We are HOME… We are still writing stories from our last stops and will post those soon but we wanted to share that we are excited to be back in our own house, starting to see friends and looking forward to a big family Christmas where Willow, Nick’s grand daughter will be the guest of honour. Read more
Cyprus Revisited
It’s difficult to write a blog on Cyprus from a traveler’s perspective given I grew up here, it’s also harder because things have changed so much since it was my home, I tend to focus on the changes rather than what it has to offer but I will do my best to paint a fair and true picture. There are some things about the island which despite having grown up here I am discovering for the first time, for example I never gave much thought to Cyprus’ history before as it lacked much of the heroics of Greek history whilst the food, the weather and the beaches were all taken for granted. Now armed with a bit more worldly knowledge and 43 extra years experience, plus a hint of bias and am ready to tell it all. So here is my full ‘Kardashian size’ exposé.
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We loved the beaches on Evoia, the tavernas on Crete, almost everything on Paros (especially the view from the house and Naoussa’s harbour) and finally Chora, which means town, on Naxos is also just stunning. So what’s left to enjoy on Astypalea which is the little island where we spent our last week in Greece?
As Nick already mentioned, we learnt about the island purely by chance. We dropped Mon at the ferry on her way back to Cyprus and sat in a cafe trying to decide where to go next. I tried to match direct ferry connections with islands that looked pretty to available Airbnb flats but it was tricky!! We wanted to visit somewhere small and less commercial with a pretty town. Somewhere with enough to keep our interest but not big enough to be busy. The answer came out of the blue; Nick started chatting to an old guy at the cafe who predicted that the island of Astypalea would be the place for us. And right he was! Read more
Combine the two islands’ names and you get “Paxos”. That was to be the name of the blog until I googled Paxo and it turned out to be an English turkey stuffing, it’s also, believe it or not, another Greek island not far from Corfu. Option 2 was to scramble the letters, I then came up with Poxas, that was totally wrong too. No prizes for guessing where we are…
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It drizzled, blew cold winds and for a moment we wondered where summer had gone. We were in Aarhus, Malene’s home town which is half way up Jutland on Denmark’s mainland, we only had four days to catch up with Malene’s mum and friends Tine and Soeren and we are now heading back to Greece.
The meeting point was planned to be at Athens airport below the illuminated sign that says “Meeting Point” in the arrivals hall.
Guess where? Oui exactement!! For a complete change, we flew to Toulouse to spend 2 weeks in the Southwest of France. We wanted to visit some good friends in Dordogne and we easily settled into a routine of eating a lot of deliciously rich foods, loads of croissants, drinking local red wine and enjoying the beautiful scenery of sunflower fields, vineyards, castles and rolling hills… Read more
The story starts after Helen (of Troy) is kidnapped or runs off with cute loverboy Paris. The problem was that her husband king Menelaus of Sparta was brother to another king, king Agamemnon of Mycenae. Agamemnon was not at all cute, he was big, hot tempered, brash and somewhat of a bully, in a nutshell not the type of person you would want to upset and Agamemnon got very upset with what happened to his brother.
Agamemnon lived on the top of a hill and had lions above his front gate, if that tells you anything about him it should be: “Do not mess with me”. In the picture you see Malene, alias Helen of Troy, at the front gate the day we went to visit at their big castle of “Mycenae” located in the Peloponnese just outside Nafplion. Read more
We left Athens in our hired car and started our two week voyage of Greece. We had planned our route a few days before using a mix of suggestions from the internet, places we had ear-marked in advance and filled in the gaps to keep distances to a maximum of 4 hours drive, which turn out to be 6 hours with stops, but that’s ok. With my trusted navigator by my side it took us forever to get out of Athens, we just could not get onto that motorway for the life of us. Read more
Countless islands in the sea below with small villages dotted on each bay was the view from my window seat looking down into the Aegean on route from Larnaca to Athens, it also helped keep my mind off the bumps and jerks our Airbus was going through. My mind wondered to the WW2 bombers being knocked around from exploding shells but am sure ours was nothing like as bad plus there were no Germans firing bombs at us, or were there?….. Read more
While Nick went off to Perth on his Willowspedition, I stayed in Cyprus and my mum came to visit for 10 days. Although Cyprus is very easy compared to most places we’ve been it was still different without Nick who speaks the lingo and knows his way around. It’s very easy to just follow along but suddenly now I have to pay attention to where we go, how to get places and the names of the food we order. Protaras, sheftalia, tahinopita here we come… Read more