It’s all Greek to me

We were all very thankful for the little extra lie in we had this morning, except maybe for Ruby who still woke up a little grumpy. But I don’t think any of us would have coped with a 5.30 start so it was much appreciated. The getting ready was easy today, we hadn’t unpacked much as it was just an overnighter so we were at the bus station in plenty of time. The bus was there on time and it was very comfortable with good aircon and plenty of space. So we settled in for the trip and Jess got a bit of work done as usual. After the bus it was the ferry and we were on nice and early so were able to snaffle some of the comfy inside seats around a table. Then we put our bags on the seats next to us, in the time honoured fashion, so that no one would sit too close. But Jess’s kind heart got the better of her and she soon offered them to a mother and son. We got some drinks and the biggest sugar donut you have ever seen and I explained to the girls the challenge of eating it without licking the sugar off your lips. The competition was on! Jess wasn’t having any donut so wasn’t playing, I lasted about one bite because I wasn’t really paying attention, Tate gave up because she didn’t really care but Ruby and Allegra made it all the way to the end. Allegra was making a bit more noise about the discomfort and eventually succumbed and even when she was the only one left, Ruby sat there with sugary lips, just to show how in control she was. The minute I had set the challenge I knew that Ruby would win, she is such a determined, competitive little bugger.
We arrived in Skopelos soon enough and our hire car was waiting for us at the port. For the first time in my life I disembarked and there was someone waiting with my name on a sign and we completely didn’t see her, not until she was walking around calling out my name and holding it up. We got that all sorted, the car was a bit bigger than we had been used to as there had been no small ones left, but I couldn’t see that possibly being a problem. We drove around the island and met someone who was leading us to our accommodation, it is down a dirt track and tricky to find apparently. The roads had gotten a bit narrower making the big car a bit more awkward, but there was no traffic so not really an issue. Then we got to the dirt track, which is possibly a generous description of its quality. It started off with a bit of a descent but soon levelled out, it also started out comfortably wider than a car but soon narrowed, especially with overgrown undergrowth encroaching. There was often a drop off on one side and Jess kept telling me to slow down, which would have meant coming to a complete stop. The last part was the trickiest, driving past the nearest neighbour’s property, there was a drop on one side, a wall on the other and two scooters , parked at the side. The road was basically as wide as the car and with a high bonnet I couldn’t see much on my right. Oh, and the neighbours had two savage guard dogs (guarding what I am not sure) straining on chains and barking like mad and a very large free range pig who thought he owned the track. Amazingly we negotiated all this and got to our property. It is very cute but possibly not the most comfortable, we’ll see how we get on with it.
With no supplies we knew that meant heading out for dinner and that meant negotiating the track again which was done, slightly easier the second time, but at least I thought that was the end of our problems. We drove to Skopelos Town, with some very steep and windy descents but parked up. Then we realised we were actually a long way from where we needed to be so got back in the car to get closer. The road we drove down had a dead end sign but my navigator assured me that Google Maps showed you could get through, both of them were wrong. Unfortunately the road had cars parked diagonally on one side and parallel on the other and gradually got narrower up to the point you could see the dead end so there was nowhere to turn around and only one option, to reverse. It was 150 metres between cars, up a reasonably steep hill and with a ref that only Lily will understand, Ffion’s dad would have been impressed. Having negotiated that, I thought that would be the end of our problems, not sure if anyone is spotting a pattern? We drove to a car park we had spotted in town and in we went. It was chaos. There were cars everywhere, parked wherever they could, seemingly with little concern as to how they or others might get out. Sure enough we reached a point of no return, which was also a point of no turn. This was not stopping a load of cars from following me in and blocking my way out, so Jess had to jump out and go and tell them all to not come in. Once again into reverse, maybe only 50 metres this time, but narrower with the parked cars on both sides. Once again safely negotiated, but I am going to stop assuming our problems (middle-class white person problems) have come to an end. By this stage we had all almost lost the will to carry on, but we were all hungry. So we eventually found somewhere to park and walked to the first taverna we saw to have dinner. The food was plentiful and plenty tasty and there was some live Greek music playing so a nice atmosphere. We were all maybe a little worn out to truly appreciate it though, plus we still had the track to negotiate one more time in the dark. Hopefully these are all just day one issues and we will get a better feeling for Skopelos tomorrow.En savoir plus