Early evening sunshine illuminates the historic Venetian-era kastro (castle) and Chora village on Astipalea island
Category: Astipalea
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Mule tidings: donkey tales from the islands
This donkey enjoys a spectacular view of Skala, the port town on Patmos, from his hilltop vantage point on the edge of Chora
Donkey tales: Mules and donkeys can be a common sight on many of the Greek Islands including — not surprisingly — two of the country’s most popular tourist destinations: Santorini and Rhodes. If you visit Santorini’s capital town Fira, especially during a cruise, you’ll see scores of the animals working as taxis to transport tourists up and down hundreds of steps linking the small port to the town 220 meters above sea level (see my Don’t ride the donkeys! post above for more about that controversial practice). On Rhodes, dozens of donkeys are similarly pressed into service to lug lazy sightseers up the path to the Acropolis above Lindos.
On smaller isles that don’t draw huge hordes of tourists and cruise ship visitors, you’re more likely to see donkeys grazing in fields and yards while you hike or drive around. Sometimes you might not be able to see them, but you’ll clearly hear them — their boisterous braying can carry across a long distance. And at other times, you can wind up having a close encounter with one or more of the animals just when you least expect it.
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Island dining: Astropelos taverna in Astipalea
What’s for dinner: An artistic illustration of Astipalea island’s scenic Chora village appears at the top of the menu on the outside wall of the Astropelos taverna in Livadi. Below is one of our photos of Chora, shot during our May 2009 visit to Astipalea.
A view of the enormous Kastro (castle) that towers above Chora on Astipalea
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Greek Islands from the air
Passing above the Paros port town of Parikia and surrounding area during an Olympic Air flight from Athens to Astipalea
In plane view: We have taken more than a dozen inter-island flights in Greece, but I’ve only managed to shoot fewer than 12 photos of the beautiful island scenery passing thousands of feet below us during all those trips.
The reason? On some flights, I was assigned the aisle seat, so it wasn’t possible to snap photos through the window. On several of our trips when I did get a window seat with Olympic Air, I got great views of a propeller and wing, but little else. And during several journeys with Aegean Airlines, stern-faced flight attendants demanded that I put my camera away, claiming “photography is not permitted during the flight.”
That rule seems to apply only to me when I pull out a camera while flying Aegean — that airline’s snotty flight attendants never seem to hassle other passengers about in-flight photography.
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