A trip to Greece – searching for new sailboat

What did we do other than looking at boats??

We had a flight with SAS Bergen – Copenhagen – Athens. Because of Covid-19 we had to use mask all the time, also at the airports. Here I am listening to the writer Edvard Hoem, who grow up in the same place as I.

We arrived at Athens International airport 12.50 and met the rental company to go to their office. It was a bit complicated because it was many people, too many for their bus. We drove 15 minutes to their office, it was not far from the airport, but it is much traffic in Athens. After we got the car we drove to a small village south of Chalkida. Unfortunately in Google Maps they use the Greek letters, and I am not there at the moment… So I don`t know the name of that village. We had a look at one sailboat there, before we went to Chalkida.

We have some Greek friends and they recommend John`s Hotel in Chalkida. Nice hotel, clean, friendly staff, short distance to everything. They have parking but then you need a small car, so we parked just across the street. A guy met us, we paid and gave him the key, and he parked the car. You will not see that in Norway…

Our friends also recommend the restaurant Psistiri, almost just around the corner from the hotel. As you can see it was very close to sea. It was almost like sitting outside, but it was okay.

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Delicious food!! We can really recommend this restaurant if you are visiting Chalkida.

Back to the hotel we wanted to have a beer/wine before bed. The backyard of the hotel is really cool and we had all the space for ourselves.

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The day after we had a short walk in Chalkida before moving on.

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The next stop was Lefkada, because there was another boat we should have a look at. I decided I wanted to go north of the Korinth bay on the way to Lefkada, and south of the bay on the way back. If you are in a hurry, don`t take the north side…. It was hills, small roads, bad roads, and a lot of curves. On the last kilometers before the ski-resort village Arrachova our view was like this:

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Arrachova became a mistery village for us, because it was really tiny roads and because of the fog we couldn`t see anything at all, only the shop close to the road. But we could feel that it would be an amazing view if it was nice weather. After the village it startet to clean up and we could see some of the view. I hope I one day can go back to Arrachova to see how it is in a sunny day (and maybe snow??)

The reason why I wanted to go on the north side of the bay was this: Delphi!!

What an amazing place!! You can park in the street and the ticketoffice is right next to the street. When we arrived it was raining so we waited a little bit, hoped it would be better. A bus with Asian tourists arrived at the same time, all of them with rainjackets and umbrellas.

Just after five minutes the rain stopped, the sun came and it was enough to wear t-shirts.

Delphi was an ancient religious sanctuary dedicated to the Greek god Apollo. Developed in the 8th century B.C., the sanctuary was home to the Oracle of Delphi and the priestess Pythia, who was famed throughout the ancient world for divining the future and was consulted before all major undertakings.

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It is an absolutely stunning place, located up in the hill.

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After a couple of hours in Delfi it was time to move. We still had a distance to drive. After a short distance we could see the ocean again and we had to stop to see this amazing view. We met a farmer, a bunch of goats and his dogs. In this moment I understood we had to go to the town by the sea to eat lunch.

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It was really nice to come down to Itea. The weather was perfect to just walk around along the sea.

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We realized we had to eat outside because we forgot the masks in the car. A simple lunch, but too much! At the end we started to get hurry because we saw a rainshower come right in front of us. We had to run back to the car.

We arrived Lefkada right after sunset. We couldn`t drive all the way to the hotel, we had to find parking in a distance, but that was okay, and it doesn`t cost anything. I had booked Pirofani Hotel, right in the middle of the main street.

Lefkada is a beautiful town. Lefkada island is, of course, an island, but it is possible to drive there so it is easy to get there.

And we needed food!

And the price was the same for a bear or a glas of wine….

Outside the hotel. Also a perfect choice for a couple of nights. But no breakfast so we had to go to a cafe to find breakfast.

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I came first time to Lefkada in 2002 together with colleagues from travel agencies in Norway. I am pritty sure we had lunch at the restaurant at the corner of the yellow building in the middle of the pictures.

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and it was cats everywhere

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After checking out sailboat number 2 we decided to go on a sightseeing trip at Lefkada. As I wrote, I have been there before and I looked forward to see some of the places from last time, if I remember. We went to Vassiliki on the south coast first. Roads went up and down and it is far from driving on a highway!

The road up from Vassiliki was like this, I can just imagine how it is to drive here in the high season…

Beautiful colors!

Lefkada has some of the most amazing beaches in the world, and when I saw a photo like this I realized I had to find that place. It could have been more sun, but it was really amazing. This is Port Katsiki.

After eating lunch here, we went further north to Kathisma Beach. Another amazing place! On the first beach we had the whole beach for ourselves, but at Kathisma Beach it was more people, anyway. It is out of season so it was not MUCH people.