We leave Santorini today so the plan is to get out early to get some pictures before the people fill the walkway. We return to a path we discovered the day before, just past the second church and go down the steps. The church is having a real Greek service for the locals as we pass. Down the steps to a place where you can get a shot of the three azure blue domes in one shot. We continue on the pedestrian path and make several stops to shoot photos. Being our last day it's now or never. We go to the end and up the path to the fort. Great views and more pictures.
Back to the villa. We have one hour before the 11:00am checkout time. Monique heats up her mince meat pie leftovers in a pan and cooks our last two eggs. We eat and get right to packing our bags. We complete on time and carry the bags up the single set of stairs. Again, we are happy in the place we picked because our legs don't like even the small number we climb to reach the top. The office is locked and Triantafillos is no where to be found. We sit and wait on the steps in the shade. After a few minutes we decide to unlock the blue gate and enter the side door. He told us we could store our bags there so we help ourselves.
Monique can see our villa over the ledge and sees the maid start to clean our room. She runs down and asks her if she knows where Triantafillos is. She doesn’t speak english, but she is good at charades and figures out Monique’s hand gestures and says “reception?” A big nod from Monique and she scurries down the steps to find him. Monique comes back up and we wait. Triantafillos arrives short of breath from the many stairs he must climb to reach the office. He explains that his wife put to much laundry soap in the washer and it is over flowing - "women" he says. He tells us that people use tanning oil and don't take a shower to wash it off before bed. This stains the sheets yellow and ruins them. "Who should pay for that?" He says. He searches for his pen and pulls out papers from his back pocket. These individual papers have each persons name and how much they owe. We settle up in cash as he requested. We say our goodbyes with a few stories interspersed. It always takes much more time than you would think. Good thing we are not in a hurry.
Our good friends from London invited us down the many steps to their place for a little bite before we leave. We go down and learn they have a very elaborate brunch prepared. They of course have been waiting for us - since our check-out process has been lengthy. The food they bring out is amazing. They went above and far beyond what we deserve. We really enjoy talking to them and many different topics are discussed. They have really become our friends. Both of us want to return to London some day and we will definitely look them up. They laugh when Dave says don't be surprised if we show up with a whole group of people in tow and throw a party at your house. They are off to the boat tour and we are off to buy an icon painting. We hug goodbye and they laugh because now we will be the people grasping for breath at the top of the stairs. And the joke is on us. There are 104 stairs to climb and we stop once half way up to catch our breath. By the top we are panting like dogs. I don't want a place at the bottom even if they are more private.
We have a 1:00pm appointment to make our art purchase. The father "Dimitris" and his son "Apollo" are there waiting for us. We talk a little bit then ask if we can buy the son’s piece. It was the first one his father gave his approval on - that it met his high standards. We are given the OK. Apollo says his father approved of us after our meeting yesterday. It really was a test and we passed. Dave asks what is the lowest price he can do because we will need to ship it home. "Is it cash?” "yes it is" then the price is 420 euros. We shake hands and the deal is done. Now we must have a drink with them. Apollo leaves the shop and returns with two white wines for us and an orange juice drink for himself. We clink glasses. Now comes the packing of the art. Dimitris begins the packing and then Apollo takes over. They converse back and forth about how to best pack it. The whole purchase process takes about an hour and a half. We talk about a lot of things. Towards the end a tourist enters the shop and Dave gets them to take a picture of all of us together. Dave makes a joke that he should have asked a cruise-ship person to take it. Dimitris has made clear he dislikes most tourists, especially the Chinese because they only shoot pictures of themselves - it’s a stereotype, but upon observation, it’s mostly true. Dimetris says his daughter travels a lot and has a house we could use for free when we return. He says usually only artist’s are real people and understand what they are doing. We thank them both and leave the shop around 2:30pm.
Time to pick up our bags. We have a car picking us up at 3:00pm to take us to the port where we will catch the ferry to Milos. We are dropped at the port around 4pm - it took longer because we had to stop to pick up another couple. The plan was to get there many hours early so we could work on the blog. The port is very minimal with a single row of stores and restaurants - quickly we find what we are looking for - WiFi. We sit, order some beers and begin our work. The port is a crazy, busy place. Buses come in one after the other with hoards of people streaming in and out. Some are here for a ferry, others are shuttled by boat back out to the cruise ships. The high speed ferries are large and the first one we saw - heading to Crete had two or three hundred people in line waiting to get on. We watch the craziness in awe - it’s structures chaos. Our ferry is later, going to smaller islands, so there are far less people. There was only one ferry to Milos today so we had no choice on the timing. Our boat arrives about twenty minutes late. We climb aboard. The ride is a little over two hours with one stop on the way. We arrive in the port of Adamas on the Greek island of Milos.
We grab our bags, disembark and follow the people out to the main street. Hotel Rigas sent a car to pick us up - it is the younger son of the Mother and two son operation. It is dark now (10:30pm) and we walk a line of people holding up signs and quickly find our name. "Panos" leads us leads us to his older white car. In under five minutes we are dropped at the front porch. He leads us in telling us his mother "Vasiliui" is inside but she doesn't speak English. Panos must park the car and then he will return. We sit and make human small talk. Panos returns and we are quickly checked in. He asks if we want to go over a map of the city but we are tired and we ask to do that in the morning. It is a nice room with a queen sized bed and two twin beds. There is a kitchenette and we both like it. We turn on the air conditioner and the tv and we relax. We find the X-Men movie playing in English with Greek subtitles. A busy day with a nice ending. We both think we are going to like Milos and can't wait to wake up and explore.
The famous three domed church view - we found it!
A nice view of the island showing the houses perched on the top - ready to catch the sunlight.
This is the church that had the ceremony going on - The architecture is perfect for the setting - just beautiful.
The 4 artists - Apollo, Dave, Monique and Dimitris.
Hundreds of people gathered at the port waiting to catch the next ferry.
The busses pulled up right next to tables of people - quite alarming at first - then it just became normal because they all did it.