Blogs from Ionian Islands, Greece, Europe - page 14

After Kim whipped us all up breakfast in the villa we stood out at Saint Nicolas beach. The 50 foot catamaran that would be our home for the day sent a dingy to pick us up on the pier. A handful of us spent a glorious day on the catamaran. After exploring the ship and figuring out how the pump-operated head worked we set sail. I was asked by the Captain to help haul up the mainsail on two occasions, and no - the request was not fuelled by my knowledge of sailing but I assume solely due to my however many kilos of calamari and sardines and Mythos I portage. We sailed the breadth of the island from just north of the southeastern tip along the broad swath of the island’s south and just a ... read more

Zakynthos is home to more breeding endangered loggerhead sea turtles than any other Mediterranean isle. In the more densly nested areas there are nests every 30 cm on the beach!! We visited the HQ of the Eco-centre that manages and supervises their preservation, talked with the staff and Will watched a video about the turtles. We took in their exhibits and then walked to the beach. After climbing the stairs down to Gerakas Beach we were met by one of the staff who informs everyone coming to the beach where to stay away from not to disturb turtle nests. The nests they know about are marked with metal contraptions. Like Voidokilia and Methoni beach, Gerakas is idyllic – endless clean sand and crystal clear water with cliffss as bookends. Kim joined the local flavour by going ... read more

Yesterday I was thrilled to hear that I’ll have the day off today! As my lady-boss said: „Tomorrow Adriana sleep. S. (herself) sleep.” So, I planned a day trip to Argostoli, the capital of the island. I’ll go there by bus, I’ll take loads of pictures, walk around and enjoy the sun. It is pretty hard to keep a secret here or keep anything to yourself – for example that you’re not going to be in your room or in the hotel on your day off. One Slovakian girl heard it than at lunch time everyone asked where will I go. When I replied with the name of the above mentioned town, such looks were given in response as if I have said that on my free day I’ll swim all the way to America and ... read more

Today was my third workday but the very first one where I actually did the cleaning all by myself! Of course, I got less rooms than the others who are here for nearly a month now and they are really good: they get 11-14 rooms a day. I got 6 today and even though I finished before 15.30, around 13.30 there were some problems… But not huge problems. I had a room where I just needed to make some order as the guests are still there. This means that if the bathroom is filthy I clean it, I make the bed, empty the ashtrays, change the towels and change the bag in the toilet bin. By the way, I don’t know how many of you are aware but Greeks don’t put the toilet paper in the ... read more

Here I am writing from the island of Kephalonia, from it’s sleepy town, Skala and from the obviously existing and as beautiful as on the pictures: Port Skala Hotel Village. I report that I have arrived safely, I’m alive and I can hear the sea rumbling – so that must be real as well. The journey itself was unbearable. For real. Okay, it may be the weariness talking right now, although I’ve been amongst the luckiest on the coach: no one sat beside me, I sat totally alone. You may think „how awesome is that!” – but do not. It makes sleeping even harder as you think you have more space to stretch over – but it is never enough. So the longest period of time slept through was 1,5 hours and that was the maximum ... read more