Greece 2009, Sifnos, Apollonia and Kamares

The first job of the day was to take the short walk down to the village to buy some breakfast items.  Even at eight o’clock in the morning the place was busy and the mini-market and the bakery were doing brisk early trade.  Kamares has the feel of a strong community and the residents were chatting and being sociable in a way that we rarely see at home.

After breakfast on the balcony we caught the ten o’clock bus at the stop just outside the hotel for the short trip to the capital of Sifnos, Apollonia.  The trip took about fifteen minutes and the bus dropped us off in the busy main square.  Apollonia is in the middle of the island and all of the roads pass through this hectic spot and all around there was snarling traffic in a crazy traffic dominated street where it was important to keep our wits about us if we weren’t to smeared into the road and become permanent residents of Sifnos.

We disappeared as quickly as we could into the back streets of the town where the peace and tranquillity of the narrow shady lanes was in complete contrast to the main road.  It was already very hot and there was a long steep climb ahead of us as we made our way towards the blue domed cathedral at the top of the hill.  Stopping regularly to poke into hidden corners and side streets we met an Italian who was resting half way up the hill and he explained how he had set out with the objective of walking right across the island but at this half way point he was thinking of changing his plans and finishing the journey by bus.

At the top there was a panoramic view of most of the island and we could see the sea in the east but mountains blocked the view to the west.  We could see all of the capital, which is in fact made up of four separate villages that as they have grown have simply merged into one big town.  There were a lot of blue domes scattered along the streets and I counted twenty-five churches, which seems rather a lot for a town that only has a population of about a thousand permanent residents and by my calculation that is one church for every forty people.  It must be a characteristic of the Greeks that if there is spare time and available plot of land, no matter how small they will set to and build a church because all of the islands seem to be riddled with churches and blue domes.

There was no alternative but to walk back the way we came and once back at the main road we stopped at a trendy taverna and had an expensive mythos (€4), you know, one of those that is served in a posh glass and with an unnecessary bowl of peanuts.

There was no wind at all anymore and with a cloudless sky it was really very hot.  After returning to the room and an hour on the balcony we walked down to Kamara and explored some of the back streets that are tucked away behind the busy main road from where steps rise steeply with a giddy speed that quickened the pulse rate and brought us out in a sweat so we were glad of the air conditioned shops where we searching for take home souvenirs amongst the pottery for which Sifnos is famous.

We skipped lunch today and after Kim had made her selections that she would return to buy later we went to the beach for a couple of hours to enjoy a swim in the shallow water of the bay, which was a perfect temperature for just standing around with the water gently lapping around our legs.

It was Saturday and at a taverna just at the edge of the beach there was a party where local people were celebrating some sort of event with passion and gusto.  Everyone was having a really good time and on the way back to the hotel I watched for a while to pick up some tips on how to party in Greece in preparation for my planned birthday celebrations somewhere in Greece in 2014.

It was a lazy finish to the day as we sat on the balcony, read our books, drank wine and chatted to the nice couple in the next apartment.  When the sun went down there was an excellent sunset and after it went dark we returned to the little port for evening meal at one of the busy tavernas by the water.

I like Greek tavernas, they are almost always friendly inviting places and the food is inexpensive and good value and it rarely disappoints. I like the carefree ambiance and the complete lack of formality, outside wooden tables and rattan chairs, check tablecloths, extensive menus and unhurried waiters. I like the cheap paper table covers so you can spill food and drink without worrying about the laundry bill, I like the certain company of scrounging cats and I especially liked these in Kamares because they had the most perfect setting by the sea.

Greece has a culinary tradition dating back thousands of years and over the centuries Greek cuisine has evolved and absorbed numerous influences.  Typical dishes include souvlaki, fried meatballs, squash balls, octopus, shrimp, squid, feta cheese, olives, stuffed vine leaves, tzatziki eggplant dip, small sausages and giant beans.  For evening meal, Greek tavernas serve such specialties as moussaka, kebabs, pastitsio, stifado, braised beef with onions and paidakia, which is delicious grilled lamb or goat chops.

My personal favourite is Kleftiko, which is a knuckle of lamb, cooked slowly and served with vegetables and rice.  In Greek, kleftiko means stolen meat and according to legend, this dish would be made with a lamb stolen from a flock as it grazed on a hillside. The thief would cook the meat over many hours in a hole in the ground, sealed with mud so that no steam could escape to give him away.  It was on the menu tonight so we had that and a chicken souvlaki and shared a bit of both.  We had a final drink and the friendly lady owner gave us a clean paper tablecloth as a souvenir.

It was a lovely clear night with a bright full moon and as we finished the day on the balcony we both wished that we had planned to stay longer here in this perfect place.

Greece 2009, Sifnos, My Favourite Greek Island

Once on board we made our way to the open top deck and made ourselves comfortable in the sun.  We knew all about the Agios Georgios because we had used it last year so we knew the best place to sit.  After the commotion of leaving the harbour the ferry settled down on course for neighbouring Sifnos and it was quite perfect.  There was a calm blue sea, electric yellow sunshine and a cloudless sky, with a mythos in hand I could have stayed there on the top deck for a fortnight but it was only a short forty-five minute journey and as we watched Serifos disappear behind us in haze of heat we quickly approached Sifnos where we had stayed last year but needed more time to see the things we missed.

The boat arrived in the port of Kamares early in the afternoon and the apartment owner met us in the busy main street and drove us no more than five hundred metres to the hotel and without any fuss showed us to our little room at the top of the pretty little hotel complex.  It was absolutely delightful with traditional decoration and furniture and a terrace with a glorious view over the beach and the surrounding countryside and although I cannot adequately explain why we felt immediately at home.

It was a beautiful day and from the balcony there was an unbroken blue sky and we were surrounded by scrubby hills that were not attractive at all but paradoxically very attractive indeed.  Apparently the whole of the summer through late July and August had been spoilt by continuous gales but today there was not a hint of wind and the place was simply idyllic.

On the downside, somewhere along the way I lost my sunglasses.  I was very attached to those sunglasses, I found them on a golf course in 2003 and they have been with me ever since.

After we had settled in we wasted no time in going back to the harbour where there was a great selection of tavernas set along the side of the water with the sea lapping gently in a soporific sort of way and an enormous amount of fish swimming around in the expectation of being thrown chunks of left over bread.

Kamara is a lovely sort of shabby chic village with a strip of lively, colourful shops on one side of the main road and temping tavernas and bars on the other.  It is all nicely understated and feels warm, friendly and safe.  We choose a table at the water’s edge and had a leisurely meal that probably included Greek salad and calamari but I was just so relaxed that I simply cannot remember, I was so happy it was like being wrapped in a comfort blanket.

After lunch we picked a spot on the beach and lay in the sun and went for a swim and squandered the rest of the afternoon as it just casually slipped slowly away towards sunset time.  Back at the Sifnaika Konaika apartments we enjoyed early evening on the balcony of exactly the same room as last year that we had liked so much we specially requested again.  I had a cup of tea and then came to my senses and followed it up with a mythos and then there was the best part of the day when Kim found my sunglasses – I had left them in the car on the journey from the port to the hotel – what a relief!

Later we walked back to the port and we ate in the harbour of course, at a taverna with green tablecloths and a traditional rustic menu and we spent a whole evening eating, drinking and feeding the fish with the over generous portions of bread that were served with the meal.  We both liked Serifos but we liked it here better, it seemed more relaxed, more friendly and best of all less expensive.   When we had finished our meal we climbed the hill back to the apartments and sat on the balcony with a bottle of red wine until very late.

http://www.sifnaikakonakia.com/index.htm

Greece 2009, Serifos and the Best Beaches in Greece

Next morning it was my turn to fetch the breakfast and I managed to get this spectacularly wrong when I returned with chamomile rather than regular tea but at least after I had drunk it I couldn’t then get worked up about it.

There was more blue sky, no wind and already by ten o’clock we could sense that it was going to be a very hot day.  Our plan today was to walk out of Livadi and visit Psili Ammos beach just a short way out of town, which in Serifos they claim to be one of the top twenty beaches in the Mediterranean.  Last night at the top of the Hora we could see clearly the road that led there but back down at sea level this was not nearly so easy.  Our guidebook said allow an hour and don’t do it in the middle of the day but we paid no attention to that and set off anyway even without a map.

This turned out to be a really mad thing to do especially because there was a perfectly good beach right next to the hotel and if we waited an hour or so there was a bus that went there anyway.  It turned out to be much further than we estimated and a couple of wrong turns didn’t help.  There was no proper road, just a rough unmade track that meant that hiking boots would have been more appropriate than our sandals and when we came to a sign for Agios Sostis beach we abandoned the attempt to reach Psili Ammos and settled for the alternative instead.

It was pleasant enough, a rough sandy beach and a sheltered rocky cove but it wouldn’t have made the top one hundred let alone the top twenty beaches but there were only a few people there and crucially there were some trees for shade.  Kim collapsed from exhaustion almost immediately and being restless I went for a snorkel where I came across a seabed littered with dead fish which was a bit off-putting and then went for a walk along the shoreline and came across some monstrous washed up jelly fish struggling to return to the sea.  They were a beautiful translucent blue but I didn’t fancy swimming with them so that was the last time I went in the sea this morning and a couple of hours later after Kim had recovered we prepared ourselves for the walk back to Livadi.

Going back wasn’t nearly so difficult because we knew exactly where we were going and roughly how long it was going to take.  This didn’t mean it was easy however because it was rough and dusty and it was by now extremely hot so we pleased to get back to the bay and the village and stop somewhere for a drink.  It isn’t very often that I am forced to look for shade on holiday but this was one of those rare occasions and I was glad to sit under an umbrella for a while and enjoy a cold mythos.

Livadi seemed practically deserted and it was too hot for almost any activity.  The sea was still and the boats were relaxing on water that had no energy at all even to break into a tiny ripple and the reflections of the gaily coloured boats remained almost completely undisturbed.  Even the normally raucous donkey in the field next to the hotel was silenced this afternoon.

I walked down to the harbour to check the ferry times for the next day but there was nothing going on, the booking office was closed and just a sign in Greek that I couldn’t read but wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it said ‘Serifos is closed for the afternoon, do not disturb’ and on the way back to the hotel I noticed that even the road surface was beginning to melt as cars drove by and squashed bottle tops and ring pulls into permanent additions to the tarmac.

Late in the afternoon we took the bus once again to the top of the Hora and we were pleased to be in the cool shade of the tranquil little streets as we retraced our route around the town and found some places that we had missed the first time round.  Just like the port the town too was empty and deserted and it was pleasant to sit at the top completely undisturbed and enjoy the spectacular view.  To the south we could see the island of Sifnos and we looked forward to travelling there on the next day.  We dawdled about the lanes and enjoyed getting lost now and again before we emerged back in the attractive main square where we stopped for a while before going back to the bus stop and the return to Livadi.

It had been a long day and we were both exhausted, so much so that we couldn’t find the energy to go back out again to find somewhere to eat so instead we settled for a takeaway gyros, a Greek salad and a nice glass of wine or two from a carton which we ate on the balcony under the moonlight.

In the morning I improved 50% when fetching the tea from the bakers, one ordinary one for Kim but through another misunderstanding a second chamomile for me.  Afterwards we had breakfast at the hotel and then packed ready for the ferry ride to Sifnos.  We had a last look around the unremarkable back streets of Livadi, a mixture of traditional Cycladic architecture and the worst of nineteen-seventies concrete and cement buildings built without style or thought. There were a few interesting shops and in one I made an impulse purchase of a cowboy hat in the optimistic hope that this would transform me into Brad Pitt or Robert Redford.

Waiting for the boat departure we swapped tales of island hopping adventures with another couple recently arrived from Santorini and then when it was about time we made our way to the port where we had a last mythos on Serifos before the Agios Georgios arrived, docked, loaded and left dead on time.

Greece 2009, Serifos and the Hora

The next morning the anticipated spectacular sunrise just didn’t happen because although the sun arrived as regularly as it ever does its first appearance was obscured by a hill on the other side of the bay and then by an inappropriately placed building opposite the hotel.

This meant that we would have to wait until we would be in Folegandros in a few days time where we knew we could rely on the early morning solar experience.  It was a bit windy still and while we had breakfast on the balcony, consisting of pastry, fruit and an excellent cup of tea we could see the boats in the harbour moving about restlessly at their moorings in response to the swell of the sea.

Today we were planning to visit the Hora about five kilometres and a twenty minute bus ride away and by the time we pitched up for the ten o’clock ride the wind had dropped, there were no more clouds rushing in and the sky was an uninterrupted blue.

The little green Mercedes bus was at least thirty years old (probably more) and the driver took the fares, blew his horn to indicate departure and set off on the only bus route on the island.  Every seat had retrospectively fitted seat belts but this must have been only to satisfy some EU directive because it was impossible to use them because they were neatly strapped up and secured with those little plastic cable ties that can only be released by cutting through them completely.

So without the security of a seat belt we travelled to the top of the mountain through several hairpin turns and going back and forth across the face of the mountain until we came to a spot where the bus was able to turn around and leave the passengers at the entrance to the lower square of the village.  There was an alternative way of reaching the Hora but that involved an arduous climb along a mule path which interlaced several times with the road but it looked like hard work and so definitely worth the €1.40 fare on the bus to ride in relative comfort to the top.

After visiting the redundant windmills, now being converted into holiday accommodation, we followed the signs to the Kastro and passed through pretty streets where the walls of the buildings squeezed in close to the narrow lanes and tracks but then opened out into the delightful main square of St. Athanasios about halfway to the top that was a complete contrast to the agoraphobic streets that led to it from all directions.

Here was the immaculately whitewashed church, the neoclassical town hall, which was in need of a bit of attention, a traditional taverna called Zorba’s with blue doors and windows and Café Stou Stratou a trendy ouzerie across the square selling coffee and traditional Greek snacks to a handful of customers.  We passed through without stopping and continued towards the top and the little church of Church of Agios Konstantinos from where there was a panoramic view in all directions and especially down and over the port of Livadi stretched out below.

The Hora of Serifos is one of the most spectacular and attractive in the Cyclades, it is how I imagine Ios might have been if it hadn’t been discovered and turned into a Euro pleasure zone because here there are no bars or nightclubs and best of all no shops either.  On the way back down we passed by renovated houses which shared the streets with various abandoned properties where a glance inside revealed the truth of a hard life without utilities from only a relatively short time ago.

In the gaps between the buildings there were great views over the barren rust coloured hills that reminded me of the bodywork on my first car, a Hillman Avenger, and the now calm inky blue sea in the bay of the harbour that looked like a giant inkwell full of Quink.

After we had circumnavigated the town we returned to the main square, which was by now basking under a hot sun, and we stopped for refreshment and a rest.  A nice feature in the bars and cafés in Serifos was the hospitable habit of providing customers with a jug of cold water.  I was unsure of this at first because I was brought up with a paranoia of drinking water abroad, so bad that I used to wash my teeth in bottled water in case I inadvertently swallowed a millilitre or two.  In fact the first time that I went to Greece, to Kos in 1983, I had to have typhoid injections and a certificate to prove it!  Well, how things change and now it appears to be safe to drink the water across the whole of the Eurozone without suffering ill effects or an upset stomach and this was certainly the case in Serifos.

After the stop we took the bus back to Livadi and made plans to return again the following afternoon.  It was hot now so we rested and enjoyed the view from the balcony and then later looked for somewhere to eat.  We quickly passed by last nights disappointing restaurant choice and selected a traditional fish and meat taverna on the beach just beyond where the pavement ended and a dirt road began.  Waiters crossed the street with trays of food, wine, and beer to customers who were dining by the sea. The restaurant was welcoming, the seafood was delightful, the staff were friendly and we were accompanied by a flock of gregarious ducks.  We had made a much better choice than the previous day so thought we might return later.

In the afternoon we went for a couple of hours to an alternative beach behind the town where there was the welcome shade of the whitewashed armirikia trees but could have done without the booming music from the beach bar that spoilt the otherwise ‘get away from it all’ mood of the place.

In the early evening we sat on the balcony and watched the lights in the bay twinkle into life and as the main street started to get busy with the first of the evening’s diners we returned to the friendly taverna on the edge of the town and had a second good meal of the day.  At the end of the second day we were in full holiday mood now and beginning to enjoy Serifos and although we agreed that we probably prefer Sifnos (our next stop) we were able to reassess our unnecessarily negative first day thoughts which now seemed to have been a little bit hasty.

Greece 2009, Serifos – Livadi

It was a windy day and the high winds whipped up the sea into little white meringue peaks on top of the pitching waves.  Although we had an allocated seat on board we preferred to stay outside for the entire journey and watch the islands slipping by as we made our progress towards Serifos.

Serifos occupies an important part of Greek mythology, since its name is connected to two of the greatest heroes of the mythology, Odysseus and Perseus, while it is also said that the Cyclopes lived in its caves.  More recently the island was famous for the mining of iron ore and as we approached the south west of the island we could clearly see the remains of the old workings that only finally closed down in 1963.

The ferry arrived at eleven o’clock and we were surprised to find the port of Livadi unusually quiet and without the normal reception committee of dozens of apartment owners trying to find a customer.  It was all very lethargic as we left the windy ferry port and set about locating our hotel.  This didn’t take long and we found the Hotel Naias one street back from the main port road and it turned out to be a traditional little place, basic and clean but without any frills.  I was expecting something different but at least we had a nice balcony with a good view over the port and its crescent shaped beach fringed with cafés and tavernas.  Outside it seemed to be getting windier and shutters were rattling, furniture was being rearranged and the taverna umbrellas were flapping madly as though going through some pre take-off routine.  We left our bags, closed the room and went immediately to the harbour to get acquainted with the place.

At almost midday it was time for a mythos but as we walked along the road we were surprised to find many of the tavernas were closed with little sign of life.  Finally we choose a place with blue umbrellas and tables on the thin strip of sandy beach and we selected one in the sunshine.  We will never know if this place was open or closed because Kim’s patience tanks were on empty and after only two minutes or so she decided that service was too slow, she hadn’t adjusted to holiday speed and insisted that we move on to an alternative place a little further on where the yellow umbrellas and trendy furniture had caught her eye.

The Yacht club was a nice place with a mix of holidaymakers taking snacks and local men drinking coffee in that languid sort of way that elderly Greek men do.  The down side was that this turned out to be the most expensive place in the village and I suffered a case of severe shock when a small beer cost a whopping €5 and the food was equally expensive. I worried that this might be normal on Serifos and I began to mentally recalculate the holiday budget but after we left and walked through the village we checked the menus in the other places and were relieved to find that on average prices were a lot closer to what we were expecting and we didn’t go to the Yacht club again because I don’t appreciate paying Covent Garden prices on a little Greek island.

Whilst these string of Cycladic islands are all the same they are all completely different at the same time and Livadi had a unique quality that set it aside from other places we have visited.  Serifos is not a popular holiday destination for overseas visitors and a bit like Amorgos (in my opinion) a place that the Greek people have sensibly kept back for themselves because close to Athens it is convenient to reach and it doesn’t suffer from the excesses of, say, Santorini or Mykonos.

There was no sign of the wind easing off and big white clouds were being blown in from the northeast and were tumbling dramatically over the mountain and the Hora at the back of the port.  It wasn’t unpleasant and after we had poked about the village for a while we collected our swimwear and made for the beach and the first swim in the sea for almost a year.  The sea was warm and inviting and the sand was lush and comfortable, so much so that I spent most of our two hours on the beach catching up on lost sleep from the day before.

Two hours on a beach is quite long enough I find so before we could get bored we left and went back to the taverna with the blue umbrellas where this time at least three different waiters attended to our table and tried to persuade us to eat and we had to explain to each of them in turn that it was too early but we might return later.  Leaving the taverna we looked for a mini market for essential balcony supplies and were surprised by the high cost of the wine, especially noticeable for me having just returned from France where I had stocked up on wine at an average price of €2 a bottle.  We selected the cheap plonk in the cardboard container and it turned out to be surpringly good.

We did return to the taverna with blue umbrellas but evening meal was a disappointing experience.  We didn’t order a lot and the owner didn’t seem to like that, the food was delivered in a hurry and there was no friendliness and a distinct lack of hospitality about the place.  Perhaps he was just having an end of season off day but we never went back again to find out.  He was certainly more attentive to a large table of young Australians from a sailboat party who were spending lots of cash, drinking heavily and making the average English football supporter look as though they have impeccable manners.

The end of day one and over a final drink in a seafront bar some mixed views about Serifos, a beautiful island but a bit expensive and not as friendly as all of the others that I have visited and I didn’t feel as welcome.  It was becoming chilly and there was no let up in the wind so after we had finished we went back to the hotel and went to bed in anticipation of a good sunrise in the morning and a planned bus ride to the Hora.

Greece 2009, Piraeus and a Late Night Gyros

September – so it is time for blue skies, blue sea, blue doors and blue domed churches.  Another back packing trip to Greece with plans to discover some new islands and revisit some familiar old favourites.

Because of the increasing cost of parking the car in any sort of airport car park this year I arranged for family transport to and from Luton and we arrived with plenty of time to spare before the flight.  Luton airport now operates on the Ryanair principle of charging people for services that we used to take for granted as a part of catching a flight.  £1 just to drop passengers off at departures, £3 for speedy security checks, £1 for a plastic bag to put liquids in, £9.50 for speedy check-in and boarding and 50p for every breath taken while waiting.

We didn’t pay for any of these rip-off extras and I bet the people who did felt rather silly because there was no delay through security and not much of a queue at the departure gate either.  Generally there are two queues at the boarding gate, one is for gullible people who have paid the extra to get on the plane first and there is the queue for sensible people who are savvy enough to know that there is a seat for everyone on the aircraft anyway.  I bet they felt even sillier when we boarded because the plane was only about half full and there was plenty of seats for everyone to choose exactly their favourites.

When we finally got away the flight lasted just over three hours and landed in Athens at the 2004 International airport of the Year, Eleftherious Veizelos, and we quickly retrieved our backpacks from the luggage carousel and walked briskly to the metro station for the thirty-five-kilometre journey to the city centre.  It was a shock to find that the metro wasn’t running today and had been closed for sometime.  It seems that when they opened it in 2004 ready for the Olympic Games they forgot to build some of the stations along the route and the line was now closed while they finished off.

On a previous arrival at Athens airport I was metaphorically mugged by a taxi driver and paid a fortune to get to the city so I wasn’t going to make that mistake again so we were obliged to use the only other form of transport available, the X96 express bus to Piraeus.  This was the first time on a bus in Athens and it was quite an experience.  The roads were busy but the driver seemed totally oblivious to other vehicles as he charged along at high speed, switching lanes and tossing the passengers about like the Saturday night lottery balls.   Corners didn’t slow the bus down and the only respite from the madness was a few infrequent stops on the way to the port, which we reached after about forty minutes.  This had been a good value roller coaster ride at only €3.20 each.

We arrived at about eleven o’clock at night and it was hot and dirty and noisy but despite that it felt strangely safe.  Earlier in the day it had been raining but this hadn’t washed the streets at all because Piraeus is a city where street cleaning is not a priority.  We skipped the taxi ranks and decided instead to walk to the Hotel Ideal along cracked and dirty pavements towards the red light area at the east end of the port.  We had stayed here before so we knew where the hotel was and even though it is in a less than salubrious area it is actually quite nice with a comfortable room and friendly staff.

We needed to eat and the affable man on reception made us feel welcome and made some restaurant suggestions.  This didn’t take him very long because although nineteen million passengers pass through the port of Piraeus every year the dining options turned out to be very seriously limited indeed.  We left the hotel and returned to the port and with very little to choose from agreed on a gyros place with orange plastic tables and chairs on the dirty pavement and had a substantial chicken wrap and a first bottle of Mythos.  The meal came with tzatziki, salad, fries and an extra special topping of lead oxide because as we ate we watched the traffic chaos as a ferry arrived in port and disgorged its passengers onto the busy road right in front of where we were eating.

Piraeus is an interesting place, loud and busy and totally focussed on the harbour and the ferries and is somewhere that is never ever going to be beautiful or is going to tempt any sane person to stay more than one night.  This is a place where you wouldn’t even send your mother-in-law!

It was about midnight when we returned to the hotel and after setting the alarm for six there wasn’t a lot of time to be finding out any more about the hotel Ideal.  If I was rating it I would say that it was one grade up from a hostel and in a scruffy area of the city but it was only €45 for a night and I slept with my wallet and passport under my pillow just in case.

When we woke at six the next morning Piraeus was already busy and noisy and after leaving the hotel we walked along the turbulent streets to the Aegean Lines Ferry Agency where we exchanged our pre-paid voucher for tickets and made our way to the ferry.

This was not as easy as it sounds because Piraeus simply has to be one of the most traffic crazy cities in the world that makes an Italian city look like a sleepy village in Surrey on a late Sunday afternoon and there was a mad confusion of snarling traffic that absolutely defies description.    Cars, busses and lorries were all growling aggressively through the streets with absolutely no regard for traffic lights, lanes, rights of way or pedestrians (especially pedestrians). The madness was being ineffectively choreographed every now and again by traffic police blowing madly on whistles and waving arms in a totally manic way that quite frankly was completely unintelligible to absolutely everyone whether in a car or on the pavement and didn’t seem to be helping a great deal.

This should not have been surprising because Piraeus is the largest passenger port in Europe and the third largest worldwide in terms of passenger transportation. There were certainly a lot of people about this morning and there was a long queue to get on board the Aegean Lines Speedrunner IV and in the usual way foot passengers were competing for space with cars and commercial vehicles.  We didn’t fancy sitting inside so we made our way to the top deck and found a seat outside at the back of the boat to catch the sun and we made ourselves comfortable in preparation for the two and a half hour passage to the island of Serifos, one hundred and seventy kilometres to the south east.

Ljubljana, Bridges and Art Nouveau

The weather improved and we wandered down the left bank of the river and took in some of the sights that we had missed on our previous stroll.  We started at the heart of the city, Prešeren Square, with a statue of Slovenia’s greatest romantic poet France Prešeren that looks out over the square and the Triple Bridge.

Further down the river is the a third crossing that completes Ljubljana’s trio of famous bridges, this one is called Cobblers Bridge, also built by Plečnik and so called because artisans traditionally sold their wares here.  And it is no different now because today the bridge was full of stalls selling crafts and souvenirs.  We passed by the impressive façade of the Opera House, but this was an Opera House without a theatre because it was in a state of demolition and being restored, then the National Gallery and after that the National Assembly building.

The river today was green and sluggish and steadily filling up with litter to such an extent that it looked about ready for another “Za lepso Ljubljano” but it wasn’t unpleasant and it didn’t prevent us from stopping at the Café Promenade for refreshment on our way back to the Hotel.

We had become regulars by now and the attentive waitresses instinctively knew our orders without enquiry.  We sat for a while and absorbed the local atmosphere; the al fresco business meetings with men in shiny suits, the families with children in grubby ill-fitting clothes and the woman with the aromatic cigarettes that wafted and was captured under the umbrellas and we felt comfortable and calm in this relaxed atmosphere.

Later we dined again at the Julija because once we have found a place we like we just have to make absolutely sure and even though tonight we had to wait for a table we were determined that we would eat here again.

There is nothing wrong with that, once in Barcelona not only did we eat at the same restaurant three nights on the trot we had paella every evening as well.

At the Julija we did try different dishes on the menu but we did have a rather nice almond cake to finish every night.  After the meal we walked along the river but the town was busier tonight so we were unable to find a table overlooking the river in the busy student quarter so we were obliged to return to the more sedate Café Promenada where we had our final drinks of the day before returning to the barrack room for a last glass of Slovenian wine and sleep.

There was one more morning to spend in Ljubljana and so after breakfast and check out from the Hotel Park we repeated some of our earlier sight seeing through the city.  First of all we walked through the market, which was especially busy and vibrant this morning on account of it being Saturday I guessed  The stalls were colourful and exciting and the vendors were enjoying brisk trade as the market heaved with hectic activity.

The streets too were full of commercial activity and both sides of the river were lined with traders and craftsmen selling both essential and non-essential merchandise.

At the end of one of the city’s main streets there was a fountain with Saturday morning winos enjoying an early drink.  One of them attempted to impress us with his footballing skills but was too completely uncoordinated to be able to convert the moves that he clearly had in his mind to any sort of physical skills.  And besides he was attempting all of this with the cork from a wine bottle and that may even have proved too challenging for even someone as talented as Ronaldo.

After a final look at the Art Nouveau area and at what is claimed to be Eastern Europe’s first ever skyscraper, which turned out to be a rather disappointingly small building, we stopped for a final drink at the Café Promenada and then collected our bags and made our way to the bus station for the journey back to the airport.

On the bus Kim slept of course and I enjoyed the colourful scenery and soon we were checked-in and enjoying the last of the sunshine in an airport terrace bar where we had our last Lašcos and a sandwich before we boarded the plane and had a trouble free flight back to Stansted.

We enjoyed Ljubljana; our favourite things were Lake Bled and Škofja Loka, the Café Promenada and the Julija restaurant, we liked the weather including the dramatic thunderstorms and even the Hotel Park grew on us after a while.  Was there anything that we didn’t like, well the graffiti was a bit of a mess and it would have been nice just once to have had a quiet peaceful breakfast I suppose.

 

Ljubljana, Bus Ride to Škofja Loka

There was another free-for-all in the breakfast room and with a karate club on one side and builders carrying out alterations on the other we didn’t linger over our continental breakfast but set off straight away once again making for the bus station.  Today we had decided to take the shorter journey to what we had read was the most perfectly preserved medieval town in Slovenia, Škofja Loka.

There was a lovely blue sky and once again the bus arrived exactly on time and we enjoyed the forty-minute journey through the picturesque countryside and arrived at an untidy little terminus at our destination.  The bus station may not have been very exciting but the little town was quite spectacular.  It is a European cultural heritage site and although there is evidence of fifty years or so of neglect there was a lot of restoration work taking place and when all of this is finished it will once again be a seriously attractive town.

The first place to visit was the castle. It was quite a walk up to the fortress and the museum but it was well worth the effort because once at the top the views were spectacular across the mountains and valleys that surround the town.  It was really quite hot so we were quite glad of the cool interior of the small but impressive town museum that had an interesting and varied collection of exhibits ranging from farm equipment to stuffed animals and birds to the ubiquitous collection of war time mementos of persecution.

Our visit completed we descended the path back to the town and stopped off at a little bar that was built into the old town walls before we continued our trip by walking into the main town square.  Here there was an impressive collection of medieval buildings all in various stages of renovation and after establishing that the tourist shops were a little too expensive for our budget we gave them a wide berth and instead found a convenient bar at one end of the square and choose a seat in the sun and ordered a Lašco each and sat and enjoyed the unhurried pace of life.  Kim bought a sandwich from a nearby bakery, which we ate discreetly in case it offended the bar owner and then feeling guilty about this we ordered a second beer to compensate.

Lunch over all that remained to do was to take a look at the rest of the historic buildings before catching the bus back to Ljubljana.  We walked around the twisting medieval streets and narrow back alleys and eventually found ourselves at the Parish Church that had an interesting but not particularly impressive interior but was made memorable by a group of young children who, under the supervision of a convent nun, were experiencing their first ever confession.

There was a row of priest boxes and one by one the children were taking their turn to confess their guilty secrets.  Some didn’t seem to be taking this momentous event especially seriously especially the young boy who was break dancing and moonwalking as he impatiently waited his turn.  There was a lot of sniggering and giggling and the nun did well in her efforts to maintain an aura of solemnity about the occasion and I began to wonder just what a ten-year-old boy might confess to anyway?

On the way out we crossed a six hundred year old stone bridge across the Selška Sora and in the middle passed a statue of St John Nepomuk who is supposed to bring good luck.  Well the sort of luck that old St John brings I can happily do without.  The man, who built the bridge, a certain bishop Leopold, fell off of it shortly after completion and he drowned in the river below.  Where was St John on that particular day I wonder?  I certainly wouldn’t rely upon him to help me pick my numbers for the National Lottery that’s for sure.

Back at the bus station we waited for our bus and listened to some Merchant-Ivory English ladies having an amusing minor disagreement about their holiday itinerary and we watched as the sky darkened and the afternoon rain clouds started to gather.

Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…

Ljubljana, The Former Yugolsavia

As we enjoyed our lunch overlooking lake Bled I wondered how many people visited this place and how many photographs must be taken every year of the picturesque island in the middle.  According to the Slovenian tourist board nearly two and a half million people visit the country each year.  Now I am only speculating here of course but if three quarters of these visited Lake Bled and took ten pictures each then this adds up to nearly twenty million photographs.  That is a lot of pictures of the same place.

It was time to go but on the way we found time for a return visit to the lakeside terrace bar where we had a final drink in Bled before we went back to the bus station for the return journey to Ljubljana.  Although there was a worrying lack of activity at the bus stop there was some amusing entertainment.  There was a group of people who had clearly been drinking alcohol for most of the day and were a little the worst for it.  It was the end of their drinking session and it had reached that point when they were becoming irritated by each others company so they slurred goodbye to each other and set off home, each in different directions.

One man had only managed about a hundred metres or so when the pressure of alcohol in his bladder required an unscheduled stop for emergency relief.  Unfortunately for him there were no facilities around and to be truthful he was in such a state that this was completely irrelevant anyway.  Under normal circumstances taking a pee is a fairly straightforward process but to prevent little accidents it has to be carried out in the correct sequence of events and due to his inebriated condition he proceeded to demonstrate the absolute importance of getting things carried out in exactly the correct order.

He located a convenient spot, steadied himself with one hand against the wall and fumbled about with his trouser flies with the other but being unable to get his tackle out quickly enough and completely unable to coordinate his bodily functions he opened the release valve and proceeded to slowly slash down his leg in spectacular fashion so that his immaculately tailored jeans became slowly stained by a creeping patch of steaming urine that eventually stretched from his crotch to his socks.  He was most perplexed by this and stood for a moment or two trying desperately to understand the sequence of events that had resulted in his waterlogged state but quite unable to comprehend his predicament eventually staggered off down the road stopping frequently to examine his unusually two-tone discoloured trousers and no doubt wondering how he was going to explain it when he finally got home.

The bus arrived spot on time and Kim selected a front seat with a good view but failed to take advantage of it because she immediately fell asleep and was no company whatsoever for the entire journey back to the city.  It was an excellent seat though and I enjoyed the ride and the countryside.  I reflected on the country and its history.  Yugoslavia had been created in 1918 after the First World War by the victorious western allies in the hope of bring some stability to the Balkans but this had been a hopelessly optimistic attempt to impose a solution on a disparate region of Europe who were never going to coexist easily as one single nation.

The Balkans is where east meets west in Europe and Yugoslavia was a mix of Greek Orthodox looking to the east (Serbia), Catholics looking to the west (Slovenia and Croatia) and Muslims who could not be reconciled to either (Bosnia).  Here was a recipe for disaster!  Slovenia is clearly more Central European in character than any of its Balkan partners and being more prosperous and increasingly resentful of providing support to its national partners it is not surprisingly that when the grip of Tito was removed in 1980 it was the first to break loose from the Yugoslav Federation in 1991.  Luckily for them it was a bloodless separation following a vote for independence in 1990.  I’m not quite sure what sort of federation Yugoslavia was but I can’t imagine that being allowed to happen in say, Wales.  The Slovenian secession did however lead to a violent break-up of the country with civil war and ethnic cleansing in neighbouring Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina that persisted throughout the 1990’s.

The weather was humid now and the thunderclouds looked threatening again but the rain stayed away and we arrive back in Ljubljana just in time for Kim to rejoin the living world.  We had a look in the train station and I got a bit confused about the European capitals and sensing another country to visit sent Kim off to enquire about train times to Zagreb, which I temporarily thought was in Serbia.  She came back red-faced with embarrassment and reminded me that the capital of Serbia is in fact Belgrade and a twelve-hour train journey away.  I was so glad that I didn’t make myself look dense with that stupid enquiry.

The rain stayed away so we walked for a short while around the Art Nouveau area, which was interesting but not spectacular and certainly not on the same scale as Riga.  After a late afternoon drink at the Café Promenada we returned to the Hotel Park for more Slovenian screw cap wine and a short rest before going out once again for dinner at the Julija Restaurant that we had enjoyed the night before, and after another good meal we had a last drink of the day at a lively student dominated bar with tables overlooking the river. We went back to the Hotel which surprisingly was growing on me now and I was getting used to the lack of amenities that would be considered quite basic elsewhere and anyway the room was cool and quiet and we had an undisturbed good night sleep.

Ljubljana, A Rowing Boat on Lake Bled

Soon we started our expedition around the lake and set off as planned.  The water was a pleasant turquoise, crystal clear and full of lazy fish confidently resting under the shade of the trees and presumably appreciating the fact that fishing here is strictly forbidden.

After only a short while we came across a water park and lido that restricted access to the shoreline, which was a shame but different people like different things I suppose and we cannot always have everything exactly the way that we like them.  Actually the water park wasn’t very busy at all so perhaps not a lot of people like it that way at after all.

As the path went back to the shoreline our attention returned to the lake.  Quite by chance we spotted something unusual sitting on a rock by the side of the water and upon investigation were surprised to see a Red Eared Terrapin.  I tried to get close but this just alarmed it and it jumped into the water and swam away.  And then we saw another.

Red Eared Terrapins are not a natural species to Europe but have become common due to widespread release of imported pets by the public once it is realised that terrapins in captivity need a lot of looking after – they can live to over forty years and they are aggressive, give a painful bite, and become increasingly difficult and expensive to keep.  After they are released into the wild they can grow quite large and can reach the size of a dinner plate and become a real nuisance, chomping their way through native species such as fish, newts, toads, frogs spawn, dragonfly larvae and, possibly, the occasional young duckling.

About half way around the lake we came across a man with rowing boats for hire who was taking care of a party of nuns who were negotiating a rental agreement and were making hard work of getting their seating arrangements organised inside the craft.  This looked like fun and I was certain that they had little chance of making it to the island in the middle of the lake without capsizing the boat on the way and we watched in anticipation but were disappointed when they were joined by a burly man who clearly knew what he was doing and had the job of transporting them across.   The water looked inviting so we decided that we would hire a boat too and follow them across to the island with the church.

It had been quite some time since I had been in charge of a boat and my rowing skills were a bit rusty when we cast off and I was called upon to negotiate our passage across the short distance to the island.  Rowing can be quite a lot more difficult than it looks and I had some early problems coordinating the actions of left and right hand oars to keep us progressing in a straight line and with Kim in charge of plotting the course I had to make frequent adjustments to maintain the right direction.  I found it most helpful however when she began to beat out the rowing tempo in the manner of a Roman galley slave-master but I was worried that I might not be able to cope physically if she decided to up the pace to Ben Hur ramming speed!

We reached the island without incident even though I was slightly concerned by the strange sloshing sound of running water at the back of the boat, I believe the correct nautical term is stern, and I began to worry for a moment that we were certain to take on water and capsize but a quick inspection after we had moored up and with some difficulty left the boat put my mind at rest that this was really quite normal.

There are ninety-nine steps to the church at the top of the island and there is a tradition that if a bridegroom can carry his bride to the top without either stopping for breath or complaining then the couple will enjoy a happy marriage.  If you are tempted to try this super-human feat my then my advice is that you get engaged to a skinny girlfriend because these steps represent seriously hard work just to get yourself to the top without any unnecessary additional burden.  Or perhaps this is simply designed to get you ready for married life!

The island was an interesting little stop-over, according to legend created as a punishment by God, who stopped by one day and was irritated to find his church full of cattle because the villages were suffering from the deadly sin of sloth and had become too lazy to watch over them and had left the church door open, so he made the lake so that in future they couldn’t get across to it.  A nice story but in actual fact the lake is glacial and was formed at the end of the last ice age when water poured in behind the retreating ice.

We left the island and as Kim was convinced that rowing a boat was a straightforward process and that I was simply an incompetent oarsman so she decided to take responsibility for the return journey.  She was no better than me of course but I didn’t complain because I was enjoying sitting back in boat enjoying the warm sunshine and the slightly curious meandering route back to the shore.  She did however make a perfect docking procedure and we completed our walk around the lake stopping on route for a pizza and a beer at a bar with a raised terrace and a good view over the lake.