Our last day in Santorini. Lovely
early morning light over the vineyards in front of our hotel
Construction vehicles also in front,
making a lot of noise and dust. It was Monday, so back to work they go
To be brutally frank, we did not see
much of the reported economic downturn in Greece, it looks like a well-functioning
clean, middle class country. But there were places where you could not ignore
it. This is a new-ish Santorini shopping centre, built in the last couple of
years, with not one tenant or, they tell us, any possibility of getting any.
And this is the most touristy place we saw
Here comes our ferry
In the queue?
No. Why queue when you can sit in the cafe at the head of the queue and
have a beer, a coffee and some free crisps and then join from the front?
ALL ABOARD
We arrived two hours later in Naxos
and were collected by our “hostess” Katerina
This was our small but adequate
en suite room in the Chora with a shared balcony. We even had a small cooking
area and a sink in the room
Why do European geraniums look so
healthy and flower so well. We can't get them to grow like this in their country of origin.
What is the secret?
Lots of lovely nooks and crannies,
alleys and doorways in the Chora (the main old town, or village, on Greek
islands such as Mykonos, Naxos)
Buy at small shops as you walk through
the alleys
And, finally, we came to the sea
front. Naxos has a typical Greek seafront with lots of tavernas
A tip: If you want to find your way
home again though the labyrinth of alleys, you take photos of the trip down to
town. This is one of the small squares we walked through
Our landmark was, of course, a shop
selling alcohol
Early evening? No, actually, nearly 9
pm and we were in search of supper
A wonderful spread of seafood. If only
we had stopped here and got the Visa out
A fleet of yachts for hire, should you
care to sail in the Aegean for a couple of weeks. They do sail in fleets with experienced
sailors in the fleet
Choices, choices. Each taverna tries
to tempt you in with colourful photographic printed menus. There were some good
offers
Sunset over the bay
We chose this one
The half litre jugs of white wine are
reasonably priced and drinkable if you are eating. They won't win any awards but are
fine with food. We didn't have any sour or ropey white wine. One red was rather acidic
Looking along the seafront while
waiting for our four fish platter
Oh hell, always ask lots of questions
before you order. The dish we ordered turned out to consist only of minute
whitebait, smaller whitebait and larger sardine-sized whitebait, all battered.
Lynne loathes fish with crunchy bones and, even worse, uncleaned fish, so John
did well. There was some chopped up, uncleaned calamari underneath the fishes
and there were a few chips and some salad. There was a plate of some strange
yellow rice. The meal cost us €20.60 or about R280
The harbour at night
A small ferry arrives
Watching the world pass by
Time to stroll home. And then the thunder started to roll
