This post comes with a warning. STOP. Do not read further unless you want to turn green and feel compelled to jump on a plane (or ferry). Remember that when we first arrived in Greece, we had days (without end) of torrential rain, hailstones as big as fists, thunder and lightening storms when day was night, bedroom walls that wept water, rainwater that cascaded down electrical light fittings and leaky roofs. But all that is in the past.

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Elafonisis is a beautiful Greek island that lies off the coast of Malea – its small, less than 20km² and only a short ferry ride from the mainland.We arrived on a sunny Friday morning at the tiny port village to see the ferry boat powering away in crystal clear waters – without us. We had missed it by two minutes. But we weren’t too upset – we pulled out our deckchairs and waited an hour for the next crossing watching fishing boats and seabirds and Caoimhin had a swim – a true advantage of not being in any hurry. The tranquility of the scene was broken when the ferry boat returned and chaos began. It was a small ferry with room for about 25 vehicles but you had to reverse onto it and the ferry operators – very impatient individuals- bellowed instructions. ‘Left, Left…I said left!!’ but really they meant right (or maybe their left) so confusion reigned especially among first-time visitors and non Greeks. One poor Swiss guy was shaking by the time he got his car onto the ferry amid a torrent of yelling and even banging on his drivers window. The ferry trip took about ten minutes and then we drove into….paradise.

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We stayed for four nights in a beautiful guest house (Corelli’s after Captain Corelli’s Mandolin) run by a chatty, blond-haired Romanian woman who came to Greece on holidays thirty years ago…and stayed. The guesthouse was ten metres from the turquoise shore with water so clear that we could see little glittering fish swimming with us. We moved from a room with a little balcony after the first night to the ‘penthouse’ for the rest of our stay (from €40 a night to €50 and worth every cent!). There were laid-back beach bars and restaurants beside fishing boats – where the fish was so fresh that it almost swam around the plate. We kept looking at each other and saying ‘Life is good’.

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On Sunday morning, we were woken to the sound of bells from the beautiful church near our guesthouse at about 7am. When the Sunday service started at about 7.30am, the chanting of the liturgy was piped through loudspeaker into the clear morning air and was carried all around the little village – repetitive and vaguely hypnotic. Two mornings later, we were woken by the bells again and the chanting – we were surprised because it was a Tuesday but October 26 wasn’t an ordinary day for so many Greeks, it was Dimitri’s day where anyone whose name is Dimitri celebrates and there are a lot of Dimitri’s. In Greece. your name day is far more important than your birthday and as most people are named after saints, everyone has a name day and if you don’t – there is a specific day (All Saints Day) that covers everyone else so that they, too, can celebrate a name day. We left the island on that Tuesday and drove past crowded cafes on the mainland where the Dimitiris were celebrating by buying coffee and pastries for all their family and friends (Take note, all James, Jims and Jimmys as Dimitri is James in English)

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On our last day, the weather changed, the wind blew up and gushed around the wraparound balconies of our penthouse room but the sea colors were still mesmerizing – even more intense, if anything. Simos beach was the famous beach on the island – we had sunbathed and swam there on several days – but this was a day for wrapping up when the wind threw sand at us with such ferocity, it was exfoliating. We climbed a little hill overlooking the beach and had to take shelter behind the juniper trees growing there because we couldn’t stand up in the breeze and we were eating sand for the rest of the day. So we saw another side to Elafonisis. But still worth it – a very special place.

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After a reluctant Goodbye to Elafonisis, we headed to Leonidio for no good reason except that it reminded us of the chocolates (which I have a great fondness for!). We might have gone there for the wrong reason, Leonidio was famous not for chocolates but for aubergines which are so special and unique in this region that they have been awarded a Protected Designation of Origin (They are long and thin with pale white stripes and were indeed very tasty). But Leonidio was a lovely little town in a stunning location surrounded by mountains, green and tree-clad on one side and bare glowing red rock on the other and the sea only a few kilometres away. There were monasteries high in the mountains with beautiful churches, carved into the rock. It was also a climbers’ mecca and we would have stayed longer than our two nights except that there wasn’t a bed to be got because of a climbing festival was just about to commence.

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So we headed on to Nafplio, a town which is reputed to be the prettiest and most romantic in all of Greece and was the capital of Independent Greece for a few years from 1823 when it gained freedom from the Turks. Now I’m not sure how any town could possibly live up to such a moniker…and so inevitably with such a build-up we were a little disappointed to begin with. We have been to so many beautiful places whose beauty caught us completely unawares. (that line by Kavanagh was running through my head – through a chink too wide, there comes no wonder). It is touristy with lots of visitors – and proximity to Athens, a mere 2 hours away, helps – but its charms crept up on us, especially wandering around the old town, strolling by the port, sipping a glass of wine while people watching, climbing to the fortress of Palamidi on the hill (999 steps up) or walking along a cactus and pine paved path that wound along the coast to several beaches. And then there were the interesting people we met – Fred and Tanya from California and Evelyn, a Greek American – just random but meaningful connections which is part of what travelling is all about.

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Happy Halloween to all…..as the witching hour approaches!!! (But not in Greece- we haven’t seen any evidence of Halloween here so far but maybe tomorrow…)