Agios Nikolaos in Crete was pleasantly charming... I cant put my finger on why but it was so much nicer than Thira in Santorini. Simpler, less busy but just a nicer softer vibe. Obviously its not so dramatic and perhaps thats the key - theres nothing to 'live up' to...
A small town with a dense tourist centre and dwellings sprawling away from the coast it feels compact and easier to navigate. Theres a large marina and then a little picturesque lake in the middle of the main town... makes a nice change from a market square. Its still very touristy but definately less crowded... wider streets - same tat but less hassley. We wandered round the small lake and into the shopping area. Theres a serious lack of supermarkets and we ended up buying olive oil from a shop at the top of town. There was alot of choice... brands ... numbers... in the end I just picked the prettiest tins.
We finally found some rocks... nothing too spectacular but rocks that you could actually clamber on. Sadly, it was Immediately apparent that the local youth did this a lot as there was a considerable amount of broken glass about... A real shame.
The small beach was busy and a large number of people were swimming in the sea. The sea was the glorious mix of various shades of blue, turquoise and green you find in the Mediterranean. It was all very scenic.
That's a limit to how much time you can spend wandering about different sea side towns even in Greece. Every day this week we've been in a different Port. While it's very very pleasant this also started to be quite samey... greek trinkets are pretty much the same across Greece. There are less castles and more Archaeological museums.... The islands hold myths and legends but the historical sites are spread out and theres just not time to visit them.
Eventually we wandered back to the boat Another late lunch sat by the pool - very civilised - And then me and my friend sat upstairs upstairs painting and chatting - putting the world to rights. Dr Fred went to prepare - code for nana nap... because finally He had stargazing planned for an evening session.
Mr Fred Olsen is on the ship and in the evening he was given a little talk on some of his memories from 1950 I thought it would be interesting to go - But actually it was absolutely packed out. Not even standing room available. There were a few of us standing by the door but there was so much noise from outside of the room we couldn't hear anything. I'm not sure why 1950 was relevant and I probably won't now. I took my beer and went and sat in my favourite spot on the back of the boat While Fred looked at stellarium and I watched the cloud roll in!
Fortunately the cloud carried on scudding along and by the time the 100 or so guests joined Dr Fred on deck 11 - once the lights were turned off and everyone got dark adapted the stars were plentiful.... an extremly good session.. lots of questions from interested guests.
Of course stargazing means supper club... this is a treat for us - common sense prevails other nights... having already endured breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and the abundance of chocolates our housekeeper is still leaving - we feel we should avoid midnight feasts - mostly..
I'm posting as I prepare to write about Rhodes - new territoty for us and it became very evident from first daylight I was truly mistaken about the castles...…
I promise I'm not being a nautical pedant and am purely concerned with saving you precious time when writing these posts... can I suggest "stern" in place of "the back of the boat" ? 🤣.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though I'm loving the frequent updates especially as the weather has turned a bit grim here so it's nice to see pics of blue sky. Keep them coming! xC