Time for me to wake up and get blogging I think! June and July seem to have disappeared in a whirlwind of travelling, and now the big trip to the US, NZ and Australia is looming in the not too distant future.
A friend, Jaki G, flew into Athens in June for a visit but due to the demonstrations and strikes there at the time, we stayed in a small hotel on the outskirts, and then made a quick exit and headed north. The first stop was a favourite small town on the northern side of the Gulf of Corinth- heaven after the chaos of Athens!
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| Antikira just before sunset |
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| Looking at the Delphi Stadium |
Antikira is a great overnight stop for visiting Delphi, so we ventured off there in the morning and roamed around before the heat got too intense. Such an amazing place but I do find it a little difficult to get 'the mystical feel' of the place with so many tour groups - all those tour guides hollering in various languages sort of interrupts the flow somehow!
Then it was off to get a ferry over to the other side of the Gulf and on to Kefalonia for a few days.... except the ferry didn't run from there any more.... ho hum..... so instead we sat in the lonesome taverna, had some wonderful souvlaki and discussed the sad state of Greece with the young owner, who was over for the summer from Philadelphia. Well fed and watered, we headed off over the beautiful Norman Foster looking Patras Bridge and got onto the ferry, arriving in Poros, Kefolonia in the early evening - perfect!
Welcome to Kefalonia
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Looking out Hotel Window in Poros
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We virtually fell into a simple comfy hotel right on the waterfront.
And celebrated our arrival with a mezze plate - to keep us going until dinner, which, as there seemed no reason to move, we also had in the hotel taverna. - one of the things I love about Greece - everything at your fingertips!
Next morning we drove across the bottom of the island, past Agostolli, which was badly damaged in the earthquake in the 1950's and has now practically been rebuilt.
We decided a swim was called for so we continued on to the most stunning beach, Myrtos.
The brilliant turquoise water along with the bright white rounded pebbles that made up the beach was a sight to behold, and these days, I'm seeing plenty of amazing beaches!
The pebbles may be not as soft as sand, but most definitely worth putting up with a few stones under your bum just for vision of it!
The snack bar was a bit disappointing, being early season, but we survived until later in the afternoon, when we dragged ourselves away and arrived in Assos where we forced ourselves into afternoon tea, just to keep us going until dinner of course!
The one on the left was Peter's one of course - supposedly a creme caramel!
We were heading towards Fiscardo for the night, as we'd been told it was the one town on Kefalonia that hadn't been badly affected by the big earthquake in the 1950's and still had some of its Venetian buildings.
A lovely spot - small with brightly coloured buildings around a perfect harbour.
There just happens to be a Roman neocropolis in the foreground here - stop work!
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| Just what do you call this?? |
Sadly, it did have a slight feeling of 'rich riveria' with lots of large cruisers, yatchts and restaurants, but whilst dining that night we were nicely entertained by the various crews tootling back and forth in the tenders - money to burn if you can afford a crew 7! I was pleased to note that the only girls who were part of the crew of the two massive cruisers were a Kiwi and Australian - go girls!
Found a lovely family owned hotel in the backstreets, complete with a bouganvilla covered balcony but could only manage the one night as our ferry was taking off at the crack of dawn on the Monday, and we needed to be closer for our last night's stay on the island.
Headed south in the morning, this time down the eastern coast, stopped for lunch in Samos and once again felt in the need for a swim.
So, off to check out Antisamos beach, just over the hill.
Another stunning beach, the bottom of which dropped away dramatically after 2-3 metres into the water, so that you felt you were swimming in a bottomless sea. There was a very sophisticated cafe on the edge of the beach - the food was stunning - more what you'd expect from a Sydney brassiere.
I must mention here too that both of the beaches we swam at were in the movie Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
Most of the filming took place in Sami, where a huge and stunningly realistic set was built. It was so impressive in fact, that the locals did their best to retain it after the filming was finished, but it didn't happened. The Italians' campsite was built on the beach at Antisamos where we had out sophisticated lunch and Myrtos is the beach where the bomb explosion took place in the film.
So then it was back down to Poros and our same friendly hotel, and an extra early start in the morning back to mainland Greece and a visit to Ancient Olympia on the way to Koroni. A fantastic few days and a new island explored!
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Give an Australian a bottle of beer and a laptop.......
So it was a wonderful trip for the 3 of us, ending up with a stop off in Ancient Olympia and then some time spent in Koroni. So many photos to share, particularly in this blog (and particularly since Blogger seems to have its own idea where they should end up!) Lots more on my Picasaweb site. |
https://picasaweb.google.com/111353970085495585185/2011KefaloniaAndOtherPartsTripWithJakiG
