GREECE. HALKADIKI - Athos peninsular

Beach holidays finished after 29 years in Tenerife. 5 star hotels are not on the menu. And yet we arrived at the Eagle's Nest which is both. Must have been a very good price. And Paul has carcinoma, so do keep out of the sun. Not at all crowded. Very quiet. Good umbrellas complete with menu and a bell on each one, the better to call a waiter with! The sea - Gulf of Agion - not quite a millpond but very still and no tide.

From hotel garden.

Hotel hardly crowded.

OURANOUPOLIS

No towns for 100k. €15 (one way or return?) by taxi, €1.30 by bus.

Ouranoupolis had a good beach and dozens of eateries. Very impressed to see local shopkeepers brushing not just their foreourt but the road as well. Plenty to remind one that the Greek Orthodox Church is embodied here. Just look in a shop window.

No sun worshippers here - I wonder why not.

The ferry to St Athos Monastery goes from Ouranoupolis; the slipway was is littered with an assortment of what were presumably monks heavily laden with local shopping.

Further along there are cruise boats to take the non religious down the coast to see the monasteries of the Holy Mountain of Athos - which are not all ancient heaps - why shouldn't a monk have a pad with mod cons? Other than the very top bit, where we are, the Athos Peninsular is male only - by law. To visit a monastery entails booking 6 months ahead and then only 10 visitors are allowed on any one day to the whole of the 20 monasteries on Mount Athos.

There were other holiday makers

If there are females on board the boat must stay at least 250m off shore.

Grigoriou

Panteleimon

Xenophonos

Simonopetra

Back to the Eagle's Nest. If you come off the beach with sand between your toes there is provision - but it is a matter of do it yourself. Is that really 5 Star standard?

Nothing goes away at night time - it just gets dark. Mount Athos is still looking over the whole peninsular.

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