The Skyros blog I had originally written is stuck on the computer on the Pipedream. I have the photos I was choosing to use so I’m just going to showcase the photos and tell the story in captions.
This was where the boat eventually ended up. We started by anchoring out and taking the dingy into town. When we tied up a very nice Austrian couple informed us that the catamaran that was at the harbor before had docked side too and there was no problem with that. The couple was planning on leaving super early the next morning so we could move our boat in where theirs was. They pointed out that to drop an anchor would be problematic because of the piles of rocks in the harbor area and because of the mountain of silt that had built up around a town drain. We thanked them, went back to the boat, raised the anchor, and took the boat in side to. Well a restaurant owner along the waterfront didn’t like the idea of us keeping our boat there and came out to yell at us. He said we had to drop an anchor and back in for all of the other boats that were coming in. We said if any other boats came in we would go back to anchor and he eventually left us alone. Sure enough, no other boats came into the harbor. When the nice couple left the next morning we swung the boat around with the help of another boater and we were there. Later that day more boats did come in and they had to drop anchors and back up to make more space. We were happy to be tied up to the wall, but then we were pinned into the space and had to wait for the others to leave before we could get out. So we hung out in Skyros for awhile.
There was one bus that went into town twice during the day and came back to the harbor two times a day. The bus went into town at around 7:30am and the only thing that was open was this coffee shop and a local bakery. Twist our arms to have a fresh loaf of bread and our own coffee press of fresh black coffee. It was delicious and a lot of fun to sit and watch as the town began to wake up.
If you look at the top of this hill/mountain you will see a monastery. This is an old Venetian castle and is now the Monastery of St. George. The highlight of Skyros town. So it was only natural that we continue our tradition of climbing to the highest point on any Greek island because that is generally where the coolest things are. Dad was looking for a plumbing store to purchase a part for the engine’s water pump and he said he would meet us at the top.
There weren’t any real signs leading up to the monastery so Mom and I started walking up. The roads in the Greek Islands are a labyrinth of paths, stairs, and people’s homes. Knowing the general direction the castle was we picked random stairways to climb and as we got further out of the main town we started meeting more of the locals. This was the best part of the entire trip up. We would be walking along and men and women would stick their heads out of their doors and greet us with a “Kale mera!” which translates to “Good day!” and we would say “Monastery?” and would get lots of smiles and pointing up another flight of stairs. One woman got a big smile on her face and lifted her arms to show how strong we were for walking up that far. We ran into a number of dead ends that were people’s front doors, but had a blast getting there.
At the top we stopped at a park bench to take in the view and catch our breath. Maybe 5 minutes after we sat down Dad came walking up behind us. He cheated and took a cab to the top.
Fodor’s said there was a great garden inside of the walls and that was a single monk still living at the Monastery of St. George. What we didn’t know was that about 10 years ago there was an earthquake and they closed the doors to the entire building. We thought there may be another entrance and it was just the basilica part that was closed so we walked down a few flight of stairs and walked back up another flight… and we ended up in the same place. The entrance was the same and it was closed.
This was one of the homes by the monastery. I would love to have a balcony hanging off a cliff overlooking the entire town. I love Greece.
This was our pet dog for the day. The dog started to follow us after our morning coffee. It followed Mom and I up to the monastery and then followed all three of us down through the town. Once we got into the town people reacted very differently to it. There was one restaurant owner who fed it and there was a woman who yelled at it when it got close to her shop. I didn’t understand the hostility until I saw it walking down the road with a rabbit toy she was selling secured between its teeth. The toy was covered in “real” rabbit fur and had a rubber ball in the center. The dog had lifted the toy from the basket and claimed it as its own. I saw it and my first reaction was “Our dog stole a toy!” and then I remembered it’s not our dog at all and started to laugh.
The flowers in town were beautiful. I would love to have a wall with a blue door like that to just decorate with flowers. I think it would look a bit odd in central Florida though. I’ll just have to buy a Greek villa.
We had to wait for the 2:30pm bus and were running out of things to do so we decided to go for a walk. The hike to the monastery wasn’t quite enough activity for the day so we decided to try and follow a road down to the water. So we picked one and started walking down the winding road. As we lost more and more altitude it became more of a quest to find the water and this donkey was one of the obstacles we encountered along the way.
We didn’t quite make it all the way to the water. We got to a point in the road though where we could see that it was probably another 5 miles away and decided that a coke at a nice café may be a better way to spend the rest of our waiting time. We had to document the fact that we did indeed see the water so if you look at the far right of the photo you will see water.
Mom and I went back to town the next day to go grocery shopping. It was a bit too windy to leave so we decided to get groceries and do some boat maintenance. While we were in town this time Mom and I stopped and got a ton of fresh delicious breads and pastries and while we were waiting for the grocery store to open we went in search of Pi for Mom’s teaching quest.
When we got back to the boat Dad had fixed the roller furler and Mom was helping him put the jib (the really big sail in the front of the boat) back up and I could hear the sail being blown all over. I went on deck to just hold the sheets so the metal loop on the sail where the sheet was looped through didn’t hit the car that was parked next to our boat. While holding onto the sheet and trying to control the sail some another line was whipping around and actually gave me rope burn on my wrist. It sounds a lot worse than it actually was, but you better believe I played it up the rest of the trip and it turned into a great joke and memory from the trip, not to mention a scar the size of a bug bite on my wrist.
For dinner two nights in a row we stepped off of the boat and went to an amazing restaurant right on the water. We had pork souvlaki (grilled meat on a stick) with fries and the best grilled pita. This was one of the highlight meals in Greece and with a giant Mythos we were more than satisfied.
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