Day 4: Chios

Dawn’s Early Light: I didn’t sleep very well on the ship because I purposely left the light on so we would not miss our disembarking point at 3:00 AM in the morning. At about 2:40 AM, someone knocked on our cabin door to let us know that we would be arriving in Chios very soon.

Surprisingly, the port city was fairly active at 3:00 AM. Apparently, the arrival of ships to Chios is very predictable so coffee shops stay open to serve the people/tourist getting off the boat. We had some coffee and water at a small coffee at the port.

Panayiamou (Translation: Mother of God): Aunt Voula had arranged for a rental car for us. The village of Lithi is about 21 km from the port. After our drinks, we headed out for the village at about 4:00 AM. The streets of Chios are small and narrow, windy, and made of stones, pebbles, and cobblestone. It was pitch dark, with the streets empty and houses were darkened. People were asleep, as they should be at 4:00 AM. However, our start was punctuated by a strange sight. Josephine had seen something very strange. I know this sounds unbelievable, but Aunt Voula saw it too. There was a man wearing only a shirt and boots, naked from the waist down, going for his “morning exercise” I guess, which consisted of walking on a dark road on a remote island in Greece and playing with himself. Aunt Voula said she saw him, but couldn’t believe her eyes and said she didn’t want to say anything because it was too weird. But after Josephine said something, we all had a good laugh about it throughout the day, especially in the morning. Uncle Chris says that the village is a “sexy village.”

Φωτογραφηα: Getting to the village house at 4:30 AM provided the best photographic opportunities I have ever had because of the very soft lighting of the moonlight and early morning. So you’ll have to check out some of the pictures in the photo album on Flickr.com.

Tropical waters: These pictures are so cool, taken from the hills as we were driving around the island today.

Farmer: This is Andonis, Uncle Chris’ friend. He and his wife Kiki, have rental rooms for tourists as well as a bar. Andonis is a farmer. I took this photo with my new telephoto lens.

Unreachable: We drove around half of the island today, the main attractions being the ancient city of Anavatos (which means “unreachable”) and a very nice Greek restaurant in the hills of Chios. Anavatos is an ancient city on the island of Chios where its original inhabitants built their “fortified” homes out of stones, high up on the hillside to prevent thieves from stealing from them.

Greek Cuisine: After the tour of the ruins of Anavatos, we drove around for a few hours because Uncle Chris and Aunt Voula got lost trying to find this Greek restaurant hidden in the hills somewhere. When we finally arrived, I was so sleepy, but the authentic Greek food woke me up. After having a couple of Greek salads here in Greece, I’d have to say that Josephine’s Greek salad is still the very best I have ever tasted. Don’t get me wrong, these salads are great too, but Josephine’s is just out of this world!

Anyways, the restaurant is family-owned. It’s located in the hills somewhere on the island. The main eating area is outside. Apparently during the non-tourist season it’s only open on weekends and during the season (June through August, it’s open every day). The food was fantastic. We had Greek salad of course, red wine, goat chops, fried cheese with tomatoes, macaronia (known as spaghetti in the United States), bread, fried potatoes, and fried filo dough pastries stuffed with melted cheese. All the food is prepared from home-grown vegetables. The pasta is hand-made. This macaronia (spaghetti) is THE BEST I have ever tasted. The pasta is soooo soft. The water comes from a fresh spring that flows down to the restaurant from the mountain tops of Chios. It’s the only restaurant on the island that does not serve bottled water.

A side comment about the wine… I normally don’t enjoy wine or much alcohol, but this wine was so sweet. I liked it a lot. I slept in the car on the drive home. Josephine and I crashed for five hours. It was the longest sleep we’ve had in the last four days.

Cooking with Kiki: Later that night, Kiki (Aunt Voula’s friend) cooked us dinner. It was soooo good. We had Greek salad, stuffed grape leaves (rice), egg souffle with onions, spanacopita, and pea soup with potatoes and spinach.

Eurovision: We spent the rest of the evening relaxing, watching Eurovision, which is the progenitor of American Idol. Eurovision is a singing contest between European countries, where home viewers in their respective countries vote for the best performance. This year, Greece won! The song was called My Number One.

Ouzo and Politics: I tried ouzo for the first time at dinner too. Ouzo is the Greek liquor made from licorice and figs. It smells like licorice. I just took a few sips, but I definitely did not like it. Somehow or another, the subject of Jimmy Carter came up while we were sightseeing today. I think some building or another was remodeled for a visit from Carter. “Do you remember Carter?” I replied: “How could you forget?” While we were watching Eurovision, the country of Moldava came up for their performance. I commented that Moldava was in Eastern Europe. Andonis said in Greek that my geography was better than that of Mr. Bush. I get the impression that the Greeks are not fond of President Bush.

Time for bed. It’s 2:30 AM. Tomorrow we are going to tour the other side of the island, then head back to Athens early in the morning, so Aunt Voula can go to work.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 21st, 2005 at 11:16 pm and is filed under Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.