Xios

Since our last visit the windmills have been fully renovated and are especially nice lit up at night.

The walk into town is still a right royal pain in the arse & dangerous to boot, but I have to say for someone who initially was not overly impressed with Xios town it is growing on me.

Diane arrived on the 29^th with enough luggage for a transatlantic passage on a liner– she didn’t know how long she was staying for so presumably packed like Emelda Marcos.

The castle courtyard cafe / taverna

Give us a gyros eh? Me and my wee sister are starvin’

Drinks on Camira

Dinner on Syeni – boiled squid in wine

Some bird at Homers’ Stone – Daskolapetra

The same bird having chocolate mouse for breakfast left over from Syeni dinner

The fishermens’ taverna next to the marina –that bunnet has to go !

Pytha had taken up stealing Lily’s grub when she wasn’t on board !

She was having none of it – now on guard

We had planned to take Diane to Oinousses, a small pretty island 8 miles or so from Xios, but because we were again stuck with the weather we thought of going on the ferry. Strangely however there were no return daytrips except for one particular Sunday which would also have meant rising with the larks – so we binned that idea.

On the day we ventured into Xios town to find this out at the shipping office we stumbled on a little taverna up a back street where we had lunch. We were helped being served by a black girl from Nigeria as the tavern owner “Papa” didn’t speak a word of English or have English menus. He just brought out a selection of meze and it was great.

The Nigerian girl told us she worked in the bar next door at night.

Turns out it was a brothel, lol.

Despite buying and having Diane carry out a small inverter that on the face of it should have ran Louise’s hair straightners – it didn’t !

Fed up with the lack of hairstyling opportunities on board, a trip into Xios town was arranged to have their hair blow dried

I on the other hand visited the dentist to get a broken tooth & filling replaced!

Dental humour – check the plant pots in the waiting room

We had to buy a new tracking mechanism for Lily as the old one is broken and can’t be replaced anymore. The new one works by active GPS subscription and we can follow her, live if we want, on phone apps, a bit like Google maps.

One evening she appeared back at the boat without her collar which had probably got snagged in the “jungle” she had taken to playing in. The collar is designed to do this for safety.

These are pictures of Diane & I trying to find the missing tracking device using our phones to home in.

Lily on the other hand couldn’t give a toss she was off for a kip.

We hired a car for the day to visit the south of the island. The girl who delivered the car to the marina was getting married the following weekend and invited us all to the wedding! We said we would go if we were still here. We would have been 4 of about 600 guests – apparently small for a Greek wedding.

The south is famous for producing Masticha , a sap harvested from trees and used in lots of things including the original chewing gum production.

We visited the museum which was surprisingly interesting detailing the painstaking and time-consuming work to harvest even a small quantity. It was an important income generator back in the Genoese & Byzantine times and still is.

After that we visited Emborious, chiefly to see the anchorage but also for a coffee stop.

It was then off to Pirgi a very traditional town with ornately painted buildings. We had drinks in the square and had intended eating there but were advised the tavernas, strangely, don’t open until the evening.

We eventually found a really good tavern for lunch in Olimbi 8 kms down the road.

On the way back we visited a sleepy village in the mountains with a creepy church. A local woman gave us a taste of unprocessed Masticha – it was awful. How the digestive turns out as nice as it does is anyone’s guess.

It was then back to the boat to get “dressed” for our Saturday evening out at one of the castle tavernas we had eaten at before. It was a cold night in the alfresco restaurant though.