Our resort was to be Amoudi. I'd never been to Greece before and this holiday was to start my love affair with the country off. Mel said to me as we got on the transfer coach and set off out of the airport that there was just 'something' about Greece and you couldn't help but love it. I saw the pot-holed roads, the half built houses and thought Mel must be bonkers but by the time we got to the apartments and I'd seen the views, the sparkling blue sea, the incredibly lush greenery and tree after tree after tree laden with oranges, lemons and olives I was hooked.
The we'd arrived had been gloriously hot & sunny and we'd spent it sunbathing round the pool. There didn't seem to be much around our apartments, we'd been told there was a restaurant down the road but other than that and our apartments, which included a bar/snack bar called The Amoudi Grill, that seemed to be it. Our room balcony looked out over the pool and just over the sea in the near distance was the island of Kefalonia.
The second day we woke up to driving rain and cloud. We could barely see the swimming pool for the mist let alone gorgeous Kefalonia! We were, as always upbeat and were sure it would clear up in our usual 'it'll be fine' manner. So we breakfasted on the balcony as we do on girlie holidays, just not normally in mist & drizzle and each of us wrapped in a blanket.
Later in the day, after trying not to let the weather get to us, we attended the welcome meeting and booked ourselves onto a coach trip round the island tomorrow and a bbq at the Amoudi grill tomorrow night, then Mel & Stella ran to the shops to get supplies, dodging the raindrops but failing miserably. After playing dominoes and drinking wine on the balcony it was off to the bar in the evening to drown our sorrows.
The next day dawned pretty miserably, we knew this as Mel flung open the curtains, shut them again and stomped off to bed "still raining then" Stella muttered from under her bed covers. It was a cloudy, miserable looking day but at least it wasn't raining but Kefalonia still wasn't visible. We went on the coach tour of the island, it wasn't stunning but it killed some grey day time.
In the evening we headed off in the rain to the Amoudi Grill for the quiz & bbq night, at least we didn't have to go far just a mad dash round the swimming pool. The bar had all its plastic side walls down to keep out the wind & rain!
Needless to say, to numb the pain of the atrocious weather we took full advantage of the carafes of homemade wines and by the end of the quiz (we were the sheep team and had to say "baaaaaaaaaaa" if we wanted to answer!) we were preeeee-ty legless AND after Mel was thrust forward in the decider of Greek dancing, we eventually came THIRD and won a bottle of retsina.
The following day, our fourth day was gorgeous so we made the most of the glorious sunshine and sunbathed round the pool all day, enjoying Amstel hour at 5pm when oddly all the British holiday makers went in for their 'tea', which amused all of us - those silly old Brits!
We took full advantage of the empty pool though and had a fab couple of hours getting a bit squiffy.
The following day Stella & Mel went off to Zante town to do some shopping, I stayed in Amoudi where I spent time in the pool, sunbathing, reading and sleeping - bliss. They came back with backlava - Hurrah for Baklava! The next day we all went off to Zante town and got souvenirs. I bought a huge white, embroidered Greek tablecloth (which I still have) and I actually had a go at haggling. I struck a bargain too. It wasn't until I wandered away from the stall with my bartered goods safely in my bag to a giggling Stella that she told me I had paid a few more drachma than it actually cost. That was my first and only time of trying bartering!!
We all bought a bit of Greek pottery too, I got a large blue dish, which I still have and everytime I use it, it reminds me of the fun we had in Zante.
The last day was spent sunbathing, swimming & eating Achillion Special ice-creams and was followed by having a very drunken evening in the bar where we had a paddle in the kiddies pool and a good old laugh with Spiro & Roberto, wishing them a fond farewell.
Our one incident of crisis & adversity happened as we were on the transfer coach on our way to the airport. As we rounded a corner on a back road, the coach ground to a sudden halt. A tree was lying across the road, a digger which had come out to move the tree had also keeled over and there were a load of old stereo-typical Greek fellas standing around the scene, fags hanging off their bottom lips, scratching their heads and shrugging their shoulders in that way Greeks do. You gotta love the Greeks!
Eventually, after more men had appeared across fields to stand around and ponder another digger arrived to push its fallen colleague & tree out of the way and we were off to the airport to the dulcet tones of our rep, a Manchester lad.
Menorca - 2001
Come 2001 the girlie holidays were going strong and Mel, me & Stella booked the 4th one to Punta Prima in Menorca.Despite priming the travel agent when we booked it that we wanted the usual things; no steep hills, bar at the apartments, accessible etc we found ourselves in an apartment complex up the steepest of hills and in an apartment up steps, not the best start. On arrival we noticed as well as the apartment being damp it was also a 1 bedroom when we'd booked a 2 bedroomed, we didn't bother unpacking and the next day after complaining we were moved even further up the hill to apartment no.1!
That's our apartment riiiiiight at the top!
Punta Prima was a windsurfing resort and true enough the winds whistled up the hill which made sunbathing near impossible. Although it was sunny that whistling wind brought the temperatures down quite considerably - brrrrrrrr.
The restaurants down on the harbour served something called "Fried baby squitlings" so we steered clear of those. When we did eat out we found that the restaurant staff had a definate clocking off time and we frequently found ourselves sitting in Nora's bar, or as we called it Ignora's Bar, at around 11pm with staff putting chairs up on tables and mopping the floor around us! It became a battle of wills by the end of the holiday, we were not going til we were ready!
And worst of all the bar at the apartments closed at 11pm so there was no usual nightcap for us.
Stella & Mel in the 'hip & happening' apartments bar!
As well as exploring Punta Prima and chilling at the apartment we caught the little train one day to a small resort up the coast called Binibecca.
The Binibecca Express
From Cuitadella we drove to Ferreries & Es Mercadal, then a very bad coast road to Cap de Cavalleria (the most northern point of the island), going past goats with square eyes to the lighthouse. Stopped later in El Pescador at a fabbie seafood restaurant. Drove back to Punta Prima via Mahon & Sant Lluis.
On our last night we went to a restaurant we'd used the first night and had garlic mayonnaise (which originated in Mahon!), it was soooo garlicky that it seeped out of our pores for days! And we even managed to get back to the apartment bar for baileys & coffee before the shutters were slammed down and we sat there, just the 3 of us!! How we laughed!!
On the last day we decided to drink the bottle of bubbly Bazza had given us in Duton Hill on our departure. We mixed it with orange juice and with Stella having found a suntrap up the side of the apartment on the last day we had a tipsy sunbathe with no suncream. Stella insisted we didn't use the sun protection as if we got any colour it would cover the chilblains up! As you may imagine we went home with very strange patterns of ouchy sunburn!
Peter was waiting for us back at the pub with a Welcome Home banner!
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