Wednesday 18 June 2014

Holy Monastery Santa Maria Tsampika

We booked a taxi and left the hotel to visit the Holy Monastery Santa Maria Tsampika, up the mountain.
The receptionist arranged for the car to drop and collect. I thought a couple of hours she looked at me, for what? you go up, look around and come back, maybe 45 minutes!
OK you know best.




Much to the horror of the children. Why would we leave the pool?
Cause Mamma will go mad if she doesn't break the week up that's why.




Freeway, up hill, then up more dirt road which is also single track and up hill. Awesome.



Sure enough there was a cafe, which was open even though it was the week before the season. The taxi dropped us and said he would come back in an hour and half because he said that the children would be slow climbing to the top.

300 uneven steps and my two went up like rockets.



There were a few tears near the top, P wouldn't hold the hand rail and walk sensibly and G lost it.




So those struggling with fertility are encouraged to make their way barefoot to the Monastery and pray to the virgin. In Rhodes if you are successful and you then give birth to a boy you are to name him Tsambikos and a girl, Tsambika.



There is a loo up here, as well as the remains of a build, 3 wheel barrow, 2 cement mixers and whole lot of other unwanted bits.

Then back down.


There are always things to be found to make a trip out extra special.



That goat followed us down to the cafe suspiciously.
1 beer and 3 ice creams, a short taxi ride and we were back in the pool, with little voices saying that was a great trip out.

CM

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Atlantica Club Aegean Blue Water Park

So the hotel put in a water park a year or so ago.
If you are staying at the hotel you can use the water park for free and if you are not, then you can't.

Even though there were no queue's for slides they should work on this revenue stream a bit more.
The foot print isn't big and including us there might have been 10-15 people using the facility so really not over crowded or loud OR any euro trash pop music to be heard.


I don't like heights that much, I don't mind being up high, I am just not that keen on structures that get you up there if they are not encased by a building. SO I am not sure how I took these photos.
You may have to revert to the fourth photo a few times for reference as the day unfolds.

This hotel backed onto ours, no big divine and I think is owned by the same group.


There are glass screens round the balcony's, I got a bit envious because our room was above the bar and close to the stage and it was a bit loud and I was getting a bit cross and this place looked VERY calm.
The room issue was resolved this same day but that's for a later post.
The life guard said this hotel is newer but it is better for families with small children.

More view.


T and G called this the toilet bowl.



At one point they came out the bottom, she was thrown up in the air and he honestly thought he'd killed her but she came squealing AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN DADDY!!!




T was probably a bit under size for this one, you drop down, fly up, come back down and over the hill and then shoot into the water pool on the other side.
Life guard said, you look sturdy, just go and we will see what happens. Sure enough she didn't complete the task of ending in the pool so she only got the one shot but awesome all the same.
You'd never be allowed to do that at Chessington. Ha!

P's experience of the park was short lived, we walked in and missed the baby pool in the corner which she would have preferred instead headed to the jungle fountain hell hole that was freezing.
G and T ran in and out of this but P just found it all too much and my pics of this is limited and so was her time here, I got one picture where she is smiling and she is holding her gun.



Then she decided to 'do' a slide and picked one of these death drops, again probably a little big for her, no hesitation, straight down arms crossed into an infantile Moro Reflex, hit the bottom, water in the face, finishing with uber wailing to mummy and insistence that her sister repeat exactly the same experience.

This is after everything had calmed down.




Around the park is a lazy river, I have always wanted to do a lazy river. Lets go as a family!
It took a long time to get P anywhere near it. She thought she might fall through the ring, what could go wrong, she would be near mummy.
Oh, if only that simple.
T got in to a single ring and then G the same. We put P in a double and she felt almost safe and then I got into the other part of the '8', the weight distribution was not great to say the least, by this time we were off and I was not stable AT ALL, my end was taking in water.
Luckily as mentioned before not a lot of people around to witness what happened next.
G decided P was not safe, she was fine, it was me that was in trouble.
So he grabs P rather than let me figure something out or warning me of his intentions and perches her on his lap and she is happy.
I am not, the double ring is not horizontal, I have no option, I have to evacuate.

Now this lazy river is not like those ones you see in the Florida commercials, it's basic and all angles, there is not much planting, and I could have swum round and no one would have noticed but the right thing to do was get out. But the currant!
The pull was stronger than it looked and we were beginning to draw attention to ourselves with all the laughter and G and the girls were going down river.
I did get out but I looked like a whale.
Just G and T visited the park for the rest of the week.



I asked the life guard if young teens ever scrambled the mountain and drank beer in groups, after all that's probably what would happen here in the UK, no need to, there is a bar half way up and steps to the top.
Can you see where the radio mast is?
Booked a taxi and that's where we headed next.

CM


Sunday 15 June 2014

Rhodes Old Town

At this hotel you tell the staff the day before that you are out for the day and after breakfast they give you a cool bag and you fill it up at their picnic chiller section and off you trot.

Amazing.

We took the bus to Rhodes Old Town, up the 'freeway', a dual carriageway which had a raised partition up the middle with sporadic planting, at one point we flew past two elderly gentlemen who on foot had met in the middle, leaning on the partition for a chat.
One in the north bound and one in the south lane.

The architecture is interesting and the health and safety on a building site is eye watering.

The amount of glamorous furriers is incredible, who knew you could shift that many fur coats from an island that gets so hot it's uncomfortable, I know the whole Ugg sheepskin keeps you cool thing but this is on another scale. Some of these places could be mistaken for an Audi showroom.

Anyway this is what I saw.


P made a friend.





OK, so I might have been slightly in tears in this shop, not enough money in the world to buy whatever one wanted and it all screamed Iris Apfel. Got as many photos as I could politely get away with.


Next years sandal are in the bag and these slippers are the most comfortable and I will never wear another kind.

Stopped for lunch down a quite side street.


I feel a thorough spring clean coming along.






Just enough, we were back on the bus by lunch and straight into the water park.

CM