Overall, though, very friendly, and most with a smattering of the English language, which was just as well, because after an intensive course of study the only word I could say with any real authority was kaliméra (’good morning’) which, though undeniably friendly, was not a great deal of use in the average conversation. Cats abounded, but dogs were few, as a semi-final note, and the other uniquely Athenian feature were the kiosks – small square structures on the pavements which sold a bewildering array of goods, ranging from combs to handbags, from sweets to maps and from postcards to magazines. If one kiosk hadn’t got what you wanted, the next one almost certainly had. You could even make telephone calls from them!
We wound up the walkabout with a drink in Omonia Square (the main stop for the electric train in the centre of Athens) before returning to the hotel at Plaza Karaiskaki at about 1630. There was still no sign of our respective wives, and there was no change in the reported arrival time of approximately 2200, so we resigned ourselves to the prospect of returning to the ship for the official reception, wifeless. We stayed in the hotel until 1750, which was as late as we really dared stay if we were to be on time for the reception, and got a lift back to Piraeus in a taxi which we shared with Ron Weetman and his wife, who were staying at the same hotel.
The official reception was pretty average, really, with most of the guests being from the flourishing (estimates run at about 10,000 in Athens alone) English community. Duncan and I made very sure that we were seen by all the people who needed to see us, and then slipped away early, at a little before eight, in order to get back to the hotel as quickly as possible. This time we opted for a trip by train, and very efficient it proved, too, whisking us into Omonia Square in a rather shorter time than the taxi had taken earlier (and at a substantially reduced rate, too), and we walked into the hotel reception at about 2150. We enquired at the desk, expecting to find that our wives would still be at the airport, or in transit to the hotel, but we were informed that they had arrived. It transpired that the flight had been due to arrive at the time we had expected, but that there had been some sort of mega-cockup with Olympic Airways, who had advised the hotel that they were on a completely different flight. However, though the flight had touched down at about 1700, they had not in fact made the hotel until 2000, so there had certainly been very substantial delays (mainly in luggage collection and transport to the hotel itself).
Food was obviously a fairly high priority, and so we wandered off out after a while, and ended up in a sort of pizza palace – come to Athens and eat pizza! – not far from the hotel.
Saturday 15th October 1983
One of the most pleasant aspects of the stop-over in Athens was that I was not required to trundle back to the ship every day to show my face, but on this one day we did go out to Piraeus to Illustrious, but only to collect my camera, which I had omitted to take to the hotel the previous day.
We got up late, having breakfast in bed as an unaccustomed luxury – the meal was a typical Continental breakfast, but with both orange juice and coffee. The milk, unfortunately, is either goat or Carnation, neither of which I can abide, but black coffee isn’t all that bad. We walked over to Omonia Square and bought tickets for the train, which duly deposited us at Piraeus some twenty minutes later. A walk, punctuated by one brief stop for a cool drink, brought us to the Illustrious, where I was able to collect the camera. It was by then approaching lunchtime, and Sara also wanted to visit a chap called Howard Jolley, who is a shipping broker in Filonos Street in Piraeus, so we wandered off. A friendly (and slightly disappointed) taxi driver gave us directions to Filonos Street, which was only about a quarter of a mile from the dockyard gate.
When we got there, we found ourselves in a rather sleazy, down-market night club area, but we persevered and eventually found the appropriate office block. The office,
predictably enough, was closed, and as it was Saturday, we thought it very unlikely that it would be re-opening much before Monday, so we pushed off in the general direction of food. This we found in a small taverna in the area – good, and cheap.
We then returned to the train station, and got back to Omonia Square in the usual very efficient fashion – there seems to be a train about every ten minutes in both directions. Clearly both the train and bus services (and I think the taxis as well, possibly by buying cheap fuel) are heavily subsidised, which makes good sense when you think of the number of people who need to travel every day. The train, in fact, is free before 0800 in the morning.
Once at Omonia, we found the appropriate road leading to Syntagma Square, and there caught a bus up. One of the problems about getting round in Athens is that we had no idea in which direction buses were going, so we only got on them when we were certain that there were no turnings which the things could take. Hence, later, to get from the hotel to Syntagma, we walked to Omonia, and then took a bus from there. A cumbersome system, but it did work.
Once at Syntagma, we visited the offices of GO-Tours, a tour company which had been highly recommended by the ship as being both honest and efficient, and booked ourselves onto a trip the following day – a one-day three-island cruise, visiting Hydra, Aegina and Poros (Idhra, Egina and Poros in Greek), which worked out at about £16 each, including lunch, which wasn’t bad. Business over, we retired to the centre of the square for a drink, at a cafe where the proprietor was nothing if not pushy. He started waving us to a table when we were still about seventy yards away, and all the time we were there he continued to savage passers-by to attract custom, clapping his hands and waving, and had a remarkably high success rate, in fact, with several people sitting down who had every appearance of being en route to an important business meeting or something. He wasn’t averse to re-arranging the furniture to suit either – clearly the customers were always right, once he had enticed them in.
We window-shopped on the way back to the hotel, looking in the fur shops and the clothes shops, mainly, and consumed a sweetcorn each. The latter were cooked in a slightly odd way, being grilled dry, and then served with salt, so that the corn was fairly hard, rather than the soft corn we are used to in Britain. Very tasty.
Back at the hotel, we elected to eat in rather than go out again, and had the set meal in the hotel dining room – quite reasonable, if unexciting, and filling. We rounded off the evening by going up to the roof garden and watching the lights come on and go off on the Acropolis, as the final son et lumiere show of the year came to its conclusion.
Sunday 16th October 1983
We had an early morning call at 0630, as well as relying on our alarm clocks, and we made it down to the hotel dining room for breakfast a little before seven, expecting to find it more or less deserted. In fact, it was just about full, other people obviously having had the same idea about going on trips as we had. The meal was self-service, and either Continental or a full breakfast; we opted for the former, not much liking the looks of the scrambled eggs. If they were scrambled eggs.
The coach was due to pick us up at 0715, but in fact didn’t turn up until about 0755 – the only hitch in the whole day’s programme – by which time most of the other trippers had been collected for their respective visits. The coach called at a number of other tourist hotels before arriving at Faliron, where the MV Saronic Star awaited our arrival. The vessel was a rather neat and attractive-looking craft, of about 200 feet, I suppose, purpose-built for the carriage of passengers for short trips. It had four separate lounges, plus sun decks fore and aft, bars, usual toilet facilities, and a galley. Very clean, well-fitted, and comfortable, in fact, and a very pleasant vessel for such a trip, especially on such a day – the sun was blazing down, although there was a chill wind which made you feel cold if you were in the shade. The Public Address system welcomed us aboard, in at least five languages (I could recognise Greek, English, French, German and Italian, and I think there was a touch of Spanish there as well), and continued to pass useful and accurate information for the rest of the day.
We got under way
a little after eight, making first of all for Aegina. All three islands lie in a more or less straight line to the south of Athens (or to the south of Salamis, to be pedantic) and very close to the Peloponnesian mainland. Once clear of the coast, the vessel picked up speed quickly, and we were shortly able to see the vague outlines of Aegina showing through the early-morning haze.
At Aegina we had to go ashore by tender, as the jetty was far too small to accommodate a vessel of the size of the Saronic Star, but this proved to be a painless evolution, two large craft coming out from the shore to take us all off. The water was crystal-clear, and the bottom was clearly visible, as were the fish – all quite delightful, and I think we were both rather sorry that we hadn’t brought bathing costumes with us, though in retrospect there wasn’t really enough time allowed to enjoy a relaxing swim, only a little over an hour being permitted before the boat departed. A tour had been offered, to go up to a Doric temple to Aphaia, but we decided to have a wander round instead.
The island is very pretty, though more than a touch touristy, with dozens of shops selling the usual knick-knacks all around the harbour area, as well as tavernas and so on. The part of the island we had arrived at was not at the main centre of population, being more like a village with beaches (graced by a certain number of topless bathers). Behind the village there were hills, but we were a good distance from the mountain of Oros, the highest point of the island. All in all, very pleasant, though the vegetation was a bit on the sparse side, and I would have preferred a few more trees about the place.
We wandered about, had a drink, and generally soaked up the sun, talking about Life, the Universe and Everything, and about how nice it would be to live on a Greek island, where the biggest decision of the day is which taverna to go to for lunch.
Talking of lunch, this was presented to us on trays when we returned on board the Saronic Star for the next leg of the trip, out to Hydra, and very good and filling it was – not the sort of plastic food you tend to get on aircraft, for example – with a hot rice and meat dish, salads various, honey cake, fruit roll, and so on.
The run to Hydra took us past Poros, which was to be our last stop, Hydra being the most southerly of the three islands. It is reputed to be the home of the ‘beautiful people’ – a kind of rival to Capri or St Tropez – and was certainly very attractive, though again a little bleak, with very little vegetation and not apparently very much to offer outside the town. The town and harbour, though, were splendid; very attractive and relatively unspoilt, though the tourists were of course catered for by the shops on the waterfront. The island is hilly, and the white houses of the locals climb away from the harbour quite steeply, offering a delightful spectacle as you enter the harbour itself. The harbour has everything from rowing boats to Greek caiques to luxury yachts – splendid. No trips were offered here, partly because there was nothing to see, but mainly because there is no transport on the island apart from donkeys! Again we wandered, window-shopped, took photographs, and then rounded to visit off with drinks and ice creams in a waterfront taverna.
The third island was Poros, very close to the Peloponnesian mainland (you can almost throw a stone across), and I think this was the most attractive of the three places, because it was a good deal greener, while still offering the same facilities as the others. The tourist shops and tavernas, of course, were still much in evidence, and we again went window-shopping, as well as stopping for a drink in one of the tavernas. Though the smallest of the islands we had visited, Poros seemed to have more people on it, but this was no doubt at least in part due to the proximity to the mainland (ferries were running constantly between the two). An attraction in the harbour was a floating museum – in fact a battleship of about 1905 vintage, which looked in splendid condition, and which I would have liked to visit, but time was against us: again we only had about an hour or so before the boat left on the last leg of our cruise. In summary, though, Poros has a lot to offer, possibly more than the other two islands, and it would be pleasant to make a return visit there in the future.
The run for home seemed to take forever (we finally got back to Faliron at about seven), probably because it was dark for most of the journey, the sun setting relatively early, and once the sun had gone down there was a very distinct drop in the temperature. It was really too cold to be outside, but too warm to be inside. So we alternated.
The ship was very efficiently unloaded once alongside at Faliron, and the passengers were packed off into coaches, each one serving several holiday hotels – the whole vessel was emptied in about ten minutes flat. A very slick operation – all you had to do was listen out for the name of your hotel, and then the number of the coach that was calling there. At the hotel we unloaded our goods and chattels, and retired to a local cafe where we ate a very pleasant meal, served by a waitress who hailed from Newcastle, of all places, and at a very reasonable rate (even allowing for the Sunday tax, payable because we were eating out on the sabbath).
Monday 17th October 1983
After our exhausting day out, we elected to have breakfast in bed again, rather than face the rigours of the hotel dining room. The hotel, though adequate in most respects, does appear to act as a focal point for large numbers of silent and deadly mosquitoes, and both Sal and I were scratching away merrily this morning. Obviously they sneak in through the open balcony window, but we decided we’d rather put up with their bites than boil ourselves alive in the hotel room, as the weather is still remarkably warm, bearing in mind it’s the middle of October.
Once up, Sal paid a swift visit to the hotel hairdresser for a sort-out of the barnet before we ventured forth into the sunshine. We walked up to Omonia, following our well-established routine, and then caught a (very crowded) bus up to Syntagma Square, where we commenced our window-shopping expedition, working our way south into the Plaka area, said to be a good district to both shop and eat in. We looked at some antiques, including a lovely cased set of silver gilt and enamel spoons of Russian origin, which were as desirable as they were pricy – about £1,500 – and then continued on our round of fur shops, clothes shops and so on. Leather goods, furs and clothes are said to be good buys over here in Greece, but it soon became very clear that you had to know what you were looking for, and looking at.
We ate in the Plaka area (which certainly had some most interesting shops) at an open-air restaurant, where we had the set menu – if anything, rather too much food, but extremely tasty and very good value – and then started off towards the Acropolis. We had intended to get into more or less the right area, or at least onto a main road, and then take a taxi, but to our surprise we were right under the Acropolis, and after a relatively gentle climb made it all the way up to the Parthenon, granted with a stop or two – even on the slopes of the hill there were both tavernas and shops.
The view from the top was certainly worth the climb, and the ruins of all the buildings there, not just the Parthenon itself, were very impressive. Of course, the Parthenon dominates the scene, both by virtue of its size, and because it looks so absolutely ‘right’. This ‘rightness’, of course, is because it is an architectural masterpiece, with not a straight line in it: the Doric columns swell gently in the middle and slope slightly inwards (the temple is in fact an unfinished pyramid, with a theoretical apex some 3,000 feet in the air); the floor is convex, in both directions. These intentional distortions, like those executed on a painting or drawing, give a coherence and symmetry to the whole structure that is lacking on most buildings of this size. All in all, a splendid achievement, and made all the more splendid when it is remembered that it is nearly 2,500 years old. To concentrate so much on the Parthenon is not to denigrate the other temples and buildings on the site, but the Erechtheion was literally covered in scaffolding (work is going on to preserve the marble, and also to replace the famous caryatids with glass-fibre replicas, as the originals are too fragile to remain in place), and the Propylaea and the Temple of Athena Nike were being swarmed over by teams of cameramen and te
chnicians, busy making the film version of John le Carré’s Little Drummer Girl.
Walking up to the Acropolis hadn’t proved unduly difficult, and walking down from it was a good deal easier. We went down into the Plaka area again, then continued on to Syntagma Square, where we had a drink in one of the open-air cafes and planned our next moves. The result of our deliberations was another visit to the GO-Tours office, where we booked ourselves onto a trip out to the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, about seventy kilometres to the south-east of Athens, for Tuesday the 18th.
We then headed back into Plaka (a splendid area for both shops and food), where we ate our evening meal. One of the great delights about Greece is the menus – or, to be specific, the English translations of the Greek dishes. Notable little gems that we recalled were ‘inwards of calf’, ‘young cow’, ‘one ball without pita’ and ‘four balls with pita’, none of which we had the courage to investigate at first hand. Fortunately, we settled for the easy option and had souvlakis, with Greek salad.
Walking back to the hotel we got slightly lost, by crossing straight over the road which led to Omonia Square. This inadvertent crossing was largely caused by the pedestrian traffic lights being green – this was such a rare event that we seized the opportunity to cross, neglecting the fact that we didn’t want to. It wasn’t too unfortunate a diversion, in fact, as we were able to have a good look in the windows of a lot of clothes shops on the way back, and in fact made a note to return to the area the following day. At the hotel, we retired to the roof garden and bar for a final look out over the night sky above Athens before going to bed.
H.M.S. Illustrious Page 12