3 October 2023 - Vlycho

The tear drop shaped bay of Vlycho, accessed by a narrow channel at the north end, has the reputation of being a ‘hurricane hole’, where a boat can shelter from strong winds. Although, in September 2011, an extreme weather event occurred here. Strong southerlies had been blowing, but during the evening a hurricane force squall hit parts of the bay, causing chaos on land and water, despite the strong wind only lasting for about 10 minutes.

It is a large bay with space for a lot of boats to anchor, but now, it being October, it is sparsely occupied. As you come down the entry channel you pass Nidri, one of the few towns in this area that we had previously heard of, but I don’t know why.

The longest journey in the tender for ages.  Glad we had the engine serviced.

Visiting Nidri was a must, so we took a long trip, for our tender, of 3.5 kilometres to the town. There were lots of empty spaces on the pontoons there too. It seems a thing, there that the bars / coffee shops have a swimming pool and they must be packed in high season, but today we were the only customers in our chosen spot for mid-morning coffee. That was all very nice but, as we got further into the town, we also found that the whole of the seafront is wall to wall restaurants and bars. One road back there’s a mixture of souvenir shops, ice cream parlours, fast food counters and scooter rental places. It’s mini Torremolinos! However, on the opposite side of the bay, there’s a picturesque scene of the wooded shore of Tranquil Bay and views of some of the other Ionian Islands.

We weren't tempted with the ice cream. Someone must have thought this a good idea! 

At least we could walk along the high street, closed in high season, but now open to traffic, because of the scarcity of visitors. I’m glad I’ve seen it out of season, and I don’t think we’ll be rushing back, unless there’s a very compelling reason.

It’s more difficult to get the fresh food supplies we are used to here, possibly because most of the visitors eat out, but we managed to buy what we needed.

In the cool of the evening a fisherman in a small boat put out his net, amongst the anchored boats, another delightful view. It is wonderful to see that traditional crafts are going on, even in a place which has been overtaken by tourism. There’ll be no worries about the net; I’m sure it will be back in by sunrise.

Fishing boat in the middle and the blue float on the end of his net just visible.


As the sun set, the warm yellow glow of the sodium street lights make it a calm relaxing place to be at the end of the day.

Miles today               0 (but about 4 in the tender)

Miles in 2023      1045

Tricia (and Steve) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

24 - 27 March 2023 - Amersham / Zagreb / Biograd

Image
Our Spring / Summer adventures started when the alarm went off at 04:20 on 24th March. The flight to Zagreb was completely full, the passengers including Welsh football supporters going to watch their team play Croatia in the Euro qualifiers, and a Para-Olympic Boccia team going to play-offs for next year’s Olympics. We had a superb 22 hours with our friends Stevo and Jasna in Zagreb, during which we managed to walk around the centre of the city. There are lots of late 19th century buildings, making it very attractive, along with the outside cafes and restaurants of European café society. The centre being largely pedestrianised and serviced by trams just adds to it’s appeal. The cathedral is undergoing some repairs after the earthquake a couple of years ago Ties were invented in Croatia, and there is a shop selling beautiful examples If you want a Tesla, this guy was the original On the way to the bus station, on Saturday morning, the taxi driver had said that, as we were travelling ...
Read more

1 June 2023 - Luka Jurjeva, Lastovo

Image
This is expected to be our last day in Croatia, we plan to head to Italy tomorrow.  We woke to a completely tranquil scene, with barely a ripple on the water. We headed ashore in the tender, and walked into Ubli, where there is a supermarket.   It is more than 4 km in each direction, but we needed to buy enough bread to last us today and tomorrow.    The road is mostly quiet, but there are no footpaths, and when the cars come, they are not expecting to encounter pedestrians, so it is a bit daunting at times. The views make it all worthwhile, and we were rewarded at the inland end by finding a larger and better stocked supermarket than we had expected.    The return was uneventful and we enjoyed our well deserved lunch when we arrived back on board. We have read that the chimneys on the island are unique, and are determined by your family and status.  We haven’t seen enough to have good comparisons, but we did see one that was quite noticeable...
Read more

20 September 2023 - Benitses and Kerkyra (Corfu Town)

Image
As we had booked into the marina for 2 days, but completed the necessary maintenance tasks in 1 day, we took the opportunity to go into Corfu town for some site seeing. The bus stop was right outside the marina, so it was very easy,  there was even a ticket machine at the bus stop (of which more later). Alighting from the bus, we started to wander through the narrow streets and alleyways of the old town. It was the sort of place to ignore the maps and just wander and see what you would find. Like many other places in this part of the world, Corfu has a very long history.   It was one of three Greek naval powers in the fifth century BC, with Athens and Corinth. Since then it has changed hands multiple times. It was part of the Republic of Venice from the 12th century, and there are still many buildings and avenues which seem typically Venetian. They built two huge forts to guard the city against pirates and the Ottomans, making it one of the most fortified places in Europe....
Read more