Russians Invade Rhodes

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Issy's not hungry so I go to breakfast on my own. An older English couple comes in to the restaurant. The man is wearing sandals, beach shorts, a blue shirt and a tie. It looks like he dressed his top half thinking that he was going to work, and then remembered that he was on holiday.

We've decided that we'll spend the first half of the day sightseeing, and the second half lying on the beach. Issy seems a bit more relaxed about us driving than she was a couple of days ago. Because they drive on the right hand side of the road in Greece, just about everything in the car is opposite to what we're used to. The driver's seat is on the left, and the indicator is on the left of the steering wheel. The brake is however still on the left side of the accelerator, and both pedals are still positioned so that you have to operate them with your right foot. I wonder why this is. I think it would be far more logical if everything was reversed. That said, I'm quite pleased that it isn't. I'm having enough trouble trying to remember to drive on the right hand side of the road without also having to worry about whether I'm pushing the accelerator or the brake.

Our first stop is the Monastery of Panagia Tsambika, which is about a twenty minute drive from the hotel. We drive up a very steep and narrow road into the car park, which is full of mountain goats. I'm not sure that mountain goats are all that smart; they don't seem to be very good at staying out of the way of moving cars. I hope that one them doesn't decide to butt our chariot while we're parked here. We've read that we need to climb 300 steps from the car park to the Monastery. Every fifth step is numbered. I'm not sure if this is to encourage you because you've climbed a certain number of steps, or to depress you because you've got a certain number still to go. There's a cleared area part way up covered with small piles of stones. It looks like people have built these as part of some sort of ritual. There's even a stall selling stones. I'm not sure why. There are plenty of them lying around on the ground. The views from the top are excellent, despite it being quite hazy. We can see Tsambika Beach to the south. It's long and wide, and lined with sun lounges and beach umbrellas. There's a huge hotel complex to the north, and it seems to have a large water park attached to it. The Monastery church itself is very small. All the signs are only in Greek and Russian and most of the people making the hike up here also seem to be Russian. Issy says that the Monastery must have some Russian connection.

Next stop is the Valley of the Butterflies on the other side of the island. The car parks near the entrance are all full, so we park on the side of the very steep and windy road further up the hill. People seem to park their cars almost anywhere here in Rhodes, so we decide to go local and park opposite double lines on a sharp bend.

I need to go to the toilet. To get the door to open I need to put 50 cents in a slot, but I've only got a two Euro coin, and there's a sign saying "no change given". The cleaner is standing outside the door. If he's not the cleaner he's gone to a lot of trouble to look like one; he's holding a mop and bucket. When someone comes out he holds the door open and tells me to give him 50 cents. He has lots of change in his hand, but he says that he can't give any of it to me because the sign says "no change given". I can't be bothered arguing with him.

We start the walk up the valley. It's very pretty with lots of tall trees, and the path follows a small stream. There are lots of signs asking people to be careful not to disturb the butterflies. The butterflies must be very sensitive. The signs discourage clapping, or whistling, or rattling anything, or even talking loudly. Smoking is also banned. Most of the butterflies are hanging from the trees, and there are far more hanging than flying around. The path ends at the small Kalopetra Monastery at the top of the hill where we get views through the haze over the west coast of the island.

As was the case at the Panagia Tsambika Monastery we've noticed that most of the people here also seem to be Russian, and we start to wonder why. I could understand a Greek monastery possibly having a Russian connection, but I'm not quite so sure how a Greek valley full of butterflies could have such a link. I wonder if maybe the butterflies migrate to Siberia every summer. On reflection this seems a bit unlikely. It's summer now, and I'm not even sure that butterflies migrate. I start to worry. I wonder if Vladimir Putin has hatched a cunning plan to invade Rhodes. It would seem to be quite a clever move to send thousands of Russian soldiers to Rhodes masquerading as tourists, and then have them take it over. I hope we don't have to convert all our Euros to Roubles.

There were hundreds of cars between ours and the entrance when we got here, but when we get back there are none. Our car is sitting all by itself, opposite double lines on a sharp bend in the road. I wonder where all the other cars have gone. There are still plenty of people in the valley. I hope this hasn't got anything to do with the Russian plot.

As has happened every time we've used the busy main coast road we pass several herds of mountain goats wandering casually across in front of the speeding traffic. I wasn't convinced they were all that smart, but now I'm not so sure. We don't seem to have seen too many dead ones lying on the side of the road.

I Google "Russian connection to Monastery of Panagia Tsambika"'. I look at several websites. It seems that there is no connection. I also Google "'do butterflies migrate". I learn that only one species does, and it's only found in North America. I go into a cold sweat. I'm now almost certain that Russia is about to invade Rhodes. I'm sure we'll wake up tomorrow and find that we're only able to get vodka and caviar for breakfast. On reflection that doesn't sound all that disastrous. My cold sweat starts to abate.

The Russians have already hijacked the wifi at the hotel. I've been trying to upload photos I took yesterday since yesterday afternoon, and it's only uploaded ten of them. That's a photo every two hours. I'm finding this very frustrating. Issy read me a Facebook post yesterday that said that if you want to find out what someone is really like before you marry them, you should sit them down in front of a computer with a slow internet connection for a couple of hours. I think it's just as well that we're already married.

We don't manage to get to the beach. Instead I wash clothes in the bath, using detergent that we bought from the supermarket. I thought it was detergent when we bought it, but the label's in Greek so now I'm not so sure. It doesn't make the water foam, so I use bath soap instead. There are plenty of coat hangers in the wardrobe, but it's only when I try to take them into the bathroom that I realise that they're the type of hotel hangers that are permanently attached to the clothes rail. I assume that hotels do this to make sure that you don't steal their precious hangers. This seems like a lot of effort to go to stop you from stealing something that's really cheap to buy. I hang the wet clothes on the hangers in the wardrobe, and put towels under them to catch the drips. I didn't realise that washing clothes in a hotel room could be so complicated.

We complete the day by catching a taxi into Lindos, where we have a very pleasant dinner at a restaurant in the main square.

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