Europe - Before Digital

We stumbled upon some old photos that we had digitized years ago from our Europe trips in the early oughts ....

Dinner at Los Caracoles, Barcelona 2001.

Dinner at Dugi Otok, Croatia, 2004.

A break from the trip up to see Parga castle, 2003.

The infamous Baba the Lemon Thief! Near Nicopolis, Greece, 2003.

In the depths of Parga Castle! Parga, Greece, 2003.

Lisa and Sally somewhere in the Ionian Islands 2003.

Champagne Charlie's, Barcelona, 2001.

Tunis in the Bazaar, 2000.

Tunis, on the roof of the bazaar, 2000.

The Wedding Throne, Tunisia, 2000.

The view along the gunnels of Elifthiria, what a joy she was to sail.

Sardinia, Croatia, Romania and Budapest Summer 2004

In the summer of 2004, Christos and Lisa had their last sail on the wonderful Elifithiria with Alex and Sally.

We flew into Italy for a brief trip over to Sardinia where Christos went on a mining site visit before heading to Croatia where we met Alex and Sally. Two glorious weeks were spent sailing the Dalmatian Coast with visits to the island of Dugi Otok and the ports of Zadar and Split as well as other smaller ports. Croatia is quite a beautiful country and although not as expensive as Italy or France, by 2004 it had been discovered as a tourist destination and prices, while reasonable, were certainly not cheap.

The stay at Dugi Otok was particularly memorable. It is an island off the coast of Croatia:

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Dugi+otok,+Croatia/@44.021175,15.0226648,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x47620015c670e1df:0xf5623705331cee03

With a natural park (Park Prirode Telascica) at the southern end that has a long bay leading into it providing excellent shelter. The bay is popular with yachties and has one restaurant grandfathered in but is otherwise devoid of settlements.

The restaurant is excellent and their specialty is a lamb dish that they cook slowly buried underground; one needs to order it in the morning in order to get it for dinner that night!

There is a dirt road over the hills and out of the bay that leads to the town of Sali on the exterior coast; Lisa and Christos paid it a visit by hitching a lift in the back of a truck and then walking back.

While in Croatia, we also did some spelunking although for the life of me I cannot recall the name of the cave we visited.


After the sailing with Alex and Sally, we left for an overland voyage to Romania where Christos had another mining site visit planned to the Rosia Montana project.

After a harrowing 24 hour trip by bus and train, we arrived in Romania in the early hours and were picked up by their local guy (Adrian) who not only chaperoned us for the tour but also took us on a three day weekend tour of Romania after the site visit was complete.

It was a real eye opener for both of us as out expectations and preconceptions as to what Romania is were way off.

The mine tour itself was very interesting as the project has a long history (2000 years) starting with the Romans and ending after the Ceausescu era when subsides were removed and the operation could not operate economically. An old rusted "shovel" from the Ceausescu era remained as a monument to previous times.

While touring Romania with Adrian, Christos spied two vampiric wooden carvings that he quite liked and before he could buy them, Adrian purchased them for us! They have graced our walls ever since and are known as "Vlad and Adrian".

Summer Sailing in Greece

The summers of 2002 and 2003 saw our third and fourth  sailing experiences aboard Elifthiria. In 2003 we flew via Rome while in 2003 we flew in and out of Athens.

In 2002 we met Alex and Sally in beautiful Taormina and sailed along the boot of Italy (past Crotone) and then were laid up for several days due to bad weather at the heel of Italy's boot.

At one point, the weather got so rough that even in a protected harbour, the boat rolled all night allowing no sleep ... the four of us gave up and rented a hotel room (on land) for the night! Fortunately, while the weather was rough, the food was excellent, particularly the seafood!

Finally we made the crossing over to Corfu and spent the last part of 2002's sail in and around Corfu, visiting Parga castle and I believe sailing the Ambracian Gulf, visiting the ruins of Nicopolis where Alex stole watermelon from a local farmer's field!

In 2003, we flew into Athens and then took a quick flight to Corfu to meet up with Alex and Sally who were staying at the Gouvina Marina, just a stone's throw from Corfu town.

Evenings were spent at a local bar (G&M's) with day trips into Corfu city and around the island.

G&M's was a bit dangerous as the drinks were cheap, the music loud and the owner very personable as can be seen by his joy at being with Lisa and Sally.

The big deal came a few nights into our stay in Corfu when Christos popped the question to Lisa and begged for her hand in marriage! There were flowers on the boat and at the fish restaurant where we had dinner that night. It was beautiful.

After a few days it was time to set sail and we hauled up the anchor, and headed south along the Greek coast.

The sailing was amazing! Clear water, blue skies, the Captain's Treat (ie beer) when the hook was in, Sally's amazing cooking, cold white wine, visits from fellow yachties (sometimes with their dogs) and in general a time to relax and not think about the stress of life back home.

In 2003, we sailed past Parga (and its wonderful castle) down to Messolonghi and then near that most ancient of Greek sites, Delphi (which we took a bus to). Both Messolonghi and Delphi were wonderful experiences.

Messolonghi is well of the tourist trail but played a crucial role in the Greek fight for independence from the Turks (1830s) and is where the Hellenophile Lord Byron died! In Messolonghi, we moored in the largely empty harbour and Lisa and Christos went ashore to the local town hall that also serves as a museum of sorts. The minder let us in (the door was locked) and gave us a tour of the place which included artifacts from the war of the 1830s as well as some amazing Delacroix paintings!

We also encountered a large turtle that seemed to live in the harbour, one evening we watched it make the long circuit of the harbour, surfacing every few dozen metres to breathe and look around. It was an ancient beast that seemed to reek of wisdom (or maybe just the sea).



Delphi on the other hand is a very popular tourist attraction and although the people can be a bit much, it is well worth the visit for the amazing history and ruins of the place.

We also sailed to Ithaca and Kephalonia, where the most wonderful dolmathas lured us back to the same restaurant two nights in a row. The restaurant was located just outside of town, one walked for under a half-hour up the road and dined looking out over the mediterranean sea as it swallowed the day's sun ... truly magical.

After a couple of weeks sailing with Alex and Sally we returned to Athens for a couple of nights before heading back to Canada. Christos had arranged to meet with an Athens based Greek shipping company he had been introduced to in Toronto so off we went to the Athenian suburbs early one morning ... the executives listened patiently to Christos' pitch before basically saying thanks but no thanks (they were already working with JP Morgan) and then proceeded to shower us with gifts as it was the christening of the owner's grandson and thus all were in a festive mood! After lunch with the shipping company we headed back to Athens but not before they informed us that they would have a car pick us up the next day to take us on a tour of Athens; Greek hospitality is something to behold!

So the next day a black limo arrived at our (shabby) hotel and the driver whisked us to all the sites (Acropolis and others), picking up the tab on the way and generally treating us like VIPs. What a fun day it was!

The Grand Tour - Summer 2001

From 1999 to the Spring of 2001, Christos worked at a Toronto based dotcom (ah the days) that built contest websites and accumulated personal information on entrants in order to generate bespoke advertising product targeting these people.

With a little more thought, it could have been facebook before facebook but alas the dotcom bust hit and by the Summer of 2001, Christos was unemployed but with a decent cash payout ... which we promptly used to finance a six week trip across Europe!

We landed in Paris and spent a few days in that fine city before heading to Florence to meet up with Julian and his mom and dad who were all staying at a lovely villa outside the city (complete with an amazing cook and a few other guests).

We spent three or four nights with Julian and his family and it was really quite wonderful. It is hard to compete with Tuscany in the summertime.

Days were spent wandering the city of Florence, visiting museums or just enjoying the city's many sights. It was Lisa's first time in wonderful Florence so of course Il Duomo was a must see as were the other churches tucked away in the historic centre of town.

Evenings were generally spent back at the villa enjoying the amazing food and socializing where a total of about a dozen people were staying; we all dined together but generally we tended to stay with Julian and his 'rents as we knew them best. There were many late night conversations over red wine with the sound of the cicadas filled the warm summer air.

We had a wild night out (June 27th/28th it seems), when we stayed in Florence itself instead of returning to the villa. That evening we partied at a tourist bar until it closed down and then went off with the (local) staff to another bar across the Tiber that stayed open another couple of hours before we stumbled back to our hotel and passed out.

Christos was too unwell to climb Il Duomo the next day (and had done it before in 1995) so it was just Julian and Lisa that made the climb.





After a few days in Florence, it was off to Milan for a night before taking the train to Barcelona to meet up with Alex and Sally.




Barcelona was, of course, a great time. Our days were filled with trips to Gaudi's works (Guell Park, Sagrada familia etc), sandwiches at "Champagne Charlie's", dinners at Los Caracoles and wanderings along the Ramblas!

Champagen Charlie's ( or so we called it) is a tiny hole in the wall "bocadillo" or sandwich shop. It is standing room only and booze is pink cava (only). The sandwiches and small plates are cheap and hearty;a popular and typical sandwich is chorizo with roquefort and braised pepper.

We had many a drunken lunch at Champagne Charlie's and have been back as recently as 2015 (14 years later) to find it still thriving with good food and good cheer.

After a few days we hoisted the anchor and sailed along the Spanish coast to a place called Empuria Brava, a new community on the water geared towards boaties (canals) that reminded us of a Spanish Daytona Beach.

After a few days of sailing the Spanish Coast, we undertook a night crossing from Spain to Marseilles, being underway for an entire day (and night) and arriving in Marseille for Bastille Day which also happened to be Christos' 30th birthday!

Night crossings, while amazing, can be a bit tiring on the crew! The fatigue is worth it for the beautiful sunsets and sunrises one gets at sea ... we also had an amazing experience of sailing beside migrating turtles that at one point surrounded Elifthria in the night.

Once we arrived in Marseille it was time to explore and enjoy! We ate seafood on the quay, bought olive oil soap in large quantities and enjoyed the festive attitude of the city as it prepared for the evening's celebrations. The night did not disappoint with a firework show in the harbour (we had a great view as we were on the boat) and once some of the other yachties discovered that Christos was born on Bastille Day (and spoke passable French) we were invited to an amazing yacht were we shared wine with the French owner.

The next day Lisa and Christos said goodbye to Alex and Sally, took the train to Paris (where Alex's guidance on oysters proved incorrect) and then took the overnight to Berlin. In Berlin we awoke to find Christos' dear friend Ferdinand on the train searching for us! As is his nature, he was of course impeccably dressed with a bow tie and jacket.

We stayed with Ferdinand and another of Christos' friends (Tosh) for about a week in Berlin and had a great time with visits to the museum, the beer garden, the Love Parade and general wanderings.

One night, after an evening at the beer garden, we stumbled about the park and Ferdinand tested the mushrooms. Clearly one had to be there, but at the time it was overwhelmingly hilarious!

After a week in Berlin, we headed off to Amsterdam for a few days. More museums (Van Gogh) as well as "coffee shops" and the Heineken Brewery were visited during our stay in Amsterdam. With more than six weeks having passed, we finally headed home on a flight from Amsterdam laden not only with trinkets and souvenirs but also with memories to last forever.

Tunisia - The Adventures Begin!

Our first trip abroad ....

We had been dating less than a year and although Lisa had only met Alex and Sally once before, and had never visited a place like Tunisia, she was willing to take the plunge and off we took in the summer of 2000.

We landed in Rome and took the train down to Pompeii (with a night in Naples) before taking the train to Marsala to meet up with Alex and Sally. After a meal aboard the boat, we took a night sail to Tunisia, arriving off the Tunisian coast early the next morning.

Early in the trip we visited Tunis itself, touring the souk from below and above and visiting the (limited) ruins of (Roman, not Punic) Carthage.



Of course we also visited the famous Bardo museum with its amazing Roman era mosaics.

After a couple of nights near Tunis, we started sailing west along the Tunisian coast with stops in Bizerte and Tabaraka.

Eventually, it was time to set our sights for Italy as Lisa and Christos had a flight back from Rome booked for a few days later. The plan was to do a full day (24 hour) sail to get us to southern Italy and then we would make our way to Rome ... but nature had other plans!

The day we set sail, about six hours in a storm brewed up nearby and we were forced to abandon the attempt to get to Italy. Instead, we sailed for the closest port which in this case happened to be the island of Galite.

Galite is a military zone and is usually closed to non-military naval traffic but due to the storm, the harbour of Galite was available for anchor.

After several hours of sailing in progressively worse seas, we arrived well after midnight and found ourselves confronted by a flotilla of bobbing lights; the mast lights of a fleet of fishing boats that had also sought refuge in the harbour at Galite! 

We spent some time weaving among them before finally getting the hook in only to be awoken later that night ... ask Lisa or Christos to tell you the story of Galite ...

Fortunately we had the amazing Captain Spiros, pictured here in his finest form, to lead us through the calm waters, tough waters and  even storms. Love you Captain Spiros! 

The Way Way Back

Long before Isis and Lisa, Christos used to make trips to Detroit and other parts of the USA to buy records for the 1200s.

Here is an old picture of Christos and Crispin on one of those forays.

Back in 1997, Christos worked for Booker Gold and spent two weeks at the exploration campsite getting a feel for the business.

Wow the years go by ...










Christos and James in Pompeii, summer 1995.

Christos in Greece, summer of 1992.

Sally on Elifthiria, summer of 1992.

















Christos and Ferdinand in the spring of 1989 at the Berg residence about to go to a semi-formal in their own particular way.

Alex and Sally's wedding, 1987 (?) with Christos and Lisa's sister MaryJane at the high table as well. Held at Alex's favourite haunt, La Fenice.













Alex Doulis, 1969; this would have been around the time he bought 5 Laurier Avenue!