Greg and Mandy's Travels

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale

a tale of a fateful trip,

that started from this tropic port,

aboard this tiny ship.”

Let me describe the SS Minnow, registered in France as Vivaldi. It’s a 58 foot, mono hull, single masted yacht. 2 aft double rooms with triangular beds and a bathroom between them. A saloon midships which doubles as the galley and eating area. 2 narrow rooms comprising double bunks forward of the saloon, and a master bedroom in the bow for the captain, with two more bathrooms between them. 

The bathrooms haven’t got a bath anywhere in sight of course.…

Checked out after another big, filling breakfast and walked up to the bus stop where the driver on the public bus we wanted, which was already 25 minutes late, just shrugged his shoulders as he drove past us. So we waited another half hour or so until the next bus came past.

The north wind was still blowing a gale (not a good omen for tomorrow), so we decided to check out the three beaches at the southern end of the island. First up was Platys Gialos, where the bus disgorged us. A nice beach, but nothing that appealed to us.…

‘The north wind is tossing the trees, the red dust is over the town ….’ How many of you remember singing that at Christmas? I’ve now met some people who can identify with those words, but as a kid it was nothing like the kind of Christmas I had (but then again neither was ‘Let It Snow, Let It Snow’). However, it’s pretty apt for here. It’s the time of the year in Mykonos when the north wind just blows, and blows hard. Gave us a rough passage yesterday, and pulled the bikinis off lots of the folks on the Mykonos beach today.…

We’ve liked Athens, perhaps a little more than we thought we would. Yes, it’s busy, but not overwhelming, well everything except the traffic that is. Despite the high unemployment, we’ve found the people in general very friendly and smiling – in contrast to some other countries around them. We’ve felt very welcome, and people generally have been very patient with us. The Big Mac index is AU$9.90, so it’s not a cheap country, as the government is trying to claw its way out of a black hole with high taxes, but the cafe culture is far more like we are used to (maybe that’s because we learned it from the Greeks and Italians in the first place).…

Sometime around the end of the 5th century, as the power of the Byzantine empire started to wane, a number of guys who were serious about contemplating God and avoiding their mother in law made the decision to find somewhere a bit more remote and less vulnerable to invaders than the coast, and moved to the region now known as Kalambaka, about five hours north of Athens by train, though of course it didn’t yet exist. 

Some 30 million years ago the area was covered by a huge inland sea, but the only thing left these days are some high rocky outcrops, and it was in naturally formed caves at the top of these outcrops that the hermits settled.…

Zeus was such a blockhead. You know – one slice short of a loaf, his elevator didn’t go to the top – you get the idea. 

Zeus wanted to marry Hera, goddess of marriage and childbirth, and incidentally his sister, but Hera was wise to him. He’d had a child with Demeter. There were rumours of many other affairs with goddesses, Titans, and even mortals. Hera was not going to be another conquest. 

But one night at dinner he told a particularly funny joke – something about a donkey, a god, and a Cyclops walking into a temple – and Hera couldn’t help laughing.…

‘In your country, you say “It’s All Greek To Me”’, said our guide. ‘Here we say “It’s All Chinese To Me”’.

That set the tone for the tour. We were off to Delphi for the day. “Delphi?”, you say. Yep, Delphi. Home to Apollo and the rest of the clan. Let me explain. Well, actually, I’m not sure if I can – at least clearly. As we were told, there are hundreds of Greek legends, and each of them has hundreds of variations, so I guess I could tell you anything, and it has a pretty good chance of being right.…

A good day to leave our visit of the former countries of Yugoslavia. When we went for our evening walk last night, the Dubrovnik port was quiet and there were no cruise ships in the town. When we go up this morning there were five! Madness everywhere.

Walked down to the bus station and caught the official airport shuttle. Just as well we got on at the first stop, as by halfway they were telling people they’d just have to wait for the next bus as we were full.

Nice, newish airport in Dubrovnik. Quite impressive. Lots of roadworks going on outside as they are in the process of adding an extra runway to enable large planes to visit.…

Today was our visit to the last of the Yugoslav states which has managed to become a country in their own right – Montenegro.

Montenegro is the most eastern of the states, and the most heavily tied to Serbia. It didn’t gain independence from Serbia until all the other states had been recognised by the international community, and Serbia could no longer use the unity of Yugoslavia as an excuse. It also meant that they have greatly aggravated their neighbour, Croatia, by falling into line with Serbia and attacking Croatia during the Civil War.

However, Montenegro is also the poorest of the new countries, and that has a number of ramifications, principally that they can’t become members of the E.U.…

A beach day in Dubrovnik. Spent the morning wandering around to one of the many beaches and inlets around Dubrovnik for a swim. Picked one with a very fine pebbles rather than largish rocks.

Picked up some pastries for lunch, then had a quiet afternoon planning for the mayhem of Greece.

After dinner, another walk around the harbour at sunset.…