Day 6 - 5th June 2008, Thursday
The Tour bus pick us up at 7.22am sharp sending us to the sea Port for our cruise day. We departed via cruise ship called "Anna Maru" at around 8am. Our cruising itinerary was to stop at 3 islands, Polos, Hydra and Aegina for a whole day.
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| The fort at sunrise for early start! |
The Saronic Islands or Argo-Saronic Islands is an archipelago in Greece, named after the Saronic Gulf in which they are located, just off the Greek mainland. The main inhabited islands of this group are Salamis, where the ancient Greek navy defeated the Persians in the Battle of Salamis, Aegina, Angistri and Poros. The islands of Hydra and Dokos included as part of the Saronic Islands.
A clowd of seaguls came from nowhere, following our ship for a while, an exciting view to watch.
A closer look at 1 of them with the background of deep blue Saronic sea.
We harboured at around10.30am at the Polos Island for 1 hour sightseeing. Poros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km (31 nautical miles) south from Piraeus, separated from the Poloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the strait. Its surface is about 31 square kilometres and it has 4,117 inhabitants. The town of Poros has 4,102 of these inhabitants. The ancient name of Poros was Pogon. Like other ports in the Saronic, it is a popular weekend destination for Athenian travellers.
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| Rows of restaurant available at the dockyard |
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| The Clock Tower of Poros |
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| Someone refused to move not until he brought back the thing that he admired! |
Lunch was served in a big dining hall of Anna Maru. To my delights, they served main dishes of smoked salmon, my favourite. And, to add to my excitement, an American Couple and my daughter more than gladly passing their salmon to me.. hehe!
At 1.30pm we reached Hydra Island for a quick stop of 45minutes. The municipality Hydra consists of the 50km2 islands of Hydra and a few uninhabited islets. We were reaching Hydra Island (seen from distance), at below photo.
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| Rare moment to see him smiling this wide :) |
War memorial museum seen below photo, where our ship being docked.
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| Transportation, widely used in the Island |
There is one main town, known simply as "Hydra port", consists of a crescent-shaped harbor, around which is centered a strand of restaurants, shops, markets, and galleries that cater to tourists and locals (being called as Hydriots). Steep stone streets lead up and outwards from the harbor area. Most of the local residences, as well as the hostels on the island are located on these streets. There are other small villages or hamlets on the island.
We left Hydra Island at 2.15pm. At 4pm, we reached the famous Aegina Island where we were allowed to explore an island for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Aegina is one of the Saronic Island of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 27 km from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born on and ruled the island. During ancient times Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.
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| Time to leave! Petrol tanker behind filling the fuel to the ship. |
The clock at harbour click at sharp 6.15pm before we headed back to hotel, exhausted from a long day of cruising along Saronic Island, a lovely experience indeed.
That's the end of our 6 days travelogue, enjoying summer holiday in beautiful Greece. We were leaving to Doha for 2 days transit before headed back to Karachi on 6th June 2008. Thank you for reading and sharing our experienced.
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