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Agios Nikolaos: Lepers & Lotus Eaters
About 50 years ago in the early 1970s, I used to watch, with my parents, a TV series called The Lotus Eaters which I recall as being very watchable. That series was set here in our next base, Agios Nikolaos, towards the eastern end of Crete. I figured I was one of only a handful of people to remember the programme, yet on our very first walk around the town upon arrival, we find the very bar where it was filmed, still with a commemorative board at its entrance. The title of that series is actually taken from Greek mythology, whereby those who ate the fruit of the lotus lost…
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Crete: The Western End
We’re sure lots of travellers do this, but we have a tendency to give nicknames to bars and cafes rather than call them by their real name. This nickname may be governed by the location (bus bar or corner bar) or by what we ate or drank (fish bar or aperol bar) or something we saw or heard there (dog bar, tree bar, reggae bar). So we begin our last evening on Serifos at Ugly Woman Bar, gazing out over the evening waters and wishing we were staying longer. But events outside of our control have brought about a rethink and we are off to a new destination. Our journey…
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Serifos, And A Rethink
The first inkling we get that our calculated risk may not pay off is when we disembark the ferry on Serifos at just after 9am. Backpacking on the Greek islands is easy out of season, but this will be our first attempt at it during August when the islands are at their busiest. Not knowing what the effect of COVID travel restrictions will be, we’ve decided to risk it and see how it goes on the first island and make our judgments from there. And then we get that first clue: not a single room hawker on the quay waiting to meet the ferry. The lady in the office marked…
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One Night In Piraeus
One night in Piraeus, is like a year in any other place…. You are a serious rock music aficionado if you know that the above line is a plagiarism of a song by English 70s band 10cc, and that in the original lyric it was Paris, not Piraeus. But our one night in Piraeus, sandwiched between Korinthos and our first island of this adventure, manages to almost live up to the line. The smooth running, punctual, air conditioned train from Korinthos pulls into Piraeus dead on time, and we step out into the searing heat to trudge to our one night stay, backpacks on. Piraeus station is conveniently positioned very…
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Korinthos: Mad Dogs & Englishmen
“No”, he said rather grumpily, “nothing till August 15th”. This was the response at the first of the three car hire places in Korinthos, and a bit of a worry as our plans for this part of the trip realistically hinge on having a car. Google Maps then takes over in style, first getting us to trudge up multiple hills on the way to the next rental office – “open today 9am to 9pm” – which turns out to be a long deserted empty office by a main road, and then to option 3, where “you have arrived at your destination” brings us to a completely empty stretch of road…
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Legends, Myths & Mountains: This Is Delphi
“Welcome to Delphi”, says the taxi driver as we enter the small town, “the centre of the world”. The reason for that comment will become clear, but as we look out of the car window at the unbelievable scenery which has been unfolding for miles, we feel more like we’re on the edge of the world than in its centre. The modern town of Delphi lies just a few hundred yards from the ancient civilisation of the same name, perched precipitously on the steep slopes of Mount Parnassus and looking across the spectacularly deep valley of the dry River Pleistos to the Gulf of Corinth. One first stroll around its…
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Into The Mountains: From Thessaloniki To Delphi
There is something very special about moving on when travelling. One of our travel maxims has always been: move on while you still love a place. For us, that mix of emotions of being sad to leave somewhere clashing with the excitement of heading to a new place, somehow encapsulates the very essence of travel. It’s an exhilarating feeling. But before we leave, Friday July 23rd marks our last full day in Thessaloniki and just like the previous four days the afternoon temperatures hit 37/38 degrees, but the ever present sea breeze just takes off the edge and keeps even the hottest time of day pleasant. For our last day…
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Cafes And Culture: Five Days In Thessaloniki
How typically Greek it is of our host to thoughtfully provide stocks of decent coffee and proper filters for an apartment where the coffee machine is broken and doesn’t work. You have to love the Greeks! Our other quirk here is a shower which, when placed in its holder, slowly drops down so as to shower the back wall instead of your body. Thus, to get my head in the water, it’s necessary to hold the shower head in its holder with one hand whilst approaching the water face up. I can’t help but think that I must be the spitting image of a naked Liam Gallagher coming to the…
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Travel Stories: Camels And Khaled
Having already handed over the money for the camel ride, we weren’t unduly worried by the fact that Khaled was now negotiating a fee with the animals’ handler and obviously taking a cut for himself, what concerned us far more was that Khaled appeared in the midst of a deal with a boy aged about eleven. “Come” said Khaled, “we are ready.” As we mounted the camels, Khaled was clearly giving the boy directions back to our camp, which, given the expanse of empty desert between our current location at the Lawrence Spring and Eid’s camp several miles away, was another worry. But in the flick of a camel’s eyelash…
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Markets: Look Away Now (Maybe)
Now, we know this set of photographs won’t meet with everyone’s approval, so just a quick warning: if you find pictures of animals in markets offensive or revolting, you might want to look away. But the truth is, markets across the world are fascinating places, and part of that fascination is in seeing things you wouldn’t see back home, even if some do have a certain yuk quality. Like lots of travellers we seem to have amassed a rather large collection of market shots, but these are some of the more “out there” ones from our archives…. Live eels, Riga…. Edible bugs, Oaxaca…. Delicious chocolate drink (despite appearances!), Ocotlan, Mexico……
