May 1: Amorgos: Chora and Katapola

I arranged to rent a car for Monday and Tuesday. The car agency dropped off the car at the hotel around 9:30am. They gave me an automatic despite me telling them that I wanted a standard. They said they didn't have a standard available so they were giving me an automatic for the price of a standard. It's a Suzuki Celerio, which I've never heard of before. It's actually a dual transmission, but the woman from the agency suggested I just drive it in automatic mode.

After breakfast I drove to Chora, the ancient village at the center of the island. It was "fun" driving the twisty roads through the mountains. There were quite a few goats on the road, and of course it requires some butt-clenching and Hail Mary's to not freak out about the fact that there are no guardrails at the edge of the road and it's a sheer drop off a cliff in a couple of places.

My cousin owns a "house" in Chora, which is more like a small apartment, right at the entrance to the village. Her house is the one on the left with the blue door and blue balcony.

It was quite overcast and cold, so a lot of my photos are dark. The village was almost completely shut down. There were only a couple of cafes and shops open. The village is all organically-built stairs and walkways that are generally only wide enough for a donkey. The cobblestones were slipperier than I remembered.

After I left Chora, I drove down to Katapola. It's the main port for the island, and it has sort of a busy commercial vibe. It's where all of the warehouses and most of the non-tourism businesses are located. Still, I like Katapola. It's a fun place to be at the height of summer.

When I was here in 2014 with Mom, we stayed at a small hotel called the Porto Katapola right in the port by the ferry quay. It was lovely. Sadly, it looks like the hotel is closed - the reception area is being used for storage and the building looks like it is in poor repair.

I had lunch at Mythos restaurant. We ate there almost exclusively when we visited in 2007 and 2014. It's still owned by the same man. In 2014 his daughter was just tiny, maybe four or five years old. Now she's a teen and working at the restaurant with her father and grandmother.

After lunch I drove back to the hotel and went for a swim in the pool. I had dinner late, around 6:00pm. It was the first disappointing meal I've had. I wanted something simple so I ordered spaghetti bolognese. What I got was overcooked penne with jar sauce. Oh, well. I think the hotel staff were all exhausted from the Amorgos Trail Challenge and the big party for the baptism.

April 30: Amorgos: Tholaria

The weather is a little warmer today. I'm not completely chilled to the bone.

After breakfast, I went to my room and did about 3 hours of work. After that, I had lunch in the hotel restaurant. I had pastitzio again. Pastitzio is kind of like Greek mac 'n' cheese, except it has spiced ground beef at the bottom, the noodles are long, and the whole thing is held together with bechamel sauce.

After lunch I went for my first swim in the pool. Holy shit, it was Arctic! But, I made myself get in and swim a few laps. I paid extra to stay at the hotel because of the pool - I was gonna get my money's worth out of it! I managed to stay in for about 45 minutes, before I had to get out because I was shivering.

I had to eat dinner on the patio because the entire hotel restaurant was filled with tables and chairs for a special event. Poppy, the main restaurant server / front of house manager, said that 150 people were coming to celebrate the baptism of a young local girl. They even hired a traditional musician. I managed to catch a video of him warming up and testing the sound.

April 29: Amorgos: Tholaria

The storm eased overnight. It hasn't completely passed - it's still windy and cool - but it's sunnier.

I woke up hungry around 4:30am. I drank a bottle of water and managed to get back to sleep, but I woke up at 7:30am and got to the hotel restaurant around 8:00am to partake of the brekkie buffet.

There is an event this weekend called the "Amorgos Trail Challenge" and Hotel Vigla is full of extremely fit trail runners. They arrived on the Blue Star at 2:00am this morning and they were already up and at the hotel restaurant slamming brekkie when I got there. They all piled into minivans at 9:30am to drive down to Aegiali to get a fishing boat to Nikouria Island, where there is a race from the beach to a checkpoint at the peak of the island, then back down to the beach. I don't know how long it is, but the race description says there is no path - you have to find your own way up the hill to the checkpoint! Crazy.

Kit arrived around 8:30am and joined me at my table. We chatted until 11:00am, when she had to leave to go pack up, check out, and transfer to the other hotel. I decided to explore Tholaria and set off up the steps - because Tholaria is all steps!

I believe this is the Church of Agion Anargiron:

In the picture below you can see donkey saddles. They are not riding saddles, per se. Instead, the locals lash loads to them. They may ride atop the load.

Below is a picture of the cafe where I bought a couple of beers my first night at the hotel:

On the way back to the hotel I stopped at Choreftís Cafe / Pantopoleío Restaurant and bought snacks and beverages. It had a much larger selection to choose from, but was still set up like a living room, with a couple of old men smoking and drinking coffee and watching TV, while an old woman peeled vegetables in a kitchen in the back. It was so dark that I couldn't see anything. The owners noticed me squinting and the old woman came out and flicked a light switch. Voila! There was a whole mini market in the back that had not been visible in the darkness. I covertly took a picture.

I wish I could have taken a picture of the front, where the men were sitting and the old woman was preparing vegetables, but it seemed rude to try to Instragram their semi-private space.