Florence, Italy: Athens (Aegina)

Today’s adventure was to Aegina, the closest island to Athens. This island is notable for two things: its pistachios and how it has become a suburb to Athens with people commuting to work from there. Sure, there’s a lot of archaeological material there too, but those two are definitely its two current popular points. To get to the island I caught the Metro to the nearby port of Piraeus. From there, I took a type of ship called a Flying Dolphin. With a name like that one would expect these things to look like submarines. Instead, they looked like boats with wings. To give it stability, the boat has two short stubs off of the front that prevent it from tipping over (I guess). They ships are called Flying Dolphins because they go much faster than the other ferries at a whopping 35mph.

I got to Aegina in one piece and then had no idea what to do. I’d read a little in the books and on the internet; but, besides the ancient temple on the other side of the island, the archaeological site near the harbor was the other main attraction. Since I had all day in Aegina, I decided to just walk around and get a feel for the island first. After 30 minutes of intense walking around the city with the harbor, I gave in and went to the archaeological site. It was interesting. Like most of Greece, it had a lot of history before the classical period and then another rebirth with Roman sponsorship. Having seen the National Archaeological Museum yesterday, the Aegina Museum wasn’t great. They did have excavations we could walk through, though; better yet, they were on a hill, which made for great harbor pictures.

Walking to the site I came on a street that made me laugh: it was called Nikos Kazantzakis St. (odos, actually: Greek for ‘road’ or ‘way’ or ‘journey’) I’m not sure if N. K. actually spent time on the island. In any case, they had a statue bust of him on a pedestal in park. For those not familiar with Kazantzakis, he’s the author of The Last Temptation of Christ (which I read for my Christianity and Literature course) as well as Zorba the Greek and a modern version of Homer’s Odyssey in the same rhyme pattern Homer used.

When I finished all of that, it was only 1pm and my ticket to return to Athens wasn’t until 6pm. Five hours to fill and nothing to do. (For a while I was tempted to try and get an earlier ticket. When I realized that daylight savings time put the sunset right before I left I refrained from missing it.)

It turns out I like hot tea. I sat down at a cafe on the water and read a book for an hour while enjoying two cups. I forgot my stocking cap for the trip (which means my head was cold from the wind coming off the water — but also was getting plenty of good sun on it), so the tea was perfect. After the tea I went and had lunch at a restaurant and then sat in the sun and enjoyed my book and the harbor for another two hours.

Then came the pictures. I went to all of the different sides and locations around the harbor just looking for good shots. Ships, especially yachts, are rarely boring to shoot. Their reflections on the water with the mountains on the islands behind them makes it a fun process. When I get back to Florence I’ll post the gallery of the day.

I also figured out in shooting those that I’m a sucker for sunsets. That takes a completely different entry to describe. Enjoy!

Before taking off, I grabbed pistachios to see if they really are some of the best. I now have a kilo of them (2.2 lbs) to test. Wish me luck. My journey to Aegina ended with a disconcerting omen: right once the ferry left the pier, someone’s cell phone rang. This would have been normal, except for their ring was “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion. A song made famous by a movie about a ship sinking was not what I wanted to hear. Before they could get a call back after they hung up, I stuck on my headphones and pressed play on my iPod. That definitely took the stress away.