If India is my second home then it can be said that Greece is my third. My first visit to Greece was as a teenager with my parents in April 1963. I will never forget the sheer beauty of seeing the country beneath me from the aircraft that brought us from India. We were leaving India upon my parents’ retirement and very sad. However, looking down on that clear Spring early morning there was Greece beneath us. I visited Athens and the Peloponnese before tourism to Greece had even become popular. When we first visited the Acropolis and the Parthenon the Caryatids were the original not clever copies with the originals in the wonderful Acropolis Museum! Greece with her clear light, sunshine blue and white entranced me and the love affair has remained. We return as often as possible and are now very familiar with Athens, Thessaloniki, the Peloponnese, Halkidiki, and then the beautiful islands, the Ionian, the Cyclades and Crete. I love the Greek cuisines and as for sailing in Greek waters – sheer bliss. There much more yet to explore.
To sail in the Ionian, one needs to fly into Preveza to the small modern airport of Aktio on the mainland of Greece adjacent to the island of Lefkas. Our yacht is moored at Nydri which a charming little town with a beautiful beachfront on Lefkas and acts as a gateway to the Ionian islands for sailing and visiting by ferries; a taxi ride takes about fifty minutes to reach the Iris Hotel at the far end of Nydri.
To sail in the Ionian, one needs to fly into Preveza a small airport on the mainland of Greece very near to the island of Lefkas. Our yacht share is moored at Sivota which is a charming little village with a beautiful bay is also on Lefkas; a taxi ride takes about fifty minutes.
Simply put, Andros is lovely and is easily reached by ferry from Rafina 20 minutes east of the city of Athens. There are regular bus services from the International Airport of Athens to coincide with the ferries. Our ferry only took two hours and left us at the port of Gavrio.
Athens, it entered my ‘ken’ of course when I was a child learning about Ancient Greece, and even before that when I read avidly about the mythical Greek Gods and Goddesses and kings and warriors…
Thessaloniki: a name that conjured up an exotic ancient place that was in my imagination for years. Thessaloniki is Greece’s second city with all its antiquity now a beating heart of culture, cuisine and heritage with the diversity of people that have come through millennia.
Magical little island in The Cyclades supposed burial place of the great Homer the greatest epic poet of all time.
Crete had ‘called’ to me yet again after my recent autumnal visit and when we arrived to spring sunshine and warmth, the blossom on trees and the calls of birdsong and the buzz of the bees it was a superb feeling.
We had returned for a leisurely holiday on Crete which we love and consider a favourite destination in Greece. From Crete it is very simple to visit Santorini by ferry and we embarked on this short visit in early October and were rewarded.
We visited Crete on a press trip in the third week of October and were enchanted. The weather was warm and sunny and we had the opportunity to see a lot of eastern Crete having flown into Heraklion. We were centred at Agios Nikolaos which is a lovely town with beaches, a lake, smart shops, nice restaurants and heritage. Crete is a lovely island and indeed cradle of western civilisation with so much to see and learn from, and we long to return in the Spring for the famous spring flowers and all the fresh blossoms and colours of spring.
In early October Graham and I flew out to Preveza from Manchester to arrive at Nidri where we had arranged to sail for a week. The Thomson Airlines flight was trouble free and we transferred to Nidri which is a town on the coast of the island of Lefkada or Lefkas in the Ionian group of Greek Islands.
