Farewell to Syros, and the Greek islands
One of the loveliest things about visiting another country, is the definitely the food. It’s so much fun exploring different tastes, and even enjoying familiar foods that taste different in another country, perhaps a country where the food is more a part of their everyday culture. Like olives, for example. Or tomatoes. Or pears. We’ve had plenty of opportunity to enjoy these foods and others.
We particularly enjoy being able to organise our own breakfasts in the mornings when we travel. This hasn’t been so easy in Syros, because we’ve had a hotel room, not an apartment, so we are limited to two small teacups, two reasonable-sized saucers, a kettle, and two small plastic teaspoons. Still, not to be deterred, we have managed several breakfasts and one lunch in our room - Greek food definitely lends itself to “finger food” style meals - olives, tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, fruit, yoghurt, bread. We did need to buy a couple of knives from a local homewares store, but otherwise we had fruit and yoghurt in a teacup, salad and bread on a saucer. Easy!
I love “last morning on .............” breakfasts, using up all the leftovers, and this morning was no different - a handful of olives, the last wedge of cheese, half a cucumber to share, a mandarin, and half a tin of sardines each. Breakfast of champions!!
Obviously our meek little breakfast pales in comparison to the true Greek breakfast though.........
Syros greeted us with another beautiful day today, the sun shining brightly, the harbour fairly glassy, the day mild. We have been so very blessed with the weather on our Greek island jaunt, particularly because of the kind of holidays
We have so very much enjoyed having a balcony that overlooks the harbour. The water just draws the eye constantly, and being able to have our French doors open to the sunshine-y days, sitting, watching the activity on the harbour - occasional yachts and catamarans coming around the breakwater, ferries coming in, going out, bigger ships coming in to the Neorion shipyards, the sparkle on the water, the blue and white Greek flag fluttering in the breeze - has quite possibly been one of the most enjoyable aspects of our stay on Syros. Who’d have thought!!
Aside from the few silly selfies on the balcony, our morning was relaxed - packing and getting organised, down to Gregory’s for a coffee and to “read” the newspaper. When I say “read”, what I mean is that we put our heads together over the Greek letters, trying to work out some of the words. It was fun. We managed to get most of this one without help, aside from the little bit of English text in the body of the article - The 5 greatest movies about the “God Drama”. We needed help with the word “drama” but the rest we managed. Back at the hotel we asked the sweet girl at reception to help us with a couple of letters, but in our few weeks in Greece we are having more and more success with identifying words.
Of course, sometimes working out the sounds still doesn’t help with the meaning. “Kalimera”, for example, sounds nothing like a “Good morning” greeting, until you hear it in context from some bright and cheerful Greek person. On the other hand, “Efharisto” (thank you) is a little more like its root word - Eucharist, meaning “thankful”. We thought we had that one nailed, until the helpful concierge gave hubby a lesson in pronunciation yesterday. We were emphasising the third syllable - ef-har-IS-to, when we should have been emphasising the last - ef-har-is-TO. Okay then, we need to practice that one some more!
One last stroll along the harbour, lunch overlooking the yachts, then another leisurely stroll along the breakwater. The water was sparkly today, the air clear, the views just lovely.
We farewelled Syros and caught the 4pm ferry to Athens in the bright afternoon sunshine. The forecast for the next few days in Athens is even milder than today, with temps in the early 20s, so we’re looking forward to a lovely few days exploring Athens some more.
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