Month: June 2018

Last on our itinerary, and certainly not least, is the tiny island of Antiparos with our hosts Arie and Meghana, their young son Nirvan and dog Maya who is reddish brown with a grey face and looks like a small wolf. 

I don’t know how to describe this place. For one thing, it is ginormous. It appears to be a series of separate houses connected by cobblestone paths, vegetable and flower gardens. The landscaping is indigenous to the area, and as a consequence is lush and green in comparison to the dry, scrub vegetation that dominates the region. 

There are two pools, one outside of my room which is situated in a separate building above the main house. The second, larger pool (both infinity style) is below the main house, overlooking the sea and completely hidden from view. I only found it with the help of the dog. In total, there must be room for 30 or more people on this property. All rooms have their own attached bathroom and several feature small kitchens.

Arie is an artist of sorts and Meghana is a former model who was born in Mumbai. They live most of the year in Tel Aviv but for three months, June to August, they call this island home.  

Antiparos is beautiful, quiet and deserted in comparison to its bigger sister Mykonos. I prefer this pace. It I were rich – and I would need to be – I could stay here indefinitely. The population in winter is 800, and the temps never fall below zero. You could walk this island easily, day after day, in the 280 days of sunshine that Greece gets each year. 

I don’t remember if I mentioned the water temperature. It is simply perfect. But given that the pools are right here …

Just a few days left in my Greek adventure. We leave tomorrow for the smaller, less populated Antiparos where we will again be staying with one of Evi’s wide circle of friends.

Mykonos has been a gift after the congestion of Athens. It is crowded in town of course. Ferry after ferry arrives filled with vacationers anxious to experience the charm of island life, but the heavy crowds won’t arrive for another couple of weeks. Weather has been fabulous, as usual.

We are staying with Babis, a friend of Evi’s from way back. She actually worked for him a long time ago at the older of the two clubs he owns here. We visited them yesterday but Astra, the older place, was closed with no one about so we couldn’t get in. We were luckier at Void; the cleaning staff was there preparing for the evening. Christo, one of the senior managers, invited us in and insisted that we visit the VIP area upstairs, the place that costs a ton of money to gain access to. They get a lot of celebrities there from the sound of it. Babis is actually friends with Keith Richards and there are a couple of Stones pictures in his home and an original of Keith in a place of honour in the living room. Wonder if I’m sleeping in his room…

We have been all over the island since our arrival. Evi has spent a good deal of time here and she had many places to show me….houses of friends and former lovers, secluded beaches far from the crowds, the church where she and Nicos got married, a grocery store with a live DJ that caters to the rich and famous from all over the world. 

We stopped at a small beach this afternoon for a swim. There were only two other people there – both male and both naked. Evi also swims in the nude  so once we had settled, I was the only one not in my birthday suit. India this is not😀

Athens is in the midst of an early heat wave, with temps in the mid 30s. Every ounce of water I consume in the run of a day – and I consume a lot – comes out of my pores as my body work overtime to keep me from frying. I have never been so cavalier about the location of public restrooms…

Aside from sleeping, life happens al fresco here. Cafes, bars, restaurants are everywhere and are filled to capacity until the wee hours. The streets, subway, trams and buses are jam-packed with folks coming and going, but they all seem to take time to sit and sip and chat or simply watch the world go by. 

There is another guest at my Air BnB – Galena from Moscow – and we have been sightseeing together. Thanks to her, I have seen most of the attractions in the Centre. We try to get out early in the morning and again in late afternoon when it isn’t quite so hot.

Evi picked me up mid-afternoon yesterday and we headed for the outskirts of Athens, driving the length of the coast past countless beaches. We drove a long, long way before we found a beach that suited us (meaning almost no people) and I had a wonderful dip in the sea! Afterwards, dinner at a lovely little taverna, finishing in time to watch the sun set from the Temple of Apollo.

My seat mate from Halifax to Montreal was a tiny, bird-like woman with a kind face and a fairly thick Newfoundland accent. We settled In and exchanged pleasantries, and I began to get sleepy as I normally do upon takeoff. It was going to be a quick, painless jump to Montreal before the long-haul flight to Athens.

I was right about neither of those predictions. Because no flight is quick when you are sitting next to a woman who is obviously starving for conversation….one-sided conversation. Painless it was not…

I smiled my way through the description of her children and grandchildren. We then moved on to her husband and his unwillingness to travel or do anything that can be considered fun which is why she travels on her own, leaving him in Deer Lake to his small business and preoccupation with the cars that they’ve purchased for their granddaughters. Then it was the children’s divorces and the inability of their exes to handle money or teach children how to be self-sufficient. Quick on the heels of that, descriptions of the various trips she has enjoyed to Florida and Vegas. I had nothing to add on any of these subjects.

I started to rummage around in my backpack, looking for my puzzle book but we were beyond the point of no return as she launched into an explicit tale of the colostomy bag she has to wear and the various operations and bad surgeons that she has crossed paths with and why she must have a window seat to keep the bag out of sight and how there was a time when she had lost all feeling and could not tell when the bowel movement was coming and ended up with a mess all over everything. Then the time she ended up on the floor and her husband had to call an ambulance and she could finally convince the specialist that yes – she was sick…

As the plane landed, she thanked me for being a good seat mate because one time they flew to Vegas and they had some asshole sitting next to them and he caused nothing but trouble for the cabin crew and she was afraid people would think he was with them and then he was next to them on the following flight and obviously someone had shared their personal information with him and she called the Privacy Commissioner and then she emailed them and finally succeeded in getting an apology.

I deplaned as quickly as possible, turned right at the gate, and ran.