Blogs from Poros, Attica, Greece, Europe

A pomegranate never tastes like a fig… ~ Greek Proverb HE SAID... Today we were travelling south from Aegina to Poros– by ferry. After exploring the narrow backstreets of Aegina Town (the island’s bustling port area) in the early morning light, we made our way to the Chapel of St Nicholas – a tiny church built right on the dock – which provided much needed shelter from the sun as we waited for our ferry to Poros. Having familiarised ourselves with the size of Greek ferries the previous day, we were ready for this journey. We even boarded as seasoned ferry travellers. Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but at least we weren’t as shell-shocked as we’d been at Piraeus the previous morning. We set off from Aegina at 10:30am, stopped briefly at Methana on the ... read more

Nous nous sommes fait attaquer par les maringouins cette nuit. Mario a même décidé de terminer la nuit dans le cockpit. Ce matin, malgré nos efforts pour les éviter durant la nuit, nous en écrasons des dizaines qui nous ont piqué et comptons nos piqûres ;-) Au levé, nous allons visiter le petit village de Égine. C’est notre premier amarrage à la méditéranéenne que nous réussissons avec brio. Nous arrêtons acheter des pistaches, spécialité de l’ile. Nous voulons visiter les ruines d’un temple dédié à Apollon mais il est malheureusement fermé le lundi. Zut, nous nous contenterons de l’admirer de loin. Lorsque nous décidons de quitter l’ile, nous découvrons que notre ancre s’est emmêlée avec celle d’un bateau voisin qui est elle-même prise avec celle d’un troisième bateau. Ouf ! Heureusement, Daniel était là avec son ... read more

The most recent Mama Mia movie inspired me to travel to Greece. Maybe inspired isn’t the right word here, more along the lines of started a small spark of intrigue that turned into a massive raging fire of longing by the end of the movie. I’m not sure what it was about this country that drew me in. Maybe it was the likeness to New Zealand. Maybe it was the atmosphere portrayed in the movie. Maybe it was Meryl Streep. Either way, for some reason I led myself to believe I would find true love on a Greek island, have a beautiful summer fling, and feed each other olives and dance on the sand in the moonlight. For this reason I put ‘sailing in Greece’ at the top of my bucket list. Greece for the above ... read more

Warning: The following is a blatant advertisement for the island of Poros! After doing some research about Greek islands that were close enough for a 1 year old to survive the boat trip, yet far enough away to provide a 'real' island vacation, we decided to take a 3 day trip to Poros. Since many things are closed on Mondays in Athens, we decided to leave Monday and planned to return Wednesday. Right before we left we found out there was a 48 strike planned for Tuesday and Wednesday so we figured it was a great time to leave Athens as the strikes tend to involve teargas these days. We double checked and the ferry unions were not planning to participate. Monday morning we made our way to the port and boarded the high speed catamaran ... read more

We got up at a resonable hour to hire some mopeds and cruise around the island. We headed straight up untill we reached some ancient ruins and a monestry and we could look out over the ocean. We headed back down the hill and fill the moped up with fuel (3 euros, what a cheap mode of transport). We stopped for some lunch, then drove to a beach for a swim. We went back to the boat for a bit and latter on Matt and I went for another cruise on the moped. With the wind in our hair, the views and the experience was the best. We stumbled across many beaches and at one stage had to take a detour on the opposite side of the island where the coast line was spectacular. On the ... read more