Another stressful day, the picture above shows Gill who is under the umbrella, there is no one else on a mile of beach and the temperature is around 22C, that was at noon but now I am afraid the holiday is over.
I almost always spend the journey home writing a summary which you will probably ignore but it gives me something to do on the flight and the warm feeling I have done something useful. Hopefully these ramblings will be uploaded from the Manchester airport hotel before we brave the English weather and catch the train tomorrow morning.
I was very determined to get away in September rather than fester at home and to some extent bullied Gill into a Greek holiday although she says she is pleased I did.
Apart from the journey to and from Greece the risks of catching covid seem much the same as at home. Supposedly Greece has a lower infection rate but this may be because they test fewer people or somehow massage the figures to protect the tourist industry. It does feel safer primarily because most socialising and eating is done outside. All this of course could be famous last words, let's hope not.
Whilst we like to think we know Greece well we did go out of our way to explore areas which are new to us and I am pleased to say we found some gems. In particular the Pindus mountains in the Vikos–Aoös National Park and the island of Lefkada which seems to have the right mix of mountains, coast, traditional villages and tourism.
All of the other areas we visited were fine and the contrast between Thessalonica and the border area with Albania gave the holiday some variety. We extended our stay by a week as we were enjoying ourselves and the news from the UK was depressing, it would have been nice to stay a little longer but this week is deemed to be the end of the tourist season so all flights stop and, as a consequence of no tourists, all the tavernas also close.
I have already mentioned in the blog the revolutionary improvement in food, one perfect example is taramasalata, 30 years ago this was thick, pink wallpaper paste which was to be avoided at all costs, now it is very pleasant and seems to be given out as a “freebie” with the bread.
This past week we have stayed in a very smart apartment right in the centre of Vassiliki (like most Greek names the spelling is different on every map or sign you see so I like to follow this habit and do the same). It is a town about the size of Bishop's Castle which relies on tourists for half it’s income (windsurfers and yachts) and fishing for the other half. Each evening a flotilla of yachts arrive, last night there were 12 boats all with Dutch people, the night before there were 8 with Brits. 12 boats probably equates to 50 taverna meals so about £2,000 especially as people on holiday yachts are quite affluent but of course the next night they have sailed away to another island so we were seen as slightly unusual as we were there all week.
Like Bishop’s Castle everyone knows everyone else and word soon got round that we were staying a week, which flight we were leaving on, what we ate for dinner etc etc. The picture shows Gill and I with Gary the proprietor of Penguins Taverna, his son runs another taverna called Zorbas and they share staff, recipes and much else besides.
The waitress at our breakfast taverna comes from Slovenia and the owner of our apartment is Russian, she owns several apartments, a supermarket and a gift shop and was for ever popping round to give us presents such as things she had baked or gifts that presumably that no one wanted to buy from her shop. It is a very nice little town to idle about in, we might go back next year for a little longer. From next week all the tavernas will be shut and presumably nothing happens again apart from fishing until next Easter.
So now we are back in the UK we, like everyone else, will follow the news closely to see what we can and can't do, I don’t think it will be long before I am moaning to Gill about needing another holiday.