been enhanced and the town expanded further round the corner from the main bay and into the surrounding hillside. Despite all this it retains its charm and beauty. We arrived about 0810, and saw Jamie (and his new deck-hand Jan) aboard the ship. A little background on his boat; called Agia Kyriake (Saint Sunday to us English folk), it used to be a trading vessel, or Kaiki, for fifty or sixty years, plying the waters of the Ionian islands until Jamie bought it as a rotting-hulled, near scrap piece 13 years ago. After a major overhaul, and some modern touches, she became the tourist boat she is today.
Katie and I had found a small taverna on the waterfront from which to order a drink from (and in Katie's case, the biggest croissant with chocolate sauce ever!), before returning to board for the trip. By now my stomach had settled, and with everyone present, we set off. Accompanying Katie and myself were four groups - a couple, both primary school teachers, another couple with their three young boys in tow, yet another couple who were holidaying alone, and one more couple, with their late-teens daughters along for the ride. Jamie began the trip with a safety talk; including an ingenious gag that almost had everyone fooled - that everyone had to go toilet in small buckets up on deck behind a screen of cloth! For our first stop we went across the Gulf of Ithaka to Pollis Bay; the bay some people claimed was where Odyseus set out from in Homer's Odyssey.
Here Jamie took the group through the standard snorkelling know-how before setting off in search of creatures for us to see. As a veritable veteran of the trip, I had the privilege of helping him catch an octopus he had found along one side of the bay. He signaled me over where we were swimming and showed me where it was residing, and once ready we both dove down to the seabed to bag our prize. Jamie went first and used a water bottle to squirt fresh water into the octopus' castle, changing the pressure inside its home and making it scoot out and right into me! Aided by Jamie, as the octopus didn't take very well to me and kept trying to escape, I wrestled it to the surface and into the net bag we had.
I first met Jamie a little while before my thirteenth birthday, on holiday in Fiskardo with my Grandma as my birthday present that year. I returned to Kefalonia in '07, and made it a point of priority to visit Jamie's trip once again. He came to Kefalonia for some Marine Biology research in the area, having just completed his degree in the same subject at Bath University. Once the research finished he decided that he didn't want to leave the lovely island and took a job repairing boats in the capitol, Argostoli. Having found Agia Kyriake rotting in the corner of the ship yard he worked in, he decided that he didn't want to let her go to scrap, and bought it. First working the trip out of Lassi on the southern coast of the island, he learned how to handle the financial aspect of the business and eventually moved up to run from Fiskardo to get away from the cut-throats of the area.
Back on board he explained how cephalopod is broken down into tow words - cephal, which is head, and pod, which means foot. An Octopus only has bone around its eyes, meaning if it can fit its eyes through a gap, its whole body can follow! We each had a turn holding or touching our specimen, depending on the whim of each person and the reaction of the creature to each individual. Some, it swam away from, others, it latched on to. A few people it just touched with its tentacle - its way of smelling them, and changing colour based on its reaction. Red means it's angry, or trying to look scarier, and white is scared, like humans. Unlike humans, they have three hearts; one for the blood flow to their brain, and two for pumping it around their tentacles!
Releasing the captive we crossed back to Kefalonia to a place called Porto Nikoutso. Armed with net-bags we scoured the bay for creatures to fill the on-board aquarium with (essentially a large perspex food container ret-conned into a new use). I managed to score a few urchin shells for Katie to take home as souvenirs, whilst the lady herself added a dark-red starfish to the on-board collection. Jan and Jamie called us all back on board for lunch, a delicious spread of various cheeses, bread, pasta salad, meats, salad and, for dessert, melon and an absolutely to-die-for banana load (so flavourful without being overpowering and yet so moist to boot!). Whilst we digested, Jamie talked us through the various marine creatures we had gathered.
Sea urchins, which have five teeth in an arrangement called Aristotle's Lantern (as it was this famous Greek philosopher that noticed they are arranged in a shape resembling a lantern!), Sea Cucumbers (some which spray a rubbery string-substance as a defence mechanism, though all species are prone to a parasitic fish that can live up its bottom! It's true; look it up if you don't believe me!), Mussels (a variety that can grow up to a full metre and a half in height!), and starfish. We had three types on board in our tank, the classic type you imagine when you hear their name, a brittle starfish and the spiny starfish. Old spiny is a nasty bugger - he rips other starfish to pieces! All starfish, however, eat disgustingly - they grab their prey and vomit their own stomach out of their mouth, surrounding it. Digestive enzymes in the stomach lining turn said prey into much and the starfish sucks it all back in, stomach and all!
Following a short swim to cool off after our meal, we shadowed the coast of Kefalonia back towards Fiskardo, to our final destination - Dhoulika Bay. According to Jamie there used to be three wrecks here, but a few years ago the local mafia lord bought (or maybe attained by other means) a piece of land to one side of the bay and built a large, steel-girder dock there. Tired of maneuvering around the main wreck of the bay every time he came and went in the dead of night with his dodgy cargo, he utilised a crane from his massive ship to pick it up, take it into the middle of the Kefalonia-Ithaka channel and dump it into the deepest trench! We anchored mid-bay (not too close to the dock OR the daunting mafia ship) and, as there were no shallows, jumped ship! In amongst the wreck of an old trading galley (just the rotting ribs left now), Katie and I used the majority of our under-water camera's film. Once the wreck was nicely explored and catalogued, trio of boys, their parents and I, took turns in diving/bombing/flipping off the side of Jamie's boat into the crystal bay; great fun!
Unfortunately though, it eventually had to end, and we set course for Fiskardo with weary bodies. Even sadder, Jamie confessed to us that he may well move back to England soon, as his daughter will be starting school in the next few years and Greek (or at least, Kefalonian) schools aren't up to the same standard as the UK. If they move he will sell the business, though without his passion and enthusiasm it will be a lesser trip. I remarked that if our euromillions ticket back home in Coventry was a winner, he'd be getting a call about that sale soon! Ah, to live here and swim these gorgeous waters daily. I'd soon burn my skin into becoming acclimatised to this sun! Anyway, fanciful dreams aside, we moored up in Fiskardo and said our goodbyes; I bought a T-shirt as a memento from Jamie, and soon we were back in the car, en route to Agia Efimia.
It was a long drive, especially when exhausted from the full-on physicality of the day, but by 1730 we were home to the apartment, showering the salt off our bodies and admiring our sunburn/tan with the ritual application of aftersun. We relaxed a bit (indeed, Katie relaxed so much she fell asleep!) and read, before heading out to dinner. We returned to Finikas, where I once more sampled their Feta cheese with phyllo pastry and honey, whilst Katie had Saganaki with tomato, feta and peppers. We both then tried a spaghetti souffle each- it would have been best to share! With the days excursion and the battle of sunburn playing heavily on us, we called in the towels, leaving a bit left over from each bowl. Re-applying aftersun back at the apartment, we plan an easy, lazy day tomorrow to relax and recover. For now, to bed; heavy slumber awaits!
A fair night's sleep; as normal I woke up about an hour before the alarm and waited for its tones to signal it was time to emerge. With the car parked we scooted out of Agia Efimia at about half seven. I'd felt ill upon waking this morning, and wrestled with an upset stomach through most of the plunging cliff-side roads. Eventually we arrived in Fiskardo - it's changed a lot yet again since I came in 2007; the harbour has been enhanced and the town expanded further round the corner from the main bay and into the surrounding hillside. Despite all this it retains its charm and beauty. We arrived about 0810, and saw Jamie (and his new deck-hand Jan) aboard the ship. A little background on his boat; called Agia Kyriake (Saint Sunday to us English folk), it used to be a trading vessel, or Kaiki, for fifty or sixty years, plying the waters of the Ionian islands until Jamie bought it as a rotting-hulled, near scrap piece 13 years ago. After a major overhaul, and some modern touches, she became the tourist boat she is today.
Katie and I had found a small taverna on the waterfront from which to order a drink from (and in Katie's case, the biggest croissant with chocolate sauce ever!), before returning to board for the trip. By now my stomach had settled, and with everyone present, we set off. Accompanying Katie and myself were four groups - a couple, both primary school teachers, another couple with their three young boys in tow, yet another couple who were holidaying alone, and one more couple, with their late-teens daughters along for the ride. Jamie began the trip with a safety talk; including an ingenious gag that almost had everyone fooled - that everyone had to go toilet in small buckets up on deck behind a screen of cloth! For our first stop we went across the Gulf of Ithaka to Pollis Bay; the bay some people claimed was where Odyseus set out from in Homer's Odyssey.
Here Jamie took the group through the standard snorkelling know-how before setting off in search of creatures for us to see. As a veritable veteran of the trip, I had the privilege of helping him catch an octopus he had found along one side of the bay. He signaled me over where we were swimming and showed me where it was residing, and once ready we both dove down to the seabed to bag our prize. Jamie went first and used a water bottle to squirt fresh water into the octopus' castle, changing the pressure inside its home and making it scoot out and right into me! Aided by Jamie, as the octopus didn't take very well to me and kept trying to escape, I wrestled it to the surface and into the net bag we had.
I first met Jamie a little while before my thirteenth birthday, on holiday in Fiskardo with my Grandma as my birthday present that year. I returned to Kefalonia in '07, and made it a point of priority to visit Jamie's trip once again. He came to Kefalonia for some Marine Biology research in the area, having just completed his degree in the same subject at Bath University. Once the research finished he decided that he didn't want to leave the lovely island and took a job repairing boats in the capitol, Argostoli. Having found Agia Kyriake rotting in the corner of the ship yard he worked in, he decided that he didn't want to let her go to scrap, and bought it. First working the trip out of Lassi on the southern coast of the island, he learned how to handle the financial aspect of the business and eventually moved up to run from Fiskardo to get away from the cut-throats of the area.
Back on board he explained how cephalopod is broken down into tow words - cephal, which is head, and pod, which means foot. An Octopus only has bone around its eyes, meaning if it can fit its eyes through a gap, its whole body can follow! We each had a turn holding or touching our specimen, depending on the whim of each person and the reaction of the creature to each individual. Some, it swam away from, others, it latched on to. A few people it just touched with its tentacle - its way of smelling them, and changing colour based on its reaction. Red means it's angry, or trying to look scarier, and white is scared, like humans. Unlike humans, they have three hearts; one for the blood flow to their brain, and two for pumping it around their tentacles!
Releasing the captive we crossed back to Kefalonia to a place called Porto Nikoutso. Armed with net-bags we scoured the bay for creatures to fill the on-board aquarium with (essentially a large perspex food container ret-conned into a new use). I managed to score a few urchin shells for Katie to take home as souvenirs, whilst the lady herself added a dark-red starfish to the on-board collection. Jan and Jamie called us all back on board for lunch, a delicious spread of various cheeses, bread, pasta salad, meats, salad and, for dessert, melon and an absolutely to-die-for banana load (so flavourful without being overpowering and yet so moist to boot!). Whilst we digested, Jamie talked us through the various marine creatures we had gathered.
Sea urchins, which have five teeth in an arrangement called Aristotle's Lantern (as it was this famous Greek philosopher that noticed they are arranged in a shape resembling a lantern!), Sea Cucumbers (some which spray a rubbery string-substance as a defence mechanism, though all species are prone to a parasitic fish that can live up its bottom! It's true; look it up if you don't believe me!), Mussels (a variety that can grow up to a full metre and a half in height!), and starfish. We had three types on board in our tank, the classic type you imagine when you hear their name, a brittle starfish and the spiny starfish. Old spiny is a nasty bugger - he rips other starfish to pieces! All starfish, however, eat disgustingly - they grab their prey and vomit their own stomach out of their mouth, surrounding it. Digestive enzymes in the stomach lining turn said prey into much and the starfish sucks it all back in, stomach and all!
Following a short swim to cool off after our meal, we shadowed the coast of Kefalonia back towards Fiskardo, to our final destination - Dhoulika Bay. According to Jamie there used to be three wrecks here, but a few years ago the local mafia lord bought (or maybe attained by other means) a piece of land to one side of the bay and built a large, steel-girder dock there. Tired of maneuvering around the main wreck of the bay every time he came and went in the dead of night with his dodgy cargo, he utilised a crane from his massive ship to pick it up, take it into the middle of the Kefalonia-Ithaka channel and dump it into the deepest trench! We anchored mid-bay (not too close to the dock OR the daunting mafia ship) and, as there were no shallows, jumped ship! In amongst the wreck of an old trading galley (just the rotting ribs left now), Katie and I used the majority of our under-water camera's film. Once the wreck was nicely explored and catalogued, trio of boys, their parents and I, took turns in diving/bombing/flipping off the side of Jamie's boat into the crystal bay; great fun!
Unfortunately though, it eventually had to end, and we set course for Fiskardo with weary bodies. Even sadder, Jamie confessed to us that he may well move back to England soon, as his daughter will be starting school in the next few years and Greek (or at least, Kefalonian) schools aren't up to the same standard as the UK. If they move he will sell the business, though without his passion and enthusiasm it will be a lesser trip. I remarked that if our euromillions ticket back home in Coventry was a winner, he'd be getting a call about that sale soon! Ah, to live here and swim these gorgeous waters daily. I'd soon burn my skin into becoming acclimatised to this sun! Anyway, fanciful dreams aside, we moored up in Fiskardo and said our goodbyes; I bought a T-shirt as a memento from Jamie, and soon we were back in the car, en route to Agia Efimia.
It was a long drive, especially when exhausted from the full-on physicality of the day, but by 1730 we were home to the apartment, showering the salt off our bodies and admiring our sunburn/tan with the ritual application of aftersun. We relaxed a bit (indeed, Katie relaxed so much she fell asleep!) and read, before heading out to dinner. We returned to Finikas, where I once more sampled their Feta cheese with phyllo pastry and honey, whilst Katie had Saganaki with tomato, feta and peppers. We both then tried a spaghetti souffle each- it would have been best to share! With the days excursion and the battle of sunburn playing heavily on us, we called in the towels, leaving a bit left over from each bowl. Re-applying aftersun back at the apartment, we plan an easy, lazy day tomorrow to relax and recover. For now, to bed; heavy slumber awaits!
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Kefalonia - Part Three
Wednesday 18th
...Or not, after all. Turns out that was the worst night's sleep yet here in Greece. Not as bad as the Travelodge in Manchester, but still only a solid four hours slumber. Anywho, I was up with the alarm at 0830, and sat on the terrace, sun-creamed, sun-glassed and book in hand, awaiting the arrival of our hire car. So, it reached 1015, and still no car! Upon ringing Avis, with whom the car was booked, they reportedly have no deliveries or collections in Agia Efimia today. Sigh. After some searching for my name, they find a booking for our hire car, with an airport pick up. I pointed out the lack of logic that that would entail, given that we arrived on Sunday, and was told that it would cost €66 to have it dropped off in the evening. Unhappy but in need of the car for the next day, I grudgingly accepted.
Luckily Thomas Cook are so damned good - one of the rep's in the Kefalonia office did some political manouvering on our behalf and got Avis to agree to drop it off at one in the afternoon. At least it meant we could have a drive and get used to the car before the long trip up to Fiskardo in the morning. In retrospect, I was a little harsh on Avis; they delivered the car at 1200, with an apology for the mistake and a class B car to make up for it, instead of the class A we had ordered. Finally, we had our car!
With paperwork signed and extra charge paid, we set off in our Chevrolet Aveo (silver), registration KEB 7922 (A.K.A. Kioni), and were soon edging our way around Agia Efimia. Nervously laughing each time I punched the door with my right hand in an attempt to change gear (it being a Greek car and therefore left-hand drive with the gears and handbrake to the right), we made it to Melassani Lakes. There, in a group of only seven people (in a boat designed for about double that), we learned that in its deepest points the lake is 100ft deep, and yet you could still see the bottom! As we edged around the cavern, learning that the water here flows in an underground river from Argostoli (the Capitol about 20km west of where we were) all the way here and past down to Sami (a few Km's further east), a great big piece of rock fell from the cavern ceiling and crashed into the waters nearby!
As a direct result of my sense of direction (and partly due to the odd layout of Greek roads), we took the scenic route to the Drograti Caves. Here, we descended the 143 steps into the maw of rock to observe the islands biggest natural attraction. It was exceedingly beautiful and the temperature perfectly cool - gorgeous just at that time, as it was the hottest part of the day on the surface! In an attempt to cool off back up top we stopped at the cafe and had an icy-cold diet coke each (neither stayed icy for very long in that heat) and two large sandwiches. Katie also bought a necklace from a salesman nearby, who in three minutes makes your name in either English or Greek out of wire. Armed with her new gift, we browsed the gift shop nearby, where I was refrained from buying the Samurai sword for only €30, nor was I allowed to purchase the repeater shotgun for only €50! Bargain! In the event of a zombie apocalypse, I'm making a break for Kefalonia - great food, good weather, and discount weaponry!
Unfortunately here, Katie lost her sunglasses. We're not sure where, or how, but somewhere either in or around Drograti Caves lies a pair of women's sunglasses. May they serve whoever finds them well. From there on the outskirts of Sami, we struck in-land across the mountains. Past the foothills of Mount Roundi, we came down out of the highlands to Argostoli. Here we stopped briefly to quench our thirst, buy new sunglasses, buy a sponge (one of the natural ones), and find out parking details for Saturday's BBQ boat trip. Following the Argostoli peninsula round, taking in the full scope of the gulf, we hugged the coastline south and then cut across east towards a village called Pessada. Incidentally, it lay next to Spartia - if I had known we could have visited Leonidas' monument (a little 300 joke)! Anyway, we arrived at the Kefalonia Game Farm to the sound of insects. Nothing else. It was like the scene of a bad horror movie, where you yell at the main character to turn around and leave but they just don't listen! As such we left (no-one answered my horror-movie standard call of "Hello, anybody there?"), so I missed out on shooting clay pigeons, but never mind.
Heading ever-eastwards, we accidentally descended into Lourdata (or Lourdas as the English call it); a gorgeous front of golden sands and lapping, crystal-clear water (to be fair, I don't think there's anywhere on Kefalonia that doesn't have crystal waters). The only problem is to get to it and back out of it, you have to traverse unnaturally-crazy inclines, many around super-tight, blind corners. After some white-knuckle driving and several first-gear power-rev's, we found the main road and continued onwards along the coastline. Somewhere along the drive a turning point was reached - we flew along the cliff-top roads (quite safely thankyou very much), and took corners like native Greek islanders (though with much more courtesy for our fellow drivers and alot more lane discipline). I had broken in this wild steed and settled into the left-hand driving, right-side gears and the left-seat control position, odd as it was.
We cruised along through Markopoulo and coasted down out of the Mount Aenos lowlands towards the Poros valley, listening to "Ionian Galaxy" - an odd assortment of Greek music, popular English chart music and a dash of strangely-covered English pop and oldies! Never-the-less, it gave us an enjoyable accompaniment that had us singing along at some points, laughing loudly at others, and in some places making us doubt our hearing. A well-known song to us also made an appearance - Gary Barlow's version of Sing. It seem's even on holiday we can't get away from Jack's favourite song! We stopped just outside the bay that becomes Agia Efimia and took a few photographs of the picturesque town before making the horseshoe journey back to our apartment.
We unceremoniously dumped our things in the apartment, set the air conditioning to the lowest possible and took to the beach for an hour. After several hours of non-stop driving in the hot car (though without the a/c or the open windows we'd have cooked), the cool waters were just the remedy we needed. Over the seaweed bed that hugs the centre of the small swimming inlet that we used, we spotted a school of larger fish floating about, and discovered that the smaller surface-rippers are quite cheeky (no matter how many times you try nor how close you come to grabbing them you get, they keep swimming back up close to torment you)!
Refreshed, we had some bacon-flavour crisps and read for a while on the terrace. Stoked from the bacony-goodness, the fires of our bellies grew too much, and we took to town for dinner. This night we dined at Captain Corelli's; the bar where Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz visited often to feast whilst filming the famous film of the same name. Feast is definitely the operative word at this establishment - the portions were huge! Whilst Katie enjoyed a starter of Spetzofai (onion, pepper, sausage, chips and feta), I had fried cheese, and we debated the hostess' accents. As we devoured our large plate of pork ribs (mine) and Carbonara (for madam), we noticed the giant South African flag above the bar doorway. Some observant Forensic Scientist's we're going to be. Finally we were defeated and left a mouthful or two each upon our plates with a fair tip. Stopping at the supermarket for some bottled water (and some tasty-tasty Peach Iced Tea), we headed home to turn in for the night. An early start tomorrow, and a very physical day no Jamie's trip. Time for rest, or at least, so I hope!
...Or not, after all. Turns out that was the worst night's sleep yet here in Greece. Not as bad as the Travelodge in Manchester, but still only a solid four hours slumber. Anywho, I was up with the alarm at 0830, and sat on the terrace, sun-creamed, sun-glassed and book in hand, awaiting the arrival of our hire car. So, it reached 1015, and still no car! Upon ringing Avis, with whom the car was booked, they reportedly have no deliveries or collections in Agia Efimia today. Sigh. After some searching for my name, they find a booking for our hire car, with an airport pick up. I pointed out the lack of logic that that would entail, given that we arrived on Sunday, and was told that it would cost €66 to have it dropped off in the evening. Unhappy but in need of the car for the next day, I grudgingly accepted.
Luckily Thomas Cook are so damned good - one of the rep's in the Kefalonia office did some political manouvering on our behalf and got Avis to agree to drop it off at one in the afternoon. At least it meant we could have a drive and get used to the car before the long trip up to Fiskardo in the morning. In retrospect, I was a little harsh on Avis; they delivered the car at 1200, with an apology for the mistake and a class B car to make up for it, instead of the class A we had ordered. Finally, we had our car!
With paperwork signed and extra charge paid, we set off in our Chevrolet Aveo (silver), registration KEB 7922 (A.K.A. Kioni), and were soon edging our way around Agia Efimia. Nervously laughing each time I punched the door with my right hand in an attempt to change gear (it being a Greek car and therefore left-hand drive with the gears and handbrake to the right), we made it to Melassani Lakes. There, in a group of only seven people (in a boat designed for about double that), we learned that in its deepest points the lake is 100ft deep, and yet you could still see the bottom! As we edged around the cavern, learning that the water here flows in an underground river from Argostoli (the Capitol about 20km west of where we were) all the way here and past down to Sami (a few Km's further east), a great big piece of rock fell from the cavern ceiling and crashed into the waters nearby!
As a direct result of my sense of direction (and partly due to the odd layout of Greek roads), we took the scenic route to the Drograti Caves. Here, we descended the 143 steps into the maw of rock to observe the islands biggest natural attraction. It was exceedingly beautiful and the temperature perfectly cool - gorgeous just at that time, as it was the hottest part of the day on the surface! In an attempt to cool off back up top we stopped at the cafe and had an icy-cold diet coke each (neither stayed icy for very long in that heat) and two large sandwiches. Katie also bought a necklace from a salesman nearby, who in three minutes makes your name in either English or Greek out of wire. Armed with her new gift, we browsed the gift shop nearby, where I was refrained from buying the Samurai sword for only €30, nor was I allowed to purchase the repeater shotgun for only €50! Bargain! In the event of a zombie apocalypse, I'm making a break for Kefalonia - great food, good weather, and discount weaponry!
Unfortunately here, Katie lost her sunglasses. We're not sure where, or how, but somewhere either in or around Drograti Caves lies a pair of women's sunglasses. May they serve whoever finds them well. From there on the outskirts of Sami, we struck in-land across the mountains. Past the foothills of Mount Roundi, we came down out of the highlands to Argostoli. Here we stopped briefly to quench our thirst, buy new sunglasses, buy a sponge (one of the natural ones), and find out parking details for Saturday's BBQ boat trip. Following the Argostoli peninsula round, taking in the full scope of the gulf, we hugged the coastline south and then cut across east towards a village called Pessada. Incidentally, it lay next to Spartia - if I had known we could have visited Leonidas' monument (a little 300 joke)! Anyway, we arrived at the Kefalonia Game Farm to the sound of insects. Nothing else. It was like the scene of a bad horror movie, where you yell at the main character to turn around and leave but they just don't listen! As such we left (no-one answered my horror-movie standard call of "Hello, anybody there?"), so I missed out on shooting clay pigeons, but never mind.
Heading ever-eastwards, we accidentally descended into Lourdata (or Lourdas as the English call it); a gorgeous front of golden sands and lapping, crystal-clear water (to be fair, I don't think there's anywhere on Kefalonia that doesn't have crystal waters). The only problem is to get to it and back out of it, you have to traverse unnaturally-crazy inclines, many around super-tight, blind corners. After some white-knuckle driving and several first-gear power-rev's, we found the main road and continued onwards along the coastline. Somewhere along the drive a turning point was reached - we flew along the cliff-top roads (quite safely thankyou very much), and took corners like native Greek islanders (though with much more courtesy for our fellow drivers and alot more lane discipline). I had broken in this wild steed and settled into the left-hand driving, right-side gears and the left-seat control position, odd as it was.
We cruised along through Markopoulo and coasted down out of the Mount Aenos lowlands towards the Poros valley, listening to "Ionian Galaxy" - an odd assortment of Greek music, popular English chart music and a dash of strangely-covered English pop and oldies! Never-the-less, it gave us an enjoyable accompaniment that had us singing along at some points, laughing loudly at others, and in some places making us doubt our hearing. A well-known song to us also made an appearance - Gary Barlow's version of Sing. It seem's even on holiday we can't get away from Jack's favourite song! We stopped just outside the bay that becomes Agia Efimia and took a few photographs of the picturesque town before making the horseshoe journey back to our apartment.
We unceremoniously dumped our things in the apartment, set the air conditioning to the lowest possible and took to the beach for an hour. After several hours of non-stop driving in the hot car (though without the a/c or the open windows we'd have cooked), the cool waters were just the remedy we needed. Over the seaweed bed that hugs the centre of the small swimming inlet that we used, we spotted a school of larger fish floating about, and discovered that the smaller surface-rippers are quite cheeky (no matter how many times you try nor how close you come to grabbing them you get, they keep swimming back up close to torment you)!
Refreshed, we had some bacon-flavour crisps and read for a while on the terrace. Stoked from the bacony-goodness, the fires of our bellies grew too much, and we took to town for dinner. This night we dined at Captain Corelli's; the bar where Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz visited often to feast whilst filming the famous film of the same name. Feast is definitely the operative word at this establishment - the portions were huge! Whilst Katie enjoyed a starter of Spetzofai (onion, pepper, sausage, chips and feta), I had fried cheese, and we debated the hostess' accents. As we devoured our large plate of pork ribs (mine) and Carbonara (for madam), we noticed the giant South African flag above the bar doorway. Some observant Forensic Scientist's we're going to be. Finally we were defeated and left a mouthful or two each upon our plates with a fair tip. Stopping at the supermarket for some bottled water (and some tasty-tasty Peach Iced Tea), we headed home to turn in for the night. An early start tomorrow, and a very physical day no Jamie's trip. Time for rest, or at least, so I hope!
Kefalonia - Part Two
Monday 16th
A glamorous lay in this morning; we got up at 1030, having had a full and wholesome 12 hours of rest to catch us up from the night before! At 1110 we left for Fiore D'amore, a cafe in town where we met up with the rest of the minibus crew from yesterday. Our rep, Elaine, arrived, looking brown as a native Greek, and launched into the run-down of what is available for us to do, both with Thomas Cook and local companies. After the talk we took a gander around a touristy shop that we hadn't noticed during last night's wanderings, and found some interesting goods. For €12, a fully-functional flintlock pistol (powder and shot sold separately), and for €40 a piece, either a gorgeous sword or a working modern harpoon (with one spear-ammo).
We stopped en route to the apartment to buy some more of the supermarket's simple but delectable sandwiches and at the bakery for another pain au chocolate and a massive, custard-filled danish pastry (for Katie). Back at our holiday home we changed and went down to the sea for a dip - quickly cut my swim short to trot into town and purchase another pair of snorkel and mask for myself, so we both had a set each to goggle at the marine life with. Soon though I was back in the water and we spent a good half hour exploring the local bay. We found, and I managed to free-dive to collect, a lovely pale cream urchin-shell, though unfortunately due to an accidental collision between the two of us in swimming back to shore, it was crushed and broken (though we enjoyed the display of fish that swarmed to nibble at the pieces).
Soon after we returned up the hill and ate our lunch of pastry-based goodies, sandwiches and Peach Iced Tea (an amazingly refreshing and tasty beverage, especially when half-frozen into a slush!). We then wrote out our postcards, accompanied by a yummy dessert of Tesco's value midget gems (brought over from home), before sunning ourselves on the terrace (where we spotted our first Kefalonian cloud!!). At 1630 Elaine came around to her office here at Myrto (really just a desk inside a garage), and we booked a trip on the glass bottom boat trip for Saturday. Following this we had a little relax and read, before donning our swimmers and hitting the surf for a second time today.
Unfortunately the cloud earlier was a sign of things to come, and there are now a large group of them around Mt. Aenos (stop giggling those of you whose maturity levels are in need of a topping up). It's dropped the temperatures a little, but it is still about 25 degrees I'd approximate. We've seen alot more of the marine life this second time round; a large array of fish, big and small, including a huge school of mini-fish that were continually harassed by a single larger one (which I taught a lesson by diving after repeatedly, to see how it liked being chased!), a sea urchin and two star fish, one reddy-orange, and one black/brown. We also located another urchin shell, but unfortunately as soon as my hand touched it, it disintegrated. That was a big disappointment, as it took me a good seven dives to be able to reach the required depth (about 20-25ft down). Eventually though, nature called, and we returned to the apartment.
We washed the salt from ourselves, after-sunned and admired the tans we had already accumulated. Then we spent a good hour or so reading until hunger struck. Around 2030 we left for town, late in the style of proper Greek cuisine. My choice of venue tonight, and I selected cafe Finikas, about halfway along the north-western front of Agia Efimia. For starters Katie chose a simple Saganaki with pepper and tomato sauce (deep fried cheese), while I had a tantalizing Feta cheese in phyllo pastry, honey and sesame seed. During these we exclaimed at the strength of the wind that had picked up as evening progressed, the staff forced to close the giant umbrella that covered one portion of their dining area. Our mains consisted of a mixed kebap of chicken, pork and lamb for Katie and a soutzoukaki for myself (a fancy Greek term for spicy-sauced meatballs). The quay-side yachts were rocking to 45 degree angles at their moorings, the palms were bent over double and every loose piece of cloth, leaf or paper for miles around had disappeared.
Despite all this, the temperature remained pleasant, warm and just-under uncomfortable. To accompany my mains, I had decided to have a little alcohol. In light of this, I ordered a Sex On The Beach, one of my favourite cocktails. Long story short, the Greeks are not like their UK counterparts; they do not stint on the alcoholic ingredients in cocktails!Katie sampled the local island beer, Mythos, and reported it light and tasty (though I still maintain it, and all beers, taste #&%$!). After a lengthy wait for the bill we threw caution to the wind (see what I did there?) and walked around the bay to the second (and frankly, naff) supermarket. Returning to the first one, we purchased a few choice items and set off back towards home, gathering stamps from a kiosk en route.We made a slight detour on the way home via the harbour wall, and sat for a while admiring the large and clear sky of stars that the lack of light pollution provides. Halfway up the drive to our apartment, we stopped yet again for some star gazing, spotting two planes and, the highlight of our night, a shooting star! To bed!
Tuesday 17th
Anyway by the time we had dressed it was 1330, so we set off into town for some supplies. I was happy to find some more Nestea Peach flavour in the supermarket, and we purchased some crisp-style nibbles for snacks. Katie posted the postcards, and we stopped off at the bakery before grabbing a cooling ice cream each. Katie had an almond caramel creme and cookie crunch, whilst I sampled caramel and chocolate. Simply put, they were divine! Once more at the apartment we feasted on our pastries (danish for her, pain of choc for moi), and settled down to read for a while. Unintended siesta over (oops!), and we returned to reading until about 2000 before heading out to dinner. Once again we dined at Spiros through mutual agreement, and ate Mezes again as a shared starter.
A trio of entertainers played on the deck nearby, a Greek singer/dancer with enigmatic feet and a beautiful voice accompanied by a chain-smoking keyboard player and a lyrist. We tried two new dishes to accent the Greek music floating through the air; Katie had beef giuvetsi which was a large bowl of rice-shaped pasta (orzo) with huge chunks of fall-apart beef in a tomato sauce and covered in grated feta. I went for a mixed souvlaki, which is essentially a kebap. Chicken, Sausage, Pork, Steak and Lamb made up my meal, with a gorgeous portion of chips on the side. Katie also sampled the house rose which, at €1.30 for a glass almost equivalent to an English large glass, tasted VERY nice! After paying the bill and thanking the entertainment, we took a walk around the bay to cool off and digest, before returning to our icy-cold air-conditioned room for reading and eventual sleep. Bliss.
What happened to our generation?
Katie just showed me an excerpt from a magazine article entitled "The Teens Who've Had EIGHT Abortions". That in itself stops my thoughts in their tracks....eight abortions! Here are some other facts it lists;
I know this is getting a bit close to religious views for anyones liking, including mine, so let's examine a different fact, also involved with the strange mentalities that seem to have spawned within our generation, and grown in the generations since. Babies. I know some women who are onto their second or even third child....others who, for some reason, only want to have a child as soon as possible for themselves already. Bear in mind, most of these women are of the same age as me, some I know of, are even younger. I don't know where the mindset came from that we must procreate so quickly and early in life, that we must rush into such a life-changing event without much forethought.
I could go on forever about so many other things...binge drinking, drugs, smoking, unemployment and the "now generation" (as aptly described the Black Eyed Peas' song) mindsets that all seem to have overtaken the vast proportion of my age-group and the children that have followed, but It would be too long and boring to read. Or write for that matter, so I'll leave it at that, in mild shock.
- 5,300 teenagers who have abortions in England and Wales have already had one previously
- 4 of those 5,300 had their 6th, 14 had their 5th and 57 had their 4th
- Figures suggest many girls use abortion as a form of contraception
I know this is getting a bit close to religious views for anyones liking, including mine, so let's examine a different fact, also involved with the strange mentalities that seem to have spawned within our generation, and grown in the generations since. Babies. I know some women who are onto their second or even third child....others who, for some reason, only want to have a child as soon as possible for themselves already. Bear in mind, most of these women are of the same age as me, some I know of, are even younger. I don't know where the mindset came from that we must procreate so quickly and early in life, that we must rush into such a life-changing event without much forethought.
I could go on forever about so many other things...binge drinking, drugs, smoking, unemployment and the "now generation" (as aptly described the Black Eyed Peas' song) mindsets that all seem to have overtaken the vast proportion of my age-group and the children that have followed, but It would be too long and boring to read. Or write for that matter, so I'll leave it at that, in mild shock.
Kefalonia - Part One
NB: I've decided to post the holiday diary up as a series of posts, rather than one long one, for ease of reference and to lighten the load on any of you who decide to read it.
Saturday 14th July
Katie was the early bird this morning, waking up at 0500 before dredging my sorry self out of bed an hour later. Following a thorough regimen of multiple last-minute checks and double-checks of suitcase and hand luggage contents, we left Mum's at 1030 to hop on a Coventry City bus to the train station. Arriving nice and early we dilly-dallied until our train arrived, and before too long we were lugging our 31Kg of stuff across Birmingham New Street. A swift change-over at Crewe later and we finally pulled into Manchester Airport railway station with much excitement. After a fair bit of dithering about we managed to locate the correct transfer bus to our Travelodge and checked in to a standard double room. It was basic and showing a little wear, but we were there for barely a night, and the bed was super-soft; like laying on a giant, silky marshmallow! I say laying, as neither of us got anything that could come close to counting as sleep that night. Prior to the failure to count sheep, we had a ginormous burger each in the bar/restaurant, followed by a little plane-spotting from the hallway and bedroom windows. Here, Katie demonstrated her excitement by asking, and I quote; "Are there any planes on the toilet?". Bless. Back in the room, I watched some Avatar before snatching a bare hours doze before the alarm rang us into holiday-time proper.
Sunday 15th July
By 0215 we had showered, dressed and run last-minute checks of our items (not that noticing the lack of anything would have done much good just then!) and descended to reception. What followed was a series of shambles that bears no need to detail, suffice to say the receptionist's incompetence culminated in our stealing someone's taxi! Karma gave us our due for this transgression, as at 0245 we violently arrived at Terminal 1, the combined effort of our feet against our cases stopping them from crushing us to death (turns out of driver fancied himself the new Colin McRae!). Check-in began at 0315, but we figured we'd go and see if it had opened early and, lo!, our curiosity was rewarded. The nice boy at the check-in counter took our suitcases, we grabbed a spare SD card for the camera in duty-free and before we knew it, barely thirty minutes after arriving at the front door, we were waiting in the departure lounge - it's gotta be a record!
To get into the Greek spirit, I sampled a delectable tomato, chicken and pasta salad from a food outlet whilst trying to allay Katie's fears of flying. I, for once, was extremely calm the whole trip, perhaps owing to the fact I was concentrating on helping my dear through her first foray into the world of high-altitude travel. After eating we took an amble down to our gate and, arriving first, chose a seat overlooking our airplane, Katie suitably awed/excited/nervous/terrified in equal measure in sight of our vehicle-beastie. The gate area began to fill up, and we killed our time both trying to figure out where the other flight destinations lay in the world, and praying the larger groups of teenage boys and girls weren't on our flight (old fogies that we are). As it turned out, both destinations were in the Med, and neither of the annoyingly loud groups came with us.
Eventually our number was up; seat number that is, and we embarked upon the Boeing 757-200. I must confess how proud I was (and am) of Katie at this point, despite her fears, she was extremely calm and collected as we boarded and sat down in our seats at 0600. A long wait later, forty minutes to be precise, we took off, Katie's agog face stuck to the window beside us in awe and excitement of the wonder of flying. Our Captain dutifully relayed to us that our cruising altitude was to be 37,000 feet, or six miles up in real money. Post-take-off I took my first uninterrupted sleep of the day, snatching a thirty-minute rest on Katie's shoulder (no worries - I had checked and double-checked and been reliably informed and enthusiastically informed that she was no longer terrified, now merely scared, and more than a bit excited).
I was awoken half an hour later to the best in-flight meal ever. Our flight magazine featured an article detailing how our celeb-chef James Martin had been commissioned by Thomas Cook to produce a clean slate of airline foods. He states that on asking his friends on a conference call what they all would prefer to eat on a flight anywhere, they all replied with British comfort food. As a result, we chowed down on a breakfast of Bacon, Tomato, Sausage and Scrambled Egg (which I traded with Katie for half a sausage), Orange Juice, a raspberry mini-muller light and the worlds best muffin. The muffin was banana and maple syrup, made entirely from the fruit instead of flour so it doesn't spoil easy, and retains its moisture for longer. Injected with a hefty dose of the liquid syrup into the centre, it was super-soft, super moist, super gooey and super flavourful. A Super Muffin, if you will.
Following another short, post-breakfast nap, we began our descent (cue both of us eagerly looking out of the window). I accidentally misled Katie, somewhat accurately counting down from thirty seconds until landing. I reached zero and was asked "Was that it?", to which the pilot (or the plane) responded with a very heavy landing onto the runway, barely one second after my count had finished (hence the 'somewhat' accurately), much to Katie's heart-stalling surprise! We were down at just gone midday local time, arriving to a walk across the tarmac in 30 degree heat with zero humidity. Katie and I had forethought our arrival luckily, and donned our sunglasses from the hand luggage. After a lengthy wait to collect our bags and a disappointing passport glance (disappointing because Katie wanted her passport stamped, and glance because he sure as hell didn't check them!), we boarded a small silver minibus and sped from the airport at 1300.
At just past 1415 our driver, Nikos (because that isn't stereotypical at all), dropped us off at the absurdly beautiful Aghia Efimia. Our ground-floor flat comprised a large combi-sleeping/living room, ajoined by a kitchen and a shower room (separate rooms, by the way...that'd be just weird). We hurriedly unpacked and freshened up before walking into town for a light stock-up. Six large bottles of fresh water and a sandwich later, we were back at the apartment and munching a magnificently fresh 'chocolate croissant' (that's Pain Au Chocolate' to me and you). Soon after we donned our beachware and hit the ocean, which was less than a minutes walk away!
Two hours later we emerged, salty and tired but feeling very much invigorated, and lounged upon the large slabs of rock that flanked the little beach to dry off (which, in the weather there, took five minutes). We returned to a cleansing shower in our apartment and relaxed a little with some literature until our stomachs decided it was time to eat. In our spiffy dining-wares we leisurely strode into town, by-passing the seafood restaurant, Poseidon (for now, at least), in favour of Spiros. All credit due to Katie here, as we couldn't have found a better place to eat for our first night. It was fairly quiet, had a lovely view of the marina and contained some of the friendliest staff that we ever came to meet throughout our holiday.
After ordering our food we tucked into a couple of slices of thick yet soft, properly crusty Greek bread, liberally spread with butter. Our starter arrived; "Mezes". We halved everything - stuffed vine leaves in a thick cheese sauce (almost a basil-like leaf that was wrapped around rice, meat and herbs), local sausage (Greek sausage - need I say more?), cheese pie (light, layered pastry with a crumbly-dry-feta-creamy cheese filling), tzatziki (nicely spiced that we enjoyed with some of the bed of chips), and saganaki cheese (a deep fried piece of strongly-flavoured mozzarella-textured cheese). It was, without a doubt, a brilliant start to the food portion of our Greek holiday. We both followed this with Kefalonian meat pie; essentially just rice and meat inside a thick layer of top-and-bottom (as it said on the menu) pastry, which was sweet and crumbly. Needless to say we tipped well, but I felt a more personal touch was required for such a nice start to our holiday, so followed the waiter into the kitchen to thank the Chef.
Once more we looked around the shops, purchasing some postcards and a snorkel/mask for me, before heading back to the apartment for bed. It's odd to think less than twenty-four hours ago we were in Manchester Airport Travelodge, struggling to sleep, but the sun has just set on our first day.
Saturday 14th July
Katie was the early bird this morning, waking up at 0500 before dredging my sorry self out of bed an hour later. Following a thorough regimen of multiple last-minute checks and double-checks of suitcase and hand luggage contents, we left Mum's at 1030 to hop on a Coventry City bus to the train station. Arriving nice and early we dilly-dallied until our train arrived, and before too long we were lugging our 31Kg of stuff across Birmingham New Street. A swift change-over at Crewe later and we finally pulled into Manchester Airport railway station with much excitement. After a fair bit of dithering about we managed to locate the correct transfer bus to our Travelodge and checked in to a standard double room. It was basic and showing a little wear, but we were there for barely a night, and the bed was super-soft; like laying on a giant, silky marshmallow! I say laying, as neither of us got anything that could come close to counting as sleep that night. Prior to the failure to count sheep, we had a ginormous burger each in the bar/restaurant, followed by a little plane-spotting from the hallway and bedroom windows. Here, Katie demonstrated her excitement by asking, and I quote; "Are there any planes on the toilet?". Bless. Back in the room, I watched some Avatar before snatching a bare hours doze before the alarm rang us into holiday-time proper.
Sunday 15th July
By 0215 we had showered, dressed and run last-minute checks of our items (not that noticing the lack of anything would have done much good just then!) and descended to reception. What followed was a series of shambles that bears no need to detail, suffice to say the receptionist's incompetence culminated in our stealing someone's taxi! Karma gave us our due for this transgression, as at 0245 we violently arrived at Terminal 1, the combined effort of our feet against our cases stopping them from crushing us to death (turns out of driver fancied himself the new Colin McRae!). Check-in began at 0315, but we figured we'd go and see if it had opened early and, lo!, our curiosity was rewarded. The nice boy at the check-in counter took our suitcases, we grabbed a spare SD card for the camera in duty-free and before we knew it, barely thirty minutes after arriving at the front door, we were waiting in the departure lounge - it's gotta be a record!
To get into the Greek spirit, I sampled a delectable tomato, chicken and pasta salad from a food outlet whilst trying to allay Katie's fears of flying. I, for once, was extremely calm the whole trip, perhaps owing to the fact I was concentrating on helping my dear through her first foray into the world of high-altitude travel. After eating we took an amble down to our gate and, arriving first, chose a seat overlooking our airplane, Katie suitably awed/excited/nervous/terrified in equal measure in sight of our vehicle-beastie. The gate area began to fill up, and we killed our time both trying to figure out where the other flight destinations lay in the world, and praying the larger groups of teenage boys and girls weren't on our flight (old fogies that we are). As it turned out, both destinations were in the Med, and neither of the annoyingly loud groups came with us.
Eventually our number was up; seat number that is, and we embarked upon the Boeing 757-200. I must confess how proud I was (and am) of Katie at this point, despite her fears, she was extremely calm and collected as we boarded and sat down in our seats at 0600. A long wait later, forty minutes to be precise, we took off, Katie's agog face stuck to the window beside us in awe and excitement of the wonder of flying. Our Captain dutifully relayed to us that our cruising altitude was to be 37,000 feet, or six miles up in real money. Post-take-off I took my first uninterrupted sleep of the day, snatching a thirty-minute rest on Katie's shoulder (no worries - I had checked and double-checked and been reliably informed and enthusiastically informed that she was no longer terrified, now merely scared, and more than a bit excited).
I was awoken half an hour later to the best in-flight meal ever. Our flight magazine featured an article detailing how our celeb-chef James Martin had been commissioned by Thomas Cook to produce a clean slate of airline foods. He states that on asking his friends on a conference call what they all would prefer to eat on a flight anywhere, they all replied with British comfort food. As a result, we chowed down on a breakfast of Bacon, Tomato, Sausage and Scrambled Egg (which I traded with Katie for half a sausage), Orange Juice, a raspberry mini-muller light and the worlds best muffin. The muffin was banana and maple syrup, made entirely from the fruit instead of flour so it doesn't spoil easy, and retains its moisture for longer. Injected with a hefty dose of the liquid syrup into the centre, it was super-soft, super moist, super gooey and super flavourful. A Super Muffin, if you will.
Following another short, post-breakfast nap, we began our descent (cue both of us eagerly looking out of the window). I accidentally misled Katie, somewhat accurately counting down from thirty seconds until landing. I reached zero and was asked "Was that it?", to which the pilot (or the plane) responded with a very heavy landing onto the runway, barely one second after my count had finished (hence the 'somewhat' accurately), much to Katie's heart-stalling surprise! We were down at just gone midday local time, arriving to a walk across the tarmac in 30 degree heat with zero humidity. Katie and I had forethought our arrival luckily, and donned our sunglasses from the hand luggage. After a lengthy wait to collect our bags and a disappointing passport glance (disappointing because Katie wanted her passport stamped, and glance because he sure as hell didn't check them!), we boarded a small silver minibus and sped from the airport at 1300.
At just past 1415 our driver, Nikos (because that isn't stereotypical at all), dropped us off at the absurdly beautiful Aghia Efimia. Our ground-floor flat comprised a large combi-sleeping/living room, ajoined by a kitchen and a shower room (separate rooms, by the way...that'd be just weird). We hurriedly unpacked and freshened up before walking into town for a light stock-up. Six large bottles of fresh water and a sandwich later, we were back at the apartment and munching a magnificently fresh 'chocolate croissant' (that's Pain Au Chocolate' to me and you). Soon after we donned our beachware and hit the ocean, which was less than a minutes walk away!
Two hours later we emerged, salty and tired but feeling very much invigorated, and lounged upon the large slabs of rock that flanked the little beach to dry off (which, in the weather there, took five minutes). We returned to a cleansing shower in our apartment and relaxed a little with some literature until our stomachs decided it was time to eat. In our spiffy dining-wares we leisurely strode into town, by-passing the seafood restaurant, Poseidon (for now, at least), in favour of Spiros. All credit due to Katie here, as we couldn't have found a better place to eat for our first night. It was fairly quiet, had a lovely view of the marina and contained some of the friendliest staff that we ever came to meet throughout our holiday.
After ordering our food we tucked into a couple of slices of thick yet soft, properly crusty Greek bread, liberally spread with butter. Our starter arrived; "Mezes". We halved everything - stuffed vine leaves in a thick cheese sauce (almost a basil-like leaf that was wrapped around rice, meat and herbs), local sausage (Greek sausage - need I say more?), cheese pie (light, layered pastry with a crumbly-dry-feta-creamy cheese filling), tzatziki (nicely spiced that we enjoyed with some of the bed of chips), and saganaki cheese (a deep fried piece of strongly-flavoured mozzarella-textured cheese). It was, without a doubt, a brilliant start to the food portion of our Greek holiday. We both followed this with Kefalonian meat pie; essentially just rice and meat inside a thick layer of top-and-bottom (as it said on the menu) pastry, which was sweet and crumbly. Needless to say we tipped well, but I felt a more personal touch was required for such a nice start to our holiday, so followed the waiter into the kitchen to thank the Chef.
Once more we looked around the shops, purchasing some postcards and a snorkel/mask for me, before heading back to the apartment for bed. It's odd to think less than twenty-four hours ago we were in Manchester Airport Travelodge, struggling to sleep, but the sun has just set on our first day.
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