Winter travel

Winter travel

We'd barely dressed, but not yet breakfasted this morning when Tassos our neighbour called in. He has a beautiful house about twice as far up the mountain than us and has a wonderful view, from lofty heights over the Straits of Maleas to the mainland peninsular opposite and also up the mainland to the mountains on each side of the plane of Sparta. As he was smoking he would not come in the house but agreed to take coffee on the kitchen patio.

'Brr it's cold. The first day of winter.' he declared.'We have not had wind like this since April.'

Yes, there is more of a wind today, but the temperature on the patio was 27'C! Some winter! It is still far to warm to sit inside without having all the doors open, despite the wind, which is really no more than a strong breeze. But of course it is all relative and we have already started to work out whether or not we needed more logs for the winter fires. The price of central heating oil has gone up 50% since last year and so that makes a big difference. The Greek government has strange legislation which means that heating oil cannot be sold between 1st June and 1st November, whatever the weather. As this is the same stuff that farmers use in their tractors and other equipment Waldo asked what they do in the summer months, if they cannot buy it. We were told that they have big tanks to store it during the summer. So they can buy it in the period concerned and use it at will. But, asked Waldo, what if the tank is not big enough? They must have a tank big enough, we were told, or they can fill it up. But they cannot do so, we puzzled. It turns out that, like most things in Greece, there is a way around this. It is illegal to actually sell the oil during the summer periods. This seems to be taken literally and there is no limit to the amount of oil which can, with the right contact, be delivered. Payment or specifically a receipt confirming payment cannot be issued during this time for that affirmation of a transaction would be illegal!

Tassos has come to tell us that he knows that the olive press, just on the road to Aghia Marina, where we went the other day, is excavating an area around it and as such there will be good earth available. Waldo has almost finished making an extra terrace and cleaning the area of thorn bushes and other bushes and a tree. This leaves quite a large area to the side of the cobbled path to the AcropoLiz and running behind the oleander hedge which only has a ear tree and to tall pine trees. We want to plant some low growing flowering bushes there and possibly some flowers in between and thus need good soil. Tassos agrees to do the negotiating on our behalf and arrange for it to be delivered to the top of our back drive. Waldo can then use Heracles with the bucket on the front to bring the earth down.

Now that we shall have the earth there is pressure to get things planted before we leave in just over  a week's time. We had planned to take the car to Athens, leave it at the hotel where we will stay in Glyfada and then stay there overnight on the way back. We were intending to take our usual trip to Kaiafus Lake thermal baths, but after a lot of Sherlock Holmes detective work we discover that this year they are closing at the end of October. So many hotels and public facilities are no longer staying open all year round; it is too expensive to pay for staff and electricity when the buildings are hardly used. So we decided to try the thermal hot springs at Methana, on the eastern side of the Peloponnese. I am not too keen to try these. Apparently the spring water is very hot and so the bathing pool reaches down to the sea where the waters mix and so do not par boil swimmers. But when you walk down to the covered bathing area you have to take a candle. If the candle goes out then you must run out of the pool and away as quickly as possible before being overcome with the sulphurous fumes. I am amazed that such a primitive device as a candle is still used. At least, I guess it is not canaries! But frighteningly only last year one elderly couple were resting in the water, and by the time they realised that their candles were out, were not nimble enough to get away quickly and so fell asleep for ever.

Despite my reservation, I allowed Waldo to awaken the adventurous side of my character and telephoned a hotel nearest to the Thermal Springs, in fact it is part of the whole complex. Now you would expect their staff to know all about the Thermal Baths, but it was not apparent. I was able to book a room no problem, but trying to find out whether the baths were open or not proved impossible. At one point I think the girl thought I wad asking if I could get a hot bath in the hotel in the winter! So we left the booking on hold.

Subsequent Internet searches, telephone calls to Methana civic offices and discussions with friends have still not enabled us to feel confident that the thermal springs will be open after we have driven there. So, now that we are on the hunt for plants and given the limited availability on the island, we have changed tack for our mini-break. We have devised a cunning and, we thought simple, plan of taking our trailer to Sparta and then using it to bring back plants. We convinced ourselves that these would be cheaper, we would have a greater choice of plants and we would have three or four different garden centres to visit to find good quality plants. So, our plan was simple. Instead of going on the little ferry to Neapoli on Tuesday 30th October, we would now go the day before. This means that we can stay at the Sparta Inn on Monday night and then spend Tuesday morning visiting different garden centres to get an idea of what we want and arrange to leave the trailer with Theo, the Skoda agent in Sparta who services our car.

Then, on our way back we would stay in Glyfada the night of the Tuesday 13th, drive to Sparti early in the morning and spend the time until the Githio ferry to Kythera on the afternoon of Thursday, sorting out and picking up our plants. This done we decided to go to the travel agent in Potamos to make our bookings. While there we could also cancel my flight ticket from Kythera to Athens which I booked ages ago when I thought I was making the trip on my own.

The first bit, the ferry to Neapoli was the simplest. yes, we have made the booking for the car, trailer and two passengers. The helpful and charming man in the travel agent made a telephone call, made the booking and confirmed it by giving us a reference number. I then asked him how much this would be. Oh, he didn't know that, but he could give us an approximate price which he calculated on the basis of a car and two passengers, which almost everyone on the island knows by heart and then added the equivalent of one passenger for the trailer. I was concerned about the approximation of the price and then he added that he was not actually an agent for the ferry in that he could not dispense tickets. We now had the choice of coming back to see him on Monday, by which time he would have the tickets ready for us, or we could go to the ticket office at the port and collect and pay for them there - something we could have done all by ourselves! Anyway it is done now and we will collect the tickets at the port as usual.

Then we came to work out our return ferry arrangements. We knew that the little ferry from Neapoli doesn't run on a Thursday in the winter. The big ferry to Githion has been out of action for a while, but is back in service this week, even running yesterday on it's usual run from Githio to Kythera in the afternoon when there was a national strike! But this week is October. The man apologised and told us that nobody knows what the timetable will be for November. Maybe it will run. Maybe it will finish. Anyway we cannot book it because he is not an agent, the agent is in Livadi. He gave us the telephone number and then added that of course even the agent in Livadi won't be able to sell us a ticket, he can only do bookings from Kythera. Bookings from Githio have be done from the office there. So we are now in the situation that we will go to Githio in time for the afternoon ferry to Kythera on the Thursday. If that is running, then we'll be home that night. If it is not running then we will drive down to Neapoli and stay in our favourite little hotel, The Arsenekos. This is run by a mother and son team where the mother makes the most wonderful breakfasts with home made preserves, locally churned butter and fresh bread, and the son, who has clearly lived in America for some time, is the spitting image of Sylvester Stallone before he had all the cosmetic surgery. He even speaks in the same distinctive way which is fascinating. Then we can catch our morning 'puddle-jumper' to Kythera.

Our third request to the travel agent, was whether or not he could cancel my Olympic air ticket or did we have to go to the airport? No trip to the airport, he could do it. I gave him the piece of paper with the reference number on it and then he told us that he would not cancel it, because that would mean we would have to pay a cancellation fee of 7 Euros. If we told him when we are next flying from Kythera to Athens, then he would transfer it and there would be no charge. So we had to leave it as we have not booked that far ahead yet. But this offer only stands until Tuesday for within a week of the travel date we will be charged 7 Euros anyway for administration charges. So, we have the weekend to think about it!

We hurriedly did the rest of our shopping and sat in the square in Potamos to have a leisurely drink of freshly squeezed orange juice and write down our revised schedules, list of things to do, people to 'phone, hotels to book or cancel and organise everything to do with our trip. As we discuss it we are distracted by so many people coming up and having a chat. In the end I manage to get the revised schedule written down before we both forgot it! I do a belt and braces job and actually write down everything we are doing, day by day before we leave. Neither of us can rely on our memories any more, whether short term or long term. I can look at a piece of paper for some minor detail of information and forget it by the time I have turned over the piece of paper!

So we now have our check list. Out to dinner tomorrow night. Out to our favourite taverna-by-the-sea for Sunday lunch and deliver a little cardigan I have knitted for the grand-daughter of the owner. Sunday evening go to a concert in Potamos put on by local school children and organised by our neighbour who is coming for a meal on Tuesday. It will be in Greek, but we will get the gist of it and it is really to show support for the local community more than anything else.  Monday, back to the travel agency, do the shopping in readiness for the meal I will prepare for neighbours coming to dinner on Tuesday, whilst shopping buy mothballs in readiness for closing up the house when we are away, check the bank and get money out if necessary. Cleaning the house and cooking on Tuesday in readiness for the visitors. Oh what a busy social life we have!

We have long since stopped worrying about future bookings and plans in Greece. In most cases things just happen eventually. And, what is the worst that can happen: we can sit in a friendly cafe in the sun and enjoy some freshly squeezed orange juice whilst people watching and talking to each other. Even worse is that we stay over in a little hotel somewhere and enjoy the company and conversation of the owners and while away a few hours. Being in Greece is about being with people, developing conversations and learning from strangers. It is about living in the here and now which is far more relaxing that always thinking about what we are doing in the future. In Greece the journey is as important as the destination and we have learnt to cherish that. We can relax into it, now that we are retired and do not have business deadlines of course!