Greece Round 2!

We arrived in Delphi and parked near the museum at 16:00. We're both "slow museum people" meaning we read everything, etc, and we were both surprised to find we were able to do the museum in about 2 hours. It also helped that we'd both read the book "The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets" which is a MUST-read for anyone interested in Greek history or visiting Delphi. It added so much to both of our experiences and is actually a real page-turner - seriously!

So with the extra time we walked down to the Temple of Athena and explored that, saw the old spring (and drank a little from the public waterspout nearby that we saw locals filling their giant water bottles up with) and then drove up into Delphi town to our hotel, Orfeas. It's a bit off the main strip, but the clean and comfortable rooms were only 32 euros/night including breakfast and boasted balconies with amazing views. I couldn't get over the beautiful quality of late-afternoon light in Delphi and the stunning location in addition to the beautiful ruins.

We explored the town and had a pretty good dinner at Epikouros - Husband had roasted lamb in lemon sauce, I had stuffed zucchini (which also had lemon sauce), local beer and wine. For a starter we had a local fried cheese that was amazing. There was a beautiful balcony with a view but that was reserved for a big tour bus group of British pensioners that came in a little later. We were given a free small dessert similar to baklava but in in little cylinders (in Jewish Sephardic cooking they're known as "cigares" but I don't know what they're called in Greek) that were fantastic. Definitely one of the nicer options in Delphi but the food was still reasonably priced.

That said, we were quite intrigued by the village of Arachova that we drove through just before hitting Delphi. If the prices were reasonable (which I'd imagine the'yd be off season, since it seemed to be a well-off ski town) I'd probably opt for staying there instead of Delphi town.

Had some overpriced drinks with friendly service and good wifi (we've lacked wifi at home the last couple weeks so this was actually a real benefit in Greece!) at Amigos Bar, which seemed to be the only late-night option in town. My husband kept joking about wanting to find the bar the bus drivers drink at but alas, it was not to be, although this bar was full of young Greeks, presumably working in the tourism industry there.

We woke up reasonably early to grey skies the next morning, had a nice but slightly awkward breakfast (just that the lovely hotel owner was a little overly attentive but we appreciated the homemade local sour cherry compote and yougurt) before checking out and heading to the site itself. We were misted/drizzled on most of the time but I didn't mind. We arrived around 10:00 and I wish we'd tried to get there earlier as it was already getting quite crowded with the tour groups. I listened to the advice of some kind soul here and didn't bother going to the Stadium - my husband didn't listen to me and did and said what I already knew - it wasn't worth the climb for what you saw. Delphi was amazing although we both were frustrated at times with the lack of signage/poor signage. If you're a history nerd, get a specific book guide for the site (or splurge on a private guide) so you know what you're looking at. We had a general idea thanks to the book we'd read, but I wouldn't have minded a little more information.

Then we drove back, sometimes through stressful driving rain - during which plenty of locals saw fit to pass in extremely dangerous ways. A little stressful. We were able to stop at a big box store on the way and buy some cheap Tsipouro (our weakness) and snacks, as well as a few toiletry items we'd forgotten, knowing that prices would be far higher at our island destination.

28 Sept continued: We arrived at Piraeus dock E8 at 15:30, 30 minutes in advance of our meeting time with the representative form Swift Car Rental. Drop off went fine but I'd confused the schedules of the car ferry, which drops off right by our hotel on the island of Agistri, and the Flying Dolphin Hydrofoil, so we ended up having to spend extra to take the latter. Whoops. For the second time slightly amazed by how dodgy E8 is - are the other ferry docks any better? You'd think that since so many international tourists come to take the ferries, the government would put a little more effort into making Piraeus in general and the docks in particular a little less sketchy. I'm not a wilting flower but both times we've been to Athens, Piraeus docks have been the lowlight of the trip.

It was hot in Piraeus, although cloudy towards our destination, and sure enough on the hour-long boat ride to Agistri the heavens opened up and seas got rough. When we arrived at the dock in in the "big town" on the island it was pouring. We managed to call a cab for a reasonable 7 euro ride (it's a 30 minute walk otherwise - no thanks with luggage), driving through bits of flooded streets - watching the cab driver cross himself before going through intersections was always fun. It was soggy at our hotel, and the lights at the mostly open-air restaurant were out due to the rain.

The hotel is Kekrafalia, and we love it there, but it's charms were slightly lessened in the chilly downpour. Paris, the waiter/host/majordomo apologized repeatedly and offered to do anything to keep us comfortable, we could have dinner in our room, etc. But the rain stopped and we opted to walk the 5 minutes into Skala town to eat at our favorite restaurant, Toxotis.

This was my first time being on an island at the very end of the season. I'd say between 50 - 70% of the restaurants and bars were shut down, which in the weather made it all seem very uneasy. I'd thought this was "shoulder season" but it was clear that due to the weather, a lot of places had decided to go ahead and close up for the season a week or two early. Whoops. But Toxosis was full of light, nearly all the tables were full, and the cats were out in full swing, and the food was amazing as always. We got the beet salad, the stuffed mushrooms (amazing!) and the sausage from a local butcher. It was all fantastic and cheered us up.

29 September:
A bit of sun in the morning renewed our hopes, and after a bit of a sleep in we got to reacquaint ourselves with the amazing breakfast at Hotel Kek (my preferred nickname). I've never been one for hotel breakfasts, but this one's included in the entirely reasonable 71 euro/night price and it's fantastic. In addition to a few different eggs and breakfast meats there's always some sort of bean salad, a few sweets, farina cake, the usual cheeses and veggies, pancakes, youghurt with toppings, fresh squeezed OJ, etc.

It wasn't beach weather so we opted to do a walk around part of the island, up a steep hill to a little village overlooking Skala, with a pretty church, traditional homes, some nice vacation places, and a traditional taverna. We enjoyed a beer there and some home made cheese pies from the proprietor who spoke no English but was helpful regardless, while chatting with an older British couple and another French couple. The sun was peaking through a bit until noon, when the weather turned dark again. We finished our walking in the "big town" (lol) of Megalochori. We watched rough seas from Kouros but declined to eat there based on bad reviews - the restaurant next door is well regarded but closed for the season.

We walked back along the waterfront, enjoying the dramatic weather, and hit the only decent store in Skala for provisions.

We had a bit of a snack with Tsipouro back in our hotel room on our nice balcony with a beautiful sea view, read a bit, and decided to explore for dinner. I'd noted a grill restaurant off the seaside strip earlier on our walk, and we decided to chance it for dinner. Our British friends happened to be there, and we also chatted with a German mom and daughter inbetween excellent music from a local. Aside from these tourists, most people at the restaurant (it's not even on Google, but it's kitty-corner to the Avil Pizzeria and starts with an "L") were locals. The food was amazing. We got a Greek salad, 2 skewers of pork souvlaki, 1 skewer of lamb, and 1 skewer of sausage. It was served with pita bread and a sprinkling of fries and a sweet/hot mustard. It was some of the best food I've had and gave me a new standard for souvlaki. Washed down with a couple of beers, it was a perfect dinner, and just over 20 euros for two.

We had our nightcap at Quattro bar, which during high season is a beach bar catering to Brits, serving burgers and pancakes (!). But tonight it was quiet and we just wanted a couple drinks watching the wind whip outside. The only other bar that was open that night was A Bar, which was usually full of trendy Greek youth in the evenings with annoyingly loud electronic music to match, which is why we skipped it. The big club in town, Taboo, had already had it's end-of-season party a week earlier and was shut down.

30 September: The forecast had called for more grey and chilly weather (well, at least it never reached 20 C) so we decided to day trip to Aegnia, a much bigger island that was one the capital of Greece and is only a 20 minute ride by car ferry. Once we arrived we got a taxi (17 euros) to the very significant ruin of Aphea, nearly as big as the Parthenon, it's a magnificent place with views to the sea on 3 sides. We spent about 2 hours at the ruin and the small but decent museum attached. We decided to walk down to the resort town of Agia Marina after enjoying a beverage at the little cafe and gift shop next to the ruin.

Fun fact: The sculptures from the temple are now largely in Munich, at the Glyptothek, as they were purchased by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. My husband has been but I haven't, so I think during December I'll make a day trip to go see them.

The walk to Agia Marina was fraught at first because you're on a rocky hillside road with no shoulder - we had to throw ourselves flat against a rock wall to avoid some tourist buses, but after 10 minutes you're on a steep and rocky hiking trail down to the down. I was really glad I had good shoes on! The walk isn't that far but took us about 30 minutes just due to the terrain.

Agia Marina appears to be a resort down that's seen better days. An abandoned bar when we first came into town, one restaurant overlooking the harbor full of tourist buses, so we decided to go towards the harbor itself, where several restaurants were open. We opted to have a boozy lunch at Taverna "On The Rocks" which had very good fried squid but pretty inspid fava bean salad (like a very bland and thick pea soup). There was no active taxi stand when we first arrived although we saw a few dropping people off as well as mourners coming back from a funeral, and I kind of wish we'd just managed to grab a taxi back to Aegnia town which is famous for its seafood tavernas. As it was we got our waiter to call a taxi for us and had a second hair-raising taxi ride, even scarier than the first, but luckily the tsipouro had done it's job and prevented a panic. Once in Aegnia town we had a scarce hour to poke around before catching the last ferry back to Agistri. I wish we'd had more time in the town proper.

We decided to have a quiet night in, as we had plenty of nibbles and were pretty tired from our day.

1 Oct: The weather had been so undecidedly not-beachy that we'd considered taking the fast ferry to Athens for the day to just do the Acropolis and museum that day. But it was our first truly nice morning with mostly sun and temps were predicted to get up to 21 C, so we decided to sleep in a bit, and then I suggested we hike to a part of the island we hadn't explored after fortifying ourselves with Quattro's famous English-fry up - it was Sunday, after all.

I must say, it was bloody delicious. And less than 8 euro per person. We also were coming to enjoy Greek coffee. We took our backpack with swimsuits and my new microfiber towel and I wore my new swim shoes, which were supposed to be extremely comfortable for hiking regardless of water - and they were! At only 25 euros on Amazon they were a steal and worked great in the water as well. We walked at least 7 miles this day and my feet felt great. The only downside is they dry very slowly when you're wearing them.

We hiked to Dragonera beach, which during high season has a busy beach bar but otherwise is a 'nature beach' but this time of year is simply a nature beach. It was warm enough during the hike that we actually felt a bit hot, so I took use of an abandoned campsite's tarp to change into my swimsuit and swam at this absolutely gorgeous place, reveling in the sunshine. The storm the day we arrived had deposited a lot of trash on the beach, which my husband picked up. There was never more than 2 other people on the beach while we were there, but based on the abandoned illegal campsites in the forest surrounding the beach I suspect it looks very different in July/August. It felt like paradise. I also appreciated the microfiber beach towel I bought for this trip, as it folds up very small, is lightweight, but is very absorbent and works well as a beach blanket, too.

We decided to skip the 3 mile hilly hike to Limernia and called the taxi, who charged us 10 euros to come and get us in the "middle of nowhere" and drop us off at the traditional town of Limernia. We had a beer at the town's only tavern (which reportedly has excellent food but we were still too stuffed from our English fry-up) and walked 1.5 miles to Aponissos, which is a famous seafood taverna at a small harbor (but no town) that is known as a place for rich yachters to pull in and enjoy some freshly caught seafood. The walk was amazing - sunny, past ancient olive groves and mountains, a riding school and small lake before we hit the emerald-colored bay and views of the volcanic peaks of Methana in the distance .

The setting was amazing, but we still weren't hungry at arrival at 16:00, and the "beach" on the neighboring island (connected by a small bridge) was closed for the season so we got a snack of fried zucchini and olives with our beer, planning on eating fresh seafood later. Unfortunately this time of year, sunset comes early to Aponisssos and by 18:00 just as we were getting hungry we'd lost our sun behind a neighboring island and were getting chilly, so we got our reliable taxi driver (who compared his driving to "PS4!") to take us back to Skala. After a bit of rest we headed back to the grill restaurant to try their grill special for 2. It was only 10 euros and was a ton of food, with pork tenderloin, sausage, chicken, and "steaky bacon". Very good but not as good as the individual items we'd ordered earlier .

Another visit to Quattro, and we managed to lock ourselves out of our room as my husband went home before me as I decided to feed some local cats (yes, we bought cat food that I carried around in my purse). He was watching some kittens eat food I'd left for them from our front door when the wind slammed the door shut. Whoops.

Luckily Lila, the owner/operator of Hotel Kek was able to be reached via cell phone and within 30 minutes we were back in our room, suitably embarrassed.

2 Oct: BLESSED SUN. With a high of 22 degrees, this was our "beach day". The most appealing aspect of Hotel Kek for me, aside from the elegant and large rooms and great views, as the private "beach" platform and this was to be the warmest day on the island for us so we made the most of it by just being lazy on our beach platform, swimming in the amazing Aegan sea. Sadly the position of the sun had our beach in shade by 15:30, so after sharing a club sandwich for lunch at the hotel restaurant, we decided to head to the sandy spit of Skala Beach, which retained full sun until nearly 19:00. The wind was fully going by then (afternoons tend to get windy) but the water temperatures in this shallow, sandy area were great and it was fun to watch the giant car ferry list it's way into the dock one last time. We dried off in the sun facing the newish but traditional whitewashed church. Headed back to the hotel to shower and change for one last dinner at Toxosis. This was the day of cute cats. While Agistri is certainly overrun by mostly feral cats, we encountered an amazingly tame tiny kitten on the Skala beach. Similarly at Toxosis a really cute kitten kept jumping in my husband's lap. We're both cat people and it was hard to leave these cuties behind.

3 Oct: We caught the 11:30 car ferry to Athens, took the metro to Monastriaki, only to find all the luggage lockers broken. A quick search pointed us to Athens Left Luggage just across the street, where we were able to leave both our bags for 4 euros each. We then began the walk up to the Acropolis. This was, ironically, the warmest day of our trip, with temps at 26 degrees on Agistri where they stayed for a week. Sigh. Anyway it was great to finally do the Acropolis, which had none of the end-of-season emptiness we'd seen on the islands - it was packed and we waited for about 20 minutes in line for tickets at the south entrance at 15:00.

Unfortunately we did not have time to do the museum - which killed us, although we did visit the gift shop after enjoying the site for about 2 hours and slowly working our way down the other side. But for whatever reason, despite not checking luggage, GermanWings requires you to get a printed boarding pass at the Athens airport meaning a wait in line of 45 minutes to an hour. So despite leaving the Monastiraki metro at 18:30 for our 21:30 flight, we only had about 20 minutes before boarding once we got to our gate. We did manage to have a farewell drink overlooking the Parthenon at a hotel near Plaka which was nice in the late afternoon light. We also grabbed a souvlaki pita from O Kostas upon arrival in central Athens which was delicious, cheap, and necessary to fuel our trip up the hill.

The flights from Stuttgart to Athens and back are operated by AirBerlin and it shows, as I'm generally a fan of EuroWings. The service is crappy, and despite being a relatively long flight for intra-European journeys you might as well be on EasyJet. The kicker is the flights aren't even particularly cheap - we paid over 200 each. I know that sounds whiny to people who are US based but we'd just flown to Venice for 34 euros return earlier in the year, with much better service on EasyJet, to put it in perspective.

Takeaways come next!

So we'd previously been to Greece even later in the season than this: in 2013, we flew to Thessoloniki, then drove to the Pelion region to stay in Damochari for 5 nights. The weather had been great then - low 20s but sunny. Sure, the town we were in was dead quiet with only one restaurant open, but it was a tiny village so it didn't seem unusual. We'd also been blessed with amazing weather in late Sept/early October in places as diverse as Mallorca and Yorkshire. I think honestly we'd just gotten very lucky in the past (was sitting outside in Whitby same time last year in a tshirt!!) and got a bit unlucky this time, as weather in Germany was actually warmer than it was in Greece most days. It happens. I generally like mid-autumn travel for avoiding crowds but I know now not to visit a Greek Island for a beach trip past mid-September, at least because while I don't love crowds I also don't love having many of my restaurant/bar options closed off to me, plus the fact that the weather is less reliable.

That said, we definitely saw more, hiked more, etc on this trip than we would have if it had been hot. So that was cool. It just ended up being a very different trip than the largely "lay on the beach soaking up the sun" trip we'd envisioned.

We did only carry on luggage this time, and in addition to saving money it did make transit a lot easier than the previous trip. Yes, I had to wash some clothes on this trip - knowing that Hotel Kek provides a drying rack. I bought some tiny detergent sheets that fit in a small carrying case and they worked fine. I wouldn't like doing this on a busy trip where we were always moving but with 5 nights in the same place it wasn't a problem. This time it was my husband who overpacked! On the downside I didn't prepare for quite how chilly it could be (it was so HOT last time we were there!) so I didn't even have a pair of long pants. The weather forecast was quite unreliable so i don't blame myself for this but...y'know.

(Parts of) Greece I still think are truly the undiscovered gems of Europe, particularly if you like the sea and everything that entails. Hotel Kek I cannot recommend enough. It's such a beautiful hotel with such an amazing location that I always kept pinching myself that we were only spending 71 euros a night. We booked directly this time to save them the Booking.com fee and while it was only a few euro cheaper, I felt better. Although communication by Lia was not great - they operate Greek style, if they say your room is reserved, it's reserved, why are you stressing?

If we're still in Europe in June, we'll be back, though, that's for sure. Agistri is a magical place.