So…….School holiday for one week = escape to somewhere other than the UK for some relaxation and sunshine! This week was a trip to pretty Parga, Greece.
Here I am on the beach, with no makeup, no filter, salty sea hair, with my three tyres. I have one more than a bicycle and one less than a car! And do you know what, I no longer have an issue with my tyres, I actually quite like them!
I used to be in the swimsuit brigade, all body conscious, but another thing that happens as you get older is that you just stop worrying about that. I embrace it and let it hang out of my bikini, literally. My tyres tell the story that I have given birth to two great human beings, my proudest achievement. My tummy has all little lines on it like a road map, and each little line tells a story, my story. My tyres are also testament to the fact that I have spent far more money in the bakery than I have on gym subscriptions. They also come in really handy as a table for balancing your cocktail too!
So embrace your curves, and you do you. Because no matter what shape or size you are, your body is the most amazing thing.
So, on to Parga. Only 3 hours from Manchester. Would I go back……..Oh yes!! It was one of those WOW places. So very pretty. A small Greek fishing town with pretty multi-coloured houses all tumbling down the hillside to the bay. So very, very green. No man made high-rise hotels or blots on the landscape, so unpretentious but still so luxurious and elegant.
I like seaside cities like Barcelona, Dubrovnik etc. which have history and culture, but I’m not a fan of ‘resorts’. I went to a resort that shall remain nameless in Mallorca and hated it…..but I love Mallorca. I just know what I like. I like pretty, green, nature, history, culture, traditional buildings not piles of hotels that make a place look like a man made modern city centre plonked on a beach, all out of place. I hate pretentious and rudeness too and don’t want to spend a week with people who are. I want to feel relaxed and happy on my holiday.
I do, however, spend quite a lot of my hard earned money on travelling. I go to work and work hard so I can travel and explore. I’m not a saver or lover of material things. I’m all about life’s experiences. There is no surprise that some who know me refer to me as Judith Chalmers. If you don’t know her, she hosted a holiday TV program in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s and basically spent all her time travelling. I do the same in the school holidays, and now someone has bought me a subscription to National Geographic Traveller for my birthday, I’m at that stage where I cannot possibly live long enough to complete the bucket list so I’m having to prioritise.
Sometimes I like to be looked after on my holiday, and Parga was one of those holidays, as I needed to relax and rest after a busy half term. I stayed at Lichnos Beach and was looked after so well. There is only one hotel there, low rise and pristine white buildings spread out amongst the olive groves on the most beautiful small bay with turquoise blue sea.
The staff were really attentive. Gorgeous food, sunbed service, but nothing pretentious about it. 5 star yes, but it felt so relaxed and did not attract the usual ostentatious, pretentious set that some 5 star resort hotels can attract……those where nothing is good enough and they seem to make a living out of being unkind and rude to staff to make themselves feel better. So if you fancy a relaxed, chilled week in a gorgeous location, being well and truly spoiled without the pretentiousness, I’d recommend it.
So, on to Parga itself. I clicked the ‘book now’ button, thinking I was going to a Greek island, I did history not geography at school! It’s not, it’s on the mainland opposite Corfu, not too far from the Albanian and Macedonian borders. It’s in the Epirus region near Preveza. Due to its proximity to the border, it has a history of being fought over. It’s been part of the Venetian and Ottoman empires and has been part of Turkey, Albania and Western Macedonia before Greece. So there is so much history and no shortage of pretty castles.
So, that’s the history bit. I’m also impartial to a holiday cocktail. If you like beer, the Mythos is good and cheaper than the water (tastes better than water too!). If you like cocktails, I recommend Avocado cocktail bar. Halfway up the hill with the most gorgeous view of the town with its twinkling lights around the harbour. And seven days is just enough time to work your way through the entire cocktail menu……that’s a fact I know because I might just have achieved it! I hardly drink at home but I do like a little tipple on holiday.
Parga town itself is beautiful. It’s a little horseshoe shaped promenade lined with pretty bars and cafes, a small but perfectly formed harbour, a hilltop castle, and just lovely to stroll around in the evening.
It’s also well connected to the islands by ferry or day trip boat. It’s close to Corfu but I decided instead to spend a day at the more remote islands of Paxos and Antipaxos with a stop at the Blue Caves enroute for swimming with the rather aptly named Captain Hook! Not the real one I suspect, as I saw both hands, clutching either a Marlboro or his mobile phone. All joking aside, he was an amazingly good captain, and it was quite possibly the best 35 euros I spent on holiday.
The blue Caves were excellent and he skilfully got the whole boat inside and then let us jump off the boat into the turquoise waters. There were so many pretty fish. I love swimming in the sea when it’s so blue. Then we had a pod of dolphins chasing the boat, such a sight, beautiful.
We stopped off in Gaios, the main town on Paxos for three hours. It was such a lovely sleepy island town. Highlights here were the harbour front, pretty little terracotta church, bougainvillea, and statue of George Anemogiannis. George was born on Paxos and was a hero of the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman empire getting killed in 1821 aged 23 on his ship, in battle.
Oh, and another highlight was the creperie and gelato taverna on the waterfront where I ate a huge crepe, with Peanut Butter gelato under the pretence that the fresh fruit on the plate and inside the crepe constituted at least 3 of my 5 a day!
Feeling a bit guilty (only a bit) about the over indulgence on cocktails and cakes I also took my running gear and yes, I did go, and here is photographic evidence that I nearly had to be carried back to the hotel. Parga has a little church. It’s at the top of a hill, and the hill is very steep. I can confirm it was just short of 6 miles there and back, and the church from the beach is 1300ft above sea level. It was 30 degrees, and my face ended up the same colour as my t-shirt……pink! It was horrible. I felt just like I look. I can, however, confirm that I actually run one minute a mile quicker after seeing a snake. A small baby Mediterranean viper of some sort, I’m told, but I’m not a huge fan of snakes and didn’t hang around too long.
It’s now only one week away from the Barnsley Boundary relay race on 10th June though and knowing I’ve been placed in the V40 ten person female team who are favourites to win that category I’m feeling a bit under pressure!! I’m just trying not to think about the fact that my leg starts at 8am and I’m going to see the Arctic Monkeys on the evening before with a 22 year old son who loves nothing better than to lead me astray! It’s absolutely not going to be a re-run of 2018 though when he abandoned me in the mosh pit, my feet were black and blue the day after, and I might just have had a few too many to drink. I’m older and wiser now and it’s just not happening!
Back to Parga. It might not be for you if you don’t like hills. I found the answer to the question, “Where is……….please?” Was always…….”at the top of the hill.” I swear on my life it has more hills than Rome. The only upshot is that there’s usually a café or bar at the top. I had one last gigantic hill climb on my last day to walk to the pretty watermill museum. A lovely walk through greenness with no end of spring flowers and butterflies. Definitely worth the climb.
Final highlight of the holiday were the fireflies!!!! Beautiful little things, and this time of year is firefly season in Greece. Nothing better than sitting with a glass of wine, watching the stars, and listening to the cicadas and the sea with the twinkling of the fireflies in the undergrowth. Fireflies like a tropical climate, so surprisingly, we don’t have them in Yorkshire! They are fascinating. They are little winged beetles. The colour they flash and the frequency depends on which species they are. They are flashing to attract a mate. How cute is that. There’s no need for dating websites in the land of the firefly, just flash your light on your bum, and hey presto, he’s all yours! Downside though is that after all that flashing and happiness they only live for two weeks in Greece! Fascinating.
Anyway, I’m back home in God’s own county now, planning where on my bucket list to jet off to next May. But if you are thinking of Greece, consider Parga, it gets a big thumbs up from me.