The NEL Lines Aqua Spirit ferry departs Andros en route to Tinos and Syros on the evening of May 29 2015.
That’s the Spirit: While we were watching a beautiful sunset from our terrace at the Aneroussa Beach Hotel on Andros on May 29, a passing ferry caught my attention. It was the Aqua Spirit, one of several ships operated by NEL Lines, and I was surprised to see it in service. During the past year, many if not most of its scheduled sailings have been either disrupted or cancelled entirely because of mechanical problems as well as labour disputes by 500 seamen who claimed they had not been paid wages for months. In fact, just before we travelled to Greece in late May, online travel forums were peppered with posts by frustrated holidaymakers who wondered if they could rely on NEL Lines service for their summer island hopping itineraries.
NEL Lines has a 43-year history of shipping in Greece, but has experienced financial difficulties in recent years, reportedly teetering on the verge of bankruptcy at least once. Its frequent service disruptions have caused headaches for Greek citizens and tourists seeking to travel between islands in the Cyclades. (The Aqua Spirit and its sister ship, the Aqua Jewel, operate on routes connecting nearly two dozen different isles in the Cyclades.)
New investors now running NEL Lines
Because of the continuing problems with NEL, Greece’s Coastal Transportation Council (SAS) met last Thursday (June 18) to determine if it would declare NEL in forfeit of its privilege to operate, and to decide if it would bar the company from running ferries in the Cyclades. As the Greek Travel Pages reported that same day, the Council did vote in favour of declaring NEL Lines in forfeit. However, it postponed its decision about banning the company from continuing to operate in the Cyclades after being advised that a new group of investors had taken over NEL and hoped to relaunch the firm once it had settled outstanding obligations to employees and government agencies.
The matter will ultimately be decided by Greece’s Alternate Shipping Minister, Theodoros Dritsas.
Greek Travel Pages said Hellenic Seaways has expressed interest in operating to the Cyclades from the Lavrio port in Attica in the event NEL is barred from providing the service.
Fingers crossed that the issue is resolved quickly …we have relied on NEL Lines for some of our Cyclades island hopping, and would have used them on our recent holiday had we been able to count on the Aqua Spirit sailing as scheduled.
[Editor’s Update June 24 2015: Greek media have today reported that the Alternate Shipping Minister declared NEL Lines forfeit, thereby barring the company from operating ferries in the Cyclades. Next step is for the Greek Shipowners Association for Passenger Ships (SEEN) to hold a process in which qualifying shipping companies can bid to win a 3-month operating permit for service to the Cyclades. For its part, NEL will be seeking new business opportunities to replace the lost ferry contract. Greek Travel Pages reported that NEL issued a statement saying: “The company is exploring ways to replace these revenues by leasing its ships for charter travel in Greece, or preferably abroad, granted that it has been proven that coastal shipping in this continuing and intensifying financial crisis is no longer a profitable business.”
[Update June 26 2015: Greek Travel Pages has reported: “For the next three months the Greek coastal ferry operator Hellenic Seaways will run the route connecting the Western Cyclades with Syros and other islands of the Cyclades complex, according to a decision by the Greek Shipping Ministry.” In three months’ time, the government will open tenders for continuing service on the routes.]
The Aqua Spirit departs Andros on its way to Tinos and Syros
Aqua Spirit steams across the horizon while we watch the sunset from our hotel near Batsi on Andros
The Andros beach resort area of Batsi looks beautiful even while menacing stormclouds pass overhead. During our six-day visit to the island last month, we experienced some cloudy skies and a few brief periods of rain … but that didn’t keep us from enjoying the island’s spectacular mountain, coastal and village scenery. Even during inclement weather Andros looked amazing. Frankly, we would rather be on Andros in the rain …
… than be here in Toronto where sunshine has been sparse and where our balcony views have been mainly of fog-shrouded highrise towers, intermittent light rainfalls, and heavy downpours since we got home June 11.
Although nobody can do anything about the weather, most people dread cloudy skies, rain and thunderstorms during their vacations. While I personally prefer a mix of sun and cloud, I would rather be somewhere in Greece on an overcast or wet day instead of being at home in Toronto in similarly bleak weather conditions.
Since we returned from Greece last Thursday night (June 11), we have seen sunshine only briefly. The sky has been overcast with dark clouds or thick with fog most of the time, there have been intermittent light showers, and we have experienced several thunderstorms with heavy downpours. It has been disappointing and depressing to see the bleak, grey skies and fog-shrouded city skyline whenever we glance out our windows or go on our balcony.
We didn’t feel that way the few times it turned cloudy or rained while we were on Andros in May. Periods of daytime stormclouds didn’t detract from our walks and hikes, while occasional evening rain didn’t stop us from strolling into Andros Town for drinks and dinner. Rain or shine, Andros looked lovely, and kept us amazed and amused.
Below are some photos we shot during cloudy periods on Andros … I think you’ll agree the island looks pretty even under cloudy skies.
Stormclouds start to fill the morning sky over hills behind Andros Town
Stormclouds advance above Nemborios beach on the north side of Andros Town. They sprinkled light rain a few times during daylight hours, then produced occasional light showers in the evening and late at night.
Winds picked up and the late afternoon sky darkened while we were exploring the streets of Andros Town, but we got back to our accommodations long before evening showers started. It rained lightly off and on over the course of the evening, and overnight.
Rain clouds approach hillside settlements near Andros Town
In this view from our terrace at the Aneroussa Beach Hotel near Batsi, stormclouds swirl overhead shortly before a series of brief but heavy downpours soaked the island at breakfast time.
During our walk from the Aneroussa Beach Hotel to Batsi after the breakfast rain showers, we looked back to see more dark clouds looming overhead …
… while straight ahead, the cloud cover extended along the island’s entire coast to the north
When we turned the next corner on the road, the sky above Batsi looked far more threatening
Sunshine briefly illuminates rental rooms and studio apartments on a hill on the south side of Batsi
The weather was beginning to look grim as we reached the halfway mark on our walk to Batsi
Sunshine briefly breaks through the thick clouds as we approach the edge of the commercial waterfront strip in Batsi
Stormclouds sweep above the hills to the immediate northeast of Batsi
Every now and then sunshine broke through the clouds to illuminate the mountains north of Batsi
We enjoyed some sunshine at the northern end of the beach at Batsi
View from a hill on the north side of Batsi
Although we experienced repeated but brief interludes of sunshine, the breeze turned into a cool wind so we headed back to Batsi, where we reached a sheltered bar terrace on the waterfront just as the clouds opened up and began dropping light rain. The showers stopped within half an hour but the dark clouds hung around several more hours.
By evening the clouds were moving away from Andros, and we got to watch an impressive sunset from our terrace at the Aneroussa Beach Hotel
This image showing an impressive view of Chora (Andros Town) on Andros island appears on the Discover Greece page for Andros
We’re on our way back to Greece for our annual spring holiday, and looking forward to visiting Andros island for the first time. If I have reliable Internet connections while there, I will try to post some photos.
If you’re interested in seeing more of Andros in the meantime, I’ve posted two videos below. The first shows Andros Town, while the second is a slideshow of sights and scenes at numerous places on the island.
Scenes from Andros Town
Photo highlights from Andros
A panoramic view of Fira, the capital and main town on Santorini
Octopus at Amoudi Bay on Santorini
Do you wonder what it’s like visiting Greek islands for the first time? Especially as a solo female traveller?
Two fascinating trip reports by a travel blogger from Vancouver, Canada will give you excellent insight into the entire experience. (They’re also great fun to read even if you have already been to Greece yourself.)
Blogger Christine visited Santorini and Mykonos earlier this month during a two-week holiday — her first-ever trip to Greece. She posted a thorough account of her journey, complete with dozens of photos, on her Christine in Vancouver blog.
I love the reports not just because they show Greece through the eyes of an island-hopping “newbie,” but also since they include scores of food pictures and valuable information about costs and prices — important details that I think will be extremely helpful to others considering a trip to Greece.
Click here to read Christine’s report for her May 6 to 13 stay on Santorini, and click here to read about her May 13 to 19 visit to Mykonos.
The two photos from Santorini posted above, as well as the two photos from Mykonos shown below, are just four of the dozens of fabulous pictures you’ll get to see in Christine’s reports (you’ll be able to view her photos full-size in a slide-show format.)
Enjoy your trip to Santorini and Mykonos with Christine!
Streets in the heart of Mykonos Town
Ornos, one of the top “family” beach resort areas on Mykonos
This summer, guests at Casa del Mar Mykonos Seaside Resort can go to the movies at a private seaside “cinema” on the beach below their villas
Coming soon to a beach near your Greek Island luxury villa — a private seaside cinema?
That’s actually what guests at the Casa del Mar Mykonos Seaside Resort will get to enjoy after dark this summer should they prefer to stay “home” one night rather than travel two miles (4 km) into Mykonos Town to shop, dine, party or people-watch. Merely by walking down a few steps to the resort’s private beach, they’ll be able to curl up on a comfy lounge chair with a glass of wine or bowl of popcorn and watch a film displayed on a wide-screen high-definition panel positioned right on the water’s edge.
A member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group of independent hotels, Casa del Mar is an exclusive villa and spa resort at Glyfadi beach, a quiet off-the-beaten-path cove in the Aleomandra area at the southwest tip of Mykonos. The resort website describes Casa del Mar as “an eclectic collection” of nine “luxury sea view suites … grandly appointed with deluxe amenities, quality furnishings and modern conveniences.”
The newest of those “conveniences” was unveiled this week when the Small Luxury Hotels Facebook page posted the two photographs that I have republished in this article. A photo caption read: “There’s nothing wrong with a night in! We think the brand new private beach cinema at SLH’s Casa Del Mar Mykonos might be just the ticket!”
If you’re not able to stay at Casa del Mar while visiting Mykonos this summer, don’t dismay — you can watch a movie outdoors at Cine Manto in Mykonos Town instead (starting May 22). It won’t be the same as watching a film from the comfort of a luxurious sunbed on a sandy beach, of course, but at least it’s in the fresh, open air in a lovely garden setting.
And if you’re travelling somewhere in Greece other than Mykonos, you might be able to attend an outdoor cinema near your destination, too, since there are more than 100 outdoor movie theatres in the country.
I couldn’t find an online directory listing all outdoor cinemas in Greece, but the Athens Info Guide website has a directory of summer cinemas in the city, which you can view by clicking here.
You can read more about the Athens outdoor cinemas on the Greeka.com blog, and on the Visit Greece tourism website.
And for an interesting read about how digital technology is impacting on Greece’s outdoor cinemas, see this August 2014 article from The Guardian newspaper in the U.K.
Another view of the private beach cinema at Casa del Mar Mykonos
Located at Tourlos, just a short walk from the New Port, Cayenne is among dozens of brand-new businesses on Mykonos this year.
[Updated October 30 2015]
“Crisis? What crisis?” That’s a question many regular visitors to Mykonos will probably ask when they see the more than 100 new and completely-renovated businesses that have opened on the island this year.
While Greece shudders through its sixth straight year of devastating economic turbulence, Mykonos appears to be in a different world altogether, virtually unscathed from the recession that has ravaged the rest of the country.
Last year, the island enjoyed a record year for tourism — receiving more than 2 million visitors — and some longtime local residents told me they could not recall ever seeing the island as crowded and busy as it was during July and August. Hotels were filled to capacity, flotillas of luxury yachts were common sights at many beaches, and champagne flowed by the caseload at bars and restaurants across the island. As I reported in a July 16 2014 post, hotel rates reached higher levels, too, with the international online travel firm Trivago noting that prices had soared as much as 61% over the previous year.
International brands flocking to Mykonos
In anticipation that even more tourists with thick wallets will arrive in 2015, local and international companies have been pouring millions of Euros into the construction of new hotels, shops, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as the renovation or upgrading of existing properties. Indeed, since late last autumn, Mykonos has been experiencing an unprecedented building boom as small armies of contractors swarmed around the island in a rush to finish dozens of projects. Global business brands flocked to the island in droves, scooping up any available real estate for their new Mykonos outlets.
With many of the new enterprises aimed at affluent travellers, Mykonos mayor Konstantinos Koukas has told local media he’s confident that the island is now well-poised to compete for a bigger share of the the world’s luxury travel market, and will successfully lure big spenders who usually flock to other Mediterranean hotspots like St Tropez, Monaco and Ibiza.
To see what’s new on Mykonos this year, please click on the convenient quick links below:
Click here for page 2 to read about new and newly-renovated restaurants in Mykonos Town, Tourlos, and the Ano Mera area.
Click here for page 3, which describes new and renovated beach restaurants, as well as the island’s two big new beach clubs, Monarch and Scorpios.
Click here for page 4, which highlights new and renovated nightlife venues in Mykonos Town, including bars, nightclubs, and shisha lounges; and
Click here for page 5, which introduces you to the island’s new spas, retail shopping establishments, and hotels.
More than two dozen new restaurants opened on Mykonos for 2015, and five of them can be found under one roof at the Food Mall Mykonos on the highway between Mykonos Town and Ano Mera.
Widely recognized as the hippest new beach club on Mykonos for 2015, the Scorpios Beach Restaurant and Bar became one of the most popular places on the island within weeks of its opening in an “idyllic haven” on a peninsula between Paraga and Platis Gialos.
Another new beach club and restaurant is Monarch at Kalo Livadi, which boasts cuisine designed by a Michelin-starred chef, comfy beachfront lounge chairs, and occasional special events and big parties.
The world’s first Buddha-Bar Beach restaurant, bar and beach club opened on May 20 at the Santa Marina Resort at Ornos.
One of the most eagerly awaited new arrivals on Mykonos was Ling Ling, a Hakkasan-branded Cantonese fine dining restaurant and uber-chic nightspot. It opened in July in the premises that had been occupied for decades by the famous Philippi Garden Restaurant, which closed a few years ago after its owner died.
June 27 saw the launch of yet another new nightclub when Bonbonniere Mykonos threw its opening party in the ODE Mykonos club in the Tria Pigadia area of Mykonos Town. It’s a summer “pop up” version of the world-famous Bonbonniere club in London whose owner, Joe Fournier (wearing the white polo shirt) is pictured after signing a contract to bring Bonbonniere to the ODE space for the season.
Mykonos residents and visitors weren’t just buzzing about new business openings this spring — people were also chatting about the abrupt closure of the enormously popular Caprice Bar (pictured above) and its surprise reopening a few weeks later as Caprice, a restaurant-bar located just a few doors down from its old place at Little Venice.
Mykonos No.5 Villas is one of the island’s newest hotels, offering a selection of seaview apartment residences, lofts and maisonettes in the Kanalia district 3.5 kilometers from Mykonos Town.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Panoramio member Papadakisioannis snapped this shot of visitors enjoying the Giola lagoon and the terraced seashore surrounding it
Last week I published a post profiling popular Greek Island swimming spots that don’t have sandy beaches. Here’s another one — the Giola lagoon on Thassos — which is arguably far more spectacular but also much more difficult to reach.
Carved into the southeast coast of Thassos, several kilometers from the village of Astris, Giola is a natural pool approximately 20 meters long and over 15 meters wide. It’s enclosed by rock terraces that rise up to 8 meters high, creating convenient platforms from which visitors can jump and dive into the crystal-clear water, which is regularly refreshed by waves from the sea.
A Huffington Post Travel article called Giola “epically beautiful and crazy cool to swim in,” while Condé Nast Traveller magazine from the U.K. hailed Giola as one of the “best swimming pools in the world.”
Although it’s a visually stunning place to sunbathe and swim, Giola is a bit off the beaten path and not quite so easy to reach. But getting there is all part of the fun. You can find directions to the lagoon, complete with photos showing parts of the driving route and the hiking path to the coast, in FeelGreece.com’s Giola listing, as well as in the Let’s Find Giola post from the Discover Thassos travel website.
Below is a Google Maps image showing the lagoon’s location, followed by photos offering views of Giola from several different perspectives.
To see more excellent photos of Giola, click here to view a gallery of nine excellent Giola photos posted by Galeria Foto member moxxu.
This Google image shows the Giola lagoon location on Thassos, an island in the Northeast Aegean Sea. Giola is situated at a secluded seaside spot around 4 km from Astris village. You can drive most of the way, but then you’ll have to hike a trail to reach the coast.
An aerial view of Giola lagoon. This image is from the website for the Potos Hotel located at Potos, about 16 km from the lagoon. You can see two more excellent photos of Giola on the hotel’s website.
This photo of the lagoon is from the Greece travel website Alternatrips.gr
The A Beach A Day web guide for beach lovers published this photograph of swimmers enjoying the lagoon. Even though Giola is refreshed by waves from the sea, its waters apparently are much warmer than the sea.
This unique seaview photo of the Giola lagoon is by Flickr member Ivonka. It shows the terraced flat rocks surrounding the pool on the seashore — perfect for sunbathing.
Flickr member Chrysanthie Ak posted this image of a sizeable group of people enjoying the lagoon both in the water and from the adjacent rocks
This image by Flickr member Remus Pereni shows people on the narrow rock ledge that separates the lagoon from the Northeast Aegean Sea
