Fancy Fidgeting

Sitting outside a cafe, having our morning coffee, we heard a clack coming from the table next to us. It wasn't the familiar smack of nard pieces nor the clickity-clickity-click of spoons in tea glasses, both sounds that, after nearly two months, had recently vanished from our lives. It was the sound of a komboloi, Greek worry beads.
We'd seen men handle strings of beads in a number of cafes, pushing them back and forth between their thumbs and forefingers. I'd assumed they were akin to rosaries - why not pray while you're watching the lotto results or your favorite futbol team? Turns out, that's just the quieter "indoor" komboloi procedure. Things only get into full swing, literally, when there's freedom to be loud. The strand is held at the center with an even weight of beads hanging from each side. One end is swung around the hand to clack against the other side. Then, the other end takes its turn around. Clack! Most men are really good at it, so a seamless rhythm is created with only the slightest movement of the hand. They're really similar to Chinese medicine balls or, at their most basic, a yo-yo.
It seemed absolutely fitting that komboloi would be sold alongside chewing gum and trashy mags at the corner kiosk. Mindless activities. The name komboloi means "bead collection." While their design may be derived from prayer beads, komboloi have never had a higher ceremonial or religious meaning. Some people call them a game, others, a meditation tool. For most, it is merely a habit - like spinning a pen - except instead of carrying around a pen, you get to carry around some pretty beads.
One thing that's intriguing about komboloi is the fact that it seems to be a male-only pastime. Maybe women, historically, never had idle hands? In the Nafplio Folk Museum, the beads were placed in the hands of many models - never female. You'd think women would need "worry beads" (as they are most commonly called) just as much as men.
The city of Nafplio is known for its production of komboloi - there is even a private museum dedicated to them, which we could never find during open hours. Instead, we found this workshop/store, where a very sternly enthusiastic woman showed us the handcrafted products and explained the raw materials from which they were made. The coral and blue coral ones were points of pride, as they came from right there in the Mediterranean. Other high end komboloi are made of amber and crystal - but she told us firmly that only her shop had handmade local products.
I've read that the popularity of the komboloi has been waning since the mid 20th century. Though, I also read that some people use the beads to help them smoke less. Occupy the hands. So maybe what we're seeing is a recent resurgence as smoking bans spread across the country. Judging from this fridge-side Coca Cola ad, I'd say the komboloi's place in Greek culture is pretty safe and sound.

Castle Hunting: Palamidi Fortress

In the far back of Palamidi Castle, standing knee-deep in bracken and wildflowers, there’s not much to focus on besides the sound of bees and the intense sunlight. The walls are low, the place feels overgrown and wild. It takes a long time to get there. The legendary nine hundred and ninety nine steps are a hike enough (even if there are actually only 857), but the scramble from one end of the fortress to the other is what really takes a while. It’s huge.

Far down below, in the calm blue water of Nafplio harbor, sits another part of this complex – the languid, water-grey folly of Bourtzi. It sits prim and pretty, watching over a few bobbing pleasure boats and the waterside cafes. These are relics from the last age of castles, when they were built out of protocol, instead of real need.

It’s hard to tell which of Nafplio’s two castles is more iconic. Bourtzi is postcard perfect, brooding dreamily in the harbor water like a forlorn Iago. Palamidi is rough-edged and brash, catching the sunlight with its reddish-yellow stone and sharp angles. They seem almost like prototypes, built by romantics to evoke something of the medieval past in an era when castles were growing obsolete.

Reminding us of Kizkalesi’s twin castles, they were really used in conjunction with one another, built to guard an important port. In Venetian times, Nafplio’s harbor was sealed off with thick metal strands and the town was called “Porto Cadenza,” which means “port in chains.” It sits at the head of the long Argolic Gulf, which cuts deeply into the heart of the Peloponnese peninsula.

Palamidi has long been extolled as a feat of military engineering genius – it’s been called impregnable by townspeople and historians alike, based mostly on the fact that it was never truly “taken” by an invading army. In truth, most fortresses that were supposedly unconquerable were eventually conquered, just as anything unassailable is usually proven imperfect. The thing is, Nafplio wasn’t tested much. The castle was built too late, the area has been peaceful.

The higher castle was built by the Venetians between 1711 and 1714, part of their ever expanding Mediterranean empire. When they gave way to the Ottomans, the town was at the vanguard of the fight – the brunt of the war was fought by the navy, the fate of the region was decided elsewhere. If Palamidi had in fact been seriously attacked, it’s unlikely that it would have fared well.

The main body of the fortress is enormous. It sprawls in long-walled, scattered confusion, with bastions built in a semi-fan around a main stronghold. The walls are, in some places, barely ten feet high, and are placed along ridges with poor visibility. While it would have been impossible to attack from the seaward side – the cliffs are nearly sheer and plunge over six hundred feet – it wouldn’t have been difficult to maneuver an army around towards the back, where the defenses were really quite poor. The long walls would have necessitated a huge – almost too huge to consider – force of defenders, stretched very thinly along low ramparts. If one bastion fell, the attackers would essentially be able to defend themselves within the castle, using the Venetian’s own walls against them. It doesn’t feel impregnable - it feels vulnerable, a sham.
Driving into Nafplio on our first night, the sky already dark, we mistook Palamidi for some kind of hilltop city. Lit up with floodlights, it looked too big to be one structure. Visiting it the next day, making our way back through the succession of bastions, the voices of the other tourists dropped away, the undergrowth deepened and thickened. We were left to navigate bare trails in the dusty earth, sometimes along the top of the cliff, sometimes further inward, where cacti had taken hold and thrived. The views of the sea and mountains were beautiful in the intense sun. We climbed on crumbling walls and picked our way from gunport to gunport, wondering how anyone had thought they’d have the manpower and firepower to make this immensity secure. We felt that we’d trekked deep into a wilderness.
The 18th century was the last gasp of castle building, in the classical sense. Cannons were getting too powerful, the focus was on naval battles. As massive as the defenses are, they were never very useful – the olden days of hard sieges and small weaponry were over even as Palamidi was being completed. When the Turks arrived, there were only eighty men guarding the town – they surrendered immediately, unable to put up any kind of fight. The Ottomans lost the castle to a Greek uprising during the beginning of the war of independence. They apparently hadn’t considered that there would be a fight.
It’s taken as impressive that Palamidi was built in such a short amount of time, and looking at it from below one can hardly believe it. But this is not a substantial building by 18th century standards. Most of the mass is superfluous and low, little more than walled up stations for cannons. The height, too, made the castle something of an oddity for the time – too high to attack boats below, it was intended mostly as a garrison and a symbol of power. But why so many confusing walls, cutting off one part from the other? Why so large, when a smaller fort could have been much stronger?

In the evening, as we sat looking at dusky Bourtzi over drinks, the harbor took on a pleasant, theatrical glow. Young tourists rode rented bikes in pairs. Lovers sat in cafes drinking coffee and drawing closer to one another as darkness fell. A cruiseship’s lights came on. The castle floated in the near distance.

Bourtzi castle looks very impressive until you notice the people standing on the walls – it’s a whole lot smaller than it appears at first glance. Built as part of the harbor defenses, some two hundred and thirty years before the main Palamidi fort, the little pile suddenly looks like a toy when given some scale. It was refurbished and given its present shape to accommodate a more modern battery of cannon, at around the same time as Palamidi was being constructed.

In the end, Nafplio’s castles feel like set pieces, thrown up quickly to provide a backdrop to the warm drama of summer evenings, when the sun sets and empires crumble. We had a great time exploring them – the views and scale make up for any shortcomings, the whole place feels unique. And sometimes the historic feeling of a place is more important than the actual, mundane history; these castles tell a story of grandeur and kingdoms, the classic baroque tale painted large. Two castles, unconquerable and proud. Who cares about the play of history if the story doesn't feel grand? Let Palamidi and Bourtzi have their legend of invincibility. The Venetians never cared much for keeping their castles - only building them to look grand.

Finally Finding Fish

Menus are useless in Greece. They are, at best, a rough sketch of what might be available on any given night. Usually, a waiter or waitress will pull up a chair at your table, sit down with you and describe the many and various virtues of the few dishes they've actually prepared. When they've finished you tell them what you'd like, they claim you've made a masterful selection, huge plates of food arrive.

Every night, after the presentation, we've had a question. "That all sounds good," we'll say. "But do you happen to have any fish?" The answer has been, more often than not, a sad "no." Maybe there will be some calamari or stewed octopus, shrimp or frozen salmon filets. If we get lucky, they have fresh sardines or tiny red mullet (not to complain!).

Greece is facing a frightening and frustrating decline in their native fish stock. Against all reason, to find the kind of whole, grilled fish that satisfies a craving, we had to head inland to the highlands.

The Peloponnesian peninsula is a rough, many-mountained mass of land. The coast is patchily lined with resorts, the area is a popular getaway for Athenians, the ports are either busy or picturesque. Inland, there's snow on the taller peaks and broad valleys open up in between. This is olive country, the land of Kalamata and oil. Ancient fields are still planted with wheat and there are some scattered orchards in the foothills. In Greek terms, this is a green land of plenty - and not the place one would first look for fish.

But even higher than these fields, where the mountains take over and the land becomes wooded, another agricultural industry thrives.
The source of the river Aroanios is hidden somewhere near the lofty little village of Planitero (Πλανητέρο in Greek). Springs bubble up in the cool earth. Streams burble and converge beneath the trees. The water is cool enough, even in summer, for trout farming - and so the little valleys around town have become crowded with small stock pools and the restaurants that go along with them. In the warm springtime sunshine, surrounded by the first greening of branch and grass, we found just the lunch we were looking for.

It's funny how expectation can shape experience. Before we got to Greece, when we were feeling snowed in and heavy-stomached (see delicious but difficult examples one and two and this not delicious example), we talked a lot about what we would eat when we finally got to the Mediterranean. So far, it hasn't quite been what we thought.

Greece was, for a very long time, an obvious destination for seafood. But in the past few decades the coastal fishing industry has seen a precipitous drop in what's available. Overfishing and water pollution have taken a real toll, and with recently enacted regulations on what and how much can be harvested, the small fishermen of the past have begun to disappear. More and more, the fish that's sold in waterside tavernas and Athenian restaurants is foreign caught or farmed - a large proportion is from Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal, who have lucrative deals with European fleets and exporters. Today, even on the islands, one is much more likely to be offered pork or beef than wild sea bass or bream.
In the chilly springwater of the Chelmos mountains, though, there are more fish than ever. There are six or seven little country taverns, all tucked in among the trees and following a zig-zag along one of the larger streams. The water is diverted into the cement ponds, then out again into the next farm. The cool, continuously flowing water and cooler air mean that these trout don't need the heavy doses of antibiotics that other farmed fish require.

We ate on a little porch with a few other people. Here, the menu began with fish, then went on to other specialties - moussaka and souvlaki were forlorn on the last page. Nobody ordered anything other than trout and greens. This was more like it!
As we ate we listened to the sound of the rushing water and the occasional calls of the swans that one farmer kept. We began with a greek salad and khorta, or steamed wild greens, drinking open white wine from a carafe. The fish came only with a halved lemon and a small pitcher of lemony oil. The skin was crisp and salty, the meat was pillowy and delicate. It tasted of woodsmoke and alpine water. This wasn't what one expects from Greek fish - it was even better.
After our lunch we took a walk through the woods, following one slip of water or another, crossing the streams on little bridges. We came to an opening where a group of three young women were tending their flock of sheep. This was an idyl of the kind that can only be had in the vernal mountains, when the air seems perfectly crisp, the water is excited and the earth smells like life. It didn't matter that we had to have frozen octopus for dinner* back by the sunbaked sea. We had finally found our fish.

*Again, I'm not complaining - we love octopus.

The Cheese Stands Alone

Greece has gotten a lot of credit for its historic dietary choices. "The Mediterranean Diet" isn't just a trendy weight loss plan or hot topic on The View, it's actually recognized by UNESCO as a piece of "Intangible Cultural Heritage." I'm not here to knock an eating pattern focused on olive oil, fresh fruit and vegetables, some fish, poultry and very little to no red meat. But, what kinda gets left out of the whole "eat like a Greek" thing is cheese. Greeks eat more cheese per capita than any country on Earth. Above is a classic Greek salad: tomato, cucumber, red onion, olive with an oregano sprinkled slice of feta cheese on top and a pool of olive oil below.
The production of feta in Greece, specifically Crete, dates all the way back to Byzantium. The cheese was made and kept in a brine to mature, which is a common method for cheese-making in hotter climates. Since it's a salty, crumbly curd cheese, it can be used for almost anything. And, in Greece, it is. It is baked in sweet pastries and savory ones like spanakopita (spinach, feta, phyllo pie). It's cooked in a pot with tomato, green pepper and spices as pikandiko (which comes out looking a lot like an egg white scramble). It is whipped into shape, I mean paste, with hot pepper to make tyrokafteri dip.
Since 2002, feta has been a protected entity in the EU. Like, for example, gruyère, cheese cannot be called 'feta' unless it comes from a certain place (Greece) and is made a certain way. This includes being made from at least 70% sheep's milk. If not 100% sheep, the rest of the milk can only be goat and both animals need to be from the same area. There are millions of sheep in Greece and we've seen our fair share just about everywhere. This picture was taken out the window of our rental car. Oncoming traffic. Very often, a goat or two would be hanging out amongst a flock of sheep. I can't help but look at those scenes now and think "mmmm, feta."
While feta is the Big Cheese it's far from the only one. We've been amazed at the variety. Every town seems to have a little shop with at least four different cheeses, all local. Mostly, they are sheep or goat, but cow pops up as well. This sheep cheese was made in Northern Greece, but sold to us on the island of Andros. The cheese itself was bland, but covered in dried oregano, thyme and red saffron, it became something woodsy and substantial. Sort of like the flavor equivalent of a nice flannel shirt. Beside it is some local Andros chocolate. Putting impulse-buy-ccentric products at the checkout counter really is a worldwide marketing strategy.
Here we have graviera, which is often simply called "yellow cheese." This version, from Syros, was stronger and harder than its Cretan incarnation. Aged sheep, it is nutty and a little sweet and is versatile enough to earn the rank of Greece's second most popular cheese. When we opened this on the ferry, its odor surprised us. We weren't expecting something quite so pungent and worried about the attention it would draw. No one seemed to mind, though we did turn at least one head. The kind man behind the nearby cafe counter brought us a plastic knife after watching us attempt to cut the cheese with a coffee stirrer.Our Greek picnics have all included a cheese, like the bitingly strong spreadable kopanisti above. There are always more cheeses you wished you had tried. But, in Greece, chances are you'll have enough lactic indulgence thrown into your daily diet to keep your desires to buy a wedge here and there at bay. Aside from the aforementioned salads and dips and small plates, main dishes include some seriously cheesy casseroles. There's the ever present moussaka, a layer dish of eggplant, minced meat and cheese, and au gratins galore.
A mainstay dish at any taverna is saganaki, which is simply fried cheese. Hard varieties like kefalograviera, kasseri and kefalotyri are usually used - ones that will get brown and crispy on the outside and gooey at the center. Above is a fancy version we had at a restaurant named Menu on Andros island. The cheese was wrapped in a spring roll wrapper before frying and then coated with sesame seeds (the base of the ubiquitous Greek sweet halva) and honey (the base of just about every other Greek sweet). Seafood saganaki keep the cheese-in-skillet element the same, but add in shrimp or mussels and spicy tomato sauce. Feta is employed in those cases.
One of the most pleasant eating experiences in Greece is asking simply for "the local cheese," and seeing what arrives. Add to that the pride on the server's face and the inevitably yummy taste experience. It may not have been one of the things I was expecting out of my time in the land of the Mediterranean Diet - a far cry from salt encrusted fish and delectably bitter kalamatas - but what a wonderful surprise.

So Full o'Life

Back in October, while in the Alentejo region in Portugal, the British owner of our campground described one village as being 'like a museum' and another as being "so full o'life!" Said with such relish, the phrase stuck with us. Ever since then, we channel ole Gary- accent and all- anytime a place bursts with liveliness. On Andros, our final island, the expression was used time and again. From the wild flowers that covered the fields and the donkeys, sheep and goats that joined us for legs of our walkabouts to the schoolchildren, churchgoers and cafe dwellers, Andros was just so full o'life.
Andros is the northernmost of the Cyclades archipelago, which means it takes about a two hour ferry ride to reach Athens. This makes the island an obvious weekend destination for Greeks and an easy island hop for travelers. With no big name sights and a mostly mountainous terrain, it's meant for a certain type of tourist. One that's not necessarily looking for beach discos and grilled fish. (The island specialties are zucchini fritters and froutalia - a sausage omelet).
The port town of Gavrio gives a complicated first impression. There are cafes, tavernas and trinket stores lined up between the two ferry docks. On one end, a gorgeous little gourmet shop with a sign that reads "we support organic farmers" sells local products and an impressive array of cheese. On the other end, the businesses peter out and a few shabby buildings sit far back from the shore. We walked back and forth along the beach to pass the time, kicking at a single washed up flip flop and other summertime relics tossed ashore by the winter storms. Gavrio feels well worn and slightly worn down, a real port town - as opposed to a pretty little harbor.
On the other side of the island, a full hour by bus along a winding road with steep unwalled drops, is Hora (which literally means "main town.") It felt a world away from anything we'd seen on other Greek islands, with its marble paved pedestrian avenue and neo-classical mansions. The town, more commonly referred to simply as 'Andros,' felt downright regal to us. With a population of about 1,500, there were more people here than on all of Fourni island. Children ran around, teenagers sat on steps, everyone greeted everyone else along the promenade.
We came to Andros for the nature and the well-kept system of walking paths that allow you to explore it. Cypresses knife into the sky, stone walls cut across the hillsides. Green valleys give way to arid shrubs with no notice. Sheep and goats graze and donkeys stand around. It is beautiful. A sign here or there would point us toward a cobbled staircase or a chapel or a spring. Little lizards darted through grass and slinked along rock faces. Andros town sat piled up on its peninsula below.
Many restaurants were closed for the season and a number of storefronts, like this one, were undergoing some renovation. Paint fumes wafted out of open doorways on the breeze and voices echoed out of the empty spaces. It never felt sleepy, though. "This is the best time to be here," the beyond sweet owner of our pension said, nodding her head earnestly. A number of the houses in Andros are second homes and I wonder how the neighborhood changes when the fair-weather neighbors arrive.
These lampshades hung across the square right outside our window. They are one of the many artful little details all around Andros (which happens to be the unlikely home of a world renowned contemporary art museum). Also hanging around town, posters for upcoming events like "Mexican Fiesta" and "80s-90s dance party. Every evening, music would boom out a place called "Prive," until the wee hours. Every morning, the church bells made their own pretty racket and the pitter patter of heels on marble would put everyone in their rightful place for the morning.
For some, that was behind the counter of a clothing boutique, bakery or pharmacy (there were multiple locations of each). For this young boy, it was out with his fishing line. His mother and siblings yelled for him to come back in already, but he loudly refused. A group of similarly aged kids went around in circles in the water nearby - a sailing lesson. An old woman, all in black, sat alone on a rock staring out at the sea. That is, until her cell phone rang. In a lot of seaside towns, especially on the islands, the water feels like the key player. Here, with so much life brimming on dry land, the sea was simply the backdrop. Gary would have approved.

The Islands of Churches

Greece isn't the most religious place in Europe, but it is one of the few European countries to have a state religion and its countryside is literally covered in churches, cathedrals, chapels and shrines. Unlike other religious institutions in the country, though, the Greek Orthodox Church isn't required to pay any tax on their holdings - even as its clergy's salary, pension and even lodging is paid for by taxpayers.

On Andros Island, amid low bracken and soaring cypress trees, the whitewashed buildings dot every hill, every town. We walked by dozens - scores, probably - as we read and talked about what they signified. You see, religion in Greece is more than just a faith. The Greek Orthodox Church was the argument for the nation's existence in the first place.
In the springtime fields, surrounded by grazing goats and freshly bloomed flowers, Andros's little one room churches sit baking in the sun, locked up and lonely. Barely big enough to hold ten or fifteen people, some of these chapels date back centuries, to the long period of Ottoman rule.

Greek people will often try to tell you that Turkish rule nearly wiped out their religion, but that's hardly the case. It was during that period, even more so than the creation of Eastern Orthodoxy during Byzantine times, that the church was cemented as a singular thing, replacing many independent Christian sects.

For more than four hundred years, between the late 1300's and 1830, most of what is modern Greece was controlled by the Ottoman empire, along with Christian lands in Bulgaria and the Baltic. The shahs never established an official religion (though they did tax non Muslims at a higher rate), but rather segregated the population of its lands according to their belief under a structure that came to be called the "millet system." Under millet law, each religious group was to be governed by a single entity - and the Eastern Orthodox Church became the ruling authority for a large swath of people.
When Greece was fighting for its independence in the 19th century, just as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, it brought its many disparate parts together with an argument for ethnoreligious identity. Any ties to previous branches of Christianity had long since been forgotten, and the populace had grown used to religious administration - even on the most remote of the Aegean islands, people had accepted the idea that being Christian meant being "Greek." This was a major shift - before the millet system, a Cretan considered himself Cretan above all else - separate from Peloponnesians, Thracians, Athenians and all the rest of what we now consider Hellenic peoples.

Although the islands and mainland parts of Greece had never been united before, their common religion ultimately drew them together. Gradually, over more than a century, property under British, Bulgarian, Italian and Turkish rule was subsumed into the old "Kingdom of Greece," as Hellenistic partisans began demanding that their faith be taken as "Greekness" in a more formal sense.
So it's not surprising that today Greek Orthodoxy is recognized as the "prevailing" religion of the nation. Other religious institutions are taxed at rates up to thirty-five percent, while the official church pays an undisclosed, voluntary tax on its holdings. Primary and secondary schooling is done in Orthodox classrooms by law, unless both parents sign a request that their child be exempt. A top priest sits on the board of Greece's semi-public bank. It's one of the closest relationships between church and state that exists in Europe.

Shown above - underneath a church in the inland town of Menitas, delicious, drinkable water gushes forth from an ancient spring.
On Sunday in Andros town the citizens split up amongst almost a dozen churches of varying sizes, from the imposing central cathedral to this minuscule fishermen's chapel by the old dock. The town was quiet through most of the morning, then came to life as the congregants began emerging into the sunlight to take their places at cafes and bars. Some carried halved, semi-circular loaves of bread and small bouquets of flowers - a lenten tradition, we guessed.

Ferrily We Roll Along

Anyone who has ever nursed jet-lag after merely "crossing the pond," knows that sometimes travel is easier said than done. Such is the case with "island hopping," a term that suggests a buoyant bouncing from place to place, but which actually involves hours at sea and either a good dose of planning or absolutely no time or money constraints. Island hopping is tricky, but completely worth it. It requires a Type A strategy, and a willingness to cut it some serious Type B slack.
At least one ferry sits in every port, dwarfing the cars, buses, bikes and smaller buildings around it. Where and when that ferry will move into action is usually scrawled on a marker board placed outside one of many ferry offices. The routes are always the same, but the schedule thins out drastically in the off season. Basically, this is my ideal sort of travel. I was the kid who sometimes wrote her history report in the form of a song, but would be absolutely paralyzed without an assigned topic. Island hopping in March equals creativity within a framework. It's a lot like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books.
The ferry horn signals its proximity. People emerge from stores with packages they need to send off. Waiters collect coins and cups left by their customers, all waiting for the boat, all leaving at once. Napping bus drivers arise and start their engines for the load of arrivals coming in. Cars are returned to, bags are picked up. There's a very short amount of time for loading and unloading and everyone's gotta be ready. In Syros, men from the bakery sprinted on to sell candy to ferry passengers and, admirably, made it back off before the door closed once more.
These have been our first experiences as ferry walk-ons, having had our car with us on previous ferries. All crowded together, on either end, people recognize and greet one another. It's fun to guess how long someone's been traveling by what they have with them. A bag of newspapers and magazines was probably just a day trip onto a bigger island. A number of people carry sleeping bags, preferring to snag a spot in the lobby than pay for a private cabin on an overnight trip to Athens.
Ferry travel in Greece has changed a lot over the past decade. The ferries are faster and fancier, more expensive but more convenient. A recent conversation we had with a young gourmet shop owner named Achilles really got me thinking about how the culture of the islands must be affected by it all. We told him we'd gone to the Fourni Islands and he was amused/aghast. "They are crazy there!" he said. I immediately felt protective of Toula and Niko and all the rest, but understood where he was coming from. Fourni is remote, it's a backwater. Until recently, people probably rarely left their little island. Nowadays, students leave for school, to shop, to spend an afternoon out on the town in Samos. The characteristic 'craziness' may be dissappating.
There are a number of different ferry companies, but they're all basically the same, as the prices are fixed by the government according to distance, season and time of day. Still, it's fun to notice the difference in staff uniforms, docking procedure, refreshment options, decor. Here, on a SuperFerry, a separate walkway was available for people who wanted to avoid the car ramp. The high marks they got for this were offset by the on board Goody's and its wafting fast food smell. Our Blue Star boat had framed newspaper clippings near reception showing the vessel's special mission to Lebanon to pick up French refugees in 2004. They also had a self-service restaurant and didn't allow dogs. To each their own.
A port town looks its loveliest from the deck of a ship. Framed by the ship's solid lines and angles, an island's gorgeousness is magnified. Only from the water can you see the whole picture, the buildings piled on on top of another etched into the side of a cliff or scattered across rolling hills. It feels bigger and more three dimensional than your on foot experience had been and then it seems smaller and flatter as the boat pulls away from the port.
Watching the land fall backwards as you set out to sea stirs up a lot of excitement and tinge of sorrow. You're saying goodbye to a place you've called home, the solitary land mass that's been your solid ground for a few days or a few hours disappears before your eyes. And then it's back to the blank slate of the ocean and the anticipation of the next island's impression.

We sprung for a cabin on our overnight to Syros and were impressed with our location. Right at the front looking out over the prow! This wound up being unfortunate on account of the choppy seas. Our drawers slid open and shut, being vertical wasn't an option, but it was a heck of a lot more fun than airplane turbulence.