TOURIST TRACKS

Peter, a friend who used to work with Kimon many moons ago came to stay with us for a week and has used his hired car for most of the week which has saved a great deal of petrol costs. He managed to land at Heraklion airport at about 3.00 p.m. and arrive at the party just before 4.00 pm which says a great deal about his driving speed. However the party went well, the weather was lovely and we had a meze for 20 of us at a little taverna on the beach at Panormo. 

The taverna keepers grilled us some sardines, made salads and bread and we had lots of home grown wine as well. One of our friends had made the most amazing cake and there was lots left over to take some back to the village later in the evening. Peter has been a great hit and all the village folk enjoy having a chat with him as he (with a gift for languages) wrestles with the new vocabulary.

With a new tourist in tow and the start of baking hot days at last, we have spent time on the beach at Bali – which during the week is absolutely lovely for swimming but very busy at weekends. K and I watched anxiously from a few beaches while Peter did long distance swims. Then we drove down to the south of the island on Saturday to explore the southern coast and found a hideaway beach at Shinari. We consulted loads of books and maps because Peter had been told about the Samaria gorge and wanted to test his mettle by doing the walk while he was in Crete. We were also convulsed to hear about a friend's experience of doing this walk some years ago when he found himself walking side by side with a young lad who decided to take a bike, diving weights and a rubber dinghy 16 k down the gorge and the kind hearted friend found himself carrying the backpack containing lead weights … as if walking the gorge wasn't hard enough to begin with!

Meanwhile, Kimon has now picked up his European ID Residence Permit from the Police Station which is the first part of trying to get greek number plates for our UK car. We expect that the second part of this quest will be much more difficult and very expensive but there is only one way to find out.

Today, Sunday, we revisited Bali again Peter was enchanted by this little place (about 4 miles East of our village) and wonders if he can find somewhere to rent for a spell. He is going to investigate.