Greece

Ever since the kids first listened to Gerald Durrell’s ‘My Family and Other Animals’ audiobook they had wanted to visit Corfu. When discussing our Greek itinerary this was a non-negotiable for them, so Corfu was to be our first stop. Problem is, a lot of the Greek tourism industry shuts down over winter, including most of the islands, and everyone goes on holiday. This includes the Corfu airport, which was shut for 2 months, so a ferry from Italy was our only option for getting there. Our sea legs are still pretty poor, but with a bit of courage from surviving our previous ferry trips, and hopeful confidence in our Sturgaron supplies, we boarded the ferry for a 7pm departure.

We managed to enjoy a hearty meal in the canteen with a bunch of Greek and Italian truckers – evidently the only other passengers on this ferry – and were grateful for our decision to take a cabin for the trip. Having a place to lie down in made such a difference, and miraculously, we all slept soundly and only woke when the reception called us at 5:30 to say we’d be docking soon.

The arrival in Igoumenitsa, mainland Greece, was a little less straight forward. We walked off the ferry into the pitch dark, freezing and empty dock at around 6am. Now what? We knew we had to catch another ferry to Corfu, but where? We asked the only official looking person in sight, who pointed down the dock and said “Walk that way. But there is nothing”. Right. So we walked that way and got to a customs building that had lights on but was very much locked. After nearly getting caught indefinitely inside a double set of automatic doors (that didn’t open from the inside), we decided to move on and see what we could find. We walked through the main port entrance along with all the trucks. Then Carys pipes up: “Why don’t we ask that lady in there?”, to which I grumpily replied “Ok, you ask her”.  So she did – and got detailed instructions on where we needed to go. What a champ!

So we had to walk the 2km to the OTHER ferry dock in Igoumenitsa, in the dark at this crazy hour of the morning. We stopped off for some essential coffee at a garage and delicious Greek pastries at one of the only places open at that time, which settled the fraying nerves. Unfortunately the ferry to Corfu that I had booked only left in 2 hours, so there was a fair bit of waiting on the dock, watching the sun rise, throwing stones into the sea and meditating on some of the challenges of travel. 

The ferry to Corfu was comfortable, pleasant and (relatively) short, (we can do ferries, we can do ferries…). We took a taxi to the airport and picked up a rental car – very efficiently organised even though we went to the wrong rental office. I had to steel my nerves to venture off into Greek traffic on the wrong side of the road. We picked up a week’s load of provisions at Lidl’s (gotta love international grocery chains) and headed off to find Spiros’s ‘salty house’ on the north coast of Corfu.

After the mad pace at which we had trekked through western Europe, we decided that we needed some chill time and Corfu seemed like the right place to do it. Nix had booked this little ‘white villa’ outside the village of Acharavi that looked like it could have housed the Durrells – a double-storey white house perched on a hill amongst the olive trees on a small holding with sheep, chickens, ducks and goats.  The AirBnB communication between Nix and our host, Spiros, was all translated from Greek to English and vice versa and was both hilarious and confusing. A sample:

Apart from the lemon cake and eggs from their hens, we were so excited to meet Melonia, their friendly kelpie, and a host of barn cats that had varying relationships with humans. Two ginger ones (the kids named Naughty Cat and Pure Ginger – PG) moved in and made themselves right at home with us. It was so lovely to be with animals again, we didn’t realise how much we had missed them and how their presence changes the way we are as a family. 

At bed time, they were all turfed out, but an hour or two later, to stop Melonia’s constant barking I let her in (and in with her snuck Naughty Cat). We are not dog-on-the-bed people, but Melonia stealthily crept up onto my feet and stayed still and silent for the rest of the night, while unbeknownst to us, Naughty Cat crept into Nick’s bag. We woke up to discover that Naughty Cat had released a gush of cat diarrhoea all over the inside of his bag – on his clothes, towel, everything – while an unknown visitor had vomited in the kitchen. The wonder of being around animals again took on a more realistic hue as we washed and mopped. 

Our time in Corfu included lots of tea drinking in the sun, stroking dog and cats, a smattering of school work, watching Spiros work his olive groves, exploring the north of Corfu in the car and stopping off at interesting beaches, coves and harbours. We found a stunning little bay which was almost completely deserted and braved our fist dip in the sea since leaving SA. The weather was cold, so it wasn’t lay-about-on-the-beach weather, but we still managed to enjoy the idyllic seaside. We also visited a local taverna for a traditional Greek dinner of a delicious assortment of seafood and meat dishes and invented the game of ‘cat cricket’ – similar to car cricket, but with different colours of stray cats of which there are an astonishing amount (black cat 4 runs, pure grey 6 runs, all other colours 1 run – dog: you’re out!). We were glad to have been warned about a national habit of offloading unwanted goods at random spots – so we had space in our expectations for extreme beauty interspersed with piles of random junk: one pile contained a wonderful green glass olive oil container (I was not allowed to take home), a dead fridge, a deck chair, a mangled bike, some plastic crates and a dead dog.  We found Corfu to be unpretentious, generously hospitable, and incredibly beautiful despite the junk piles.  

The next day we realised that it wasn’t just our immediate neighbourhood that was grungy – the whole of Athens has an all over body rash of graffiti, buildings are generally run down on the outsides, and there are more stray cats than we have ever seen. (Great for scoring cat cricket records!)  But we also experienced the relaxed nature of the place, stunning street art in amongst the less gifted graffiti, and a delightful farmer’s market in the heart of the city. The first stop on our itinerary had to be the Acropolis. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most recognizable tourist attractions in the world, we would have thought that the Greeks would have made a bigger deal of the place. There are a few modest signs in the town pointing the way, and it was only when we had wandered right up to the entrance that there was anything official-looking about the place. The administration was surprisingly low key and informal. The site, however, was anything but low key. It is a monumental (duh) site, jam-packed with ‘stuff’ in an epic location. We had expectations of the Parthenon, but were pleasantly surprised by the many other monuments and temples up there and the view of the city was great.  As the icy wind picked up, we headed down through the narrow, cobbled streets of the old town suburb of ‘Plaka’, where cafes spill out from both sides under bougainvilla vines adorned with plastic flowers to keep the feeling festive over winter. We picked up some souvenirs and stopped for lunch, sampling our first Greek ‘gyros’ – pitta filled with kebab meat, salad and chips – delicious.  On the way home, on Francoise’s recommendation we visited ‘Little Kook’ for a dessert treat. This place is difficult to describe… Having seen some photos of their ‘over-the-top’ milkshakes and wonderful Halloween decorations, we were wondering what it would look like in January. They were still in the deep throes of Christmas festivity, with the most unbelievably dense and glittery decorations, the most delicious smells, and other-worldly music that made the experience positively surreal! All four of us were agape at this place – tucked down a backstreet that we would never have found without the recommendation. 

On our second day we explored a little more of Athens. Nick went for an early scouting run through the city and up Lycabettus Hill. We ventured to the Monastiraki flea market and square, over to the Syntagma Square and through the Botanical Gardens. The gardens were a welcome break into ‘nature’ from the concrete jungle that is Athens and we watched terrapins and parakeets and picked tiny naartjies. (Question: what is a large naartjie? A naart?) On the way home we popped into H&M for a much needed re-stock of children’s clothes, the originals having suffered from loss, abuse and out-growth.

After Athens, our itinerary changed numerous times. We had originally planned to visit the Island of Milos and then head to Turkey. However, we discovered getting to any of the islands in winter is incredibly difficult (or expensive, or both) and getting to Turkey directly is also tricky. Our solution would be to head north through Greece up to Bulgaria and take an overnight train from Sofia to Istanbul. Easier said than done. To date our Eurail pass had served us very well. We were eking out our allotted 15 travel days to make sure we used them when we needed to, but our 2-month window was also closing. Turns out that there are NO trains that head up to the Bulgarian border from Greece. Damn. We also investigated visiting a thermal spring in the north of Greece, but the travel logistics just seemed overly complex. Not serious, though. We would take the high-speed intercity train up to Greece’s second-biggest city of Thessaloniki and take a bus from there up to Bulgaria – the first long-distance bus of our trip.   The highlight of the train trip from Athens to Thessaloniki was spotting Mount Olympus on the way and speculating about what the pantheon of gods was up to just then. 

Thessaloniki has hundreds of restaurants, and we were spoiled for choice. We did a bit of research and picked one that had excellent reviews…which was empty, so we headed next door instead to a place that looked cozy. It was an unassuming place with what seemed like a father behind the stove, and a son and daughter dealing with front of house. When the food came, we were blown away. We all shared a roast aubergine risotto, pork chops in a traditional Greek pasta, pork cheeks, and seared tuna. Hands down one of the best meals we’ve had on the trip – and all at a very reasonable price. 

Our only full day in Thessaloniki was spent taking in some of the historical sights and walking through the City. Its position in the ‘armpit’ of Greece has made it a geographically strategic place, from ancient times, through biblical, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman times, and is jam-packed with interesting history. So much fascinating cultural blending happened there. The White Tower is the most famous landmark and we spent some time looking at the exhibits and appreciating the view from the top. The Roman and Byzantine ruins got a bit less attention as we had been a bit maxed out on those in Rome and Athens (but we still had fun counting the cats at the Galerius Palace). Nix had particularly wanted to visit the Kapani Food Market in Thessaloniki. While the baklava was a hit, Daniel did NOT enjoy the in-your-face meat displays and dry retched most of the way through. 

We stopped off for a takeaway lunch in Aristotelous Square to appease the hungle monsters and improve the mood. We found the only free bench in the packed square, and then realised it was empty because of its location right next to the Johavah’s Witness stand… On the way home we stopped in at a hardware store to buy glue (for a few much-needed running repairs) and I realised, to my horror, that I had lost my credit card somewhere between our lunch spot and the shop. Heart sink.

We hurried back to the square, scoured the ground, dug in the bin where we’d thrown our lunch paper and accosted waiters, but no luck. Just as we were giving up and heading home, Carys spotted something out of the corner of her eye. “Daddy, those guys have a credit card”, pointing to a group of young Greek guys holding up a card and laughing. I sprinted after them and saw it was mine. Possibly because I jumped on them with such exuberant relief, they handed it over without any question. Such immense relief. Another potential travel crisis averted.  We ended our happy time in Thessolaniki with another stroll along the shoreline and a final gyros before we headed north and on to Bulgaria.

As we left, we chuckled at the Ennea 7ness of Greece: too much of a good thing is fabulous, be it olives, feta, wine (all sold in astonishingly large packages), Christmas decorations and decadent dessert, the number of pastries you can make with phyllo pastry, honey and sesame seeds, long drawn out meals, or good conversation.  Why do today what you can do tomorrow? Maintenance is boring and life is good! But I don't think we'd ever get used to the toilet paper in the bin thing...