Author: Merel

Hi everyone,

Today I started by taking the ferry to Lokrum island, just ten minutes away from Dubrovnik harbor. Lucky for me, today is the last day the ferry is going!

Cute tourist shop as a welcome next to the harbor on Lokrum:

The island itself is quite small but very beautiful. The name ‘Lokrum’ means ‘bitter fruit’. I suspect because there are limes and lemons growing there? Anyways, a nice quiet get away from the big and busy city of Dubrovnik. It is very peaceful with bunnies and peacocks roaming free on the island. they are a bit shy though.

It has a nice selection of fauna, a small lake to swim in, a monastery and even a botanical garden. Apparantly the island had an experiment with different plant species from Australia and America to see what would grow in this climate.

The botanical garden:

The tiny lake (with venomous anemones):

Outside of the monastery:

Some of the places named above were used in the TV-series Game of Thrones.

See here some examples (again my pics and screenshots from the series, sorry for the angles). And here is another website that you can visit if you’re interested.

Definitely less glamorous now, right?

In the monastery there is a small exhibit dedicated to Game of Thrones. A replica of the Iron Throne was donated to the island (unfortunately the real thing is now in Prague).

Overal a very positive expierence, this island. I was a bit dissapointed by how busy Dubrovnik was after I got back, but that is normal with so many tourists. There is never a spot to be alone and quietly eat your icecream (green apple and melon, so good).

After I finished my delicious ice cream I went up to fort Lovrjenac. This gave a really gorgeous view of the old town, the city walls and the cute red roofs.

Fort Lovrjenac was also a filming location for the Red Keep of Game of Thrones (I hope you are not bored yet with my TV-series enthousiasm). See this example:

Not the best angle and sorry for the shadow:

This is a better example:

Here is a picture of the canons of the fort, in the walking tour yesterday I heard these are totally fake. For the best probably.

Hope you all had a good weekend as well.

Hi everyone,

Today was my first real day in Dubrovnik. I did a free walking tour with a great local guide. The first thing I learned, out of many, is that the pronunciation is different and the emphasis should be on ‘Du’ instead of ‘brov’. I also learned where the name from the city comes from, it is from the Slavic words for ‘forest of oak trees’. Since the mountain used to be filled with oak trees, now it is just pine trees.

Here are some cool pictures of the city:

The guide told a lot about the history and the people of the city. They were very ‘street’ smart, even in the early days. Dubrovnik was a very rich republic for 500 years, since they could create (and sell) salt in the area. They also were the first republic in (the now) Europe. In those years they have managed to avoid wars or invasions by buying their way out of problems. They also had traders and diplomats as spies in other countries to be ahead of the problems and making deals with potential enemies. So smart, right! The whole city is filled with those smart and innovative ideas they invented and practiced, very impressive. Unfortunately not all of the history is so happy, as no history ever is. Very recently (1991-1992) they had a Homeland war that destroyed much of the inner city, eventhough the bombarding lasted for only half a day instead of the intended three dayz. The guide actually fought in this war, he was in the police and the military as well. So this was a very impressive and real story to hear from someone that went through it. And the scars to the city are still very visible.

Pictures of a house that completly burned down and a story of how it got rebuild.

A map of where the city was hit and to what extend (bombs hit the ground, bombs hit the roof, bombs that burned down buildings).

These are holes from bullets and shrapnel from bombs.

This a real shrapnel out of one of the buildings.

I also learned about a superstition of people here. Don’t step into the gutter, then you will never get married. This was because if you fell in the gutter you would get crippled and nobody would want to marry you. Of course I did it a bunch of time, because I forget to look where I walk.

After the tour I walked around the old town. I went to a monastery with a pharmacy that was selling products since 700 years ago. They still have the old recipes from back then, very interesting.

I also wanted to go to Fort Lovrjenac but it was closed already. It is known for having the thickest and thinnest walls. The thickest are 12 meters thick and are facing the sea. The thinnest are 60 centimeters thin, facing the old town. The reason for this was that if the fort was conquered by an enemy it could easily be taken back by breaking through the thin walls. As I sad, such smart people. There is a quote in Latin in the fort:
‘Freedom can not be sold for all the gold in the world‘. I wholeheartedly agree and will definitely try to visit the fort tomorrow.

Unfortunately tourists has messed up the city. Only 500 locals living in the old town now instead of 6000. All of it was sold by locals and now rented out as apartments. Apparently at one point you could get €50.000 for 1 m2 in the old city. Crazy, right?

As some of you might know, Dubrovnik is also the place where some of the TV-series Game of Thrones is filmed. Especially the part of King’s Landing, this is the part where some of the royalty lives and betrayels take place.

Of course the scenes in the TV-series is heavily corrupted with computer images and adjustments. Here is an examples (with my own pictur taken), but this blogger took the time to write it all out (and I am lazy).

Unfortunately my picture is not taken at the right angle. Sorry for that!

 

Oeh, found another example:

I also saw a lot of other sights, like the walk of shame of Cersei, the purple wedding and the Red Keep is apparantly inside Fort Lovrjenac (hopefully will see that tomorrow). Since I did not want to hold up the tour, I did not take pictures of everything and I have to say not everything is easy to recognise.

So the Iron Throne is on Lokrum Island, which is also the place where a lot of scenes were filmed for Qarth (the city Daenerys visited in season two).

So far I really love it here, so much to do! I am trying to extend my stay so I can do a day trip to an island (maybe Lokrum?) from here as well. Have to do some research first on what island has the coolest things to see. Tonight will be full of research, what to do and to see here? I have a lonely planet guide that finally comes in handy, as well as the internet!

Hope you enjoy your Saturday.

Hi everyone.

I made it to Croatia, everybody! Woehoe!
I have now been through 10 countries, doing the last two in todays drive, Bosnia and Croatia.
The drive was around 11 hours, from Sofia to Dubrovnik and took 2 days in total. This was the longest drive I have done so far this trip.
Starting at 07:30 ending at 15:30 (16:30 but I am now back in Dutch timezone).

I now also understand why Bosnia has no tol vignettes, I have not seen any highways. It was just mountain roads and rural villages for 5 hours. Very strange and not the most relaxed driving.
Today was a day of firsts, I can check some things from my bucket list!

I picked up a hitch hiker in Bosnia. It was a teenager (I suspect around 15 years old) who did not speak any English. Since I don’t speak any Bosnian it was a bit hard communicating. He decided to just drive with me for around 5 minutes and so I dropped him off the next village over.
Still counts for the bucket list though!

Also a first, but not on the bucket list I guess, I got pulled over by the police today. Old school style with a round board held up, reminded a train conductor.
I was speeding and luckily they just gave me a warning to slow down, in Bosnian language of course. Can’t get the Greek out of the girl, haha. Kidding aside, it’s best to get used to normal driving again. So this was a good wake up call.

I was very suprised by the great country of Bosnia. I have seen crazy high mountains, forests, rivers, lakes, it was really beautiful. If you like raw nature I would suggest a visit to this country, as well as it being cheap.
See here, some pictures!

I also encountered some cows, there were just chilling on the road, eating grass. One got a bit curious and now I have a bunch of snot on my car window. She also gave the mirror a good shove.

In the end I made it to Dubrovik.

It is a super hilly city and thank god I could park on the side of the main road, but it is next to a cliff. Sweaty palms while parking of course.
Since I was in the car for so long, I am exhausted and will start exploring tomorrow. This post is not as long as I hoped, when I drive I keep thinking of this cool stuff to write and then I make it to the destination and I forget it all. I should think of a way make notes while driving.

Hope you all had a good day, happy weekend!

Hi everyone,

Today was mostly just driving through the Serbian rural communities. So a quick summary of what I saw:

• 6 chickens on the side of the road
• 4 guys from the military
• 7 people riding a bicycle
• 0 stray cats or kittens
• 4 stray dogs and 2 puppies
• At least 15 side of the road shops with vegetables
• 8 carts or wheelbarrows filled with cabages, which reminded me of this guy

• 2 horse statues
• 3 churches
• At least 3 bridges crossed
• 2 pink taxis
• 2 tractors on the road

I’ll probably think of more so I will add to this list later when I think of something.

I got to my hotel which was very luxurious, it has a spa! For the sake of trying new things (and it is really cheap here) I actually got a face and neck massage. Very relaxing and hopefully it helps with a bit of neck pain, I suspect from driving.

Tomorrow I have to drive another 6,5 hours and pass two border controlls. I hope it will go a bit faster than today because it took me about 45 minutes to cross the Bulgarian-Serbia border.

Really curious about Bosnia and Croatia though. I will be glad if tomorrow is over.

Hope you all had a good day!

Hi everyone!

Today did not start on a good note. We discovered that we’re missing 100€ from our wallet. We retraced our steps but could not figure out where it went unfortunately. We asked around, turned our luggage inside out as we weren’t missing anything else from our wallets or purses. But no luck.

After our search we started a free walking tour through Sofia. In two hours we saw the whole city from the parliament to the cathedral and the Sofia statue, the mosque, synagogue! We also learned a lot about the history of Bulgaria and how the communists influenced the buildings and people.

Here are some pictures of buildings I don’t remember the name of:

The hidden treasure of Sofia, surrounded by buildingd:

The guide also told a story about the statue of Saint Sofia. It was put there in 1999 for the millenial celebration. This statue has nothing to do with the city or its name. She was the first Christian in the Roman empire and died because of that. The things she holds on the statue are also from the Roman empire. So that is contrary to what she should stand for, it caused an uprising with the people but the government don’t care. Then it caused an uprising with the Catholic community but the government was like, ‘nah, they will forget about it’ and they were right.

We ended the tour with a classic story of the Balkan mentality. This is a picture of the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

This used to be the biggest and highest Orthodox church in the Balkans. But because of the competition with all other Balkan countries, Serbia decided to make a bigger one (which they don’t even use). It’s even twice as big as this one. So now of course Bulgaria is going to rebuild it.

The really nice thing about this cathedral is that it is completely funded by the citizens of Sofia. Which is also the reason it took 40 years to complete. They wanted the best materials available, like Italian marble and Brazilian Onyx. The rooftops are of real gold. So you can imagine that the wait was totally worth it.

We decided to do another free tour in Sofia, it was a Bulgarian food tour! Highly recommend this to anyone, very fun and tasty.
In total we ate at 5 different restaurants and they had all prepared some small bites for us. We learned about the magic healing power of Bulgarian yoghurt, we learned that Bulgarian food is mostly milk or cheese based (I’m not complaining). Apparently Bulgarian grandmothers fat up their grand children with sweets and they only get skinny again when they hit purberty and will start smoking and drinking.
We also got a small lesson in traditional Bulgarian dancing, got to say, I’m not a talented dancer.

Overall, the food tour was a great succes! We really enjoyed the local places and stories behind it. Very interesting to get this tour from a native Bulgarian ofcourse.

The day ended with a local dinner. Iris drank the Bulgarian fruit brandy, finally. She really loves!
I ended the dinner with a yoghurt, honey and walnut dessert. So good! But not as good as the walnuts we found and opened from Greece.

Iris flew back to Amsterdam and I am on my own again. Ready for new adventures!

Hope you all had a good-yoghurt-day.

Dear everyone,

This morning we started our day with a walk to the St David church, advised by our free walking tour gide yesterday. This is a very special church as it has one of few images of Jesus Christ without a beard. Around 500 a.d. the mosaic was created on the ceiling of the church in the form of an eye. The Ottoman Turks came and covered it in plaster because they made it into a mosque, so all images of Christ should be covered.
After the first world war a Greek archeologist discovered the mosaic when he, very carefully, tried to remove the plaster. This is also the reason why it is preserved so well, nobody touched or seen it for decades.
Here is a picture of it, it is crazy detailed. You will discover something new every time you look at it.

After our morning walk we got in the car and drove to Sofia, Bulgaria. So this was our last day in the beautiful Greece. Very sad to leave since I’ve gotten used to it and actually really loved being here. Even though I do miss throwing toilet paper in the toilet instead of the bin. But all kidding aside, I really love Greece and its gorgeous nature, culture and food. I hope to be fortunate enough to visit again.

When crossing the Greece-Bulgarian border we finally figured out why border controll seem to be so interested in my luggage. On the back seat of the car I have crates with camping stuff stored with a blanket on top. So they think some person is hinding there and I’m smuggling in people! Ha, this did not once crossed my mind. Seems so crazy to me that people actually try this.

When we arrived in Sofia we went down to get some drinks and food in the city. We ate at Largo, a really nice place with great prices, as everything in Bulgaria seems a lot cheaper, even the cocktails. So now we are sipping (redbull) vodka and this will be the last night for Iris. Time went by so fast!

We also got some free pumpkin cheese cake, because we had some contact with a chef through the glass kitchen window.

Hope you all had a great day!

Dear all,

Today was a day full of walking, talking and shopping. Iris and I went full-shop-mode and did the main shopping streets in Thessaloniki. Bought a total of 8 things, from shirts to shoes to cluchtes and hair bands.

We also came across a crazy shop with very awesome shoes!

In the afternoon we did a free walking tour of the upper town of Thessaloniki. There is a distinct difference between the city center and the upper town (Anapolis) besides it being literally ‘higher’ because it’s on a hill.  Anapolis is really a village in the city. The center is busy with shops, streets and cars. It is much newer than anapolis since a big fire burned most of it down. Anapolis is cute, idyllic with small streets where people really know their neighbors.

In anapolis we had a very interesting perspective of a local, born in this city. He told us of the history, religion and culture of the city. A quote that stuck with us from a byzantine priest in the 14th century:

‘Nobody stays without a home as long as Thessaloniki exists’.

This is important to Thessaloniki and the citizens because it is a melting pot of cultures. There are people living here from a lot of different countries and cultures (Spain, Germany, Turkey, etc) and that is what they are proud of.

We also went to the Akropolis (the safest place in a city) of Thessaloniki. It has double walls for safety and defense. There is also a monastery inside, next to it we saw a beautiful view of the city. The monastery was accompanied by a lot of animals like peacocks and ostriches.

The gate of the monastery:

The outer walls:

The tour ended on a nice musical note. The guide told us about influential music from the ‘underdogs’ in Greece and Thessaloniki. He played us two songs of Rebetiko music on a Bouzoukia.

After the free walking tour we had dinner at a really cool holiday bar, called Noell. The decorations were very pretty.

Inside:

There were people eating and I didn’t want to photograph them so just a picture of the side of the hallway:

Overall, a very good and productive day!

Hi everyone,

Today was a great day because it was full of happy surprises. Let’s start at the beginnning.

My eye has some magic healing power I was not aware of. It was miraculously just red instead of swollen, infected or blind! So we decided to drive to Thessaloniki in the Northern part of Greece. But first we had a morning beach walk.

My sister’s feet:

The drive went really smooth until we had to find parking in Thessaloniki. We drove past a national park but it seemed all yellow and dry. Since Thessaloniki quite a big city there are 0 parking spaces available. We couldn’t check into the hotel until after lunch so we decided to park it temporarily in a garage just out of the city center. Apparently there was a running competition going on so it was very busy at the coast, fun to watch people sweat.

Great view of the city as well:

There was an art installation of umbrellas on the boulevard:

We also had lunch at a cute local restaurant, where we got free dolmades (sticky rice in grape leaves). It was very tasty! I might throw you all a Greek cuisine party after I’m back.

After lunch we checked into the hotel and got a very good parking tip. Now we can park safely and for free only 8 minutes away from the hotel. Felt like a real win!

Since I didn’t pack enough socks and underwear we had to go buy some more and hit the shopping street of the city. My sister came across a very beautiful silver ring and now her fingers are super shiny (can blind you, be aware).

We walked past the Rotonda on our way to the shopping area. It used to be a chapel but now it’s just a ruïne with beautiful mozaïek on the walls and ceiling.

I convinced Iris to go see ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ with me. This movie is from another world! Definitely a must see for the cinema. I won’t bore you with my review and opinions (I could go on for hours) but for me it is the #2 in 2018 movies so far (#1 Mama mia: here we go again, of course). If you are at least slightly interested in Queen and/or their music than it is a movie worth watching. Very inspiring film!

We went for drinks after and I beat my sister at backgammon, even though I’m not sure we played it 100% correctly hah.

Have a nice evening.

Hi everyone,

Today was first day we had a hotel breakfast. It was pretty good and view was even better. However, the goodbye was very (w)ruff..

We had a view of the Lake Plastira. Also known as little Switzerland. The lake is named after the Prime Minister, he thought of this in 1925. The lake was eventually hand made from 1955 – 1960 with Italian war money. The landscape is truly stunning with every autumn color you can imagine. We also visited the botanical gardens but since all the letters were Greek we had no idea what we were looking at, very pretty though.

After that we went to hike to a restaurant 6 kilometers away. It was mostly down hill, so the way back was going to be a struggle.

The hike itself was gorgeous. Through dry river beddings, woods, mountains and a sheep herd. We ate a self picked orange and found a few walnuts we will eat tonight or tomorrow! So cool you can grow almost anything here, and people actually do! And it tastes great as well!

The restaurant had a beautiful view of the lake as well, there was lots of recreational activities to do. We saw the perfect tourist attraction for Dutch people: a real water bike. So it’s a kayak with a ‘bike’ on top to move you forwards.

We also went to the Mushroom, another restaurant (that actually served food). It also had a wonderful view of the 12 kilometers long lake.

The hike back was such a hassle, a lot of corners, steep hills and sweat. We were happy to be in the car for once.

We drove down to Paralia, a small coastal village with lovely tourist shops and restaurants. My sister is finally a Greek princess. The great empress of Paralia!

Now we are eating at a cute restaurant and drinking wine /cocktails. We have officially decided that Greece is a hidden pearl of Europe. So many people just visit the islands but the mainland is also very worth of visiting! And not just Athens.

Unfortunately today was not all good things. I had a small accident applying liquid anti mosquito stuff and it got into my eye (dont ask me how). So now its all red and painfull, lets hope I can drive tomorrow!

Fingers crossed I can still see out of my eye tomorrow.

Dear everyone,

Today we drove 4 hours to the famous Meteora of Greece. Meteora means ‘rock formation with monasteries on top’. There used to be 30 monasteries in this area, 6 are active and 4 are open today. From those 4 we visited 3 even though we didn’t actually go inside because we were not properly dressed (shorts, skirts en sleeveless shirts). Since this sight was too beautiful to put in to words, here is the story with pictures!

At first we visited a smaller monastery called Rousanou Convent. Lots and lots of stairs.

We also saw a kitty begging for food the whole time people were eating. It was kind of sad and funny at the same time.

The second one was the great monastery, this was the biggest of them all. But unfortunately it was not open anymore.

Also a lot of tourists and shops. This is where we bought two cute bracelets as a memory of this trip.

The final monastery we visited was the Holy Trinity Monastery (awesome name, right?). Some of you might know this as St Cyril’s, an abandoned mountaintop monastery, where the famous James Bond throws the ATAC system and a villain of the mountain.

In the spirit of James Bond and adventures we went on our own cool not-so-James-Bond adventure. We went on a more-Steve-Irwin-hike through the wild nature of Greece. With the mountains, bushes with thorns, climbing big boulders and hoping we don’t get bit by thousands of mosquitos (snakes, or scorpions or all of the above). The view was absolutely worth the scratches.

After our hike we were ready for a cool drink and some tzatziki.  We went to a restaurant at 930 meter altitude. This is where we realized tzatziki was forever ruined for us, since it was just too good and yummmm.

Yesterday we booked our hotel for tonight, a lovely Resort and Spa with a view of the Lake Plastiras. Since the Meteora is up in the mountains it was quite the trip to go there, the drive back, however, was even worse. It started off okay, with paved roads and safety rails. It slowly got worse, hairpin turns at every corner and not being able to go faster than 30 km per hour. So it took us a while to get to the hotel but we made it alive and in one piece!

Let’s hope we stay alive tomorrow as well.
Have a good night everyone.

 

 

 

Hi all,

This morning my sister went for a morning swim and in the end I joined her (because I’m crazy as well). Since it is the first of November we figured it was kind of weird swimming with 28th degrees outside, but it was loveeeely. Very shallow water makes for a good swim. The water was super clear and we could see all the (tiny) fishes. Unfortunately we could not catch them, they are faster than they look. Or we are slower than we look. Maybe both?

Prove of my sister getting ready to swim and catch fishes:

After tanning, showers and packing we went on our way to Selemi Winery. When leaving the village we encountered several challenging hills. One of which was almost not conquered (going 3 km per hour in first gear). But it worked out and it was totally worth it!

We learned how they make authentic Greek wines. The production is more automatic than in other countries, for example France. They had many siloes of 25.000 liter where the wine was cooled and stored.

The area we were in, Menea, is famous for wine making. We passed several wineries when we drove up the hills. This specific winery was a recommendation from Yannis (the Ouzo distillery guy). They had several prize winning wines from national and international competitions, beating all of Europe. Very cool and we got to taste some! We got to try a wine they don’t actually sell because they were out of bottles, production year 2012. They only give it to people at tastings.

After the tasting we got back in the car and drove to Nafpaktos. This is a ghost town with just bungelows and no supermarket. On the road we sang along to Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Bruno Mars. Now we are chilling in the hotel room and saw a cute grey kitty begging for our dinner.

I hope you all had a nice cold and wet day (haha). Pictures will be uploaded tomorrow.

Since my sister is crazy enough to do a morning sea dive, I am just on the balcony enjoying the view!

Hello everyone,

Today has been a great day! We drove from Athens to the ruïnes of Tiryns. It was almost completely gone but the walls and rooms were almost all there. Really cool to think that people used to live there.

Here are some pictures:

It has an amazing view!

After that we went to a fort in Nauplion (Nafplio). This one was even more incredible, we climbed a bunch of stairs and got a really good view of the city and the great waters.

When we left the fort we headed to Ouzo distillery Karonis, this is a family business. Yannis and his wife are the fifth generation.

We got an explanation about how Ouzo and some other liquors are made. Really interesting! And yummy!

Overall, a really amazing day. Hope you had a an amazing day as well.

Ps. Can’t believe I have been gone for a month already. Wow.

Dear everyone,

Today my sister and I took a free walking tour around Athens. We learned a lot about the sights and history of the city. All the Greek names and tribes were really interesting but hard to remember. I have to admit that not everything I wrote in my last blogs was completely correct heh, I will try to correct it. Anyways here are some pictures:

Remains of a temple:

The tower of the winds:

The stadion where ancient games were held:

Change of the guards:

This was our last day in Athens.

Hope you also had an informative day as well.

After that we went to the National Archeological Museum of Athens.

When we got back we went to eat at the number 6 best bar in the world. It was really great food and drinks.

Hi everyone,

Yesterday was a really fun day. I went down to the parade and apparantly it is all the differrent schools and children representing. Carrying the Greek flag and ‘marching’ through the streets. There was also some marching bands.

After the parade I met up with Nick again and we headed out to the Akropolis. Because it was free today, it was also very busy. We managed to survive the insanely long line. Even though we realized at the end we did have to have free tickets to scan, so luckily one of us could run down to the office to get them.

I was also lucky enough to snap some pictures without other tourists on them. So here they are:

And the theater from the top instead of the ground.

Since Nick had never seen the Mediterranean, we decided to take a metro to the harbor. And eat ice cream there.

When we went back it was almost dinner time so we just went into the city center to check out some restaurants. While doing that we ran into a nice church to check out.

Now, on the 29th, I am picking up my sister from the airport. So I am not sure how often I will post in the upcoming days.

Byeee

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I drove down to Athens. Today I went to visit the sights. I walked around and visited the Areopagus hill. Had a wonderful view from up there, on one side you could see the whole city and on the other side you could see a lot of nature.

Also saw a bit of the Akropolis, but didn’t go inside yet.

This theater as well. It can hold around 5000 people and is still used to this day.

The National Garden of Athens with the Zappio Megaro, this is a congress center now.

Also saw a random tortoise there. Just happily walking around the park. I learned later (after the walking tour of day 30) that the wife of King Otto asked to have this garden made with all different plants and animals. That is why there are tortoises and plants that normally wouldn’t grow in Greece.

I have to admit that it seems a bit weird that all these leftovers from ancient times are scattered around such a modern city otherwise. Looks like stuff out of a movie really. I have probably walked past some other sightings as well but don’t even remember them all, its just so much!

I also met a view nice people, Nick (USA), Pieter (NL) and Christina (USA). We had drinks and then dinner (baklava, yumm) at Plaka, wich is a famous tourist street with restaurants and such.

Tomorrow is όχι – day, which is the day the Greeks refused the ultimatum given in 1940 by the Italian forces with a single ‘όχι! ‘ (No!). For a more detailed explanation you will have to read some Wikipedia. So there is a parade tomorrow and apparently a lot of museums and tourist attractions will be free.

Looking forward to tomorrow! Definitely enough to see here.

Hi everyone,

Today was a whole day of traveling. Bus, ferry, walks, car, you name it.

The weather on Skopelos was bad enough that the ferry was not going to the main port today. So I was required to take a bus, free of charge luckily. Ofcourse I almost end up taking the wrong bus, the driver luckily corrected me and told me where to get on the right bus.

The weather while on the ferry was not too bad. Only at the beginning the winds were heavy. Sometimes I could see only water or only sky through the small window, getting nauseated again just thinking about it.

After arrival in Volos I went to pick up my car and I drove to my Airbnb. I will keep being amazed at the driving culture here. No regard for corners or other cars coming from those corners for that matter. Anyways, I made it in one piece and with ignoring the honking ha!

For now it’s a bit of reading m and then going to bed because I am exhausted.

Tomorrow awaits a new driving challenge: Athens.

Been awake now for 2,5 hours because the wind is going crazy outside. The balcony doors keep swinging open eventhough I ‘locked’ them.

Really debating if I should take the earlier ferry at 07:00, I’m awake anyway. Then I remembered that I have to return the bicycle at 10:00. Too bad. Hope there is a place I can nap on the 6 hour ferry trip.

Dear all,

I saved the best things to discover for my last day on Skopelos, today. My initial thought was to rent a car and travel around the island with it. Seeing several sights and beaches. Unfortunately there is a law that prohibits you from renting a car when you don’t have your license for more than a year. Damn it.

OK, new plan. What do I want to see the most? What is another transportation option? Scooter? Rather not. Quad? Don’t think they have them here. Bike? Too far, too much hills. Bus? Only goes twice a day and if I miss the last one, I’m toast. Taxi? That might be an option.

I talk to the nearest taxi driver, who immediately says yes and tells me he will wait half an hour for me on sight. Great! Now I will only see one thing but that is better than 0 ofcourse.
The taxi driver calls up his wife and she joins us for the trip. When I saw the tiny roads we drove on, I was actually glad that I wasn’t allowed to drive a car here.

We drove next to the coast so there was lots of pretty sights and the driver and his wife tell me stories about the island and where they grew up.

When we arrived at the Ekklisia Agios Ioannis chapel (yes mom, the church from the movie Mama Mia!) I was immediately taken back by the beauty of it.

I have more pictures on my camera so those will be posted later. I also saw so many lizards (not salamanders, oops). Even a blueish one! Managed to get a few pictures of them, but most are also on my camera. Except for this one, not great quality since I zoomed in, sorry.

On the way back we talked some more about their children, travel, Greece and they recommended me traditional Greek cheese pie. So that was what I had for lunch. Very tasty, not so healthy.

Since my initial plans fell through I still had half a day left. The taxi driver recommended to go to Stafilos Beach. This was only an hour walk or a 30 minute bike ride. So off I go, renting a bike and cycling away. I think my legs are going to hate me tomorrow.

The whole afternoon was spend on the beach and just as I am about to leave I ran into the guy who rented me the bike! He has his two cute kids with him, ready to go crazy in the last sunny hours of the day.

I am happy to report that my very white legs are now a little bit less white. As is my face, now let’s try to keep it this way!

Tomorrow I leave this very beautifull island. I do intend to come back here once more during spring. According to the taxi driver and his wife, May is the best time. It is supposed to be a lot more colorful at that time of the year with a lot of flowers, plants and trees starting up again. The weather should be warm and sunny, but not too warm so you can still do and see the scenery.

Hope you all had a sunny day as well.