A mother leads her two children along the seaside strip of cocktail bars at scenic Little Venice in Mykonos Town on the windy afternoon of May 15 2012 …
… then carries her youngest child across the slippery surf-sprayed walkway so they don’t get soaked when the next big wave strikes the shoreline
Wind and waves: The seaside strip of cocktail bars in Little Venice is usually packed with cruise ship passengers and other travellers enjoying a drink or lunch at one of the most popular tourist attractions in Mykonos Town. But on at least two days during my May 2012 holiday in Mykonos, strong winds and high waves made it impossible for visitors to sit anywhere close to the sea — unless they happened to be wearing wetsuits.
Kalikatsou Rock stands sentry at the tip of a narrow spit of land separating Grikos Bay (foreground) from Petra Bay on Patmos. The Grikos side of the spit features a curved sandy beach, but the Petra beachfront is covered with stones and rocks. Below is a brief videoclip showing views from Kalikatsou Rock.
This goat was in a herd that gave us a warm welcome to the Hermes Hotel
Warm welcome: Checking into a hotel usually isn’t a memorable experience. Sometimes you get a friendly greeting from a cheery person at the reception desk, and sometimes you just get a grunt from someone who couldn’t care less about making a good first impression to a stranger from another country. And sometimes you really luck out, and get to see an entire herd of goats hurry up a hillside to welcome you to their island.
That’s exactly what happened minutes after we checked into the Hermes Hotel on Ios back in May.
After filling out the registration form at reception, we took a walk to check out the facilities, and headed down to the spacious swimming pool terrace on the hillside hotel’s lower level. When we leaned over the terrace railing to take photos of the nearby valley, we caught the attention of a herd of goats grazing in the field below us. They interrupted their meal and rushed up the hillside to say hello.
It was an unforgettable warm welcome to an island that quickly became one of our favourite destinations in Greece. Thanks, kids!
The goats start rushing up the hillside toward us
The whole herd stopped grazing so they could come up to see us
One of the goats watches us from the hillside below the pool terrace
Another goat arrives to welcome us to Ios
The goats watched us intently for several minutes …
A sheep stands on a bend on the main Amorgos highway near Chora. We also passed many goats on the roads while driving around the island …
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… including these three, who were in a herd of several dozen goats ambling along a stretch of highway between Egali and Chora on Amorgos
Highway hazards: One of the features we love best about the Greek Islands is the beautiful beach, sea, mountain and village scenery, and our favourite way to see it is on foot. Some islands, including Amorgos, Folegandros, Paros and Sifnos, boast excellent walking and hiking routes, with networks of well-established footpaths and donkey trails criss-crossing scenic mountain and valley terrain. Santorini has some fantastic footpaths, too, including the famous clifftop trail between Fira and Oia that presents spectacular caldera views every step of the way. And on some islands, including Kos, Milos, Naxos, Patmos and Samos, mountain bike rentals have offered a fun fresh-air option for getting around and seeing the sights.
When it’s not practical or feasible to hike or bike to the places we want to see, we usually rely on local buses — a cheap and easy way to get around islands like Mykonos and Santorini. But since we typically travel in low season, bus service can be infrequent or unreliable, particularly on some of the smaller islands that aren’t as popular with tourists. So we have occasionally rented cars to tour around islands and see places we couldn’t reach by bus.
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We don’t enjoy driving while on vacation, though, because we like to check out the scenery and take photos — something that’s difficult for a passenger to do (and impossible for the driver) when you’re speeding down an island road or highway. So you could count on just one hand the number of times we have rented cars in Greece (only once on each of Amorgos, Crete, Mykonos and Naxos).
But when we have used rental vehicles to get around, we have quickly discovered some typical road hazards and dangers that first-time drivers in Greece should be aware of before getting behind the wheel and heading off on a road trip.
