No matter how we spent the afternoon, we always made it back to the house for appetizers and happy hour. We mixed things up--sometimes sitting on the back deck, the dining room table or around the pool. The Greek wines were surprisingly good. The men often started the evening with ouzo, a licorice-flavored aperitif, which is very popular in Greece. At some of the restaurants, if you order ouzo, it comes with a free appetizer.
Shortly after our cave stop, Diamantis pulled into a cove for another swim stop. As you can see, the coastline is rather rugged and many of Skiathos’ 60 beaches can only be accessed by boat. This cove had some ruins on the hill above. Jimmy and Tony made the hike up; we figured it was too soon for me to try, so I again just hung out in the boat.
They had a nice view of the cove from up above. The kids enjoyed swimming and looking for pretty rocks. Afterwards, we continued our circuit around the island, then went back into town for lunch.
Jimmy was ecstatic when he found out that the first swimming stop would be at a cave. The water was cold, but that didn’t stop him, Max or our girls from jumping right in. Ariana was much more hesitant, but allowed Tony to coax her in. They were hoping to find a beach inside, but mostly they just found bats. I used my sore ankle as a good excuse to stay warm and Vivynne stayed behind to keep me company.
The owner of the villa, Diamantis, was a local ex-professional basketball player that just happened to own a power boat big enough for all of us. We hired him to take us around the 27 miles of Skiathos coastline. The kids enjoyed the much bumpier front of the boat, which was fine with me.
Skiathos is a small island in the Aegean Sea. With a permanent population of just 8,000 villagers, it swells to over 110,000 during the summer months! Apparently we missed the end of the season by less than two weeks and all the hotels and many of the restaurants were already shuttered for the winter. Most days we came into town for lunch and we spent two afternoons wandering around the alleys. The main beach, which is reported to be one of Europe’s best, was closed, but we managed to find a little bit of sea glass at a smaller beach.
Ever since we moved to Holland, Vivynne and Tony have been talking about trying to get us to Greece. Vivynne lived there for several years as a child and Tony (whose father was born in Thessaloniki) spent most of a year living there. The girl’s October break seemed the perfect timing, although they had to pull Ariana and Max out of school. They flew ahead to visit family and we flew in to Athens, spent the night at an airport hotel and caught a flight to the island of Skiathos to meet them for six nights at this villa. The ride up the steep hill was scary, but the view was worth it.
I stupidly crashed my bike just six days before our flight and damaged the ligaments in my ankle. It wasn’t broken, but the doctor prescribed a tight wrapping and crutches for two weeks, which didn’t bode well for an active vacation. Luckily, fate intervened to save our trip. A friend came to pick me up just two days before our departure and said the doctor was wrong; she was a physical therapist pre-kids and instructed me to ditch the crutches and do exercises to strengthen my ankle. So instead of sitting on the couch all week, I was able to get around pretty well.
In the early hours of October 10th, we split up to catch rides to Tiel for another Jr National Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. Ashlynn was the captain of BSN Blue, the youngest team competing. Those five 10- and 11-year-olds played more minutes than any other players because they were the only team with no extras to rotate in. Despite her team getting trounced by older and taller players, Ashlynn had a great attitude and continued to encourage her teammates until the ending whistle blew.
Veronica was happy to get to play on the top BSN team this year, the Grey Lions. David was his usual power player and Andrew, their youngest player, was fantastic. The team rolled over all their competition until the finals where a German team got the better of them. Here they are with their 2nd place trophy.
