The other two islands were Poros and Ægina. (I don't know if they really use that "Æ." It just seemed like an ideal opportunity for it.)
You can see Hydra down there at the bottom. And then the big landmass is the mainland. Poros is right next to it and used to be part of it, but an earthquake detached it so it's now technically its own little island. The narrow channel between Galatas and Poros is really beautiful!
Then Aegina is up at the top. (And Athens is across the water, to the right and off the screen.)
We had this assortment of lunch things on the boat on the way to Poros. Everything was good, especially the fish!
Sorry to catch you mid-bite, Ky
Soon we were approaching the island. This picture is looking toward the mainland, though, I think.
The hill full of buildings on the right is part of Poros. You can just make out the blue tower on the top of the hill. We walked up there later.
There's the narrowest part of the channel up ahead.
The houses were so beautiful in the afternoon sun!
There's the blue clock tower.
There's a little path with stairs you can climb. (Are those prickly pears there on the right??)
Ky got up the hill first, of course, and waited patiently for us on this bench.
The footpaths are winding and pretty, like on Hydra. But not as rocky and remote-seeming. And there are some real roads.
I like these little painted shells someone had stuck in the cement of their house wall.
A tiny little chapel on the hill
Winding stairways
A bigger Greek Orthodox church down the hill
The Priest was just coming out and locking up.
An olive tree in the middle of a little square
And here is that same priest walking down the hill talking on his cell phone. I don't know quite why that pleases me so much.
———
Aegina was beautiful in its own way. But it was bigger. Less "island-like." More like just visiting another town. But, according to the informative presentation they gave us on the cruise ship, it has the distinction of being the "Island of Pistachios," which was fun. (Malachi leaned over and said to me, during that presentation, "If I were going to choose to go to an 'Island of Something,' why would I choose pistachios?") Well, even if Malachi wouldn't have chosen it, Sam would. He loves pistachios! In Greek the word is "φιστίκια," or if you put it in English letters (wait…what are they really called? Arabic letters? Roman letters?), "fistíkia." That's another Greek word that actually somehow looks right to me. I can make the leap from "fistíkia" to "pistachio" in my brain.
There were little farm stands along the harbor selling fruits and vegetables. And "fistíkia," of course! I wish I could have seen them actually growing somewhere. Do they grow on vines? Trees? Now I want to know.
 |
| (picture from here) |
"Aegina has the finest pistachios in the world," that article says.
 |
picture from here |
So! Now we both know. Back to the post.)
There was a big Greek Orthodox church by the harbor.
We took picture of the bulletins for Ziggy. They had Advent celebrations going on, I think, and concerts.
There were Christmas lights strung across lots of the streets. Did you remember it was Christmas time?
People do like to hang umbrellas in alleys, for some reason.
We saw some gnomes. (I didn't get any. But I wanted to. For Clementine.)
Then we stopped for dessert at one of the little cafes along the main road. It was Christmas-y!
We had, naturally, been excited to try the famous pistachios in whatever form we could find them. This waffle looked like the best of all possible worlds. It had pistachio ice cream and some kind of pistachio cream (creme?) drizzled on top. Sam always chooses pistachio ice cream anyway, when possible, so he was very excited. And it did not let us down! It was SO, SO good. Sam immediately declared it in the top ten desserts he'd ever had (and, as we ate, we moved it up to top-five).
Surely after eating this waffle Malachi regretted his flippant words about not choosing the island of pistachios if he could choose an island of something. Let us hope he learned a useful lesson.
Mid-waffle. Yummmmm
Inside the shop were all sorts of other pistachio-y things. We were too full of waffle to try any of them, which now seems unutterably sad.
Look at all these gelatos! Everyone one of them "φιστίκια"-flavored! How sad, how sad, that none of these ended up in our tums. However—we would have had to have less waffle to make it possible. And less waffle is also sad. Ah, this life is a vale of tears.
It started to get dark.
We walked around the shops. There was a store full of Christmas things (more gnomes!)
The little streets were so pretty with the Christmas lights on!
Oranges and Clementines
The place where we ate the waffle. Adieu, adieu.
Malachi was pleased to frame himself
On the ship on the way back to Athens, they had Greek folk dancers perform some dances. They were really good and fun to watch. Then they started getting people from the crowd. I told Malachi that was my worst nightmare (not exactly true; I would have done it with Clementine, but not by myself!) and tried not to make eye contact. Malachi threatened to drag me up there and I kept protesting. So to teach me a lesson (I assume), he hopped up there and learned the dance himself! And then I felt ashamed! He looked like he was having fun and I should have just done it too. :(
I should say, while I'm on the subject, that Malachi is just the best traveling companion. You perhaps cannot tell it because he looks so austere in all his pictures—if the picture isn't of his retreating back, that is. I admit, he is a fast walker. (And I, when taking pictures, tend to drag behind.) But he isn't impatient. He always just patiently waits or doubles back for me. And he's so funny. And he makes the wittiest comments and observations. And he is good-natured about new experiences (like this dancing lesson, which even I was not as good-natured about), and he likes all kinds of food, and he doesn't complain about things. He does argue for fun sometimes, just because he knows he can win. And he does tend to grumble misanthropically about human nature and various other sub-par experiences from time to time, but it's mostly an act. Truly he is a delightful person to have around (if you can take a little teasing). Everyone who knows him would agree. So we really had SO much fun being with him in Greece!
He even got to dance with a cute girl. How fun!
As we came within sight of Athens, I kept looking out the window and seeing birds flying along right with the boat—just swooping around right next to the windows, and keeping up with us! They must have been riding the wind currents from the boat or something, and it looked so strange! It was too dark to really get a picture, but I took this to remind me.
So that was our day at the Saronic Islands. And a very good day it was!
No comments