Chora (Greece 3)

After a good night’s sleep, I woke at about 6:15, and decided to return to old habits: a morning walk of up to 2km. After getting dressed in t-shirt and shorts, I walked down to the main road and assessed my options. As there are no real landmarks near the hotel (within a short walking distance), I decided to start walking and to turn around after one kilometer. So I set off, and when I thought that I had reached that mark, I checked with MapMyWalk and discovered that I had indeed walked just under one kilometer. So I carried on a little bit more then turned back. The distance was just far enough to make me 'glow' - I had warmed up but had not started sweating. A quick shower followed by dressing for breakfast.

Today we applied at breakfast some of the hints which we had picked up the previous day: there are teapots available, which can hold enough hot water for two cups of tea; not to sit too far from the food; to skip the Greek yoghurt (very thick and sour). Instead of having to ask for an omelette without meat (bacon), there were plain scrambled eggs available (the omelette was tastier as it was cooked specially). Again, a sumptuous breakfast.

We hit the road a bit earlier than the previous day, retracing our steps to a certain extent as we went via the 'Batsi bypass', but this time we carried on, all the way to Chora, which is on the other side of the island. Although it's only about 35km away, all that distance is by narrow roads which have many bends and accompany the sea (at least, at first). Consider it a milder version of the road along the Amalfi coast. We passed along the way signs to many sites but ignored them as today our destination was Chora. We rolled into town and parked just before the entrance to the pedestrian-only section.

First off, I drank a glass of very tasty homemade lemonade; apart from ice and lemons, it wasn't clear to me exactly what was in the drink. It reminded me of a story that The Band's Rick Danko used to tell about a Dr Feelgood in New York who used to give vitamin B12 shots laced with who knows what (probably amphetamines). The server explained that it was a mix of lemons with a little syrup and then carbonated).

From there, we continued to walk down the road. This is the sort of Greek island experience that we had been expecting, although there weren't too many shops and only one of these was selling mementos. My wife bought several items - I don't know exactly what as I was outside filming the alleys.

We asked the sales lady about two specific places that we wanted to go - they both appear in the picture to the left. This is probably the most famous picture of Chora, if not Andros, and in fact is what lead us to visiting the island. This is clearly taken from somewhere off the land, looking back, but it wasn't clear at first from where it was taken.

We carried on walking through the picturesque alleys; the buildings are people's homes, and whilst it must be attractive to have an apartment here, it must be a bit difficult getting to work early in the morning. Actually, we hardly met a soul, which is probably due to our visit being off season, although we were followed by a busload of children. I suspect that I saw their bus pass by the hotel just before we left, which means that they came over on the ferry - which we saw for most of the time in the sea parallel to our progress past Batsi.

After walking to the end of the maze, we came upon the large open space which is in the middle of the photograph. This space is actually quite large and houses a large statue to the 'unknown sailor'.

Once I saw this, I realised from where the famous picture of Chora had been taken: from the stone building which is on the right of the above photograph, which turns out to be the ruins of a Venetian fortress.  Unfortunately, there is no way (that I could see) of getting to that fortress; there is an arch which links the 'mainland' to the 'island', but this arch is not climbable. It makes one wonder how the photographer took that photograph: he probably went over in a boat. We felt slightly cheated; my wife had been counting on me taking a similar photograph with her on one side. We'll have to use a photo editor now!

After this, we went back to the square where the souvenirs shop was and had a disappointing lunch in one of the restaurants there. No fresh fish; we had something which was like anchovies or sardines in a very salty marinade. At least it didn't cost very much.

Following lunch, we first tried to get to where the chapel is pictured in the famous photograph: it can't be seen very clearly but it appears to be on a separate rock. One accesses it by walking down a set of steep stairs; after getting down there and taking some photographs, I decided that it wasn't worth carrying on to the chapel itself.

From this angle, it's easy to see the 'hole in the rock', the lighthouse which is on the far side of the fortress (on an island of its own) and the chapel - which is not on an island.

After climbing back up the stairs, we walked back along the pedestrian way, first stopping at a spices shop which we had noted previously, The shop was full of Greek liquors, lokumi in various flavours, jams and other exotic items. My wife wanted to buy a jar of grape jam - she has been eating it for breakfast and very much enjoying it. We also bought a few more items as gifts. Carrying on, we bought a large 'Andros' t-shirt for me: the saleslady took a large plain t-shirt and did the embossing on site.

Then back to the car for an hour's drive in the sun, a shower and a rest. Thence to Gavrio for supper. First we dropped in for a chat with the man from whom we hired our car. During the course of this conversation, he recommended a taverna in Batsi as well as a restaurant in Gavrio. He was about to write the name of the restaurant on a piece of paper when I saw that name (in Greek, of course) on a t-shirt someone was wearing! The man wearing the t-shirt was a waiter in this restaurant and must have been having a cup of coffee with his family as there were no customers in his restaurant. When the car hire owner explained the situation, the waiter left his family and got into his car.

In the mean time, we had walked to the restaurant, which was at the far end of the Gavrio 'strip'. the waiter turned up and took our order (Greek salad and fried cod). Suddenly three groups of people turned up and entered the restaurant - we must have attracted them. By the time we left, a few more groups had come, so it probably means that we like to eat earlier than most people. This is the first time that I have ever eaten feta: I was apprehensive at first, but it was actually quite tasty. The cod was reasonably good but was served with mashed potatoes which had been mixed with a strange spice that made them totally inedible for me.

On another note: because of the health issues which cropped up in the previous month, since May 1 I have been recording how many steps I take each day. Normally with walking the dog at least twice a day combined with a long (2.8km) walk, I have attained the required 10,000 steps/day. A day in Tel Aviv will also bring me close to this total even without the long walk as I have to walk about 1.25km from the train station to the offices and another 1.25km back. A day in Karmiel has only about 4.000 steps (two dog walks). The first two days in Greece weren't particularly good in this respect either, but today I racked up just over 11,000 steps! Just because I am on holiday doesn't mean that I can't walk or eat healthily.