Back to the mythical isle of Dendros. The horrendous outward journey and terrible queues of the return journey last year meant compensation from the airline paid for this year’s flight which went smoothly both ways. Tourism must be recovering from the Covid shut down as we flew on a wide bodied Dreamliner. We arrived half an hour earlier than scheduled which enabled us to catch an earlier ferry and still have time for lunch at our favourite taverna in the port and watch martins feeding their young in a nest above the roof mounted PA speakers. When we got off the ferry there was the usual warm welcome from our landlord and his son took time off from his accountancy practice to carry our bags from car to apartment along the beach and up the steps, for which this 79 year-old was grateful, especially as the handle and one wheel had got broken. We’ve only had these bags 30 years: nothing lasts these days.
        We got the usual warm welcome in the taverna, village shop and from the travelling veg. man who all remember us (well, we’ve been coming for about 19 of the last 28 years!). We were especially pleased to see the familiar yacht of a Dutch harmonica wizard in the bay, which guaranteed 3 nights of pleasant jamming with our Greek guitarist friend. Later in the week English, German and Aussie musicians turned up with guitars and shaky eggs. Unusually the village was very busy as there was a 25 strong party from Preston and environs celebrating a 50th birthday. The group included two young women with their partners that we hadn’t seen since they were pr-teens holidaying with their father.
        We had a couple of wet thundery nights and windy and cloudy days which drove the yachts away and gave us no excuse not to do some of our usual gentle local walks (inevitably uphill). Our second week the temperatures were in the 30s so it was too hot for walking. For the first time we had cockroaches in the apartment but they were mostly dead or dying of whatever the cleaner had sprayed the floor with and a fly swat dealt with the rest.
        We returned from a meal with friends outside the village to be greeted with fireworks (not for us but for the Preston birthday party). The chef had promised them dynamite but luckily he’d mislaid the detonators -we hoped his 4 & 5 year old boys didn’t find them.
        There were a couple of superyachts in the bay during our stay. One cost $300 million to build and 5 million euros a month to run (plus food, fuel and tips. It catered for 14 guests with a crew of 31. Judging by the dog’s breakfast they made of mooring the crew were chosen for their hospitality skill rather than seamanship.
        The island doesn’t change much, we noticed a new retaining wall had been built to protect the fisherman’s harbour from silting up when winter rains cause landslides. There was a new monument to the Greek Independence battle of Gerontas and one house in the village had erected a redundant ship’s wheelhouse as a garden shed ( shades of Geo Clarke’s Small Spaces!). Some new road signs : 50 km limit on the winding coastal road hugging the mountainside and warning signs of landslides and “animals”. This showed a cow but should have been a goat as they don’t move out of the middle of the road until the last minute.
On the eve of the Feast of John the Baptist there was the traditional jumping over bonfire (no, I didn’t). In September we hope to go to Aegina for the first time and no doubt a longer postcard will ensue. As usual, Thimbles O’Hooligan has put photos up on his Facebook page which you can see if you are his “friend”.
RtS