Ios Backdrop

Here's Hannah's mad skills 8m jump, as promised:

Ouch. My brave girl!!

La Vie en Rose

Up at 5 am to get to the airport. Dark and 27 degrees. Simple metro system in Athens. 3 lines. Number 3 goes to the airport. Easy. We got there with plenty of time and our Olympic Air plane stayed in the sky.

Charles de Gaule is big and dirty and there aren't anywhere near enough seats. We spent far too much time here. When the flight timetables changed for our second flight we had 5 1/2 hours between flights so had hoped to blast into Paris for the day. Alas, it was not to be. We couldn't check our luggage in early and so two hours were wasted while we tried to find out where the luggage store was. Four people gave us three different answers. By the time we found the right place, and the line, we would have had about an hour and a half in Paris, sandwiched between 45minute train rides, plus baggage collection lines at the end of the day. So we were faced with a four hour wait. We found: expensive water, a severe lack of seating and a lot of Africans. I guess with so many French-speaking countries in Africa, it must be a popular destination. We also found the Eiffel Tower:

We saw the real thing as we took off in our orange EasyJet plane. We arrived in Biarritz after a very long day.

First impressions have been pretty exciting. It's so green here compared to Greece. Still very hilly though. The drive from the airport was through lush fields and leafy green trees. Our hotel is a find! We are right in le centre-ville (town centre) above a surprisingly quiet pub. Plus we have double glazed windows which makes Jim a very happy boy.

We can see the ocean from the street outside our hotel! All the little shops and cafes are right outside and an epicurie (delicatessen) is on the other side of the road. So exciting!

We went to the markets this morning and will have to go back for the marinated artichokes and to take some photos. It is quintessentially french.

We are still on Greek time where people don't eat breakfast until almost lunchtime, but here lunch was well and truly on at 11am. The tapas was out along with the wine. Our breakfast adventure this morning involved trying to buy spoons in the supermarket using mime and eating Special K and raspberries out of yoghurt cups. But we did it overlooking the beach.

We even shared with these little guys:

This one has probably had enough.

Last night we had Le formule (set menu) along with complimentary mulled wine, overlooking the ocean. A dude walked past with his surfboard in his wetsuit as we ate. It was 10pm. Still just light. Imagine the hours of surfing you could get in after work!

After brekkie, we walked from Grande Plage (where all the tourists go and a surfer's nightmare)

To the little port. Crazy walled in pens. A miniature dock where you need to get your boat out through the hole in the walls to go out to sea. I assume it protects the boats from damaging swell - not that there's any today.

The sailing club

Just a short walk south of us is le Plage de la cote des Basques, where they hold the women's longboarding comp. Far less crowded and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

We sussed out some options for board hire and wetsuit hire (water is about 21 degrees here) and will hopefully go out tomorrow. Not that crowded at all considering it's Saturday and Summer. A number of the hire places only hire for the low tide. We're hoping this is when the waves get good as it was very fat and very small when we were there for a look today. A massive retaining wall separates the water from the road and shops and during high tide, no sand is exposed at all. People instead sunbake along the retaining wall!!

 First beef in ages

It is very laid back here and we will be here for 2 weeks. We are looking forward to getting in the grove, improving our non-existent French and finding our way around.    

It's so much cooler than Greece. Low twenties today, sunny and we don't feel like we're being crisped. This is the beach at the end of our street:

Plage port-vieux.

Acropolis Today

We are back on the continent and really only had one day in Athens before our flight to Biarritz. We're staying in Syntagma, central Athens and are surprised to find it pretty dirty compared to both the islands and the Port district of Piraeus. Strangely the city centre seems to be the place to go for all your ritual paraphernalia. Embroidered priests' robes, censers, chalices, icons. Weirdly, it's all here. We passed about a dozen shops on our search for somewhere to eat.

On that note we had one of the worst Italian meals in history last night. You may ask why we're eating Italian in Greece, but you know, why not? Because it was god awful.
My pasta had tinned champignons and ham instead of mushrooms and bacon. James' pizza had about 500g of cheese on top. There wasn't an onion or a clove of garlic within cooee of this place. The waitresses practically supervised us while we ate, launched at our plates while we were still chewing and then chased me down the street for the 1 euro's worth of bread that I refused to pay for after not ordering or eating it. Bad bad bad.

But! Tonight we ate more international food as neither of us were in the mood for gyros tonight. We took a chance with the noodle bar a few steps up from our hotel, reassuring ourselves that, as there were Asian staff, they would surely know how to cook asian cuisine. Bingo! It was the nicest meal we've had in a long time. Nasi Goreng with satay sauce... Chicken and cashew sweet chilli stir-fry... fresh springrolls. And desert: Chocolate springrolls!!! Amazing!

Our last night in Ios, we had dinner with Luka and Stella at a great little rooftop taverna and we all ate for 60 euros. Tzatziki, fresh bread... octopus, calamari, stuffed chicken breasts AND this 'grapevine' salad. It had grapes, dried figs and this amazing vinaigrette. On top of this, the guy brought out a free desert for us: natural yoghurt and this tasty, but odd sounding, sweet cherry tomatoes in syrup.

Enough about food. Until France.

Today we went to the Acropolis and boy, was it hot! 32 degrees and so, so much hotter in the sun.

Acropolis means "high city" and it is a religious sanctuary to Athena and other Greek God/desses. Inhabited since antiquity due to the defensible nature of the location, a huge wall was constructed around 1500BC. The Parthenon, pictured above, was constructed around c.450BC. So much older than I'd thought.

The Parthenon - dedicated to Athena.

Me, noshing on biscuits. Very hard to get postcard type photos here with so many people milling around. There were so many people!!!

The carvings, even from two and a half thousand years ago were intricate.

Restoration and excavation are still taking place on the site.

There is a lot more to this site than just the Parthenon. Theatres, temples, caves and the entry building. This theatre used to be roofed and is still in use.

The Theatre of Dionysus.

Ionic columns with stunning scrollwork.

This is the sanctuary of Aphrodite or Artemis. There's so many!

The same temple. The six statues are stunning. The myth goes that Poseidon and Athena fought over who would protect the people of Athens. Poseidon offered a gift of a spring (accessible by a hole in the floor of the temple seen to James' left in the second photo above.) Athena offered an olive tree (seen in the above photo.) The people chose Athena, hence Athens.
After a visit to the New Acropolis Museum we had a new respect for the splendour of these buildings. So much has been destroyed, pillaged, eroded and stolen for museums. In its day, the extensive carvings would have been impressive indeed.

To escape the heat, we came home to the hotel for a rooftop jacuzzi. How's the view?


See you in Biarritz!

Ios

The intrepid explorers, ready for Ios

The last island in our Greek tour was Ios, the “party” island. Whilst the whole island is generally geared towards getting absolutely blotto and forgetting where you left your pants, we discovered some great alternatives.

Luka and Stella – two most excellent chicks.

We signed up for a kayak tour around the bay, which was actually pretty awesome. Heading off nice and late (so that the boozers could sleep it off...) at around 2:00pm, we struck out across the bay for our first stop. Lunch. A big fire was rocked up, and we munched on fresh salad, weird Greek “bread” and sausages cooked by some Aussie dude... needless to say, the snags were charcoal, but really nice.

Cute little wall stuck on the side of a cliff

Next stop was a cliff jump, from an 8m precipice.

Swimming out to the launch zone

Scrambling up, we realised just how high 8m is.

Gonna jump, Jimmy?

Not bloody likely!!

Hannah strapped on her figs and showed us all how it's done... Creating

quite possibly the LOUDEST back-flop ever. That's my girl!! We've got a rad video of Hannah exploding ONTO the water. I'll try and get it up later.

Everyone who was jumping had a jump, then we moved onto the next bay for some snorkelling and sunbathing.

There isn't heaps to see, since the Greeks decided to a whole lot of fishing after the war. A whole lot of fishing using dynamite. Apparently anything that might have been there was well and truly blasted to a billion tiny bits of sand, which does make for some interesting landscapes underwater.

We finished up the day with an Extreme Hell Ride biscuit run behind a powerboat, blasting around. Everyone rolled up a little slow and sore this morning!!

The Other Hannah takes the plunge

We're in Athens again now, we've said goodbye to the Islands, and will start our next leg to France very soon! Tomorrow, the Acropolis!!

Santorini at 30km/hour

We had a very big day today. We had actually planned to do the laundry, but being Sunday, none of the washer-women were working. And so our adventure began...

We hired a quad bike which was an adventure in itself. This was NOT a decision made lightly. We'd seen people blasting around on scooters and mopeds on the last 2 islands and it wasn't until today that we felt it might be an ok idea. Not only are we driving on the 'wrong' side of the road here, but Greeks do some funny things on the roads.

 

We had helmets unlike half the loons (read: Aussie tourists) that drive around in their boardies and nothing else. The guy at the rental shop was trying to talk us into a 180cc bike and we were both saying, 'No, no! 50cc.' We got our 50cc for 15 Euros for the whole day - or bring it back in the morning - it doesn't matter...

Turns out he was right. The first hill we got to and we were being overtaken by everything on the island. I could have run faster. Girls on mopeds were going faster than we were. But we did get to see a lot of the island and at a very leisurely pace.

This is what we saw:

We drove to the southern tip of the Island to visit the famous 'Red Beach' - volcanic cliffs of red rock.

We'd hoped to visit the nearby archaeological site of Akrotiri, but it turns out its been closed to the public for four years.

 

So we puttered our way to the mid-east section of the island and had lunch in Perissa.

Perissa is known for its black beach.

They have walkways because the pebbles get so hot.

The water is still super clear. A lot nicer than that red beach. :/

We found that our crocs float.

 

The site of Anceint Thira was right next to Perissa but this wasn't accessible either. We didn't see the quad making the 500m ascent to the top of the mountain. So we made our way back to Fira, where we are staying. Today didn't seem to be the day for history and culture. But we did find:

and... 

Lots of grape vines here but they don't train them on trellising in rows like we do and they look a lot less nourished.

The views were breathtaking. It's so mountainous here!

Crazy Greek signs.

From the middle of the Island we went up to Oia (Ee-ya). A short 8km trip from Fira on the NW coast. But we took the low ocean road which was the long way around... across to the east coast and alll the way up and around.

Taverna by day.

Iced coffees out of the sun in Oia, overhanging the caldera, with Fira in the background.

 

There is a strange haze over the land here, the moon already up.

We didn't get to the 'White Beach'. But really, how could that compare when we have places like Yallingup and Esperance?? ;)

 

Weeeeeee!! We took the high road to Fira home. And I mean high!

vvvvvroom!

This completed our unintended circumnavigation of Santorini.