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I’ve been quite busy, if you could call it that, in the last week. We left Athens for Rhodes on a big – huge – ferry. The 12 hour trip was quite exhausting, given the Greek coffee I foolishly consumed at 11pm – the rest of the trip was spent wedged under a few seats trying to fall asleep (don’t ask).

Rhodes was brilliant! We got a cheap little ‘pension’ in the old town, which has existed as is for around 700 years – the town, the pension has been there only 500. It’s quite popular with the local cockroaches – which made me homesick. I could go on an on about the cobbled streets of old Rhodes and it’s fascinating history and averages beaches, yet amazingly clear water, but that was a week ago, and the real story is in Kastellorizo.

MJ in Rhodes

A brief background. Kastellorizo is the island from where my (Greek) grandparents are from, well they are actually from the Kastellorizo’s ‘colonies’ in Asia Minor (Turkey) but Kastellorizo is where it all started…

We flew in from Rhodes on a tiny DASH 8 with thirty seats. The flight was onlt 20 minutes but Olympic Airways is a full service airline and the hostess served orange juice. The ‘airport’ was up in the hills of Kastellorizo and after a 5 minute bus drive we were at the only settlement on the island – once a thriving port of 12,000 residents, Kastellorizo now boasts a population of about 300. I instantly fell in love with the place.

Quickest way to Kazzie

Nice...

Most days on Kastellorizo involved a swim in the deep blue clear water of the harbour, a hot coffee in the morning, a cold coffee in the afternoon, and delicious home cooked dinners on the harbour at night. There weren’t many tourists last week, but apparently it’s all on next week, the lack of tourists however, meant that we made some good friends while we were there. If we wanted a night out, we need only ask George, the local nightclub owner to open his bar. By day 3 he was sending us behind the bart to get our own drinks.

Half the island (repatriated Sydney Kastellozians) knew either my Grandmother ‘Xanthe from Goulburn’ or her brother ‘Dimitri from Earlwood’ and countless stories about I felt like a minor celebrity for a while. Flo invited us over for a cuppa and breakfast, she fancied herself a bit of a psychologist and shared her version of the island gossip with us for a few hours. I also found my nanna’s grandfathers grave.

I have amazing photos of the island which you’ll see in due course 🙂

Marty, Lainey, Greece and Turkey