Back home in Prescott

 

 

I spent the last couple of days of my trip in Athens doing the tourist thing. Visited the Acropolis for sure, several more museums and took a day trip to Delphi. It's easy to say just see all of this on Channel 8, but is is rather spectacular in person. Just to bad that there are so many persons doing it at the same time. It was a long trip home with Delta leaving four hours late, the customs computer system down for an hour while we stood in line, missing my Phoenix flight and staying at JFK in New York. Delta sent us over to the Doubletree, but they refused us saying they were full. Finally settled at the International for five hours of sleep and arrived in Phoenix at 11 am on May 13th and hopped the shuttle to Prescott. All well here except for a section of lattice fence that was broken by the 70 mph winds they had in April. I wish the best for the Greeks in their current situation. I think that the government employees and unions can afford a pay cut and the Mom & Pop stores, restaurants and hotels will hunker down and hope for a good tourist season. But I still expect the country will have to restructure their foreign debt in 2-3 years. The country will certainly be in a depression and the cities will get dirtier and the infrastructure of roads, boats, and services will deteriorate. These last few days mixing it up with other tourists makes me appreciate more the way I travel. So many others just hit the hot spots and move on at the fastest possible rate. It was a good trip. Otto

Skopolos

I've been here on Skopolos or five days, working my way towards Athens and a flight back on Wednesday. This is a tourist island also and I made friends with two women from Norway, Karina and Wencha (Ven-ka). We drank a lot of wine together, went to the beach a couple of times and hiked quite a bit, both to the beach and up in the mountains to the old monastaries. Out of the four monastaries we saw, one was locked up and looked empty but usable, one had been abandoned, one converted to a family home, and one that was run by a single nun who said at one time there were 30 nuns there. The Norwegians bought some small delicate lace doilies about the size of an open hand for 3 Euros. The nun had made them and we thought that they must have taken her at least a day to make them.

The boat is a hydrofoil that they call a flying dolphin. It is the only way to get from mainland Greece to this island and takes an hour and a half and costs 15 Euro.

The city curves around the bay with only a sidewalk, the main street and then one row of stores and restaurants before the buildings and lanes start climbing up the hill. Cars are only allowed on this main street and on the ring road that circles town. Pedestrians must share the narrow lanes with scooters and motorcycles. The fishermen come in and dock at the port and their customers drive up, jump out and buy their dinner. Fish are expensive here also.

The women and I were both staying at the Captain's Hotel. A real jolly and productive 63 year old that sailed the oceans and became a captain of a freighter, then retired here. He cruises the street by the port on his scooter and hustles customers. Yes, he is good at it and enjoys his business.

Pirgos, Tinos, Greece

This is Lapros Diamandapoulos, a sculpter and marble mason that allowed me to use his tools and workspace to create my Cycladic Dove in marble. An easy going guy that has been in business for a long time and he continually has buddies dropping by for coffee or a chat. Maggie is a fellow sculpter from Bloomington, Indiana and survives by working in one of the cafes. I knew that I was close to the end of the road when she said that I was the first American that she had seen in eight months. She has been here for a year now and was very helpful in getting me settled in.  My masterpiece that took way too long to create and polish, but it allowed me to meet with a lot of locals to buy sand paper and hang out at Lapros's shop. I rented this 125 cc Piagio for four days to tour the island and be able to run back and forth to the port city and to Tinos town. There is a lot of this dry stacked rock walls both in the village and on the hillsides for sheep fences. A colorful boat at the port city of Pirgos. Seems that the villages are up on a hill away from the water and then they have a port city located a mile or two down to the water. As there was only one restaurant open in Pirgos, I liked to walk down for lunch as more were open here as it is more of a tourist destination. Nice beaches to the left of this photo. This is my village of Pirgos taken from my room. It is supposedly one of the prettiest villages in the Greek Islands. It is typical I think with narrow, winding alleys about 6 feet wide. Everything is on the slope of the hill so there are lots of steps and its easy to wind up at a dead end at someone's front door. Delos is an very old town and island next to Mykonos. It doesn't have any A.D.'s in its history as it was abandoned after being conquered and its inhabitants slain in 87 B.C. Only about 20% of it has been excavated and it is remarkable. Much larger than any of the more famous spots and much more pristine. Seems the early acheologists were prone to putting things back as they assumed they should be, but many of their assumptions were premature and they destroyed a lot of evidence while carting off the statues and other items to their foreign museums