Sunday, 9 September 2012

Packing for Paxos


Day 31 (Friday)

The first job on our list today (the only job actually) was to purchase our overnight ferry tickets to Igoumenista (Greece).  The ferry port was a 10 minute walk away and the ferry terminal was a further 15 minute walk after that.  When we got to the ferry terminal we realised that we didn’t have our passports so we had to go all the way back and try again.  After we had bought the tickets we came out of the ferry port and noticed a place nearer to our B&B where you could buy tickets.  Doh!

Today was my (Mark’s) birthday so we had lunch at a nice fish restaurant.  We ordered a secondi plate each, Spaghetti vongole (clams) for Tracey and Fisherman’ risotto for me.  The waiter couldn’t believe this was all we wanted so we worried that the portion size would be a bit small so we both ordered a fritto misto (fried fish) as a main dish.  Needless to say the pasta and risotto would have been more than enough but the fried fish did not go to waste!

On the way back to our B&B to collect our luggage we spotted an older lady making orchietti (ear shaped) pasta by hand, Tracey was fascinated and would have loved to have had a go but didn’t know how to ask so we watched for as long as we felt we could without being rude and then carried on our walk.
After we had collected our luggage we went to the ferry terminal (we really know the way very well now) for our overnight journey to Igoumenista.

Day 32 (Saturday)

Arriving at Igoumenista at 06:30 was like arriving at the end of the earth.  When we disembarked from the ferry there was a policeman waiting with handcuffs.  Fortunately he didn’t put them on either of us but on a chap behind and then put him in the boot of his car.  There was a sign that said ‘Free bus to the terminal’ but after waiting a few minutes we decided it didn’t look like it was running and decided to walk.  During our walk a pack of dogs decided to follow us, we’ve noticed that every port seems to have a number of stray dogs, but they seemed friendly enough and soon got bored once they realised we did not have anything to feed them.

In direct contrast to Bari the passport control was non-existent and we walked straight out (having lost the dogs).  Thankfully, we weren’t planning on staying in Igoumenista long.  The plan was to catch the midday ferry to Paxos so we walked to the local ferry terminal and found that there was a 

ferry leaving in 30 minutes so we bade our fond farewells to Igoumenista (and a different pack of dogs) and left.

The ferry trip to Paxos took two hours.  The walk from the ferry port to our accommodation was a 30 minute hike along the shoreline of a very inviting crystal clear sea so once we’d booked in it was straight into our swimming costumes for a dip.  Normally I’m a bit of a girl’s blouse when it comes to getting into the sea but the water here is so warm I went straight in. 





 View from our room in Paxos



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