September 13 / 14 / 15 am - Halifax to Athens
to Ikaria (Pyrgos Traditional Village)
"In the Magical Still of the Moonlit Night"
The last few days have been a whirlwind of travel … planes of various sizes, airport buses, airport lounges. With a special mention to Brian, our entertaining friend and ‘Uber' driver / comedian who drove us to the airport to start our journey with stories of sleeping in orange groves for a week in Florida as no hotels were available.
Everything went pretty much to plan. All good through Halifax security … check and a sigh of relief! The lounge experiences were good … no line ups to get in, and with lots of seating available. The coffee machine was working in Halifax this time … check! Three glasses of Prosecco to start off the trip in Montreal … clink and check!🥂
Montreal to Athens in the extra leg room category … brought out mixed feelings. While the extra space was wonderful the design of the seats was not the best. Very narrow seats with very small storage nets. Smaller TVs … but happily Season 3 to White Lotus was available! Strangely I experienced many annoying long wait in washroom lineups no matter even if it was in the middle of the night, lol! On that particular plane the luxury of extra space was not really worth it as it came with other complications.
Of all times when we didn’t need extra time we were early arriving 45 minutes ahead of schedule … so early no gate was available!
The only long line up was in Athens to check into Sky Express on our way to Ikaria. Here we learned a valuable lesson that sometimes special accommodation can be made to people with physical issues standing in long lines if you just speak up about it. We were brought close to the front of the line only to be told we couldn’t check in yet and to return in a few hours! So glad Norm did not endure the pain he would have for sure experienced had we stayed quietly in line … and all for nothing … let alone the potential time wasted. Due to not being able to access the lounge prior to check in, we choose to plop ourselves down in a quiet but busy cafe.
The Sky Express Lounge, once we had access after check in, was included in our ticket price to Ikaria and was much appreciated. There we had a jiffy nap, a quick bite to eat and drink before it was time to board our fairly small prop plane to Ikaria. We arrived to a stark sun burnt land surrounded by gorgeous blue seas and with pleasant temperatures cooled by a stiff wind. The car rental went seamlessly and within a half hour drive we were checking into our little stone house high up looking over the port town of Agios Kirykos and the deep blue sea. “Pyrgos Traditional Houses”.
The place reminds us a little of Pano Gitonia in Amorgos, only newer construction … a conglomeration of differently sized units clustered together yet private. A large beautiful inviting pool greeted us as we walked by. Our apartment is lovely and a nice size with a spacious balcony. It unfortunately had a few plumbing quirks which were addressed very quickly Monday morning.
As it was so late and seeing as how our ‘fuel tanks’ were pretty empty we chose to order in from the only delivery available. I had a delicious Greek salad and Norm a stuffed ‘Gyros’, the pita bread wrap stuffed with tzatziki, pork, and fries.
It wasn’t long before we simply crashed. Sleep came easy at first but was broken up by periods of wakefulness throughout the night. On one of these occasions we stepped outside under the glow of the moonlight and a starlit sky. By now the brisk wind had completely subsided. All was so very still. Inside the 3/4 moon was the crescent shape of the new moon ‘being born’. It was very special to be able to share this moment in the moonlight together.
