Paros in a new light

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The Five Star Greece Inspection tour hits Paros.  accompanied by our new Parian colleague Dimitris, whose enormous family seems to run Paros,  and is  clearly the key to the island. People wave and smile as we pass by. “I am beginning to feel like the Queen” I say.  Dimitris gently puts me in my place “The Queen Mother, you mean…”

Paros is a lower key Mykonos;  the same dazzling white and brilliant blues,  the same  picturesque villages of cubic houses, but more family friendly and less of a hip scene –  unlike Mykonos,  there are proper fishing villages,  some greenery, a famous pottery,  and no Kardashians.

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Hidden Naxos – total eclipse of sound

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Dimitris has just joined the Five Star Greece team, and to show him what fun it is to work for us, his first job was to write a blog about “What I did in my holidays.” Well, it is back to school time after all… and even if his last school was LSE, some homework is needed to develop basic skills no matter how clever you are.

So here is Dimitris on a weekend on Naxos, one of the more interesting and authentic islands in the Cyclades.

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Client reference part 2 – Gary’s further adventures on Andros

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Dear Ileana,

I had no intention of starting a blog, but I couldn’t resist telling you about more drama.

And yes, I have had a lot of wine with our fantastic lunch.

The food has been unbelievable.

Yesterday we went all Greek. What a feast, and how the girls do that for 19 people is beyond me in such tiny kitchens.

The boys decided to do cliff jumping from the other side of the bay, despite my protests.

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A client reference to share with you – Gary’s adventures on Andros … part 1.

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I disapprove of publishing guest book comments or client feedback –  I mean who would  ever publish one that said “The villa was nothing like what you described, the beaches were dirty and your service sucks”  And why would any of you believe  the rave review from  “Mrs M”  when for all you know she has the housekeeping standards of  raccoon,  or  I even wrote it myself?

I will make an exception for Gary T, who exists, and is not a pathological anything, in fact, he became my favorite client when his response to our question regarding who had food allergies, who was vegan and who was gluten free, was  “They will all eat what they are given.” and with his permission,  I share his email with you – part 2 to follow…

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What to do in Sami – the cool, the underground and the secret. And Ryanair giving things away for free…

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Wind-stranded in Sami, the pretty port of  western Kefalonia  – Babis the water taxi captain who looks like  a pirate out of Tintin, has said we have to wait for the sun to set and waves to subside, so 4 hours to kill   before meeting guests and going to the airport for Ryanair flight to London.

1. Taxi to the cave of Melissani – a half underground lake with  all the shades of blue and green  from loo-disinfectant  to cloudy jade. White doves fly above and eels slither through the water. The temperature is a refreshing 15 degrees cooler  than the furnace outside – natural air conditioning on a burning day.

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The M/Y Oceanos – one of the best

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M/Y Oceanos

There are some dodgy yachts afloat, and it is a matter of years of experience knowing which ones they are. Inspecting a yacht at a boat show is one thing – most yachts  can put on a splendid show, so, unless a  yacht vomits a whole lot of jetskis and other rubbish into the bay in front of my house in Ithaca, I am always glad to see one anchor in Skinos,  then I casually  row over and do a covert inspection of how the crew are dressed,  what  itinerary  is planned, how the guests are enjoying themselves, and how well the Captain’s responds when I tell them to please keep their jetskis 300 metres for the shore and that the harbour master is my best friend and happy to fine infringers no matter how many metres the yacht is. A real hero…. He is 6’4,   and a young and fearless pursuer of drug smugglers, reckless jetskiers, arrogant Captains and other  characters. His baby brother by the way is 6’7 and his name is Hercules. You don’t mess with the Ithaca  Harbour master.

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The News from Ithaca

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Let’s start with the bad news; the bad news is that the scheduled ferry services to Ithaca have made such losses over the last few years, that no-one wants to run the ferries, and the government is too poor to subsidise them, so getting to Ithaca by car is almost as much of an epic adventure as any journey to Ithaca ought to be.

CP Kavafi:

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

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The Madonna of the Cave – Ithaca

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The Panaghia Spiliotissa, or the Panaghia ton Vlachernon as it is properly known, is a little magical site on the hillside of a mountain on Ithaca. The path winds up through peaceful fields and smallholdings that Homer’s Laertes , the father of Odysseus whose farm is supposed to be around here, would have probably recognised –  the red Toyota pick-up truck would be strange to him, but the  chickens clucking around the tyres, the goats bleating, the cypresses waving and the aromatic hot breezes wafting around your feet as you walk would all be familiar. The path then climbs up steadily around gnarled olive trees – young saplings when Laertes also climbed here, every turn revealing a new view over as far as Zakinthos, timeless views with the echo of old gods still clinging to dried flower heads, grass pods, trees and rocks,  till it reaches the Spiliotissa.

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Five Star Ios

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Notorious Mylopotas

Like a young girl who misbehaved when she was 17 and has been given funny looks and avoided ever since, Ios sits,  largely avoided by   “those who know”,  half way between Mykonos and Santorini, connected to both, but unvisited  and resigned to an unjust fate – The party scene on Milopotas beach which was Ios’ youthful indiscretion 10 years ago, and which has branded the island ever since as host  to a druggy/dirty hippy scene, is actually laughable  – a kilometre long beach of wide golden sand, which does get very full in summer, as all Greek beaches do,  a modest, single width strip of  one storey beach bars,   pizzerias, a children’s playground and some souvenir shops. I really didn’t know what to say. Pathetic was the only word I could think of- but I didn’t want to offend the guy who was showing me around.

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