Oh, who knows and who really cares?
Suffice to say, there were two trips to Rhodes, with not too long between them. On one, we bought a package from Wardair, the late lamented Canadian charter airline, that took us to Athens first for a couple of days, then on to Rhodes by ferry from Piraeus. On that one for sure, Karen sported her curly perm.
Athens, I have to say, didn't leave a very favourable impression. I thought it was crowded, dirty and lacked charm. Karen and I walked from our hotel into the centre on the first day and looked at the parliament buildings with the guards in their silly uniforms - skirt, tights, tassled fez, tassled boots. That's one of my few memories of the place.
About the only good thing about Athens was the Acropolis, the rocky promontory above the modern city, with its fabulous ruins of ancient public buildings and temples, including the Parthenon. Our package included a guided tour, given by a very elegant young Athenian history student.
One thing that strikes me now looking at the pictures I took there is how many tourists were crawling over the rock that day. When I think about how the crowds at some other major European attractions have multiplied exponentially since we first saw them in the 70s - Notre Dame in Paris is an example - it's hard to imagine what it must be like visiting the Acropolis today. Being in a monkey cage at the zoo, I'm guessing.
The only other thing that sticks in my mind is talking to a young Canadian couple in our tour group as we waited for the coaches to take us to Piraeus and the ferry. He casually mentioned that he'd just completed his rookie season playing for the NHL Edmonton Oilers. Now, you would think that his name and face would be branded in my memory, but no, nothing remains. I've long had it in my head that he might have been a young Paul Coffey, the great defenceman of the Oilers' Gretzky glory years. But the oracle tells me Coffey's rookie year was 1980-81, so it couldn't have been him if I've got the year of our trip right.
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| View of modern city from Acropolis |
It was unusual enough for Karen and I to strike up a conversation with fellow travelers. It was unheard-of to actually make friends with someone we met on a trip. I don't know what happened to Paul Coffey and his wife when we got to Rhodes. They probably went off to a different, more upscale hotel. But there was another young couple we met, Harold and Maria from Toronto. They were younger than us and not very confident travellers. They clung a bit, I think.
It was especially surprising we let them in since we were already meeting Lesley and Jerry. They were coming in separately, Lesley from visiting family in England, Jerry from Zoest, Germany where he was teaching at a military base school. They stayed in a bed and breakfast in town, while we stayed in a soulless modern hotel just outside town. The six of us ended up chumming around on Rhodes.
There wasn't a heck of a lot to do on the island. The town was moderately interesting. And there was a swimming place on the rocks near the port where we went a couple of times. I lost my second wedding band there when my fingers shrank in the cold water and I didn't notice the ring slipping off. Karen has never let me forget.
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| Maria - of Harold and Maria - and Karen at our hotel |
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| In Rhodes town. That kaftan, the one the McCanns always found so comical - what? you want to protect your skin from the sun? you weirdo! - is still in my closet. |
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| Rhodes town |
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| Didn't need one - had motorbikes |
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| No idea what Maria is photographing - a famous well maybe? |
We spent most of our time far from our hotel and the town. A couple of days into our stay, Harold and I followed Lenton's lead and rented little motor bikes. The first day, we all rode out into the countryside to see what we could see. At one point we randomly chose a side road that headed towards the sea. At the end of it, we found a tiny inlet with a few fishing boats and two postage stamp-size beaches among the rocks. We claimed one for ourselves and went back almost every day. There was a funny little restaurant at the end of the road where we could get simple food - omelets or fish and chips usually, and Greek salads - and eat it on a shaded patio.
Our beach was surrounded by rocks, so it wasn't visible from the road or the restaurant, or the next beach. We got daring after imbibing enough wine from our wine skins and went skinny at least once. I thought I had a picture somewhere of the ladies topless sun bathing, but haven't found it. I suspect Karen of destroying this precious relic. Karen remembers that she didn't go topless, because she had a one-piece suit, but Lesley did, and that while she was lying there topless, she spotted some young military types on the cliff above looking down at us with binoculars.
Lesley turned up one day with a heavily bandaged foot. She had somehow caught her heel in the spokes of the rear wheel of their bike and cut it badly, had to go to hospital. I think they might have crashed the bike in the confusion too. They were fine, though, and still joined us each day to go to "our" beach.
I say "somehow" Lesley snagged her foot in the spokes, but I'm pretty sure it would have been down to booze. We drank pretty constantly. On one occasion, we went on our bikes to a wine festival in another town where we drank dreadful local wine from little earthenware cups that were included in the price of admission. (We had one of our cups until only a few years ago.) Then we drove back on the bikes. Yikes!
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| Sunbathing on our beach - note the smirk on Karen's face |
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| Harold and Maria at our beach |
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| Harold on a photographic mission |
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| Harold shooting boats at our beach |
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| Jerry Lenton seeing us off as we headed for the ferry |
So long Rhodes, see you soon.
We had another day in Athens when we got back. One of the first things we did was seek out a source of "doners." These were the pita wraps we had gorged ourselves on while in Rhodes. We got them from street vendors who had a spit with a leg of pork or lamb roasting over charcoal. The seller would shave bits of the meat off into the pita - which was always very fresh - and then top with tomatoes, onions and a delicious spicy yogurt sauce. We couldn't get enough of them.
I did finally find a doner stand, in the Plaka, the ancient neighbourhood of maze-like streets near the Acropolis. I couldn't figure out why the seller - whose place was almost literally a hole in the wall - wouldn't take my order and kept waiting on locals who had come along after me. Finally, one of them said, 'No, no, he's next,' and I got my doners. Greeks don't queue. The wraps weren't as good as the ones on Rhodes either.
We did explore the Plaka a bit that day. I have pictures to prove it.
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| Sunday morning in the Plaka |
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| Fruit sellers in the Plaka |
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| Plaka |
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| Curly Karen in Athens |
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| Headed home: Harold and Maria at Athens airport |
And then it was onto the plane and back to Canada. Not long after we got back, we went to visit Harold and Maria in Toronto. We pretty quickly discovered we weren't as sympatico as we'd thought. They were good people, but very conservative, politically and socially - straight-laced, for a young couple - and very immersed in the German-Canadian immigrant community to which both their families belonged. We never saw them again.
A year or two later - I think it was 1981 - we went back to Rhodes. Or less than a year before - take your pick. Whichever year it was, we flew direct to the island, I'm pretty sure by Wardair again. I don't remember as much about that trip. Karen and I were on our own. We were struck by the incredible amount of development that had gone on in the intervening year or two. (Or that impression was one we had on the previously described trip. This is too confusing!) The site of the hotel from our first visit, a sparsely developed suburban strip, was now unrecognizably jammed with new hotels and restaurants and built-up all the way to the edge of town.
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| Rhodes: new development |
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| Crap photo of pretty woman |
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| Rhodes town: harbour |
We went for a couple of nice country walks. On one, we found a place - or maybe we sought it out - where butterflies came to spawn, or whatever it is the monarchs do in Mexico after they fly all the way there from up here. These were buttery yellow flap-flaps (as my grandson calls them.) There was a rippling drapery of them on the trees and bushes in this little glade. I thought I had a picture but can't find it. I think these shots of Karen and I were taken on the same walk. (But Karen says, no, they had to have been on the same trip we met up with Jerry and Lesley...because she has a curly perm in these pictures.)
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| Glade of butterflies - or near it |
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| Look at all the hair! |
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| Another day, another walk - with picnic |
We did go back to "our" beach, but only once. It wasn't the same without the others. Nothing much had changed there, although I think the next beach to ours was occupied the day we went.
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| Our beach |
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| Our beach: occupied |
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| Our beach: occupied |
We've never been back to Greece. Shelley Boyes keeps urging us to try it again. She's a great fan of Athens. Meh. It's true there are all sorts of other islands to try, although I suspect most have now been developed for tourism to the point that they wouldn't be anything like what we remember.
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