58. Lipsi - Dodecanese, South Aegean

After a very pleasant week on Leros, we headed off to little Lipsi on the ferry called Dodekanisos Pride.

It only took 40 minutes.  The islands are very close.  The ferry can take about 4 cars and and about 8 motorcycles as well as lots of walk-on passengers.  It is a daily ferry service between Kalymnos, Leros, Lipsi and Patras so it carries a lot of small freight for local businesses.

The crew are very quick, the drawbridge hits the ground even before the ropes are tied off.

We've learnt that foot passengers think they have right of way (they probably do) so despite the ferry staff instructing us to drive forward, turn around, back up, go, go, go, go ........ they won't get out of your way and they pay absolutely no attention to the ferry staff.  Really weird!

Welcome to little Lipsi, an island with practically no natural resources, little tourism but a pretty harbour and village with a few restaurants and some nice beaches.

Some of the restaurants are called ouzorias.  They chiefly sell ouzo and boiled, dried octopus, the staples of this community that has to import everything else - water, electricity, food!

Everything has had a coat of paint for the summer tourist season.

But some haven't made it as far as the water yet.

This is the bakery, by far the most successful, enterprising and cashed-up business in town.  The locals refer to it as "The New Bakery", but it is 8 years old.  The old bakery is up the hill and round the back of the tiny village.  This one is front and centre in the port.

The people of Lipsi seem to have decided to have a go at tourism and there is a lot of new accommodation.  Our studio was one of three new units built atop an older building that is currently a restaurant, but a singularly unpopular one.  The agent through whom we booked this studio, double booked us and instead of 6 days here, we had to move to another building across the road for our second 3 days.

Unfortunately the second apartment was in a building that was continually buffetted by the wind, making it somewhat unpleasant.  In fact, escaping the wind was our primary occupation in Lipsi and determined which beach you would go to and the hours you could use it.  

We found that there were only two beaches we could enjoy and that this one, with the tavern Dalaila, was our preference.  But there is not much beach area and it was very popular, so I was happy to sit in the taverna and read.

It was a gay, multicoloured place and we got better WiFi access here than anywhere else.

The second beach also had a taverna, but the chairs were incredibly uncomfortable and their was very little shade on the beach.  And no WiFi which was important because we had no internet at either of our apartments.

People would arrive at this beach on foot (6 km from town), by motor cycle or car very early to secure a place for the day, under the trees.  Others would arrive by bus at about 9.30 to find all of the best, shady spots gone.  The colour of the water was that glorious azure blue with a sandy bottom.

Meet Giovanni and Ivan from Italy.  They were our neighbours at our first apartment and we met most nights to eat together.  Giovanni has been coming to Lipsi for many years and had great stories for us , about the islands.  There are many Italian tourists here and Italian is the second language of the locals, with English being the third.  

On our last day, Ivan and Giovanni came with us to the beach of the colourful taverna Dalaila.

Next stop, Patmos.

57. Leros - Dodecanese, South Aegean

We arrived on Leros at night and had to drive about 6 km (but it felt like 60 km) along a hilly road from the port in Lakki to the Hotel Papafotis in Alinda Bay. No street lighting, no reflectors, no armco, no white posts, no white lines and gutters a metre deep in places. Sometimes there was space for two cars, sometimes not.

Turns out we were on the wrong road - we had taken the local scenic route. But because there are no signs, how can you tell?  

The next day, having acquired a tourist map, we could see our error and the lady on the SatNav had been no help at all. Our mistake was to have had the SatNav set for fastest route, rather than main route or safest route and so she had taken us directly over the top of the mountains instead of on the main road around the edges.

No harm done! We found our hotel, where the kind family Papafotis had waited up until we finally arrived.

We had a studio with doors to a little terrace and an additional window for ventilation, a little kitchen and bathroom and a dining table to take the computers.  Plus excellent housekeeping and loads of storage. Perfect.

In front of our hotel was Alinda Bay, a long curve of narrow stony beach with crystal clear water and lots of on-beach restaurants for food, drinks or coffee.

Our first stop was a trip up to the Leros castle, looking down on Agios Marina below, and further on to the wide sweep of Alinda Bay.

Like much of Leros, the castle was bombed by the Germans in WWII.  The restoration has been sensitive.

The castle covers a large area and restoration seems to have been slow but steady.  It is beautifully lit up at night.

Leros is very dry and rocky, like all of the islands we have seen in the Dodecanese group.

There are lots of beautiful, mature eucalypts on the island, planted along the roads by the Italians between the wars when Italy occupied many of the Dodecanese islands.  The local habit is to paint the trunks with lime - they say to avoid insect attack - but more often to take the place of white, safety posts along the roads.

This beach, at the very northern tip of the island, near the airport and army base, turned out to be our favourite.  Plenty of free deck chairs supplied by the tiny taverna and great frappe, cold coffee, served to you on the beach.  See the yellow plastic sun lounge?  

The deck chairs/sun lounges were moulded plastic rockers, with arms, that pivoted on  the centre of gravity depending on where you put your weight.  I absoluely loved them because I could take all of the weight off my lower back. No pain = heaven!

I could lay here forever!  The view in front of me ....

The view to my left.

Another beach, with even less sand but great swimming; this one was at the base of cliffs with the taverna at the top.  It was so narrow that our sun beds were eventually in the water as we chased the shade.

The sand bags not only help to walk along the beach and get in and out of the water, they add a bit of extra width to this beautiful but very narrow spot.

Paul even managed to find a bit of WiFi here - just enough to download Twitter which will keep him happy for an hour while I get back to novel number eight.

The Italians occupied the Dodecanese islands after WWI and, because Leros has the best deep water port in the south Agean, had an significant submarine and navy base here.  The islands rock lent itself to tunnelling and the Italians developed extensive tunnels, some of which have been restored and house a museum recollecting the Battle of Leros in 1943 when the Italians, supported by the English, were defeated by the Germans after a significant bombing attack over more than a week.

The museum was excellent although Paul almost offered to volunteer to come back to re-do the Italian to English and English to Italian translations.

There was also a small war cemetery maintained by the British Government for the Greek, English and Italian soldiers who died.  The German cemetery was repatriated to Germany some years ago.

One of the nice things about Leros is that it is not very trendy and there are lots of locals who are happy to chat.  Paul struck up a friendship with Alex, who was an extensively travelled man of the sea, speaker of many languages, talented fisherman and sage.  

Alex had gained some notoriety for his fishing prowess, especially for one big, blue-fin tuna he caught.  We set him up with an email account in the name of "AlextheBigTuna".  He was very pleased.

This was probably the most popular, and therefore the most touristy beach on Leros and the one we visited only once.  The umbrellas are permanent and each has two sun lounges.  In addition, there are extra chairs all over the place, and along the rear wall are tables and chairs for meals.  But the pizza was awful!

The staple meal in the islands seems to be the Greek salad, and on Leros it comes pretty much like this at every restaurant and cafe:  tomatoes, cucumber, green capsicum, red onion and a wedge of feta.  For individual variation, sometimes you get olives, or beetroot or wilted beetroot leaves.

Not a combination that really appeals to me and Paul actively disliked it.   Never mind kiddo - it's good for you!

56. The Most Beautiful Harbour in the Aegean - Symi

Back on the ferry again - the same Blue Star boat that brought us to Rhodes from Piraeus is now taking us from Rhodes to Leros, via Symi and Kos.

Symi is a very small island only a few kilometres from Turkey and just north east of Rhodes.

It is claimed that its harbour is the most beautiful in the whole Aegean.

This massive ferry is backing into the port area, which is also the main street of the village.

It is indeed a pretty spot. That is Turkey in the background.

Looking down from the rear deck, the man below me is overseeing the chaos on the dock.  Cars are driving off and pedestrians are unloading individual deliveries such as pot plants, garden furniture, cooking oil, bags of flour, bunches of bananas, sacks of onions.  

Trucks are backing on and there are still pedestrians everywhere, including walking or riding motor cycles right in front of the truck!  My heart was in my mouth.

  

But now, as I write this three weeks later, I have seen it so many times, I am no longer shocked.

Paul has been backing onto a ferry in a choppy wind, with everything a bit unstable, onto a small, four car deck with a small gang-plank and people have walked behind him, in front of him, three abreast along-side pulling suitcases and towing children.  My feeling now is that if they get nudged it is their own fault!

But back in Symi, my heart was in my mouth!

Once the chaos had cleared a little, we had a better view of the street. 

And just when we thought every thing going ashore had gone ashore, and everything coming aboard had come aboard, off drives this car and boat.  Must have liked the look of the place and made a last minute decision.

 We are finally away.

Plenty of boats in the harbour. 

Next stop, Kos.

55. Lindos - Rhodes

Having felt as though we had bombed out in the old town of Rhodes itself, we headed east along the south coast of this large, hot, dry island to Lindos, site of ancient ruins and our first real taste of a Greek island.

We found our beachside hotel.  We had a newish studio on the top floor.

There were a few people around the pool and at the beach, but not many.

We went for a drive along the coast to the end of the island and this array of solar panels, on the ground ....

... and in the middle of nowhere, were the most interesting sight we saw.

There were a couple of cute beaches .....

... with cute beachside taverna ....

 ... serving not so cute Greek, or was it Turkish, coffee but we just couldn't get interested.

It was too hot to clamber over the ruins because you had to walk about a kilometre uphill before you even got there and I just couldn't be bothered.

So we spent three days trying to make advance ferry and hotel bookings on a temperamental internet connection, a few dips in the pool, and a couple of good dinners at the hotel next to ours.

That was Lindos.  That was Rhodes.