We have spent nearly 3 months in Turkey and need to renew our visa, but it is simpler to leave the country and re-enter and pay for the new stamp in the passport (Ching! That'll be ten quid thank you). Conveniently located 3 km off shore is the Greek island of Kastellorizo and from Kas there are boatrips every day. Well, actually, as we found out on Friday afternoon when we arrived, they are every weekday, which meant we have had an enforced rest over the last two days. This suited me - I had sore heels, scratched legs, backache, and very smelly feet. Gayle just had a sore ear from all my whingeing. After a couple of days of force-feeding ourselves meat and carbohydrate (moussaka, kebabs and a small island of bread), we looked forward to a day in Greece.
Yesterday we awoke to rain but it was Sunday and we had nowhere to go so waited for it to clear. This morning the pattern repeated. Donning raincoats we joined the hardy few on the quayside waiting to board - an odd mixture of young French, old Germans, an English ex-pat, two young English women with chav tendencies (although I found the sequinned Turkish flag on the red tracksuit rather charming) and an over-amorous man trying to
smooch a very disinterested woman. We boarded promptly at 9.55 and left tardily at 10.35, but the crossing was quick and we had three hours to explore. This island was used to film Mediterraneo and the main village was historically much larger than Kas on the mainland. Now it felt deserted - closed up for winter, with a handful of workmen building or renovating houses. Smart Greek houses on the front were boarded up against the winter weather. And a good job too because the westerly winds brought heavy rain soon after we arrived and we had to take refuge in one of the cafes along with the young French. Turned out they were Club Med employees brought over for a new visa because they didn't have work permits.
The rain eventually passed over and we wandered the empty backstreets and up to the old abandoned church. A circuit round to the castle brought us back to our boat. We crossed back across the bumpy straits and as we arrived back in Kas the sun came out. And that was our day out in Greece............
Yesterday we awoke to rain but it was Sunday and we had nowhere to go so waited for it to clear. This morning the pattern repeated. Donning raincoats we joined the hardy few on the quayside waiting to board - an odd mixture of young French, old Germans, an English ex-pat, two young English women with chav tendencies (although I found the sequinned Turkish flag on the red tracksuit rather charming) and an over-amorous man trying to
smooch a very disinterested woman. We boarded promptly at 9.55 and left tardily at 10.35, but the crossing was quick and we had three hours to explore. This island was used to film Mediterraneo and the main village was historically much larger than Kas on the mainland. Now it felt deserted - closed up for winter, with a handful of workmen building or renovating houses. Smart Greek houses on the front were boarded up against the winter weather. And a good job too because the westerly winds brought heavy rain soon after we arrived and we had to take refuge in one of the cafes along with the young French. Turned out they were Club Med employees brought over for a new visa because they didn't have work permits.The rain eventually passed over and we wandered the empty backstreets and up to the old abandoned church. A circuit round to the castle brought us back to our boat. We crossed back across the bumpy straits and as we arrived back in Kas the sun came out. And that was our day out in Greece............
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