July 19-26
Driving around Europe is immensely fun and rewarding. It
can, however, be a bit stressful. Though on the road for the best part of three
weeks, there hadn’t been too much time to relax. We thus hopped on a plane from
Munich and headed south to the Greek island of Zakynthos for some R&R.
It may be obvious from the volume of blogs that I write, but
I struggle if I am forced to stay in one place for an extended period of time.
I get restless. A week without much communication with the outside world is
thus not my top pick for a holiday. This time, however, I knew that I had no
need to worry about boredom. This wasn’t a usual holiday. It was a family
holiday…yet not my family…
This was eloquently put to me as ‘the gauntlet’. A week
with Hannah’s family with no means of escape, and no way of watching the
cricket. A week of ridicule and banter would surely ensue and break me down to
the point at which I would rather be venomised by the numerous spiders, snakes
and insects we walked past than endure another breakfast.
Well, in a parallel universe that may have happened. As it
was, the most poignant mockery was made just about within the first hour of
arriving at the tiny airport. We were whisked off onto a rented boat and driven
around to the northern side of the island. It was here that everybody else
quickly realised my inability to dive. The Polish driver described my dive as
like one of a toad. One of my objectives for the week became to learn to dive.
The video at the bottom will show you if I was successful.
Zakynthos, more commonly known amongst the 18-30 crowd as
Zante, is an island to the west of the Greek heartland. The area we stayed in
was very much a place where the 18-30 crowd don’t go: the quieter side of town.
We were in a villa high above the sea, within binocular range of where Prince
Edward was staying. Like I said, not your usual 18-30 zone. The
drink-yourself-to-the-abyss pat of Zakynthos is a town on the south side called
Laganas. Put an ‘S’ in front of that and you’ll discover our rather low opinion
of the place, and that we avoided it.
The members of Hannah’s family who owned the villa also had
a boat called Barbara. Unfortunately, she was out of action for the majority of
our stay, but we did rent a boat for another morning. The temperature of the
sea fluctuated mildly, but was never uncomfortable. Some areas were shallow
enough for us to mess around on the surprisingly rare sand-filled bed, yet
others were darkly deep within metres of the rocky shoreline.
The advantage of having a boat at your disposal is that you
have the freedom to travel to any part of an island’s coastline and explore
areas that one may not otherwise find. One such example took us to a café further
south from the port. The calamari was fresh, tender and delicious: probably the
best I’ve ever had.
Though I spent a lot of the week relaxing in the shade, I was
able to expend plenty of energy running, swimming and playing tennis to prevent
from becoming fidgety. Running up and down the steep hills is brutal in the
intense heat offered on Zakynthos, even in the early morning. On one such run I
lost my bearings and ended up quite far inland, much to the amusement of those
in the villa.
By the time final full day had snuck up on us Barbara had
been fully mended and was ready to take us on our final boating excursion. Lots
of jumping and diving – the toad turned into a prince eventually – into the
deep blue sea.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable week in Zakynthos. My first experience of Greece was probably unique amongst people of my age, but I am certainly not complaining. I also now know why people invest so much money into buying boats. ‘The gauntlet’ was very much survived and was nowhere near as bad as certain people had suggested, and was entertaining throughout.
Love you all
Matt
No comments:
Post a Comment