I wrote a few days ago about our first visit to Ermoupoli, when we walked around the Vrontado district (the hill on the right in the photo above). We actually took the bus in to Ermoupoli 3 times. The second time, we walked around Vaporia (Βαπόρια) – the district hidden by that big boat… 😛
Before we went to Vaporia though we went back to Όδος Χίου – the main shopping street – to do some shopping. Every year I like to buy myself a Greek t-shirt (Greek t-shirts make up 97% of what is in my chest of drawers, many of the ones I brought years ago still fit me).
I did the same this year – but was able to get it printed with my own personal message on it. I found a nice polo shirt which had a nice Syros design on the front, and on the back I got them to print:
Γαλησσάς – Αύγουστος 2013
www.fred-hart.gr
Or – to put it another way – “Galissas – August 2013” followed by the URL of my Greek website.
Mum and I also worked out something to print on a shirt for Dad – which we also got printed, and gave him for his birthday a couple of weeks ago after we had returned to the UK.
We printed for him:
Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα
Δεν φοβάμαι τίποτα
Είμαι παντρεμένος
25 χρονιά
Which translates in to English as:
I don’t hope for anything
I’m not afraid of anything
I am married
25 years
He will be made to wear this t-shirt next week – Mum & Dad’s 25th anniversary takes place on September 10th!
Vaporia
Vaporia is not up a big hill, and it takes you away from the main touristy areas of the city – we walked through the back streets, past the old building of the Cyclades Prefecture (Νομαρχία Κυκλάδων), and also past the church of Ag. Nikolaos.
The walk around Vaporia took us past a few places where you could get down to the sea to swim – many of them a bit exposed to the wind.
We found a brilliant spot though back towards the harbour – there is an area equipped with steps down in to the sea and proper diving boards where many of the locals were swimming. Right next to a massive ship moored in the harbour, it was sheltered as within the harbour walls.
It did feel very strange swimming so close to such a big ship… it is certainly something you wouldn’t want to do at all somewhere like Southampton!
As you are beginning to see by now, Ermoupoli isn’t just another ‘Aegean island harbour’, but rather, a proper capital city. The history of the city is still very evident in many of the buildings, making it somewhere you can go for a good day out.
Tomorrow: I will be writing about our boat trip to the beach of Grammata.