Syros to Samos

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Friday 10th June, 2011 cont'd

At about seven thirty we took our evening constitutional and ended up in a restaurant called Estiatorio not far along the harbour. We had a Greek salad, moussaka and pork chop with drinks and a free dessert the bill came to €25.00. A traditional style restaurant nothing fancy but decent food.

Then more ambling along looking at the yachts and cabin cruisers.

We had seen a place that made crepes which we made our way back to through the town. With a little work as there was no English menu we ordered two chocolate crepes and one with hazelnuts. They were a good size portion and we had a small water, which they wouldn't take the money for, and the Crepes cost €5.10, we were pleasantly stuffed.

Then back to the room at ten thirty. A very pleasant evening.

Saturday 11th June 2011

We awoke and packed our stuff again. Went down to reception with our luggage and called for the lady. We paid for the room €135.00 for the three nights and then left our big bags as we had previously arranged and went for a walk to the town.

We made our first stop at the Coffeeright cafe and had our morning coffee.

I think we were both still stuffed from our crepes last night and neither had any food.

Then an amble round the harbour and into the town. We picked up some bits and pieces from the Carrefour Express and generally window shopped.

We stopped in the centre and watched the children chasing the pigeons and decided even though we weren't hungry that we needed to eat.

Just across from where we sat was a souvlaki grill house, so we had a couple of gyros pittas for our lunch.

At the harbour we stopped at the restaurant we ate at last night and had a beer and a coke watching the world go by. A very kind old gentlemen tried to give us some of his lunch.

It was getting towards time to leave so we headed back slowly. On the way we popped into the Chinese factory outlet again and bought some spare clothes.

Then returned to the hotel to pick up our luggage and return to the port.

A final drink at the Coffeeright and a comfort break waiting for our ferry.

At 1540 the Blue Star Ithaki arrived first, then the Nissos Mykonos - our ferry - and also the Nel Line Aqua Jewel. Well this looked like fun and explained why there were so many port police on duty.

It all worked out as these things do and we got on the ferry and the ship was on it's way at 1600 (20 minutes behind schedule). We had booked seats and found these. Most people seemed to have got off in Syros so not too busy on board.

Our arrival time in Vathi was 2140, and we had Mykonos, Ikaria, Fourni, Kalevasi (Samos) then Vathi (Samos).

Yesterday when we were doing some ship spotting we saw a strong police presence on one of the ferry arrivals and saw a young man accompanied by two guys - presumably police officers - in handcuffs. No idea why of course, but we imagined all sorts of wrongdoings.

We keep seeing ambulances greet ferry arrivals and the other thing which we haven't yet fathomed is the guys who are selling something from white cloth covered panniers. They rush on to the ferry and try to get off before sailing time. It was amusing to see some try to get off when we left Samos and the ramp was on it's way up so they were stuck on board.

Another of our current observations is the condition of the ferries we have sailed on and seen sailing around, which have all been in good condition. We have yet to encounter a single rust bucket and this has been to our pleasant surprise. Our last time of travelling around Greece was two and half years ago and at that time we certainly saw one or two ferries in poor condition.

A further pleasant note is the number of fishes that we have seen on our meandering around various harbours over the last month. On every occasion we have seen the very small fish swimming near harbour walls and at other times fish of much larger size have been visible.

The ferry journey was uneventful and we duly arrived at Vathi, Samos at 2200 hrs. We had chosen the Hotel Emily as it was close to the port and we were in and settled by 2230.

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