24 hours ago, we were on the boat out from Ραφήνα (Rafina) to Τήνος (Tinos).

Athens was the first destination of our holiday. Just a very quick stop at the city’s Ελ. Βενιζέλος (Elevtherios Venizelos) Airport, from where I had a taxi pre-booked to take us to the port of Rafina.

In Greece, taxis are a cheap, quick and easy way of travelling, particularly if there are several of you and you’ve all got luggage. Within an hour of landing we had arrived at Rafina and had already collected our tickets for the ferry journey to Tinos.

The driver, clearly impressed with our ability to communicate in Greek, pointed out all the attractions on the way – the Attiki Zoological Gardens, the designer outlet, the vineyards and the olive groves. I was sitting in the front, Mum and Dad in the back.

We had a bit of a wait in Rafina, but managed to find luggage lockers so we could leave our bags and headed to the beach to cool off. With temperatures above 30, this was very welcome! You couldn’t swim in the sea like this at Dover (or, for that matter, Piraeus).

From Rafina, we took the 15:45 Seajets service to Tinos. Travelling at high speeds, ‘Superjet’ got us to the island in just 1hr 45mins. A “normal” car ferry would take 4hrs 30mins minimum to complete the journey. For those interested, the boat then went on to the islands of Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, Ios and Santorini.

On arrival in Tinos, we headed to the taxi rank where a driver took us to our accommodation – the Anemologio, on the island’s South coast, with fantastic views over to the likes of Μύκονος (Mykonos) and Δήλος (Delos).

There are several fantastic beaches just down the hill from us, a couple of tavernas, a mini-mini-market and a bus stop so we can get in to Χώρα (Chora).

For our first evening, we had a swim at the beach before going to a little walk, then going to the taverna for our evening meal.

I had also discovered that I had left a mobile phone in the taxi, and phoned the taxi company’s office to explain (in Greek) the situation so I could try and track it down. This I managed to do successfully so I collected it from the taxi rank when we went in to Chora this morning.

Tomorrow, we will be taking a guided tour of Tinos, organised by ΚΤΕΛ (the Greek version of Stagecoach). This will take us in to many small villages, a monastery and a nice beach too. So it should be an interesting day.

At the moment, I am indoors, trying to keep cool, and I’ve got the radio on too. We’ll head down to the beach a little later too.

Bye for now.

FH.