(no subject)

Jun 24, 2008 13:39

It's been a while!

First off I would like to update about my holiday, which seems like an awful long time ago now, but then it felt like an awful long time away by two days after I was back at work, so I guess it doesn't really matter!

Kefalonia is beautiful, the weather was just perfect, a week later and it probably would have been too hot as it was gradually climbing up the the 30s while we were there. It cooled in the evenings though so it wasn't in any way unpleasant. The island is the second biggest of the Ionian islands but has a mountainous range along the middle and therefore isn't highly populated. The beaches are mainly coves rather than the long beaches that you get elsewhere but they were next to empty while we were there, loads of room for everyone both on the beach and in the sea. The island varies quite a bit, some of the beaches were sandy, others pebbly, but all beautiful. The sea itself was an amazing turquoise colour the like of which I've not seen before.



The resort we stayed in was a bit excessively English. Mostly middle aged, middle class English people at that time of year, it's all restaurants though, not horrifying clubbing or anything like that! The football was on the telly while we there and Sky news is on most of the time in the bars that have a screen. I don't mind staying somewhere a bit touristy and it certainly wasn't tacky tourism, however, the English tourists themselves were pretty typically embarrassing. Matt and I were trying to learn a few Greek phrases, the Greeks in Kefalonia were astounded because the English just don't bother. One couple proudly told us that they'd been visiting the same resort for 15 years and hadn't learnt a single word of Greek.... AAAAARGH!



In order to escape the rest of the English at our resort we hired a car and did a lightning tour of the island including visiting the underground lake, the posh resort with all the yachts, some fishing villages, some mountain villages and the two largest towns. We went on a ferry, pedalled a pedalo, paddled with fishes, explored a ruined prison, saw both a new and an earthquake ravaged monastery, looked at archaeology, visited the island's library (I know, I know, but I had to!) and ate lots of lovely food.



We hunted around for signs of Metallers, and eventually found some in a pub by the port of the Main town (2 guys starting a extreme metal band, 1 girl who is studying in Helsinki when she's not at home in Kefalonia and 1 girl who owns a coffee shop in the main town). With our limited Greek and their much better English we got chatting and drinking, we spent two evenings with them, including a late night drinking session at Phillipos' flat, and learnt just how much more difficult it is to be a Metaller on a small island. They were astounded by the bands we'd seen and more than a little bit jealous! Not many bands go to Greece at all, and to go and see Metallica some of the people we met had travelled 8 hours (lucky for them they didn't play anything after the black album). They have no music shops, limited internet access (not everyone has broadband!) and no live music at all. They were so excited just hearing about Nottingham it almost brought a tear to my eye. I wish people here realised how lucky we are and had a little bit more of the passion that I saw in these people. Nancy (who bizarrely loves Kirk Hammett) reminded me of how I felt the first time I went to a real gig, and subsequently a festival, a real love for everyone in the Heavy Metal family - that's what it's all about folks, lets not lose sight of it! We've promised to send them loads of CDs and stuff and hope that they'll all be able to make it to Nottingham one day.



All in all it was a wonderful holiday, I would recommend Kefalonia to anyone, especially before high season. If anyone decides to go give me a shout and I'll give you some pointers on where to go when, we wish we'd gone to some things at different times of the day, so advice would have been useful!

Previous post Next post
Up