We started the day by booking airfare from Santorini to Paris!!  Santorini was not on our original list, but many people have told us to go there.  Since we had time due to the switch up to avoid Budapest AND we loved it 10 years ago AND 10 years ago Stu was still shooting film….  So Santorini is now on the itinerary.  We have a place to stay in Thira/Fira (in Greece every place has at least 2 spellings).  If it is good we will extend the stay, if not we will look around when we get there.  We take a couple of ferries on Saturday and arrive in Santorini about 1AM.

After that start it was a pretty lazy day.  Some beach time, some reading, some nap time, no walk time really.

We go for a late lunch/snack and Bruno accompanies us.  Today he let me take his photo from the front.  I’ll admit it took a bit of a bribe, a bit of my sandwich 🙂

We are ready for a change of scenery, but have to admit while looking around that the scenery here is pretty nice.

Across the bay we can see the trail up to the Castle that we walked a few days ago.

We have also booked our hotel in Paris.  We have less than 2 weeks left and have firmed up the last stops.

We play a couple games of scrabble on the deck.  Stu kicks my butt twice.  The 2015 Salmon European Scrabble Tournament stands at Stu 16, Me 10.  To anyone who competes with Stu in hockey, nine ball, golf, racquette ball or anything at all.  I feel your pain.  He is a very bad winner!!

Off to a bit more food.  Joan has asked for a photo of dolmades.  We order “Greek Variety Food”.  It is a sampler of mousaka, a couple of dolmades, stuffed cabbage, meatballs and some beans and zuccini.  We enjoyed this last week sometime, this time most of the dishes were barely warm.  That’s is we’re never coming back to this place!! 🙂

One more dinner in Leros.  We will be going to Dimitri’s place, Taverna To Steki….. again.  Dimitri is one of the few people in restaurants (all over Europe) that really make you feel welcome.  Takes the time to chat with us.  We like to spend our money with people like that.

There is only 1 geocache on this island.  It has only been found 3 or 4 times and the last time was almost a year ago.  We decide that today should be the day we attempt this.  We start off with our standard 4 km walk to Agia Marina, where we caught the boat yesterday.  The cache has multiple locations and it says the starting point is at the parking lot next to the elementary school, or what they call the “Basic School”.  By the time we arrive it is about 11:30 am.  We hear children playing inside the walls and the parking lot has parents and grandparents sitting in their cars waiting for the children to be dismissed.

So here I am (Stu as usual wants nothing to do with this geeky activity, is sitting in the shade across the street outside of a shop), skulking around outside an elementary school.  Poking around, probably looking very suspicious.  As I am looking about Stu is watching the school pickup process here on Leros.  He feels that it is way more organized and less chaotic than it is at Alex and Adam’s school.  It is quite a crazy scene after school in Maple Ridge.

Anyway, I decide that I have spent enough time looking and being creepy so we need to move on.  We carry on up to the town square of Platanos.  Sit in the shade of the fountain again and watch this little town become gridlocked.  Five vehicles I think 🙂

We take a road to the west that we haven’t taken before.  It is a very neat little street.  We see some scooters but no cars and Stu remarks that this is likely just for scooters and bikes.  I look at the street and say “ya right”.  If a car will fit, it will be a car street.

From the end of this street we have a great view of the windmills up on the hill.  From where we are it looks like the only way up is along the road.  We do plenty of road walks and decide that isn’t what we really want to do.

So we head back down to the ocean to the village of Panteli. We didn’t see this when we had the car day.  It is lovely.  Not much vehicle traffic.  Lots of restaurants and shops.

We walk to the east end of the bay and back to Castle Beach Restaurant where we order big beers and an order of cheese saganaki (which is my all time favourite Greek food) and calamari.  Restaurants here in Greece generally bring you bread and charge a Euro per person. Today they brought the bread and a little pot of a buttery looking concoction.

We asked what it was, the fellow says garlic butter and blue cheese and some black and white sesame seeds. Oh my god it was SOOO GOOD!! I’ll have to try it at home.  Well worth the Euro!!

Chatting with the server at the end, he mentioned that there might be a secret ingredient or two 🙂  Oh well, we can experiment too.  This is the view from our table.

We have been looking at the day cruises out of Platanos since we arrived.  There are two boats that go out from there. Decided that today was the day.  They leave at 11 am so we left the hotel just after 10.  It took us 30 minutes to walk, that is without stopping for photos 🙂

We speak with the woman that is handling one of the boats.  They need 8 people in order to go out.  There are 2 others waiting, we make 4.  Then another couple arrive and we have 6.  The bus arrives and drops off a couple of families with small children.  I watch them approach the other boat the Barbarossa.  It seems that the 2 families are 8 people themselves and there seems to be a number of others.  The boat we were planning will not leave so the 6 of us join the Barbarossa.

There is quite a wind today and it feels like tough slogging through the waves.  It takes over an hour to reach our first destination.

A place called White Islands.  This is unbelievably beautiful!!

The captain drops the anchor and lowers a ladder and we have an hour to enjoy this amazing place.

Gorgeous blue water.  Warm and salty.

And a little beach with odd shaped white stones.  Our little crew made themselves at home.

The horn blows to indicate our eminent departure.  Everyone makes there way back to the boat and we are off to the next stop.

I am not sure what this place is called but it is also incredibly beautiful.  I though that I wouldn’t go for a swim here as I was still cool from the first swim.  But notice that there is  hole in the rock, like a cave with a rear exit door 🙂  I figure that I will regret it if I don’t swim through like everyone else, so in I go.  We have 30 minutes here.

Our next stop is the Island of Lipsi.  There is a very nice little town here.  It is very quiet.  We are nearing the end of the summer season so it seems that a lot of places are closed.

It is very clean and is the only place that we have seen recycling bins along the street like these.

We see this boat that looks like it is decked out for the “Run for the Cure” 🙂

We find a taverna and order two beers and a tuna steak.  We met a young couple from London on the boat and find them at the next table to us.  We also see the two families sitting in the taverna, who we have found are from the Czech Republic (and have excellent English).  Apparently the restaurant owners are having their younger children (age 10-13) in the family delivering the orders from the kitchen.  The young boy delivers the order of calamari and grilled fish intended for the English couple to the Czech families.  They have ordered other food, but I guess they thought the restaurant is giving them a freebee,  I don’t know, but they accept the food.  This same boy delivered our tuna to the Engilish couple at the next table, but they said, no we didn’t order this and we overheard and said, that is for us. 🙂  They did finally serve the English couple.  Not sure if they charged the Czech people or just grounded the young kid for the wrong delivery.  He was obviously not into his job 🙂

Off back to home port.  What a FABULOUS DAY!!

Today was the day we were supposed to fly to Kos from Budapest.  We won’t make the flight.  Odd the ONLY thing we pre-booked (except for the Amsterdam accommodation or the flights to and from Europe) is the only thing that cost us.  It was about $375 CAD for the flight and it is non-refundable.  Oh well.  We didn’t need to be in Budapest with what is happening there.

I have a translator app on my phone, that has helped us somewhat while here.  At home it has sound and will speak the word or phrase, but I have learned that that feature is dependent on the local carrier.  Most do not support it.  This makes it quite a bit less helpful.  Especially in the Czech Republic and Poland and especially here in Greece.  This is how it translates “Good Morning”.  Luckily this is one we do know 🙂

We are moving rooms today.  Movin’ on up to the

2nd floor with ocean view.

Took a walk over to the Platanos, which is the capital of the island.  We wanted to get some more cash.  I push the 600 Euro button and voila!!  Not sure why we could only get 300 the other day, perhaps the machine was low on cash at that time and will only dispense smaller amounts???  Who knows.

The kids were supposed to start school on the 11th.  It was a Friday, so that is a bit weird.  I was reading that due to financial issues, that did not happen.  In the town today we see many many high school age kids carrying backpacks or books loose or in plastic bags.  We assume school started successfully today.

We climb up on some ruins at the entrance to the harbour.  Our little map says they are ruins of a Roman fortress built on older ruins of an ancient town from a “Classical Period”, which sounds like between 480 and 323 BC.  Pretty old stuff.

This looks like I am being chomped by a dinosaur??

We enjoy another great little lunch in town before heading back to our little beach.  I am so fascinated at the moment with scooters on the Greek islands, their passengers are soooo varied.

From “Great Grannies” zooming by, to young couples, to couples in their 40’s and every decade after that you can imagine.  There are some very large guys on Leros and to see them riding these little scooters in quite amusing.  I would love to find a shady spot along the road and just snap photos of them!!

Here are a couple:)

The beach across the street is great.  It does however have these hungry little fish.  If you are standing out in the water about waist high, they start nibbling at your legs.

Today they even drew blood!!

We thought about the bus again today, but since it is Sunday we aren’t sure if it is even running so we rent a car for the day.  It isn’t fancy, thank goodness.  This is what 25 Euros gets you in Leros.  It is banged up and has about 110,000 kms on it.

We drive past the airport to a place called Partheni.  According to the map the road ends at one of the many many churches on the island.  We see this sign and say “okay – no death today” and turn around. 🙂

There are not many roads on this island so we try them all.  This one leads us to this little church called “Agios Isodoros” on a little island and according to the description on the map “it communicates with the mainland by a small passage”  I call it a causeway.

We drive toward Lakki.  This is the town we arrived to on the ferry.  The cab wisked us away quickly so we didn’t really get a look at the place.  Apparently this town was built by the Italians in the 1930’s during a time of their occupation.  The architecture is quite unique from anything else on the island.

We park with the idea of stopping for a bit of lunch.  We choose a place with a nice outdoor eating area along the water.  We begin a conversation with a British couple sitting at the next table.  They are here on their sail boat.  The fellow told us that he spent a day in handcuffs in the prison here the other day.   They picked up some refugees on the ocean outside the bay.  The refugees were in an inflatable raft and were holding up their children to them.  It was obviously heart breaking so they picked them up and brought into port.

While we sat there we saw about 100 people being escorted to an official looking building.  It appeared that they had just arrived.

The British couple left and some new people came to sit.  They were also speaking English.  They told us they had just been helping out with the refugees.  There had been a tragic sinking of a ship outside of Leros last night.  Many people died.  They didn’t know the exact numbers, but thought it could be as high as 50.  They had helped a man who had lost his wife and child.  Very sad situation.

We carried on our island tour.  Found this spot with many many mast of boats and the Castle in the background.

There are a lot of people who store their boats here and fly home in the winter and then fly back in the spring.

We see all kinds of boats.

The little quaint ones.

and the bigger splashy ones.

We finish our island tour and head back to home base.

Today we thought we would catch the bus again to the town at the north end of the island.  Have lunch, catch the bus back and spend some time at the beach.

We misread the schedule and apparently missed the bus going in either direction.  There is just one that travels from the north to the south and back again.  Regroup again.

We have been walking past the museum for the past few days.  We spoke with a couple as they were coming out and they told us it was very interesting.  Okay, today is the day.

This building was built by a Leros born man who went to Eqypt and made a fortune.  Came home and built this as his summer home with marble that he imported from Egypt.

The little bay of Alinda where we are was apparently occupied by the Nazis during the war.  In a battle that took approximately a week the Germans took over the yellow area in this map.  This is where we are staying.  This building was then turned into a hospital for Germans injured in the fighting.  It is hard to imagine this beautiful place as a battlefield.

Now for beach time.  The wind is up today and we have some breakers on our little beach 🙂

This is Bruno.  The Papafotis dog.  As we left to go to dinner he came along with us.  We sat at our table and he made himself at home under it.  So weird to see dogs and cats making themselves at home in restaurants. 🙂

Last night at dinner Dimitri marked up this map with a circle and a dot.  He said his friend has a Taverna on the island of Archangelos and he can take us over there @11:30 if we would like.  OK, sounds good.  The red line on the map is basically the only road so we take the bus in that direction.  We have been told that the bus driver looks like Robert Downey Jr.  I think Robert is off today!  He drives with the horn honking almost constantly.  Not in an angry way, but in “hi, I’m here kind of way”.  There is a woman that is getting off at the Marina, so we figure that is the place we need to be so we get off too.

We walk past a big shipyard.  As we get closer we see this big boat carrying apparatus 🙂 bringing a boat from the ocean.  We walk past this and we aren’t sure we are in the right spot.  We walk back to where the bus dropped us and find a sign map that turns us back again.  We get there and now see people waiting at a dock, so go to see if this is where we should be.  We show the map Dimitri marked up and the guy on the boat nods and asks, you will take the water taxi back?  We recall something like that from last night and agree.

We laugh as we have no idea how we actually got to the correct place 🙂  We board the boat with 8 other people who seem to know each other.  The woman next to me asks where we are from and we find out that she and her husband are from Germany, the rest are from the Netherlands and have all been coming to Leros for 20 years.  They have a house here and spend 6 months at a time.  Not long after we leave the boat turns back.  Apparently there are 2 other people to come.  A Greek couple now board the crowded boat.

We are travelling with the owner of the Taverna on the island.  He comes to the big island for supplies and takes people back to his place where there is a small beach and his Taverna Stigma.  His customers are the people he brings as well as boaters that anchor in the bay.

The water here is soooo beautiful.

We have some refreshments in the Taverna before we head down to the beach.

At lunch time the beach is deserted as everyone heads up the hill to the Taverna to enjoy their menu.

The German lady tells me that their group wants to leave @ 5PM.  If that is ok with us we can all share the water taxi cost,  Works for us 🙂  There are 14 people on this small boat.  Quite crowded and I am sure there aren’t nearly enough life jackets on board, if any.  Just thinking again on the different standards there are at home compared to a place like this.

We survive and start to walk back to where the bus dropped us off.  We will walk a bit further to the town not too far away and catch the bus back.  The Germans and the Netherlanders wave as they pass us.  The Greek couple, stops and asks where we are going.  He then jumps out of the car and hustles us into the backseat.  They are going right near Papafotis, to the spot we caught the bus this morning.  Perfect.  He has fairly good English, his wife not so much.  Very kind of them.  She is from Leros and lives here 3 months of the year, the rest in Athens.  They are going back to Athens on Sunday as they need to vote in their election.

Another GREAT DAY!  🙂

We are looking at the map of the island.  It looks like there is a beach on the north east part of the island.  We walked that direction the other day, but did not carry on past a little church on a bluff.  Francesca is not at her desk as we leave so we don’t ask her about it, we just head off.

As we get to the little church we look back towards Papafotis, our hotel/apartment and look at the view of our little bay.

The next little cove has a secluded beach, but no shade for me 🙁

Carrying on we come across the cute little Ford car we saw the other night.  There is a name on the side.  It is a “Street Ka”.  We have seen the Ka in Europe before, but not this sporty little model.  Apparently it is made by Fiat in Poland.

We reach the end of the road and the only beach we see seems to belong to a hotel and a Taverna in the bay.  Stu asks a fellow that is working near the end of the road and from what we piece together from our languages is that there is a boat that will come and get you.

Unsure of this we head back to Papafotis and a nice spot under a tree at “Our Beach”.  We have borrowed a couple of books from the office, so it is a beach reading day.

Dinner takes us back to Taverna To Steki, where we had such a great meal the other night.  Dimitri told us to come back tonight as he had live music.  We ask him as he sits down with us, (something that we see he does with everyone) what is good tonight.  He suggests the grilled fish and prawns as well as the Greek Salad.

We order red wine, but are overruled by Dimitri as we are having fish !!  We get a half litre of white wine 🙂

We finish dinner a complimentary plate of watermelon.  We have been served this after every meal on Leros.  Seems to be a standard.

Oh yes, we also have our first Ouzo since arriving in Greece.

Another great day!

Do you see that castle wwwaaaayyyy up on the top of that mountain??  Well…..   I am not promising Stu anything.  We are going to walk around the bay and see how we do, but I don’t think I can walk around the bay and UP to the castle.

It is a very blustery day today.  We are getting into a bigger town from where we are staying.  Need to find a Bankomat today.  We find one and request to withdraw 500 Euros.  No go.  Oh oh…  We select a different amount, 300 Euros.  It asks for the account but doesn’t display the usual account we use.  I pick something and tada!!  300 Euros.  We’re good 🙂

This is very nice little town.  This is a street we pass.

Feeling not too bad we sit in a busy little square high in the town and I can see and hear the flag at the castle flapping in the wind.  OK.  Let’s go for it!!

We have some shady spots to walk in at first…

Then we are out in the open.  The wind is helping to keep us cooler.

Higher and higher.  A little water break.

We made it!!  I am pretty pumped!  Almost 1 year ago I crumpled taking 1 step up into Chad and Amber’s house.  This is pretty HUGE!!

There is no railing up here.  If I take 1 more step here I am tumbling down to the Aegean!  We look around and are amazed as at home there would be fences, railings and warning signs everywhere!!

An amazing accomplishment.  I am patting my back 🙂

Oh yeah!!  We went back down and all the way back to our hotel!