Another day of not doing very much

I try to go for a walk after breakfast; as in previous days, I walked up to the food supermarket. A bit further on is the office for the ferry line with which we are travelling back to Piraeus - this is not the same line with which we came and I need to have our tickets printed. The office had yet to open so that was one thing that didn't happen. I wanted to buy a large bottle of water but the supermarket appeared to sell only bundles of four or six bottles and I don't know how well they would have taken it had I opened one of those bundles. I started walking back in the direction of our flat, looking for the shop that had linen shirts in its display. I found the shop but they didn't have a shirt in the correct size. So, 0/3 so far. I walked back to the ferry office that was now open, but the reference numbers that I had written down weren't correct, so I was scoring 0/4. 

Walking back towards our flat, I found a second shop that amongst other items sold linen shirts, and this time I was able to find two large enough for me. One is with short sleeves and one with long sleeves; they're not exactly the colours that I had wanted but I'm prepared to compromise. Very close to our flat I found a shop that sold me a single large bottle of water for only 1€. Back in the flat, I looked at the some of the emails that I had received from the ferry company and this time I found 'better numbers'. I then had a quick cold shower and then we were out of the flat, waiting for the local bus.

I am disappointed to say that the bus ride didn't show us very much of Poros old town; before we knew it, we were back at the first stop near the ferry office which is where we got off. The numbers that I had written down the second time for the ferry were correct so this time I received our printed tickets. After some more purchases in the shops, we started walking 'home' but had a break in the gelateria. Whilst the ice cream is very tasty, it ternds to cause satiety and a lack of will to eat lunch. So when we did get back to the flat, we had another rest before going out at 2:30 pm for a late and light lunch. 

After this, more resting. It may seem that we are not doing very much with our time, which is quite true, but on the other hand, we are simply having a rest. It's also true that these days I don't do that much at home either but then I don't rest with sea views and yachts in the background. Apart from the one day when it was cool, most days are quite hot and walking around in that heat saps the strength.

Tomorrow morning will be devoted to packing up and cleaning, before we catch our ferry back to Piraeus at 4:30 pm (our flight leaves at midnight). Obviously there will be several hours in which we will have little to do so this means more hours of lying around and reading. There will not be a blog tomorrow and in fact I doubt that there will be any blogging in the next few days as Sunday evening and Monday are Yom Kippur. On Tuesday morning we'll pick up the dog who had been having fun in the kennels (we hope).

Something that I have neglected to mention about Poros old city: the houses here are not the typical Greek white and blue houses that one tends to imagine (such as in Santorini). Here the houses are more Italianate, that probably is due to the time when Venice ruled this area.

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Hydra

This morning didn't start off well: there was no internet access, and after 10 am there was no running water in the flat. Fortunately we had tickets for the hovercraft to the island of Hydra, so we weren't too inconvenienced by the lack of water -- although we fervently hoped that the problem would be fixed by the time we came back.

Hydra is a 25 minute trip from Poros, almost due south. I have to admit that I didn't know much about Hydra, apart from the facts that Leonard Cohen was a well known resisdent of the island in the mid 1960s, and that motor vehicles (save those of the fire brigade as well as rubbish collectors) of all types are not allowed on the island -- although we saw two vehicles that should not have been there.

There are many ferries going to the island: in the first hour that we were there, I saw ferries from three different companies arrive along with one small cruise ship (this might have been a day trip from Athens as it wasn't one of those huge ships with cabins). As such, every hour or so there is a new group of people that arrive and overwhelm the small island.

Our first port of call was the Hydra museum, that was small but interesting. Most of the exhibits were concerned with the Greek war of independence period (1820-3) but there were also some artifacts from the second world war. This reminded me slightly of the war museum in Malta¹. One large room was dedicated to the artist Kostas Grammatopoulos with many paintings, wood cuts and lithographs, where generally these were of a faux naif style (but very well done). One wasn't allowed to take photographs within the museum otherwise I would have taken many photos of his works.

Once we finished with the museum, we carried on in the same direction where I ascended a peak lined with cannons - from this position one could see and control a large area of sea. My wife had been going on about 'the sun'; where is the sun, she kept on asking me. I said that it was directly above us as it was noon. No, she said, there is a sculpture of the sun. We carried on walking below the defensive position and eventually came to 'the sun'.

This sculpture is made of two sets of arms; the first is fixed and the second is constantly turning. Fittingly shaped as a giant golden sun, the 9.1 metre wide ‘Apollo Wind Spinner’ that bears the face of the Greek God is just one of artist Jeff Kloon’s newest pieces on display in an exhibition on the Saronic Isle proudly presented by the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art. This was worth the trek in the hot sun.

After the sun, it was back to near where the ferry landed for a very big pizza, even when shared between two. Then we split up, as my wife had had enough walking. I went down into the town by the promenade: like Poros, there were many shops selling tat or dresses. Naturally there were also many bars and restaurants although the range of food was more limited than in Poros. I found  a small monastery tucked away in an alley off this main strip that was very quiet and relaxing.

Eventually we joined up, sat by the ferry landing and swapped pictures. The ferry came, we travelled back to Poros stopping below our flat, then we walked into the flat. One of us turned on a tap ... and water flowed! So I had a cold shower then my wife had one; a cup of tea later we laid down for a rest, and here am I at 9 pm typing this.

A good day, but tiring because of the heat and the walking (almost 10,000 steps). We are undecided about tomorrow - I would like to buy a linen shirt and maybe we will take the local minibus for its trip around the island, the local 'hop on hop off' bus.

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