Piraeus and Sifnos

Flying from Panama City to Frankfurt was with Lufthanza, but this became Sun Alliance, when we arrived at the airport. The flight from Frankfurt was then with another subsidury group. Apparently the planes during the off-peak season for tourism are run by other smaller companies, not Lufthanza, who pull their own aircraft out from the skies for annual major maintenance. The air cinditioning was on "dry" mode, so it didn't matter how much water you drank your nasel passages and throat dried up completely.
Peter has surcumbed to something that has made him dizzy and weak. He sounds nasally, but can breathe easily!?!?
This meant that in Piraerus, we asked to a very late check out at 3:00pm, to give Peter enough time to recouperate enough to get on the ferry to Sifnos.
Unemployment in Greece is extremely high after the Greek economic collapse. We found ourselves escorted to the port by a Masadonian gentleman, who insisted on showing where to go, for the price of a beer.
We caught the fast ferry to Sifnos with a transfer to the hotel. The owners were away so the mother and father stepped into the breach. They spoke not a word of English and we speak not a word of Greek.
In the morning, we wanted to ask how much a taxi would cost to take us for a tour of the island in the afternoon as Peter felt too ill to walk or to go in the morning.
So now we had a confusion between languages. "Nai" in Greek means "yes" in English, "ataxi" in Greek means "all is ok" in English.
So can you guess what happened?
There was a knock on our door some half an hour later, with a taxi service waiting for us. Peter answered the door and promptly collapsed on the doorstep. There was much agitated talk in Greek, none of which we understood, except the word, "taxi".
Later, I went down to reception again with iTranslate on the ipad to try to make out hosts understand what was required. Obviously iTranslate converts literally and therefore makes no sense to the Greek ear. So after much gesticulaion and indignant cries, I was finally transferred on the telephone to the taxi driver who did speak some English, but was eventually beaten by too many words. The result was that I ended up speaking with a woman, Emmanuella", with a very English acent, who translated both us and the taxi driver to each other.
Emmanuella was coming back from a memorial funeral service in the taxi when I rang it.
We asked about a tour around the island in the taxi. Yes it was possible, would we mind if Emmanuella came with Nikki, the taxi driver, as she was on her way home from the village above Kamares, where we were staying?
Emmanuella, turns out to be the volunteer hiking guide for Sifnos, speaking atvleast 4 languages. She was born on Alexandria, Egypt of Greek, Sifnos parents. She is delightful and guided us for the remainder of our stay.
We dined on the best that Sifnos has to offer (the island boasts to be the birthplace of the very best Greek chefs). The food was deligous and beautifully fresh!

Flight over the European Alps.

We arrived in the dark and were not aware of the dramatic landscape of Sifnos until the next morning, when we awaoke to this. A view from our hotel window!

Our room is the top story.

Emmanuella guided us on a walk through historic Kastro. As you can see the houses are joined, one on top of the other. They form the outer protection and inner protection walls for the village - Protection against pirates. The village was constructed in 6 and 7C DC, using materials from the ancient Greek temples. So here you will find ancient sarcophoses and marble columns used in the construction of everyday houses. Amazing and sad. The ancient Greek temples were covered by churches and chapels of Orthodox Greek religion. So nothing remains of anything ancient Greek. Surprisingly the ancient pre-Ancient Greek, Mycenean ruins still exist, dating back to the 12C BC!

The beautiful church of Chapel of The Martyrs. In the winter time, the sea surrounds this chapel!