Tag Archive for 'greece'
This evening, Nick and I went to Allou Fun Park with his brother and his girlfriend. I’m sure I’ll be writing about this in detail soon - maybe even a few words for First Drop. For now though: Allou is Greece’s first “theme” park, opened a couple of years ago near the centre of Athens. I say theme park, but its more an awkward mix of odd bits of theming and a funfair.
It’s got some good rides though, including a few I declined. On the rollercoaster front, it has two. One is a standard spinning wild mouse, the other is a junior coaster that packs a bit of a punch with some interesting head choppers as it passes around some rockwork.
More disappointing was a ride called Cape Fear, which attracted the biggest queue in the park. It should have been impressive, being a boat ride through a haunted cave. Unfortunately, with its bizarre selection of scenes (a dodgy waxwork man with his brains shot out and a radioactive waste dump???) and scary finale which involved bumping into a giant inflatable monster head, it left a lot to be desired. Even the locals were shouting at the ride ops about how rubbish it was when they got off.
By the time we left the park and dropped off Nick’s brother’s girlfriend, it was getting late so we decided to stop off for something to eat. Guess what? Yep, some more delicious Souvlaki.
This morning we met up with Nick’s brother for a swim at one of the local beaches. Now I see why people don’t do too much in the midday sun: Even the sand was scorching. The sea was great though - even warmer than it had been around Samos. Since it was such a nice day, the beach was very crowded. It seems like the whole of Athens has come down to the coast today!
After the swim we went out to a taverna for lunch. They served great steaks, but nothing like those at home. I’m used to something like a 4oz slab of meat - here you get a whole cow to yourself! Too much for me!
We’ve just returned to the house for an afternoon “rest”. That’s about the only thing I’m having trouble with over here. I’m not used to going to sleep in the middle of the day, but its fine. It gives me a chance to catch up on some reading!
I’ve just had a very interesting evening. One of Panos’ (Nick’s father) work colleagues was having their daughter christened and invited them and me along, so I’ve just experienced a Greek Orthodox baptism for the first time. It was very kind of the family to invite me, and they made me feel really welcome.
The ceremony is very different to the Anglican and Catholic ceremonies I’ve seen in the past. 
For a start, it went on for about one and a half hours. It was too hot inside the tiny church, so people had to keep moving outside to get some air. This was all totally acceptable - in fact people were even having conversations and paying little attention to the ceremony. While the Godfather has a big role, the father is pretty much left on the outskirts without anything much to do. The eventual moment of baptism was quite a surprise. None of this scoop a bit of water over the baby’s forehead business. No, the baby was violently thrust under the water three times.
At the end of the service, presents were handed around to all the guests and food and drink were served. As it was getting quite late, we didn’t stay for too long, opting to grab a quick meal at the local Souvlaki shop and head back home.
This morning’s checkout was awful. Remember how we’d been assured that everything was fine and the university had sent through credit card details to the hotel to pay in advance? Well, sure enough they’d sent through the details, but the hotel had not taken the money in advance (purely guessing, but the finance people probably never told them to). Anyway, after much deliberation, they agree to process the payment using those card details, but the credit card machine was having none of it. They tried several times, but it kept coming back saying that the payment was not authorised. After all the hassle of organising for the hotel payment and all the forms we had to fill in, the end result was we ended up having to pay with our own credit cards. Lucky I brought mine with me, or I’d probably be stuck at the hotel right now. At the moment I’m so annoyed. Anyway, we won’t let it spoil the rest of our trip…
We left the hotel at about midday and took a taxi to the airport for our 1335 flight. We probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the plane was late, considering it was an Olympic Airlines flight, and didn’t take off until 1410. This had a knock-on effect when we reached Athens, meaning we had to wait ages for our baggage.
Nick’s father Panos met us at the airport and drove us to their house a few kilometres outside Athens. Nick’s mum Katerina was waiting to greet us with some very welcome and delicious mousaka. Time for a bit of a rest now, in preparation for what promises to be an interesting evening.
We spent our final evening on Samos back in Vath�, eating at a very nice pizza restaurant. We arrived in the town just in time to see the sun setting over the bay. A great way to end our island adventure.
Since yesterday was the final day of the conference, today we had the entire day free to explore the island. The original plan had been to do the “loop” around the island, but since we’d already seen much of the southern part of the route during our trip to Pyrgos, we decided instead to drive both ways along the northern coast road.
Having taken in Vath� and Kokkari previously, we zoomed past those to take in the beautiful shore line a little further along. This road sticks close to the water almost all the way to the island’s major port, Karl�vassi. This was not a particularly aesthetically pleasing place, feeling the most touristic of all the places we have seen on Samos. In fact, there was quite a bit of Blackpool-style tackiness mixed in. Strangely, we didn’t stick around for long.From Karl�vassi our route took us inland and up between Samos’ two major mountains, Mount �mbelos (1153m) to the east and Mount K�rkis (1437m) to the west. K�rkis is the second highest summit in the Aegean, and looked like a fantastic peak to climb on a cooler day. As for today, we stayed at road level to reach the village of Marath�kambos at the far end of our route. This was a very picturesque village, laid out on the side of the mountain like an amphitheatre.
Our return along the same route included a stop off for lunch. One of the conference organisers had recommended Psarades, a small fish taverna in a tiny place called �yios Nik�laos. This was a truly spectacular place, with a terrace overlooking the sea. They served some of the best fish I’ve ever tasted - the taverna’s owner goes out in his boat each evening to catch it. In fact, the food is so good that the Greek Prime Minister has eaten there three times. The owner could not have been more hospitable - after we’d eaten our fried and grilled shark and squid, he gave us melon and homemade wine for free. Such a nice gesture, and one that ensured we’d all be visiting again if and when we return to Samos.