Day 20 (15 June)

Another of those tricky transition days...

We put the morning in well:

Breakfast coffee and pastries at a local cafe (mine was the pastry version of my beloved sesame bread ring, but stuffed with a ricotta mixture -- super-delicious...); a walk to the Blue Star ferry office to check out the arrangements for the evening; and a climb to the top of the town to enjoy the views.





The problem comes, as always, when you have to check out of your hotel at 12 noon... We were able to leave our luggage, but as the ferry didn't go until nearly 11 pm, we still had many hours without moorings ahead of us.

The Piraeus Archaeological Museum is a thoroughly worthwhile way to fill a couple of those hours (and at EUR 4 each, does not blow the budget too badly).

It's really extraordinary what the Greeks keep digging up... But as well as all those ancient artefacts, there are interesting explanations of the social history of Piraeus from ancient to modern times.










A freddo cappuccino on a cafe pavement takes up another hour.

And early dinner at +ousia -- well, that will fill in 2.5 hours minimum, by the time you've chugged your way through the free red capsicum dip, a dish of smoked eggplant, a basket of nice chewy bread (lightly toasted), a plate of zucchini fritters, a big salad, two pork neck slices with delicious gravy (I can't remember all the ingredients, but honey and feta definitely figured), and a large carafe of red wine from Nemea. (This all came to EUR 32, which -- given the quality and the quantity -- is very good, I think.)


Just up the road there's a little park, next to some ruins. The sun will be off it by now, so that's another hour catered for -- watching the extended family of cats going about their business, and listening to the seagulls and the church bells.




We headed back to the hotel briefly, to charge our phones and collect our packs, and then we marched off down to the port to catch our ferry.

So -- day managed. But not inexpensively... You actually wonder if it would be more economical to just book an extra night in a hotel... Don't know...

We'd been told this morning that a free bus would take us from the port entrance right the way round the huge harbour to E1, where our ferry would be leaving from. And true, the bus did. But at E1, the gate inscribed on the ticket, there was no ferry to Chios, and no-one who really knew about any such ferry. Various bystanders were willing to help, but unable to proffer any hard and fast information. "It will be here in half an hour or so" turned out to be a particularly erroneous prophecy...

We disregarded another piece of advice -- "Ask one of the taxi drivers -- they know everything" -- in favour of phoning Blue Star themselves. Kudos to them for actually having an English-speaking human at the end of the line in the late evening, but our first effort was aborted on the grounds that the ferry that WAS at E1 chose that particular moment to fire up some industrial-scale disco music, while a whole series of passing lorries completed the cacophony. Having finally made contact with someone we could actually hear, we learnt that our ferry would be going from E2. (So why wasn't E2 on our ticket...? The website also seems to demonstrate terminal confusion over these two gates...)

"E1, E2 -- same thing," said another helpful but utterly misguided bystander, who added, for good measure: "Your ferry must be the boat over there" (pointing at a craft that turned out to be moored behind a big "do not enter" barrier...).

Ports are not like airports. Gates are not just a few metres apart. E2 was a substantial distance back the way we'd come on the bus. Nevertheless, it was distance that had to be covered on foot (as the bus by now was mysteriously absent).

At E2, a large crowd was waiting for the ferry to Chios, which had been delayed, and was only just arriving.

So, no harm done. But the contradictory information made for a few anxious moments... The moral of the story: always turn up with plenty of time in hand to sort out such confusions.

Day 21 (16 June)

The journey was much shorter than our Bari-Patras epic -- just eight hours -- and the snorers were much less evident (the main impediment to sleep was a group of old ladies who occasionally woke up, talked about something, and then settled back down again, like a flock of birds).

And once the light had returned, there was nice scenery to watch.




Chios (the name of the island and the main town) is fascinating. Our little flat is in a restored building inside the walls of the old castle. When we arrived, a service was in progress in St George's Church across the road, and the sound of the bells and the priest chanting the liturgy offered a wonderfully atmospheric greeting.




Supermarkets are not open in Greece on a Sunday, so we headed out for breakfast coffee and sandwiches. Castle gates and walls, old Turkish graves -- and that's just on the way to the bakery... There'll be lots to explore.







Again because of the lack of provisioning possibilities, we had a late lunch at Kafenes, one of several eateries on the little square just down the road. Eggplant salad, Greek fava (which is not made from fava beans, but from yellow split peas -- go figure), saganaki (Greek fried cheese, topped with little toasted peppercorns, and served with lemon), home-made meat balls, and Chios beer (a blond for me, and a red for Nigel). All excellent. For the sake of our wallets and our waistlines, we cannot keep eating out. But this last couple of days' dining has been wonderful, and has helped to make up for all those sandwiches...