The bedrooms in the hotel were small but clean and the bathtub / shower were really odd being a little over three feet long. As a result we all took showers.

September 6
The taxi ride from our hotel in Attica was most instructive in the ways of Greek drivers. I consider myself a reasonably tough Toronto driver but the free-for-all of downtown Athens was another world. The first thing you notice is the motorcycles, mopeds and scooters who appear to believe that the dividing lines that separate lanes are put there to guide motorcycles between cars. The mopeds & scooters were like dive bombers weaving their way through enemy lines. They would only slow down when the side view mirror came close to the side view mirrors of the cars. In fact one woman on a scooter that just missed our car hit the mirrors of another one just down the line. Apologies were offered and accepted and away she went none the worse for wear.

We got delivered to the ferry just in time and got settled into our reserved seats. This ferry was supposed be high speed but I questioned that it was very fast. Later our boat captain told me that these ships have 60,000 horsepower and move along about 45 knots but I think the ponies were tired out that day. The inside was very nice and we were in the non-smoking section. In any event we arrived in Paros and met our tour guide Lambros.

That evening we had dinner on the boat, which was very good dinner of tomatoes & green peppers stuffed with rice (domato as opposed to domatis which are grape leaves stuffed with rice).

That evening after dinner Lambros invited us to walk with him. Our walk was amazing, through tiny back streets that at some points you could spread your arms wide and touch both walls. The streets were lighted and for the most part were as clean as a kitchen floor. Several of the residences had blooming bougainvillea or vines that would shade the passageway during the daytime.

We continued our nighttime tour passing a number of cafes & stores that were still open. Finally we came out at a restaurant that had tables on a terrace overlooking the harbour. The lights from houses, boats, cars and restaurants lit up the warm summer darkness. We walked back to the boat well contented with our day.

September 7
It was an easy day until around 5pm when we went for a bike ride with Lambros. We started out by climbing a very long steep hill that was a challenge. We all made the climb - even Kim who at one point I'm sure was beginning to re-consider her relationship with her Aunt Wendy. We arrived at a small fishing village in time to see a Greek wedding celebration take place complete with traditional dancers. On the return trip Lambros's tire gave out and he used his cell phone to call a taxi. Kim quickly volunteered to give her bike to Lambros and take the taxi back to the boat (some might say she displayed unseemly haste). We gave her some money so she could pick up our laundry (did we mention our laundry - we had taken it in for 2 hour service earlier in the day but the laundry had a power shortage which Lambros said is quite common on the island.) Kim carried her task successfully to completion and went back to the boat where the rest of us arrived in short order. Lambros had arranged for us to go with him to a festival in a small Greek village about 20 minutes away by taxi. This festival was not for tourists and indeed we were the only ones there that were not from the village.

We had not had dinner and Lambros went off and came back with six plates of food and homemade wine. The food included Kefteddes (sp? Greek meatballs), cream filled pastries, sausage rolls and spanikopita to name just a few. A young peoples group all dressed in traditional costume were dancing when we arrived and put on a marvellous show. When they were through performing two older couples got up and danced a traditional dance for two people that was beautiful to watch. After the younger folk had changed out of their costumes they came back and did some impromptu dancing with each other but that didn't last long as they all had to catch rides back to their villages. By pure chance the taxi driver that drove us to the village happened to be from that village so he stayed around and visited his family so he was around to give us a ride back to the boat. It was a great night.

September 8
Today we travel from Paros to Santorini - good in theory at least. We started out on fairly calm water but the wind picked up and we had 1.5 metre waves and the captain was a little concerned so we detoured into Ios (pronounced ee oss) and we were told that they would check the weather and make a decision about trying for Santorini or stay the evening at Ios. When they checked the weather it turned out that waiting would mean worse weather so the captain decided to continue to Santorini. When we started out the Viking Jr. was running parallel to the waves and as a result was rolling fairly heavily which made Moe a mite nervous. The Capt. made a course correction that pointed the boat in a direction that cut a quartering path through the waves. This maneuver steadied the boat considerably and everyone was able to relax a little.

That evening we went into Fira with Leda & Georgia (our two new guides that are to replace Lambros who will be leaving us soon. As Lambros told us "he must go back to work" and we didn't know he was on "holidays".) We had dinner at a restaurant perched on the edge of the volcano calderas. I used the term "perched" conservatively as the restaurant was terraced down the cliffside that plunged several hundred feet to sea level. I ordered a mussel appetizer for dinner and they were fresh and delicious.

September 9
We left our boat in the protective custody of our two new lady guides. I use the term "protective custody " somewhat advisedly because when we boarded the local bus for the ride into town we were unaware it was to be driven by the Greek version of Attila The Hun. The bus was old, hot, rickety, rusty and crowded. When we boarded one of our guides point to an empty seat just behind the driver and since we had boarded by the rear door (why not?) and since we only had to crush a few people to get to it we decided to try for it and were more than a little surprised to succeed. (it never occurred to us to question why no one else wanted to sit there). By the next stop our guides had secured the seat right behind us with Wendy and Kim getting a seat somewhere out of sight. The crew consisted of a driver and a conductor who occasionally collected or sold tickets. Even though the bus was full this seemed to have little meaning when it came to picking up more people. As the bus was hot I opened the window immediately behind the driver. At the next stop the driver turned around, gave me a dirty look and slammed the window shut with a finality that challenged any protest on my part. He drove the bus like a Ferrari and chain-smoked one cigarette after another (the fact that a "No Smoking" sign was immediately above his head seemed to bother him not at all). He drove like a man possessed, giving blasts on his horn to pedestrians, motorbikes and other vehicles doing his level best to dominate the road. At every stop he would get out of his seat and yell at the passengers to crush together and load more. As he jammed more people in Maureen ended up with a fellow more or less in her lap plus a load of empty beer bottles (I on the other hand had wisely chosen the window seat and got to inhale cigarette smoke with occasional ash flying into my face). The more people he jammed into the front section the less able he was to maneuver and threaten passengers (I think he was a little frustrated by this and would occasionally yell to the conductor in the back who would respond in a muffled voice, the doors would close and the bus would rocket on.

Up to this point things had humorous aspect to them if you chose to view them from the right perspective. We had been going around the route for some time when we came to a major stop. Everyone had off loaded but it appeared that a passenger in the back was having a problem. The driver was out of his seat yelling at passengers trying to board and yelling at a poor old man who was having problems getting out of his seat. I sensed a general disapproval of the driver but was unable to understand the dialogue. In any event the old man slowly moved forward and the driver sensing the disapproval of the crowd seemed to calm down to merely muttering at the old man as he tottered off. When we asked our guides about the exchange they were clearly embarrassed by the incident. Apparently the driver had been unnecessarily rude to the poor old guy and had called him an old fool, asking him why he sat down if he couldn't get up. The novelty of the ride had been lost and when we got to Fira I was glad to be off the bus. We were supposed to continue on a different bus to a small town situated on the edge of the calderas but no one in our group wanted to continue so we elected to walk around Fira and look at the town as well as try to find some of the buildings that were not rebuilt after the last earthquake. We wandered through the streets of Fira looking at some wonderful architecture. Blooms of Bougainvillea stretched across the narrow streets, which could not have been more than four feet wide. The four of us slowly climbed up to the calderas at the highest point of the town. The view was spectacular and we could see the donkeys carrying the cruise ship passengers from the dock to the town a thousand feet up. We wandered along the rim until we came to a restaurant (one of many) that had a balcony table looking down into the calderas. As we ate lunch we watched the cruise ships come and go with their busy tenders moving passengers on and off the big ships. While we were having lunch I counted five cruise ships that were anchored off the buoys in the calderas. The guide told us they had to anchor to buoys because the depth of the calderas was far too deep for the anchor chains. The guide told us how Jacques Cousteau had come to test the depth of the calderas in hopes of finding the remains of the old civilization. The local people delight in saying how foolish the exercise was because they knew all along that all the successive eruptions would have covered everything up.

While we had been walking our guides had secured boat tickets for us to visit the island with the dormant volcano on it. Our guide took us down the sky tram (the very thought of riding one of those poor donkeys was enough to do me in) to the boat docks. We caught our boat to the island where the dormant volcano was (the last eruption was in 1956). Walking on the island was like walking on the moon. The rubble from past eruptions was frozen in jagged heaps barren of any vegetation. The afternoon sun was very hot and of course there was no shade. Wendy had decided that she was already feeling the heat and made the decision to shop in town rather than join us. Kim came and was a trooper right to the top of the volcano. When we got to the top the view was amazing! As we walk around the edge I saw some steam vents and I showed them to Kim. Like a couple of kids we stuck our hands down the vent holes. I was tempted to yell BANG and scare Kim but as we were just on the edge of a small calderas I resisted the temptation.

We caught the return boat back just in time, picked up Wendy and took a taxi back to the boat. Our shipmates had decided to spend some time away from the boat so our dinner was just the 3 guides and the 4 of us. Our guides were Lambros (the owner of the company we booked through), Leda who was an English teacher (she has final exams to write before she can actually teach - several thousand write and only the top 100 succeed) and Georgia who was still in school to become an English teacher. Dinner conversation was very interesting with topics that compared our lives & society. After, Leda got out her guitar and sang us some beautiful Greek folksongs. We then tried to sing some Canadian folksongs (scary thought, but since we were the guest they had no choice but to tell us how good it was. The Greeks are very polite!) In any event it was very enjoyable and we went to bed content

September 10
We began the day with a quick visit to Akitiros. This is a village that has been recently (1960's) discovered. The age of the village is estimated at 2500 BC and is perfectly preserved. The archeologist feel that a people called Minoans (Sp? pronounced Min know ins) anticipated that the eruptions from the volcano would wipe out the village and as a result they departed. They knew this because unlike Pompeii there are no bodies to be found, at least so far, in the village. The buildings are very sophisticated and some go as high as three stories. They are proceeding very slowly and have only excavated about three percent of what is underground. Our guide pointed out that going slowly means that they will probably be at this work for over a hundred years but that if the volcano should erupt again, and there is every reason to believe it will, then the material that is still underground will be preserved for future generations while anything that has been exposed will probably be destroyed by eruption or earthquake.
The visit was fascinating but short because we had to return to the boat for our trip to Naxos.

Going to Naxos was interesting as the sea was a bit rougher than when we came. The wind was at our back for part of the way and the ride did not seem too bad. Maureen is my gauge for these rides and she seemed to take it in her stride. When we got to Naxos we lost Lambros as he caught the ferry home from there. We all had a beer at one of the sidewalk restaurant and then walked to some ruins that were called "Apollo's Gate". Apparently a temple was going to be constructed that would have been larger than the Parthenon in Athens but something went wrong and the only thing that was constructed was the doorway. The door was facing the island where Apollo was supposed to have been born and hence the name Apollo's Gate. We returned to the boat for another great dinner (spaghetti & meat sauce but it was wonderful). I had pigged out on appetizers and beer at one of the sidewalk restaurants and spoiled my appetite. We had missed lunch due to the travel in the boat so I was hungry. Our guides joined us for a beer and they split a beer between the three of them and ordered one appetizer between the three of them - oh well you live and learn I guess.

After dinner Wendy, Kim, Maureen and I wandered through the town of Naxos and up the hill to the fortress. Wendy bought a watch (she buys one per country) and we bought some citron liquor. The citrons look like limes with a bad case of the mumps but the liquor was not too sweet and quite a nice flavor. Something that I forgot to mention was that back on Santorini we were discussing the different fruits and what not that are grown on the island. The guides mentioned figs were grown and asked if I had ever tasted one. When I said that I had only had dried figs they took me to a vegetable stand across the road and purchased a box of fresh figs. Georgia, our guide, took one out of the box and peeled it like you would an orange. When she had peeled enough off to open it up she gave it to me to eat. As I opened it up I noticed it-looked kind of reddish and about the same consistency of jam. I took a bite and found it quite good but extremely sweet. Georgia said that many Greeks consider fresh figs quite a treat but I think they are so sweet that it would be difficult to eat very many. That led to a discussion of other fruits and they mentioned pomegranates which you would never buy because "everyone has a tree and you just grab one as you go by". I never got a chance to test the theory. By the way I had no desire to finish the figs and Lambros told me the Captain loved fresh figs. I offered them and they were gleefully accepted.

Anyway the night had cooled off and we returned to the boat for a great sleep. Before I went down to our cabin the Captain prepared me a Greek coffee which I enjoyed no end (being my mother's son)

September 11
We traveled to Mykonos today and when we got there we had to dock about 3 km from the town. After we docked we finally had a chance to go swim in the sea. It was very salty (much worse than Hawaii) but a lot of fun. Leda our guide complained because it was cool but it seemed just wonderful to me. We returned to the boat, changed and the girls took us for a stroll through town and up to the famous windmills of Mykonos. We walked around the windmills for a while and then the girls took us to a Greek Orthodox Church in town, which was very small. They explained that there were a large number of these small churches because when the Greek seamen were at sea in a storm they would promise God that if they came home alive - you guessed it - they would build a church to show their gratitude. They then took us to a restaurant on the sea where the waves are literally at your feet. This restaurant is apparently famous for the view and we elected to have a beer and appetizers while we watched the sunset. They were playing beautiful flute music and everything was perfect except the sun went behind the clouds. We had some good conversation and a few laughs. We searched out a restaurant that Maureen had spotted in the guidebook and had a wonderful meal with the six of us. "The Girls" had gone off to party amongst a lot of teasing from us about being in bed in decent time since we had an early departure.

September 12
The next day we decided to travel before breakfast was served in order to take advantage of the calm water. Our next island was Trios (Tree oss) and was a little over an hour away so we didn't have to wait too long. This island is very religious and after breakfast the girls (our guides were now just called "the girls") took us up the hill to visit the Greek Orthodox Church. As we walked up the hill the girls told us about a religious Icon that was found by a nun after a vision and it was considered by the church to be a miracle so - you guessed it - they built a church on the spot it was found. As we walked up the hill we passed a few pilgrims crawling on their hands and knees to the church at the top. Apparently when they get to the top they will ask God to grant them a request that is usually related to healing. It was the first time I had witnessed something like that and I was very impressed with the dedication of these people. (The temperature was in the high twenties).

It was time for Maureen and I to depart so after fond farewells to the crew we boarded the catamaran that got us to our hotel in Mati in about two and a half hours. The catamaran was a high speed and strictly passenger with no vehicles. It was equipped with side thrusters and could turn on a dime. When we docked it literally went in sideways or it would never have made it. We moved right along probably about 45 or 50 knots and it was amazingly smooth at that speed.

September 13
We stayed there overnight and went to the airport to catch our flight to Frankfurt and then home. Well it was good in theory!! Imagine our surprise when we got to the airport and found out that the air traffic controllers were staging a four-hour walkout and our plane would be delayed till much later in the day. (what are the chances?? our departure time was smack in the middle of the strike time.) If we had known we wouldn't get off the ground until after 7 pm that evening we might have tried to go into Athens but it was a wait and see scenario so we waited. Of course we missed our connection in Frankfurt but Lufthansa re booked us on Air Canada the next day and covered the cost of the hotel room so we can't complain.

We arrived home safe and sound and well rested. It was a super vacation.