Well left Rome last wedsnesday - highlights included the usual sight seeing attractions such as St Peters Basillica, Colleseum and the Trevi Fountain. Rome would be amazing if it werent for all the billions of bloody tourists! Its manic. I cant imagine what it must be like in peak travel months such as July and August. If you ever plan on going to Rome go in Spring.... To sum up my Rome Exeperience: Amazing Ice cream (Blue Ice franchise was one of my faves), great little restaurants, getting drunk on cheap House wine, catching the end of a massive gay parade..EURO PRIDE with some of the freakiest looking brazilian lady boys, the BEST grocery shopping in the world, Parma Ham, walking to death, really old beautiful buildings, beautiful churches, loads of tourists (and holy people), lots of queues and funnily wherever I am go I seem to see loads of Nigerians, Indians or Asians trying to sell crap to tourists. The World is a small place after all.
Got a plane to Thessaloniki, where we had to pick up a hire car to drive to Kavala a 2-3 hr drive. From Kavala we would get a ferry to Thassos which is a charming islands just off the mainland. Now about hiring a car... A few things I must point out to paint a more descriptive picture of the dangers this holds..
1 .Rick's drivers licence has expired so I have to drive.
2. I lived in london for 8 years without car... my driving is a little rusty
3. I suffer from driving attention deficit disorder which means its difficult for me to focus on anything for periods longer than about 20 seconds... I seem to drift into a car bubble and kind of forget I am driving a potential death trap.
4. In Europe you drive on the other side of the road, AND the other side of the car.
5. We assumed the car would come with GPS or something so you can imagine our horror when upon asking about GPS the dude laughed out load, followed by vague directions to Kavala in broken English.
6. And to top it all off we have to fill the car with petrol and both Rick and I come from countries poor enough where its job creation to have an attendant doing this for you without having to leave your car.
We set off slowly and with Rick once again looking a little white faced... constantly saying in quite a manic nervous way "stay on the RIGHT, the RIGHT okay.. JUST STAY ON THE RIGHT!"
Well we got stuck in a massive 1 hour traffic jam due to a accident on the highway... got lost a few times, and half way through the journey we weighed up the pros and cons of Rick driving. Sure we could get into trouble, but with me driving we could die OR possibly meet the end of our relationship...so about 1 1/2 hrs into our journey we changed drivers. Rick continued the journey and all I can say is that we realised we had made a brilliant decision when we arrived at the ferry and Rick (and other cars) had to REVERSE onto the ferry on what seemed to me a fairly narrow platform at a steep gradient and past other vehicles. I would have most certainly damaged not only our car, but other vehicles, potentially blatting out a boarding family, a few ferry employees and probably myself and Rick in the process.
We arrived in Thassos safe and sound and Rick has been driving ever since.
Thassos Island is about 120km in circumfrence and seems to be an island which is massively supported by tourism and for good reason! Its absolutely breathtaking and fortunately is a healthy balance of not being too touristy but not too quiet either. It has an abundance of great beaches, self catering accomodation, restaurants and things to do. The island is very mountainous with lush green forests on the one side, and then more dry and arid mediterranean terrain on the other. There are olive and fig trees everywhere. Some of the olives have trunks about 1.5metres in diameter. They must be so old!
We are staying in great self catering accomodation in an area called Skala Potamia 100 m from the beach. We have ate delicious food, most notable was the 7hr Lamb served with delicious lemony buttery herby potatoes which made me want to cry it was so tender. As a vegetarian of 15 years I know I should have some remorse about my senseless meat eating fests I am participating in of late, but even when I drove past a little lamb suckling its mother in the field yesterday, I commented on how cute it was, had a second of cooeyness then my thoughts turned nasty and I remembered my delicious 7 hr lamb and smacked my lips in gluttonous delight! I think its safe to say I wont be going back to vegetarianism any time soon.
My days have been filled with driving around the island and finding great beaches, some of which are practically deserted and completely chilling out. We have also invested in a frizbee which I am pretty crap at, but its fun none the less. Bar the first night we were here when there was a incredible thunder storm, the weather has been fantastic. We have had great fun, and I am getting a fantastic tan. We tried out the naturist beach but then chickened out as it was only about 30% naked OLD people and the rest were normal clothed people, but I have become accustomed to tanning topless which is rather liberating. Last night we did have our own naturist experience after having WAAAAAAY to many drinks, and went skinny dipping at about 1am...in fantastic moonlight. It was wonderful!
Thats all about Thassos for now..
Photos coming soon!
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