All 'Round The Island For A Bob.

It took a day of doing nothing to get over our ferry trip to Kefalonia. We went on Wednesday and Thursday was the do nothing day. On Friday morning we went over to Nikolas Harbour and rented a car from the people who picked us up from the airport. This place will never replace Avis. The first thing the guy said, after his partner filled out a short document, while checking the street for hunks and making sure the sparkles didn't fall off her nails, was, "It's a bit dirty." It was a mess. There was, and is mud and sand all over the inside and out. However, our black Nisson Micro gets us places. And so far only one bit has fallen off. The button that you push on the outside driver's door handle has disappeared. Oh well, as Mrs Graham says, ......

The roads here are twisty to say the least. Also, there is a line of hills/mountains that run the length of the island from north to south. You need to cross these hills to get from one side to the other. This involves a series of hairpin turns usually where you pass an oncoming car or truck. So it is stressful and on a couple of occasions I thought that we were going to hit or be hit.

 As you drive through these hills you feel very removed from the tourist track. You meet delightful people who show you kindness and share simple kindness. This lady had a very untouristy little store with a couple of tables set outside that the neighbours came and sat and she sold them a coffee and they would chat. We saw some little red blocks that were covered in coconut and she insisted that we take some. It was like Turkish delight but not as sweet. Sheelagh thought that it had rosewater in it. We all did our best to converse and it was wonderful.

The roads went through groves of ancient olive trees whose ages are measured in the thousands of years.

We ended up at a light house and windmill on the northern tip of the island. Here we started to get back into tourism. but we stopped to let the driver regain some composure and we took some pictures of the beautiful water. A local guesthouse kindly let people use their pool so we stopped and had a drink and cooled off.

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Before retracing our route to the west side, we stopped at the Nobelos Restaurant for lunch. This was a bit of a blowout because it was the most expensive place we have visited.  Sheelagh had lamb and vegetables cooked in the oven in parchment paper.

I had rabbit stew and it was all very good. The restaurants here are all outside because rain is so rare. The beach is just feet from the tables and there are all sorts of things to watch, what with boats and swimmers. 

We left and returned to the west to pay our obligatory visit to Shipwreck cove. From where we were, you can only look down on it but it is fantastic. Brave old Sheelagh insisted on walking a very rough track around to the side of the lookout so we could see the wreck.

Where Shush is sitting, that's the sort of track we had to walk over.

We wandered our way back past some Venetian towers that were built when Venice ruled the island to act as protection against attacking hoards.

We got home about sunset and put our feet up with a cup of tea. Great fun.