Diary of a walker – Athens & Evia

Day 1 & 2

Well, I’m back from my latest journey, this time to Greece. It was great holiday and it gave me the chance to visit the Acropolis. Since childhood, I have a fascination with ancient Greece and this was one place that I wanted to visit.

I went with Involved Holidays and met up with a good crew of 12 other walkers. These are some of the photos from our first two days which were spent in Athens at The Hermes Hotel. I introduced my new friend, Sue Allen to lamb kleftiko and then she told me about a roof-top garden at the Hotel Plaka and view of the Acropolis at night. It had to be done and it was well worth it.

We also had a guided tour of Athens and the Acropolis included. One column was clearly reassembled by the runner-up in the Lego competition!

After the tour of Athens, we transferred to the Negroponte Resort Hotel for the remainder of our holiday and some guided walks on the island.

Day 3

Back to Greece, then, and the island of Evia (or Euboea as it used to be called). Day 3 and we went for a walk in the hills with our Involved Holidays guides, Steven & Vicky. Weather was dry and not too hot. We stopped off at the museum of Eretria on the way. The museum was closed, but there was quite a collection of archaeological specimens. After that we were driven up to the monastery of St. George Arma (in the Byzantium alphabet, Arma corresponds to 1141, the year it was founded). Although no monks live there anymore, there was a real sense of serenity to the place.

Following the visit we set off on our walk back to the Negroponte Resort Hotel. The landscape was as I expected, but greener, with lots of olive trees and pines. We even discovered a wild animal along the way. Fortunately, nobody was savaged by it.

Day 4

Day 4 of my Involved Holidays trip was a “free” day and three of us (Sue, Anne and myself) took a taxi into Eretria and caught the ferry across to Oropos on the mainland. The trip took about 25 minutes, but it was so relaxing chilling out on the deck and watching the mainland growing before our eyes. We had a nice mooch around Oropos for about an hour and found a nice modern church, built to look a lot older. My feet were aching a bit, due to the 90 minutes of Greek dancing at the hotel the night before. Sorry, no pictures or videos.

Then we took the ferry back across and a sharing lunch at a seaside cafe on the promenade, where we met up with Ian and Rachel from our group.

Then it was back to the hotel for more relaxation and a swim in the sea. This had been the hottest day of the trip so far, but the clouds were gathering on the horizon that night.

Day 5

The last guided walk of the trip. Steven and Vicky collected us after breakfast and we drove in to Chalkida, the capital of Evia. As I thought, the clouds of last night were now emptying on us. I’ve never seen so many umbrellas on a walk. Chalkida used to be called “Negroponte” after the old bridge that connected Evia with the mainland. The straight isn’t very wide, but is important for shipping, so the modern bridge has to open to let ships through. It does this by dropping 1-metre and then being retracted underneath the road at either side! Pretty clever.

The Negroponte Hotel Resort takes it name from the old bridge.

From Chalkida we drove up into the hills and set off on our walk, our destination being the Tzivani Winery and Museum. The walk was a very wet one and the ground turned to a red clinging mud. Not much more to say about the walk – it was wet!!!

The winery was great, although we had to shed our boots and socks. It is a bio- winery (organic) and we got to sample many of the wines and were taken through the fermentation process. This was followed by a trip around the museum, which is a collection of artefacts gathered by the owner “John”. My musical friends might be interested in one particular picture!

Based on Fewster’s Theory of Relativity (“The wetter you are on the inside, the drier you feel on the outside”), we were all feeling much drier by the time the bus came to collect us and take us back.

Although it took two days of Greek sunshine to dry out my boots, it was well worth doing the walk.

Days 6 & 7

Days 6 & 7 of my Greek Odyssey were devoted to chilling out and enjoying the Negroponte’s facilities. On the Friday, we went for a little walk to a nearby restaurant for lunch. There was enough seating for about 300-400 people and there was only Sue and me there!

I spent some time swimming in the sea and reading my book about Greek myths (really sinking into the culture!) and just relaxing. It was a fantastic way to finish the holiday.

The staff are so friendly and I would like to say a big thank you to all of them, but in particular Ioanna, Grigoris, Nikos, Christos, Giannis and Nikos (the manager). Thank you all for putting up with my attempts to speak your language.

It’s always a little sad when one of these Involved Holidays trips ends, because you never know if you will ever meet the friends that you make on the trip. So, to my fellow travellers, thank you for a wonderful week of companionship and I hope that we do meet again in a land far, far away.

Safe journeys!