Decorative cast iron railings on a building in the town of Vathi on Samos
Category: Greek Islands photos (Page 40 of 70)
Air Transat logo on a winglet of the Airbus jet that flew me from Toronto to Athens
My Mykonos, Paros and Attica/Glyfada trip report
What follows is an edited and significantly expanded version of a trip report I posted on TripAdvisor.com shortly after returning from my holiday in Greece this past spring. I have added more extensive details to the text, and have included dozens of photographs to illustrate the report.
Sunday May 13: Flight from Toronto to Athens
I flew Air Transat, the Canadian charter airline I have flown on all of my trips to Greece. The flight was about two-thirds full when it left Toronto just past lunchtime on Sunday May 13. It stopped in Montreal for 90 minutes to collect more passengers and load the food and beverage carts for our 9-hour overnight flight to Athens. During the stopover, a flight attendant told a passenger sitting behind me that, with the additional passengers from Montreal, the flight was nearly full. (On all of my previous flights to Greece, except one, we flew direct to Athens; this year, Air Transat’s May flights stopped in Montreal because fewer people were travelling to Greece at the time and there wasn’t enough passenger demand to justify direct flights from both cities.)
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
A rainbow arcs above the Hotel Tagoo swimming pool and bar on May 18 2012
Holiday home away from home: In my five previous “Mykonos memories” posts, I have recounted how the scenery, weather, beaches, restaurants and the charming labyrinthine streets of Mykonos Town were highlights of my 2012 visit to the island in May. However, I know this would not have been my best-ever trip to Mykonos if I had not stayed at Hotel Tagoo.
This was not just the fourth consecutive time I stayed there but also my longest visit so far — 8 days. And it was an amazing experience.
I was travelling by myself (my partner couldn’t come along because of work commitments), and before going I had some worries that I might get bored or lonely being on my own. But there was no chance of boredom or loneliness at Hotel Tagoo, thanks to the exceptional friendliness of the hotel management and staff as well as many of the guests staying there — interesting, fun and personable people from England, Ireland, Canada, the USA, Australia, Sweden, France, Spain, Brazil, Singapore and several other countries in southeast Asia.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
The unassuming exterior of Irene’s kafepantopoleio (café and grocery store) on the road that winds through Ano Meria village on charming Folegandros island
The small inside space doubles as a convenience store and restaurant
Famous food: You probably wouldn’t expect a convenience store to dish up some of the most delicious home-made pasta you’ve ever tasted, but then you probably haven’t been to Irene’s kafepantopoleio on Folegrandros, either.
I had never heard of Irene’s grocery-café until I read Greece’s Best-Kept Secret (Until Now), the cover story on Folegandros in the December 2004 edition of Condé Nast Traveler magazine. Writer Adam Sachs described celebrating his second wedding anniversary at Irene’s with a dinner meal of matsata — a local pasta traditionally served with rooster. “Irene made the matsata in our presence,” he wrote, “and as hoped for, it was a rich, gooey pleasure. It was cut into ribbons, and the texture was somewhere between a noodle and a dumpling. The rooster broth was poured over the matsata, the legs and breasts served on another plate.” The filling meal was followed by a dessert of “homemade goat’s-milk rice pudding with flecks of orange zest.”
I clipped the article and filed it away, not expecting that we would wind up visiting Folegandros three years later.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
