Every time we travel to Greece for the annual island hopping holiday we have to make room in the itinerary for a day or two of beaches and in 2011 we chose Koufosinia and we travelled there from nearby Amorgos on a six o’clock ferry.
Posted in backpacking, Beaches, Food, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Hotels, Literature, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Culture, Cyclades, Greek Ferries, Holidays, Ios, Koufonisia, Life, Photography
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Posted in Arts and Crafts, Beaches, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, History, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Cyclades, Fishing Boats, Folegandros, Greek islands, Ios, Koufonisia, Nautical
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
Kim spotted this noble looking woman on a bus ride on the Greek island of Amorgos…
The bus fare to Katapola was good value at only €2.80 each and after we paid the driver started the engine and left exactly on time.
We sat close to the front of the bus and in the seat directly behind the driver there was an old woman in widow’s weeds who was determined to talk constantly in some sort of quest to distract him and thoroughly test his driving ability as he eased the vehicle out of the village and began the ascent to the top of the mountain that separates the two ends of the island.
As the bus climbed higher into the interior and the engine began to complain and the gearbox groan the sides of the mountain became surprisingly greener with rugged plants clinging stubbornly to the desperately thin soil and then we reached the top of the mountainous spine of the island and we could see all the way down across the Chora and into the port of Katapola and still the woman in the seat behind the driver kept talking.
I’d have backed that woman in a talk-off against my mum!
The bus stopped briefly at the Chora to pick up more passengers and then the driver set off down the hairpin bends of the mountain road and down to the port. I think he liked this part of the journey most of all because he made especially extravagant manoeuvres with increasingly theatrical turns of the steering wheel and he was confident too, even at one stage of the precipitous descent taking time out to make a telephone call while still listening all the time to the woman behind him jabbering away.
Posted in backpacking, Beaches, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Aegaili, Amorgos, car rental Anemos, Culture, France bus queue, Greek Car Hire, Katapola, Life
At the entrance to the harbour in Katapola on the island of Amorgos is a statue of Erato. In Greek mythology Erato was one of the nine Greek Muses who were inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. Erato was the Muse of love and lyric poetry, Very appropriate because it is impossible not to fall in love with Amorgos.
We had a bit of fun with this one…
Posted in Arts and Crafts, backpacking, Beaches, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Natural Environment, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Erato, Greek Mythology, Katapola, Sunset
The odd one out is the only door with an even number…
Posted in Arts and Crafts, backpacking, Beaches, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Athens, challenge, Corfu, Greece, Kimolos, Odd One Out
My last ‘Odd One Out’ Challenge turned out to be a bit easy so I am hoping that this one is a little more challenging.
Pictures of doors taken in Greece – which is the odd one out?
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Cyclades, Greece, Greek islands, History, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Athens, Blue doors, challenge, Corfu, Greek doors, Kimolos, Odd One Out
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken on the Greek Island of Amorgos…
I imagine this woman was taking a well earned break after a morning of hard graft housework.
We took a ride out to the Chora which cannot be seen from the sea or from the harbour but as we got closer we could see it above us like a fresh snow fall on top of a mountain. From the outside it doesn’t look especially promising but once inside the walls of the town it is a different matter altogether. The town turns in on itself in an introspective sort of way and inside there were narrow shady streets and lots of traditional cafés and tavernas where getting disorientated and lost is a certainty.
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 in a very stiff breeze 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.
On the way back we were ready for a second stroll through the Chora where we ambled through the corkscrew of twisting 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.
The Chora is rather like a hippie time-warp, slow, lazy, faded and bleached, pot plants struggling in the midday sun and appropriately slow mood music in the tavernas and bars – it reminded me of a favourite pair of old denim jeans and my battered blue t-shirt that I am reluctant to throw away.
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The ambience is compounded by cultural traditions. Village life retains a centuries old pace thanks in large part to the absence of motorised vehicles. Old men while away the afternoons sitting in the summer shade chatting. The labyrinthine, narrow lanes are the province of donkeys and wooden carts. Displays of ripe fruit – tomatoes, figs, golden apples – stand outside the little stores, the local catch is brought into the harbour daily, the wine and the raki is plentiful, good and cheap.
As we wandered around an old lady dressed all in black asked for help negotiating some difficult steps and we naturally obliged and in return for our assistance she treated us to her life story and tales of Amorgian life. Her name was Limonique and she told us that after sixty-five years of marriage she was now a widow so I guessed her age to be somewhere around eighty-five or so.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Beaches, Cyclades, Europe, Food, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Chor Amorgos, Culture, Cyclades, Greek Car Hire, Leonard Cohen Hydra, Life
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken on the Greek Island of Amorgos….
“I would stare out the window at these telephone wires and think, how civilisation had caught up with me and I wasn’t going to be able to escape after all. I wasn’t going to be able to live this eleventh-century life that I had thought I had found for myself.” – Leonard Cohen
As we climbed we passed through what might be loosely described as fields with rows of derelict terraces and dry stonewalls that separated the hillside into equally measured individual plots of land. Amorgos is mostly inhospitable rock that has been baked hard in the sun for thousands of years but as recently as only fifty years ago people here were scraping away at the thin soil and removing the stones to try and make a living or to feed the family by growing fruit and vegetables.
Amorgians have a history of preserving the past and resisting progress. There is a sense of collective defiance perhaps explained by the fact that during the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-41) the island was used as a remote place of exile for political prisoners.
Fifty years ago the island didn’t have electricity, the tarmac roads that link the villages weren’t constructed until the 1990s and the modern ports which today welcome the large ferries are relatively recent additions. The island has a desalination plant now to provide fresh water but up until 2015 fresh water was shipped in and delivered by tankers.
Go to a bar today in Amorgos and they will serve you a glass of fresh water because they are proud of progress…
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Posted in back packing, Beaches, Cyclades, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Natural Environment, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Aegiali Amorgos, Amorgos, Cyclades, Life Culture, Tholária Amorgos, Walking holidays
Have Bag, Will Travel 