Monday October 6 started out with a mix of sun and cloud but the rain came at about 2:00 p.m. High of 21C. We were up late on Sunday night to listen to Game 2 of the Jays-Yankees Division series playoffs. We stayed up until the 6th inning, when the game was well in hand and it was just after 1:00 a.m. Trey Yesavage was awesome and Vlad is clearly on a mission. Of course, in the middle of the night I woke up to check the final score. Go Jays Go!
We decided to head back to Apollonia for a few hours. The bus schedule changed on Monday and there were fewer buses than yesterday. Luckily, there was still an 11:30 a.m. bus.
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| Waiting at the bus stop in Kamares- looking down the street towards ferry dock about a 10 minute walk away. The only cars allowed on this portion of the street are those going on a car ferry. |
We arrived in Apollonia about 10 minutes later. It is only five km away but the village is at a much higher altitude in the hills. The bus stop is right beside the small central square (the square of Heroes) with a Folklore Museum (closed) and a statue in the memory of those who fought from 1912-1922.
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| Statue in small park for those who died between 1912-1926. Statue was erected in 1926. |
We decided to first check out Threefolds Croissanterie just a minute away from the square. It was a small café with only take out. Most of the croissants were gone, but we got some takeout coffees and a pistachio croissant to share (definitely needed a lactaid pill).
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| Outside of Threefold croissanterie |
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| Excellent coffee- popular with the locals too |
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| Back to the small square with a giant croissant--- excellent quality as was the coffee |
We then stopped at a local bakery to pick up some savoury pies for dinner. Lots of traditional goodies.
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| Quite a large bakery |
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| Delicious looking savoury pies- we got a spinach pie and a feta cheese pie |
We saw a large poster for the Nikolaos Tselementes 17th Festival of Cycladic Gastronomy, which had just taken place September 25-27 in Artemonas. We just missed it by about a week.
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| Poster still up for Cycladic Gastronomy Festival |
We decided to walk up the narrow 'Steno' commercial street as we had done on Sunday. We thought that more stores would be open, but this really wasn't the case. There were a few stores open that weren't on Sunday, but others that had been opened like our favourite jewellery store, were closed. It was still a bit sunny at this point, and a pleasant walk in any event.
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| Sign to The Steno (translates as The Narrow) -- the yellow narrow strip on the map is the Steno. |
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| Starting up the street |
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We had to stop at Gerontopoulos, the traditional pastry shop which has many Sifnian specialties.
It has been open since 1950!
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| Wines, liquors, honey, jams and lots of jars of capers |
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| We bought a few of the Sifnian marzipan cookies in different flavours- rosewater, lemon and tangerine (on the third shelf in the middle of the photo) |
There were lots of large jars of 'spoon sweets' which are made from almost any fruit by gently boiling the fruit in water and sugar over several hours or days. They are usually served with coffee by the teaspoon in a small dish. They are also used as a yoghurt topping, which is how we had it at Mokka in Athens.
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Homemade 'spoon sweets'. It was too early in our trip to buy a big jar,
but maybe we will pick up some before we head home. |
We checked out a few more jewellery workshops/stores. Usually there is a work area in the store where the jewellery is made.
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| Outside a jewellery workshop |
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| Always beautiful displays. The store had some glasses, and ceramics as well as jewellery. |
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| Statue of Kleanthis Triantafyllou (1850-1889), a Sifnos publisher, journalist and satirical poet. |
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| This church did have a small plaque on the side- dated 1727. |
We wanted to catch the 2:00 p.m. bus as the next and last one on the new bus schedule wasn't due until 5:10 p.m. It had just started to drizzle and the bus was about 20 minutes late.
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Maps and distances of trails in Sifnos-- we met a number of folks
who came to Sifnos especially for hiking. |
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| Another healthy friendly Sifnos cat |
It started to pour as we got on the bus. We were back in Kamares in 10 minutes. Luckily, we had our umbrellas and it was only a two minute walk from the bus stop to our apartment. We really enjoyed the peace and quiet (and delicious food) on Sifnos. I had hoped for another swim, but that wasn't in the cards.
Allan made a light dinner of our savoury pies, green salad, and some zucchini. We had some cookies with mountain tea (from our host) for dessert.
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| Dinner at the apartment |
On Tuesday October 7 we head to Milos, our next island stop. Our ferry departs at 12:15 p.m. and we are due to arrive in Milos at 1:00 p.m. Our Greek Island adventure continues.
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