Up in the Air - and Back on the Air

After the Lattes campsite we had one night in Perpignan (as did the Scttish rugby team) and then one in Salt near Girona. Thanks to Ryanair (Grrr) with its serious partial withdrawal from Girona airport we needed to avail ourselves of a new free service offered by Punt Central Parking. After saying goodbye to Yvette we were driven to Caldes railway  station which connects easily with the Barcelona airport Metro service. It takes a very long time, but works and is more leisurely  than the bus alternative. Then a packed flight and a pick-up by Windows Dave.
Home again - and a busy time of re-integration, research and repair! It was also the run-up to Bob's Big Birthday, but more of that later! The weather was wonderful at times, but did also feature a red alert for high tide, and some heavy showers. The atmosphere around town is more upbeat than we feared. In our absence:

• The old town re-paving has been finished and looks good
• The urn water feature has been removed after being smashed
• The Cafe Lounge has been under a couple of new managements and fingers are crossed
• The Temple Bar has moved
• Two new and very popular tapas bars have opened near the Shell Staion (one is the old Piratas)
• At the top of the High Street there are major roadworks to widen foot and cycle paths, but make the road one-way
• Our complex has the contentious artificial grass round the pool
• It is impossible to buy The Guardian and Independent

On a beautiful Sunday we made our first trip to the big beach, and caught sight of the International Kite Festival. Bob walked a long way further south for a better view - and here it is:

And back by popular demand... Ruth is once again on the radio, with a regular slot of Wednesday 12 till 2pm, and doing some cover slots, too! So tune in online to Hot FM for an eclectic mix of music and a teasing competition.

Languedoc for beginners

 So the second half of October was a blank slate. The weather predictions were slightly better for France than for Catalunya so after collecting the car we turned right rather than left from Girona, and headed into the region of Languedoc-Roussillon. The plan was to start at Lattes - almost a suburb of Montpellier but even closer to the sea (just west of La grande Motte), and then to come back south and stop at either Agde or Canet - the then favourite spots on this bit of coast. There was a slight thwarting of plans when we turned up at the selected campsite to discover there were two exhibitions on and so no space other than for tents. It was not tent weather, so we spent the night in a local Premier Classe, ate at the Campanile and went back the next day to Camping Le Parc to hire a mobile home. This was an excellent base, and the mobile was almost new and very comfortable. For the first week it was also very quiet - just a few camper-vans. We liked it so much that we booked a second week, making this the accommodation in which we have had the longest stay ever in France! It became busier, with the French half-term holiday, but still very restful. We stayed until it was about to close for the season.

Lattes is not exactly scenic - mostly huge shopping opportunities! It is also currently afflicted by major road works to make a new third tramway through the agglomeration - as far as the sea. This will go down the middle of widened roads, and will - in the spirit of Montpellier described in the Spring - be a grand projet to be proud of! If you don't understand how much better the French are at them take a look at this. Crisis, what crisis! On one of our cycling trips we saw a tram doing a trial run with dignatories and press in attendance.

The weather was - unsurprisingly - mixed! Here is the Metéos' map for one of those six or so days when we were definitely not going for a bike ride! This is when enormous French shopping malls come into their own, and when cheap Wi-fi with BBC radio plays and readings are de rigeur!  .. but there were also a handful of days when the weather was better than we had left behind in Greece! We much enjoyed the nearest seaside spot of Palavas - reached by cycling down the side of the Lez, and we also cycled  upstream to the centre of Montpellier on a beautiful day. There was a film festival in progress and we were once again impressed by this lovely city. We had just finished watching a series of TV programmes about Pathé so this building caught our notice!

 On the dodgy days we went out by car and visited other coastal towns. Le Grau was fairly quiet and attractive. On the way back a navigational error took us closer than planned to Aigues Mortes where there was a Camarguais show of some sort going on; and - of course - we saw a lot of flamingoes!

Star prize for energetic pursuit goes to Bob, who - on a perfect cycling day-rode to Perols and then alongside the Canal do Rhone à Sète ending up back in Palavas -a  ride of one and a half hours and flat as a pancake! He was then tempted by the dégustation of seafood - but resisted!

Adio, Ciaou, Hasta la vista and Bonjour!

One of the benefits of being retired nomads is the time available for travel research, This leads - in our case - to serious miserliness about fares. So when, in September Rainer casually mentioned that Ryanair had started flying from Chania to Frankfurt-Hahn we were onto their website like rats up a drain, because getting anywhere sensible directly so that Athens can be avoided has to be a good thing :-  and cheap!

On closer inspection this particular route proved expensive, but the other new one we found is Chania-Milan (Bergamo). So this how we plaaned the migration this time:



... and such a good price!

As time passed in Crete the benefits of missing out Athens became more apparent. The images on the BBC news website of accumulating rubbish as a result of the strike by municipal workers brought to mind the unsavory nature of the streets round the Piraeus port even in strke-free times, and the prospect of roaming around for half a day and then being crammed into a crowded airport bus was not inviting. With no air traffic control strike on the day of travel we thought we had struck(!) a neat solution, with the greatest stress being a very long wait in Bergamo airport.  In reality we were somewhat touched by the Greek troubles. We ran from the Paleo bus to the airport bus at Chania with1 minute to spare. At the airport the departures board showed that every outgoing flight was delayed. Every so often the Aegean announcer made a strong statement about the unjustfiable ATC work to rule. We were told we were delayed by at least two hours:- no problem for us! It was a beautiful sunny day, so we wandered over to the old airport taverna for a beer or two, and found a full charter planeful of Danish tourists on a much longer delay being herded, addressed and fed by their reps. We were in fact three and a half hours late getting away.

Bergamo airport landside is completely dominated by Ryanair and rather uniform, but could clearly be a useful way of getting to Milan (three competing coach firms available for the city centre), and is a serious hub for all Europe. We mooched around, had a fairly good meal and then a long queue for security with the rudest personnel in attendance. Airside is a bit more interesting, and again we saw it for longer than planned as we had a delay of an hour and a half! Still, it all worked and we were in our hotel room within 30 minutes of landing, and it was - after all - very cheap!

Next day it was a pick-up by Margarita and delivery to waiting Yvette, diesel, tyres and over the border in two hours.

So - in 24 hours we had had footfall and sustenance in four nations. Someone has to do it!

Disturbing the Peace...

... Strikes, Storms, a Moving Experience and Things that go Bump in the Night!
First Max returned home, then the weather went a bit dismal, then Chloe went home.. but not as planned!

Through the summer there have been a number of threatened air traffic control strikes, but they were mostly called off having been declared illegal, or were just for a few hours. On October 5th it was to be the full McCoy of a strike and so all Greek airports would be closed. This was the day she was booked to return, and immediately start work. Fortunately Easyjet handled this well, and she switched to the previous day's flight - an early one! It wasn't pleasant feeling responsible for getting her up and to her early airport lift after her very late night at Agios, but it happened and she made it.

So we settled down to enjoy our last ten days and deal with the close-down. A serious storm was on the way. On the Wednesday it was glorious, and we stayed late on the beach, thus capturing Stelios as he fished beside the cantina. On Thursday there was more wind and cloud, but it turned out to be our last dip in the sea for the season,  because the beach was no place to be for the next five days! Friday was dull, windy and (relatively) cold. We sat at the Seagull watching a few hardy souls on the beach, whilst Tomas and Tony dug up parasols and stacked sunbeds in preparation. So Saturday was bound to be the day!

We lurked around in the gloom until early afternoon, and then decided to risk a walk over to the Oriental Bay. Then the heavens opened! We were sitting under their solid-looking thatched roof, and it held for a while, but the water on the floor flooded towards our feet, and then the holes in the roof were found. Thunder, lightning, invisible Crocodile, and a drenching just to get to the loo! This lasted for hours, then we ventured forth, but got no further than the old Coconuts, where we met Olga and Stephen and were caught again - this time inside! The day ended with a meal at The Crocodile which was having its last night of the season (in anticipation of the storms). We had a very jolly (and cosy) time inside with two other parties and Giorgos clearing the decks, then waded home through a deserted village.

On Sunday the main talking point was the state of the sea. It did also rain dramatically in the middle of the day, but dried up somewhat, leading to attempts to go the beach, but the wind, swell and high tide had done a lot of damage:- several strong wooden parasols had been uprooted and were in the sea, and the poor cantina was in a very bad way, despite the sandbags! We speculated as to what might have happened to the sand which has been disappearing steadily through the season to give the worst ever entry to the sea. The answer is - it had got worse, with vast plates of rock newly exposed. Not a great time to arrive in the village, but at last Jim and Susan did - seriously strike-bound en route! We all met at Zygos after the last Scrabble of the season (which included a famous win for Ruth!)

Nor, frankly, a great time to be moving accommodation, but we did!

We have been spending the summers since  September 2007 in a very spacious and well-located apartment in a family house; but were told in July that the owner needed to move back into it by the Spring, so we embarked on a quest for somewhere new. We were told that the best time to look is September, and indeed - on cue -  there was a sudden outbreak of yellow and red notices fixed to posts around the village with handwritten details of various places to rent. They were - of course - in Greek, so we needed some help with calls, and also used the local newspaper and plenty of word of mouth. We looked at total wrecks we could have had rent-free, luxurious tourist places and some dingy hovels; but have ended up renting an apartment on the stony beach side. It is smaller than the current one, but a lot cheaper and still has a sea view. It is owned by someone from one the five main village families but who lives in Athens, and we feel lucky to have found it and done the deal. The idea was to move our stuff before leaving the island but not to actually inhabit until next year. So it was on Stormy Monday that we borrowed a pick-up and driver and did the deed - with help from Jeff and Mick to go up and down the stairs (Ruth's knees and stairs not being a fruitful combination at the moment!) We have accumulated a huge amount of stuff considering that we have been in furnished accommodation! We managed to dodge the rain and have it all done in an hour. Later that day the afternoon deteriorated into an appalling storm. We sat in Cosmogonia waiting for dry spells so we could get home, and were there for three hours. Down at the Skala the waves were huge and parked cars were getting deluged!

We had arranged for a visit by our landlady the next afternoon, and planned on a serious clear-up and clean, but at around midnight there was a crash and Ruth's feet were lower than before, then another and they were on the floor! After more than four years of faithful service the bed had broken, and when inspected we found it is a miracle it hadn't happened before! The landlady agreed! Wednesday was rather better weather-wise! In fact the cinq a sept was spent sitting on a lawn beside a pool with well-tended flower beds and classy garden furniture. Friends are going to over-winter in a pair of adjoining luxury tourist studios and invited us over. From there we went to an oldies night at the Skala, which was a real success! On our last day the sun came out properly and we managed a few hours on the beach. The sea was a bit cold, but the main difficulty was getting into it, so there was no real last swim - just a paddle, and then the summer was declared over as far as we are concerned!

Extreme travellers

 Max arrived a few days after Chloe. He had been in Laos, and she had been in Croatia. They soon had itchy feet, and announced their intention to go to the Island of Gavdos. We insisted that they go soon as best advice is to plan a return at least five days before any deadline.
The going was straightforward. New this year is a very fast boat - the Gavdos Express. (90 minutes on a good day!)We saw them off - and on the boat was also a vast amount of cheap wine and a bicycle strapped to the back.

There has been an issue with the ferries to Gavdos. A Russian company was awarded the contract for granting seaworthiness certificates to numerous Greek inter-island ferries. It was then declared to be incompetent, so the boats were grounded. This meant the Samaria was accompanied back round to the commercial port, leaving people stuck in Sougia, and the mayor of Hora Sfakion seized control of the Daskolagiannis to get up to 700 walkers from the gorge back to his town. So for a few weeks thare have been no car-carrying ferries:- just the charming but small Neptune. (100 cars - including hired ones - were stranded on Gavdos as a result, and schedules for foot passengers have been very uncertain

The most southerly point in Europe

Chloe and Max stayed four days, camping with or without tent on several different beaches. We got regular texts, and thus were there to meet them off the Neptune on the Monday evening. During the day we had seen the wind increase and the sea roughen, so were not surprised by the stories of the six hour voyage (via Agia Roumeli and Sougia). Even the dog was sick, apparently! Max - as an experienced sailor - had been fine. Chloe was not! There was also one of those "small world" encounters on the boat, with Max's mum's oldest friend, who is a new Gavdos resident! Furthermore the captain - Dimitri - recognised Chloe (and us) from visits to the Oriental Bay over twenty-two years, as he was a waiter there.

A lucky win, and a very sad loss!



Just what I've always wanted!

 Between party-time and the arrival of Chloe we had some very good weather and much time was spent down at the cantina! Rainer had brought over a substitute  for the Golden Kri-kri. award. The tasteful(!) model won by Lucas two years ago had gone missing in Karlstadt, so this ceramic horn had come down in the camper, and was up for grabs in a hurriedly organised tavli competition involving Ruth, Jack, Felix, Lucas and Julia. After a play-off the winner was Ruth, so we are the keepers for this year. Afterwards at Cosmogonia there were plenty of suggestions for uses!

This was also a period of anxiety for friends of Lorte and Monika. August visitors over the years will remember them, their children and the two dogs at particularly Yianni's or Corali. Latterly Monika had been here in a wheelchair after a stroke 5 years ago, enjoying Paleochora with the help of friends and family. This time we missed them on our first evening back, and then next day she was taken ill again. After a stay in hospital in Chania she was taken back to Munich by air ambulance. Lorte followed and a few days later she died surrounded by family.

RIP MONIKA



Two Tribes, Two Parties and a Dueto

We were straight back into a social whirl! In our absence two tribes had arrived:- Noreen and the Prof had offspring and extended family to the total of 14, and Rainer had driven down with not only the boys (Felix and Lucas) and all the instruments, but also a nephew and Felix's girlfriend Julia. Sunday was spent meeting up with them, and checking in at the cantina, so that we turned up at the last minute, in beach clothes and possibly a little merry for the 60th birthday celebration of John from the dress shop. As well as John and Judy and us there was Olga, Stephen and Caroline; and we ate well and had a very jolly time at The Small Garden.

Next day it was our turn to host! We had chosen the Monday so that we would catch some folk who would be leaving the next day. We had made the arrangements with Yiannis, and added tables as people arrived so that we ended up with a very long one running diagaonally across the cantina, without excluding the public!

The cast list:

Ian and Janet

Olga and Stephen

Caitrina and Alice

Paul from Dublin

Professor Johnny and (briefly) Noreen

Alexandra, Bruce and their friend

Glen and Mick

Three of the Kandonites
Keith, Joseph and (briefly) Ludovico
Jenny and the twins

Rainer, Lucas, Felix, Julia
Jeff
Vicky

Briefly; Eion, Julia, John and 2 friends

and - innocently turning up by coincidence - John (ex Westwind), Cricket and the three girls!

We provided Yiannis with some golden oldies on CD, and later we were entertained by The Coconut Combo, Johnny and Paul. Magic! From Kandanos came a Finnish orange and vodka concoction, then there was beer, ouzo and wine in abundance, plus salads, tzatsiki, kalatsounia (Cretan cheese, spinach and herb pies), souvlakia, chips and fresh figs. It came to a close after 3.30am, and we were back the next day (but not too early!) to settle the surprisingly reasonable bill.
If we haven't already e-mailed it to you and you would like the full musical slideshow, then get in touch!

As we noted earlier there has been less live music around the village than in early season, but we did enjoy a (short) set at Atoli with both Cretan and Andalucian players. Incredible skill and a combination that works!