2014.07.27 – Naples (Italy) – Corfu (Greece)

We had an early wake-up this morning in order to catch our 7:10am flight to Corfu – an island of the west coast of Greece. Following our hotel check-out, the staff called us a taxi. It was a straight forward short drive to the airport. The EasyJet check-in was efficient. While waiting at the gate, we were informed that our flight would be delayed by one hour. After our arrival at the Corfu airport, we recovered our luggage and waited for 30 mins for the city bus. We had been warned that the bus schedule was reduced on Sundays. In town, we made our way to a green bus station and waited another 30 min. for a bus to Moraitika which was some 45 mins drive further south. The scenery along the ride was very enjoyable. After being drop off in Moraitika, we started to inquiry about our Filoxenia Apartment. It appeared that nobody knew the place. A shop owner was nice enough to call the owner to get more details. Kostas, the owner, showed up on his motorcycle after another 10 mins. He walked with us to his apartment complex some 200m away. He quickly introduced us to our apartment and his garden. He provided us with plenty of local details. Jenny and I went for a walk in the area and stopped along our way back to buy a few food supplies for our stay. Kostas brought us a wine bottle from his own production. We really enjoyed the nice balcony of our apartment. Later in the evening we headed out to the Village Taverna for some real Greek food and hospitality. Later, we walked along the main street before returning to our apartment for the night. Jenny diligently did our clothes wash as part of her daily routine. She appreciated the clothes lines which were easily accessible from the entrance balcony. A great start to our Greek visit.

2014.07.28 – Corfu (Greece)

This morning was easy going. We headed in town for a late breakfast. We walked along the beach back to our apartment. After relaxing on the balcony, we headed to the beach and enjoyed it for two hours. After our shower and more balcony time, we walked to another restaurant near by Taverna Tasso. We were surprised to be hosted by a UK owner who was somewhat introducing her current family lifestyle in Moraitika. We enjoyed once again a nice walk along the main street while browsing the shops and restaurants.

2014.07.29 – Corfu – Kalambaka (Greece)

This morning we needed to catch the 8:45am bus back to the town of Corfu in order to board a ferry to Igoumenitsa. The bus was about 20 mins late which made Jenny panic a bit. Once in town, we walked to the ferry dock and purchased our ticket for the next sailing which was at 10:30am – a wait of 45 mins. The two hours crossing was uneventful. After docking at Igoumenitsa, we headed to the bus station to purchase tickets for Ionnnina, our bus connection to Kalambaka. Given that we had a 1.5 hours wait, we had lunch at a nearby cafe/restaurant. We were informed when we boarded our bus to Ionnnina that we would likely have to wait for 4 hours for the 8:00pm bus to Kalambaka. Hence, in Ionnnina, we relaxed at another cafe for a few hours while enjoying their WiFi and refreshments. During one of our walk along the main street, we stopped at a Greek fast food restaurant where we were introduced to Pita Slouvaki wraps. After our long wait, we finally boarded our bus from Ionnnina to Kalambaka. We were thankful for an experience bus driver as the road was very winding and climbed a fair bit. We arrived in Kalambaka around 10pm. Using our previously saved Google map, we were able to locate, with some luck our hotel, Titto Boutique hotel, even though the street names were barely readable in the dark. At the hotel reception, the owner gave us a few details about Meteora and Kalambaka. Our room was very modern and offered a balcony which Jenny appreciated for the clothes washing. Our long commute day, from 8:45am to 10:pm, made us realized that the Greek bus system would not be easy to navigate during our visit. We still consider that we made use of the downtime to further research our travel itinerary. Given our first day bus experience, we were alerted to the need of better planning our bus connections. We even started that evening our internet research on the bus service.

2014.07.30 – Kalambaka (Greece)

We showed up at 8am for the hotel’s courtesy breakfast as we planned to take the KTEL bus at 9am for the summit of Meteora. We left our hotel shortly after 8:30am for the bus stop. We first walked at the main plaza for the bus, but realized after a bit of waiting that the bus stop was further up at the water fountain plaza. The bus ride up to the top of Meteora was enjoyable as it provided us with a first glimpse of the hanging monasteries. There were hordes of buses, cars and campers lined-up along the side of the road. We visited the first two monasteries closest to where our bus drop off. As, for the third and final monastery visit of the day, I convinced Jenny and Victoria to undertake a long walk to its location. The weather was quite warm and sunny. We drank a lot of water along the way and stopped at different shaded area. There were much fewer tourists visiting that third monastery. We learned that Meteora was made up of six monasteries still active but one of them was closed today. Following our last monastery visit, we opted to take, as suggested in our travel guide book, a walking path down to Kalambaka. Jenny introduced us to the benefit of “fraction” (aka friction) when walking down steep paths. Back in town, the heat was now more intense in the afternoon. We cooled down in our room for a bit. After confirming, with very limited details available on the internet, the bus connection details from Kalambaka – Delphi, we went to the bus station to buy tickets for tomorrow’s bus journey. As the bus station booking system was unavailable, we had to return later. We noticed that most shops/restaurants were closed between 1 and 6pm. We took the time to have some ice cream at the plaza and visited a very old Byzantine church. For supper we looked up TripAdvisor for suggestions and opted for Taverna To Paramithi. We each had an appetizer and main course accompanied with some wine. We visited a few shops along our way back to the hotel.

2014.07.31 – Kalambaka – Delphi (Greece)

This morning we skipped the courtesy hotel breakfast in order to catch the 8am Kalambaka-Trikala bus (30 mins). Yesterday’s bus tickets we purchased included the segment from Trikala to Lamia (1.5 h), we had a short wait in Trikala. In Lamia, we purchased tickets for Lamia to Amfissa and Amfissa to Delphi. We had a one hour wait for the 12:45pm bus which went to Amfissa only twice a day from Lamia. We had another one hour wait in Amfissa at a small bus station. We saw our first loaded touring cyclist on the road to Amfissa. The bus seating started to get a bit confusing when a large number of passengers boarded the bus in the previous town before Delphi. The road from Amfissa to Delphi was very winding while climbing into the mountain. After completing our day of commute involving four bus connections, we were dropped off in Delphi, a very small town well appointed for tourists (hotels/restaurants). We easily found our hotel on the main street – Fedriades Delphi Hotel. Jenny and Victoria purchased some fruits which we ate in our hotel room while cooling down and relaxing. In the early evening, we stopped at the bus ticket selling agent to secure tickets for our ride to Athens. We had supper at Taverna Gargadouas where we ordered from the set menu. After our meal, we headed back to our room along the quiet main street.

2014.08.01 – Delphi (Greece)

We woke up at 8am this morning and headed to the hotel breakfast room. We encountered a friendly hotel attendant who appeared to speak many different languages. Although the breakfast choices were large, the quality of the items appeared a bit poor. After breakfast, we walked to the Delphi archaeological site some 400m further up the main street. We spent over two hours visiting the ruins while following the up-hill path up to the stadium. We also extended our walk down the road to visit the fountain and site of Temenos of Athena Pronaos. Later, we visited the Delphi Archaeological Museum for another hour. We walked back to our room for some rest.

2014.08.02 – Delphi – Athens (Greece)

We had, for the first time this trip, our breakfast at the same hotel for two consecutive days. The food was slightly better this morning. As our bus was scheduled to drive through Delphi at 11am, we left our hotel around 10:30am and walked a couple of blocks down the road. The three hour bus ride went by pretty quickly with a 15 mins stop along the way. In Athens, we got off the bus near a metro station. As it was Sunday, the subway was reasonably quiet. We quickly navigated our way to our hotel, Hotel Brazil, near the Victoria subway station. At the hotel, we rested from our bus journey while we took time to review our Greek Island hopping itinerary. We booked a number of hotels leading up to our scheduled meeting with Jessica on the island of Santorinni in a week or so. While one of our future hotel hosts inquired about our ferry boat name and arrival time, they provided us with an internet link to the ferry reservation system – at which point we realized that it would be important, if not critical, that we should make reservations for all our ferry crossings. Hence, we spent a few hours coming up with a revised island hoping itinerary. We made on-line reservation for some of the ferry crossings while others were too close to their departure time, had to be made at the Pirareus dock. Unfortunately, we discovered our reservation for Syros for two nights would not line-up with the ferry service timetable between Syros and Paros. Although we tried to alter our reservation via Booking.com and direct email to the hotel. We were likely to lose the cost of one overnight stay due to the shorten visit on the island of Syros. We had supper at Goodies (fast food) along Victoria Plaza upon our return from Pirareus dock where we purchased our ferry tickets from Pirareus to Syros.

2014.08.03 – Athens (Greece)

I did not sleep well the previous night as I continued to think about the challenges of reserving both ferry boats and hotels as par of our Greek Island hopping adventure. I went down to the hotel lobby at 9am to have breakfast. Jenny and Victoria joined me in the hotel garden for breakfast 30 mins later. We opted to buy a all-day transit ticket for us as we planned to commute throughout the day. The first order of business was to head back, via the subway, to the dock area of Pirareus to buy our tickets for Syros-Paros and Paros to Ios. As for the other ferry tickets, we were able to purchase them on-line. While on our way back from Pirareus, we opted to take a self-guided walking tour of Athens rather than fast track a visit to the Acropolis. We started our tour with a glimpse of the Greek guards in front of the parliament building. We visited the ancient Olympic venue, the large ruins of the Temple of Zeus. Later, we walked over to the Plaka neighbourhood. As Jenny insisted to ride the street tram, we took a long 40 mins ride to the end of the line close to Pirareus. We took the subway back into Plaka. We finished the “stingy¨ walking tour at a restaurant, Paradosiako (Eugenia), after visiting a few other recommended restaurants. Although the place was not inspiring as patrons were seated on simple tables on the sidewalk, the food was simply superb. We took the subway once again back to Victoria plaza and walked to our hotel near by. We discovered that the Hotel Brazil, contrary to Booking.com information, did not accept any credit cards. We sent a note to Booking.com pointing this issue out.