Wednesday, September 08, 2004
into greece
and so goodbye to turkey. greece as follows:
saturday : leave selcuk and arrive at kusasdasi in turkey to get ferry to greece. first taste of serious package holiday hell. eat lunch in michaels place. manage to convince michael that we don't wish to have photo taken with him beneath his sign. and no, we don't wish to postpone our ferry trip to spend the night with him on 'bar street'.
reach samos, greece. find ourselves in mild package holiday hell. walk 2 miles to find only restaurant not serving omlette and chips. drink at pleasant bar and are joined by 8 english couples. the barman knows their regular order - 7 ouzos and 1 english tea. one of them is called stan.
sunday : leave samos for nearby ikaria. guidebook describes it as laid back and with few concessions to tourism. sounds ideal.
on arrival find no taxis or evidence of of hotels, restaurants or shops. rapidly wish there were perhaps a few concessions to tourism.
monday : buy up all fresh produce at mini-market near where we are staying. novelty effect of staying 4 miles walk from nearest restaurant wears thin. go on lovely walk though. fail to get lost or talk to any locals.
tuesday : weather bad. realise that nothing funny has happened and consequently nothing to post on website.
wednesday : find internet cafe. all is saved.
watch this space
saturday : leave selcuk and arrive at kusasdasi in turkey to get ferry to greece. first taste of serious package holiday hell. eat lunch in michaels place. manage to convince michael that we don't wish to have photo taken with him beneath his sign. and no, we don't wish to postpone our ferry trip to spend the night with him on 'bar street'.
reach samos, greece. find ourselves in mild package holiday hell. walk 2 miles to find only restaurant not serving omlette and chips. drink at pleasant bar and are joined by 8 english couples. the barman knows their regular order - 7 ouzos and 1 english tea. one of them is called stan.
sunday : leave samos for nearby ikaria. guidebook describes it as laid back and with few concessions to tourism. sounds ideal.
on arrival find no taxis or evidence of of hotels, restaurants or shops. rapidly wish there were perhaps a few concessions to tourism.
monday : buy up all fresh produce at mini-market near where we are staying. novelty effect of staying 4 miles walk from nearest restaurant wears thin. go on lovely walk though. fail to get lost or talk to any locals.
tuesday : weather bad. realise that nothing funny has happened and consequently nothing to post on website.
wednesday : find internet cafe. all is saved.
watch this space
Egridir - PART 2 and Selcuk
After days in the wilderness (well in an small town in Greece at any rate) we are finally back in internet land. Writing about Egridir now seems a bit like an after thought as we've been gone from there for such awhile, but it's nice to tie up loose ends.
Apart from getting led astray on a mountain in Egridir we also went fishing which I alluded to in the first post. This was a VERY early start (pre-7am - something I never imagined doing on my year away from work) but worth it for sun on sparkly water memories. That afternoon was market day in town so we went to explore that and spend time in an internet cafe full of 11 year olds playing video games.
After Egridir we moved on to Selcuk - getting ourselves nearer the coast in preparation for the crossing to Greece. Selcuk is famous mostly for being close to Ephesus (apparently the largest well preserved Roman town after Pompeii). Ephesus was an exercise in incorrect pronunciation (e-pheses) and admiration of mass tourism for Pete... while I tried to learn something about the city without the audio guide (they hadn't restocked the pile when we arrived - I think Pete was secretly pleased!).
Apart from getting led astray on a mountain in Egridir we also went fishing which I alluded to in the first post. This was a VERY early start (pre-7am - something I never imagined doing on my year away from work) but worth it for sun on sparkly water memories. That afternoon was market day in town so we went to explore that and spend time in an internet cafe full of 11 year olds playing video games.
After Egridir we moved on to Selcuk - getting ourselves nearer the coast in preparation for the crossing to Greece. Selcuk is famous mostly for being close to Ephesus (apparently the largest well preserved Roman town after Pompeii). Ephesus was an exercise in incorrect pronunciation (e-pheses) and admiration of mass tourism for Pete... while I tried to learn something about the city without the audio guide (they hadn't restocked the pile when we arrived - I think Pete was secretly pleased!).
