Month: May 2019

Greece 13-27 May 2019

28 May 2019 / admin

Parthenon 14.5.19

A proper holiday beckons – with a variety of locations to visit in neatly devised itinerary. We fly to Athens where we will spend the first few days. I had suggested keeping it simple by taking the train into the City Centre and then walking to our hotel.

I had not anticipated the local louts spraying our clothes with some substance and then trying to halt to help mop it down so that they can rob us. I get shouted at for being so stupid – but we keep going and I was merely taking the diagonal from the station to the hotel – rather than sticking to the more major roads – and it is not as if it is actually quiet even on the side street. A far from good start to the holiday.

The following day we seek out the hop on hop off bus service which is always a good way of find ones way around the town and which takes us to the Parthenon where we join the large number of visitors inspecting the ruins of this great temple which continues to attract the attention wherever you are in the city. We then descend to the associated Acropolis Museum which we wander around.

Athens Food Market 15.5.19

The following day we undertake a walking food tour around central Athens – this is something new for us but has become something which now happens in a lot of cities. We join a group and visit little places around the town where we get to sample some local delicacies. On this tour we make use of the knowledge of the guide to show us where we have booked for dinner tonight – and it was probably a good thing we did – I am not sure we would have found it ourselves. The tour ends in the market and the guide picks up food for a light lunch – but it is very tasty.

On the next day we go to Piraeus which is the port associated with Athens and track down the ferry to our stop – the island of Spetses – where we have booked our next stop. A taxi takes us out to the hotel which is perhaps a little further out of town than we had anticipated – but is within walking distance of some restaurants and indeed the town itself is within walking distance if we take our time.

Jackie is absolutely convinced that some people took other people’s luggage – another reason to be nervous about making such trips.

Spetses 17.5.19

In Spetses we mainly stay in the villa and lounge around the pool resting. There are a couple or restaurants immediately down the hill which we use the first couple of nights and then (as often happens) she feels she needs something other than the famous Mediterranean diet with more spice and so we go into the main town as we had seen a suitable restaurant – there is a huge choice of restaurants.

After a few days on the island we take the ferry back towards Athens – but we are stopping off for a few nights in Poros to see a different island and this time we are walking distance to the town centre on the level – so we can access the main restaurant drag and walk off the calories on the way back! Excellent. Poros has just a small channel across to mainland Greece and the views are wonderful. Again we do not do very much at all.

After a few days we return to Athens and take a taxi from port to airport for our homeward journey. This holiday was a little different enabling us to see some Greek islands and doing it all under our own steam rather than being organised – however there is pressure in being in the right place (for ferries and the like) which it is easier to delegate to a tour operator and representative rather than doing it ourselves – so the stress levels are higher than normal, particularly when potential thieves disrupt the start of the holiday throwing us mentally off balance.

Cornwall 3-6 May 2019

7 May 2019 / admin

Another short break – this time in Cornwall with a large group as together with the owners we descended on Hembal Manor for the first bank holiday of May. It happens to be one of the first major outings of the newish Tiguan and it is well loaded with the boot completely full to overflowing. Hembal lies just a little to the west of St Austell (Snorsel as it appears to be pronounced) which was the historic centre of the china clay industry.

Our outward route is via the A303 which is our main route westwards these days – it always brings to mind the Reggie Perrin discussion on the benefits of using the A30 or A303 – but the improvements (apart from at Stonehenge which has been cancelled by every government soon after they come to office for the last 30 years) now mean that the traffic tends to use the A303 which flows – but there remain places along the road where further improvement remains long overdue.

The main attractions within easy distance of the Manor are the Eden project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. We had visited the former some years ago so I elect to go to the Wheal Martin Clayworks, although I have a suspicion that I visited it many years ago it has in the meantime had an upgrade and it remains fascinating telling the story of the extraction (which continues using more modern methods) of China Clay to be used in pottery and so on. On return from the works I am able to walk from the Manor to the adjacent railway main line where I can photograph the limited service through Cornwall. In more recent times the service frequency has been improved from hourly to half hourly and is perhaps more akin to the service needed by local residents.

With some free time I am able to visit the Mevagissey Model railway – I seem to recall it was not quite worth the entrance fee. However the attraction has changed hands in more recent times since my visit so further comment would be inappropriate.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan sit high above the coastline of Mevagissey and whilst we have been before this time we are able to see rather more of the grounds and find more of the statues and other attractions. The rhododendrons are not quite over so there is a decent amount of colour. There also seems to have been further development of the gardens since our last visit. Jackie will still not walk across the rope bridge of course. I consider the whole place magical and I think everyone else is of a similar conclusion.

Dining on Sunday is at the hotel in Charlestown where I stayed many years ago – although the dining area has clearly been much developed since then and alongside that I think the food is also much better. There is a museum in Charlestown now concerning the local fishing industry which we do not have time to visit – so there is a need to return here at some time in the future.

Jackie drives the Tiguan to the Eden project and reports that it brings her back via a somewhat odd route – an early sign that the satnav on this car seems to have a mystery bug which insists on taking devious routes when you simply want to reach your destination.

Our homeward journey on Monday is a long drive with a stop at the Exeter services and is inevitably slow – but not as slow as a trip back I suffer a couple of years later when the road from Cornwall to Exeter crawls all the way.

A concentrated little break visiting some of the South West’s major attractions which were right on our doorsteps – so the only long journeys were at the start and finish of the holiday – which made it easier than continuing driving each day.