The Long Way Home

Lily and Ellie arrived last night a few hours by the pool later than we did. Before a lovely meal Lily had a quick haircut at the barber next to the restaurant.

I’ve missed the blog and have some new photos to add. After photographing Tammy & Peter’s wedding and doing some labouring in the vegetable fields of Michali, I’ve found myself in Turkey with four ladies, and am presenty awaiting two more!

The old mill at Soroni with communist propaganda has had a fresh coat of paint applied since I was last here.

Michali’s hothouse is a quarter of an acre in size and occupies us with endless bean and cucumber picking.

Brooke guards the Fix beer while asleep at Traganou.

A Kasseris photo exhibition at Kallithea baths.

For months, Hello Kitty has been haunting us wherever we go..

A massive cruise ship at port in Rhodes. I’ve heard it costs a fortune to get on this one.

Heading to turkey with Marti, Abi, Brooke and Amanda… Lily and Ellie are meeting us there tonight.

Tammy & Peter’s beautiful wedding ceremony was at the bay of St Paul, Lindos.

Martina had a joyful reunion with Tosca in Soroni the other day.

Only other update for now is the removal of Martina’s stitches on the videos page.

The travel sort of feels like it’s over. It’s not really but we’ve put away most of the belongings and are behaving like locals.

Foti with some fresh zucchini picked from the Militsa garden.

A gentleman exits the Athens metro with a drum of his village’s olive oil.

Our view of Athens with Lycabettus hill in the background. Thanks Petroula & Ange!

Some Athenian street art.

Monastiraki, with the Acropolis in the background.

Athanasia and Martina enjoy a gyro, the world’s greatest, at the ‘Prodorpion’. Don’t ever bother having one anywhere else.

Buttermilk pancakes and NuCreme with Athanasoula in Militsa… next: the beach, followed by icecream, and homemade pizza for dinner!

Lunch with Scrombolas and family in Zizani… lots of local wine flowing;
George the Mafia Boss at Haroupia beach;
An old photo of the Hatzis Kids at Theia Athanasia’s wedding – scribbled on by Scrombola’s young children. From left: George, Panagiota, John and Athanasia, Yiayia Eleni, Pappou Vangeli, and Theo;
Yiayia Panagiota;
Theio Vango.

The regular passenger boats are still not running between Lipari and Messina, but some old, slow vehicle transport boats are – although not to Messina where we need to depart for mainland Italy from. We’ve got ourselves tickets to depart, when the very late rustbucket finally arrives.

What a long journey this is, destination Militsa. Although Sicily was a neighbouring Greek colony (Lipari’s fortified old town was built by the Greeks in 350 BC), it seems to take longer to get from Messina, Sicily to Messinia, Greece, than it did back in the day. I think it would definitely be faster to row, even if one oarsperson had stitches in their toe:

Tuesday:
11:30 Board the 10:05 boat to Milazzo, Sicily.
14:50 Bus from Milazzo port to the train station.
16:00 Train from Milazzo to Messina Centrale.
17:10 Ferry from Messina to Villa San Giovanni (although the train gets on the same ferry, this time we must enter as pedestrian passengers..?)
23:58 Sleeper train (no beds though) to Bari.

Wednesday:
07:45 Train arrives in Bari.
08:40 Find a bus to take us to the port.
17:00 Board ferry bound for Patras, Greece.

Thursday:
12:30 Ferry arrives in Patra.
16:00 Bus departs for Kalamata.
19:50 Bus arrives Kalamata.
20:00 Bus departs for Pylos.
21:30 Bus arrives Pylos. Scrombolas picks us up!
22:00 We arrive in Militsa!

58.5 hours! Although it really was much easier than it sounds. And there was a shower on the boat that we utilised, in case you were afraid we’d turned out like those blokes on the slot machines we saw in Messina.

Photos: Goodbye Lipari!;
Benedict overlooks the port of Messina as we leave Sicily on a ferry for the mainland;
Train carriages being loaded into the ship for the very brief water crossing;
Waiting for another night train;
Hunting for supplies for the Italy-Greece ferry ride, I stumbled upon what must be Bari’s Duomo. I think I’ll have to create a new page on this blog just for Duomos.

The winds really picked up and no boats were leaving the Island. We had planned our departure today and had packed and gone to the port, so fortunately the room we stayed in was available for another night. Alessia very kindly gave us a discounted rate since she seemed to sympathise with us being at the mercy of the weather. So, we took the opportunity to visit Quattropani, which our research suggested was the birthplace of a couple of Gemmolas, and we hoped to find some more Gemmola evidence in the cemetary there. After scouring both Acquacalda and Quattropani cemetaries to no avail (although there were many unmarked graves that were likely of the era we were looking for, the 1800′s), we continued on a beautiful drive around the island, finding ourselves back in Lipari town before we knew it.

We visited a shop where an older couple whos telephone directory we asked to borrow told us about the Hunziker connection, but not how Clelia Gemmola might have been related to Vincenzo. The lady told us she remembered when Clelia met Mr Hunziker, a wealthy Swiss man who painted (but may not have made his fortune that way) down at the northern port of Lipari. The Hunziker grand-daughter had just passed away in the last month at the age of 53. (And there are no Gemmolas in the phone directory.)

A very windy view of neighbouring Selina island:

View of Lipari from the old town;
The old port of Maria Corta, where we watched world cup matches and life go by;
This soccer vest/Nutella-branded toaster is Italian Patriotism at its best. I really wish we had room in our bags for it.