Sometimes You're the Pigeon and Sometimes You're the Statue

After our success at getting ourselves to Athens (see last post) we were feeling pretty good. We made our way to our hotel, unpacked, then immediately headed out to buy a bike for John. With John's toe showing no sign of improvement, our new plan is for John to cycle wherever possible and I can walk. We have changed our destinations accordingly.

We made our way to a nearby bike shop but it was closed. I spoke to the lady in the shop next door and was told the bike shop owners were on holidays but her husband was a cyclist and he would be here shortly and he could help. No sooner had she spoken than said husband turned up and was able to direct us to another shop that had exactly what John wanted. Within an hour John had bought a bike and all the gear he needed. We left the bike there to have some extras added and headed back to our hotel. This was all working out so well! 

We had only walked about four blocks from the bike shop when I reached around to pull out a phone from the daypack to check directions and saw the back zip was undone. I knew immediately that we had a problem because I remember doing that zip up. I looked in the pocket and my phone was gone. Oh no!!!! We raced back to the bike shop in case it dropped out there but it wasn't there. In all our travels we've only had one thing stolen and that was over 30 years ago. I was devasted as my phone had everything on it, but mostly it had 15 years of contacts. And did I have them backed up? Nope. We later learned that phone stealing is rife in Athens. I was really surprised because phones these days are so common. I thought it was something that people didn't steal any more. How wrong I was.

I decided to report it to the police because I had heard that if the thieves can't unlock your phone they sometimes dump them and maybe someone might hand it in. They have special Tourist Police here so I headed to one near us, madly clutching John's phone lest anyone try to steal it out of my hand. The map on the phone led me to a place but I couldn't see any tourist police. I saw an older tourist couple coming out of a building so I asked them. They were French and launched into a scathing attack on the tourist police. They had to wait forever, they had to fill out endless forms etc. As they were talking a policeman saw me and asked if I needed directions to the office. As he led me there the French couple kept up their verbal attack with the policeman right beside us! I had to cut them off. 

I was taken to the office at the end of a small shopping laneway. I was handed a form by a big burly uniformed policeman and asked to fill it out. I did that and took it back to him. He then gave me another copy of the same form and asked me to do it again because they needed a copy as their photocopier wasn't working! In these conversations I got the feeling the policeman was trying to hit on me. He told me that he was single and kept smiling at me while he was a bit grumpy with everyone else.

While I was filling out forms, a young couple came in. She was Albanian but living in Spain and her boyfriend was Spanish. They had sat in a park with all their bags and someone stole her bag that contained her passport, Spanish ID card and laptop - and they were flying out the next day at 8am! The poor girl was in tears. There wasn't a lot of sympathy being shown by the cops and I felt so sorry for them. Finally one cop pulled a few tissues out of a box. I assumed he was going to pass them to the poor girl who was still crying but no, he wiped his brow and continued with whatever important thing it was doing, which didn't involve dealing with their problem. I was getting more and more depressed in here so I handed back my form and left. I noticed that my form got added to a pile of the same forms that was about 15 cms thick. I knew then that I had no chance of getting my phone back.

The next day we stopped outside a shop to work directions out. I suddenly felt something land with force on my head. A pigeon shat on me! Sometimes you're the pigeon, and sometimes you're the statue.......

On a happier note we caught up with my old friend Valia and her husband Vasilis. It was so good to see her again and to meet Vasilis! We had dinner at a restaurant with stunning views over the Parthenon. 

I had the most amazing Ouzo cocktail here! As it became darker, the Parthenon was lit up. It was spectacular! Thanks for a wonderful night Valia and Vasilis!

We didn't do any touristy things in Athens as we've been to Athens before and this time we were here to get things organised - including buying a new phone. It was always a pleasant surprise when we'd be walking along a street and suddenly there were ancient ruins next to us or the Parthenon would suddenly appear above us.

We also found a whole store called the Black and Yellow store. It was dedicated to a local football team but John wandered around inside dreaming of his Aussie team - the Richmond Tigers. Unfortunately, it didn't help us as we later watched the Tiges lose by two points in a do-or-die final. We were out of the competition!

We had a blast rediscovering Greek food. Yum! Although, like so many countries, everything seems to come with chips. We certainly enjoyed the ouzo too!

We were a bit surprised at the number of people sleeping on the streets in Athens. There were many people with mental or drug problems and some seemed to have awful injuries.  It was all so sad.

There were soooo many tourists here. Some streets were just swarming with them.

Changing our ongoing plans was complicated but we got there. After loving Halki so much we decided to spend more time on other Greek islands instead of going to Portugal as it's possible to take John's bike on most ferries. We had one week spare between Athens and flying to Italy (which we had already arranged previously) so we headed out to a nearby island called Aegina – pronounced Eggina

Public transport is great in Athens. We caught a train from near our hotel that took us straight to the port. It's no problem putting the bike on the train. The connections worked so well that we got there early. On a whim we asked the company we had bought our ticket from if there was an earlier ferry and were told we could just get on another company's ferry "no problem" We love how laid back everything is in Greece.

We arrived at Aegina town and it immediately reminded me of Naxos with the main road running along the waterfront and restaurants filling the space behind the road while fancy yachts were moored along the water’s edge. It was a fairly big town and was very busy when we arrived. We had a lovely lunch in one of those harbourside restaurants then John rode his bike the 10kms or so to Souvala, where our accommodation was, while I took the bags in a taxi.

Our accommodation location was amazing! A dozen or so rooms and apartment were scattered along a rocky headland and rough steps tumbled down to the sea. The water below us was an incredible turquoise. The 'beach' had no sand, just rocks. A jetty jutted out over the water and the whole thing was like something from Mamma Mia! It was an idyllic Greek island heaven.  

The property's cat had two kittens. Warning - cute photo alert!

Our small apartment had a fantastic balcony that looked over the beach area and the sea. It was sensational! We had a few problems with noise at night though but despite our complaints about the noise on the first night, we soon got on well with the owner and his helper.

I was told there were lots of fish here but there were only a few. We haven't found much life under the sea anywhere in Greece. There were interesting rock formations underwater though. Just like on the land, the sea floor is fairly arid and rocky.

We managed to have a video call with our kids plus my dad on Fathers' Day.

We quickly settled into a routine. We'd bike and walk first thing before it got too hot. I soon learned that a great way to work out walks was to pick random churches on google maps and walk to them. Some were set in beautiful locations and some were interesting churches. There are so many churches in Greece that I had no lack of destinations. After our exercise we'd catch up on deskwork on our balcony before the sun moved onto it then swim in the late afternoon. Wonderful!

Of course we had to end the days with sunset photos.

All this only lasted two days though. On day three I was out on my walk towards a church right on the top of a nearby hill when I heard a clap of thunder behind me. I turned around to see a band of bad weather sweeping across the sea towards me. I was in a small forest of scrubby trees where there was no real shelter. I looked at my phone - I was six minutes from the church. I walked faster. I got a bit wet but made it to the church just as the squall struck. Thankfully the church wasn't locked and I sheltered inside while the wind howled around the dome of the church. The church was alone on a hill and it copped the full brunt of the wind and rain. It was so cool!

After the storm came through the weather remained windy and the water rough the rest of the time we were there. It was a shame we couldn’t continue our swimming routine but at least we got the few days in that we did.

The bad weather also created some amazing skies.

We did continue our walks and rides though. I found this church hidden in a small valley.

Some tracks and country roads were really lovely. I walked past olive groves and some trees were really old. 

There were also plenty of figs and pomegranates, both in such abundance that they just fall to the ground. Prickly pears were also common.

The island is famous for its pistachios though and the pistachio trees were just beginning to be harvested.

These people were harvesting the pistachios by simply hitting the branches with a stick and the clusters of pink-coated nuts would fall onto a mat under the tree.

The nuts were then laid out to dry.

I sometimes walked through scrubby pine forests above the town however many parts of it were being used to dump rubbish, particularly building rubbish like broken concrete. It was such  a shame.

There were great views from many places.

The small town of Souvala was centred around the port as many Greek island towns are. We loved it the first time we saw it. It was small and the people were friendly, especially after we stayed a few days. It was all so idyllic - small fishing boats bobbed on the water and a cluster of local restaurants had umbrella-covered tables set up along the water's edge.

Weirdly, a family of ducks lived on a small patch of rocky beach on the edge of the sea below the sea wall. One of the local restaurant owners kept them fed with food scraps and watered them by lowering buckets of water down to them. They had a little hutch where they laid their eggs. I could never figure out how anyone collected them though as there was no direct access to where they were.

One of the restaurant owners was called Theo. He had been making gyros and souvlakis here for about 40 years which were popular with locals and tourists alike. He was a real character.

Out of season, the local restaurant owners love to fish. Apparently everyone here loves to fish.

Locals rode step-through motorbikes everywhere. They would pull up right outside the restaurant or shop they were going to and park there. We rarely saw a local walk!

Three times a day a ferry would pull in. Many people from Athens have holiday homes here and it must be so easy to just catch the ferry across.

One advantage of the turn in the weather is that the skies cleared and the white city of Athens was easy to see on the horizon. We think we could even make out where the Parthenon was. The string of lights at night was beautiful too.

Our favourite food find was ‘pistachio butter’. OMG – it was amazing! It was like eating a liquidised centre of a Ferrero Rocher. We also found a wonderful Greek yoghourt so each breakfast we would have the yoghourt with pistachio butter and local oak honey on top. It was delicious but you can see why we need to exercise every day!

The towns were fairly clean however we were shocked at the rubbish that was blown in by the storm and winds. The ’beaches’ were lined with plastic bottles and bags and all sorts of rubbish. And nobody picked up a thing. Even the poor ducks were nesting among the plastic waste. I was a bit shocked to realise there was no system in place for cleaning this up. I guess they would simply wait and it would drift back out to sea again.

On day we hired a car one day and set off to explore the island. First stop was the ancient Byzantine village of Paleohora that had been in existence from the 9th century through to the 1820's. Ruined buildings were spread over a large area but, strangely, only the many churches had been restored. This created the weird sight of dozens of churches all in one area but no other buildings. They really do have a lot of churches here!

Next was the Temple of Aphaia, built in 480 BC. The story goes that the builders of the Parthenon saw this temple and copied their design from it but on a larger scale. It was beautiful.

There were some lovely places around the island.

Aegina Town.

We found this incongruous sight of quad bikes lined up for hire in front of a beautiful old crumbling building.

We had a lovely dinner right on the sand at Aegina Town and found ourselves next to a couple from Melbourne! We also had fantastic salted pistachio ice-cream. Thanks for the tip Valia!

We were sad to leave this beautiful place. We caught the ferry back to the mainland across that stunning coloured water.

We had one night in Athens where we ate at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant. We miss Asian food!

We had time for a walk the next morning and found some really beautiful parts of Athens. We walked past gorgeous ruins and up whitewashed steps lined with colourful cafe chairs.

Goodbye Athens. Italy, here we come!

Heather and John