#6 Greek Islands, Oct. 9, 2012

I flew from Crete back to Athens and met my friend, Sally, and her friend, Mary, in the Athens airport. We drove to a village near Nafplio where Sally (and five partners) have a holiday house. I had visited her two years ago when I had toured mainland Greece and the Pelopenese.

Since I had seen many of the sights in this area we mainly had an R & R kind of week, which was lovely. We drank our morning coffee on the balcony, ate our meals in restaurants with beautiful views of the Mediterranean and went swimming nearly every day. The water was crystal clear and wonderful.

One day after visiting the Open Air Market, I cooked dinner of roasted chicken, potatoes, brocoli, and Greek salad. Their kitchen was so pretty that I couldn't resist. Unfortunately I sat too long on the balcony drinking wine and scorched two pans! So it goes.

We visited a most interesting site called Epidavros, which was a 4th C. BCE hospital complex. Along with medicine, it included therapies involving sports, drama, and music for which they used a 14,000-person amphitheatre on the site. It had perfect accoustics and is still used today, 2400 years later. Sally said that she had attended performances there when the players had performed without microphones and they could be heard perfectly in every seat.

Vickey's Restaurant in Sally's village was a favorite dinner venue for us. Since Sally knew Vickey very well, she could whisper in her ear exactly which dishes we were yearning for and Vickey obliged. At various times we had Spanacopita, Pastitcio, another pasta dish with goat cheese that was baked in the oven, and dolmades, all with the good local Greek table wine. She would usually bring some dessert (gratis) which, one night, was a black walnut-honey cake. We certainly enjoyed our meals!

My last day we had lunch in Nafplio overlooking the water, which included "Mother -In-Law Salad." This particular down-home Greek restaurant had been favorably reviewed about five years ago by the food editor of the New York Times. This led to an increase in business--especially Americans, which perplexed them until somebody who could speak Greek explained.

Sally and her partners rent their house---actually there are two houses and 12 partners. If you're interested, check out their website at:

greekhomes.net

AFter a week Sally drove me to Nafplio to get a bus to Corinth (as in First and Second Corinthians!) where I got a taxi to take me to the light rail, which whisked me to the Athens airport where I got my flight back to Crete. The airport security confiscated my contact lens solution because the bottle can't be over 100 ml and these were 118---never mind that I have had these same sized bottles in a dozen airports in the last few years---so exasperating! One bottle had just a small amount remaining but that had to go too, as the Bottle was too large! Now when I bought some in this little town today, they only had the great big size.

I rented a car which I picked up at the airport on Crete and set off from the city of Heraklion. I arrived at Panormos which looked inviting so I stayed. I hunted up a hotel called The Captain's House overlooking the Mediterranean. My room is an apartment with BR, Bath, LR and kitchen!

Guess I'll go swimming today---it's very warm and still and it will feel good!.