Io

Today we woke up and headed upstairs to breakfast. Wow! How beautiful! A homemade breaksfast with fresh squeezed orange juice and jams made from apricots and figs from the owners fruit trees. I myself was not enjoying one bit of it because the more I thought about it, the more angry I was that these people were double charging me for having made two reservations when clearly we were only using one room and giving me the runaround. I wore dark glasses so I wouldn'thave to look at them. The young son gave me a rose, and said here is a rose for you since you haven't smiled since yesterday. I took the rose and laid it on the table and didn't smile. Thankyou. I left it on the table when I left. How about 600$ buddy, that would make me smile. You can take your rose and yadda yadda.

Anyhow, by the time we showered and spiffied up the room I walked past rose dude not looking at him or speaking to him on the way out. He pulled mom over and told her that he had refunded our other room. Thank you I told him and My world was indeed rosy again.

We headed south for the Ruins of Akrotiri which are 1000 BC dated, damn we keep getting older and older with these ruins. The island and cycladic architecture and countryside with the Agean sea views was simply as charming as they come. I was having an absolute ball driving the little smart cart up and down the rolling windy country sides. We see wineries and we see littel pottery places.

When we get to the ancient ruins, they are closed for the season for restoration so we walk down to a little snack shop. AND it is on the Aegean with little beach chairs at the edge of the water. We buy some orange juice and pull an umbrella up. We prop up our feet and listen to the waves lapping and take in the awesome sight of the coast. This is the life. Time stands still and you can hear yourself BREATHE!

Happy and content to have spent time with the sun and the black sand beach and the 5 little kittens who lay down with us, we head back to find one of the wineries and when they might have a tour tomorrow. We stop in a pottery shop and have a looky look. In 15 minutes we our back in Fira, our town so we pass it up and head north to Io. It is much higher up on the cliff... whoa... some pretty hairy driving here. There are hairpin clifs with no side guardrails and crazy locals whizzing by and Large Buses? How the hell do they stay on the road? This town has more of the cliff stucco buildings, but is slightly less touristy. Our guidebook says to keep going around back down the cliff to the bottom of the mountain and the marina. There are supposed to be divine and fresh off the boat seafood restaurants there. We pull down to the base of the mountain and eat at Dimitris. It is a little wharf/dock overlooking the little sea fishing boats and there are charcoal stoves that fish and octopus and such are all grilling on. We watch the sunset with some hummus and batter fried tomatoes. We watch the cruise ships pull out of harbor and back out to see. We look up the cliff and see all the little stucco houses twinkling down at us. This is truly one of the most quant spots imaginable to watch the sunset. The red snapper comes out, we share a fish. Heads on or off? Oh, well off please. This fish is amazingly delicious with the smoked grill and herbs.... couldn't get any fresher... there is folk greek music in the background... Feels dreamlike truly... we wonder if we will beleive this all really happened when we get back home!

Ciao friends,,

PDS

PSS Sorry Roo for no pictures. There are no cables for us to upload our gorgeous pictures. Oh there are like hundreds of small little churches with blue dome tops here. Evidently they are teeny tiny and only open once a year when the saint they are named after has a saint day. they only open one day a year. So Cute and Quant. Anyways, we have lots of pictures! Will try to upload some more when back in Rome on Friday with Ms computer!!! We miss you guys!
Ma and PDS