Theatre of dreams

After our late night hot chocolate excursion the children were quite tired this morning – everyone of them needed a wake up call, as opposed to other mornings where they’ve been up before us.  Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Suter told two of the boys groups as soon as they woke up that they would be going swimming again first thing – without batting an eyelid, they slowly groped for their swimming things which were still cold and soaking wet from yesterday’s swim, never mind how cold the water would have been this morning!  Thankfully we’re not that mean and instead everyone went downstairs – dry – for another filling buffet breakfast. 

The orchestra

It was obvious what was on the mind of some of the children today (“Will we get a chance to waste money today?” asked Cagla) but in fact we headed off to the theatre at Epidaurus.    We were joking with our paparazzi comments on Hydra, but upon arrival at the theatre we had several tourists break off their guides’ explanations of the theatre to come over to us to take pictures!  We’ve been quite an attraction.  We have to say here that the children have been absolutely impeccably behaved – our tour guide Anna was getting quite annoyed at the manners of other groups at the theatre.  It wasn’t possible with the numbers there for her to demonstrate the excellent acoustics of the theatre by dropping a coin at the bottom for us to hear at the top, but Ms. Thomas showed her theatre production prowess and threw together a 30 second Machiavellian drama with evil villains, beautiful damsels and operatic singing of the finest quality (OK, so ‘Happy Birthday’ in Arabic doesn’t really count as opera) featuring ten of our braver thespians (In fact, later on a couple who were leading another group came over to Mr. Suter just to tell him how well behaved our children were).

I see no ships...

How do you spell that?  E-p-i-d-...

From there, we wove our way across the Peloponnese to Mycenae, the ancient citadel of Agamemnon, leader of the expedition to Troy.  With the sun blazing down upon us, we explored the ancient ruins.  The children were completely fascinated by the idea of the cyclopean walls – of course a name given to the walls by later historians with a reference to the Cyclops being the only race that would have been strong enough to carry the five tonne stone blocks of the outer walls.  Our children have taken this literally and have come away with the idea of these one-eyed giants living and working at the citadel in ancient times.  Many of the children thought that the beehive tomb adjacent to the site (the Treasury of Atreus) was thus called because of the number of bees that were flying around on the inside!

Lion Gate

Treasury of Atreus

How many layers of stones are there?

From there we finally had lunch at the much anticipated restaurant in Mycenae – for the children, a combination of stuffed vine leaves, chicken and pasta, greek salad, omelettes and stuffed tomatoes for the non-meat eaters, and ice cream.  The staff get slightly preferential treatment – these four courses are supplemented with an additional three and almost everyone left the restaurant groaning at the seams.

After lunch, we headed to a local pottery shop that makes its own pots on site.  Downstairs, we met Jimmy Potter who demonstrated at his wheel how to make a pot.  In fact, he made a miniature vase (we suppose the recession has hit in Greece, after all) – that it was a good one was attested by Andy who no sooner it was off the wheel shouted, “How much?”  Arkady and Cagla got to try their pottery skills at the wheel – Cagla was a bit nervous at first but quickly developed to produce a perfectly symmetrical pot, while Arkady’s slapdash approach produced a ‘unique’ piece.  After the practical stuff, there was the usual shopping frenzy and the staff of the shop ended our visit with a lucky draw.  On hearing the number 70 called as a winner, Andy exclaimed, “Aww, I’ve got 69 – that’s not fair!”

The delicate touch



Biys will be boys

Poseidonsuter

With a combination of the sun and the food, needless to say there were a few snorers in the bus on the way to Corinth, where we stopped for a final break before Athens.  You’d have thought the children hadn’t eaten in weeks.  Despite a ‘no food on the bus’ ruling, it was simply amazing how much the children packed into their stomachs again!  There was slight disappointment at Corinth – this end of the canal rises some 80m above the sea, and at peak times they have a bungee jumping station.  Before you all start reaching for the phone, parents, it was Mr. Whitaker’s idea that he would do it if Mr. Suter did.  Much to Mr. Suter’s relief (headlines of “Children’s tour group leader plunges into sea” had been going through his mind) the station was closed. 

And so on to Athens, and back to the Atrium Hotel.  At dinner, we were joined by friends of Emma’s parents who reside in Athens, but we think Haruka got most pleasure from their visit as she was able to chat in Japanese to the younger of their daughters who is learning the language.  We suspect she was somewhat shocked at the quality of the English girl’s Japanese, but she enjoyed the conversation.  After a dinner of vegetarian pizza, mushroom omelette, beef in tomato sauce, greek pasta, greek salad and a warm honey cake (because after all we didn’t have much to eat for lunch!) the children have retired to their rooms and bed.  Surprisingly, we haven’t had any complaints of stomach aches!  The children all have their favourite parts of the day, but it has obviously stuck in Amin’s mind as, when asked his favourite part of the day, he replied, “I can’t really remember what we did!”

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Day 3 - Day of the dog

Today was the day that we discovered that Ms. Naidoo has a malicious streak in her.  Yesterday, as Mr. Whitaker disembarked from the bus after our cruise, he left his hat on the seat next to her.  Any charitable person would have called it to his attention, but not Ms. Naidoo.  She waited until this morning when Mr. Suter was doing a hat check.  Not only did she stand next to him and watch him empty his day sack on the floor, she then watched as he opened his case and started to spread the contents across the lobby floor, a wry smile slowly turning the corners of her mouth.  Of course, Mr. Whitaker wasn’t helping himself – when we stopped outside the National Archaeological Museum, he’d lost it again.  He was accusing Mr. Suter this time of having hid it, but what he’d actually done was sit on his own hat when he got on the bus!

Mr. W searches for his hat

Ms. Naidoo enjoys Mr. W's discomfort

Andy lulled Mr. Suter into silly question of the day first thing this morning.  As we pulled away from the hotel, Andy had been told to put away his electronic game.  “Look out of the window Andy, and enjoy the scenery – when will you be back in Athens to see this again?”  “Tomorrow,” was Andy’s quick retort.

Ministry of funny walks - John Cleese would be proud

Anna captivates the group at the museum

We spent an hour and a half exploring the treasures of the National Archaeological Museum.  Our guide Anna was a mine of information, but the children kept peppering her with additional questions about things they could see or on which she had commented.  They had their work books to fill in as they went around, but were actually a credit to themselves with their desire to ask about additional items.  Towards the end of our time there, one or two of the children were starting to flag, and Anna tried to get us to leave, but on at least three occasions she was pulled back with extra questions.

Ipek and Sumbul at the canal

Alas, poor Yorick... Greek theatre masks

From the museum, we headed off to Corinth for lunch.  Cheese pies, meatballs, greek salads and honey cake was scoffed by all – Ahmed K was still looking for extra chips after his three course meal.  With a choice between going to look at the entrance to the canal or playing at an adjacent playground, there was no contest – off they all went to the playground, which meant that only Sumbul and Ipek, coming late out of the loos, got to see the bridge rising back up after a passing boat had caused it to be lowered.  It’s a bizarre situation – when the boats approach, the bridge, rather than rising, sinks to the bottom of the canal and the boats sail over it.  This end of the canal is not so impressive as we’re at sea level, but tomorrow the children will be a bit more awestruck when we get to the higher end of the canal, 80m above the water.

Somewhere... up there

On top of the world (well, Naphlio)

Queen of the castle

From Corinth, we headed to Naphlio, a town with three fortresses, the most impressive a Venetian fortress up on a hill overlooking the town, reached by 952 steps curving up the hillside.  As the Year 5 teachers and their groups went off to explore the town (read shops) Mr. Whitaker asked his group whether they wanted to go shopping or up to the fortress.  Martina’s double hands left the group in no doubt as to their destination , they all wanted to head for the heights and so up they went.  Only a gasping Mr. Whitaker and Effat (who graciously stayed back to keep him company) didn’t make it all the way up to the top.

From Naphlio, we were 20kms away from our final destination of Tolon.  Every day we’ve been asked if we were going to be swimming today; every day Ahmed H has asked if he should wear his swimming clothes underneath his normal clothes – we suspect by the time he got into the sea today they were ready for a wash in salty water!  The water itself was ‘bracing’ – what was surprising was just how long the children stayed in.  One or two didn’t go in: Kareem had been nursing a cold before travelling and so was under doctor’s orders not to go in the water.  He did have a paddle – but what he didn’t do was take off his shoes, socks or roll up his trousers before going in the water!  Tony said at the time he didn’t want to swim (he too ‘did a Kareem’ with his shoes) but it was only later under questioning from Mr. Suter that he admitted that he actually hadn’t been able to find his swimming shorts in his bag!  Sina changed but upon placing one foot in the water wimped out of going in.  Both Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Suter chased her to try and catch her to ‘encourage’ her to go in, but Mr. Ashford would have been proud of her ability to spring relentlessly up and down the beach without being caught and had there been a ‘beach sprinting’ event in the recent Junior School Sports Day she would have been champion by a mile!

Tara gets a dunking

As grubby as can be, yet still posing...

Get in Vian, it's lovely and warm

After yet another three course dinner which all the children tucked into with gusto, we rounded off the day with a walk through the town to a small café for hot chocolates.  The owner and his wife remembered us from last year – we’d done the same thing then – but they were off a little geographically with our original, thinking we were from South Africa instead of Saudi Arabia.  With Vian, Kirsty, Emma and Haruka starting to doze at the table, it was time to make a move home.  A local stray dog, much to Tara’s delight (!) adopted us as a group and followed us all the way back to the hotel.  Now we had told the children to keep their voices down as we went back to avoid disturbing the locals, but with a dog in tow every time we went past a house with their own dogs they started barking at it – so with quiet children we still were the noisiest group going!

Tony questions Mr. Suter's fashion sense

So there we have it – apologies for the late post.  The children have had a blast today: 3000 year old antiquities, modern engineering marvels, citadels and fortresses, modern culture, fine dining, fresh sea air and exercise…  When asked what was the best part of the day, Ahmed K replied, “The dog.”  Watch out for next year’s Year 6 trip to Crufts…