Aegina, Greece 17 july

I woke up at 7 and got ready for another beautiful day in the sun. Kalliope gave me a ride to the metro station. I got myself a granita and some good breakfast in a nearby coffeeshop there and then I headed to the port of Piraeus again.

It takes a while to cross Athens in public transportation and just the metro ride took me about 45 minutes. However, once you are in for something good – the wait is unimportant !
I got tickets for the Nefeli ferry to Aegina at 10:00am. It was such a lovely day and I had a great time during the trip.

Once there I decided to walk around the port for a while and take pictures.
Aegina is a lovely place and there are so many colors everywhere!

Fishing boats in the harbour of Port of Aegina.

I had a lovely walk, I picked up some fruit from the sellers at the harbour and some good ice cream again. It was quite a hot day!

Why not turn your boat into a store selling fruit ?

I love these tiny streets where everything you can find for sale is displayed outside the stores to attract you to enter and they have lots of nice stuff I want to bring home :D

All kind of lovely honey, nuts and sweets for sale in Aegina.

Once I was done with the city of Aegina I started walking out of it and I found a nice beach, but I have been unsuccesful in finding out its name :D They were all listed in greek (which I until now have only learned 4 words of !!! ), but it was past the archeological site of Kolona.

The archeological site of Kolona

Once done discovering I went back to the nice beach from yesterday and stayed there for some hours. I had my lunch at the beach and went swimming several times. The rest of the day I spent reading my book and listening to music at the beach.

At 5pm I took the boat back home. This time I tried one of the speedboats (one of the flying dolphins xv) which saved me a lot of time, but robbed me from the joy of being able to spend the time of the journey in the sun.

I reached Piraeus and grabbed the metro home. I cought the bus the last piece of the way and when I arrived at Kalliopes area the sun was setting and I took some nice pictures of the sun setting over Athens from the Kipoupoli height. A totally lovely day.

At night Kalliope and I went out for drinks with a friend of hers, Orestis, at bar Meli. We had a great time and decided to go to the beach together tomorrow !
NIIICE. Another day that will be well spent in the sun !

Aegina, Greece 16 July

I woke up this morning and quickly realized that today would be another fantastic day ! Well, the prognoses for the whole week are just amazing … Sun and temperatures around +37C and not a single cloud in sight anywhere :D

Kalliope let me off at the metro station on her way to work and I picked up some breakfast and granita (slurpee) before I headed down to Port of Piraeus with Metro. Once in Piraeus I bought a ticket to the next boat over to Aegina and since I had some time before the boat was to depart, I figured this as a great chance to get to know the area of Piraeus as well.  A nice place. Lots of shopping opportunities and I found a new battery charger (since I had left mine in Switzerland) for the camera battery. Pretty smart idea – according to myself – IF I want to continue taking pictures during this trip.

At 11:30 I cought the ferry Poseidon and enjoyed the ride. 1 hour at sea – Lovely!

Me in Port of Pireaus

After the nice ferry ride and once on Aegina I was in discovery mode. It was such a lovely day and the first thing I did was to find myself a nice ice-cream bar! Yummy.

Then I started walkin around all over Port of Aegina where I found lots of interesting areas, small markets, lovely churches, beautiful flowers and small beautiful streets in every color there is.

Streets of Aegina City

I also found a beautiful butterfly, for those of you who know me well – you will know I have a thing for butterflies… , and this one had a tiny little meal on a pink flower I have no ide what is called. The butterfly however is a Scarce Swallowtail, which is common to the area.

Iphiclides podalirius Linnaeus – Scarce Swallowtail

Once I was done shopping and looking around, I went down to the beach where I got myself installed on a nice chair and relaxed in the sun with music and a good book. What a lovely day !!!!

At 6pm it was time to go back. I probably should have started off at 5, but it was too enjoyable in the sun! However I got a ticket for the ferry Nektarios this time and headed back to Pireaus where I got the metro back home to Kalliopes place.

Once home we went to meet Katerina for dinner at a lovely little restaurant called Diaxroniko, downtown Athens, and enjoyed a lovely meal there.

This restaurant was quite special because they had white, clean underwear hanging down from the ceiling all over the place. It was a really cute touch!

Kalliope, Me and Katerina at Diaxroniko