Athens to Aegina

Another day of travel and sorting out began again hot and dry. We descended the streets down to Dmitris for a coffee and some more friendly discussion, mostly political, with one of our friends from the previous day.
From Dmitris, a quick tube ride with and interchange followed by another tube ride arrived us at Pireaus, the port town of Athens. Pireaus is a bustling port full of cargo, passenger and fast ships and ferries. We stopped for a cold drink as the temperature rose and I explored the various maritime shops that lined the streets. I managed to pick up a small folding knife both because it's handy to carry one round and also because one cannot have too many knives!
From our coffees we went in search of the ferry office; a 15 minute walk left us sitting in the shade with homeless immigrants - we assume recently arrived from North Africa - begging around us. The first real sign of the huge social issues surrounding Greece and the immigrant problems of Europe.

We boarded the ferry to take us to Aegina: a hydrofoiling high speed "flying dolphin" which was a fun, if a little bumpy, quick ride to the island. We disembarked and waited in whatever shade we could find for George to drop our hire care off to us. George was friendly and certainly perked up once learning that we were not from the UK but rather New Zealand "ahh good place!". George had seen much of NZ from his time as an engineer on big ocean going cargo ships.
We drove (on the right) along the coastline to our little apartment motel in Perdika, a small town on the Western end of Island full of restaurants and fishing boats. We lunched on the waterfront in a small taverna. We had excellent baked mushrooms, baked peppers, stuffed peppers and tomatoes, souvalaki, and fried little fish. The baked mushrooms and peppers were roasted in a dish with heaps of different cheese, both halloumi and melty delicious stringy tangy cheese. The stuffed toms and peppers looked good but I didn't taste them, with the souvalaki nice and highlighted with an excellent garlicy tzatziki. My little fried fish were just what the menu said: fried little fish. To be eaten heads and all, slightly crispy and fried with just a dusting of flour, very nice. All washed down with beer, Coke and Fanta.
From our restaurant we meandered along the waterfront gazing at the water, rocks, distant islands, churches and general passers by. I got once again more and more frustrated at the argumentative, put downy, arrogant manner in which conversation is often had these days so I decided to walk ahead of the others and sit on the waterfront by our car for 10 minutes while I waited for them to catch up. We went from there to a supermarket to quickly pick up some general groceries and returned home. The night was spent relaxing, eating melon and drinking pomegranate juice in my room. Another grumpy and not all together happy end to what should've been a lovely day.Read more