may, 29th - rooftops....

day 110:

so...the very first family holiday comes to an end.....

Limi appears to have got the hang of it!

may, 28th - history lesson.....

day 109:

It is not living that matters, but living rightly. Socrates 


travelling for us, is not just about ticking off a list of sights but also about hours spent at cafes soaking up the local atmosphere and often....a traipse down small, crooked alleys looking for a specific shop or cafe that i've read about...but given that this was the very first trip to Greece for all 3 of us, there was so much mainstream history to absorb...that we were real tourists. after a hike up to the Acropolis we visited the new Acropolis Museum....definitely one of my new favourite museums of the world.....and of course with the interesting debate still surrounding the 'missing' pieces that reside in London it was interesting to look at artefacts from a jigsaw perspective...head in London, body in Athens!!


[no photography is permitted in the new museum. the below pics are from the Acropolis, the Archaeological Museum and the British Museum that we visited the day that we got back!]

may, 27th - bad parents...

day 108:

throw out some sunshine and it's about getting bare toes out and enjoying some heat on bare skin...of course with limi it's about finding the shade, throwing on a hat or spreading on the sunscreen...but definitely still bare toes!! so we were surprised when Katerina, who owns the apartment that we've rented, said that Limi was completely underdressed by Greek standards: bare shoulders, feet, arms. 

that explains some of the intense looks that we've been getting from the older Greek generation.

may, 25th - heaped teaspoon of sweetness....

day 107:

a traditional Greek custom is to offer spoon sweets to guests as a symbol of hospitality. they are called "spoon sweets" as they are generally served on a teaspoon....in Kithira, every lazy, sunny day so far......has definitely felt like a heaped teaspoon of something sweet....

[lunch at Avlemenos]

[swim at Limni beach.....we were hoping for a sign for Limi]

[swimming]

may, 24th - greek honey.....

day 106:

well...we're into day 5 of our visit to Greece and our first family holiday. after years of feeling like we could be spontaneous and adventurous, I was concerned that travelling with a baby would mean that those feelings would be replaced with frustration and restrictions but in Greece....it just means that we are delayed by the many people...young and old, who stop to coo and show genuine delight in the fact that we have added to the population!

rather than feeling like foreigners and Limi alienating people....we have found that (well in Greece at least) a baby means that you can get under the skin of a place...conversing with locals...

Local: [says something in Greek that you don't understand]

Us: [smile...look clueless]

Local: [points to Limi] How old?

Us: trion minon [three months old! the tiny bit of Greek that we have learnt and use as much as Hello! Thank You! Please!]

given that we love seeing a place from the inside rather than an outside....we should have had a baby years ago!!


thanks Limi for introducing us to the locals!

may, 23rd - alfresco living...

day 105:

Definitely one of the sad things that I miss from home is alfesco living.....so once we had settled ourselves in the apartment on Kithira....we gave limi her very first outdoor bath!!

may, 22nd - by sea....

day 104:

i love travelling by train...one of my favourite trips is splurging on a 1st class Eurostar  trip between London and Paris (see day 81)...it reminds me of a romantic time where the pace was slower and people appreciated the distances and differences between places.

my next best way to travel....is by water. big boats, small boats, ferries....water has factored into some of my best travelling times. years ago, i spent two days travelling down the coast of turkey by ferry and loved sitting on the deck watching the coast go by, fascinated by the collection of passengers who ranged from crumpled looking back-packers...to stylish grans in gold-rimmed glasses and blue trim blazers.

so....with no flight to Kithira till Monday and our friend, Stav, waiting for us on the island....we decided to catch the weekly ferry that travels between Athens and Kithira.....the ferry takes 6.5 hours.....and arrives at 1am!!!

Limi took the trip in her stride and stayed up waaay past her bedtime....probably due to the sugar-enhanced kids on the ferry who were tearing around with wild and loud abandon.....but at about 11pm, when limi was merrily dreaming away...the same kids were coming down from their sugar high and having meltdowns all over the ferry with parents scooping up the puddles!

may, 21st - 24hrs in athens....

day 103:

limi with her crayons out in Athens

may, 20th - 1st family holiday....

day 102:

against the odds....with new threats of volcanic ash.....British Airways strikes.....economic meltdown in Greece.....we still managed to make it to Athens for our very first family holiday!!!

.....only to find....

 that the connecting flight to the tiny island of Kithira was cancelled due to transport strikes in Greece....

-----------------------------------

the strike is only expected to last a day but the next flight with availability is Monday….so we’ve decided to spend a night in Athens and figure out our options from there…..

before I had Limi…I used to have a recurring nightmare where I had given birth to a baby and either, kept forgetting their ‘unique’ name that I’d chosen (I would continually end up writing it on my hand) or kept leaving them in a shop/restaurant/ the car…..I would wake up in a sweat thinking that I was obviously not responsible enough to have a child and should start with a pot-plant instead….well, trying to keep track of all our bags and Limi through the airport, taxi queue and safely into our hotel room….i broke out in the same sweat!

but....3 hours later and we were sitting on the roof terrace of our hotel drinking in this view....

although Lissom was more interested in her toes.....so much for showing her the world....

ps. just before i fell asleep, British Airways texted to say that our flight home next week has been cancelled!