06/29/2009
We have moved the boat to the Vliho town quay at the head of the bay, where it will remain under Horatio's care until the end of July. At 0715 Rick is already pacing; "The bus could come any minute Bon, you can't be sure, I'm taking your bags to the road...." After eight weeks where we have constantly been within arm's reach of each other, I feel panicked at the thought of leaving him behind. I am just coming up the companionway when he shouts that the bus is coming, so there is barely time for a quick hug before I leap on the bus that will take me to Lefkada town for the first leg of the 48-hour journey home. The buses will be busy today, since it is both a national holiday and a festival day in Lefkada. Even this small rural bus is staffed with a ticket agent as well as a driver, so at least I don't have to worry about digging out the fare until I am settled in my seat.
On the route from Nidri to Lefkada town, the passenger in front of me is a bearded Greek Orthodox priest, wearing a stiff black hat that looks like a stovepipe with a lid. Across the aisle, a weathered old woman wearing a rusty black dress and scarf clutches her walking stick and looks at me with a faint whiff of disapproval. As we approach her stop, two passengers leap to their feet to help her off. The women behind me are carrying on an animated conversation. "Neh, Neh, efaristo, efaristo..." ("Yes, yes, thank you, thank you") In this baffling language, the word that sounds like "neh" actually means "yes" and a word that almost sounds like "OK" means "no".
After a long wait in the Lefkada station, I take my pre-assigned seat on the 0930 bus to Athens. I am fortunate to have purchased my ticket in advance, since several people do not have seats and must stand or sit on the floor. We drive over the causeway and through the beautiful mountainous countryside of mainland Greece. The water is first on our left, then on our right, and I can no longer identify our location on the map. The young man beside me finally leans over and says "You won't find this road on that map, it is a new road that only opened three weeks ago." He explains that the new route has shaved a full hour off the trip to Athens. As we approach the bridge across the Gulf of Patras, he is beaming with delight. "We have already reached the bridge and it is not yet noon! Less than two and a half hours! It is unbelievable!" Thomas seems happy to pass the time by talking to me. When I comment on how green and lush the countryside is, he tells me that they have had a very wet winter, which was a blessing since sequential dry winters in previous years have seriously depleted the water supply. "If we can have two more years like this" he says, "maybe we will not run out of water".
The woman across from me, white hair pulled back severely into a thin bun, is periodically making the sign of the cross as we drive along. It seems to be prompted by something she is seeing beside the road. Shrines? Accident sites? I would like to ask Thomas but think better of it. Instead, I ask him how the Orthodox faith differs from the Roman Catholic faith. After listening to a complicated theological explanation involving the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I am none the wiser, but his second point is easier to understand. The Pope is a problem. The Pope should not be placed above other priests. "All are equal" Thomas says "even the Archbishop in Constantinople". (To the Greeks, Istanbul will forever be known as Constantinople.) As for the Protestant denominations, he sums things up by saying "I do not like to use the word "heretic". Gosh, me neither.
It is interesting to drive along the gulfs of Patras and Corinth (a route we hope to sail in July) but the entrance into Athens is unimpressive. The bus crawls through bumper-to- bumper traffic in the midday heat, past industrial buildings and bleak-looking housing. At the bus station, I descend onto the chaos of the platform and finally find the taxi queue. My anxiety level rises when I realize that the taxi driver does not speak English. Showing him the address of the hotel doesn't work, nor does pointing out the location on my map, which has the street names printed only in the Latin alphabet. Too late, I realize that I should have asked the girl in the tourist office to write out the hotel address in Greek. The station dispatcher clears up the confusion. Ten minutes and seven Euros later, I arrive at my hotel, the Acropolis View.
The Acropolis View could never be described as a luxury hotel, but it is comfortable and clean, costs "only" 80 euros a night (including breakfast) and actually does have a view of the Acropolis. I climb to the rooftop patio where, to my astonishment, an American woman is sunbathing in the blistering afternoon heat. "Last day of sunshine for a long time" she explains, "I head back to Washington State tonight." She points out the path to the Acropolis and suggests that we share a cab to the airport.
The Acropolis, which my guidebook bills as "the most important ancient site in the Western world" is a five-minute walk from the hotel. Since it is after 4 p.m. when I arrive, the swarms of tourists that would normally be crawling all over the site have fled to the bars and hotels. Unfortunately, consistent with the pattern that has repeated itself through all my visits to the world's major monuments, the Parthenon and most of the other buildings on the Acropolis are undergoing restoration. Since the buildings on this site were constructed during the 5th century BC, it is not surprising that some restorations are needed, but damage from acid rain is reportedly accelerating the rate of deterioration. The Parthenon is an awesome sight even when partially covered with ugly scaffolding, but I feel rather sad to be seeing it by myself.
It is very hot-surely it must be nearly 35 degrees- what will it be like when we come back here in late July? I buy a frozen lemon drink and cool off in a patch of shade near the exit, where I meet Tony, a young man from Chester. Tony chugs down two vodka coolers in quick succession and invites me to look through a huge binder with his collection of postcards of the world, which he has apparently carried with him all the way from England and brought along to the Acropolis in case anyone might want to look through it. "I've travelled the world now, haven't I?" he says. "Nowhere left to go."
I bid Tony goodbye and wander through the streets surrounding the Acropolis. By nightfall I have managed to see the National Gardens, the changing of the Guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, Hadrian's arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. I sit on an ancient stone bench in front of the pillars of the Temple of Olympian Zeus and talk to Rick on my cellphone. After a meal of grilled fish at a sidewalk café, I head back to the hotel, arrange for a 3 a.m. wake-up call and tumble in to bed. To my surprise, I have had an enjoyable day!
From Rick....
Well, Bonnie has left and it is very lonely all of a sudden. There is a lot to do and I'm moping around getting in my own way, it seems. Time to take stock and work on the list.
First though, a little description of what it is like here. Vliho is further in the large bay from Nidri. While Nidri is a bustling tourist town with all the plusses and minuses that go with that, Vliho is a sleepy little village with a couple of stores, a few tavernas and the Vliho Yacht Club. This is a great anchorage with depths around 20' and great holding in a mud bottom. I am told this is one of the best protected anchorages in all of Greece and certainly in the Ionian Sea. The setting is spectacular, with mountains encircling the bay, covered in olive trees, 40' cedars, pine trees and scrub. There must be the odd house way up in the mountains because at night I can see faint lights twinkling in the distance. The mornings are calm and bright with whisper of a breeze coming off the mountains. The birds are singing and swallows are diving for bugs all around the boat. The temperature is in the high 20's C. When you look shoreward the village of Vliho is tinged with bougainvillea and other flowers. You can smell them in the breeze. As our friends Jaap and Diane say, "What a beautiful back garden to wake up to." There are two other pluses with this spot as a hang-out. First, Vliho means sweet water in Greek and the quay has fresh water coming up below it that helps cut down on barnacles. Second, if you stay on the quay or anchor close by, the sun sets behind the mountains about two hours earlier than in does further out the bay and provides much-needed early shade during the heat of summer.
Horatio Todd provides a guardienage service that will watch over our boat while we are away. Aisling will stay at the quay while they attend to problems with the wind generator and windlass and do a bit of varnish work for us. Once that is completed he will take the boat out to anchor. This is interesting. He drives the boat into the mud on the south shore, runs our anchor out with considerable scope and then sets one or two of his own anchors off the stern. The boat works away in the mud and ends up floating in a little hole, aligned with the prevailing winds and as secure as can be. Here's hoping it works. A friend of ours has done this for two years in a row and says it works just great. At 3 euros a day, regardless of whether you are on the quay or at anchor, it's hard to beat the price.
With so many chores to do, the week goes by quickly. I spend an evening with David Constantine and Sue and a couple of their friends at the yacht club and a few other nights I enjoy English suppers at the yacht club. The Yacht club is the local yachtie hangout and there are lots of stories being told at the bar. Some true and some are .... well you know, stories. Later in the week, an American flagged boat anchors a few hundred feet off my stern and the skipper is staring intently at our flag. It turns out this is Vitale Bondarenko and his family. Those of you from Nova Scotia you will know that name. They are the Russian family that tried so hard to get Canadian landed immigrant status in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia but became totally stressed out and left for Europe just before it was made official. This is a very sad story because they now do not believe they can return to Russia and they regret leaving Lunenburg with out seeing the process through to the end. Other than their boat, they are homeless, and really do not know where to turn. I suggest they think of returning to Canada but Vitaly says the boat is no long capable of an Atlantic passage. My heart goes out to them but I don't know what to suggest. At least I now know where to leave the left over food from the freezer. They write a few letters to friends in Lunenburg and ask me to deliver them.
I say good bye and head to the bus for the same journey that Bonnie took last week. The flight home is a bit unusual as it is via Warsaw. Leaving Warsaw for Toronto on the great circle route, we head north over Scandinavia and then over Greenland. I see the ice cap and then the mountains on the western coast. There were two huge glaciers that truly looked like winding rivers of liquid from my altitude. I have never seen anything like it. A few hours later I landed in Toronto and was back to "Canada normal", at least I think it's normal. The lines of normal are starting to get a little fuzzy, but its good to be home.
|
06/07/2009, Nidri, Levkas
Since leaving Gaios, we have visited Lakka, then motored through the Levkas canal and on to Nidri. We are anchored in the magnificent setting of Tranquil Bay, surrounded by wooded mountain peaks. But we are very sad because we have received devastating news from home. My cousin Isabel has been killed in a terrible boating incident under tragic and horrifying circumstances. I will leave for home tomorrow and Rick will remain behind to prepare the boat, then meet me in Toronto in about ten days. It may be a while before we can post another blog, but in the meantime I have added our retroactive blog on Syracuse.
|
|
06/07/2009 | Jean Louis Niel (jlnca13 att free dott fr)
Jean-louis et Christine du bateau Jersey participe à votre douleur et vous présente toutes leurs condoléances pour cette terrible disparition.
Sincères Amitiés. |
|
06/11/2009 | Redgrave (rredgrave att eastlink dott ca)
So sorry to hear about Bonnie's cousin - she will give great comfort to her family. You are in our thoughts, Love Roy and Joanne
|
06/07/2009
Syracuse-Siracusa to Italians- is a preferred destination for cruisers. The large anchorage is well-protected from all directions except the NE and has good holding in 25' with a mud bottom. It is a quick dinghy-ride away from the baroque architecture, historic monuments and wonderful market on the island of Ortygia. (Go up the river and leave your dingy just past the first bridge.) An equally quick dinghy ride in the opposite direction brings you to within easy walking distance of a large "Famiglia" supermarket. (Leave your dingy near the police boat and large fishing boats and head NW on the main road. You can see the red Famiglia sign from the anchorage at night.) Potable water is available near the marina at the fishing boat dock.
Since Syracuse is at the crossroad of the eastern and western Mediterranean, many cruisers stop here to provision but also to enjoy the historic sites, beautiful landscapes and delicious food. The only drawbacks during our stay were a slight roll from swell and the dust from the construction at the docks on shore. It's a losing battle to keep an old boat in shipshape at the best of times, especially since we prefer to spend our time touring instead of cleaning, but after a few days we had no choice but to dig out the buckets and cloths.
You'd have to expect a bit of dust in a city that is over 2700 years old. Originally built by the Corinthians, it eventually became a force of its own, rivaling Athens and Carthage in size and power. This is the city of Dionysius- a charismatic and outrageous leader who lived life to the fullest but never fully succeeded in his goal of driving the Carthaginians from Sicily. (According to our Blue Guide, Dionysius is rumored to have died as a result of an over-zealous bout of celebratory drinking after he won first prize in a drama festival in Athens.) Syracuse was also the home of the great mathematician Archimedes, but even his brilliant defense strategies could not prevent Syracuse from falling to the Romans in the siege of 212 BC. Syracuse was the seat of the Byzantine Empire for a brief time in the 7th century AD, but then fell on hard times up until the great earthquake of 1693. Following the earthquake, much of the city was reconstructed in the baroque style which still predominates in Ortygia today.
The cathedral, or duomo, shows vestiges of each stage of the history of Syracuse. Rick is becoming weary of visiting an endless succession of cathedrals, but he has to admit that this one is special- originally a Greek temple to Athena, it still has the Doric columns from the 5th century BC. It was converted to a Christian cathedral by the Byzantines and an inscription inside describes this as the oldest Christian church in Europe. With the help of our Blue Guide we identify the baptismal font that was previously a 5th century BC burial urn, fragments of Byzantine mosaics, a Byzantine crucifix, a painting attributed to Antonello da Messina, and much more. We are very grateful to Jean Francois Bourely for recommending that we seek out the Blue Guides for our destinations. ("More books!" He says, "You do not have enough books!") Although sometimes difficult to find, these Guides provide the detailed cultural and historical information that adds context and depth to our experiences here.
I stop to take a photo of a bride and groom who are posing on the steps of the cathedral. The groom calls to me- "Where you from? Canada! Wonderful!" In the Piazza Duomo, we sip cappuccino and admire the beautiful baroque facades of the mansions and palazzos surrounding the square. An elegant young woman drives up in a sleek black car, ornate gates open and close, the car disappears into an interior courtyard. A lifestyle we cannot possibly imagine.
All the souvenir shops in Syracuse have postcards showing the stunning Greek theatre overlooking the sea. This theatre, the Roman amphitheatre and the ancient quarry are located in the Neapolis Parco Archeologico on a hill overlooking the harbour on the mainland side of the city. Our decision to walk there in the hot midday sun is perhaps not the wisest, so one of us is a bit out of sorts by the time we arrive at the gate of the site. We trudge down the hill to the theatre entrance, where we are told that we should have bought tickets at the top of the hill. "It's about 200 meters" says the girl at the entrance. By the time we find the ticket booth (actually close to half a kilometer away, tucked behind a cluster of souvenir stands across the street) the one of us who was already a bit out of sorts is now completely out of sorts, as are the French couple behind us who have made the same mistake. Rick (seething, but very polite) suggests to the agent that there should be a sign at the gate to advise visitors of the location of the ticket booth. "It's a very big problem" he says, slowly and carefully. "Yes", she agrees, "It's a very big problem for me too, you are about the hundredth one today". Armed with large bottles of water, we return to the theatre site, where we discover that the seats have been covered with bleachers for a Greek drama festival that is happening in May and June. The French couple say that it is "une grand deception" and although this actually translates to "a big disappointment," deception seems like exactly the right word. The Roman amphitheatre, described as being "only a little inferior to the one in Verona" could with equal accuracy be described as "significantly inferior to the one at El Jem" but the quarry makes the trip worthwhile. Once the grim workplace of 7,000 Athenians who were incarcerated here, it is now a serene garden with lemon trees and oleanders. A central attraction is the "Ear of Dionysius", a huge excavated cavern entered through a gothic arch. Inside, the acoustics are eerie, especially when a group of about thirty German tourists burst into song, complete with yodeling.
The rest of our time in Syracuse is spent wandering the streets and soaking up the atmosphere. We stumble across Greek and Roman remains tucked among baroque and modern buildings, a child's playground nestled under ancient Roman pillars. The morning market in the streets of Ortygia is a destination in itself: stalls piled with colourful fruit and vegetables, the smell of fresh basil and a cacophony of Italian voices as a backdrop. Italian is such an exuberant language...I want to speak Italian, I really want to speak Italian but after a seven-month absence we are stammering and hesitating and...oh no...speaking Spanish! Fortunately, no one seems to mind and they even seem to understand us. Outside a small corner shop with an industrial-looking façade, a man in a shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up, is preparing mozzarella balls, scooping fistfuls of the super-soft cheese from a large vat and squeezing it into cylinders. He offers us a slice and the flavour is smooth and smoky. Inside the shop, the beautiful girl working behind the counter offers us little tastes of almost everything in the showcase. She speaks to us in excellent English, while her male colleague (equally beautiful) just smiles at us. We assume that he does not speak English, but he corrects her when she writes some information for us and misspells cheese as "CHEES."
The main focus of the market is the fish- all your dreams of wonderful seafood come to life in a single location. Tuna, swordfish, mackerel, dorade, squid, octopus, shrimp, mussels, vongole clams- we want to try everything, but finally settle on some vongole (so delicious steamed with a little wine and garlic and olive oil) and a piece of swordfish that we decide to cook in the Sicilian style with olive oil, garlic, cherry tomatoes and capers. One eats well in Syracuse, onboard and ashore. One night, Canadian friends Gerry and Ann on "Our Alibi" serve us a feast of mussels with fresh bread. Our most outstanding restaurant meals were at the Cordari trattoria on Via Cordari (simple, inexpensive and absolutely delicious) and La Gazza Ladra on Via Cavour. At La Gazza Ladra, an elderly Sicilan man arrives with a large entourage, visits the kitchen, tastes a few things, then settles in for a large meal in the restaurant. "Mafia" says Rick. Maybe.
When we left Syracuse, we were sad to say goodbye to Gerry and Ann and to Chris and Sandra on Deep Blue. Both boats will spend this season in the Adriatic, while we have decided to make our way to Greece. Perhaps we will see Dave and Sue from Night Owl there. Initially intending to spend only two summers cruising the waters of the Mediterranean, our list of places to visit continues to grow. Eventually we will have to turn back toward the west, since we have no intention of doing a circumnavigation. But for now, it's onward to Greece!
|
|
06/08/2009 | David V (imipl att bigpond dott net dott au)
Amazing !27 Centuries. Anglo-Oz is but two(2)
and Airlie Beach is barely 20yo!! Although we've just spent a few days out on The GB Reef... that is always pretty good, your description of old Syracuse has me reaching for Bannister Fletcher... we envy you. Cheers DV & Marly B |
