camanoescape – The Wagnerson's Travel Adventures

Today after breakfast, we were all picked up by Kostas, the owner of Godive Mykonos where we were taken to Lia Beach, about 20 minutes away from where we’re staying.  Our plan was to dive two different dive sites.  While Barb held down the beach encampment and continued her ever present search for sea shells, Lynda, Doug and I climbed on board the dive boat and headed out for our first dive site.

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Once we arrived at the first dive site, the three of us hit the water and descended into the deep.  According to my wrist dive computer, the water temperature was around 70 degrees.  We were diving a small reef about a mile south of Lia Beach.  We discovered that our waterproof cameras that Doug and I were planning on taking with us on these dives were only waterproof to 33 feet under water.  Since we were planning on going twice that deep, the cameras were left on the boat.  Our dive masters had a camera that would take the depth we were going to, but we’re still waiting for him to email us the photos.  The water was so crystal clear that no matter how deep you went away from the surface, the visibility was tremendous.  We saw schools of fish, barracudas, and moray eels.  We also saw amphora (ancient Greek jars and vases from centuries past).  It was all so very amazing and wonderful.  Towards the end of the dive, I was getting low on air and one of our dive masters handed me his auxiliary regulator off of his tank and so he, Lynda and I surfaced first to get back to the boat.  On that dive we went down 59 feet.  Climbing back onto the boat we headed back to Lia Beach to rest a bit before going out for our second dive.  The second dive to Lia Reef was just as amazing, with more amphora and moray eels and schools of fish.  We circled the entire reef.  This dive took us to 67 feet below the surface.  Back on the boat after the dive, we headed back to Lia Beach to turn in our equipment and head back to the hotel.  A truly wonderful and amazing day it has been.

Regarding Barb’s post “Opa!”, she was spot on!  Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective), where there was Wagnerson participation in Greek dancing, the place was very dark and the pictures didn’t really turn out.  Here are a few that did including one with half of the Wagnersons dancing through the restaurant to the Greek music.  OPA!

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We are having an absolutely great trip, due in large part to all the time and effort Dale put into the planning. Hours and hours of research and nailing down detailsee. Making contacts and reservations and getting to every train or bus station,airport or ferry terminal with all appropriate paperwork and always on time. He is truly tour guide extraordinary.  Doug and I wanted to thank him for all his efforts but hadn’t really known what exactly to do. Finally last night it came to us. He needed his own paddle for leading his tour group.  

We then went in search of a restaurant for a traditional Greek meal. We were turned away from several being as we didn’t have reservations. It seems it was dance night in Mykonos and things filled up fast. We finally found what we were looking for, a nice quiet spot with a great looking menu. Our waiter was very personable and helped us with our selections. We had just gotten our drinks (Lynda’ s came with a lit sparkler in it) when the music began to play and, you guessed it, the dancing began. It started slowly enough with just two girls in traditional dress doing the dancing. But soon they were pulling customers in to the action. It got louder and more energetic as time went on. At several points we found ourselves in a Greek conga line. There was was laughing and dancing and frequent shouts of  OPA which we thought meant cheers since there was also a lot of drinking going on. We found out later that opa is an expression they use that means great fun. We are having that. OPA!!

It is Friday, June 3rd.  A cup of coffee at dinner last night kept me awake until around 3:15 a.m. this morning.  This coincided with our 5:00 a.m. wake up alarm to shower, pack up and be outside the hotel at 6:15 a.m. for a shuttle to the Athens port to catch our ferry to the Island of Mykonos which was to depart at 7:30.  Ready and waiting at the appointed time, our van driver showed up a little while later and took us to the ferry.  We boarded the ferry with our luggage and stowed it below at the garage level.  There were eight decks above us.  We were sent to the sixth deck above us by elevator.  The four of us wandered like bewildered children unsure of where we were supposed to be going or even what we were looking for.  It was a crowded ferry with sofas, chairs and some dining tables along the way.  It was loud and chaotic with people sprawled every which way.  Moving towards the front of the ship we kept walking until we reached a section called business class, where an attendant was checking credentials.  Unsure if our tickets qualified us to enter we walked up to him and showed him our tickets (all of the tickets were in Greek and you know what they say, it’s all Greek to me.  So far no one in our group has stepped up to act as a translator for the rest of us).  The attendant told us that we all had business class tickets and to come on in.  It was like a secluded little paradise with few people, plush carpeting and cushy leather chairs surrounding glass tables (it’s at times like this that paying 50 euros per ticket rather than 35 really seems like a bargain.  As the ferry set sail, Lynda turned her chair around to face the front so she could keep watch for sea life of any kind, especially seals, whales or dolphins!  You can her take her away from the Vortex, but you can’t change her sea watching habits!!!

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We couldn’t get off the vessel before Lynda and Barb found the gift shop.  I mean who doesn’t want to shop for clothing on a Greek ferry?  Doug and I remained at our ship front table reading while the ladies did what ladies do.  In almost no time, they arrived back at our table clutching their latest acquisitions.  They each had a T-shirt, one white and one pink and they both had the phrase we’ve all repeatedly been able to say on this trip, “Serendipity”.  Barb then showed me a little history on that word.  Serendipity is a word which reportedly was first coined in 1754.  It is defined as the phenomenon of unexpectedly finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.  Uhh yeah, but didn’t you guys purposely go shopping for clothing?  Their response in unison?  “Yeah, but we didn’t purposely go shopping for a T-shirt that said serendipity on it!  Come on!!”  Nuff said.

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We arrived in Mykonos about 12:45 this afternoon and our ride was waiting for us to take us to our hotel.  We are staying at Petinos Beach Hotel on Platys Yialos beach.  There are all kinds of shops and restaurants around here and what is striking about this place is the buildings are brilliant white with blue trim.

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Our hotel desk clerk told us there are no private beaches here but some beaches are more populated than others.  After checking in, we changed into swimming attire and set off on a walking path at the recommendation of the hotel clerk that would take us on a path to hit four to five different beaches along the way depending on how far we wanted to walk.  The temperature is cooler and more comfortable than Athens was, probably somewhere in the mid 80’s.  We wanted to cool off in the ocean but not necessarily rub shoulders with the rest of the bathers at the crowded beaches.  We hit the fourth beach and decided we didn’t want to walk any farther.  As we set down our backpacks and our towels and hit the water, it soon became very apparent that this was a “clothing optional” beach!  It was pretty shocking at first but we just minded our own business and didn’t stick our nose in other people’s business.  Doug and I reminded Lynda and Barb that clothing was indeed “optional” and our words were met with a cool, “And we are choosing to exercise our options.”  The water was warmer than the water at Elger Bay but probably by only 12-15 degrees or so.  After swimming and cooling off for about an hour, we decided it had been a long day and should probably head back to the hotel for some rest.  As we were walking back, with our eyes now tuned into the fact that we had just come from a clothing optional beach, we noticed that basically all of the beaches we had passed previously were indeed clothing optional.  As we got back to our hotel, Barb matter of factly stated, “There are no private beaches but some beaches show their privates.”  We all had a good laugh at that synopsis.  I would sum up the experience by saying it was quite memorable.  Some were very pleasant memories, and some were memorable like the nightmare you just can’t quite shake.  Anyway, we are back at the hotel and now resting up for dinner.

Waking up in our hotel room across from the Temple of Zeus, made for a pretty cool sunrise this morning.

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We had an early (7:30 a.m.) breakfast and waited out front to be picked up for a tour of the ancient sites here in Athens at 8:30.  There was another couple from our hotel who were also joining us on the tour who happened to be from Portland, OR.  It’s a small world.  Our tour guide met us at the hotel entrance and walked us to a massive tour bus.  We climbed on board and found it was already loaded with about 60 other people.  Surprise is an understatement.  The four stunned Wagnersons had to make our way to the back of the bus to find an empty seat and we looked at each other as we sat down.  “Oh my!  We’ve become one of “those” tour people.”  Keep an open mind we reminded ourselves.  Let’s just see how this goes.  As we pulled out and our tour guide started speaking over the speakers, her soft spoken voice was almost unintelligible.  Doug started mumbling with a “you’ve got to be kidding me” look in his eyes.

Our first stop was at the Panathenaic stadium, originally constructed in 566 BC and rebuilt in marble in 329 BC.  It was updated and a new section of seating was constructed for the start of the modern Olympic Games in 1896.  The best moment of this stadium stop was seeing a man dressed in ancient battle dress with a helmet, spear and a shield (so tourists could pose with him), but he was talking on a cell phone with his helmet on.  None of us were quick enough to snap a photo as the bus was stopping in front of him.  All passengers were told as we departed the bus that this was a five-minute stop.  Everyone seemed to make it back within about 5-7 minutes except for some clown and his family who apparently relished the idea of making everyone on the bus wait for him.  This was even after the tour guide walked up to him and found them and said to return to the bus.  They eventually did after another five minutes.  Ooooohh, this tour is just getting better and better.  The bus finally left when the family climbed on board.  We quickly drove past several other monuments and things that our unintelligible tour guide was mumbling about.  No clue about what they were.  We stopped at one other place and everyone got off except the four Wagnersons.  We remained in the bus mumbling to ourselves about what we had become.  The tour guide even had an umbrella she was holding up to lead the group that we were in.  Are you kidding me?

After a short stop the massive herd of tourists all climbed back onboard the bus and we drove another few minutes and stopped again to go into a museum.  Everyone got off the bus and as before, the four Wagnersons remained on the bus.  We looked at each other and said, ENOUGH!  So, we got off the bus, ducked out of the tour and went on our own never looking back at the tour people.

We had a much better experience after we ditched the tour.  The four of us walked to the top of the hill to visit the Acropolis.  It was pretty amazing with absolutely breathtaking views of the city of Athens.  I took more than 30 photos but upon returning to our hotel afterwards, only 3 photos were present on the camera.  Bad camera malfunction? Or Tour ditching Karma paybacks?.  Oh well, it was about 90 degrees outside and we were not climbing back up to the Acropolis again for a re-do of the pictures.  I will just have to picture those views only in my mind!

After our tour, we partook of some authentic Greek food, or as they call it here in Greece…….food!  The four of us ordered and ate LAMB gyros and some Uzo to wash it down.  Lamb!!  My, my, my, how far have I fallen?  If only Mary didn’t let the lamb follow her to school that day!

Here is a view of the Acropolis from our hotel’s rooftop restaurant where we had dinner tonight.

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We arrived in Athens, Greece on Wednesday and the four of us made it to our hotel called the Athens Gate.  This place is pretty spectacular plopped right down in the middle of Athens with ancient history all around us.  The Acropolis sits up high above us and looks remarkable.  Our hotel is across the street from the ruins of the Temple of Zeus.

Changing into some cooler clothes to match the 91 degree temperature here in Athens, we soon set off to explore the area around our hotel and to find some dinner.  A little searching and we were able to find a bakery with tasty offerings which we purchased for later.  Continuing our explorations, we found a restaurant recommended to us by the van driver who picked us up at the airport.  Now for the menu.  Fried calamari was available however I pictured it as perhaps arriving at our table as several sections of long tentacles that had been fried, and so I figured I’d try a safer bet, and ordered what was billed as “small shrimps fried.”  I mean how can small shrimps fried be bad?

As the waiter brought our respective orders, I was brought a plate full of three inch long creatures that had obviously been deep fried. There were probably 50 of them. They were the oddest looking “small shrimps” that I had ever seen but hey, we’re in Greece, keep and open mind and let’s see how it is.  Oh, and did I mention that everyone of these creatures had a pair of eyeballs looking back at me?  I think that makes it about 100 eyeballs staring at me as I began munching them down.  I ate around 10-15 of them and I have to be frank, they didn’t taste very good.  I turned to the Norwegian in our midst and asked him to try them and see what he thought.  He sampled one and agreed they didn’t taste like shrimp to him either.  When the waiter came by, I asked him to verify that this was a plate of “small shrimps fried.”  “No”, he said….”those are cooked smelt.”  Oh Lovely!  He soon replaced my cooked smelt with another plate full of apparently “small shrimps fried.”  As I observed these new creatures on my plate, I could see that yes, indeed, these were shrimp, about 50 of them.  These shrimp were cooked, deep fried in fact, with all of their clothes still on including their heads and yes of course their two eyeballs.  I think that makes another 100 eyeballs looking back at me.  Nevertheless, I started munching on em anyway.  However, after chowing down another 10-15 of these, the glow and exhilaration of eating our first meal here in Greece began to wane as the eyeballs on my plate kept staring at me.  In fact, I think I saw one wink at me.  It was at that point that I decided to call a truce in my stare down with my own meal and call a cease fire.  By the way, Doug and Barb ordered the calamari, gave me a sample and it looked and tasted great!

When everyone was finished with their meal, we stopped at a gelato place for some extra nourishment.  One scoop each of peach, pineapple, pistachio and chocolate sure took that eyeball taste of out my mouth.  Making it back to the hotel, we headed to bed for some rest and a tour of Athens tomorrow.

Our last evening is Sorrento is finished.  We had a wonderful dinner meal and said goodbye to our friends Giovanni, his sister Elizabeth and their father.  What a nice family!  As our time in Italy comes to a close, we again leave behind old friends and some new ones.  Italy is an amazing country with some of the warmest and friendliest people you will meet.  It is a magical place that continues to catch you unawares so that when you come upon something so fantastic, you find yourself gasping with awe.

We leave in the morning at 7 a.m. on our shuttle to Naples which will allow us to catch a fast train to Rome and then from there, our flight to Athens Greece.  Greece is an hour ahead of where we are in Italy and 10 hours ahead of the time back home.  I just checked and at 11 pm tonight in Athens, it is still 75 degrees.  High tomorrow in Athens is predicted to be 91 degrees.  Time to put our warm coats away!

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Monday and Tuesday in Sorrento were both kick back and relax days.  We visited the Corner Shop in Sorrento where we reconnected with Giovanni, our wine sommelier.  We had a great reunion with him and his father and sister Elizabeth.  It was like old home week in Sorrento.  When we walked in he looked at us for a long time and said……”Seattle?”  Yes, we were back.  After sampling some of his wares, Doug and I both ordered 3 cases each of a variety of amazing grape juice that he will be sending back home for us…perhaps before we even arrive home. We are having it sent to my office in Stanwood.  (note to my staff, please don’t break into the boxes)  Speaking of arriving home, in two weeks to the day we will be waking up in our own beds if the Lord is willing.

We also visited the Stinga marquetry shop.  Marquetry is decorative work in which elaborate patterns are formed by placing different pieces of colored wood onto a veneer that is then applied to a surface (as of a piece of furniture)   This man is an original artist.  He is now into his late 70s and he is the sweetest, most gentle man you will ever meet.  His wife, who has helped him with a fantastic eye for detail over the past 50 plus years has Alzheimer’s and is beyond helping him now in his craft.  He says the passion for doing such work has dimmed for him with her deterioration.  There is no telling how long he will keep going.  He has a caregiver part time for his wife when he works but he still cares for her.  He said his children want him to put her in a home.  He says no.  We met his wife who he proudly introduces by tapping his heart and saying, this is my wife!  We made some renewed purchases there.  Doug and Barb got an amazing piece of art that is hard to believe it is marquetry and not hand painted.

We have gotten used to the tours around here, usually packed with a multitude of people and always led by someone holding either their arm or a flower or something up in the air.  We even found one with flower antlers she was wearing in addition to her umbrella she would hold up.  Here are a few examples.

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It seems like if you hold your arm straight up in the air, you will immediately have about 15 people milling about you for the start of a tour.  Here is me testing the theory.  Yup!!

Sorrento sits way up on a bluff and the cliffs around the city acted as a protective barrier to keep intruders out back in the day when Homer wrote the Odyssey.  If you recall the story, Odysseus was on a collision course with the Sirens, those mythical women on the shore who would sing their sweet siren song and woo men to sail to towards them where they would crash onto the rocks and be killed.  Odysseus ordered his men to put bees wax in their ears and to tie him to the mast and not release him no matter what he told them.  As they were sailing by Sorrento the Sirens sang to him that beautiful song and he begged his men to release him but they bound him tighter and escaped certain death.  So enough with history and mythology, we’ve had an absolute great time here these last few days.

Today we started our anniversary celebrations….42 years for Lynda and me and 39 years for Doug and Barb.  Giovanni had a bottle of champagne that he has had chilled for us for the past couple of days.  We bought some bread, salami, cheese, onion jam, and olives at a local shop and loaded it into our backpack for an anniversary picnic at the beach.  We swung by Giovanni’s shop and picked up our chilled champagne for the picnic.  At the beach we set up our picnic spread to the envy of those around us and popped the champagne for an absolutely delightful anniversary lunch here in sunny Sorrento. The cheese had olives and chili peppers in the middle.  The lunch was amazing and the company even better.   It was absolutely spectacular with Mount Vesuvius in the background.  Just think, our real anniversaries are still 9-11 days off.

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Yay, more celebrations in order before we get back home!  As you can see by this next photo, Mount Vesuvius even gave a puff of volcanic activity as a note of celebration for us.  Yes, really!

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The weather has been amazing and we have arrived back home at our hotel this afternoon to rest up for our last evening in Sorrento.

Sunday morning here in sunny Sorrento began with a quick hotel breakfast at 7:30 so we could meet our shuttle to Pompei at 8:00 a.m.  One of the selling points for me for choosing this particular hotel in the early planning stage was that in the breakfast that was available here, it advertised that they served eggs.  Uhh, okay, if you count boiled eggs as really being a breakfast egg.  So…. how about those pastries?  With a couple cups of coffee and a little nourishment in our systems we walked out to the plaza and boarded our transportation to Pompei that was waiting for us.

It took about 45 minutes to drive and arrive at the Pompei gate where we hooked up with our private guide for a two-and-a-half-hour tour of this city dug out from the Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption in 79 A.D.  It was really quite fascinating in that the volcanic material covered this place so quickly that pretty much everything that was excavated was found just the way it was on the morning before the eruption.

Our tour of just 4 people with a guide was so much nicer and easier to hear than most of the tours which had at least 30-40-60 people in them.  Those tour guides would hold their arms straight up in the air or hold an umbrella or a flower on a stick up high so those following it would fall in line and try to stay close in order to hear what the tour guide was saying.  Uggghh.  No thank you please.   It was crowded and warm and people in the tours were seemingly getting more and more irritated, especially when our guide would speak with the guide of the big tours ahead of us and get us in front of the 50 or 60 people ahead of us.  I resisted the urge to chortle “gee, sure sucks to be you” as we passed by the big groups.  Remember, we’re trying to keep a low profile and all!  Plus, I’m just not that kind of a guy. 🙂

The roads, which doubled as Pompei’s drainage and sewage disposal system had cross walks (raised stones so one could walk across the street without stepping in the goo that lined the streets).  The roads also had tracks cut or worn into the stone streets to keep the wagons on track.  We learned also how in the amphitheaters, they had a pool of water in front of the stage to amplify the sound so everyone in the theater could hear.  As Doug and Barb are continually reminding us, sound travels around water!  The entire town, except for the roofs of buildings essentially survived the volcanic onslaught.  This included political statements on the walls outside of individual homes, much like our election yard signs seen around home at election time, frescos or paintings decorating the walls in the homes were all present as if they had just been painted, except this was over 2000 years ago.  It was pure and simply remarkable.

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As we neared the end of our time in Tuscany, Irene Gren, the young woman that we adopted as a daughter the last time we were here and who has taken over with her brother Eduardo, the vacation rental property business of her parents, spent quite a bit of time with us.  She showed us the house she will be moving into in Pergine Valdarno and the ongoing construction project involved with that.  We were able to go out to dinner with Irene and Eduardo and spent the entire evening talking with them and sharing a meal.  Irene would fit in so well at a fire pit back home where we solve the world’s problems.  Our time in Tuscany has been so wonderful, but time marches on and we found ourselves saying goodbye to Irene and Eduardo.

We left our friend, Irene and our villa in Tuscany on Friday morning, heading to Sorrento.  We had to drive an hour to the town of Chiusi to turn in our rental car which we did.  Yay, everyone survived seven days of my driving which should actually be quite noteworthy.  We all discovered over those last seven days that it’s not a good thing to have a left foot which operates the clutch pedal to be “dead” from some nerve damage where I can’t really feel where on the clutch pedal my foot is.  On more than one occasion as I was accelerating and shifting from one gear to the next, my foot would be too far to the right where I would also hit the brake pedal as I’m trying to shift….slamming everyone forward.  But hey, as they say, no one died, so all in all it kept our journeys exciting and everyone in the car had to remain alert as they had to be ready for anything when I was shifting.

We turned in the rental car, caught an intercity train to Rome (with about ten stops along the way) and then from Rome caught the fast train to Naples.  From there we took a shuttle to Sorrento.  Our shuttle driver in a Mercedes van thought it more important to turn on some entertaining music for our drive rather than the air conditioning in the 80 plus degree weather and the internal temperature of the van close to 120.  But, hey with the assortment of music like “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore” and then some song with Italian words that was the precise grade school tune of, “a big fat lady sat upon my hat, my hat she’s broke, it aint no joke, my hat she’s broke it aint no joke, Christopher Columbus now what do you think of that?” how can you not love that kind of music.  Oh and did I mention that it was at almost full volume?  Lovely.

Safely arriving in Sorrento, we checked into our hotel rooms which each had balconies to enjoy the 82 degree weather on Friday evening.  Sorrento is a beautiful, busy … beachy town, and quite different from 7 days in Tuscany.  Ahhh, lovely Sorrento!  Lemons are king here.  They are the size of a man’s fist or bigger and the lemon is found in all variations of food.  Lemon chicken, lemon fish, lemon pasta, lemon ice cream, Limoncello – that wonderful tasty lemon flavored digestivo that is served at the end of your meals to help digest your meal of course.  I know that CJ back in Florida really appreciates Limoncello!

Summertime has officially arrived in Sorrento and we started off on Saturday with Lynda and Barb stopping off at the local beauty shop for haircuts.  Doug and I offered to cut their hair but there were no takers on that particular offer.  Doug and I walked out of the salon to wait for our ladies to be finished with their hair appointments and we saw an old guy in a scooter fall over with his bike and hit the pavement hard in the middle of the busy street.  There are a lot of scooters here in Sorrento and the only real way to describe their movement throughout the city is CHAOS.  Scooter riders do not believe they have any lanes to conform to and they will approach on the right side, the left side or down the center.  It is crazy and apparently there are a lot of scooter injuries and death around here.  So this guy is down for the count in the middle of the street, Doug and I step out into the street to stop a large tour bus bearing down on him around the corner.  An ambulance is called, the cops show up in droves and oil that was leaking from a taxi which caused the scooter man to fall is cleaned up off of the street.  Within a half an hour, the old guy is carted off in the ambulance, the road is cleaned up, the police disappear and our lovely ladies walk out with their new coiffures.

Just another day in wonderful and beautiful Sorrento.  We decided that we needed to replenish our cash and so Doug and I walked to an ATM.  The one we chose was acting a little squirrelly where it wouldn’t really take my card but just sort of nibble at it.  I turned and told Doug that I didn’t trust this ATM and I was going to find a different one.  I set off and Doug stayed there to test his luck.  I found another ATM a couple of blocks further.  I got cash and walked back to where I had left Doug.  When his first question to me was, “Is your ESP operating at 120%?”, I had to believe that something bad had happened.  I glanced at the ATM which now had a handwritten “out of order” sign taped to it and I knew that wasn’t good.  The ATM had eaten his BECU card.

Barb still had her card for that same account and so their access to cash for the next three weeks was still available…..if she can remember the pin code.  They tried two unsuccessful pin numbers and we huddled back at our hotel rooms remembering it’s usually three strikes and you’re out.  This set off a flurry of phone calls….one to Kristin who is the Anderson family BECU banker.  She didn’t answer her cell so I called Jose to describe our plight and asked him to have Kristin call.  That international call dropped at some point while I was describing to him our situation.  I tried calling him back but the call wouldn’t go through.  In the meantime Kristin called and calmed the Anderson fears as best as she could.  Doug and Barb decided they now knew the mysterious ATM pin code and we walked over to my successful ATM and sure enough, that pin code was correct and we were in business.  Problem averted and we were all back on track for normal traveling life.  Yay!!  Access to cash in foreign countries is always good.

Another pasta dinner….that’s every day so far for me, and it was off to bed to get ready for our visit to Pompei tomorrow morning.