"You're gonna need a bigger blog" It's Piraeus, Hydra and Athens time!

 So lets just start off with this........

All good writers have a companion when writing, Dylan Thomas had whiskey, J.R.R. Tolkien had beer, Oscar Wilde had Absinthe, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley were absolute smack heads high off their tits on Opium so my bottle of wine is pretty mild in comparison but this blog will take a bottle of wine as it's going to be a biggie.

DAY ONE:

We left our quiet little home and headed to..... yes you guessed it.....Barkers, for our traditional breakfast stop before we head off to the coach.

They're porridge is amazing but comes at a hefty price, for a latte, a mint tea and 2 bowls of porridge with fruit & honey it came to a whopping £25 but worth every penny.

Stuffed and ready to burst we head over to our coach with the front seats booked we're ready to head to our hotel at Heathrow the day before our flight to Athens, it's just so much easier to stay at a hotel the day before a flight if your flying from an airport that's not close to your home. 

This time we're booked in to a B&B Hotel close to Heathrow. We've stayed in a B&B Hotels before in Paris which we've also booked in to for our trip to Paris in 2 weeks time and i've stayed in a B&B Hotel at Munich airport and all of the hotels have been great and so cheap if you book at the right time. The location of this hotel is brilliant, just a very short local bus ride away, it took 4 minutes to get to it. 

And what do you know...right across the road from the hotel is a pub called "The Punch Bowl" which also doubled as a Thai restaurant, weird. We were a bit thirsty so dumped the bags in and off we went. We had seen pics of it on the internet and it looked quite nice.......WRONG! It was terrible. It was tired looking, it was set up just all wrong, it looked grubby and it had a strong damp smell, no wonder i kept my nose in my pint glass. We drank our drinks very quickly and headed back to hotel and had drinks there instead.

It stank in there, BLURGH!

Our room was great, it was at the back of hotel, top floor and great views of flights taking off, not sure if we'll get a good nights sleep as so excited. This holiday has been put off for 4 years up till this date due to us having so much stuff going on the past 4 years what with travel, events and weekends away.

DAY TWO:

The day has come, lets get this journey started. From Heathrow we land in Athens then it's a metro ride to Piraeus. Why Piraeus? Well, there are beaches along the coast and it's where we need to catch the ferry from to get to Hydra so it just made sense to stay closer to the port instead of in Athens where i know the temp there would be allot higher, little did we know that we would be arriving at the start of a heatwave, so much for booking June so it's cooler.

LETS GO, YAY!

We are so good at traveling now Sian has got it down to a fine art, Sian i think should sell classes for packing tips as she is amazing at it, no huge suitcases for us, we always use carry ons only so no waiting around at the baggage carousel, even when we went to Calgary we only took carry ons but it does help when you've got an apartment/property with washing facilities.

We land, the doors open, we get off and we'll that hot air hit us just like when we used to arrive on Zakynthos, we've missed that feeling. Don't forget, this is our first beach/relaxing holiday since we left Zakynthos as all our vacations have been full on, 100mph City stays.

The travel from the plane to our hotel was painless and stress free, just bloody hot, it was 34deg and expecting highs of 37deg during our stay and we are now not used to these extreme heats after so many years away from the island. 

We get to our hotel Gallery Suites and residence and what a great hotel and our room again was ideal for us. We like always request a room in a quiet area of the hotel and on the highest floor and they came up trumps for us.

And what a view....

A quick freshen up and it's off out for a little walk to find our footing and see what's near the hotel. We walk along the port and it's quite a nice area, very busy due to the port being huge and lots of coffee shops that also act as bars, not that many bars though along the front, in fact none, the closest bar was in an alleyway and was called "Shakespear in love" or "SIL"????? Strange name. It's extremely hot and we need a drink (This will become a running theme) so we duck in to a little eatery on the pavement and have our first Greek beer and now our fav Greek beer, Mamos. Yammas! We used to drink Mamos on Zakynthos in Cafe 34, we do miss that bar.

And after a hot, sweaty walk around the port it's back to the hotel for our evening drinks as it's extremly hot and we need a drink (Told you it would be a running theme) but no Mamos here, BOOOOOO!

We turn in for the night as it's been a long day in 34deg heat, a few beers and the holiday kicks off fully tomorrow with a trip to Kalamaki beach, yep you did read that write KALAMAKI BEACH! Nigh, Nigh now.

DAY THREE:

Up , showered and out early for our first proper frappe since Oct 2019, not this nonsense you get in Starbucks or Costas.

Ahhhhhhh SO GOOD!

And as if by fate there is a Kalamaki Beach just a short tram journey ride away.

The tram journey on the way to the beach was great, air conditioned, had a seat and all passengers were respectful of others and lots of space.....on the way back we had seats but it was rammed packed so air conditioning was useless, lots of yuffs watching tiktok vids with sound on so it was constant 10 second bursts of lots of different sounds which drives my hyperacusis and anxiety through the roof, i could have killed at that point but Sian kept me grounded, it was horrendous but you have to use the tram for the beaches unfortunately.

                                        

We got off the tram and walked along the sea front to get to Kalamaki beach. Along the way allot of the beaches have been changed in to beach resorts which means you have to pay to enter and pay for sunbeds. The one resort would have cost us 45€ for sunbeds with a parasol, that's expensive.

We got our beach, laid down our towels and started to get our tan on. There were no sunbeds on the beach which i have a problem with as i can't settle when just on the sand, i hate sand and i hate rocky shores to get in to the sea and this beach had both which is a shame as i love going in to the sea but it is what it is today.

Our first beach selfie in  years.

We had been on the beach for 2 hours and it was time to move on for some food and to avoid the masses, we got the food but we didn't avoid the masses.

This restaurant was on our bech with sea front tables.

What a great location.

Avocado tzatziki anyone? It was awesome.

My grilled octopus that was freshly caught that morning. 

And Sian's Gavros, again caught fresh that morning which were so good. We miss this kind of eating.

And of course the freebie dessert, orange cake, mmmmmmm!

After a traumatic tram journey back it's time for chill and freshen up for drinks at "SIL".

"SIL" is in an alleyway off the main road, we stumbled across it just out of luck and what a great find, it was in a quiet area, the music was laid back and chilled and the decor was so cool, unfortunately no Mamos, Booooooo! So Sian hit the cocktails and i hit the wheat beer, after all, It's extremely hot and we needed a drink, 37deg today.

A couple of drinks later and no food since tea time we had a slightly wobbly walk home past some very beautiful lit up churches.

One more for the ditch? Why not. There's a bar just around the corner from our hotel called "Bristol"??? Again, another odd name. It looks like a rock bar, it sounded like a rock bar when we first walked past it the day before, it wasn't a rock bar, it was playing disco remixes of MJ, Kool & the gang, Earth, Wind & Fire etc, wasn't our fav music to listen to while having a beer but it was the last stop on the way home.

I ordered 2 Mamos and the bar person Maria was very engaging but when it came to payment she asked "cash or card?" and when i said cash she paused and replied "Hmmmmm 10€". Now if a bar person who speaks perfectly good English has to pause and think of the price you know your being conned. They were small bottles and in other bars we'd paid between 4.50€ and 5€ for 2 small bottles or cans and as you can see the bar only had 7 other customers who were locals, no wonder if your ripping people off, we never went back.

DAY FOUR:

Yesterday we ventured down the coast to the left of the port, today we're venturing to the right of the port where there is a park that leads down to the sea for bathing. We pack my rucksack and off we go.

We decide to walk in to the port area and along the edge of the port where all the large ships moor up.

We walk and walk and walk, we come to dead ends and have to double back, we come to roads we can't walk along and before you know it we're out of water and were slightly sweaty and feel a little burnt we've been walking for so long in 37deg heat. In fact i think on this day we walked nearly 8 miles without a break so yeah, it was an exhausting day. We decided to head back and stop in the park by the hotel, It's extremely hot and we need a drink. 

No Mamos, Booooooo!

This building is called Piraeus Tower and on the 3rd floor is a bistro called "Cloud 9", we will investigate later after we've recovered in the room from our daytime hike.

Fully refreshed and smothered with moisturising cream we head of to have a look at "Cloud 9" and all we can say was wow, what a find.

But before Cloud 9 Bistro we headed in to St. Nicholas Church for the Greek Pentecost service, we dressed appropriately to enter the church but why are there assholes who don't take notice of huge signs saying "Please be respectful of the church, No shorts to be worn inside", they were just wandering in talking, blah. blah, blah and not caring about what's going on around them, all with phones out filming for ages. At least i asked could i take a picture and a very short video and they said i could.

St. Nicholas Church in Piraeus.

Inside the church was beautiful and wonderous and very calming even with the service going on through speakers.

A very short vid of the service.

On to Cloud 9 and they have Mamos, YAY!

We decide just to stay here all night so we can watch the sunset and being as it's in a prime location with great views it wasn't that busy and it was the same price as "SIL" bar. Piraues tower is an office block and this bistro is also the office blocks canteen, never seen such a posh canteen in all my life, the staff in the offices must get paid well.

The sun sets behind the mountains.

Piraeus port lights up.

So does Piraeus Tower.

And so does our table.

It's been a great day so it's time to settle down for tomorrow is Sian's birthday and i've organised a special treat for her for her birthday present as she deserves it so much. Will i get to sleep due to the excitement? Of course i did i was a little bit merry.

DAY FIVE:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 🎂🥳🎉

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! COME ON LETS GO!

Frappe time first to set us up for the day as it's quite full on as we're off to HYDRA! Now we first saw Hydra in 2020/21 on The Trip ~ Greece with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and that gave us the inspiration to visit Hydra which we've been trying to do since then, the same as the programme "Tin Star" inspired us to visit Calgary which is such an amazing place for us now.

And of course no expense sparred for Sian's birthday trip so it's business class all the way.

And look who's there, it's the birthday girl.

We arrive on Hydra after a quick stop at Poros to pick up some tourists and all we can say is WOW! Aga met us off the ferry and showed us to our apartment but it wasn't ready to move in to and would be about an hour which was fine as we wanted a wander anyway, so we dropped off my rucksack and off we went.

Our usual P**S taking selfie, don't be haters cause we idiots LOL.

And this is Omilos where Steve and Rob ate while on Hydra, you can watch the episode, it's Episode 4  of The Trip~Greece Athens to Hydra. Also people such as John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Dave Gilmore, Leonard Cohen, Sophia Lauren and Jackie Kennedy to name but a few have eaten at Omilos. I had pre~booked a table for this day months in advance as i had seen it is full almost every night and difficult to get a table just by turning up so needed to book which luckily i did.

We had actually been out and about for nearly 2 hours so it was time to check out our apartment which again i had booked months in advance.

Had to trim this walk through as file size was to big to upload, BUGGER! but you'll get the gist of it.

Now then, what you might not know about Hydra there are no motor vehicles, No scooters, no quads, no cars, no motorbikes. It's donkeys or walking apart from there are vehicles for garbage collection and trades men like plumbers, electricians, builders etc. and that's it which we found so nice. Your luggage to your accommodation were taken by donkeys or electric carts and then the tourists follow behind on foot or also by donkey, even the police just walk around the towns, no vehicles whatsoever.

Good job we were right on the port as the accommodations go far back in to the island and along the coast but there are boat taxis if your staying somewhere along the coast. We just love it here already.

We decided to take a walk along the coast to have a swim. Now there is one slight problem with Hydra, you either sunbathe on concrete levels or on beaches, there are hardly any pools anywhere. The concrete levels are closest but uncomfortable and the nearest beach is a 4 mile walk or a boat taxi away, we like a walk so off we set in 35deg, 4 miles there, 4 miles back, OH BOY!

Behind us just above Sian's head you can see the terracotta roofed building by the sea, that's Omilos, our restaurant for tonight.

It's a bloody long walk to the beach at Mandraki.

At last, the beach, god damn it, it's sandy and stoney, BUGGER!

After about an hour or so we head back as we need to get ready for tonight.

These caught my eye in the local supermarket, magic mushroom and cannabis crisps, not for me thank you very much. 

Table booked for 8pm so we better get a move on and get ready.

You look amazing, love this outfit on Sian.

And so Sian's birthday treat continues.

This table is the exact table Steve and Rob sat at and Sian is sat in the very seat Steve Coogan sat in during their meal at Omilos, when you watch the episode you will see it.

Where's our food?

Ah i see, wine first, that's fine.

So i started off with Grilled Octopus in aged strawberry balsamic, pickled bulbs, olive oil and orange foam. Amazing.

Sian had puff fried crab, coconut milk, lime, coriander, chilli and avocado.

The sun is setting before our main meals.

A very rare picture of us not being idiots and behaving, i really like this pic.

Yes, the mains are here. I had crayfish risotto with morchella fungi and fresh truffle.

Sian had steamed john dory with butter sauce and grilled chard.

The perfect view with the perfect dessert.

I had white chocolate yoghurt mousse Pavlova with mango sorbet.

Sian had lemon and pistachio cream with chocolate waffle and cocoa butter.

The three courses were all immense and we both agreed the best meal we've ever had with Gordon Ramsay's Lucky Cat in second place then Bookers BBQ and Grill in Calgary in third place.

The outside view of Omilos.

Time for an aperitif, limoncello for the birthday girl and Bullit bourbon for me.

What a amazing night we had for my amazing girls birthday.

A couple of night pics of Hydra harbour on the way home.

A night cap on our balcony before our sunbathe day tomorrow.

DAY SIX:

It's beach day. So because it's 4 miles away and we want sunbeds this time, we needed to leave early to avoid the heat and to get there before all the sunbeds are taken. Here we go again at 9am this time so a bit cooler.

Donkeys are ready for their day too.

After another 4 mile walk we make it and get sunbeds, thank god for that.

Another stoney beach and had to pay 30€ for the pleasure but it was so worth it just for comfort.

I get a bit restless sometimes as not used to relaxing fully which is a pain in the ass so i went for a wander to take a couple of pics of the area we were sunbathing in.

The cove where Mandraki is situated.

A bit of shade after my walk.

As i lay on my sunbed with a slight breeze blowing and just the sound of the sea lapping at the beach i reach down to my bag to get out a frozen bottle of water to take a drink and.......AAHHHHHH F**K! Now just think of the scene, a small coved beach with about only 30 sunbeds, all adults around our age just quietly relaxing, sunbathing and sleeping and then you get me being stung by a black insect that looks like a hornet. As i grabbed the bag my thumb wrapped around this flying BA****D of a thing and it decides to sting in the crease of my thumb. For something so small it felt like a red hot needle piercing my skin, never felt instant pain like it and i've had lots of pain over years of riding my motorbikes on Zakynthos but nothing like this. The attention on me on the beach went from zero to all eyes focused on the short balding Welshmen with his thumb in the air.

And there's the boat taxi.

We stay for about 3 hours and decide to make our way back to have a chill out in Tassos Cafe next to our apartment.

It's extremely hot and we need a drink, Mamos and free crisps this time, yay!

Tonight its time for a drink at a bar called "The Lemon Tree" and then on for a traditional dish that we can never go without in Greece....Gyros. OH MY GOD!

Our last sunset from our balcony on Hydra.

Hydra has many little cobbled streets to drink and dine in but this was ours for tonight next to our apartment so not so far to fall in to bed.

We start our night off in "The Lemon Tree" with a cocktail and a beer.

We then move on to have our Gyros but because the restaurant we want to go to was full to bursting we had to walk around for about 50 mins until a table became free and we had walked past it three times by this point but we got in, at last. This is the restaurant "...and onions" as we left.

And these are our dream Gyros, no wonder it was packed out.

We can get Gyros at home, in fact we have a Greek restaurant just 200 metres from our house but they're not the same as proper Gyros in Greece.

After being stuffed with gyros topped up with rose wine it's time for a slow waddle home with our last night time view of Hydra.

DAY SIX:

"Morning has broken and its our last morning", Boooooooooo! But we got a long day ahead straight from here as it's Acropolis day in Athens.

Don't cry, Oh, your not! 😆

Bye Hydra apartment. it's been amazing and thank you.

Goodbye donkeys.

Our ferry awaits.

Business class again, why not!

As we leave Hydra we talk about how long we could holiday there and we agreed, unless your someone who just likes to eat and drink all holiday we could last five  days there at most, the beaches are to far away, i like a pool and there isn't many close BUT we like the fact that it isn't like a tourist resort, it does feel very Greek even though it was very busy, we didn't see one bar advertising "Sky Sports" or "Crappy Cabaret", no all inclusive hotels, no loud drunk brits and hardly any kids which we liked but access to beaches or pools was the downfall for us but we found it an amazing place. The one major downfall for me....way to many Americans talking crap. God do these people know little about anything but talk like they know everything, they all drove me mad the ones who were around me, please Americans just vacation in America, it's big enough and "Great enough" just stay there. I heard a group talking about wine. One said Rose is sweet, WRONG, there are so many varieties, another said Malbec is the best, just Malbec, do they know how many countries produce Malbec, at least six or seven and all don't taste the same, it was the most ridiculous conversation without any knowledge. 

Right then, quick unpack of rucksack, pack rucksack and off we go again. We arrive back to Piraeus at around 12.30pm and we need to be on the metro to Athens by 4.30pm as i have entry tickets to the Acropolis at six pm so hopefully we can catch the sunset from there.

So at this point there will be very little writing as the wine i'm drinking is taking effect and there are lots and lots of pictures but i will add the comment here and there, HICK! 😬

I have been to the Acropolis many, many years ago, i think 23 years ago so it was all a bit of a blur as it was a whistle stop tour from Zakynthos for the day.

As you exit Piraeus metro there are your first sight of ancient Greek ruins in the metro station itself.

Athens is just vast it's huge and so built up, it's crazy.

Now then, this pic is in honour of Taylor Hawkins and the Foo Fighters. I have  my UK Foo Fighters t~shirt on, Taylor Hawkins board shorts on and my Vans Foo Fighters trainers on as this is "The Odeon of Herodes" behind me is where the Foo Fighters played in 2017. Unfortunately an opera had been staged there a few days before and they we dismantling the stage so no visitors were allowed down in to it , Boooooooo! 

The Foo Fighters at The Odeon of Herodes and Taylor with my shorts on.

                                        

From every side of the Acropolis Athens just goes on and on, it's crazy.

I just didn't know what the picture was going to be like on this one, i couldn't see my screen, it's the best of a very bad batch of piccies 😅

"Size of a giant, I AM A GREEK GOD", please don't look up my shorts people.

Allot of pics and it was just best left without comment as they speak for themselves and now a video..

And that's only 1/4 of the view.

And guess what's in Athens apart from lots of different shaped rocks....YES, HARD ROCK, YAY! This is definitely gonna get messy.

Our usual cocktail starters.

Some memorabilia.

It's all getting a bit messy now with 3 cocktails down, HICK!

SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS! Gold Tequila? Don't mind if we do...and they're doubles.

Last shots done and done!

So......we wanted to try to stay until 10pm as then your 2nd cocktail was only 3€ when you buy 2. We arrived at 7.45pm and were done by 9.20pm after downing 3 cocktails each and 2 shots each, it's the most we've ever spent in a Hard Rock in such a short space of time, in 90 mins we'd spent i believe 150€ just on drinks but it was so worth it as we have a great time in all the hard rocks and we have more t~shirts to add to our collection.

Time to head home. At this point i can't remember the metro ride home, i can remember before getting on and getting off but not the journey, that's just weird. I think Sian was also a bit merry but she must have guided me during the metro journey.

We get 2 lots of Club Sandwiches from Goody's and it's time for bed picnic and sleep before our last full day in Piraeus.

FINAL DAY:

Off to the beach and time to get our final bit of rays from the beautiful Greek sun at a blistering 38deg, dear God!

We stayed for around 2 hours and headed back because for our last night i had booked us in to "Cloud 9" for a meal. On the way home we went past Olympiakos ground which looked huge.

It's extremely hot and we need a drink so we stop off in the park for our last afternoon thirst quenchers.

We're all packed and ready to go but it's a nice flight time of 2.45pm, check out is midday so it's all timed really well for traveling back to UK.

All showered and dressed to go we head out to "Cloud 9" with a prime view table booked for 8pm.

As we sat down we looked down to street level and saw there were protesters protesting the fact that we were going home tomorrow and they wanted us to stay, awwww that's so nice but we got Squidly to think of and she needs us home as i bet the house is a right mess.

Our last sunset.

And our table is set.

We decided to go Greek style and have everything delivered together.

We have Greek oven cooked oregano fries, chicken Caesar salad, olives with olive oil and fresh cooked sourdough bread and houmous with hollumi bites and 2 dips and it all tasted amazing.

And Sian's birthday continues as the manager gave Sian a deconstructed banoffee dessert on the house which tasted sooooooo good.

The inside of Cloud 9 which would be great in the winter but no one sat inside, not in these temps.

Stuffed and thoroughly happy it's time to head of to bed as it's home time tomorrow, Boooooo and yay as we get to see Squidly but that's the only reason to be happy to go home.

HOME TIME!

It's time to head to the airport but we need one last frappe.

Piraeus metro station. The Greek metro system is really good, we think better than London.

Drinks on the flight to numb the pain of going back to the shit hole that is known as UK.

Our air hostess. Ladies? What is up with make up these days? No ones eye lashes are ever naturally that long, they look awful and what's up with the eyebrows? They look like slugs stuck to the forehead. Come on ladies sort it out and that's not just my opinion, Sian noticed it first. Nothing natural looking about that set up at all.

                                                     

Airport drinkies to ease the pain even more.

And back to B&B Hotel to finish off the holiday.

This update has taken, wait for it...... six hours and 2 bottles of wine, that's the honest truth.

By the time i upload pictures and videos, edit videos, write my random stream of nonsense consciousness then edit that so i don't "OFFEND" the woke brigade it takes ages plus add to that 2 bottles of wine and the keyboard starts to move around, why's it do that? I got new glasses on and still everything has gone blurry.....zzzzyu don know me, who yu thik yu are with your lardy daa attitude you fooking downe yur nose toff, go on, git aut of her or i'll put yu doawn on yourrrreeee arsssss, agggghhhh yu nooooo better than uuussss we'reee grrrrreeeeeaaaat as tony would say.

Anywhoo, our vacation was amazing, would we do that trip again....i don't think so, not because we didn't enjoy any of the places we stayed or went it's just that it was such an amazingly special experience i don't think a second time would live up to the first visit so why try to recreate it and fail but i would advise others to do it, Piraeus, short Hydra stay and day trip to Athens, it was all perfect and we loved it. I began thinking would i want to set up a bar again in Greece and again the answer was no, we've been there, done that and bought loads of t~shirts so Greece is just for vacations now.

One last thing, have you ever heard of a film called "Boy on a dolphin" starring Sophia Lauren? No, neither have we but there is a picture in the apartment we stayed in on Hydra and in that picture is the balcony of our apartment. If you look in the middle of the picture above Sophia Laurens head that is our actual balcony.

Well folks i'm getting rather tired now after looking at this screen for so long so that's it for the blog update but you won't have to wait long for the next update as in 2 weeks time we're back off to Paris and to see Imagine Dragons at the Stade de France, aren't we the jet setters 😂

So until we return from OOooooo LaLa land.......

Serve All, Love All, Peace All...... Kevlar, Mrs. P. & Squidly Out!