July 2018
The day after we finished work, we flew out of London to start our two month backpacking journey home. A lot of it we kept track of with a journal which we'll post here with a few edits and tweaks. So let's kick off!
Santorini
As I write we're
sitting in a warm hotel courtyard in Pyrgos, a town on Santorini.
We just managed to
catch a fabled Santorini sunset just in time when we arrived, and wandered the
little streets on foot in the heat before getting a couple of beers to relax.
It's 9:30pm and still balmy.
It's quite a
different way to end a day that started in an empty flat in London.
Today was a massive
hike- after taking a bus to Fira we walked almost four hours in the 32 degree heat to the town of Oia. That heat - we got through 6x1.5 litre bottles between us today! Santorini is a striking and spectacular landscape - it's essentially the remains of a collapsed volcano, as you can see from some of the pictures.
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| Oia was our destination - that town on the end of the peninsula in the distance. |
There was a small
detour to Skaros rock, where we clambered up to the top for stunning views of
the whole caldera.
The section leading up to Oia was tough - hot and blocked from the cooling breeze while we trudged up and down on slippery gravel paths. We finally
got to Oia and realised everything on the main stretch was too
expensive (full of Michael Kors, Gucci and other high-end fashion stores, or extortionately expensive restaurants) so we continued to the end of the village and had a couple of salads for
late lunch. Rach had a delicious Greek
salad with vinaigrette on it while I had a dakos salad - barley bread crumbled up, topped with tomatoes, feta
and olive oil with a vinaigrette. There's also something about Santorini tomatoes, they're
so tasty and wholesome compared to the almost sickly ones by comparison we normally saw elsewhere.
We've also found
people to generally be quite friendly in shops. When I bought my sunglasses the
lady gave us "good luck charms" and when we later bought wine the guy
gave us free plastic wine glasses and took our old rubbish water bottles.
After lunch we went
down the steep paths to the port of Ammoudi, which were lined with horse-like donkeys (or mules?) at the lower stretches. Those poor beasts, standing there in this heat. We swam
for the first time this summer around the corner which was bliss - the water was
warm and so buoyant.
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| Ammoudi |
Then it was a trudge
back up to the top to get our wine and in position a couple of hours in advance for sunset - exquisite.
The evening was
topped off with a gyros and souvlaki - souvlaki is the skewered
barbecued meat, while gyros is doner meat - before a late bus back to our accommodation.
Folegandros
The next morning, after a short but
rocky early morning ferry we reached the quiet island of Folegandros. This is now probably one of our favourite places in the world, with only a few hundred inhabitants.
Our accommodation is
a wooden cabin with a double bed, at a campsite in Livadi - it's Spartan, but it did the job.
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| Accommodation in Folegandros |
After checking in
(with a tasty, thick Greek coffee as we waited) we set off to explore. First stop was
a quick swim at Livadi beach right next to the campground. A bus from the port
took us to the lovely island capital of Chora, a quiet and not touristy village
of white walls and blue roofs (not blue domes though).
A quick snack of
cheese pie from the bakery was our fuel to see the beach of Agios Nikoloas,
reached via bus. The bus drivers here
on the island are extremely chilled - normal speed was probably about 25kph but this is island life. It was remarkable that at one point one
of the buses actually hit 45kph! Life here seems very relaxed and like
Santorini so far everyone seems quite friendly.
Agios Nikoloas was a
25 minute hike away from the bus drop off point at Agali, so we were pretty
sweaty by the time we reached our destination. The water was cool at first but
then we settled in and found it warm and so buoyant. We were very relaxed on the
beach, and given the number of topless women there, Rach felt obliged to follow
suit!
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| Agios Nikoloas |
We caught the bus
back to Chora for dinner at To Koupi, a cheap and great quality place. Greek
Salad for Rach, roast goat for me, bread and a 500ml carafe of delicious rosé wine was 22 euros. The rosé was the best I've tasted, more like a light
flavoursome red. Considering the normal travel dinner for us is quite a bit
more extravagant we're adjusting to this style of travel, I think. We're keeping
to budget so far I think!
After dinner we got
some supplies for breakfast - a cheese pie and apples - and lunch - bread and
cherry tomatoes - that budget is key!
The following day I
got up for a swim by myself at Livadi beach just a couple minutes walk away.
After that was breakfast (with added Greek coffee) then we set out for the day's
destination - Katergo beach. It was a dusty dry
walk of about 50 minutes, at the bottom of a huge hill - but God, it was worth
it.
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| Katergo beach |
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| The path to Katergo beach |
We got there just after 11am when it was only us and two others (naked) on
the beach and blissfully quiet. The day's first load of visitors shortly after arrived by boat. However the water
was stunningly clear - the clearest I and Rach have ever experienced, like
swimming in fresh water with a tinge of blue. Being Europe, there were of
course more topless women there!
We stayed there til
around 3 before heading back. As a write now, Rach is snoozing in the cabin
before we head out to the port for another swim and to soon find dinner.
So far, Folegandros
has been stunning. Only on our second day we feel so relaxed and in the swing
of life here that it feels we've been here 3 times as long. There's a real
peacefulness about the island, a sense that things can be taken slowly. I'm
growing to really love the quiet, the early morning swim, the path from our
cabin to Livadi beach, and hope these memories remain with me in the toughest
times.
---
We had a dinner of
smoked mackerel and eggplant salad (me) and Greek spaghetti of feta, tomato
capers and olives ( Rach) both of which we exceptional, from Capo del Porto at
Karavostasis.
---
Our final full day
was spent split between Katergo and Agios Nikoloas. First we started the day
with good news - our final pay from work was larger than expected (score!) and
AviationADR wrote a determination agreeing that Ryanair indeed did owe us
money based on their Nuremberg bungle. Let's see if we actually get that back sometime... [update: it only took about 6 months for the money to be refunded]
By this time we had
our little Folegandros food routine sorted - tomatoes and apples (possibly also
bread) for breakfast (around 3-5 euros), lunch of either souvlaki or bread (max
8 euros) and dinner of around 20-25 euros.
We got up early, and
swam naked in Livadi beach. Then we set off for the hike to Katergo shortly
After, getting there around 9.40am. It was bliss - apart from a couple down the
far end of the beach we had this slice of paradise to ourselves for a couple of
hours. We took our clothes off and swam naked in the clear blue water.
Rach said she felt
like a goddess swimming there and it was
pretty spectacular. The water was so clear and feeling it on you without the weight and resistance of clothes was amazing. We also swam out and jumped off the
3m high rock in the bay. A couple of people had arrived by around 10:30 but they
started truly arriving around 11:30 when the days first boat arrived. There was
also a luxury launch in the bay that had pulled in close by - they even got the
crew to come ashore and set up seats and an umbrella for them but by the time
we left they hadn't actually used them!
We clothed
ourselves, left around midday and trekked back to camp then set out for the
port (you may have noticed it was a very walk-heavy stay on Folegandros).
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| Looking down on Katergo beach |
We took the bus to Chora for a quick souvlaki for lunch before taking the next bus out to Agali. We
trekked back over the hills and arrived at Agios Nikoloas. We spent the rest of
the afternoon there and there was some quite
interesting sealife for snorkelling.
We packed up, took
the 645 bus back to Chora and settled in for a tasty meal at Piatsa. We started
with tzatziki, then I had the local specialty matsata (chunky twisted pasta
with roast rooster leg and breast) while Rach had zucchini fritters - a top quality
meal! This was Rach's first ever taste of true tzatziki - and thus began her obsession with the stuff!
We also managed to
find the Kastro area - even in such a small village the windy streets made it
had to find. Castro is the oldest part of the village, with narrow streets and
impressive stairways to the houses. I also bought a briki to make Greek/Turkish
coffee as a memento.
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| Kastro, in Chora |
That brought to a
close our time on Folegandros. It was a stunning Island - quiet enough that it
forces you to relax but with enough variety and life to still enjoy yourself
with food and drink. We also found that, aside from the minimarket owner in the
port, everyone was friendly and helpful. The beaches were stunning, Chora
itself is a lovely picturesque town and the views of the island, while
seemingly barren at a distance, are still impressive and sweeping.
Folegandros has
cemented itself as one of our favourites alongside Cinque Terre and we know
we'll definitely be back some time. There are very few places we say that
about.
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