It's been three weeks since we left Paris, and after eleven weeks of disappointing Spring and early Summer weather there, we have finally hit the heat.
Welcome to the lovely island of Leros in the Dodecanese of the Southern Agean, just sixteen kilometres from the Turkish coast.
To get here, we picked up our little Citroen in Paris and drove south-west on L'Occitane, the autoroute to southwest France, stopping overnight in Brive La Galliard to stock the car fridge at a huge supermarket there, and continuing on to La Bugue and then Saint Antonin Noble Val, to look at some property before turning east towards Greece and summer.
I have ten blog posts of photos queued up, waiting for me to write the text and then to post each one to the Internet. I knew Internet access was going to be poor once we left mainland Europe, but you tend to forget how frustrating slow and intermittent access can be.
This is the view from the front of the Hotel Papafotis. It is Alinda beach on Leros - a very narrow strip of small stones with crystal clear, cool water and blessed with some shady trees planted by the Italians when they occupied these islands between the wars.
The first thing we always do when we reach a new destination is to acquire a map and have a thorough look around. Leros was the sight of a major battle in WWII when the Germans bombed and captured the island from the Italians and English. Once this ancient castle fell, the result was inevitable.
The Greek islands are not green and lush. They are dry and stoney. The beaches are rarely sand, most often small pebbles.
After climbing to the old castle we found this lovely beach in a cove at the base and had a beer and a slice of pizza at a table amongst the swimmers and sun seekers.
After scrambling out on a high point to see a quaint little chapel, of which there are dozens on the island, and look at the view, we made sure we shut the gate to keep the trees from the sheep.
Our local 6pm drink spot also turned out to be our local 11pm coffee spot. Right on the beach, in the shade, feet in the water and feeling the temperature drop from 30 degrees at 3pm to a balmy 24 at midnight. Beers were 3€ for 500ml of really cold Heineken in chilled glasses and coffee was 2.50€ for an excellent double espresso.
The third and most enjoyable daytime beach we found on Leros was up north, past the airport. Crystal clear water, smooth stones, a little flotilla of wooden boats for hire, not too much wind and sun beds for free.
It had a little taverna that did fabulous cold black coffee "frappes" or beer by the can that didn't hit the sides if you'd been in the sun for a bit. Plus wifi!
The final beach we discovered was ruggedly picturesque and in high demand because of the excellent cliff-top taverna and restaurant as well as "on the beach" food and drink service for us oldies for whom climbing the cliff steps more than once per day was a bit much. We had a yellow umbrella as well as a sunbed each and our toes were dragging in the water.
Ah ..........!
Paul's t-shirt says:
GREEK CRISIS
No job
No money
No problem
I had to make him stop wearing it in case someone punched him!
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