Peloponese and the Ionian Islands: Part 5: Ithaki

Concluding the description of my old trip to Peloponese. I hope you enjoyed it. An even longer detailed description of one of my trips can be found on my other blog at http://anyonecandoit2.blogspot.com/ .

Tuesday was another travel day with a bus ride to Sami and then a ferry to Ithaki. However that was due to start at twelve thirty which left the morning free. I was feeling in a solitary mood so I decided to follow a route that I had found on one of the printed hand-outs take a walk around the area.

I started at Napier's Garden which is a public park in Argostoli. It has been allowed to become very overgrown is now particularly unattractive. Named after Sir Charles Napier who was the Governor of the Island from 1822 to 1830 it is part of the way up the hill overlooking the main square. It was clearly once a very beautiful park but now the weeds, the tumble-down buildings and the graffiti are nothing but depressing. The walk down through the square lifted my spirits after this downbeat start, especially as it was early in the morning with everything bright and clean and almost completely empty of people. Before the 1953 Earthquake the square was smaller than the modern one but the rebuilding has been well done so that the square still presents an appealing if slightly tacky appearance. In the corner is a statue of Panaghis Valianos who was a merchant at the start of the last century who spent a large part of his fortune supporting Kefalonian institutions. Diagonally opposite, past the pizzerias and restaurants, deserted in the early morning apart from staff washing down the pavements, is King George II Avenue. This was built by Napier and his engineer Captain Kennedy in 1835 to expand Argostoli northwards and relieve the overcrowding at the centre of the city. Over the succeeding decades grand neo-classical houses were built along its length although many of them were destroyed by the Earthquake. I strolled slowly down this broad avenue past the rows of purple oleander trees which line both sides. The first building listed on my guide as being of note was the 'Philarmonika' which was reconstructed after the earthquake and houses the town band school. A little further on the left, almost hidden by the trees is the first storey of the Kosmetatos family mansion which is one of the only two pre-earthquake buildings on the road which were not demolished afterwards for safety reasons.
At the other end of the avenue I reached a much smaller square which is cool and shaded by pine trees. This is Maitland square, named after a former English High Commissioner. Ironically the statue on the central park commemorates those active in achieving independence from the English in 1864. Following my map I went straight through the square, past the bizarrely ugly Naval School which has been designed to resemble the bows of a ship and past the squat wooden building which once housed the Red Cross but now resembles a tumble-down garden shed. You look at it and expect it to be full of rusting tools and bike frames without wheels. Soon however things took a turn for the better as my route led up the hill and out of the town. Here there were literally no people. The smell of the plants, including that curry smell which I still couldn't pin down to a particular species, was intoxicating and the sun was hot on my back as I climbed. At the top of the road I paused to look at a wide low memorial with a white marble cross at the centre of it. This was erected in memory of the Acqui Division, Kefalonia's Italian garrison during the Second World War. The whole garrison, some 10,000 men were massacred by the Germans in 1943 after the break up of the Axis Forces.

From the monument, I left the road for a footpath that led down through a pine wood. Here my walking dawdled to a very slow pace and eventually stopped as I sat down on a tree stump to just listen to the bird song and watch the butterflies. It was so peaceful that I could have stayed there all day but I was too aware that time was pressing and so, after a few minutes, resumed my walk down the path to the coast road.

Yesterday at Sami, as we walked along the beach we had passed a large Sea Mill. On the coast here is its twin although unlike the other one this seems to no longer turn. In 1835 an English resident named Stevens discovered a fast flowing stream of sea water underground, apparently heading inland and after excavations built a corn mill powered by a sea driven mill wheel on it. Sadly the flow was drastically reduced by the earthquake leaving the mill as little more than a curiosity. Strangely dye tests have revealed that the water plunges inland into a subterranean cavern and fourteen days later reappears ten miles away on the opposite side of the island of the coast at Sami. At the mill I met Kate who was doing the same walk in the opposite direction. After a few minutes chatting we continued on our way, she up the wooded path and I along past the charmless Chapel of St. Theodore towards the Katavothres lighthouse on the small Isthmus named after the chapel. This lighthouse looks like a single tiered wedding cake with its circular construction and ring of columns and from a distance seems very pretty. Sadly close up the curse of the twentieth century, graffiti, reveals itself as slogans in Greek have been spray painted over much of its surface. Retreating from the lighthouse I was momentarily startled by an enormous insect that resembled a bee in general appearance and behaviour but was about an inch and a half long and jet black all over including its wings.

From here the walk became a little less interesting, following the tarmacced road along past hotels and a large and very seedy looking disco before winding on through some fairly unimpressive olive terraces. It was a relief to reach the point where I had to turn off the road again and head up the sandy track that climbed the hillside. At the point where I passed a tiny family chapel shaded by an enormous oak tree from which a brass bell was hanging, I was startled out of my reverie by being almost run over by two screaming Greek youths hurtling down the hill on a moped. I continued on, past another family chapel until I reached a row of single storey buildings where a construction gang were busily extending them and converting them into two storeys. Here I cut left down some steeps and followed a steep path back to Napier Gardens where I had begun. Looking at my watch I found that the entire walk had taken me three hours, leaving me time for a quick drink at the Hotel before we started our travelling to Ithaki.

From the ferry first impressions of Ithaki are that it is a wild and barren place with little or no habitation. I stood on the deck as we sailed round it in the early afternoon sunshine. The sunlight playing on the water looked as if there was a city deep below the surface where people where constantly switching their lights on and off in a hypnotic rhythm. We were sailing round Ithaki to reach the town of Vathi on the opposite side to Kefalonia so that the island was constantly in view without my having to move from my spot on the rail. Occasionally there was sight of a building, too far away to identify, but not once did I see any sign of people until we entered the calm Eastern harbour where Vathi is situated.

Entering the harbour you sail first past the small island of Lazareto which until the earthquake had venetian buildings on it. The unusual sideways approach to the dock affords a unique view of the town which lies sprawled attractively along the semi-circle of the shore and climbs back up the hillside like an amphitheatre. Some of the older buildings survived the earthquake and the post-1953 additions have all been deliberately designed to give the town a uniform look.

We hauled our luggage by hand around the quayside to reach our Hotel which was an old white fronted building with a strange internal layout that had the rooms set onto corridors that radiated out from a triangular central section. After checking in Drew and I went for a stroll to find a cold beer and at a quayside taverna met up with Jenni, Ann and Caroline who had already started. We sat chatting until it was time to return to the Hotel and change for dinner.

Dinner turned out to be at the very taverna that we had just come from. We sat outside in the garden under the trees, shaded from whatever breeze there might have been by a wooden fence. Afterwards we moved on to a pub which was playing a selection of seventies rock music - Genesis, Steely Dan and the Who among others - where I could happily have stayed all night. It was not to be. Several people had said that they wanted to find a disco and our Ithaki guide, Anthea, knew of one. Anthea worked at the Hotel and was a Greek-Australian in her mid-twenties. She led us to a disco which was completely empty apart from the DJ and the barman. When I checked the bar prices I understood why. After a little while, even though the place had started to fill up a little with locals and with a group of Germans I left and went back to my bed. Discos disagree with me.

Wednesday was another of those optional days. Several of us set out after breakfast with Jenni to walk to the Nymphs' Cave where Ulysses is reputed to have hidden his treasure when he returned to the island. The walk wound up a road before veering off onto a dirt track. We passed a spider's web on the ground which was like a sheet of fine net laid down over the top of a carefully constructed funnel at the mouth of which sat the spider, a large light brown creature with a darker brown zig-zag pattern on its abdomen and dark brown strips on its legs.

At the top of the path there was a hut and three Greek men who were looking after admission to the cave. Jenni said that she had been in before and so the rest of us - besides me, John (without Angela who had gone sunbathing), Kristine, Caroline and Drew - went in. At the bottom of a steep flight of iron steps we came into a poorly lit cave with many deep holes in the floor and dark recesses in the walls. Our Greek guide spoke almost no English but nevertheless tried to communicate the legends of the cave to us. Drew called me over to show me another spider. This was a strange cave dwelling species. Its furry body was spherical and no more than an eighth of an inch across but its legs were about an inch and a half, long spindly things similar to a daddy long legs. What was most unusual about it though were the palps which must have been easily three inches long and waved about constantly as it moved. I straightened and looked towards the others who had followed the guide towards an illuminated alcove. I stepped onto the rock intending to follow them but my next step found only air beneath my foot. Awkwardly I twisted trying to slow my fall but it was no use. A moment later I was on my back wedged into a dark hole with deep grazes down my back and side. The guide helped me up and I painfully climbed out of the cave. Outside Jenni swiftly took out her medical kit and cleaned the graze with alcohol swabs before wiping iodine painful into the broken skin.

In spite of the injury we continued our walk, moving on up the hill past a small chapel to a flat stone area which seemed to have been at one time a threshing floor. From here Drew and Caroline continued on up the hill while the rest of us turned to follow one of the many footpaths back to Vathi. This went down through some quite fearsome gorse that plucked at the arms and legs viciously as we forced our way through it. We broke frequently to look at any interesting plant or insect. A particularly memorable specimen was a cricket that was fully three inches long and nearly invisible while it rested against the long grass but an eye catching emerald blur when it danced into flight at our passing.

In Vathi we sat and ate Chicken pittas while deciding what to do with the afternoon. Several of the others had gone around a path in the opposite direction to seek out a beach for sunbathing. Most of us decide to follow on during the afternoon but I decided that first I would take a shower, clean off my injury and have a nap for an hour. When all that had been accomplished I set off to find this beach. On the road I met Drew who was also heading that way and a little further on we found Kristine, also following the same path and Roy and Louise who were headed back towards Vathi having done a strenuous coastal walk involving much scrambling over wet and slippery rocks. Drew, Kristine and I wandered on until we reached a fork in the path. One led up and was in the wrong direction. We chose the down path and followed it past a sandy cove where a group of Germans were swimming and throwing a ball to each other in the water. Further round we came to another, larger cove, but there was still no sign of any of our party and we were by now much further than we believed they had gone so we decided to sit in the shade without going further. Out in the bay two large brown and white vessels were anchored. These had been designed to look like schooners and carried full and clearly functional rigging, but they were equally clearly of modern construction and, as we found out when they moved off, had powerful engines for this calm weather. They were a pair of German tour boats and their 'crews' of holidaymakers were all in dinghies on the water or sunbathing on the shore or swimming in the bay. Kristine and Drew both went for a swim. All too conscious of how saltwater would feel on my back I sat on the wall leaning against a tree and read some more of P.J. O'Rourke's unbiased political journalism. About half an hour later Caroline approached along the path and joined us. She too had been in search of the sunbathers but not found them. We concluded that they had decided that this beach was too stony and returned early to the sandier beach at the Southern end of Vathi. When we had had enough lazing about we followed the path back.

Whether it was a consequence of the fall, or heat stroke or perhaps even of some stomach bug that I had picked up I couldn't tell but by the time I reached the town I was feeling distinctly out of sorts. I had that light headed distant feeling and was cold in spite of the day. I went to bed for another lie down and although I went to dinner I was soon feeling so unwell that I had to return to the hotel and my bed leaving the others with my apologies and my pizza.

All night long I tossed and turned, first so hot that the sweat covered my body and soaked the sheets and then so cold that I was reaching for my sweater to warm me up. By morning the worst of it had passed but I still felt pretty rough.

This was another travelling day, the second half of the holiday seemed to consist of little else, when we were to take the ferry across to the mainland at Astakos from where we would make our return trip to Athens tomorrow. Several other people, notably John and Kristine seemed to be developing the same symptoms that I had had directing blame away from the fall or heat stroke and towards the Chicken pittas which all of us had eaten. We decided that rather than haul our own luggage he few hundred yards to the ferry we would send it on by taxi and walk round with just day packs. Drew had thoughtfully had my uneaten pizza from the night before boxed up and I carefully transferred the slices into a plastic bag to eat for lunch on the ferry.

The ferry trip was short and uneventful although the ferry itself was much smaller than the ones we had used so far. We all sat out on the upper deck, some in the sun some in the shade, and enjoyed the journey. After a few minutes Kristine, who was by now feeling very ill, went below decks to sit in the cool and try to sleep.

Astakos is an ordinary and unlovely town although walking along the harbour you see a great many fishing boats which are the primary reason for the towns existence. The few hotels that are there are seldom full even at high season and there is not much that would recommend the town to tourists. We sat around and drank lemonade then went down to the beach. I decided to try for a swim and although the salt stung at first the sensation soon wore off and the relaxing warmth of the water eased much of the tension from my muscles.

Friday's itinerary looked horrendous. It consisted of more than six hours of travelling, mostly by bus but with another ferry journey in the middle. By now Jenni, the tour leader had developed the same bug and was feeling terrible. One of the reasons that I would hate her job is that if I feel ill on holiday then I can do nothing and rest and hope it goes away. As the tour leader she still has to organise things and still has to try to be pleasant and smile. There is no rest for her.

We gathered at the bus station at lunch time after a morning of sitting around and reading. The bus journey was comfortable enough but incredibly boring. By now I had finished with P.J. O'Rourke and gone back to my own holiday book, Paul Theroux's wonderful 'The Great Railway Bazaar'. I spent the journey alternately reading, gazing out of the window and dozing in the light sleep that travel in a hot vehicle always induces. We drove through any number of coastal towns before taking the short ferry ride back to Peloponese where we rejoined our bus to take the main road to Corinth and then on to Athens. We arrived late so that there was time for a brief drink then a meal at the small restaurant across the road before heading for bed for the two and a half hours sleep that we would get before our wake up call for the trip home.