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On our first day on Santorini we went on an excursion to visit the villages of Pyrgos and Oia. The latter is the second largest settlement on the island after the capital, Fira, and is probably the best known to those who have not yet visited. The gentle reader will see why this is so from the attached images.
First, though, this is Pyrgos:
We loved the hats as lampshades:
And this is Oia:
These images could almost be of a model – or of an Escher-like illustration:
Gorgeous!!
After a brief hiatus in Milos:
…to gather our thoughts and to absorb what we had already experienced it was onward to one of the highlights of our short voyage through the Cyclades – two days at Santorini. The InterWebNet furnishes the bare bones concerning the island:
“Santorini is one of the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea. It was devastated by a volcanic eruption in the 16th century BC, forever shaping its rugged landscape. The whitewashed, cubiform houses of its 2 principal towns, Fira and Oia, cling to cliffs above an underwater caldera (crater). They overlook the sea, small islands to the west and beaches made up of black, red and white lava pebbles.”
Once tendered ashore the main town of Fira is reached by ascending the cliffs by one of two methods – the traditional mule ride up the steep and twisty path, or the modern and spectacular cable funicular. No guesses required…
On our first day on Santorini we had one of those wonderful lunches – in a beautiful restaurant overlooking the caldera – that seems to transcend the usual dining experience. The food was fabulously fresh and every mouthful delivered an explosion of taste, the wine was chilled and chilling, the view was spectacular and the company was scintillating. What’s not to love?! This was the view…
Note that our cruise ship (the one on the left of this photo) is positively pint-sized compared to the giant that hove up later and dropped anchor in front of us. Bah!
Now – Santorini is known for a number of things, but perhaps most tourists know it for its sunsets. Indeed, on clear days (of which there are many) there seems to be something of a competition to nab the best spot to capture same (most probably these days in the form of the backdrop to a ‘selfie’ – but I will whinge more about that later).
Anyway – so as not to disappoint…
Having boarded our cruise ship in Athens and settled into our balcony stateroom we had a little time before setting sail to acquaint ourselves with the port of Piraeus – the largest passenger port in Europe and the second largest in the world overall.
Having set sail into the gloaming as we dined we slept to the gentle swell of the Mediterranean. We awoke the next morning to find ourselves docking at the first port of call on our whistle stop tour of the Aegean – Mykonos.
The island and harbour town of Mykonos are both very pretty – the town centre comprising many small twisty lanes full of fascinating emporia dealing in all manner of artistic and decorative artifacts… mostly aimed at the visitors from abroad to be sure, but none the less appealing for all that.
This chap was gutting the day’s catch – to the enormous delight of the seagulls. Best restaurant in town – and the views…!
No visit to Mykonos would be complete without taking the short boat ride to the neighbouring sacred isle of Delos. The island is now completely uninhabited save for the archeologists who perpetually work on the ruins of the various civilisations that formerly occupied this holy sanctuary.
The pathways through the ruins were narrow and there were many tourist groups fighting for space on the day of our visit. Here are our tour guides running to the entrance to be first in the queue to pick up group tickets, before the rest of us have even left the boats.
I got a few photos but with the crowding it was difficult to get good shots. There were many opportunities to come later on the trip for better images of antiquity.
These guys had the best idea!
After a busy day the balmy evening in Mykonos was quiet and relaxing.
Having completed our brief tour of the south of England we wound up on a Sunday evening at the very start of June in the environs of Heathrow airport – which came as a considerable shock after the leafy and pleasant parts of the land through which we had meandered over the three preceding days.
Having handed over the keys to our hire car and settled into the Heathrow hotel which was to act as the staging post for the next phase of our adventure we spent some time consolidating all of our traveling chattels into the small number of bags that could be carried aboard our impending flight to Athens. This feat was rendered far simpler by the degree of planning that had been carried out in advance. I have always thought that I am no slouch in the organisational department, but the Kickass Canada Girl – as might be expected – knocks me into a cocked hat every time. My only consolation is that together we make a pretty good team.
Not a great deal of sleep was to be had that night because we had to be up again at crack of dawn to schlep blearily round to Terminal Five for our ridiculously early flight south. We wondered – as we did so – if we had somehow missed a trick that might have made the day more comfortable, but the fact is that time was always going to be tight. The flight to Athens takes around four hours and one must of, course, factor in another couple of hours for check-in. There is a time difference of two hours between London and Athens and it takes about an hour (even once one has cleared immigration and customs and located one’s driver in the mêlée outside the terminal) to get to Pireas – the port of Athens.
For our cruise boarding was carried out between three and six o’clock in the afternoon and the gentle reader will not need me to ‘do the math’ to work out the time at which we had had to set our alarm. We could – of course – have traveled the day before and stayed in an hotel in Athens, but that would have meant one less day seeing lovely friends in the UK.
A word about our ship – the Celestyal Crystal. If you have been put off the idea of cruising because you can’t stand the thought of being cooped up in a huge floating resort with thousands of other people then Celestyal might be more your thing. We chose this Greek line for two reasons: first, they are Greek – not only do they know the waters but at the moment they are one of the only lines sailing into Kusadasi in Turkey – and we wanted to see Ephesus; second, their ships are considerably smaller than many of the bigger lines.
It all depends what you look for in a cruise. If you want simply to float around in the sunshine being entertained at every moment without having to make an effort, this is not the cruise for you. If – on the other hand – your intention is to get off the ship as much as possible, with a view to wallowing in all of the antiquity and mythology that the Greek islands have to offer… then this is the one!
Besides – ain’t she pretty?!
Following our stay in decadent hotel luxury in the depths of Surrey – during which hiatus we visited (and were visited by) many lovely generous folk who all seemed eager to commune with us (or just to gawk at the strange people from Canada!) – we continued our UK visit by taking to the road in our hire car to visit on successive days Colchester in Essex, Sevenoaks in Kent and Maidenhead in Berkshire. The purpose of these brief but delightful tarriances was, naturally, to foist ourselves upon the hospitality of dear friends whom we had not seen for at least four years. The results were – hopefully – to the mutual enjoyment of all parties.
Well – that is certainly how it was for us, anyway, and it was lovely in several cases to visit for the first time the new homes of those that we love! Thank you all.
It was also good to be able to visit ‘new’ places. The following images – for example – are of a part of England that I have not visited since I was a very small boy and of which I have – naturally – virtually no memory at all.
I like these houseboats (or live-aboards as Canadians would term them). I sense a certain Dickensian feel to these images of inexorable decline (though maybe I am actually thinking more of Dickens by way of David Lean!).
What is glaringly wrong in this photo of the lovely cricket ground that has been used since 1974 by Copford Cricket Club in Essex?
That’s right – there is a massive oak tree at midwicket (or in the covers depending on which end the bowling is currently from)! The ground is on the estate of Copford Hall and the only restriction that the owners place on the club is that the oak cannot be disturbed. It makes an interesting – and very English – hazard!
Some photographs of the spookily sparsely occupied Oatlands Park Hotel and its environs (see previous post for context).
Looks like the clientele has not only checked out but also contrived to leave!
“This is an elegant hotel! Room service has an unlisted number.”
Henny Youngman
It had been the intention – on our recent tour of the UK – that with the arrival of The Girl upon those shores we would reside for a week with my brother in the small town in Surrey in which he and I (and our sister) had grown up. As a result of the rule of ‘the best laid plans‘, however, things did not turn out quite as expected.
In preparation for our visit my brother had decided that his bathroom needed to be remodeled (he designs kitchens and suchlike for a living) and he had accordingly set things in motion. Unfortunately, as a result of the late delivery of some essential components and because of an unusual interpretation of the laws of time on the part of his builder, the project had not been completed at the point at which we knocked upon his front door (actually he met us outside but that is not quite such a satisfyingly dramatic scenario!).
No matter! Being the splendidly resourceful (not to mention massively generous) chap that he is he had taken the precaution of booking us (at his expense – thank you!) into a rather splendid hotel not a stone’s throw from his abode. As things turned out this was actually considerably to our advantage, as we were able to entertain in the hotel reception rooms a number of those who we wished to see during our stay but to whom for one reason or other we had not been able to arrange visits.
What my brother did not know when he booked the hotel was that this historic institution – built in the 1850s on the site of one of Henry VIII’s palaces – was itself undergoing renovations. This made for a rather lovely but somewhat unusual interlude – though one that undoubtedly enhanced this part of our extended trek.
I knew the hotel from my childhood. The grounds behind the building sweep down to a long lake called the Broadwater. When I were a nipper the hotel used to host there a firework display for Guy Fawkes night – November 5th. After the show we would repair to the somewhat tatty atrium at the front of the building to partake of (presumably non-alcoholic) beverages.
The hotel was extensively and beautifully restored during the 1980s (under new ownership) and the atrium became a go-to destination (papers clutched firmly in hand) for Sunday brunch. They did a jolly spiffing club sandwich as I recall. On one such Sunday at the start of November in 1991 we convened there for brunch the day after Australia had beaten England in the Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham. It rapidly became apparent that the hotel had been chosen as the Aussies London base for the final – and even more apparent (as they gathered gingerly in the lobby) that they had celebrated the event heartily and abundantly well into the night.
Well – the old place is due another renovation now and is in the process of receiving one. Parts of the building have already been finished (we naturally had a room in this part) but much of the rest of it is still in the hands of trades-persons of all manner of varieties. As a result it is still pretty lightly booked and thus rather spookily empty. A wander around the grounds – also in need of a fair bit of TLC – gave me the slightly odd feeling of having wandered into some post-war Stephen Poliakoff drama. I kept expecting to be approached by a mysterious contact and inducted into some strange mission.
Maybe I just expect all of my life to be like that!
”…home from the sea”
A. E. Housman (rather than the Robert Louis Stevenson original)
Well – we are back!
We had a wonderful trip (concerning which much more will be written) and took many photographs (of which many such will be posted). All went like clockwork until we came to the final two days, when our return travel plans went slightly awry.
I have – since a particularly uncomfortable long-haul flight some twenty years ago – always tried to avoid flying with what was once tagged ‘Britain’s Favourite Airline’. We chose them for our return journey from the UK to Greece, however, because the price and timings were reasonable and because we could follow our regular practice of paying for the extra-legroom exit-row seats.
A couple of days before the outbound departure I received an email advising me of a seat change, though I was not able to detect any difference. Puzzled I called BA Customer Service. They were likewise confused, but hazarded that the aircraft type or configuration might have changed. Whilst on the phone I got them to confirm that our return flights would feature the very same seats as we had chosen for the outward flight.
This first leg went reasonably smoothly. On the return (having received no further emails from BA) we checked in without paying too much attention and it was only when we got to the gate that I realised that we had been bumped from the seats for which we had paid to the back of the aircraft. There followed a heated but fruitless exchange at the desk during which we were informed that the aircraft must have been changed and that nothing could be done.
Investigation during the flight revealed that the aircraft was if fact identical to that on which we had flown the outbound leg, that the seats from which we had been removed still existed (with the very same seat numbers) and that someone else was sitting in them. Though we had payed extra for these seats we had been moved to the very back of the plane, lost our chosen aisle seat and were in a row with no window. In short, for the additional fee, we were now in the worst seats on the plane.
A visit to the Customer Service desk after landing garnered sympathy and the information that we could get a refund – but only by writing to BA to claim it. In this age of modern technology it must have been quite possible for the airline to automatically generate a refund at the point at which the seats for which we had paid were reassigned.
We naturally won’t be flying with BA again!
The next day we had as good a flight back to Vancouver with Air Canada as is possible on any journey of nine and a half hours. The Boeing 787 was spacious and we had masses of extra room in our exit-row seats. On landing in Vancouver we did what we have always done (and which is still necessary for all other airlines) – we waited at the baggage carousel to pick up our checked luggage prior to re-checking it for the internal flight.
We waited some more… Nothing appeared.
I visited both of the Information Desks in the baggage hall. Neither was manned!
Finally The Girl found a knowledgeable operative. We discovered that – for Air Canada only – baggage is now passed directly through to the connecting flight. The procedure was apparently changed two years ago but – since we have not done this trek since moving to Canada – we were unaware of the fact and had not been told. With time to make our connection now short we sprinted down what felt like several miles of corridor and stairway.
Unfortunately, even though one has come directly from another flight (for which one has already been security-checked) YVR insists on re-checking… and the operation is a complete gong-show! Very nearly half of all bags – including two of ours – were hauled out for special attention, carried out with excruciating slowness one at a time. We had purchased a bottle of spirits on the Vancouver flight which had been sealed in a special bag to ease onward transit. Regardless of this precaution the officer carefully unsealed the package, checked the pristine contents and then carefully and slowly resealed the bag (why?!).
The end result was that we arrived at the gate in time to see our plane accelerating away in the direction of the taxi-way. We were forced to join the standby list for the following flight.
Enquiring as to what had happened to our checked luggage we were told be no less than three officials that – as we were not on the plane that had just left – our cases would not have been on it either. Given the couple of days we had just endured we were not in the least surprised to find, on arrival in Victoria, that our luggage was already there waiting for us. No-one involved in either of these sorry affairs exactly covered themselves with glory.
What conclusion are we to draw from these mishaps?
It was clearly time to come home!
Tags: Holiday, incompetence, Travel
This last week has found us in many interesting places and being entertained by many lovely and generous friends and relatives. I have pictures – I have topics on which I am determined to pontificate (just a little). What I don’t have right now is the time…
Tomorrow we fly to Athens to move into the final phase of our ‘grand tour’ – our little ‘R & R’ break in the Greek islands. It is unlikely that I will be in a position to post whilst bobbing on the briney so further missives must needs wait until we are back.
Fear not – however (said he optimistically) – there will be a rush of postings once we return!
Bet you can’t wait…
Tags: Holiday, Travel, United Kingdom
Oldest friend and his good lady live in a part of rural England that is perhaps the epitome of all that is considered to be the most English of Englishness.
They did not always do so of course. When we were growing up we all lived in a small town by the river Thames in Surrey that the locals to this day (or at least until not that long ago) insist on calling (without irony) ‘the village’.
We have each now disappeared in our own directions – us to western Canada – they to the borderlands of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Naturally I made the pilgrimage to the heart of the country to get a look at our friends’ new home (the which I had previously only glimpsed briefly in estate agents particulars online) and to re-connect with them. A thoroughly lovely couple of days in the countryside ensued.
These images give a general impression of the area – and if you can hear strains of Elgar playing somewhere in your subconscious as you view them I would not be in the least surprised.
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