Monday 22nd – Friday 26th March
Patras – Athens – Evia - Patras
After breakfast we set off with the bikes to Harry’s shop where they are to be serviced and prepared for the long trek home, and hopefully the English summer. After that Vivi went off for some very necessary help from the beauticians having not been seen by friends for a while, and I stood in line at the post office to send home David’s book, The Bastard of Istanbul (worth a read so we’ve kept it) and the Lonely Planet Guide to Sicily – all extremely heavy. I don’t know what they do in Greek post offices but buying stamps is a lengthy process. Finally we met up again and headed off to the station carrying our bags. At the station we discovered that we had missed one train and the next wasn’t for 3 hours. We were also informed that we needn’t bother trying to come home tomorrow because they would be on strike. ‘That’s O.K we are going to Evia’, we said. So we went to the bus station where they do not appear to strike and were told we could catch the 1.30pm. Vivi said isn’t there anything a bit sooner, and the ticket lady said – it goes in ten minutes. It was only then that we realized that for the last 4 days we had been on Italian time which is an hour behind Greece and 2 behind the UK (until next Sunday) when we all change again. It would explain why the boat arrived an hour early last week and I wondered why the girls in’ Be Beautiful’ salon were not very happy to start with!
The bus journey was dead easy – everyone slept, woke up, slept in intervals depending on how long it was before the next mobile phone rang. One particularly annoying one went “Taxi, I say taxi” over and over until the person the other end either rang off or the owner answered it.
Dick had booked us in to an hotel immediately below the Acropolis and it was extremely comfy with a good view of the Parthenon from our balcony.
We had an amazing dinner close to the Acropolis (Dick being fluent in Greek and an excellent host helps) followed by a meander up towards the floodlit Acropolis and a nightcap and bed by 2am.




Just to prove that we were there


Not feeling so happy in the morning – for obvious reasons and made worse by Vivi discovering she’d lost her mobile, but no time to dwell on this as we had to be at the airport by noon to meet our old neighbours Roger and Barbara where we are staying for the next three nights.
Picked up from the airport right on time despite another strike (by the tube workers this time), we headed off to Evia where R & B have recently bought a house and are soon to start gutting it and putting it back together again. We took a ferry which takes about 30 minutes and then we were on the island.




Alec and Vivi on the ferry to Evia

Alec and Roger on the ferry to Evia

Evia is about 100 miles long and in places only a couple of miles wide. They have bought a house at about the narrowest point and from there can almost see the sea on both sides. Once on the island we stopped at a beach-side tavern and had an excellent plate of little fishes, before going on to the place we were staying. Just as we were leaving a man appeared with his ‘catch of the day’ which beats anything we’ve pulled out of the Oykel.

Man with our lunch!

The next 2 days were spent exploring some of the southern half of the island which is very attractive, deep valleys surrounded by mountains with a fair smattering of wind farms on top which were making the most of the coastal breezes. We had fun meeting quite a few of the locals

Don't ask us how he got in there!

and even did a small amount of gardening as they have a large terraced area to reclaim, full of wild flowers, birds, goats and olive trees.

A little help from the neighbours with pruning the olives!

Roger and Barbara by their 'new' front door.

The beaches are beautiful and Alec swam but there was quite a cold wind so the rest of us watched in admiration as it was far easier to lie in the sun. The great thing about Greece is that every beach seems to have a good number of tavernas where they serve really fresh fish and other local dishes at very good prices. We were very spoilt and ate out quite a few times. As always we talked far too much as it was lovely to catch up and see where they will be living. Our 3 days passed very fast and before we knew it we were taking the bus back to Patras.