Greece

Look for Sifnos, Milo and Folegandros
  • It has been awhile since I blogged. Somewhere during our trip around the USA I just gave up fighting the photo editing and I also was not pleased with my editorial writings anymore.
  • I may one day pick up the story of that trip with anecdotes on Denver and Santa Fe as well as Route 66 adventures. But please note I said : "I may".
  • Since then we haven't done much that would be of particular interest to you, such as birthday trips for both of us,
  • (Below:mail ordered Sears Fountain in Savannah $35; Sandee's Birthday bash)
  • , the purchase of partial ownership in a vacation home in Duck, North Carolina.
  • (Below: our new vacation home in Duck, NC)
  • and of course the subsequent stays there
  • (Below sunset from our deck in Duck)
  • a gay family wedding
  • (Below: the newly wedded and lower our gay twenty party outfits)
  • and naturally more weeks of Amsterdam.
  • (Below our new deck in Amsterdam and tulip time in Holland)
  • Also a visit to ever enchanting Paris, while in Amsterdam
  • (Below: a little known boat tour below Paris and a well known love bridge over the Seine)
  • Not to forget the full cessation of my professional life as I sold my practice to a colleague of mine.
  • Today, I write you all from the isle of Sifnos in Greece, a first stop by ferry travel around 3 islands in the coming 10 days, after which we reach Athens, where we have booked an apartment for a week overlooking the Acropolis.
  • I will spare you the mundane, such as writing about flight and cab travel and even the wonderful 3 hour ferry trip under a blazing sun on deep blue waters.
  • (The simmering island afar from where we sit is Serifos)
  • The Greek do not get points for punctuality of their island bus system as the few miles to our B&B Archontou in Appolonia took us from leaving the ferry at 7.50 pm till 9.50 pm when we straggled into the reception area, awaited by the owners who had wished to close shop and go home an hour sooner.
  • Although kudos to the bus ticket salesman, who saved us the half a mile luggage dragging uphill to our lodging place, by telling us to stay on board when, thanks to my ever alert spouse who asked me to ask
  • him where Archontou was. He deftly put our luggage back on the bus and commanded us to take a seat till he would call on us.
  • (Views above from Appolonia from our deck at Archontou)
  • The bus then left downtown Appolonia and churned further up the hilly curvy road as darkness engulfed us towards a coastal cliff community, where we sat for 15 minutes. We then turned back, drove thru a now more familiar downtown again, turned right upwards for say 500 meters (Americans among you readers please take out your calculators) and ceremoniously dropped us off on an unmarked roadside pointing to a poorly lit entrance way downhill across the street with a casual: there you are. As the tail lights of the bus disappeared around a corner we traipsed our luggage following reception signs down towards "our white home" for the next few days.
  • Our hosts showed us a wonderful room with balcony, after disappearing to the kitchen, from hence they came with ouzo and meses (Greek tomato cheese bruschetta) as our welcome present.
  • The cool evening and the romantic balcony setting was our reward after too long a day.
  • We did not make it beyond 11 pm and slept through the night, an accomplishment not many elders realize often.
  • This morning at 8 am a blazing sun tempered by 10 mile winds shows us the vistas from our balcony, although a 15 minute walk to downtown
  • (Above: Appolonian shopping street)
  • tempers our desires to wander in this heat, leaving us to ponder bus trips to the islands extremities and early evening excursions and bringing us back to a cool room to slumber and shadowed areas to drink and read and talk to the locals in broken English. Sandee always without success chastises me to stop mimicking them (involuntarily) in baby talk.
  • Today will be a rest day on our balcony, thus I can try to restart this blogging career
  • Next blog from Milos about 2 hours from here by ferry

 

 

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