From Cairo to the Connemara: A Sojournal

Pt2 - 10:   SANTORINI   In my mind we were going to have Santorini all to ourselves, so imagine how pissed off I was to discover other travellers aboard the ferry out of Heraklion, how dare they? I call the Romilda a ferry but, like much of the inter-island traffic, it’s a small cruise ship with a vehicle deck. Sailing conditions were ideal and we spent much of the four hour passage lounging in a booth, conserving our energy for the fabled isle. Fully recovered from Samaria, we were up for it. The approach was spectacular. Sheer cliffs of compressed volcanic ash reared out of the blue Aegean like cross sections of an exotic cake with layers of brown, ochre, red, green and black, all iced with the bright white settlements of Oia, Imerovigli and Thira. We docked about 7:30 as the setting sun cast the sea in bronze. It was like arriving on a movie set. I might have mentioned elsewhere that travelling on the cusp of the season offers considerable benefits, even if sometimes...

Pt2 - 9:   CRETE We’d not been in Chania (Khar-nia) a day when the clouds parted and the warm sun sucked up the shallow puddles along the old Venetian waterfront. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to visualise small sailing ships riding gently on the tide and to hear the sounds of the busy commercial district at the eastern end of the sheltered harbour echoing across the water. At the local maritime museum there’s a richly detailed scale model of the old Venetian port which shows not much has changed here in the last two hundred odd years. A stroll out to the little lighthouse at the end of the breakwater offered a view back across the harbour to the colourful strand and what might literally have been the face of 18 th century Venice. In the middle distance the dramatic Lefka Ori, or White Mountains, lived up to their snow-covered name. Like all the accommodation in Old Chania, The Captain Vassilis was a large Venetian house converted to a hotel. Built in the 1780s, it was r...

 Pt2 - 8: ATHENS   I had my bearings immediately. Within half an hour of arriving in Syntagma Square in the centre of Athens we’d installed ourselves in room 811 of the Hotel Astor on Karageorgi. The balcony boasted a view of the Acropolis and we had CNN for the first time since Tiberias. With less than a week to go to the election the IRA is stepping up its terror campaign at railway stations and airports in Britain; we can only cross all our digits and hope Bill doesn’t get caught up in any carnage and/or his flight isn’t cancelled at the last minute. In the meantime, we have a day to settle in. I led Tess back through Syntagma and up to the Plaka. Normally a hub of lively activity the Plaka was quiet today for Orthodox Easter Sunday. That’s ok, it’s just nice to be wandering around in t-shirts, and it gave Tess a chance to scope the place out without being harangued by restaurant touts. * We’re still tiring easily on the tail end of the Istanbul bug and have two d...

 Pt2 - 7: GREECE 24 th April – 20 th May   SAMOS True to his word, Mehmet from Hermes Car Hire drove us down to the coast to board the Ku şadaşi Prenses at 8:15 this morning and we were underway fifteen minutes later. Although hazy, it was pleasantly warm and calm for the short hop across to Samos. The shallow turquoise waters of the Turkish coast gave way to the inky blue of the deeper Aegean while the grey shapes of Samos and its family of small rocky islets loomed in the distance. Indeed, we never actually lost sight of land for the entire ninety-five minute journey. As we steamed into the port of Samos Town the sun won its battle to burn through the haze and broke over the colourful buildings lining the waterfront, a fitting welcome to continent number three, Europe, and country number five. Customs formalities were unusually casual at both ends of the crossing. Although we could have waltzed through with a kilo of heroin, this is definitely how international tra...