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Panagia Evangelistra on Tinos Photo©Nigel Summerley
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1 SEPTEMBER - DAY 8
Fucking hell! We got this far!
It's getting difficult to find time to keep this journal. Woke early again – although not quite as early as previous mornings – probably slept better thanks to local red wine. Got everything tidy and packed, dropped off the key to the smiling lady and headed for the bus station. When I had checked it out the day before, the place was really busy, but this morning there was only me and another two people waiting for the 8.20am bus to Gavrio.
The driver who shouted "Malta Bay!" so forcefully and (to me) initially incomprehensibly was there but was going out on another route. We spoke to say good morning but he still looked slightly disapprovingly at me.
The ferry was right on time, my temperature was checked and then we were off to Tinos. Not many people on the boat, and not that many getting off at Tinos.
It was good to be back. I saw straight away that they had put down some new carpet – red instead of the old grey. On the road up to the church, that is.
I was last in Tinos in 2019. Here's what I wrote then...
Imagine two next-door neighbours: one ruled by the pleasures of the flesh, the other by religious belief. Six miles and a world of difference separate the Greek islands of hedonistic Mykonos and humble Tinos.
Like Lourdes in France and Knock in Ireland, Tinos became a holy place thanks to a momentous 19th-century manifestation of the Virgin Mary. And like them, it has an economy dependent on pilgrimage.
It all began in 1823 when an elderly nun called Pelagia had a vision that something sacred was buried on the island. Excavations on the spot she identified turned up an icon of the Virgin, in miraculously good condition despite many years in the ground. It was hailed as a holy relic and a church was built on the spot of its discovery to house it.
That icon, now overlaid with so much silver and gold that one can barely see it, sits in the Panagia Evangelistra church, high above the port of Tinos. Pilgrims queue to kiss it and say their prayers. But before that there is the little matter of going all the way from the port, up the steep 500yd hill of Megalocharis Avenue and 50 marble church steps – on their knees. There's a 'kneeling lane' cordoned off at the side of the road, and the church steps are red-carpeted to ease the pain.
Shops on the way up to the church sell candles in various sizes: small, large and enormous. The greater your need or devotion, the more euros you spend and the bigger your candle.
That old visionary Pelagia is still on the island, so I decided to pay her a visit in her mountain-top Kehrovouniou nunnery. Of course the good sister has less to say these days, mainly because all that is left of her is her skull in a glass box; when she died in 1834, her fellow nuns decided to keep her head as a centrepiece for their church.
The nunnery is more like a village, its inhabitants living in little individual whitewashed houses in a maze of narrow lanes – like Portmeirion without the fun.
They like memorials on Tinos. In 1940, while thousands of pilgrims were at the church celebrating the Assumption of the Virgin, an Italian submarine took the opportunity to sink the Greek warship Elli in the harbour and kick-start Greece's entry into the Second World War.
There is a memorial to the Elli close by where it sank, and a shrine beneath the Evangelistra church which includes twisted metal from the wreck.
The ubiquitous stuff of the island’s monuments is marble – something that Tinos has been richly endowed with. It's such a big part of local history, that there is a Marble Museum in the north, at Pyrgos, explaining the geology, history and industry of this valuable commodity. A beautifully done display in the ugliest building on the island, it includes great films of old-style quarrying and manhandling of blocks down hillsides.
Also in Pyrgos is the Chalepas Museum. It’s the former home of sculptor Yannoulis Chalepas – a troubled artist who seems to have had a thing about sleeping women and large breasts. He combined those two interests in his Sleeping Beauty masterpiece – although, 150 years on, his voyeuristic prince doesn't look so good from a MeToo perspective.
Chalepas’s modest house, however, is a moving experience. His workshop, just as he left it, seems to say that he came, did his work and now he's gone. But being able to also see his kitchen and even his (extremely basic) privy might be an insight too far.
At Pyrgos's sleepy harbour, Panormos, the clear water of the bay is so still that one almost hesitates to disturb it by swimming. But I recommend doing so.
The water is only slightly more ruffled at Stavros beach, to the west of the main port. It was just over the road from where I stayed, and I used it every evening as my private swimming pool.
West again from Stavros is Kionia, remarkable for its long beach of green sand, and, nearby, the evocative ruins of the Sanctuary of Poseidon and Amphitrite. Twenty-one centuries before Pelagia's vision, pilgrims were coming here to pray to the sea's divine first couple.
Today's pilgrims include not only the kneeling icon-worshippers but also foodies. Since 2015 the annual Tinos Food Paths festival has combined food and cookery events in town with rural outings to make people aware of agricultural history and where their food comes from.
I went on a guided walk through the lovely villages of Kalloni and Karkados to learn how those Greek windmills actually worked and how people lived completely off the land, and to eat traditional home-made snacks proffered by the locals.
But what's it like to go over 500yd up a steep, hard road and 50 marble steps on your knees? I can confirm it's bloody difficult. Early one morning I knelt down in the street and set off – an old lady sitting nearby at a street café crossed herself and wished me well.
The whole world looks different when you are on your knees. You are forced to be humble, and to let go of what others may think of you.
It only took half an hour but it felt like a marathon – with the same mixed feeling of exhaustion and elation. A couple of other pilgrims were already at the church waiting for the door to be unlocked so they could kiss the icon; five more joined us before opening time.
It seemed strange that we were all here kneeling on the marble floor outside the church in the day's first light because of a thought that 200 years ago passed through the inside of a skull now sitting in a box at the top of a neighbouring mountain. Tinos is a truly miraculous place...
After I'd got my ticket for continuing to Syros tomorrow, I had a late and delicious breakfast of yogurt, honey and walnuts... and a real pot of tea.
Then I realised I somehow hadn't got the address of the Afroditi Hotel. No matter... I knew which end of town it was and was sure I would find it. First I found some shade on the beach and passed an hour or so doing very little. The beach was more or less empty. A teenage girl – there with her parents – fearlessly dived off a little jetty into the waves.
Three years ago, when I was in southern Crete, mainly to do a piece on the old hippie town of Matala, I did a lot of walking and cycling, exploring the surrounding area. By the roadside one day I found a white baseball cap that must have blown off someone's head or fallen out of a car. Apart from being a bit grubby, it was in good condition. So it became mine and, after it had been thoroughly washed, it came with me on the rest of the trip. Since then, the hat and I have travelled back and forth to Greece several times. As I lay on the beach at Tinos, I looked to my left and saw a blue, stripy cap entangled in some grass. It seemed like ti could be the female companion to my white hat. So it, too, was rescued and washed and joined me for the rest of this odyssey. All I had to do was find a woman who might want to wear it. These rescued hat stories may be an indication of how one can go a bit loopy when travelling alone... but then you're never alone if you've got a good hat...
I went to a hotel by the beach and asked the receptionist if she knew where the Afroditi was. She looked sceptical. She hadn't heard of it. But she said she would look it up. She looked for it online but couldn't find it. I thanked her and said I would ask elsewhere. I'm starting to get OK about this asking for directions thing. But I couldn't even find someone to ask. The streets were deserted. In desperation, I looked on the laptop but couldn't get into my email... however I could get into the (normally really irritating) diary date reminders and found a street address for the Afroditi. Having memorised it, I pushed on. After a few minutes, two men and a woman sitting outside on a street corner shouted to me: "Are you looking for somewhere?" In my best Greek I managed to ask if they knew where the street and the Afroditi were. "Yes," they all said. "This is it." "I knew it was him!" said one of the men, laughing. So within minutes I went from hot and lost to being in a really lovely bedroom with fantastic views out over the seafront. The hotel had found me.
I've just heard from a doctor in Ithaca who received my letter of a week or two ago. They say that there is a private clinic there that can do it for €80 (public health doctors won't do it for asymptomatic cases) – which is great news but it comes too late. If I'd known, I could have stuck to my original itinerary. But things have moved on.
Today I've now contacted my neighbour H, who is holidaying in Kefalonia, to see if she has seen any Covid-19 testing places there (since if I had to, I could pop over from Patras); and I've also contacted my Greek guitarist friend Anthony, who is still in Crete, to see if he can give any advice. I'm still waiting for a response from any of the 10 clinics in Athens that I emailed yesterday.
You may or may not remember a mention earlier in this journal of a photograph I took of a little church at Stavros Bay on Tinos, the place I used to swim every evening when I stayed on the island about 18 months ago [that picture has been on the front of my Greek language exercise book all through lockdown]. I almost always had that beach to myself – it seemed to be known only to the occasional local swimmer. That was one of the reasons for my wanting to stop off at Tinos at the beginning of my odyssey.
At about 6pm I headed there, feeling sure that it would be deserted and that I could probably take off all my clothes and swim naked. The beach is not overlooked at all. So something seemed very odd and unexpected about seeing lots of cars parked on the little road down to the beach. I had never seen it like this before. I stopped to take a photograph of the church alongside its likeness on my Greek exercise book which I had brought with me. As I walked down the tree-shaded steps to "my" beach, I realised that it was packed with Greeks of every age. A little boy who hadn't been walking that long stood at the gateway to the beach and looked at me as if he wasn't quite sure what I was. His father smiled at me and I smiled back, thinking of my grandson, Tobias, who has also just started his adventures in the world. There were 33 people on the beach – kids splashing in the water, families laughing, a twentysomething in a thong, tanning a bottom that looked as if were her pride and joy, an elderly couple, dads swimming out as far as they could, perhaps to get some peace...
The strange thing, to me, was that although the little beach barely had room for all these folk, they seemed to have congregated at opposite ends of it. Every time I had gone to this beach in the past, I had always sat down in the centre, with an old, abandoned stone oven-like construction behind me, because I knew that if I went into the water in a straight line from here, the pebbly going underfoot was fairly slip-free. Miraculously, to me, there was nobody in "my" spot. It was as if it had been left for me – not only the spot but the space either side of it.
I didn't get to take my trunks off, but I did have the best swim of my life. Normally, I don't like crowds and noise and people all around me in the water. But this was different. The beach, the water, the people, in the sun now starting to set, were all filled with life. Something joyous was happening – and I was a part of it, immersed in it. I found that I loved all these people. After I had swum for as long as I could, I sat on the beach, with the joyous gathering continuing on either side of me. Finally, when it seemed like it was time to go, I got up got dressed and headed up off the beach. This time at the gateway there was an elderly woman with a charming smile. She nodded as I let her through, before I left.
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Photo©Nigel Summerley
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But there was something more about all this. And I know that it is most likely all in my mind. But I had the strong feeling that I was actually alone on that beach – that all the people, young and old, were not there, or rather they were there but they were there in another time, possibly the past, possibly the future. There was the feeling that I was being allowed to see this as part of acceptance that my time would be over soon, but there would be – and had always been – people swimming on this wonderful little beach in the setting sun. I felt like this was a near-death experience. And I felt that the little boy I met at the gate was the beginning of a life, and the elderly woman who nodded and smiled to me as I left was the ending of life. Something about this hyper-real experience made me feel that everything could be all right and that death was not a problem – for any of us...
And when I chose that photo for the front of my Greek exercise book (out of the hundreds I could have chosen) did I have a premonition that something extraordinary was going to happen when I returned to the place it was taken?
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| Photo©Nigel Summerley |
I couldn't resist walking past the Stone House at Francy Foskolou's place, where I had stayed last year but wasn't able to this year because of the plague. I hoped to see the four dogs resident there who had been such good companions (and whom I mentioned in an earlier part of this journal) but, sadly, only three of them appeared at the fence to bark at me. The big one I had known as Blackie, who had not been looking great last year, was not among them...
I returned to the Afroditi and was slightly alarmed to find an ageing man roaming the corridor outside my room with an empty vodka bottle in his hand and shouting "Edouard!" loudly and repeatedly. I wished him good evening and locked myself in my room. After a few more Edouards, he disappeared.I rather liked the Afrodite, even though the balcony of the woman next door extends along to my window, and when I tried to pull the blind down so that I didn't have to put clothes on (it's too hot even for underwear) the cord broke and the blind unravelled.
The next way-down-to-earth problem was the mosquitos.
I was desperately tired but an early night turned into a very late one. Every time I tried to sleep, there was that awful whiny mosquito buzz. I switched on the light, pulled back the sheet and lay waiting for the mosquito to land on my body, so that I could catch it with the plastic container I had in my hand. The mosquito landed on me several times, and several times it evaded capture. This went on... and on... Eventually I caught the damn thing and put it outside. Only to find that when I went back to bed, that sound was there again. In the end, it turned out that there were three, maybe four mosquitos in the room. I caught a couple more... my reflexes were getting better... But my brain and my temper were both getting frayed. One mosquito I caught in my hand... and although I persuaded myself that it was still alive when I tossed it out of the window, I suspect the truth was that I had killed it. Normally, I don't do that sort of thing... but they really had driven me a bit nuts... Finally, finally, I got to sleep in a mosquito-free room...
2 SEPTEMBER - DAY 9
I slept badly and woke before 6am. But even if I'd managed a bit longer I would have been woken by the garbage truck and the early-morning traffic. It's just like being at home – screaming kids outside in the evening and unbelievably noisy garbage trucks before 7am.
Still no reply from any of the 10 doctors in Athens. But my Greek guitarist friend Anthony came up with a brilliant list of clinics in Patras, so I emailed 13 of them this morning. And one has already replied. They are obviously making a fortune from Covid-19 testing - I've just been quoted €100 for a swab test and €40 for an antigen test.
I managed to mend the blind and am not going to touch it again.
The room is equipped with a marvellous thing called a Vicko, which is basically a water jug that heats water – or a kettle without a lid. The only downside to it is that it doesn't switch itself off when it boils, so it doesn't pay to get distracted while Vicko-ing.
Even the shaded "pens" where you wait for the ferries at Tinos were almost unbearably hot. This is the downside of ferry travel: getting there in good time and then having to wait. Most people were wearing masks and keeping as distant as they could.
The 30-minute boat ride was soon over and there in the distance I could see Eleni on the quay at Ermoupoli, capital of Syros and of the Cyclades. I was masked too but Eleni recognised me by my hat – just as I recognised here by her white hair and golden skin.
Eleni told me later, as we ate, surrounded by some of her 20 cats, that she would be 75 next year. "But your face is so young-looking, your skin is so clear," I told her. "It's my grandmother's," she said. "I'll look like this when I die. My grandmother was 90 when she died and she still had skin like this."
3 SEPTEMBER - DAY 10
A hot and humid night meant that even with the citronella candle and the electric mosquito repellent given me by Eleni, there were mosquitos at work. I woke about 4.15am unable to sleep more... and ended up taking a short stroll around the rooftop of Eleni's house by the light of the golden full moon. The moon shadows were amazingly clear. It dawned on me that, if all went well, I would next see the moon full in 28 days' time – on Ithaca.
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Moon shadow Photo©Nigel Summerley
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After a cup of tea, I went back to bed and slept a bit more until nearly 7am. Thoughts of how to resolve my upcoming covid test problems were filling my head. I never heard back from a single one of the 10 doctors in Athens whom I emailed (the ones all recommended by the UK government) and I had heard back from just one of the 13 in Patras that Anthony had put me in touch with. She was really helpful but was dubious about being able to guarantee a 48-hour turnaround for the PCR test... which would mean having to take it just before the 72-hour period stipulated by the Italian authorities. To do it later, would mean having no result at all. In the middle of the night, before going back to sleep, I decided to ask for two tests – PCR and antigen – and drafted a letter to the doctor in Patras. At least the antigen test could be done within the 72-hour period and I might have that to fall back on. Plus if one out of two tests proved positive rather than negative, I could perhaps put that to one side and make use of the negative one. It's what Odysseus would have done.
After breakfast and emails – to the doctor in Patras who immediately confirmed the relevant appointments, and to try to sort out various strange payments taken from my bank account – Eleni called and asked if I was ready to swim. Indeed, I was. We went to her usual spot at Galissas... just a marvellous place to swim. And then she took me on a quick guided tour of the south-west of Syros, a part which, although I've stayed on the island twice before, I hadn't yet explored. Finikas, Poseidonia, Mega Gialos, Vari... Plus we took in visits to a great fruiterer and a bakery where Eleni must have read my mind and provided tiropites for a late breakfast.
I'm thinking of filling in the passenger locator form for entering Greece (again) for 29 September when I should be travelling from Bari to Patras – provided I get into Italy, get a negative covid test there and get out again. It would be an act of faith that all this going to come to pass. To do it I will need an address in Patras, so I've provisionally booked a cheap stopover there (a risk after the Albion Hotel experience?) prior to boarding a boat to Ithaca.
There is talk in the UK now of imposing a 14-day quarantine on people returning from Greece (the Scottish government has already introduced this... and Westminster seems to follow Edinburgh these days).
4 SEPTEMBER - DAY 11
Last night I slept better and a little longer. Perhaps because Eleni took me to see some of the films that are part of the annual Skyros International Film Festival in the open-air cinema in Ermoupoli. Despite masks and a small amount of distancing, it was a convivial affair. All the showings were free and we say the marvellous Billy Wilder movie Fedora (which I'd never heard of, but which is so obviously a classic) and some shorts, good and not so good. Fishers and Fishing was a 1961 look at a now lost way of life on the Greek islands; Merciful, Wonderful appeared to make some sort of comment on the sacred icon of Tinos, but neither Eleni nor I could figure out what it was; and Gyres 1-3 was, er, a bit tedious so we left...
We had an ice cream in an almost deserted Miaouli Square before walking back to the car, parked outside the graffiti-daubed walls of the University of the Aegean.
This morning I walked into Ermoupoli again via my favourite downhill shortcut path and picked up my ticket for tomorrow's ferry to Piraeus.
There is more speculation in the news about the UK enforcing 14 days' quarantine on those returning from Greece (which Scotland has already done). Some holidaymakers were so convinced it was going to happen that they booked new flights to go go home only to find that the government wasn't changing anything this week (a sort of pre-U-turn on taking action). Pandering to whoever the government is pandering to (airlines, travel industry, economists) is certainly managing to piss off an awful lot of people.
Eleni had tipped me off about another great swimming spot in town... just down from the church of Aghios Nikolaos. And she wasn't wrong... this woman knows her swimming. There's no beach here, just a neat little jetty with ladders that drop you straight down into deep-ish but clear water. It seems to be predominantly a meeting place for women, and particularly older women. And many of the quite old women still wear bikinis that show almost their whole bodies. The sight of one of them made me shudder a little... but that was obviously my problem. These women are stripping off to enjoy swimming in just the same way as they always have done... and why should they stop? This isn't a beauty pageant down at the Ermoupoli waterfront, this is life.
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Below Aghios Nikolaos Photo©Nigel Summerley
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The wind is really strong today, coming in from the north-east... which means it's a fraction cooler. A good day for catching up with washing.
The wifi seems to be down... so am hoping it will be up by this evening so that I can have my weekly catch-up with Gary and Carmen.
5 SEPTEMBER - DAY 12
The wifi returned – thanks to Eleni's patience, hanging for a very long time to talk to a call centre – and after dinner, listening to the Ports of Ulysses CD (a joint Italian-Greek venture of a few years ago), I made contact with Gary and Carmen for yet another enjoyable two-hours-plus of catching up. I went to bed early in the hope of a really good night's sleep, but the wind from the north-east gathered strength and shook the shutters of the apartment all night long.
It was still blowing a gale when I walked to the local shop in the morning to buy some wine for Eleni to thank her for being such a generous host. I shall be sad to leave but glad also to be on the way. Getting through Patras is going to be crucial to whether the odyssey really does happen as planned (roughly).
I'm not particularly looking forward to being on this next ferry journey – nearly four hours to Piraeus, probably in the company of a lot of people returning from Mykonos, notorious now not just as Party Central but as Coronavirus Central. So, four hours of masking up and keeping well away from anyone who looks like they have been having fun...
In fact, the ferry journey was fine. I took Eleni's advice and got on to the south-west side of the boat (out of the wind) and stayed on deck for the whole voyage. It was a treat just to watch the islands go by and, as ever, try to identify which was which... it should be easy by now, but doesn't seem to be.
We pulled into Piraeus as the sun was setting and fortunately I pretty much knew the way to the Faros II hotel, where I had stayed before. There was a disquietingly noisy party going on at the Greek-Latin club opposite but the kindly receptionist put me in a large family room at the back of the hotel. I didn't hear any more of the party.
Later in the evening, I went to look for a dog. Not just any dog – but the one that I had first met two years ago. He was a huge street dog whom I first saw walking slowly across a main road in central Patras, apparently oblivious to the speeding cars on all sides. I never did figure out whether he was blind or just didn't care...
That first time I saw him I went back to my hotel and got some water and some biscuits and went looking for him. I found him settled down in a shop doorway. He sipped some water and nodded at the biscuits as though he might try them later.
When I was in Piraeus a year later I went walking just on the off chance that I might see him. And there he was, in the same doorway, with water that someone else had left... I topped up his water and left him some biscuits. But I realised that several people must be feeding him regularly – and that he was totally capable of surviving everything that Piraeus could throw at him. He didn't look in great shape, though...
So in 2020, on this third occasion of going looking for him (by which time I had started to think of him as Argo, the name of Odysseus's faithful but ill-fated dog), I was anxious... and this time there was no sign of him. Had he finally been hit by a car? Had coronavirus seen off his benefactors? Had he simply died of old age? I guess I'll never know... But I will look our for him again tomorrow... Just in case...
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'Argo' – Piraeus street dog Photo©Nigel Summerley
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6 SEPTEMBER - DAY 13
There was no sign of Argo this morning. I walked to the port and had a breakfast of cheese and spinach pie and tea at my favourite 24-hour café there, before looking for the bus station I needed to get the 420 to the long-distance bus station in Athens. I finally found the "station" which was a bus stop and a ticket office – which was closed. I asked in a travel agency round the corner how you could get the bus if you couldn't get a ticket.
"You're supposed to buy one at the ticket office," he said.
"But it's closed."
"Everything's closed," he said with a shrug.
"So can I get on the bus?"
"Try that stop over there," he said pointing to one on the other side of a six-lane road.
"OK."
Having practised how to explain all this to the driver, I didn't need to say anything. He just let me on through the back doors... didn't seem to register that I hadn't checked in a ticket... and I couldn't get to speak to him or offer to pay because he was securely screened and taped off.
So we arrived at the long-distance bus terminal... I'd forgotten how awful bus stations can be. This one is particularly miserable. Huge, with buses going everywhere, including the islands... including Ithaca!! And there was a circle of ticket offices each one selling tickets for a particular destination. I went to the Patras window and asked for a ticket to Patras.
"What?"
"Patras."
"What?"
"Patras."
"Oh, Patras!"
My Greek may not be brilliant, but however bad it is, how could a man at a ticket office labelled very clearly "Patras" not guess that I wanted a ticket to Patras?
For half an hour before boarding, the passengers were bothered by people selling tissues, sunglasses and watches. I bought a cold drink for a young woman trying to sell me tissues at the same time as I bought a drink for myself. Within ten minutes she was back again asking me to buy tissues.
The bus was hot and crowded and more or less on time. A twentysomething woman got on at Corinth, sat next to me, and talked on the phone without a break for 75 minutes. How can anyone do that?
When I staggered off the bus in the north of Patras, I thought my troubles for the day were over. Which was a foolish thing to think.
I had an address for the apartment I had rented but it turned out to be the address for a block of 25 flats... and I had not been given a name or a number, just been told that someone would meet me. I blagged my way into the building by buzzing a flat at random. But then I was stuck in the foyer for an hour, texting and ringing the phone number that was the only contact that I had. No response to any of this.
A resident who took pity on me asked if he could help. Did he know someone who rented out their flat? He said his mother might know. He reappeared a bit later with a suggestion for trying a flat on the second floor – and offered me a banana.
I didn't bother with the banana but headed straight for the door he'd suggested – marked Kapos.
The woman who answered turned out to be the mother of the man who was supposed to be meeting me. But she spoke no English and I spoke limited Greek so it took a very long time to get to that point. She also tried ringing her son – he didn't answer her call either. Then she called her daughter – who did ring back and apologised to me. "There's no problem," she told me. I explained in Greek and English that yes there was a problem in that if it weren't for the man with the banana I would still be sitting in the foyer waiting for her ne'er-do-well brother to turn up.
The mother (and father who now appeared) let me into the apartment next door. "Do you want some fruit?" he asked. What is it with these people and fruit? Is that going to solve anything? I took the key and asked them to please leave me in peace.
The apartment isn't filthy but it doesn't feel that clean either. It's not as bad as the Albion Hotel but then nowhere else I've stayed is.
At least now I could settle in... and use the wifi... except the password for the wifi, so clearly marked on a card in the living room doesn't actually work. I've texted the ne'er-do-well again and again had no answer. I'll try ringing... Just realised this is day 13...
7 SEPTEMBER - DAY 14
I did call Ioannis – owner of the apartment – yesterday evening and he finally answered. He insisted the wifi was working – I told him it wasn't. And could he please get the right password and let me know what it was... I also pointed out the problems I had had just getting into the apartment. He said he had been waiting to hear from me! I told him I'd rung him every 10 minutes from 3.30pm and he never answered and never replied to texts. Why?
"My friend, I can't be available all the time," he said.
I was speechless for a moment – before apologising for putting him to such inconvenience. I don't know whether he does sarcasm... Anyway, ten minutes later his mother appeared with a phone with him on it... saying that his mother had switched off the router but it was now back on. I tried the internet and it was working...
I'm not sure how I'm going to get through four days here. Ioannis's father who has now become rather in-your-face friendly came round last night and gave me a plastic pot of moustallegria – which I didn't want but took. He then insisted that I should join him at 12 noon today for something to eat. I told him that I wouldn't be here. He said that I would be here, since I was staying for four days. I explained that I would be out. Where? In Patras. So I could come and eat later... He means well but is already getting on my nerves...
He told me that communication was important! I told him that I agreed... We are not communicating... And I am probably going to have to email his son to ask him to stop his father from keeping coming round... I'm not clear whether they have heard of the coronavirus here... but they certainly don't seem to be acting as if they have.
Of all the places along the way, Patras is probably the least attractive one to be stuck in for four days. The highlights of the visit here are likely to be having a coronavirus test and an antigen test... which doesn't say a lot for the place.
I popped out briefly last night and walked down to the seafront... everything looked beautiful in distant sunlit silhouettes... but not so attractive up close... Patras is a big, grubby port city and probably nothing can really dress that up...
I'm heading off for the coronavirus test soon... and maybe after that I'll see everything here in a less jaundiced light...
Well, the test was a lot less uncomfortable than I had imagined. And Dr Aimilia Dmitropoulou was refreshingly straightforward. She reckoned the timing of the test should be fine – she didn't think the authorities would be nitpicking about a few hours (we'll see on that) and even tried to persuade me not to bother with the antigen test. But I said I thought it was worth doing – out of curiosity more than anything.
I definitely felt lighter after doing the test. Tiropita and tea for breakfast also helped. I had killed time before the test by walking around the ruins of the Roman athletics arena and odeon – although in neither case could I get in, since the sites were locked up. Maybe this was because it was a Monday?
In the afternoon I walked to the New Port of Patras... which is a semi-fortified area designed to be approached only in vehicles.
I eventually found my way in on foot and a helpful but extremely loud (presumably from talking over noisy truck engines all day) Australian security man pointed me in the direction of the passenger terminal.
I was almost beginning to be glad I was stuck in Patras for several days... it was taking me the best part of a day just to find out where to get the boat to Italy and whether the papers that I had received represented a voucher or a ticket. (I was also able to find out that the boats from Patras to Ithaca go from the Old Port – not this one.)
After the port I continued south to where there was allegedly a beach. I eventually settled on what was the beginnings of a beach and sat in the sun for an hour. A woman in a straw hat turned up and swam for almost all of that hour – an impressive amount of swimming (with the hat still on). The water looked stony but reassured (shamed?) by her, I went in and swam for a bit before getting dressed and walking back into town.
On the return, I discovered a quicker way into the New Port from what I have now dubbed "Morvillos House" – this block of flats that is actually like the Morville House block of flats that is my home – but not so nice.
Made it to the end of the second week... and the next one is the crucial one.
After a lot of mind, body and soul searching, I decided to have a covid booster vaccination.
