Around this time last year, when we started our 7 month stay in Thessaloniki, we struck up a long chat with a nice Greek restaurant owner. Among other things, he talked about how diner behavior varies based on where people are from. I asked him who his most challenging patrons were and straightaway he said the Italians. A common refrain of Italians in Greece, on topics from food to coffee to bathroom design, seems to be "we do this much better in Italy." And maybe that's what we've set off to explore. Do Italians do things better? We arrived in Italy a couple days ago and we'll be here at least a month to investigate what it might be like to live here. But before arriving, we had an action-packed week, with delightful visits with friends and a bit of island hopping.
Alonissos to Skiathos to Athens to Piraeus to Bologna to Verona
In barely a week, we spent nights on Alonissos, Skiathos, Athens, Hydra, Bologna, and Verona. We haven't moved around at such a pace in ages. We're now happily back into our usual slow travel mode. We milked much joy out of our last days in Alonissos before heading to Skiathos, a nearby island. The slow boat from (or to) Alonissos is one of our favorite journeys in the world. It's scenic, meditative, and you can easily imagine what travel here was like 2,000 years ago. Skiathos was a ghost town when we arrived. After we completed our 6 weeks of eating every meal at home on Alonissos, we were looking forward to some good taverna cooking. Sam had marked a bunch of tavernas to try, but we walked up to each and they were shuttered for the season. Such is small island life in the off-season! We got to explore more of the island than on our other short stays and in my book, it merits more exploration.
After a couple quiet days and nights on Skiathos, we took the short flight to Athens and stayed with our pals Kleopatra and Yorgos for a very brief visit. And then our pal Laura arrived. Sam and Laura have been friends since the late 1980s. We joked about our Athens GA friend meeting us in Athens GR. Together we ferried down to Hydra and spent a couple days enjoying that amazing island and catching up with Laura and her son, Davis. We've long wanted to go to Hydra and it didn't disappoint. Hydra lacks motor vehicles (and even bicycles) so it's quite peaceful, although you might be awakened, as we were, by a donkey loaded down with construction materials. We enjoyed some great long walks and some excellent swimming spots. And was it fate that led us to a swimming spot where we met an American woman who has recently moved to the Veneto region of Italy?
Being on Hydra with Laura and Davis was a perfect capstone to our slightly-more-than-a-year in Greece. We left them on Hydra after a couple days together there, so that we could get back to Athens for our flight to Italy. We spent a night in Piraeus (the biggest port in Greece) before heading to the Athens airport. The cabbies of Greece are probably our favorites of any country. The guy who drove us to the airport spoke almost zero English, but was a fun conversationalist. It felt almost like a Greek language oral exam, but shockingly one that maybe we passed! We marveled later that we actually managed to carry on a full conversation with him, despite our lack of confidence in our Greek language skills. He talked a blue streak and didn't slow down his speech to accommodate us--and it was ok! Learning a language is a fascinating process. We likened listening to and comprehending him to trying to surf a mighty wave and focusing on staying afloat.
We're now settled into a lovely and comfortable apartment in Verona for a week. In the couple of days since we arrived in Italy, we've caught ourselves constantly responding to Italian shop staff in Greek. And we both feel like we're trying to parse the Italian street-side conversation we hear into Greek. Soon we'll probably be able to pick up a little bit of Italian and, we fear, quickly start to lose our still very rudimentary Greek. Sigh.
But before we have a chance to lose too much of our Greek or learn much Italian, our British friends, Al and Jules, arrive and we'll get to cavort around with them and enjoy their Blackpool English. What good fortune to have so many nice friends visit us in various parts of the Mediterranean this year!
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A last glimpse of Alonissos
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| My beachside artwork, at Chrisi Milia, Alonissos |
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| Skiathos view |
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| Greek islands have tons of cats, but Skiathos seems even more packed with felines than typical |
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| Acropolis view where we rendezvoused with Laura |
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| View over Hydra |
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| Hydra |
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| On the ferry back to Piraeus |
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| Sunrise from Piraeus |
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| At the Bologna train station with all of our stuff |
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| Oh my god, Italian gelato at last! |
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| Verona |
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| Italians definitely do cheese better than Greece; we bought this raw milk goat cheese which was rubbed in mixed berries and rose petals (good grief)! |
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| Window, Verona |
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Verona
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Fun with animation 1: Davis dives in on Hydra
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| Fun with animation 2: dog at the park, Athens |
