Ithaca

Oct 13

Getting to Ithaca was a “maybe,” according to the captain, but the sea cooperated well enough, and we arrived safely in the tiny harbour of Frikes, at the north end of the island. 

I’ve learned that I tend to think ahead on these rides, or on any trip — “Are we there yet?” — and that’s a mistake. I’m trying, instead, to enjoy the moment, because really, what other moment will ever come up to this? So, as we rode into the hills, I soaked up this legendary home of Odysseus, rolling through villages and countryside marked by bougainvillea, hibiscus, and the ever-present olive trees. That this place inspired a poet three thousand years ago moves me to look for the muse. I might have found her but for the rain, which started part way up the mountain. 

We’d stopped in the little town of Stavros to hear about the legend, to see a bust of Odysseus, and to see a painted map of his ten-year journey home. 

That bottom word says Odysseus. Not that hard to figure out, but I haven't a clue about the other word.

 

Odysseus's legendary route. The story of Odysseus is a myth, of course, made famous by Homer, who may himself be a myth. Our guides told us these myths were presented to them as history when they were little. 

Our bike seats were getting wet as we paused, and then the skies opened up. Climbing switchbacks in the rain isn’t bad, because the workout keeps you warm, but coming down, switchback after slippery switchback, we were freezing. There were few cars foolish enough to drive the route, fortunately, and we all made it back without incident, but the corners seemed pretty treacherous. Missing a corner would mean flying off the mountainside, or so it seemed. Two of our members had opted to take a lower route out of Stavros, one of them having wiped out on a corner on the very first day, gathering a bloom of bruises all over her body. We passed them on the way down the hills, walking their bikes in the pouring rain. Better slow than injured, I guess, but I felt for them

Cows and a goat. Some goats ran across the road in front of us, too. 

A bit about e-bikes, for those not in the know: they don’t do all the work for you. The more torque you put on the pedals, the more assist you get. Going up hills, it’s a dance between the gears of the bike and the amount of assist you choose. If you gear too low, you don’t get any “bite,” and while the legs have less work to do, you find yourself spinning away and not getting anywhere. I use the “turbo” setting a lot when I’m climbing, but I don’t use the lowest gear. My legs will be really strong by the end of the week. And then I probably won’t ride for another six months. Oh well.

Looking towards Vathi, where our boat would be waiting.

I was grateful to be cycling the last few kilometres — Are we there yet? — along what would have been a glorious ride on a coast road had I not been soaked to the bone. I'd forgotten all about my resolve to live the moment. The muse was taking shelter, I'm sure. 

Back on the Panagiota, we sailed straight away to Nydri, on Lefkas (alternatively known as Lefkada).

A hot shower and a hot lunch pretty much fixed everything, though I’m not sure how anything is going to get dry. It’s remarkable how cheerful everyone is, though. I think the kind of person who takes a trip like this is ready to enjoy it, no matter what. I asked Giota if anyone ever gets grumpy on these trips, and it seems not.

The rain let up in the afternoon, and we wandered the town of Nydri a bit. It's a lot like all the other little harbour towns we've stopped at: a row (or in this case rows and rows) of eateries, and a bunch of shops selling mostly junk that tourists might be interested in. Many shops have shut down here, too, at the end of the season. In two weeks, this might feel like a ghost town.

Nydri Harbour.

Gill and I shop for sunglasses. My very expensive prescription Maui Jims have broken. Grrr.

There was an option to eat tonight in a restaurant owned by the owner of this boat. The Seattle crew all opted out, but the rest of heartily participated. And what a feast! This was served family style, and dish after dish arrived, many of which we wouldn’t have thought to order off a menu. There were appetizers of tapenade and olives and sourdough bread with olive oil, cheese pie, and taramoslata — a creamy fish-roe dip — who would ever order that?! That was followed by a bread salad, an arugula salad with manouri cheese, then prawns with rice, calamari orzo, grilled squid, and chicken and pork souvlaki. It was a challenge to limit ourselves to small portions as each dish came out. 

Nobody looks too great when stuffing their faces. This was the first of many courses.

The owner of our boat is the center man in the center photo. 

Tomorrow we ride here on Lefkas. It won’t be pleasant putting on our wet gear in the morning, but the day is supposed to be sunny, and the wind of riding should wick the damp away.

 

 

Meganisi

 Oct 12

We were motoring by 7:30 am into a rocking sea. We were headed towards Kefalonia, which was a four-hour sail. I tried to write in the cabin, but my stomach was having none of that. I sat on deck with several companions, watching the horizon rise and fall. I went down to the cabin just once, a nausea-inducing venture. Staying outside was fine, and it was a beautiful day. 

Michigan Anne, Frances, Carol -- they can summon up smiles despite the rocking sea

Some people ride it out on the top deck

Schedule posted daily

We finally approached Lefkas, a mountain of an island, and pulled into the harbour to wait for the swing bridge that joins Lefkas and the mainland to open. I’d read about this bridge but didn’t understand it before I saw it. It appears to float on the narrow channel, and at particular times of the day, it rotates to be parallel to the shore so that boats can pass through. 

Swing bridge beginning to swing

We were the first of a handful of yachts waiting for the bridge to open. When it did, we realized there was a long line of yachts on the other side as well, waiting to get out. After motoring in a calm channel, we finally reached the tiny island of Meganisi, where we tied up alongside dozens of yachts. I took advantage of the sun and breeze to wash a few clothes. We seem to be at liberty to hang our stuff anywhere, so we do.

Yachts heading out as we head in

Fresh fish was on the menu for lunch today, and I watched crew member Usman fire up a grill right on the deck. He cooked a sea bream for each of us, and grilled some zucchini, eggplant, and peppers to go with it. It was too much food for me, as usual, but so good!

Why wouldn't you light a huge fire on a wooden boat?

Usman grills sea bream

and veggies

At three o’clock this afternoon, like yesterday, we headed out for a 17k ride. The terrain was much like the previous rides, very hilly, but fascinating, passing through villages and stopping at viewpoints. At one point, I looked down and saw our ship, but we flew past and I couldn’t get a shot of it.

A stop at a pebble beach

I watched Usman load the boats from the pier onto the upper deck of the boat. Each bike weighs over 25 kg. He was loading several boats per minute. Sheesh! (I have a video to add here, but it simply won't load here on the boat; to come at a later date.)

He grills fish, he hoists bikes -- what can't this sailor do??

I think Dimitris was on the top end

 

Back at the boat, we were treated to a wine tasting on the pier, a bottle each of Greek while, rosé, and red, plus munchies. The wines were delicious, but it’s unlikely we’ll find any of them at home.

Guide, bike-hoister, sommelier -- again, a multi-talented dude!

Out for another seafood dinner (calamari, giant prawns) with Gill and Frances. And home again, to collapse into bed.

Dinner at Stavros

 

Hanging and Riding in Paxos

Oct 11

I was woken up this morning by lightning coming faster than I’ve ever seen, followed, naturally, by thunder and sheets of rain. It would let up at bit, and people would go out walking only to come back soaked. Our guides decided to delay our ride until afternoon, when things promised to be better. The storm, and the captain, decided we would stay in Gaios (the main town on Paxos) another night, fine by me, as it’s a very sweet little town. 

Things are starting to shut down in these tourist zones. Some shops are already packed up, and some restaurants are running out of things (like 0% beer!). It’s a great time to be here, but I imagine high season is also great, lively and festive. It is nice, for sure, to be instantly seated in a quiet restaurant, a contrast with Athens.

The Panagiota flies the Greek, Canadian, American, and Scottish flags this week, representing all of us. She ought to be flying the Jolly Roger as well.

Dimitris, one of our guides, checks out the tables set for lunch

Food supplies down in the hull

Above: fish caught by a friend of the captain. I think they're anchovies, which are fantastic fresh.

After another sumptuous lunch provided by our ship’s chef, we set out on a ride, circling Paxos. This is the kind of riding I love most; while there are some mighty hills, we passed through a number of tiny villages. We stopped in Lakka at the northern tip for refreshments. Lakka was like a mini Venice when it’s in flood.

Lakka, flooded

The café at the end of the promenade, Lakka

We got a restaurant recommendation from guide Giota and all of us passengers and all of the crew ended up there for dinner. Taka Taka, highly recommended. 

Taka Taka Kat. The clipped ear means she's been spayed.

As we walked back to the boat, I felt a twinge of regret to be leaving this place.

  

Sailing and Biking Day 1

Oct 10

 

We woke to a beautiful sunrise and smooth seas. Life is looking better!

The boat set sail at 7:30 am for a crossing to Sivota, a small town on the mainland, where we would begin our first ride.

Mainland Greece

While sailing, we had breakfast family-style at two long, narrow tables in the galley/bar/lounge. There were dishes of hard-boiled eggs, bread, fruit, yoghurt, cereal, cheese, cold cuts, plus tea, coffee, juice. 

The four of us sat with two couples from Michigan. The other table was mostly a group of ten from Seattle whose connections go way back, and were called together by one of them putting out the suggestion to take this trip. People on these kinds of trips tend to be friendly, cheerful, and caring. It’s part of the pleasure.

The crew unloaded the bikes from the top deck of the boat — after a season of this, they are a finely tuned machine. I’ll capture the action at a later date. Our bikes are labelled for us (they ask our height ahead of time so that bikes will fit), which will come in handy for learning people’s names. One of the Michigan people is also Anne-with-an-e, but she’s about my size, so which bike we took didn’t matter. I leave my phone holder on the bike so I can identify mine for the next rides. We took a quick spin at the harbour to check for seat height, etc. 

Boatload of bikes

Due to weather, our itinerary has changed, and I can’t say what it will be, because it will continue to change, depending on the weather and the sea. No one wants to ride in the rain and no one wants the ship to sink, simple as that. The captain will be making the decisions. 

So, instead of a 28 km ride today, we did 15 km, which probably isn’t a bad thing for people — and there are some — who don’t have their bike legs. Do I have my bike legs? Probably not! The ride was on winding hill roads, rough in places, but with little traffic, not unlike what Carol and I have been driving these last weeks. It all seemed familiar. We cruised up a hill, then down the hill, and arrived in Arillas, a little beach town, where the Panagiota was waiting for us. 

 

Two Canadians and an honorary not-Robyn

 

All of us

Some people took a swim off the boat in crystal turquoise water, so buoyant, they could just lie there. I’m not a water person, and wasn’t tempted, but if we get some warm days, I will have to dip in, just to say I did.

We had a lunch that started with an array of appetizers (leafy salad!), followed by stuffed peppers or tomatoes, our choice. It was light and delicious. Last night’s dinner was similar, with moussaka as the main course. I abandon my usual dietary preferences when I travel, because choice is usually limited. The other Anne is vegetarian, and was given a chickpea meal which she said was “okay.” That seems to be the way on these boat trips: people’s particular dietary needs are met, but their meals aren’t the best.

While we ate, we sailed to Paxos. This was meant to be the last stop on the tour, but because of impending storms and the especially protective harbour at Gaios, the main town on Paxos, this was the captain’s choice. 

Pulling into Gaios

After lunch, the Canadian/Scots team wandered into the little town, stopping in shops full of summer clothing, even after most of the tourists had left. I found a bakery and devoured a baklava, the first and probably the last I will have this trip. It was wonderful; though soaked in honey, it somehow didn’t seem too sweet. Maybe I’m fooling myself?

The Panagiota, in Gaios

Gaios Town

I'm quite sure this is the same woman who was fishing off the pier in Nafpaktos

We stopped at a harbour-side restaurant for drinks. They didn’t have 0% alcohol beer, my choice for afternoons, nor did they have radlers (both were on the menu), so I drank water while the others tucked into the first Aperol Spritz of the season, in remembrance of Croatia, where this was the drink of choice.

Finally dinner time, we settled on a recommended restaurant where we had one of the best meals we’ve had yet in Greece — three of us had sea bass grilled and served in a lemon broth with potatoes, Gill had an amazing looking souvlaki platter, and Matthieu had a pasta dish he said was very good. Right — Matthieu is the one person on the cruise who’s travelling alone. He was passing by as we sat down, and we invited him to join us. Poor guy, listening to us old biddies talking about grandkids and nappies!

Dinner party

Anyhow, Matthieu works for the Boat and Bike company in headquarters in Amsterdam, working on the 2000+ the company keeps going for all its tours. He gets a bonus of one trip a year, and this is the one he chose this time. He is originally from Eritrea. He hasn’t seen his family since 2022. I asked how things are in Eritrea, and he said that young people can’t get out anymore. I asked how he got out, and he very briefly listed the countries he’d passed through to end up in Amsterdam. I’m sure there is lots more to his story, and I hope to hear more as the week goes on.

We strolled home by the lights of many boats on the harbour.

 

 

Meet the Ship

 Oct 9

 

It’s a very stormy afternoon as I write. There is lightning and thunder, the wind is howling, and the rain is coming down in sheets. I’m in the tiny cabin that will be our bedroom on the ship Panagiota for the next week. When we open the door, a spout of water pours in. We’ve been given a towel to sop it up.

I just looked at Nafplio weather, which we just left behind, and it’s sunny there, with temps in the high 20s. Here in Corfu, quite a different scene. It’s an effort to be optimistic for the week ahead. This stormy state apparently will last three days. 

We had a very pleasant morning, breakfasting outside as always, and wandering the port and the old town on a cloudy but warm day. It’s muggy here, the kind of air that gives your skin a sweaty sheen without having to work for it. 

This is just to be sure people understand the glam photo I posted yesterday. Here's us at breakfast, followed by ChatGPT's "improvement." 

Stemmed glasses, gold sandals, Chanel bag, boobs. Social ideals, yeah?

We caught a cab out to the Marina Gouvia to board our ship. In the cab, the storm began. On the walk down the long pier to the good ship Panagiota, we got soaked. I have a raincoat, but it’s not as rainproof as it used to be. Sigh. My umbrella flipped inside out more than once.

Ya gotta laugh at the absurdity of it all

We were the first guests to arrive, just at 2 pm, when we were first allowed to check in. Another soaking wet guest-to-be showed up to check that this was the right boat, then left to round up her 9 or 10 friends that were waiting in a bar on shore. They haven’t arrived yet, I don’t think, some three hours later. Can’t say I blame them. 

Frances, Giota (one of our guides), and self. Note horizontal flying hair.

Frances has named their room “The Cupboard.” It’s identical to ours. Was it Harry Potter who slept in a cupboard under the stairs? I bet his cupboard was dry, and he didn’t have to share it. Lucky guy, really.

We have figured out that two of us can stand at the same time, but not move, in the 1m x 2m floor space. We've figured out how to stash our stuff so that even one of us could move. This is the smallest berth I’ve had on such a boat, now my third time on a boat-and-bike trip. The little river barge was cavernous by comparison. Our beds are bunks, the bottom being a totally unnecessary double, and a narrow single above. There is no ladder; it’s a stretch to get up there, which will be Carol’s challenge, because I’m up in the night and she usually is not. 

Room to move

As Carol puts it, this room would be okay for a couple, who could sleep on the bottom and stash their stuff up top; she says the top is too high for a short person to get to, but headroom up there is too short for a tall person. Headroom is short on the bottom too. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve whacked my head. 

I want to know what kind of lens they used for the photos of this boat.

Our room has one socket for plugging in anything, such as chargers. While Carol only needs to charge her phone (and her watch once a week), I have a a laptop, a phone, an Apple watch, sleep earbuds, and hearing aids; we will also have to charge our bike batteries every day. I have a multi-port charger, so one socket is enough for my devices. But there is no place to set down said devices anywhere near the socket. I’m sure we’ll figure out something.

For a while the toilet didn’t flush. They fixed it. And the sink stopper wouldn’t come unstopped, and they fixed it. The light in the bathroom stopped working, but they fixed it. 

What I would love more than anything right now is to be soaking in a warm bath in my own home. Instead, I hear the drinking has started in the galley. I guess I’ll go and meet some people.

Goodbye Peloponnese, Hello Corfu

Oct 8

 
We were up at 6:45 am to pack up, load the car, and grab breakfast at “our” place on Syntagma Square, which opened at 7:30. We wanted to get an early start to catch our flight from Athens to Corfu at 1:10, only a two hour drive away, but we needed to allow for glitches with traffic and turning in the car.

Our rattle-trap Peugot, parked at Mycenae. Bigger than we'd wanted, but peppy enough

We ordered our regular vegetable omelettes, and even though we pointed to the item on the menu, the server somehow got it wrong, and we got omelettes that we more meat than egg. Disappointing for our last Peloponnese meal.

Not my idea of a great breakfast.

Driving was mostly smooth sailing, beautiful highways with toll booths popping up seemingly randomly. I think we went through five of those in all today. There was a traffic slow-down on the peripheral road around Athens, but nothing we needed to panic about. As for turning in the car, it was a breeze, as promised. The company we used, Swift, does not have a car-return spot at the airport, but rather sends a driver to meet us at the departure area. We pulled up, he arrived within ten minutes, and that was it. Highly recommended!

The Athens airport was a zoo, but manageable. Our flight was just an hour long. We landed in Corfu in threatening weather. Caught a cab that took forever on a parking lot of a route to our hotel. What struck us as we wound our way through town was how run down it seemed. The towns we've been in so far have been very well kept, but Corfu needs a face lift. You'd think there would be enough funding considering the thousands of tourists that hop off their cruise ships every day.

 

The Palace of St Michael and St George, sadly run down

Probably apartments. Most building in old Corfu Town looked like this.

Once checked in to our hotel room-for-four for the night, we wandered a bit in Old Corfu Town, much of which is like an Arabic medina, stall after stall of (in this case) tourist stuff on narrow twisting lanes. Crowds of people, most of whom were probably off the six or so huge cruise ships moored in the harbour. We stopped in at a restaurant off the noisy main streets and had a small meal of calamari and tzatziki.

Old Town is a network of tourist streets like this

One of some six cruise ships that left harbour in the evening, to be replaced by six more. The ferry is heading to Albania.

Back at the hotel, we waited for our Scottish friends, Gill and Frances, to arrive. We met Gill on our Croatia boat-and-bike trip last year. When Carol put the word out that we’d be doing this trip, Gill jumped right on it, and her biking friend Frances was all in. 

It was close to 10 pm when they finally arrived, and we all went out for dinner at a quiet Italian place, outdoors but under cover as a thunderstorm rolled in, bringing torrents of rain. We lingered until close to midnight, when the rain eased, then made our way back to the City Marina Hotel.

Gill had sent us a photo of the two of them in the Edinburgh airport, and they looked so fully glamorous, we thought we'd look like, I dunno, their pet dogs or something beside them. Turns out Gill is very into AI "improvements" in photos, and we were quite relieved when they turned up, looking like normal people. Here's us at dinner (not really!):

If you look closely, I have two right hands, one on the glass and one at my cheek. 

This hotel. This is the first one I really have anything to complain about — it’s a dump. The lobby is spiffy, completely misleading. The room we booked is a ‘family room,” actually two rooms with two narrow beds in each, and are basically acceptable. One room has a balcony overlooking the port, so no complaints there. But well, the bathroom was in need of a complete overhaul, with flaking chrome and mould and a stained tub, a hand-held shower (that fortunately worked well and provided plenty of hot water). There were long dark hairs in the sink from a previous guest and though the toilet had a label wrapped around the lid saying it was sanitized, the seat had some suspicious stains on it. The towels smelled like they’d been used too many times between washings. The flusher on the wall had a half-flush button that didn’t work, but the full-flush one did, thank goodness. The real kicker in this place was that when we came back from dinner and were approaching the elevator, a large rat ran under our feet and headed down some stairs. When we shrieked (I learned I can shriek!) the guy at the desk shushed us. Not sure he understood that a rat had just run by. I suppose the thing was escaping the storm. I was glad our room was three storeys up.