OK slight exaggeration in the title for those of you speculating on an impending divorce or return to Blighty – although given the current political situation who on earth would consider that if they had a choice?
No!……...au contraire…..we have reached as far east as we are going in the Med and this week we have turned around - we are now heading west and working our way towards the Canaries. This marks the start of our run up to our Atlantic crossing and we are feeling excited. So, if you were thinking about joining us at some point in the Med in 2019 you had better get a grip or you will have to wait for the Caribbean and beyond in 2020.
Obviously we realise there is so much more to see and we could spend years here, but we definitely don’t want to do another winter here for a bit and we are saving some of it for if we return to these waters.
Following a very cold spring we have had a glorious, sunny and windy summer in the Aegean so far.
We have decided not to give a blow by blow account in this blog of what we have been up to in the ‘then we did this and then we did that style’, but rather to highlight places that have delighted and inspired us.
As we left the Pelopennese the weather bucked up and we spent a few days in the fascinating historic town of Monemvassia. We had never heard of it before but our friend Petros recommended it to us - it is stunning and well worth a visit. We timed it well because apparently in high season it is inundated with tourists but we managed to enjoy it peacefully in late May. Greg took the opportunity to use his new drone to get some perspective on its spectacular vistas.
Milos
The island of Milos is definitely worth a visit.
Having waited for the bus for a while to visit the Chora, we discovered it wasn’t running on that day so we hired a car.
That was a lucky escape because we realised that the bus timetable would have dumped us at a site in the middle of nowhere which required 10 minutes of your attention to enjoy it - and then a three hour wait in the heat for the next bus.
With the car, we visited a number of places at our leisure including the catacombs at Plaka, the surreal lunar style volcanic beach landscape and the Chora (mountain village).
I was very struck by the sadness of the little tombs for babies next to their mum's tomb at the catacombs.
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| The chora on Milos with church on the peak |
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| We climbed to the church at the top! |
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| The lunar like landscape at Sarakiniko beach on Milos |
We were recommended to go to Amorgos by Cath McDonald. Again, we had never heard of it and we are so glad we went there. It’s a beautiful island and is particularly attractive to people who like mountain walking. There are some paths over the mountains taking in the stunning monastery clinging to the cliff.
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| Built in 1017, the 2nd oldest monastery in Greece |
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| At anchor in Amogos |
This time we did take the bus and didn’t realise where to get off, so we ended up with a full tour of the island before realising we were 40 minutes past the monastery.
After the monastery we were waiting at the bus stop for the bus back when we could both smell skunk. Greg of course did a thorough search but was disappointed when he couldn’t work out the source. Our friend Briggy told us later that there is a Greek weed that smells of skunk but apparently does not contain THC. ☹
Kos
Our friend Briggy lives in Kos and keeps his yacht Zephyrus in Kos marina. We decided to use Kos as a base for visitors flying in and out in the same way as we used Corfu last year. Ed and Miranda both visited us here and Ed brought along his friend Tom.
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| Ed and Tom exploring... |
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| Guess who just lost...... |
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| Miranda is glad to be aboard! |
In addition to the pleasure of spending time with Briggy, it has been brilliant to have the benefit of his local knowledge!..
We have managed to avoid ‘bar street’ and other more notorious parts of the island; we have eaten in some fabulous restaurants (not on the seafront); and been clubbing until the early hours in out of town venues - especially at Club Mylos.
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| Club Mylos is lots of fun! |
Of the restaurants, we would recommend Broadway restaurant (its Modern Greek with a twist); Sxolarxeio which means secret school is on the site of an ‘underground’ school where they secretly taught Greek during the Italian occupation when people were not allowed to speak Greek. The meze menu comes hand-written in crayon and pencil in an exercise book. The food is delicious; we recommend the mushrooms in garlic and sweet wine sauce and the aubergine salad with their special pitta bread.
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| The menu at Sxolarxeio |
It is also worth hiring a car and driving into the mountains.
We visited the mountain village of Zia and ate twice at a fabulous restaurant called Oromedon.
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| The salad with fresh figs and orange was wonderful! |
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| Enjoying the sunset... |
We have managed to spend most of our time in Kos on anchor just off the castle. It's sometimes a bit rocky when the ferry comes in but we love our new Mantus anchor, it’s a bit like the claim of the Premier Inn – guaranteed to give you a good night’s sleep!
The marina is about 50E per night and has good facilities.
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| Moored by the castle in Kos |
Briggy has made us feel very welcome in Kos and has helped us out as well as directing our entertainment.
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| Greg getting a soldering lesson from Briggy - note strategic Alpha bottle..... |
Nisyros
One of our favourite places visited in the Aegean has been Nisyros. It’s a volcanic island with massive calderas and is still active.
We moored up in Pali on the quay which was very sheltered and inexpensive. The people are lovely in this quiet little port. We hired a car from there and went to the spectacular caldera early in the morning before it gets too busy and hot. We also visited some fab mountain villages, monasteries and natural saunas.
Ed giving his old mum a snuggle after a tough climb
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| Fantastic views everywhere you look |
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| Miranda and Greg near the second crater |
There is evidence of earth tremor damage everywhere and extensive terracing has been completed throughout the island to stabilise the shale and ash fields.
It’s definitely worth visiting the villages of Emporios and Nikia as well as the main town Mandraki. You can tour the whole island in a day. We would recommend eating out for lunch at The Taverna To Balcon in Emporios which has terraces overlooking the caldera but far enough away not to smell the sulphur. It's hard to beat those views!
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| Lunch overlooking the caldera on Nisyros |
We hadn’t realised how volcanic this region is. Kos waterfront has still got evidence of earthquake damage from 2015.
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| Earthquake damage along the waterfront in Kos |
Simi
Another beautiful jewel is Simi. Again a mountainous landscape with fabulous architecture but this time in a colourful neoclassical style rather than whitewash and blue paint. We climbed high into the upper part of the town - the views were spectacular and the cocktails were even better!!
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| Excellent mojitos! |
The food at Tymos was excellent and the location stunning.
Sadly, our visit was slightly marred by the fact that the port police/ harbourmaster decided to hem us in with two massive motorboats, blocking our view and preventing us getting breeze. Greg did get into an altercation about it because the harbour was totally empty and it was so unnecessary. On reflection, we decided this was my fault because I had decided to do three loads of washing and I had all of our smalls and general laundry hanging on the rails which was doubtlessly lowering the tone so they decided to hide us from view 😊
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| Nice and snug, must be busy in the port..... |
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| Believe or not there is a 50ft sailing yacht tucked between those motor yachts... |
Turkey
We have spent only a couple of weeks in Turkey. There are several reasons for this; we have chartered several times before in Turkey so its not new to us, but we found it a bit more like hard work than in Greece – slightly more insistent traders and regularly thinking "I'm verging on the edge of feeling ripped off" which we haven’t felt in Greece at all. In addition it was unbearably hot and there seemed to be an exponential increase in the number and size of the mosquitos! However we have had a few nice days around the Bodrum area.
We managed to find an excellent engineer called Attilla who sorted out the temperature control on the coolant system for our generator.
We had our first donner kebab since we left Tooting in 1997. Amazingly and worryingly the plastic one outside for advertising purposes looked exactly like the one they were carving from.
We enjoyed looking at the amazing gullet fleets and marvelling at their outside space. Some of the wooden ones are very special but apparently you have to be careful if buying one because they are not always well built and rot quickly. In a land of ‘fake’ everything that is a worry.
We enjoyed looking at the amazing gullet fleets and marvelling at their outside space. Some of the wooden ones are very special but apparently you have to be careful if buying one because they are not always well built and rot quickly. In a land of ‘fake’ everything that is a worry.
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| I want one of those...... |
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| Sunset in Bodrum |
We were impressed with the devotion to competition to win the hearts of tourists in Gumusluk. Every beach side restaurant has amazing lighting and special features like eating at a table at sea with your legs in the water. However, the food in the restaurant we chose sadly didn’t live up to the décor.
We will return to Turkey in the future. There is much more to see but for now we are on a mission to go west.
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