The Travels Of The RJs

Part IV Default Language Languages are not my strong point. I don’t hear the sounds very well and find it really hard to pronounce the sound back. Sienna corrected me most of the time in Thailand and Vietnam if I tried to say a town name, even though I was sure I was saying it the same as her.  Being in Europe, my GCSE French is all coming flooding back to me, which means I can ask for a ham sandwich and ask where the train station is. Not overly helpful, but I recognise a few words. German, Solvenian, Croatian, Italian and Spanish however, I’m completely in the dark. Not a clue. And to make the situation harder, for some reason I default to Oui and Non when responding to any of the above languages, despite not really speaking French either. Thankfully no one has then assumed I’m fluent in French and restarted the conversation in French, but somehow my brain thinks it’s better to try at least a foreign language in response, even if it’s not the same. Sienna and Seb have Italian lessons

Tuesday 12th November - Charia, Mani, Greece (Day 302) We woke up to on off rain but that simply reduces distractions to allow school work to get done. Our place, Stenorougi Charias, is shaped like the body of two aeroplane fuselages alongside one another, but instead of lightweight metal it’s made up of hunking great pieces of rock.  Even the dividing wall is three feet thick - and doorways are made for people under five feet. Even Sienna has to mind her head on one of them. But it’s certainly atmospheric and also in keeping with all the other stone buildings around.  The Mani area has a history of clans and family feuds so every little hamlet has multiple turret houses to keep watch - as well as for pirates and not to mention invading Turks or Venetians.  We pop out to Areopoli, which in warm sun would be a delightful quaint village with bars and cafes around the square. But in the rain we’re not getting out of the car.  Suddenly around 3 pm blue skies replace rain clouds - initially

Monday 11th November - Orio, Evia - Charia, Mani, Greece (Day 301) After a slightly unnecessary early start - Sienna was due for a school zoom lesson at 7:30 am, but once we’d all woken up and were ready to go the wifi wouldn’t work. Sienna is more annoyed about not being able to read her book online as opposed to being woken up for no reason.  We pack up and leave Cozy Orio Apartment, leaving a handful of euros to replace a broken plant pot from overzealous Lego playing - like most of our Greek stays I need to google translate a message through Booking.com / Agoda in Greek to ‘hosts’ we never see.  Off the island of Evia - with a quick stop to buy some beers from the Septem brewery - onto the motorway, all the way down to Corinth for around midday. Here we hop out the car and walk across a bridge over the Corinth Canal, built with near vertical sides 90 metres into the ground down to sea level.  At 6.5 km long connecting two seas it’s impressive, unfortunately it was almost obsolete b

Sunday 10th November - Orio (Evia), Greece (Day 300) To the kids' disappointment school work is brought forward a day as we’re on the road tomorrow. With that out of the way we drive a few minutes to a playground Seb had spotted yesterday; immaculately new but deserted of children, and currently sunshine. Games of tag, wheelbarrow races to get warm in the blustery wind.  Lunch back at the apartment - each time we come or go Sienna and Seb have to be coaxed past the local cats that roam the streets.  A short drive past haphazard olive tree groves brings us to Kymi - easy to imagine it heaving in summer but all we find is a small stage being set up in the town square for a cross country bike race. We see a few flashes of cyclists zipping down a nearby hill but as we walk that way, riders are energetically chatting and walking towards us, the time trials having finished. Seb and I scramble to the base of the track, it is precipitously steep.  We head back home having not got the best

Saturday 9th November - Skala Oropou - Orio (Evia), Greece (Day 299) Chris joins us in the morning to play tour guide which begins with a car ferry ride from Skala Oropou to Eretria on the island of Evia. He and I brave the refreshing wind on top deck, whilst Kate and the kids prefer the sheltered view inside.  Kate pops to the bathroom and comes back to find the kids tucking into mandarins from some (thankfully kind) old lady sitting nearby, so much for not taking sweets from strangers. Turns out she grew them on her own property, no pesticides, and has brought some with her today to give to a friend.  This is also when Chris explains the cheats guide to how to say thank you in Greek. You quickly say ‘A Ferrets Toe’ and apparently it’s close enough.  After collecting some baked goods we wind our way along the coastal road in convoy, boys in one car, girls in the other (Sienna pleased as punch to sit in the front) to a small pebble beach in Taminei with trees nestled at the back of the

Friday 8th November - Athens - Skala Oropou, Greece (Day 298) We need to leave our apartment by 11 am so this helps justifying to Sienna and Seb why we have a timed ticket for 8 am when the Acropolis opens (and to avoid some of the crowds). Out of season I could buy the tickets the night before but in summer I suspect it would take more planning.  A 10 minute walk brings us to the entrance just before 8 am. We wolf down some bananas - strictly no food allowed inside - only to see others carrying bags of food in. We spent 90 minutes walking and weaving atop the Acropolis, glad for our shallow knowledge gleaned from the museum yesterday. The scale of the Pathenon is visually striking along with other smaller temples. The largest single destruction of the Pathenon occurred in 1687 when the incumbent Turks put their gunpowder inside it, only for a Venetian cannonball to set off a huge explosion.  Although built in 9 years with marble from a quarry several miles away, the fixing up and reco

Thursday 7th November - Athens, Greece (Day 297) We’ve only given ourselves 36 hours in Athens, which is possible in part because we are staying so central. The good news for Sienna and Seb is that means a day off school, bad news is the day involves museums and walking. The chatty Manolis from last night strongly recommended going to the Acropolis Museum before the Acropolis itself, advice we choose to follow (which in hindsight was the right way for us to do it).  The museum is just a few minutes walk from our apartment - like the one near Venice, this one is simply called ‘Beautiful 2bed Apt’, though no mention of the low ceiling in the bathroom in its name.  The museum is straight-edged and new, in contrast to the Acropolis hill it sits in the shadow of. It’s also more expensive than the Acropolis itself (60 euros vs 40 for the family). I spot a ‘family backpack’ to be borrowed from the Information Desk which contains a couple of games and also a sticker based treasure hunt of exhi