Leros

As we were waiting at Nisyros for our ferry to Leros, we were thoroughly entertained by the little three-wheeler vans that had to quickly unload produce from another smaller ferry. The ferry was bobbing up and down a lot and the drivers had to time their drive over the ramp or risk ending up in the sea. This guy made it ok but another one lost part of his load as the boat rocked just as he crossed the ramp.

We said goodbye to Spiros and boarded our ferry. Soon afterwards, we found out that the ferry wouldn't be docking at our expected port but at another one on the other side of Leros as the sea was too rough. This was not good news for someone who gets seasick. Sure enough, after half an hour or so, the waves picked up and soon we were being tossed up and down. It was too late to take any seasick tablets so I put on my wristbands that are supposed to help, stared at the horizon and prayed we'd stop soon. I made it, but only just. Weirdly, I felt sick for the rest of the day.

John rode his bike across the narrow part of Leros to our accommodation while I caught a taxi with the bags. We found our accommodation and I immediately liked it. Our simple apartment looked directly out over the beautiful bay. Fishing boats were moored in front of us and the sun sparkled on the crystal clear water. It was beautiful!

The view from our balcony:

Nearby were a handful of restaurants. Some of these had tables set up right on the narrow pebbly beach. We ate dinner at one a couple of times and had gorgeous views across the still water to the lit up castle on the other side of the bay.

There was a lot to see on this island. Leros has an interesting relatively recent history. From 1912 it was occupied by Italy. They recognised the significance of the huge, deep harbour at Lakki and they built a naval base there. Subsequently, Lakki is dotted with grand Italianate buildings.

Sadly, during WW2, the Germans also realised how important the harbour was, and they attacked in September 1943. For nearly two months they pummelled the island. Amazingly, there were no civilian casualties as the locals hid in caves and tunnels. The Germans finally overran the English and Italians in November and captured the island.

There is now a war museum inside some of the tunnels.

At the end of one of the tunnels were these guns. When I first noticed them they were pointing straight at me. It was a very uncomfortable feeling.

There were all sorts of old things here from English, Italian and German troops but some big sea mines looked particularly nasty.

This is an old German notebook. Remember this image. I'll come back to it later.

I had bumped into an English couple of one of my walks and they told me about a site that I wanted to see. It was an old radio transmission station from the war. I assume (I can't find much info on it) that it was set up by the allies then taken over by the Germans. The three towers were still there and the huge old building was in ruins but there was nothing to stop people from entering. (No, the tower isn't crooked - it's just the warping in the photo.)

We entered carefully as the ceiling was caving in and much of the roofing material was on the floor. It was really cool exploring a ruined building with such an interesting history.

The black and white chequered tiles that decorated the floor were still in great condition in the parts that weren't covered in roofing material. But we weren't there to see the floor. We hunted around and, in one of the last rooms, we found it. It stretched a couple of metres across a wall. It was faint but it was still there....

The eagle stands on a swastika, just like the picture on the front of the book in my earlier photo. Kind of gives you the creeps, doesn't it?

There were more amazing war relics scattered around the island. We drove up a very rough road (in a rented Hyundai i30!) to the top of a hill where there's a parabolic acoustic 'mirror' from WW2. This remarkable structure was built by the Italians. It consisted of three curved concrete walls with a trench in front of each wall. People would stand in the trenches and any sound of an approaching aircraft or ship would be reflected back to the listeners in the trench below. This gave the Italians advance warning and they would then be prepared for surprise attacks.

Not only was the structure really interesting but a herd of goats hung around it, creating awesome photo opportunities!

Nearby was some sort of a gunnery or maybe a bunker. There were bunkers and tunnels all over the island.

Inside, a steel ladder ran a long way down a deep shaft. There were flies coming up from the depths so I assume maybe a goat took one step too far and fell. I wasn't looking down into it to find out!

Another much older relic that was also involved in the war was the castle that dominated the landscape around the main port town and could be clearly seen from our side of the bay. One day I walked up there and John rode his bike. The gorgeous track I took was made of 500 steps but they were painted prettily and the views on the way up were amazing,

The castle was fun to explore with interesting nooks and crannies.

There was an important church inside the castle walls and these bells stood impressively on one wall.

I thought this notice was wonderful.

There were expansive views in all directions.

Beneath the castle, a row of restored windmills sat scenically on a low saddle where the wind was strongest.

Like most Greek islands, there were numerous idyllic beaches. Even though it's getting late in the season, most were still dotted with umbrellas. Older Italian tourists seemed to be the main holiday makers at this time of year. For the five days we were in Leros, the maximum temperature was 24 degrees and the minimum was 21. I only swam once and the water felt cool. I'm missing my swimming already!

Many harbours were picture-perfect with gorgeous fishing boats adding splashes of colour to the blue sea.

A couple of churches were standouts here. This one was perched on a rocky outcrop and only a narrow, very slippery path lead out to it.

This tiny church is known as "The Crab Church"! The story is that a crab fisherman found an icon (icons are the images of Jesus, Mary etc that they love so much here) wedged between some rocks when he was looking for crabs. Icons seem to get 'found' a lot in this country. He built a church and the icon inside was apparently painted on a crab! We found the church but sadly, the icon wasn't there. Oh well. It was a lovely spot anyway.

A rough cave formed the roof of the tiny church.

Near the castle was a church spectacularly located on a ridge with huge views.

Wait - what's that on the left of the photo? Is that a bomb???

Weirdly, there were lots of ducks on this island. They were normal domestic ducks but they lived freely on and near the sea! I did see people feeding them though, just like they feed the endless array of cats. These ones lived in a vacant block of land next to the beach where people fed the cats.

There are a lot of horses here too. I think I could count on one hand the number of horses we've seen on the islands but there are plenty of them here. I saw a photo in the war museum of a soldier on a horse and I wonder if these horses are the descendants of war horses? 

They often have these cute tassels on their browbands.

They were generally lovely looking horses.

There's a huge refugee camp on Leros. The refugees make it to Turkey where they are moved on to Greece by people smugglers. We saw a lot of people walking near the camp. There were people from the Middle East, Africa and a few from Asia. They were just walking around freely and we have no idea what's stopping them from jumping on a ferry and leaving. 

On the other hand, we met an Aussie couple one night who said they shared their ferry trip with a group of refugees. They were cordoned off from the rest of the passengers and were handcuffed to each other! There were babies there too. They said it was awful. 

The camp looked very clinical from a distance.

I've seen this so many times in Greece. That's a no parking sign above the scooter.

The food on Leros was exceptionally good. There seemed to be more outside influences here and the food has adapted accordingly. There were even vegan options, something we haven't seen anywhere else. 

One night John ordered shrimps. He only got one - look at the size of it!

There's a well-known seafood restaurant on the water with a scenic windmill in front. Unusually, the windmill sat so low it was lapped by the sea!

One night we had dinner at an ouzeria at another village. Ouzerias traditionally serve meze-style food to go with your ouzo but this one had larger meals as well. It was beautifully located right on the water's edge. John ordered scallops. We watched as the owner took a large bucket out onto the jetty that ran from the restaurant into the sea. He reached down and filled the bucket with sea water. Then he reached down again and grabbed a rope that was tied to the jetty and hung over the edge into the water. As he pulled, up came a plastic container. He opened it and pulled out John's scallops. They were being kept alive in the sea!

Ten minutes later, John's huge scallops were served. They were still in the shell and were just warmed through. They didn't smell like shellfish - they smelled like the sea. I'm not a seafood lover at all but you seriously can't get much fresher than that!

Later in the evening, another couple ordered a whole fish. The owner brought out a fish and the couple agreed to have that one. He then wandered out onto the jetty again, sat down on a milk crate and proceeded to scale and clean the fish, tossing the innards into the sea. 

We hired a scooter (of the motorbike variety) for a couple of days. It was fun getting around so easily and feeling so free. Scooters are used everywhere in the Greek islands - they're easy to use and they're small enough to squeeze down narrow laneways. Kids get taken to school on them and people carry their groceries on them, even if the shop is 200 metres down the road. Greeks don't generally walk much.

Something I noticed on Leros was the amazing things that people can do on scooters without needing to even get off. I saw a woman pull up at a water refilling station (you can't drink the tap water here - it's very salty) and, without getting off, she put her 10-litre plastic container under the tap, filled it up, put it back under her feet on her scooter and drove off. I watched as a man carrying a bag of domestic rubbish pulled up at exactly the right spot beside the skip bins where people put their rubbish. He pressed his foot onto the bin lever to open the bin, the lid opened, he threw his rubbish in then drove off. The whole process took less that five seconds. Another guy finished his drink off as he rode his scooter then expertly tossed the empty bottle into a bin without even needing to slow down or stop, let alone get off!

Leros was far more modern and westernised than all the other smaller islands we've visited. It has a population of around 6,000 people, far more than most other islands we've been on. There were many trendy, modern Greek houses, some owned by expats. You don't see a lot of 'For Sale' signs on properties on other islands but there were plenty on Leros so I think real estate is a bit of a thing, probably influenced by foreigners. 

There were quite a few villages and towns to explore and there was plenty to do and see. It was a very livable place. Having said that though, the number of locals we made friends with is zero. Maybe they're just more used to having non-Greeks around as we think quite a few foreigners live here. Or maybe the opportunities to meet locals just didn't arise. They weren't unfriendly, they were just not as engaging.  

As I was writing this in our apartment, there was a huge commotion outside. We rushed to the balcony in time to see a long line of cars driving along the main road along the bay. The lead car had a bouquet of flowers tied to the bonnet. It was a wedding! The cars were tooting and some had ribbons tied to them. We could have a lot of noisy people driving home very late tonight!

See you soon.
Heather and John

Halki (again!) and Nisyros

One of our favourite islands last year was Nisyros. It was here that we realised the secret to meeting locals and getting into Greek life was to go to the cafes and just hang out drinking coffee. Nisyros was on our way to other islands so we decided to visit again. To get to Nisyros from Karpathos, we had to go via Halki. The ferries didn't connect so we had to spend another night in Halki. How sad - not!

We couldn't get any of our usual rooms so, for the first time, we stayed on the other side of the harbour. We took advantage of the location and swam to a cave at the far end of the bay, something we've never done before. It took ages but we got there!

That night we caught up with Carol and Graeme, an English couple, plus Kiki and Andreas. We had another great night at the Black Sea restaurant.

The next day we were off to Nisyros! I'm not going to go into great detail about the island here as I wrote about it last year. It's famous for having a dormant volcano with a spectacular crater but we love it for the people. It really is a special place. If you'd like to know more, see our previous post HERE.

We were very excited to see all the great people that we met here last time. There was Maria at the cafe and Spiros, the half Italian, half Greek who adores Nisyros. 

A cat had died, leaving three kittens. Someone else owned them but they spent their days at Maria's cafe, playing and looking gorgeous. Ali and Marta look so cute here but all three are nearly adults and none are desexed. Nisyros is overrun with cats.

Mandraki is the main town in Nisyros and is where we stayed. It was quieter when we were here last year as it was later in the year. This year we really noticed the noise of motorbikes and particularly the little delivery vans that roar up and down the narrow lane beside Maria's cafe. After a while we called it "Nisyros music"!

On our first night we had to eat at Irini's restaurant to see Irini. She recognised us immediately and showered us with hugs and kisses!

We didn't see as much of our apartment owners, Betty and Giannis, this time but when we did see them we always seemed to get food! We saw Betty twice at a bar (where she drinks tea with friends) and each time she had some delicious home-baked treat with her that she shared. One day we were eating lunch at a cafe that Giannis frequents and he brought us over some tiny mussels that we assume had come straight from the sea!

Mandraki is a very pretty town.

One great thing about Mandraki is that it faces west and the sunsets are amazing. The restaurants and bars along the sea wall were wonderful places to go for a sunset drink.

After a few days the wind really picked up and we couldn't sit against the sea wall as waves were crashing over it!

On one wild, windy night we caught up with an Australian couple that we met last year. We ate behind plastic screens on the sea wall and the crashing waves found their way under the walls and splashed around our feet. Occasionally waves splashed right up onto the plastic screens. It looked like someone was throwing buckets of soapy water at us. The Aussies have now been renovating a house for 6 or 7 years and they still can't live in it. Ouch!

There were plenty of walks and rides to do from Mandraki. Like last year, I climbed to the amazing old fort on top of the nearby hill. I still find it incredible how they could build walls like this 2,000 years ago.

Not far away is a monastery and an old castle. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find a track to the castle. The best I did was get to the base of the walls. I love how there are old shaped stones from the nearby fort in random places. It must have been so hard to get them to the fort in the first place. How this one came to be half way down this hill is a mystery to me!

Even more surprising is that I was snorkelling at the beach below this hill another time and I saw at least three rocks underwater that looked suspiciously rectangular and in the same dimensions as the ancient ones at the fort. The fort must be maybe 1km in distance away and 150 metres above the sea where I saw them!

This 'beach' is a favourite of people from Nisyros even though it's covered in round rocks and has pallets for sunbeds!

One day we hired a motorbike to get around. The rental guy was a friend so, not only did he not need to see any licenses (we don't have motorbike licenses but can both ride one) but he asked if we wanted helmets and, before we had a chance to answer he said, "No, you don't want those"! So helmetless and unlicenced, we headed off. 

We went for a bit of a ride which was fine. I had a swim at a beach that was so shallow that I could stand up the whole time. We then ate dinner at our favourite waterside restaurant in the next town. The ride back in the early evening twilight was wonderful.

Twice we hired an e-bike and I joined John on his long rides around the island. We had been to all the sights last year but we re-visited our favourites:

Nikia is a beautiful hilltop village with whitewashed or stone buildings with colourful door and windows, some renovated and some filled with the beauty of age.

Next was Emborios, another gorgeous village. We had to leave our bikes at the entrance to the village as there were too many steps to take bikes in.

Both Emborio and Nikia and built high on the volcano rim. The view over the volcano valley from this cafe in Emborio was stunning!

We finished the ride with another meal at Pali. This is the harbour where the yachts anchor. We were wonderfully entertained by a yacht with obvious beginners on it. They tried to moor at the jetty with a strong cross-wind. They nearly crashed into a nearby yacht twice. And by 'nearby' I mean about 40 metres away! The nearby yacht eventually took matters into their own hands and pulled out of the port and left them to it! It took five attempts but they made it. Soon afterwards, another yacht came in and reversed back into a space about one-fifth the size of the other yacht's space and did it in one go.

Another day we rode through the caldera. The colours of the rocks here are amazing.

We didn't walk into the crater this time but we peered into it from the rim.

One of the rewards for riding up so many steep hills was that the long downhill ride back towards home was such fun! We tore down the roads, leaning into corners, with stunning sea-views accompanying us most of the way. I could do that every day! (Except I got such a sore bum!)

This island really is spectacular. I'm not giving these amazing sights full credit here because I also don't want to repeat myself from our previous post.

When it was time to leave there were many sad goodbyes. Spiros walked to the port with us to see us off. Whenever he's with us, his friend keeps dropping in to see if he's ready to go for a walk or do something with him, yet he never joins us. Just before we left, his friend magically appeared again to go for a walk with Spiros as soon as we left!

Stay good.
Heather and John