Greece, Island Hopping 2008, Milos

We arrived at about eleven o’clock in the evening and the hotel owner was there to meet us as he promised. He didn’t seem too pleased that we had cancelled the previous night but I have no idea why because he charged us for it anyway. The port town of Adamas seemed much busier than I had anticipated and in the dark and from the car window I felt a little disappointed but I reminded myself not to make hasty judgments without giving the place a proper chance. On the whole I think it is nicer to arrive somewhere new in daylight because this gives a better perspective to a new place than in the dark. After checking in and approving the room we walked back to the harbour and were lucky to find a place still serving food and we had a basic meal of chicken and pork and a jug of local wine before returning to the hotel for the night.

To lose a work of art is unfortunate but to lose three is careless and Milos is famous for three lost works of art. The statue of the Greek God Asclepius has been take away to the British Museum, Poseidon is in Athens but the most famous of all is the statue of Aphrodite, or the Venus de Milo, which has been taken away to the Louvre in Paris. All over the island archaeologists still search for the missing arms but there remains a lot of debate about just how good the statue of a podgy overweight ancient Greek lady of dubious artistic origin really is and it is unlikely that they will ever be found.

We woke early because we had plans for a very full day and we thought we might just join the search for the missing appendages. There was no time to waste and after a quick cup of tea I walked briskly into the town to hire a vehicle to transport us around. In the morning the town seemed a lot smaller than the night before with only a couple of main streets and down on the harbour front I looked for transport for the day to get around the island.

I found a place and negotiated the hire of a white, sport model, quad bike, which, before being allowed to proceed with the hire I had to undergo a short driving competency test to satisfy the renter that I was safe to go out on the open road. He explained that as a rule English and French people were generally ok, but Italians, who think they know all about scooters and bikes, are not so good and are liable to fall off and injure themselves sometime during the day but the Americans, who know nothing about them at all , are absolutely hopeless and are very liable to crash and cause a multiple pile-up within seconds. I passed the test but I couldn’t help but feel a total hypocrite because I have always told my children for safety reasons not to do anything so rash as ride a scooter or a bike like this when on a holiday but I had total disregard for my own advice and was completely euphoric about driving around like Peter Fonda in Easyrider on my four wheels as I returned to the hotel.

The truth is that someone told me that these things are so dangerous that within two years they will be banned from hire in Greece so I thought that it was important to try them out before they are no longer available. Before we could hit the road we had to change hotels, which was relatively painless and once we had moved to our new accommodation that was big and spacious and we liked a lot we finally hit the saddle and motored away.

The first thing that we had to do was to negotiate our way out of the harbour and this involved a steep climb to the town high above the seafront and this proved quite difficult because it soon became obvious that the quad bike that I had rented was hopelessly underpowered. I t was only 50cc and completely unsuitable for two people, the steering was light because of the weight distribution, handling was a nightmare and it was inevitable than within only a few minutes we had our first near death experience when the thing refused to take a tight hairpin bend with two of us on board and we had a confrontation with the driver of an impatient mineral lorry who was not minded to be very helpful. I was very careful after that because the thing was very difficult to control, it was hard work, essential to keep your wits about you at all time and the slightest road undulation resulted in wobbles and panics all the way to our first stop.

With some relief we stopped at Sarakiniko beach, which is one of the famous picture postcard sites on Milos. The island, like Santorini, is volcanic in origin but there the similarity ends because it is completely different in character and in appearance and here the cliffs are so brilliant white that from a distance they seem to be covered in snow. There are great swirling formations of sea chiselled rocks in the most spectacular and attractive formations. The sea was rough this morning with a stiff north breeze and the wind was whipping up the sea into waves, uncharacteristic of the Mediterranean, and they were crashing with some considerable force over the rocks. Milos is rich in minerals and is the main source of the island’s wealth to the extent that tourism hasn’t always been very important here, and at the back of the beach were an extensive labyrinth of old abandoned mines that penetrated deep into the pumice cliffs where once people mined for sulphur. This was one of the most interesting and spectacular beaches that I have ever seen but there was plenty more to do and see so we continued with our journey to the fishing village of Pollonia.

It was approaching mid day and we walked around the sleepy village and up to the top to the inevitable blue domed church and an uninterrupted view of the nearby island of Kimolos. There were some nice tavernas by the side of the water but it was too early for lunch so we left and returned back along the coast road stopping frequently to admire the colourful rock formations, the pretty beaches and the excavations at the Papafragos rocks all of which were along the route. To be honest I was glad of the frequent stops because I didn’t feel too confident about the quad bike and the way it was behaving with the pair of us, and our luggage, on board.

In the middle of the day we arrived at the main town of Plaka, which overlooks the port of Adamas below and we parked the bike and walked into the little streets of the busy town. First we walked almost to the top and to the Venetian castle but it was hard work and it was getting hot so we called it a day some way short of the summit and returned instead to the shady alleys of the town with its pretty squares and tavernas doing good lunchtime business. Like all island towns it was predominantly white with blue doors, external staircases, kittens and discreet little shops, most of which were closed on account of this being siesta time. There must have been a cruise ship visiting today because there were a lot of Americans who seemed to be walking around in circles and forever ending up back in the same place and getting very confused because they were probably used to the New York grid system. We had a leisurely lunch of salad and moussaka, wine and beer and then we reluctantly moved on.

Next to Plaka was the village of Trypiti that had restored windmills and Christian catacombs that were sadly closed due to excavations and an ancient Greek amphitheatre that we missed because it looked like a long way to walk in the blistering heat of the afternoon. After a couple of Mythos I was much more confident about the quad bike so we left the high level towns and returned again to the beaches on the north of the island and then we had our second near death experience when we stopped for a photo opportunity and I left the bike in reverse and when I started off again almost tipped us backwards into the deep ravine that had provided the backdrop for our dramatic biking pictures that almost proved fatally to be our last.

Our last place to visit was Mandrakia beach and a little fishing community with gaily-painted boat garages cut directly into the rocks. The season was finished now and the village was strangely quiet but I imagine this place would be busy in summer with lots of activity, busy bars and cafés and the smell of fish cooking on the grills at the sides of the streets. There were a lot of these little villages all around this part of the island and before we left to return to Adamas we agreed that this was an island to definitely return to next year.

We rested and recovered from our biking experience and debated whether to use it again to return to Plaka for evening meal, but after we had reflected on the dangerous incidents we decided instead to leave it parked up and stay instead at the harbour. I was pleased about that and immediately opened a bottle of wine, poured a drink and sat in the sunshine to relax the remainder of the afternoon away before walking out for evening meal at an excellent taverna with good home made cooking.

The next morning I refuelled the bike and returned it to the rental shop and after a pastry breakfast in the apartment we packed, paid up, said goodbye and walked to the harbour to catch the eleven o’clock ferry to Sifnos. In the daylight Adamas seemed much smaller than at night and we really liked it. We were disappointed to be leaving so soon because Milos is a really interesting island with so much more to see and do and we had barely scratched the volcanic surface of this lovely island. From the sun deck of the ferry we could see the busy waterfront with its bars and restaurants, shops and shipping agencies and we were sorry to leave when spot on time the ferry slipped its moorings and left the port and the large bay that forms the harbour area. On the way out to sea there were good views of Plaka, the fishing village of Klima sitting below and the quarries and mines that punctuated the coastline all the way until it slipped out of view behind us. The sea was rough and the strong wind made the Greek flag dance wildly at the back of the ferry as we passed the gnarled coastline of Kimolos and made steady progress towards our final destination, Sifnos.

Greece, Island Hopping 2008, Folegandros

Back in 2007 Folegandros had been our favourite island destination and it was inevitable that we would return in 2008 so on Saturday morning we packed our backpacks and prepared to leave Homer’s Inn for the next leg of the journey. At the port I purchased ferry tickets and made enquiries about our next intended journey from Folegandros to Milos and was stunned when I was told that there were no available ferries for a whole week. This news stopped me dead in my tracks I can tell you but we agreed to carry on and wait and see what happened and when the G&A Ferry arrived we climbed to the sun deck and travelled to Folegandros via Sikinos.

We had wanted to stay in the Chora this year but the prices were a bit expensive and I had got into a muddle over the booking so we decided instead to stay at the Hotel Vrahos in the port where we had stayed last year. This was about half the price and as returning guests we were entitled to one of the best rooms and we were delighted with a spacious room and the biggest sun terrace in the entire complex.

We took a walk to the port and selected a taverna for lunch and ordered a hot cheese salad, sardines and roasted peppers to share but the portions were so small that we thought that they must be the complimentary dips and were shocked to discover that this was the main event. Unusually for Greece it was a rip-off of epic proportions, good for the calorie count but at €20 not so good for the budget. I paid grudgingly, certainly left no tip and didn’t go back there again.

In the harbour the European Union funded work that had been in progress last year had been completed but hadn’t seemed to make that much of an improvement and had the sort of finish that I would call the contractors back to put right if it was my own driveway at home. All over the islands there are big blue sign boards announcing these improvement works and they all seem to be about one million euros in value and this made me wonder just how much European tax payers money is being spent in Greece. It turns out that in 2007 Greece received a net benefit of twenty-five billion euros and that is the second biggest subsidy after Poland at sixty-five billion. Greece it seems is doing rather nicely out of EU membership and judging from the standard of the finished work I for one am dubious that it is being spent wisely. Eighteen out of twenty-seven EU countries make a profit out of membership and the UK of course isn’t one of them because after Germany at eighty-six billion euros the UK makes a whopping contribution of fifty-seven billion. The others that make a loss on membership are France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Finland and this is a surprise, Cyprus.

That evening we took the bus up to the Chora for evening meal and made it in time for the sunset that we watched from the terrace of the hotel we originally wanted to stay at and we were pleased that we weren’t because it wasn’t quite as spectacular as we remembered it. After the sunset we wandered through the tiny streets and made our way to last years favourite restaurant that still had the same menu and we were glad about that because we really liked it. Before going back to the hotel I checked the ferry timetables but there was still no information and I started to worry just a little bit more.

Back at the hotel the breeze had dropped and it was a clear night as we sat on the terrace and enjoyed the warm clear night. The sky was like black velvet and we could track satellites passing by and even spotted a shooting star. For a while we contemplated sleeping under the stars and tried settling down in the loungers but it really wasn’t all that comfortable and we abandoned that crazy idea and just went to bed instead.

We woke early to the most stunning sunrise that was pouring like liquid amber through the open shutters and into the room. The sun was only a few minutes old and was a ball of white light with a yellow halo rising through a fiery sky that was sizzling with anticipation for the new day. A bright yellow slash of solar reflection sliced through the surface of water and the whole bay was so intensely bronze that it was as though the sky had ignited and poured its flames into the sea. Slowly the orange sky retreated and was replaced by a reassuring blue and the sea turned from umber through purple to its more natural marine blue and everything was prepared and ready for another perfect day.

Next morning we went early to the Chora and when the bus arrived in the port it immediately turned round and struggled back up the hill to the top. In the daylight there was a good view over most of the island and it was revealed as dusty, barren and devoid of vegetation with a desolate landscape that had been beaten relentlessly into total submission by the scorching summer sun. After breakfast at a little café we went into the town where men were waiting for the newspapers to arrive, local people were sitting in groups chatting and in the back streets they were doing their chores and preparing Sunday lunch. This was clearly a tidying the garden sort of day! The crooked alleys took us around in circles past kittens playing in a garden and stone walls that looked as though they had been put together after a heavy drinking session and everywhere there were vivid red geraniums growing in miscellaneous containers of various sizes and descriptions.

We returned to the ferry booking office because I was getting anxious again but there was no change and my enquiries were met with a dismissive shrug of the shoulders and a maybe there would be some better news tomorrow. This all seemed perfectly normal to the girl on the information desk and she didn’t seem to care at all and it seemed that we might be stuck on Folegandros for the rest of our lives. But never mind, we had a good room with a nice terrace and we could stay there as long as we liked, or at least until the hotel closed down for winter!

I wasn’t sure what we would live on however because the little shops seemed to be dangerously short on supplies and this being Sunday the bakeries ran out of bread well before lunch time. We acquired a few provisions and had a makeshift self-prepared lunch on the terrace and then we had a full afternoon of doing absolutely nothing but we did see three ferries arrive and leave and this made me more optimistic, but the fact that loads of people were leaving the island made me wonder if these were the last boats of the season and I worried again.

Later we went back to the Chora on the bus in a yo-yo sort of routine that we had established and even though I knew that it was pointless I checked the ferry schedules once again. Nothing! With so many people having left the island this afternoon the town was much quieter tonight but was full of interesting people. There were lots of aging beardy hippies with ponytails, wearing white linen and flip-flops, carrying sketchpads and all that was missing was the joss sticks and the candles, the flowers and the guitars.

So Monday presented an unexpected third full day on Folegandros and I was beginning to come to terms with our Robinson Crusoe existence. I worried even more when the bus timetable was slashed as well but in the morning we went back to the Chora for another attempt at getting away. The whole place was much quieter this morning as clearly most people had managed to escape, bars were empty, shops were closed and the streets were deserted. At the ferry booking office lots of other people were in the same situation, travel plans but no ferries so no way to fulfil them. An American couple couldn’t get to Ios in time to catch a connecting boat to Piraeus and their flight home and everyone seemed bewildered and confused except for the totally ambivalent staff behind the desk. And even when there is a boat it is full up and one lady who needed to get to Crete was unlucky because even though there was a boat there was no room on board and that must be even more annoying than no boats at all.

We were supposed to go to Milos today but that seemed out of the question so we consulted and agreed to invoke alternative plans and book a ferry to Santorini and at least get onto the main ferry lines so that we could be sure to get to Piraeus and get back home. Although I didn’t really want to go back to Santorini I did at least feel a little more relaxed now that there was an exit plan from Folegandros. I was not impressed, this lack of ferry information was the equivalent of Ryanair changing all of its schedules and not informing anyone (ok, that’s a very bad example, but you know what I mean!)

Later in the day there was a surprise and suddenly the boat to Milos was running after all so we cancelled the Santorini tickets, but lost 50% of the fare price, and rescheduled back to our original destination even though this was one day later than planned. I t was a warm evening and after we had taken the bus back to the port there was a nice walk along the sea shore, a long climb up the steps back to the room and a glass of wine or two watching the sleepy harbour resting below.

So due to unreliable ferry schedules we had an unexpected fourth day on Folegandros but the hotel let us stay all day until departure time and we had self prepared meals on the balcony and a swim in the sea and a lot of waiting until the late afternoon ferry. We were ready to leave Folegandros after four days because this was the second visit in two years and we had seen just about everything there is to see, the ferry was about an hour late and it arrived after dark and then it seemed to take an age to get to get to Milos…

Ivan Petcher

Ivan Petcher
b. 27th March 1932 d. 28th October 2003

When I took possession of some personal possessions of my Dad I was intrigued to find details of a life that I had never known or appreciated. This really shouldn’t have come as a great surprise because there are many dimensions to a life but the only one that I was fully familiar with was in his role as my father. In what many would describe as an ordinary life this was a task that he excelled at I have to say!

But beyond the responsibility of being a parent I wonder what else he was like. I have been looking at his old employment records and these have revealed some interesting and important clues.

He was educated at Wellingborough Grammar School in Northamptonshire (Sir David Frost is a famous old boy) during the years of the Second World War and I can only imagine that this must have been a huge distraction for the country with a corresponding lack of attention paid to educational standards. This must have been good fun if you were a pupil then but it didn’t lead to a fistful of ‘o’ levels to help you set out in life. The school in line with the custom of the time, was selective, which meant that an entrance examination had to be passed to get a place. Until 1945 the school charged fees for attendance but following R. A. Butler's great Education Act of 1944, all places became free of charge. The eleven plus exam and secondary education obligations were also introduced in the Education Act. According to school records, in summer 1947 Dad was in the fifth form remove (the school tried at this time to push the brightest boys for School Certificate in four years, Dad was clearly not in the bright boys form and took the usual five years). This extra time didn't help a great deal because in summer 1948 he was in 5B (unexamined fifth form class) and sadly he didn't manage to get the School Certificate. The School Certificate was not like GCE but was a group certificate and you had to do well in five subjects, miss on one and tough, you got nothing, this is what must have happened to Dad because no school certificate is mentioned when he left in the Autumn of that year. The following term, he left to join his father's business, a grocery store at 110 Higham Road, Rushden.

After Wellingborough Grammar School his own CV tells us that he did more studying at the South East London College of Commerce and the Leicester College of Art and Technology. None of these educational establishments exist any longer and although there is an interesting old boys web site for the Wellingborough Grammar School I can find nothing about the other two.

His first real job was as a Film Librarian working at Jessops in Leicester and then in June 1950 when he was eighteen years old he started his National Service in the Royal Air Force at the Air Ministry in London. This sounds awfully exciting but I suspect that it probably wasn’t. From 1949, every healthy man between the ages of 18 and 26 was expected to serve in the armed forces for a minimum period of eighteen months. Men were exempt from National Service if they worked in three 'essential services', which were coal mining, farming and the merchant navy, so not film librarians then! I’d like to tell youthat he was a fighter pilot or a commando or something thrilling but the plain fact is that he worked at the Air Ministry in London in the office as a clerk/typist whose job was ‘the compilation and maintenance of officers’ and airmens’ records and documents’. I can only imagine that this was exceedingly dull!

He must have enjoyed it however because he completed over two years and his discharge paper of 13th July 1952 says that his conduct was exceptional and his ability was very good, he was described as ‘smart’ on a scale of ‘very smart’, ‘smart’ or ‘untidy’ and he was summed up as ‘a very reliable and efficient clerk who has done good work and helped in the tuition of others’. I can understand that because he was always the most helpful person with lots of patience when dealing with other people, sadly I didn’t inherit that characteristic.

The records now reveal that he was doing a bit of moonlighting because if he was discharged on 13th July 1952 it is interesting that he started work with Lewisham Borough Council in South London two weeks earlier on 1st July 1952 as a general clerk. I think Mum’s Aunty Glad got him the job because she worked in the staff canteen and was good terms with some of the senior staff (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and she put a good word in for him! He stayed there for six months and when he left the Town Clerk, Alan Milner Smith, wrote of him “I found him to be an intelligent boy…and a thoroughly satisfactory officer”, I wonder how well he knew Aunty Glad.

He left Lewisham and a week before his twenty first birthday and took up a new appointment at Leicestershire County Council as a general clerk in the Common Services Section of the Education Department where he stayed until May 1957. In that time he got married, I was born, and he bought his first two houses. I think he must have been a sociable chap because he was enthusiastic in running the County Offices football and cricket teams and he kept meticulous records of games and performances from 1953 until 1956. From my own experience I know that he was a well liked man and the Supplies Officer F E Collis wrote in a reference in March 1957 “ he is very popular with the staff and an enthusiastic member of the office football team” he also said, in an old fashioned sort of way, “I have found Mr Petcher’s work perfectly satisfactory and he brings to it an enthusiasm which is all too often lacking in junior officers today”. I imagine F E Collis was about a hundred years old and remembered what administration was like in the days of Dickens and the Raj!

In May 1957 he left Leicestershire County Council and took a job at Hinckley Urban District Council as a Land Charges and General Clerk. He bought his third house, Lindsay, my sister, was born in October and he cycled to work and back every day, a distance of about ten miles, later he got a moped but I seem to recall that it wasn’t especially reliable and sometimes he had to push it all the way home so he went back to the push bike. This wasn’t sustainable of course so in 1959 they sold up and we sensibly moved to Hinckley to be close to his work. That didn’t last long either and he left Hinckley on 31st December 1960 and moved to Rugby Rural District Council and that’s how we came to move to Hillmorton. I especially like his reference from F J Warren the Deputy Clerk of the Council who described my dad as “a useful, promising and reliable member of staff… I cannot speak too highly of his integrity and desire to give satisfaction” and he added in a quaint sort of way that you would never find today “he is of pleasing appearance and courteous to all with whom he comes in contact”.

This was Ivan Petcher as decribed by his contemporary work colleagues: a thoroughly nice man who I remember always and especially today.

Greece, Island hopping 2008, Santorini

I have been to Santorini three times before , in 2002, 2004 and in 2006 and although I rather like it I have to say that it is no longer my favourite. The trouble with Santorini is that once you have been elsewhere it simply becomes less impressive. Everyone says ‘Oh, you are going to Greece, you must go to Santorini!’ but generally these are tourists who haven’t been to Amorgos, Sikinos or Folegandros and these islands, let me tell you, are many times better. Santorini is an airport island so is popular with people in football shirts and Lycra who prefer package holidays and know no better but there are many islands that easily eclipse Santorini despite its stunning caldera and unique scenery.

We travelled to Santorini by highspeed ferry, which is more expensive than a regular boat but gets where it is going twice as quickly. I prefer the alternative but this wasn’t so bad and at least it was possible to go out on deck. The approach to Santorini is truly spectacular and once the ferry has slipped through the ring of islands and into the blue caldera the hilltop towns of first Oia and then Thira come into view. Some say that this is the exact spot of the mythical ocean city of Atlantis and I like to think that somewhere down there in the inky blackness is Troy Tempest in his submarine Stingray searching for the elusive and mysterious Marina.

Across the water from Thira was a black island with rocks distorted in twisted agony just as the volcano left them when it erupted and spilled into the water in the throes of a difficult birth. The eruption that created the caldera was among the largest volcanic explosions in the history of the planet that measured six on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, which may not sound that big but is just about as huge as you can get. So this would have been a fairly big bang and when it went off it would be sensible to be standing well back because it ejected an estimated sixty cubic kilometres of material as it blew the unfortunate island apart and destroyed the Minoan civilization both here and on the nearby island of Crete. To get a sense of perspective try to imagine the county of Essex rising sixty kilometres into the air into the earth’s mesosphere (a terrible thought I agree) and you can get a sense of just how much material that is.

Santorini is an island of contrasts and it is a shame that the ferry doesn’t dock at Thira but carries on to a harbour a few kilometres south, which is a mass of concrete, souvenir shops and taxi ranks and does present the arriving visitor with the most pleasing aspect of the island. We found the bus for Thira and it left quite quickly up a long snaking road that led up to the top of the cliffs and the road to the island capital. It was a short trip through some scruffy parts of the island and once there it deposited us in the bus station at the back of the city. Surrounded by tourist shops selling cheap souvenirs this may not be the best part of Thira but it doesn’t take long to get there and in only five minutes we were at the picture postcard front of the town looking over the caldera. Everywhere there were impossibly bright whitewashed buildings, giddy steps raking down to the sea and blue domed churches. Looking over Thira reminded me of the joy as a child of opening a brand new box of watercolour paints with all the attractive pastel shades that reveal themselves when the lid is opened for the very first time.

After a drink and a baklava in an expensive café with a great view we walked along the entire length of the cliff top admiring the sea on one side and the little buildings clinging to the rocks on the other. Another problem with Thira however is that because it is so popular it can be really overcrowded and busy. Down in the bay there were six cruise ships all shuttling their guests to the town and filling the place to overflowing. The average cruise ship has about twelve hundred passengers so that is about seven thousand cruisers joining all of the regular holidaymakers and day trippers like us and easily outnumbering the indigenous population of twelve thousand and making the place fit to burst.

As the little shuttle boats kept bringing people ashore the crowds were at the peak of their numbers and the shops and cafés were all full to the brim so this seemed a good time to leave Thira and get the bus to the nearby town of Oia at the very north of the island. The ride provided more contrast as the road followed a road with a high mountain to the left and a flat fertile plain many metres below. The road clings to the top of the mountain and provides splendid views but you really have to hope that the bus has had its brakes regularly maintained!

Oia is even more picturesque than Thira but fortunately not nearly so crowded and we walked along the top of the cliff, along narrow roads and down twisting footpaths, around churches, windmills and a castle and it was so much more leisurely and enjoyable than the capital. The town has stricter rules on development and commerce and has managed to successfully protect itself from the excesses of tourism. It was now extremely hot, there was no sign of the breeze that Vagellis had promised and as the sun blazed and the rays bounced around the whitewashed streets and houses it made us think of mythos and shade so we found a taverna in a back street and enjoyed a meal at about half of the prices in Thira.



Oia is famous for its sunsets and about an hour before the appointed time coaches, buses and cars flood into the little town and bring hundreds of people in to see the spectacle. They take up position all along the little streets and the place becomes overcrowded and far too busy so I was glad that we were going in the opposite direction and back to Thira which by now was much quieter as all of the cruise ships had started to leave. Quite by chance we had timed our visit to perfection and here is my visiting Santorini tip; go first to Oia because while Thira boils over with visitors during the day it is empty in Oia and when this town starts to fill up for the sunset go back to Thira which calms down nicely at about this time when the cruisers all leave. You can see the sunset in Thira just as well as Oia and let’s be honest, it is exactly the same sunset anyway!

We had dinner on a roof top terrace with a good view of the caldera, the town and the mule trains with their grumpy drovers transporting tourists back and forth down a precariously dangerous hairpin track consisting of five hundred and eighty numbered steps to the harbour below and back to their ships. The bar had a good view over the harbour below and we watched the cruise ships taking people away to exciting new destinations. Preparing to leave was an Easycruise ship and I wondered what that must be like? I have never been tempted by cruising I have to say but if I was going to be I am sure that I would like an experience like sailing on the Titanic or something, but obviously without the iceberg bit! Taking a two or three hour flight and suffering basic levels of service and extreme discomfort on an aeroplane is one thing but I am not sure that I would really want to sign up to a week or so of the same sort of treatment on a ship. The concept is a good one I suppose, dirt cheap and no frills but if I was going to cruise then I think I might like just a little bit more than a shoebox for a bedroom and a MacDonald’s meal plan. The advertising promotion is more than enough to put me off: ‘Cheap cruise line doesn't mean totally Spartan: each cabin has air conditioning, comfy beds and a washbasin, toilet, shower, towels and soap. You'll start your trip with a clean cabin; any other housekeeping must be paid for separately. Meals and beverages, including alcohol, are not included but may be purchased onboard.’ To be fair they do also point out that this is probably not going to appeal to dinner jacket and tiara cruisers and call me a snob if you like, but I’m going to give that a miss!

We watched the electric red sunset but had to leave in a bit of a rush to get back to the bus station and take our transport back to the port. Not quite as elegant a departure as the cruisers I have to confess but it was efficient and we returned to the harbour in good time for our return highspeed ferry back to Ios. A fourth visit to Santorin will probably be my last for a while so I watched it slip away behind the ferry as we left with no urgent plans to return. On board the ferry there was an embarrasing little mix-up over seat allocations because I didn’t understand the numbering arrangements and thought someone was in our seats so took somebody elses instead and when challenged refused to move but was then ejected by a cabin steward who impatiently pointed out that I was stupid and had got it all wrong. She was right and I really did feel stupid all the way back to Ios.

Greek Tavernas

I like Greece and I like Greek tavernas, they are almost always friendly inviting places and the food is inexpensive and good value and it rarely disappoints. I like the carefree ambiance and the complete lack of formality, outside wooden tables and rattan chairs, check tablecloths, extensive menus and unhurried waiters. I like the cheap paper table covers so you can spill food and drink without worrying about the laundry bill and I especially like those with live bouzouki players running through the familiar catalogue of traditional Greek music and always starting and finishing with the obligatory ‘Zorba’.

Greece has a culinary tradition dating back thousands of years and over the centuries and Greek cuisine has evolved and absorbed numerous influences. Greek food is best kept simple because too much refinement is generally considered to be against the spirit of Greek cuisine and typical dishes include souvlaki, fried meatballs, squash balls, octopus, shrimp, squid, feta cheese, olives, stuffed vine leaves, tzatziki eggplant dip, small sausages and giant beans. For the evening meal, Greek tavernas serve such specialties as moussaka made from lamb, eggplant and béchamel sauce, kebabs, pastitsio, a speciality of Corfu, that consists of lamb or goat meat with macaroni and tomatoes, stifado, braised beef with onions and paidakia, which is a delicious grilled lamb or goat chops. My personal favourite is Kleftiko, which is a knuckle of lamb, cooked slowly and served with vegetables and rice. In Greek, kleftiko means stolen meat and according to legend, this dish would be made with a lamb stolen from a flock as it grazed on a hillside. The thief would cook the meat over many hours in a hole in the ground, sealed with mud so that no steam could escape to give him away. Nowadays, to recreate this, the lamb is sealed inside a paper package, which keeps the meat moist and traps its fragrant juices.

I like the way that when you arrive and select a table you get invited into the kitchen to meet the chef, to carry out an inspection and to satisfy yourself about hygiene standards and then get to choose the food. Another nice thing about Greek tavernas is the hospitable practice of giving diners a free glass of ouzo after the meal, I think that is really nice, In 2006 when I was island hopping with Sally and Charlotte this was especially good for me because they didn’t like it very much so I got all three shots!

On Ios there is little beach taverna, which serves possibly the best calamari in the whole of the Mediterranean. The little place is delightful with a shaded terrace that overlooks the beach and the little bay and it is run by an old woman who probably should have retired years ago and it has a limited but interesting menu and with the sort of prices that I really like. Going to the beach and the taverna is part of the Ios routine and everyday I can happily sit at the same table and have the same delicious calamari and Greek salad.

Also on Ios in the Chora at the very top of the town next to a row of redundant windmills is a taverna called ‘The Mills’ with tables that sprawl untidily across the pavement and with table cloths flapping vigorously in a constant stiff wind that brings a slight chill to the evening air, so much so that local families who dine at the restaurant slip on warm woollen jumpers as a precaution. This is completely unnecessary of course because the wind is simply refreshing and by no means cold enough for additional layers of clothing. The nice thing about the Chora is that although it is a place for tourists it is also a real place where people live as well and go out together for dinner. While parents and grandparents enjoy their food and wine the children, in their best clothes, play in a dried up flowerbed of red earth, chase the stray cats and generally have a very good time.

My favourite Greek taverna, however, without a shadow of a doubt was the ‘Boss Bar’ on the island of Santorini in 2004. It was an untidy little place right on the beach at Perissa and on a fortnights holiday we dined there most evenings and when we felt obliged to try somewhere different, just for a change, we almost always wished that we hadn’t and went back there later for a final drink. The ‘Boss Bar’ really had been an excellent place, the staff were attentive and friendly, the food was good, the beer was cold and the prices were reasonable. There was always complimentary ouzo to finish the evening (except when there was complimentary melon which quite frankly wasn’t so good) but the place had my fullest recommendation. On my fiftieth birthday a very substantial meal for nine cost only €85, I left a hundred, the owner refused such a generous tip, I insisted, and he completed our meal with at least €25 worth of complimentary sweets and drinks.

I returned to Santorini in 2006 but was devastated to find that it had gone, probably because the owner had been far too generous with the complimentary ouzo.

Flags

There are forty-six countries in Europe, including Kosovo, and I have only so far been to twenty-three so I am half way towards my objective of visiting them all. Some of the old Soviet republics have tried to claim European status but I haven’t included them here. The definition of a sovereign state is set out in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention of 1933, according to which, a sovereign state should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population, (b) a defined territory, (c) a government, and (d) a capacity to enter into relations with the other states. So that excludes places like Scotland, which is technically part of the United Kingdom, and Wales, which is only a Principality, but it does include the tiny independent states of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican State, none of which would appear on paper to be a sustainable proposition. Actually Wales is nearly fifty thousand times bigger than the Vatican state and one thousand five hundred times bigger than Lichtenstein, but both of these little countries are considerably richer!

The blue and white flag of Greece is called ‘Galanolefci’, which you may be interested to know, means ‘blue and white’. Originally it was blue with a white diagonal cross but the cross has now been moved to the upper left corner, and this cross is symbolic of the Christian faith. Being a seafaring nation, the blue of the flag represents the colour of the sea and is also considered to be a lucky colour, which according to superstition will ward off evil spirits. White is the colour of freedom, which is something that is very important to the Greeks after years of enslavement under foreign domination. The nine stripes of the flag each symbolise a syllable in the Greek motto of freedom: E-LEY-THE-RI-A-I-THA-NA-TOS, which translates literally into ‘Freedom or Death’.

Here are the flags of the countries in Europe that I have visited so far:

Greece, Island hopping 2008, Ios

The only down side to the room in Amorgos was that we had to share the balcony with the occupants of the room next door and this turned out to be a young couple with a pleasant French man but a really pretentious and know it all Dutch girl who we took a dislike to. This made Kim a bit grumpy and when in the early hours there was music being played from another balcony close by she confronted another young couple who were smooching the last of the night away with a firm instruction to turn it off. This was all a bit unnecessary because it was about five o’clock and whilst I agreed that this was rather thoughtless of them it hardly mattered because we had to catch the six o’clock ferry anyway.

It left on time and slipped out of Katapola in the darkness and made way for a first stop at nearby Koufonisia where the arrival was accompanied by the rising of the sun coming up quickly behind us as we headed west. It was a very windy morning and the boat lurched from here first to the island of Schoinoussa and then to Irakleia, which was frustratingly close to Ios (our next destination) but then swung north and made for Naxos where we arrived at about nine o’clock and just in time for breakfast.

We spent six hours on Naxos before returning to the port to catch the Anek Lines ferry to Ios. Because of the weather the boat was twenty minutes late arriving and then it took the captain another thirty minutes to park it as he struggled with the strong cross wind that made docking difficult. I was about to scratch the Anek Lines off of my ferry list for the future but once we were on board it was nice sitting on the top deck with a can of mythos and I quickly forgot all about it as we settled down for the hour and a half crossing to our next island.

After Amorgos, which had been surprisingly green and fertile, Ios looked dry, brown and arid as we approached a landscape parched and baked by the relentless summer sun it looked uninspiring but we knew why we were coming back here and from the boat we caught site of our favourite beach and rustic taverna, the cliff-top walk and then, once we had docked Vagellis from Homer’s Inn who greeted us with genuine friendship. It is an interesting fact that Vagellis is obsessed with the weather and on the short drive to the hotel he gave us a forecast for the next few days. I understand why we in the United Kingdom are fixated with meteorological conversations but I don’t really expect it in Greece but he explained in great detail about wind directions and what difference that was likely to make to daily conditions. “Tomorrow will be sunny with a little breeze”, he explained, “and the next two days also, but after that I am not sure”. To myself I presumed a wild guess that this would also be sunny with a little breeze because generally in Greece I find the weather to be very, very reliable!

We had chosen to return to Ios for a five day stretch mid holiday for a relatively long period of rest and we wasted no time in getting into the familiar routine that we had established twelve months before. A visit to the pool (newly tiled), a swim, a glass of wine or two and then later a walk to the top of the Chora through the busy streets and to our favourite restaurant at the very top, the Mills, where there was grilled meat for main course and complimentary ouzo to finish the evening, and I do like tavernas with complimentary ouzo!

This year we really settled into our routine right from the start. Like first thing next morning. I always wake early when I am on holiday because the first thing I always have to do is check the weather; this is a huge responsibility and although it doesn’t take a great deal of preparation I can’t possibly hang around in bed too long. Weather checking in Greece is usually quite straightforward however because the blue sky and sun is generally very dependable and this morning there was nothing especially different to report.

Vagellis and his wife Antonia were up early as well and preparing the breakfast room when I went for a tray of tea and he immediately gave me a weather update which when analysed meant that today would be similar to yesterday and would be the same tomorrow as well.

After breakfast we walked down to the harbour and headed south towards our favourite beach. The road out of the village runs past the business end of the harbour and there were some brightly painted boats that had just landed their overnight catch and were negotiating sales with local people and restaurant owners in a babble of animated activity. It looked like a good nights work and the trading was brisk. The fish looked interesting and on closer examination of the produce it soon becomes clear why we have to put up with stock shortages whilst the most of the rest of Europe have such an abundance of choice, we are just far too fussy about what we will eat and our preference for fish is restricted to two or three species that we have fished into crisis and near extinction whilst people like the Greeks will eat a much greater variety of sea food. We like to buy our fish in little blue polystyrene trays without heads, tails or entrails and ready for the frying pan but here the trays were brimming with fish so fresh that it was still alive and flapping about and winking at the prospective purchasers who were examining it. The colours were fantastic, sparkling silver, gleaming green and radiant red and I looked forward to being reacquainted with one later on my dinner plate.

On the cliff top approach Valmos beach doesn’t look much it has to be said, just a small quiet bay with an untidy shingle beach and a sea bed littered with rocks that makes access to the sea quite difficult but there is a little beach taverna which serves possibly the best calamari in the whole of the Mediterranean. The little place is delightful with a shaded terrace that overlooks the beach and the little bay and it is run by an old woman who probably should have retired years ago and has a limited but interesting menu and with the sort of prices that I really like. Going to the beach and the taverna is part of the Ios routine and everyday we did the same things as the day before, walked along the same path, went for a swim, went to the taverna and sat at the same table and had the same delicious calamari and afterwards we walked back, picked up some drinks from the supermarket (which this year had been inappropriately modernised and spoilt for ever in my opinion) and went back to the pool for the afternoon.

The walk to Valmos is interesting because of the derelict terraces and dry stone walls that separate the hillside into individual plots of land. Ios is just one large inhospitable rock but as recently as only fifty years ago people here were scraping away at the thin soil and the stones to try and make a living or to feed the family by growing fruit and vegetables. There is very little useful land on Ios so this must have been almost unimaginatively difficult. Then in the 1960s visitors started to arrive and the enterprising islanders realised that there was more money to be made renting out the back room and it was also a lot easier than a twelve-hour day toiling under a hot sun. The terraces are all abandoned now to thistles and what other few plants can survive in a hostile environment and they are unlikely ever to be cultivated again.

As part of the routine at the end of every day we would go to the Chora in time to see the sunset over Sikinos to the west just in case it was any different from the night before. This involved a strenuous climb to the very top of the town and past a succession of small white churches that got smaller and smaller the closer to the top we climbed. Later, being creatures of habit, we visited the same taverna over and over because once we have found somewhere that we like I have to confess that we are reluctant to go anywhere else. On the second night we had a meal of red snapper and when it arrived on the plate I was certain that I recognized it from the catch of fresh fish in the harbour that morning and I am sure that it winked at me as I prepared to eat it.

Homer’s is a charming hotel and named (not after Homer Simpson, as I am sure many of the young guests may have thought) but after the author of the famous epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey and whose burial tomb is allegedly to be found in the north of the island. This is something else that I like about Greece. Very democratically, as you might expect, each of the islands seems to have an association with a god or a famous person, Aphrodite in Crete, Zeus in Naxos, Hippocrates in Kos and so on and this brings the visitors in. I like the way that in a sort of cartel sort of cooperation they have carefully shared them all out between themselves so that each one gets at least one deity or person of significant importance. We didn’t visit Homer’s tomb by the way because quite frankly I was a bit sceptical about its authenticity.

To add to the routine, Homer’s is popular with a lot of guests for repeat visits and on the first week in September there is a reunion of friends who return year after year. This was only our second year but already we were integrated as part of the Homer’s community and I am reasonably certain that we will be returning again. When we left at the end of our five days Vagellis presented us with a tea mug each, which represented our acceptance as Homer’s special guests. How nice was that?

On our final evening we did the same things but visited the harbour to double check the ferry times and we watched as the wind continued to bring in waves that tossed the little boats about on the water. It is around about this time of year that the weather begins to change in the Greek islands and instead of winds from the south bringing hot dry winds from the north of Africa they start to turn around and blow more unsettled and fresher weather from the north. I know all of this of course because Vagellis told me and he is a weather expert.

We enjoyed the routine of Ios because life is great when all you have to worry about is how well your suntan is coming along, when next to apply sunscreen lotion and how long must you wait for the next Mythos and that’s what we did in Ios. Except for the day that we went to Santorini…

Greece, Island hopping 2008, Amorgos

One of the reasons for going to Amorgos was that for Christmas last year Sally bought me a book about the top islands in the world to visit and Amorgos was one of them. We arrived at the port of Katapola in late afternoon, left the ferry and looked for our accommodation. Although there were a number of room owners to greet the boat ours wasn’t there so, feeling adventurous, we tried to find the place by ourselves. This was about 50% successful because we found the rooms but there was no obvious reception. Back at the harbour another room owner stepped in to help and telephoned the contact number for our hotel. That is one of the really nice things about Greece, everyone is so helpful, and even though we weren’t staying with them they were all prepared to provide assistance and one man even followed us on his scooter for some distance just to make sure we were all right.

As we waited for the owner to arrive to collect us we spotted the Express Skopelitis at berth in the harbour and we were indeed pleased that we hadn’t made the journey on the choppy sea in what looked to be a very, very small boat.

What a fabulous Amorgos turned out to be and we were immediately glad that we had chosen to come here. It was a place of contrasts, there were expensive modern yachts in the harbour and people with plenty of money but the town was completely unspoilt with a couple of old fashioned mini-markets, a shop with products from Amorgos and a good selection of tavernas all along the harbour front.

We had a good room that was small but reminiscent of Sikinos the previous year and the rooms had a roof terrace with a good view of the harbour, the boats and other peoples washing. It was a lovely room with a generous balcony and a good view over the tree filled garden. The place had blue stairs and terraces and decorations of seashells and sticks. After we had settled in and spent some time on the roof terrace we walked to the back of the horseshoe shaped bay and watched the sunset as the evening swept in and turned our thoughts to dining arrangements.

There was a lot of choice but we choose really well and at the Corner Taverna (it was on a corner obviously) we enjoyed a tasty meal of local lamb and as we finished our jug of wine we made a decision to stay here for an extra night and immediately made the necessary arrangements. The place was tranquil, peaceful and perfect and at this precise time might possibly have been the most wonderful place on earth and we looked forward to our three days of perfection because apart from concrete, mobile phones and air conditioning this place probably hasn’t changed a great deal in a thousand years.

I especially liked the mini-market that had a good selection of odd shaped fruits. Although ugly they looked interesting but none of them would have made it through fruit police quality control at Sainsbury’s because supermarkets at home have imposed upon us a requirement that all fruit must look as though it has been artificially manufactured rather than grown naturally in the fields and everything has to look the same and conform to a corporate code of shape, size and colour. Fruit and vegetables weren’t meant to be like this, and anyone who doubts that should go to Europe and see how they do it. Conformity is so boring and it is a great shame but it no longer is it possible to open a bag of carrots and be amused to find one that looks like a bent willy or discover a tomato that looks like a fat ladies bottom. We cannot laugh at our vegetables any more and that is a shame. And just to make matters worse, British supermarket fruit and vegetables taste bland and disappointing compared with their misshapen European counterparts.

The next morning after breakfast had a harbour side café we walked to the coach station for the scheduled ten o’clock bus across to the other side of the island to the Byzantine Monastery of the Virgin Mary Chozoviotissa, but the driver was working to Greek time and the confused crowd that began to build up all had to wait until a little after ten-thirty when he finally arrived for work. There was an old lady waiting for the bus who was clearly homeless because she was wearing her entire wardrobe, was carrying a couple of plastic carrier bags with all of her possessions and also explained to us (in Greek, which made it difficult) that she had spent the previous night sleeping on the beach. It was about a half an hour journey across the island and then another half an hour slog on foot up a rocky path on a very sharp incline to reach the entrance of the monastery. Once there it became immediately obvious that we were going to have some difficulty visiting the interior because we were deemed to be inappropriately dressed. We had shorts on and apparently Monks don’t like shorts. They don’t mind short dresses, denims or cropped trousers but they don’t like shorts. We attempted deception but that didn’t fool them so after a humiliating rejection we had to make our way all the way back down. I was a bit cross about this I was sure that God wouldn’t turn people away like that and was reminded of the story of ‘suffer the little children’ and was left wondering what makes monks so picky? So we left not knowing if we had missed anything special (I suspect not) and made the way back to the bus stop for the return journey.

There was a long wait so instead of waiting in the bus shelter we decided to walk along the road to the beach at Aggi Anna where the bus turns around to go back to the port. Based on the earlier delays to the schedule I calculated that we had plenty of time to achieve this and we set off down the twisty road. To our horror we were only about three quarters of the way to the bottom when the bus appeared, bang on time, and we had to get a bit of a wiggle on to make the connection. Actually we had to do a bit more than just hurry up and the last two hundred metres turned into a full sprint under the full midday sun.

On the way back we stopped off at the Chora, which was a really good decision. From the outside it didn’t look especially promising but once inside the walls of the town it was a different matter altogether. The town turns in itself in an introspective sort of way and inside there were narrow shady streets and lots of traditional cafés and tavernas. It was a lazy place where time goes by slowly and no one is in a particular hurry about anything. If this was Naxos or Ios the Chora would have been teeming with shops and fast food places but this was a local town for local people and completely unspoilt by the retinue of tourist shops that can be found on more popular islands.

We explored the streets and climbed to the very top to the redundant windmills that overlook the town and the Venetian castle that is built on top of a rocky outcrop that soars above it and its mass of dazzling white buildings. Descending through the mazy streets and alleys there was time for a beer with tasty canapés where we agreed to come back the following day before getting the bus back to Katapola and an excellent lunch at the Corner Taverna.

In the afternoon we took a walk out of town along a track surrounded by vines with grapes fresh for picking and where local men rode along on mules as their preferred form of transport. On the way back we were turned away from another Orthodox church (because we were still wearing shorts) so we gave up on sightseeing, purchased some local wine from the Katapola mini-market and spent the rest of the day on the sun terrace. In the evening we walked along the south side of the harbour chasing the sunset and later we chose an alternative taverna and regretted it even though we had another good meal to end the day.

The next day we woke early and after breakfast took the bus all the way to Aggi Anna and spent a relaxing morning on a lovely beach with crystal clear water and excellent snorkelling. There were a lot of French people on Amorgos because this beach was one of the locations for the film ‘Le Grande Bleu’ which they all raved about but which turns out to be one of those hard to understand surrealist French non-event movies that they are so good at.

After a couple of hours we were ready for a second visit to the Chora where this time we planned to have lunch. We ambled through the corkscrew streets returning several times to exactly the same place passing by several churches, the castle, blue doors, blue sky, shady vines and friendly cafés and I knew that this was my kind of town. In and around the tavernas there were lazy cats, which in between trying to look cute for diners with leftovers were concentrating on looking for a shady spot and simply snoozing the day away.

Back in Katapola there was a great deal of activity this afternoon because the holiday season for Greek people ends promptly at the end of August and as this was the last Saturday of the month there was a mad scramble of vehicles queueing all the way down to the harbour and competing with hundreds of chattering foot passengers to get a big Blue Star ferry back to the mainland. The little harbour was in complete chaos and I wondered where all of these people might be coming from. It turns out that Amorgos is one of their favourites and it is in fact so brilliant that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Greeks would like to keep this place to themselves for as long as they possibly can.

On the final day on Amorgos we took a long walk around the north side of the harbour past blue doors and blue domed churches and across pleasant secluded beaches and finally arrived at a hard to reach bay where normal access is by boat from the harbour but our route was over the cliffs that required the sure-footedness of a mountain goat because one false move and there was a fifty metre drop into the sea via the rocks. It was a bit untidy and it was unlikely to achieve blue flag status (there are none on Amorgos) but there was a fantastic sea with a gently gradient to the deep clear blue water with an abundance of fish for snorkelling amusement. But early afternoon the beach was getting rather full as more and more boats pulled in and disgorged their passengers and there was a stiff breeze beginning to stir so we walked back, had a drink in a bar next to some resting fishing boats and then simply let the rest of the day slip through our fingers as we sat on the sun terrace and were buffeted by the wind that continued to get stronger and we started to worry about the ferries again.

I phoned the Homers Inn on Ios and Vagellis confirmed that he would meet the ferry at five o’clock the next day and provide transport to the accommodation. This was very helpful and obliging and I couldn’t help wondering how much longer this sort of hospitality is likely to last. Greek islands must have been very different places thirty years ago and I expect that they will be similarly unrecognizable in another thirty and I just hope that I will be here to find out.

After a final meal at the Corner it was time for an early night because tomorrow there was a scheduled early start and a ferry back to Naxos and a short day on that island before going on to Ios.

Little Places

Little Venice is one of the most pleasing and picturesque parts of Mykonos Town and one of the prettiest places in the Cyclades. Its charming two and three storey houses with colorful balconies, windows and doors, built precariously directly on the seafront, form a unique and instantly recognisable picture. It is almost as iconic an image of the Cyclades as are Santorini’s sugar cubed houses and blue domed churches and it is among the most photographed tourist destinations in the whole of Greece.

The term ‘Little Venice’ may seem a little strange because there are no canals here and certainly no gondolas either. Instead the description derives from the bright colours of the buildings that resemble that bear a resemblance to the fishermen’s houses on the island of Burano, which is an island famous for lace making in the Venetian lagoon, and there is a theory that houses were gaily painted like this so that the fishermen could see them from sea and use them as a point of reference for getting back home.

The buildings in Mykonos were certainly once fishermen’s houses but all have now been converted into bars to accommodate the thousands of annual visitors to the island. It is possible to rent a room in some of the buildings but to do so requires a very extravagant budget. The bars are expensive too and prices here are typically twice and even three times as much as in the streets immediately behind. The place has an ambiance of extravagance and indulgence and when I was there I did most of my drinking elsewhere.

If, like me, you like the film ‘Shirley Valentine’ you will recognise this place from a scene in the film when Shirley has a Greek salad with her friend Jane at a taverna close by next to a pebbly beach. I had a meal in the same restaurant and that was a bit expensive as well.

Other places have their own versions of ‘Little Venice’, London and Prague are two examples and Amsterdam in the Netherlands is called the ‘Venice of the North’. There is a Little Venice in Michigan USA and another in Bavaria in Germany and there is even one entire country that is called ‘Little Venice’. The name ‘Venezuela’ is believed to have originated from the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci who, together with the Spanish explorer, Alonso de Ojeda, led a 1499 naval expedition along the northwestern coast of South America. When they landed they saw Indians living in houses on stilts and using boats that were shaped like gondolas. They thought that the country resembled Venice so they named it Venezuela, which means ‘Little Venice’. That’s a bit odd I suppose when you consider that the country Venezuela is nearly two thousand three hundred times bigger than the city of Venice itself!

On the subject of naming places it is another interesting fact that the name America comes itself from the latinised version of Amerigo Vespucci's name. The airport at Florence is also named after him.

There may be a lot of places called ‘Little Venice’ but everywhere it seems just has to have a ‘Little Switzerland’. The Swiss Tourism Federation has identified nearly two hundres places around the world that had adopted this description. I have discovered at least five in England, in Devon, Derbyshire and Shropshire, all of which I might be able to agree with, but I am sceptical about the River Humber just outside of Hull and the Little Switzerland Caravan and Camping site at Folkestone, Kent.

If I was to put a cuckoo clock in my house that would probably entitle me to call it “Little Switzerland” too.

Greece, Island Hopping 2008, Paros and Naxos

Paros and Naxos are two big islands at the hub of the Cyclades ferry network system and although we didn’t stay there this year because of our itinerary it was inevitable that we would have to pass through them on the way to our chosen island destinations.

On Thursday morning, although perhaps not quite so bad, it was still windy enough to prevent the little ferry attempting the trip to Paros so that meant invoking plan B. After settling up at the hotel the owner drove us to the port to pick up a ferry to the village of Pounda on Paros, which was only a five minute journey and was good value at only €1 each. Once on Paros there was a half hour wait for a bus to the port of Parakia so we had a coffee and a beer at a café with the surliest teenage boy in all of Greece who was waiting on the tables. His mother apologised for him but we didn’t leave a tip!

The bus arrived and after it had filled up with passengers drove us for thirty minutes along the coast to Parakia and as we entered the town there were growling busses and impatient traffic that was in complete contrast to the peace and quiet of Anti-Paros. It was about an hour before our ferry and we found a bar with higher prices than we had become accustomed to and a pavement seat next to a very busy road. Parakia is functional rather than attractive, utilitarian rather than stylish, it is the busiest port in the Cyclades, it is noisy and untidy and in my opinion is a place to pass through rather than stay. I did that in 2006 and I am not tempted to rush back, which, to be honest, might be a bit unfair on the place. On the next table were two young girls who were en route for Athens and a flight home but on account of the wind their ferry was cancelled at the last minute and they were going to miss their flight home. This is one of the hazards of island hopping as a missed or cancelled ferry can seriously disrupt an itinerary as we were later to discover for ourselves.

Fortunately the Blue Star Ferry to Naxos is a big boat and was in service as usual and it arrived on time, we boarded and made for the top deck where we watched Paros slip away behind us as we made our way to Naxos and then on to Amorgos. On the top deck there was a spray from the sea that was getting us wet so we had to retreat inside for the last forty minutes of the one hour crossing to Naxos which seemed comfortingly familiar as we arrived in the port past the iconic Temple of Apollo, left the boat and made our way into town for lunch at an Italian restaurant. In my opinion Naxos is much nicer than Paros because all of the ferry chaos is kept in one place and once away from the hustle and bustle of the quayside it is a very cosmopolitan sort of place with a laid back easy charm.

As it turned out we had to stay there longer than we planned because I bought tickets for a ferry to Amorgos and then because of a mix up over the departure port managed to miss it. At the ferry booking office I complained about misinformation and was given a 50% refund but had to buy a much more expensive Sea Jet ticket for a crossing later in the day. That was a lesson learned - always confirm the departure quay and don’t make clever dick assumptions.

Naxos is a friendly island and I have good memories of two previous visits so to fill the time we walked to the ruins of the unfinished Temple of Apollo, which is an ancient monument set in a magnificent location on a headland just outside of the town and which looks directly towards the west. To get there, there is a narrow quay with the sheltered water of the harbour to the south and west and the stormier waters of the Aegean crashing over rocks to the north and the south. In 2006 with the girls it had been exceptionally stormy and although today the sea was a bit excitable it was not nearly so rough and angry on this occasion. We explored around the ruins for a while but they are not very big so this didn’t take too long and then sat on the rocks and enjoyed the waves, the stiff wind and the salt spray and after a while then returned to the town.

Naxos is a very nice place with cool narrow streets that wind themselves intriguingly around the town and are full of character and atmosphere. They were deliberately constructed this way to confuse any invading army or pirates and they are certainly puzzling enough to fool most modern tourists and as we climbed through the labyrinth as it ascended sharply from the harbour side street I am certain that although we walked for some time we never used the same street twice. These old fashioned streets were much more traditional than the busy harbour side, which I suspect has lost its authentic Greek character over the years as it has become increasingly given over to cheap tourist shops and fast food establishments. Here there were a number of old impressive Venetian houses built vertically to make best use of the available space and all in various states of disrepair and renovation. I was glad that they hadn’t all been converted to holiday homes because I like traditional old Greek wooden doors, which have so much more character than those that are used to replace them. And there were iron balconies too that looked both picturesque and perilous and I doubt that you would chance standing on them without full safety equipment or until after at least five bottles of mythos. We visited the Venetian castle, which had an interesting little exhibition with free admission and avoided a typical Venetian style house and museum that had an entrance charge. After we descended from the town we went back to the harbour side that had nice sea front bars and of course just had to stop for a final drink before making our way to the correct quay this time for the hydrofoil journey to Amorgos.

Although I was cross with myself over the mix up and the additional cost involved I think this probably turned out to be a good thing. The sea was still rough and it turned out that the ferry we originally booked, the Express Skopelitis, was very small, very slow and very old and I am not sure that we would have enjoyed nearly four hours on the top deck of a rust bucket in a force seven gale.

Molly 2

I visited little Molly again this weekend who is at home now in a house turned upside-down and made almost unrecognisable with baby activity. There was a steady procession of visitors dropping by to say hello and bring gifts and although she was opening her eyes now and again she was totally ambivalent about all of the fuss and despite being passed around maintained her dignity throughout. How confusing this must be for a newborn baby after nine months of solitary confinement to suddenly be the centre of attention like this. I can only imagine that it is slightly similar to the disorientating experience of arriving in Piraeus at eleven o’clock at night after twelve hours of travelling by train, plane and automobile.

She is a lovely baby and is well suited to her name. Molly is of Irish origin and is a form of Mary, which means ‘star of the sea’ and is an old fashioned title for the Blessed Virgin Mary. More specifically the origin is from the Gaelic version of the name, Maeili, which means the delightful ‘Wished-for child’. Molly is also used as a derivation of the names Margaret, Marian and Maureen, so as Molly Violet she carries the names of both of her great-grandmothers (what a relief!) The Star of the Sea is a translation of the Latin Stella Maris and the Virgin Mary is believed to intercede as a guide and protector to seafarers and this led to Our Lady, Star of the Sea, being named as patroness of the Catholic missions to seafarers, the Apostleship of the Sea, and to many coastal churches being named Stella Maris or Mary, Star of the Sea.

The name has been in use since the Middle Ages but at some point it became associated with being the girlfriend of a pirate, which made the use uncommon. Even though it is now revived it is still not that widely used and in 2007, the name Molly was ranked number ninety-seven in popularity. The three most popular names were Grace, Ruby and Olivia. It is interesting how popularity of names goes in cycles, when I was at school a lot of boys were called David, Stephen and Paul and a lot of girls were named Susan, Julie and Jane.

Our Molly is Molly Petcher and that is very similar to the name Molly Pitcher, which was a nickname given to a girl who loved a man who fought in the American War of Independence. Molly Pitcher is a piece of folklore that was inspired by the actions of of real women who carried water to men on the battlefield during the war. This water was not for drinking, as is popularly believed, but for swabbing the cannons.

There are some musical connections to the name Molly. The song 'Molly Malone' is popular in Ireland, where it is considered to be an unofficial Irish national anthem and is always sung at Irish international rugby matches. Molly was a Swedish band that played a mix of Irish folk music with ska and oi and Molly dancing is an ancient tradition from the depths of East Anglia, practised by the locals and passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth alone. It was once widely observed in fenland villages, but now only a few hold the ancient secrets (thank goodness).

A famous Molly was Margaret Brown widely known Molly Brown, who was an American socialite, philanthropist, and activist who became famous as one of the survivors of the sinking of the Titanic and she became known after her death as the Unsinkable Molly Brown.

This is a bit weird but a Molly house is an archaic English term for a tavern or private room where strange men meet and were a precursor to the modern gay bar. Patrons of Molly houses were called ‘Mollies’ and often dressed in women's clothing, took on female personae, and affected effeminate mannerisms and speech.

This is more interesting. Molly was a famous scientific experiment and was one of two ewes (the other was Polly) who were the first mammals to be successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell and to be transgenic animals at the same time. This is not to be confused with Dolly the Sheep which was the first animal to be successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell where there was no genetic manipulation carried. Molly and Polly, like Dolly were cloned at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland and in creating Polly and Molly, scientists injected into their DNA a new gene selected to be of a therapeutic value to Humans to demonstrate the potential of such DNA technology combined with Animal Cloning to produce pharmacological and therapeutic proteins with the potential to treat to treat human diseases.

I don’t think Sally took any of these things into consideration when she selected the name, when I asked her she said she choose it because she liked it and that is as good a reason as any.



Sally with great uncle Richard!

HMS TAKU, a good story

I generally make a rule not to write about work here but this week something happened that I have found truly inspirational. I was visited by two members of the Spalding Naval Veterans Association who offered the Council a donation of a six foot model of the British Naval submarine H.M.S. ‘Taku’ which really meant nothing to me until I carried out my research and I discovered a story of community, bravery and achievement.

During the Second World War, the Royal Navy lost two hundred and fifty-four major warships in addition to over a thousand minor vessels and auxiliaries due to enemy action and to counter these losses a huge shipbuilding programme was initiated. The enormous expense involved forced the Government to appeal to the British people to assist in meeting the bill and weeks were set aside during which local communities were encouraged to save to adopt locally a warship.

The weeks were organised by the National War Savings Committee and there were over one thousand 'Warship Weeks' organised during the campaign, involving one thousand, two hundred and seventy-three local authority districts. The campaigns encouraged civilians to save their money in Government accounts, such as War Bonds, Savings Bonds, Defence Bonds and Savings Certificates. Each Council set its own target appropriate to the size and wealth of its population. A small village for example might be able to sponsor something small such as a motor launch whereas a large city could aspire to reach the two million pounds that was required to buy a major battleship. The national campaign raised £955,611,589 for the war effort and resulted in the adoption of eight battleships, four aircraft carriers, forty-nine cruisers, three hundred and one destroyers, twenty-five submarines, one hundred and sixty-four corvettes and frigates and two hundred and eighty-eight minesweepers.

Other national war campaigns were a 'Wings For Victory' Week to buy bomber planes, a 'Spitfire Week', a 'War Weapons Week' and a 'Tanks For Attack' Week. The purpose of all these campaigns was to finance the building of ships, tanks or aeroplanes that would then 'belong' to the particular locality where the funding to build it had come from.

Communities that successfully raised the money required to construct a ship were able to 'adopt' a warship, receiving a shield from the Admiralty in recognition and often, in return, presenting 'their ship' with a commemorative plaque of their own. In Spalding, the Urban District Council and the Rural District Council decided in October 1941 to hold a Warship Week in March 1942, and a target was set at £425,000 to adopt a submarine. For two relatively small local authorities and a population of under thirty-five thousand people this must have been hugely ambitious especially when many similar size councils went instead for the much cheaper ‘buy a Spitfire’ option at only £12,000.

‘Warship Week’ was set for the 7th to the 14th March 1942 using the slogan “MAKE THE WEEK A SUCCESS BY LENDING MORE AND SPENDING LESS”. Parades and exhibitions as well as fund raising events were held in Spalding and in all of the villages and at the end of the week, the total reached was £383,151, which averaged £10.18s.0d (£10.90) per head of population. To raise this considerable amount of money was a monumental task and to put it into perspective, at today’s values this would be the equivalent of raising twelve million pounds in one week.

This effort was enough to fund the construction of a new submarine and because of this fantastic achievement Spalding & District adopted H.M. Submarine ‘Taku’, a ‘T’ Class, Patrol Type Submarine. The ‘Taku’ was already in service and had been constructed by Cammell Laird of Birkenhead and had been launched on 20th May 1939 and completed on 5th January 1940 and had cost at that time around about £350,000. The Royal Navy's T class of submarines was designed in the 1930s and approved in 1936. The prototype was called ‘Triton’ and completed in December 1938 and in total fifty-three ‘T’ class submarines were built just before and during the war.

This is a bit obvious but all ‘T’ class submarines had a name that started with the letter T. ‘TAKU’ was a Chinese fort situated in Tientsin Province, a strongly fortified spot guarding the approach to Tientsin and Peking that had been captured by British and French fleets in 1860 and again by allied troops during the Boxer uprising of June 1900.

In June 1942, some of the crew visited Spalding and stayed with local families. Led by the Royal Marine Band they marched from the Grammar School to the Market Place and at a ceremony that followed Rear Admiral Buckley and Lt. P C A Day who was the 2nd in command of H.M.S. ‘TAKU’ exchanged plaques with the Spalding Urban and District Councils. The submarine’s Jolly Roger flew from the Corn Exchange, which is now the South Holland Centre. Dances and other entertainment were put on in Spalding and surrounding villages because, as the presentation took place during “Wings Week”, many servicemen were in town for the party.

Seventeen of the fifty-three submarines were lost to enemy action but the ‘Taku’ was a very successful submarine that managed to see out the entire war. She sank 32,473 tonnes of enemy shipping plus an unconfirmed 10,000 tonne tanker and many small craft. Until the end of 1940, she spent time patrolling off the coast of Norway and in January 1941, she went on patrol in the Bay of Biscay. In February, she was damaged by heavy seas in the Atlantic on the way to Canada and had to be towed back to the Clyde for repairs but by April, she was in the Mediterranean sinking a number of merchant ships and auxiliary vessels. Returning to the Mediterranean in May 1942 she carried out twenty patrols, attacking and sinking enemy shipping and was part of ‘Operation Vigorous’, which was an attempt to re-supply Malta from Alexandria. On 16th December 1942 in the Doro Channel, she was attacked by patrol craft and was kept under water for thirty-six hours before successfully making an escape. This would have been an especially unpleasant experience for the crew who were forced to breathe stale rancid air for all of that period.

On 20th December, she successfully landed three Greek agents on a special mission and then went on to bombard Port Kurn hitting some small ships and warehouses. She arrived in Beirut on 1 January 1943 and then went on to Malta to join the 10th Submarine Flotilla but developed engine defects so had to return to U.K. In June 1943, she returned to Southern Norway and the Skagerrak but on 13th April 1944, just before eight o’clock, she was rocked by an explosion, which put out all lights and sprang several leaks. She had run into a mine and had to abort her mission and return to harbour. She could never return to full combat service because the explosion cracked the hull but she remained on active service until June 1945 and was sent to the breakers yard in 1946.

I like Spalding and stories like this make me proud to live and work there. I really like this feel good story and I thought it was worth sharing.