All Roads

When we started talking about holidays I mentioned Greece to F but he turned up his nose.  I think he had in mind something grander, a long haul flight to a once in a lifetime location.  When the boundaries of our finances became clearer, I wanted Malta - but Malta is not so cheap.  He started to fret about how little we were getting for the money.

At this point we walked into the Travel Agents and she started to look through bargains.  Tunisia came up but we just could not handle that idea.  Well me really.  I didn't want to stay somewhere where it was hard for us to leave the locality of the hotel and beach, where hiring a car was definately not recommended.  Where more importantly, being white and female was going to be an issue outside of the hotel.

But that luxury appealed to F for our honeymoon.  Another bargain came up, Rhodes, and that was it, sold to the couple on the left.  So early in the season, they wanted to fill their airplane and hotel up and we got a bargain.  A truly beautiful hotel, all inclusive, two weeks, luxury.

I don't always fly well.  My ears tend to get blocked with infections and I have burst one of my ear drums twice now.  If I am bunged up, flying is excruciatingly painful.  So I was not happy that F came down with a cold a few days before we left, and even less happy when the day before our long drive, I got it too.  Packing was a chore and going away tricky - we could quite happily have stayed in bed, but we pushed on.

Little Dog had been more than happy to go on doggy holiday.  She was not nervous about being left - she knew the place and the staff and liked them.  She knew last time we had returned for her and had utmost confidence we would again.  She nearly yanked the lady off her feet when the door opened.

We didn't leave as promptly, it was late in the day by the time we went.  We changed drivers frequently given how we were both feeling and arrived about 11pm.  The hotel was nice but the air con was nosy and it was hot.  We slept badly knowing we had to be up in the middle of the night.  We woke an hour early but it was nice to have the extra time to shower and drink tea.

We ate breakfast in the airport with a plan to do some shopping and mosy on down to the gate.  Except we did not realise that boarding was a half hour before...  F disappeared off for a while and when he returned we discovered boarding was in 6 minutes and we were some way from the gate.  I don't move fast very well and by the time I got to the gate I was miserable...  Except we had a while to wait because they were boarding in seat order and we were at the front *laugh*

We had both dosed ourselves up before the flight - anti-histamines and as many painkillers as we could take, and to be honest the flight was bearable.  It only became excuriating for small periods.  I chewed a lot of gum.  The only other thing about the flight really is that as a large lady, I just don't fit.  Not only am I wide, but I am tall and long legged too.  So my knees are rammed into the chair in front and I get to lean to one side in an effort to fit.  Next time we will pay extra for extra leg room....

We landed and found our bus and rode to the hotel with our first views of the island.  Greener than I had thought, peaks of ragged decayed limestone, wide dry riverbeds and half finished buildings.  I think there is something about buildings that are still being built paying no tax or less tax, so even many of the houses look unfinished, like another floor is going to be added tomorrow.  I think to keep planning permission, buildings get started too.  So some of the towns look odd to a British eye, full of concrete shells of buildings and half finished homes.  I didn't much like this.  I would rather that they only build what they need, but they are the ones making the most of opportunities here, not me.  But surely it has to be a waste of money?  How many of those shells are really needed?  Wouldn't they rather have countryside?

And then we were at the hotel - where we discovered we had a room upgrade.  We were now about 100 metres from the sea with a four poster bed, which we could see and hear from said bed.  The food was amazing too - a buffet that was different every meal time, except breakfast.  We tried all sorts while we were there.  And I drank a lot of Ouzo.

The beach was sand and shale, with a sharp drop off.  It seems the Aegean hardly has any tide and the difference from the tide being in and out was hard to discern.  Consequently, swimming around headlands and the like was not an issue for adventurous swimmers.  The sharp shale and steep drop off were not a problem for us because we knew about them before we went and brought aqua shoes.  The beach was between a large headland sticking some way out to sea, a Cape, and at the other end, mountains.

It was idyllic and beautiful.