Greece - Ελλάδα - II

   Through Djoser, N.V., a Dutch company in Leiden, The Netherlands, we had booked a 14-day tour of the Greek Islands. We liked their arrangement because Djoser only takes care of the transportation and the hotels+breakfasts.  This is ideal for us, because it can be a bit of a hassle getting the tickets and schedules of the ferries and it was also nice that we did not have to worry about how to get to the hotels and back to the ferry. The hotels are all clean 3 star type hotels, rooms with private bath and shower,  but some of them, as we found out, quite minuscule. On the islands there is a lot of freedom and what you want to do. There we were on our own; we could join a tour or just go our separate ways.

   

left: Dutch bicycle in Amsterdam. Just here for the color.

     We took the Metro to Omonia Square and our hotel for the night; Hotel Le Mirage, where we were supposed to meet our group. . Our tour guide dropped by later in the afternoon. Christine Sakka van Houwen was a very attractive strawberry blonde in her early fifties, sun-tanned, in superb shape, and extremely nice. She was born from Dutch parents in New Zealand, had married a Greek and now lives in Athens. Now that her children are grown up, she decided to go back to work and this was actually her first job. Christine was ideal for this job because she spoke fluent Greek, English, Dutch, and I am sure some other languages as well. But her most precious asset was that she was very personable and she would charm the pants of all the service providers during our trip. So we always got the best and more from them. Just having her as our guide was already worth at least half the cost of our trip.

    The next day we met the other members of our party,

Ingrid Bosloper, Uithoorn, 

Ron and Loes Proveniers, Bergen op Zoom.

Hans Oranje, Delft,

Mieke Haasnoot, Katwijk,

Berry Moen,  Wervershoof,

Marianne v.d. Mey and Geertruida de Raaf, Rotterdam,

Yvonne Hoogeveen and Hans Wijnstok, Waddinxveen.

    A bus took us from La Mirage hotel to the port of Pireaus. The driver was cranky and truculent. He was running late and he had to pick up another group afterwards. But Christine tactfully worked her charm on him and by the time we were at the harbor, he was smiling and eating happily out of her hand. He actually helped us with the luggage, something he refused to do when we were loading up. He would be late for his next job, but he didn’t care. It was wonderful to have Christine with us.

    With the Greek ferries you have to take care of your own luggage; there are no porters. If you have more luggage than what you can handle yourself, it is too bad. You should have taken a packaged, preplanned, After the cars have been loaded you, together with hundreds of other passenger, walk up the broad gangway with your luggage in hand or on your back and then deposit your luggage just somewhere there, together with those of everybody else on the boat. Then you walk up to the higher decks to find your reserved seat, if you have one. Or you just walk around and plop down in one of the unreserved seats on the decks. And you fervently hope nobody runs away with your luggage in the big hold downstairs. But we never encountered any problems in this respect throughout our entire trip.

    These ferries are huge and there is a cafeteria and bar on board to take care of your inner needs. We had reclining chairs in a non-smoking section of boat. That was nice, because the ferry took 3.5 hours to

traverse the distance and in Greece, everybody smokes everywhere and all the time.  In the non-smoking areas the level of second-hand smoke is at least a bit lower. It is either there or on the open deck aft. A bit windy there, but very nice because of the beautiful views of the sea and the islands passing by.

    As we found out, you get incomparable views as you travel around the Greek Islands. The Islands are exquisitely beautiful.