Blogs from Greece, Europe - page 3

And so it starts! The real adventure part of the holiday. It was another scorcher of a day with bright blue sky and sea. We arrived at the meeting point first, having checked out of Pirofani, and say hello to Alexis, the chief man at Trekking Hellas who are running the trip, Sakis, our main guide, and Spyros, his trusty sidekick. The kayaks were lined up on the water’s edge being loaded with our camping gear and other essentials like water. Boy, were we going to need the water! Gradually the other happy campers arrived, and once we were all present we sat down for a yummy lunch and started getting to know each other over some yummy Mediterranean style nibbles. We were quite a diverse group. Sian and I were the oldest, followed closely by ... read more

Lefkada Town. It was an early start. The taxi arrived spot on time at 03:45 and I was through security at Bristol Airport and seeking a coffee by just after 04:30. Thank goodness for the Fast Track option is all I can say. The airport was absolutely heaving, and the £7 cost of skipping the massive queues was well worth it! Sian was on an earlier flight than me and by the time I’d got my coffee, found a table to sit at and messaged her she was about to go to the gate to board. I was a little peeved that I hadn’t measured my rucksack very accurately; it didn’t quite fit in the luggage measuring thing, so had to go in the hold. To be honest though, we landed at Aktion about 15 minutes ... read more

Same as lots of times before, we are not where Travelblog says we are but it’s close. We are about 5 hours walk away or just 20 minutes on the ferry at a little town called Loutro. It’s car free which gives it a certain charm straight away, and it means you either walk in (some) or you ferry in (many). Walkers or ferryers probably means you’re a tourist and the town certainly is geared up for tourists. The waterfront is sun lounges, restaurants, bars and kiosks that seem to specialise is cocktails, long drinks and good wine (their descriptions not mine!). The grills and rotisseries were going as we arrived and that was mid afternoon although it’s like that many tourists will head back to other accommodation venues in the evening. Chickens, lamb and beef ... read more

It’s an early start as we make our way back to Athens where we’ll be staying overnight before beginning the long haul back towards Oz. As far as we can tell there are hardly any flat pieces of land anywhere on Kalymnos. We’re flying to Athens which has got us a bit curious about where they might have managed to build the island’s airport. But no problem there it seems, they’ve just cut the side out of the top of one of the hills. We’re not used to getting stunning views from airports, but that’s exactly what we’ve got here. We must be up on one of the highest points on the island and we’ve got an excellent panorama down over the port and across towards the southern coast. The sunrise is spectacular. Now we’ve just ... read more

Don’t bet we are at the location mentioned above. The internet is slow and intermittent here so I dare not check. We are close to Askifou and obviously still on Crete which is all you probably need to know. Found gyros last night. Still surprised we don’t see it more frequently and still surprised how relatively cheap it is. We pay about half the price of any other ‘main course’, still get chips with it (everywhere we have had gyros with chips in it!) and we always enjoy them. Again made the trek to breakfast and yes I still think it’s a bit weird. It’s not like it’s an impressive breakfast either. There are some hard boiled eggs but nothing else is cooked, there’s no cereal of any description, no pastries and only a couple of ... read more