LESBOS - DAYS 2,3,4,5,6,& 7

We’ve been here a week now and I promised I’d write a blog to keep people who donated and/or people who are interested updated. Sorry ‘bout that, been a bit distracted.

It’s been a peculiar week.  My faith in humanity has been alternately dashed against the rocks and then heart-warmingly restored. I’ve bemoaned my own physical discomfort then witnessed the unimaginable agony of others. And I’ve feared for my life then feared for the lives of others and my ability to help them. Frankly, I’m bloody exhausted.

It quickly became apparent, to me and the other six or seven doctors who had arrived recently (some from as far away as USA) under the umbrella of the same particular organisation that I did, that they (the organisation) don’t have an effing clue what they’re doing with regards to sending medics into disaster zones. This would be because they’ve never done it before, have no medical expertise, and didn’t think it necessary to do a medical needs assessment. Tossers.

I won’t go into the details *here* (but almost certainly will elsewhere) but this has resulted in several emergency doctors traipsing all over Lesbos for several days without coming anywhere close to what they came here to do. And some of them are only here for a week and most have used their own limited annual leave and funds to be here. The organisation has no representatives on the island and consists of one person who is attempting to coordinate their medical response from Scotland. It’s fair to say that me and the head of the organisation involved have had ‘words’. Tosser.

Fortunately, there are other NGOs on this island who have got their shit together, and we’ve managed to hook up with one of them. We didn’t entirely waste our days prior to this though.  We went to Mytilene to register with the Medical Society, and we painted a bathroom in the Hope Centre - a project by a local British couple who have rented a derelict local hotel and are renovating it for use as an eventual temporary reception camp for refugees landing in 'zone 1’.

The north shore of Lesvos is approximately 15km long and runs parallel to the coast of Turkey, about 5 miles way. At the western end is Molyvos - a beautiful little town where our hotel is. At the eastern end is Skala Sykmania, a charming little fishing village. Between the two the coastline varies between welcoming bays and rocky cliffs. Because of its proximity to Turkey, and its numerous bays, the northern shore receives a lot of refugee boats.

The road from Molyvos to Skala is a tarmac lane for the first 5km and a pot-hole ridden, cliff-hugging winding dirt track for the next 10 km.  To assist in the practicalities of refugee rescue the coast has been divided into three zones: zone 1 stretches from Molyvos to the beginning of the dirt track, zone 2 from the beginning of the dirt track to a point called ‘Chapel’ (because there is a small chapel there), and zone 3, from Chapel to Skala.

When refugees first started arriving on the north shore of Lesbos about a year ago, there was no help for them.  It was left to locals to pull them out of the sea, dead or alive.  Then a few volunteer groups started arriving to help and over the past year the refugees that float up to the north shore are ‘received’ by NGOs that have emerged and grown out of little groups of volunteers.  Various temporary ‘camps’ have evolved where refugees are provided with dry clothes, hot drinks and warmth before being taken by bus to the large camp, Moria, in the south. 

 

In zone 1 the NGO ‘Starfish’ operates, and also the Kempsons, a local British couple.  There is no camp in zone 1 yet. 

In zone 2 is a relatively new camp funded by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).  This is a largely US-funded organisation headed by David Milliband.  It’s the only camp staffed by paid workers employed by the IRC, rather than volunteers.  Unfortunately, I’m told (although I don’t know if it’s true), it’s been staffed by the right wing local council, and there are concerns that they don’t treat the refugees kindly.  They’re certainly not very friendly - I know this because I’ve been there. Currently all refugees who arrive in zones 1 and 2 are taken by minibus to the IRC camp.

In zone 3 there are two camps next door to each other - one is called Lighthouse and the other is called Platanos. Both are run entirely by volunteers and have evolved over the past 5 months.

As far as medical cover is concerned, each NGO/camp has its own medical unit and doctors, in most cases provided by well-established medical NGOs such as MSF and WAHA. There are also numerous mobile medical units patrolling the northern shores such as ISRaid, a group of 12 Belgian medics whose name I forget, and, the week we arrived, also a group of 20 American medics from an organisation called International Medical Rescue. 

Anyway, it quickly became apparent that there are an awful lot of doctors here and, as the organisation that sent us here doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing, it would be up to us to try and find somewhere to work in an area already brimming with medics. 

In brief, the medical need here is not as great as I, or I imagine you, believed it to be, and what need there is appears to be pretty well covered.  Fortunately, after a pretty frustrating few days, we (and by ‘we’ I mean myself, Grace and a doctor friend we’ve met here called Jenny) drove to Skala and met up with the people who run ‘Lighthouse’.

  

I actually can’t praise this organisation enough.  They are warm, welcoming, compassionate, well-organised, democratic and effective.  They welcomed us and invited us to become a part of their team, by being part of the medical team as well as helping as general volunteers. 

The volunteers were a little gloomy on the day we met them because the body of a four year old, thought to be from a boat that had sunk some days ago, had been washed up on the beach adjacent to the camp. A local nurse had come across it whilst walking her dog. A four year old little girl and nobody knows who she is. Somebody’s baby. This is a mightily fucked up world we’re living in.

   

Most refugee boats leave Turkey after dark so arrive in Lesbos sometime between midnight and 11am so the day before we started work at Lighthouse (day 5) we got up at 4:30am and picked up a young Norwegian NGO worker who agreed to go with us to ‘work the beaches’.  This basically involves driving along the dangerous dirt track between Molyvos and Skala, looking out for boats that may have landed.  There’s a pretty efficient telescope ‘look-out' system (again, run by volunteers) that spots most boats so they can be guided to a safe landing spot by the coastguards, but occasionally, especially at night, the boats arrive unexpectedly.  This is because they have no lights and make no noise because they don’t want to be spotted in case the Turkish Lifeguard takes them back (or sinks them).

 

I was a bit grumpy, to be honest, as I drove gingerly along the track in the pitch black.  This was because (i) it was 5 am, (ii) I was driving along a track which is dangerous and that my car insurers had specified neither the car nor its occupants were covered to drive on, and (iii) I felt that the whole exercise was no more an attempt to shut me up by the stupid organisation that sent me, because I’d been so gobby about their incompetence.

As we drove along a stretch literally feet from the sea, Grace spotted something on the road in the beam of the headlights.  Up ahead, huddled together in the pitch black and wearing bright orange lifejackets were a group of about 40 refugees. They had literally just landed and had managed to get themselves out of the boat.  They were soaking wet and the temperatures were close to freezing.  No-one else was there but us.  ‘Thank-you-for-coming-thank-you-for-coming!’ cried one man, as we tried to check that everyone was OK. ‘Baby baby!’ cried another and a large bundle was passed overhead to me and I realised that this tightly wrapped and swaddled parcel was a baby. It was cold and rigid and as I ran with it to my car, shouting to Grace to put the interior lights on and open the back door, I thought ‘What the FUCKING FUCK am I going to do with a dead baby in the middle of fucking nowhere in the back of my car in the pitch fucking black?!’ There’s not much that can be done to resuscitate a hypothermic dead baby in the back of a car with your bare hands, no matter how highly skilled you might be. 

I lay the bundle down and tried to get to its face - it was so well wrapped in hat,  several layers of clothes, then lifejacket, then blanket, that it was difficult to get at it, but it was completely unresponsive.  I pulled the blankets away and put my ear to its face….. and felt a tiny wisp of warm breath. I pulled more blankets away and it wrinkled its nose, opened one eye and let out an almighty squawk.  It was well pissed off to be woken from its sleep by a crazed middle-aged woman with spiky white hair and I’ve never been so relieved to hear a screaming baby in my entire life.

We piled the baby, its Mum and toddler sibling into the front passenger seat, plus another woman and her three children in the back, and put the heating on full blast.  They were all soaking wet and the older children, who sat on Grace’s lap in the back, were covered in vomit. We drove them to the IRC camp, back along the track, and they sent minibuses out to pick up all the others. We were greeted by a surly and unsmiling middle-aged man who ushered them into a big white tent without saying a word.  As we left the women hugged me and the children clung to Grace’s hands. 

This was our first intimate encounter with refugees, and I hope it won’t be long before they encounter warmth and kindness again. Fuck you, David Cameron, you ham-faced wanker.

In Skala over the next few days we have encountered many more refugees.  In the early morning the boats arrive one after the other. The sight of a boat overloaded with people, with expressions of hope, terror, anxiety, weariness, desperation and helplessness, bobbing precariously towards the stony shore, and the wet-suited rescuers crashing through the icy water to greet them and guide the boat in safely is simultaneously utterly heartbreaking and utterly heart-warming, and every time I see it I have to blink back tears and swallow a little sob.  (It's my hormones. I can’t help it.)

Volunteers (including Ai Weiwei one morning) form two parallel lines up the beach and guide the refugees up over the pebbles to safety. Some are crying, some are close to collapse, some are confused, some are joyous.  All are very very cold. The medics look out for anyone in need of medical attention - the babies, the quiet ones, the still ones, the grey ones - and they are taken to the warming tent or the medical bay. The others are directed to the warmed changing tents in the camp, where they are provided with clean dry clothes and then they go and warm themselves around three large oil drum fires and are provided with hot sweet tea and soup and sandwiches. When they are all dry and warmish they are taken by bus to the big camp in Moria, in the south, where they must register. Huge efforts are made not to split them up because the boats often contain groups of large families and if they get separated before they get to Moria they may never find each other again.

The boat crossing from Turkey in the rubber dinghy is *supposed* to take about an hour and a half, but most of them have been on the water for at least four or five hours before they arrive.  If the boat sinks and there is no rescue boat to pull them out within a few minutes then they will drown, as many have already.  The water is very very cold.  If they make it to shore then most will survive, although there have been some deaths from hypothermia. So, the main medical problem is hypothermia and the priority is to get people warm. Aside from that there are many other less serious medical problems that need taking care of.  Many of these people haven’t had access to medical care for weeks or months.  Many have spent several days in the freezing Turkish mountains.  Many have been beaten by the Turkish police or smugglers. Some may have pre-existing medical conditions such as cardiac problems etc. Some are heavily pregnant. 

Various nationalities are arriving - not only Syrians, but also refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.  The two main languages spoken are Farsi and Arabic.  It’s hard to assess a patient when you don’t understand each other.  Fortunately there are some volunteer interpreters (one of whom, a lovely bloke from California, was an Afghan refugee himself when he was a child) who are an enormous help, but there’s a lot of gesticulation and miming going on. 

When there’s no need for a medic I’m doing general volunteer work.  Grace is mostly working in the women and children changing tent - this is pretty chaotic because it’s not a large area and trying to help freezing people out of wet ones and finding them suitably sized dry ones, often using only head torches because the generator has packed in, is not easy.  It’s pretty chaotic in there, and afterwards all the wet clothes need to be bagged up, and the shelves of dry clothes need to be restocked from the storage tents and the whole area needs to be cleaned in preparation for the next boat. On Wednesday eight boats came in to Skala in succession, each carrying about 30-40 people. I think back in the autumn they were sometimes getting twenty to thirty a day, into Skala alone.

The boats tend to stop coming after about 11 am so after that there is other work to be done, such as general sorting and storing of clothes, cleaning, cooking and collecting firewood.  Yesterday afternoon we had a ‘socks on the beach’ party, which wasn’t as much fun as sex on the beach and was quite a lot smellier. Basically when collecting discarded wet clothes they are sorted into bags containing shoes (tied together), socks and gloves (paired), and all other clothes.  Every few days an NGO called Dirty Girls comes and collects them all and takes them off to launder them in industrial washing machines and tumble driers.  The clean clothes are then sorted according to gender/size and delivered back to the camps for use by future refugees.  It’s a fantastic initiative and I can’t imagine what would happen to the mountain of discarded wet and dirty clothes if they hadn’t come up with it.  Go Dirty Girls.

But we all know what happens to pairs of socks in the washing machine, so before they take the socks, the bags of paired socks are emptied onto a large tarpaulin on the beach. If you can imagine that these 8 or 10 bin bags full of wet socks have been festering in plastic bags for several days and prior to that have probably been worn for days if not weeks on a journey through all kinds of terrain and conditions then you can probably get some idea of the smell. They need to be sorted into three pairs of roughly the same foot size and pinned together with a safety pin, then re-bagged for Dirty Girls to take off and launder.  It wasn’t the most pleasant of jobs but many hands make light work and it was quite a laugh, in a mild-hysteria kind of way.

If boats are coming in in quick succession then they are received alternately by Lighthouse camp and Platanos, which is the camp next door.  Platanos operates a similar system to Lighthouse but is a little messier - it is run by anarchists (literally) who are wonderful people apparently although I’ve not yet had a chance to get to know them.  The Lighthouse camp is beautiful (well, as beautiful as it’s possible for a volunteer-run and donor-funded temporary refugee camp to be).  The tents are positioned in an ancient olive grove and meandering gravel paths have been constructed and lights strung through the branches.  They have a camp black sheep called Carolina who likes to curl up on someone’s lap in front of the fire. There are Portaloos and washbasins with toothbrushes and soaps and sanitary protection and nappies provided. There is a swing and a small children’s play area. 

This is in contrast to the IRC camp in zone 2 which is stark and even to me has a sinister vibe - I can’t imagine how it must feel to a refugee.  It’s also in stark contrast to the nearby ‘stage 2’ camp, and also Moria, both of which are UNHCR run and both of which exactly resemble prisons, complete with 3 metre barbed wire fences and herding pens.  It really is a fucked up world.

The problem with working at Lighthouse is that it is in Skala and our hotel is in Molyvos. Aside from the hideously dangerous dirt track, the only other route to Skala is the mountain road, which takes about 15 minutes longer as it climbs high into the mountains before dropping back down into Skala.  It’s a tarmac road but full of hairpin bends and precipitous drops.  We go back and forth by this route because my car isn’t insured for the dirt track, and it’s a bit nerve-wracking.  But the weather has been incredibly cold and a couple of days ago it snowed and rained.  We heard that the mountain road was dangerous so the next morning we chose to risk falling into the sea rather than falling off a mountain, and took the dirt track.  We’ve been starting work at 7am so it was barely light, and because it had been rainy and 4x4s had been patrolling it, it was basically a quagmire.  

It wasn’t my favourite ever drive into work, if I’m honest.  Basically my heart was in my mouth and my foot was hovering on the brake the whole way.  We may have got out of first gear once or twice and we also slid into a ditch, but we made it there safely in the end.  I don’t think there’s much chance of kidding the car hire people that I didn’t use the track though. Plus there are salt stains all over the seats from when we had the wet refugees in there the other night.  I think I’m going to be charged pretty heftily for cleaning. (You might imagine that a huge multinational company such as Hertz might donate these cleaning costs to the refugee crisis, mightn’t you? In an un-fucked up world, anyway.)

The following morning the temperatures had come up a bit so we took the mountain road.  Big mistake. It was fricking terrifying, particularly the descent into Skala. There was ice everywhere and I drove with one wheel on the gravel kerb the whole way. I never got out of second gear and used a LOT of petrol and a LOT of adrenaline. 

In the evenings we’ve mostly been going down to the harbour in Mytilene for something to eat.  It’s a weird sort of vibe because it’s a beautiful Greek fishing village in freezing winter.  In the summer it would be heaving with holiday makers and in the winter it would normally be closed for the season.  But it’s open, and full of volunteers. I guess the locals must be partly pissed off that volunteers are taking over their island and partly massively grateful for the help and the trade. They are very friendly and welcoming though and offer cheap rates for volunteers, and the food is great.

Today we have a day off, hence I’ve found the time to write this blog. I’ve been giving a lot of thought about how and where to spend the donation money. One thing that is a vital ongoing requirement is the ability to warm hypothermic patients adequately.  I’m looking into the cost of the heating blankets called (Bair Huggers) used in the UK.  The problem is the difficulty with electrics - if you plug too many things in in the medical unit the electrics trip and cut out.  The other thing is gas bottles - gas heaters are used in the warming tents and are expensive to run.   They also need a decent trolley bed in the medical unit and some scoop stretchers to transport moribund patients quickly and efficiently from the beach to the medical unit with minimal disturbance (important in severe hypothermia). Also hot water bottles…..lots of hot water bottles…...

LESBOS Day 1 (yesterday)

After spending the night in an entirely soulless but very comfortable hotel at Athens airport, Grace and I made our way back across the road to the internal departures area.  The sky is clear and blue today, which is a relief after the past week of wind and snow, but it's still bloody freezing. Grace didn't notice it so much, what with living in miserable old Blighty an' all, but I found it quite a shock having left Portugal basking in heady temperatures of 18 degrees C. 

Fortunately the airport has a shop selling SIM cards because a lot of the communication between volunteer groups is via WhatsApp and also an application called 'Slack' which is designed for 'teams' and is a bit like a cross between Twitter and closed FB groups.  It enables live communication on various channels, e.g. there is a 'voluntary medics' channel and a 'boats landed' channel. Anyway, I was very glad I have Grace with me because all that SIM card activation and buying of megabytes shit makes my brain explode.  It's bad enough being surrounded by Greek speakers when I've just  about got used to being surrounded by Portuguese speakers. I keep speaking Portuguese to them which is ridiculous and embarrassing. ALSO 'Neh' means 'yes' and 'ochi' (sounds very like 'okay') means 'no' which is sending me into some sort of communications vortex and I keep wondering if I might have had a stroke.

At lunchtime we got on a miniature diddy plane with propellors (eek) and had a pleasantly brief flight to Lesbos (which I KEEP referring to as Lemnos. It's a miracle we're on the right island), where we picked up a hire car and promptly got lost in Mytilene (the capital) and found ourselves in a lorry park at the port where a man in combat gear who we happened upon as he was doing a wee between two lorries, turned round and waved his willy at us. So that was nice.

Having flukily found ourselves on the correct road out of Mytilene we headed north west across the island.  I'm not sure of the actual figures but it takes about an hour to drive across Lesbos, on fairly small and sometimes very winding roads, so I'm guessing it's about 30-40 miles across.  The south eastern part is flattish with two huge lagoons and the north western part is mountainous.  The airport and the main town of Mytilene are on the south west coast and the town of Molyvos, where we are staying, is on the north west coast, so the drive there takes us past two lagoons then up over the mountains.  Yesterday the road over the mountains was shut to all vehicles that didn't have snow chains on their tyres (which surely means 'all vehicles' on a Greek Island….surely) and the man at the hire car place had no idea if it was open yet so we headed towards the mountains with some trepidation. We're from Wales though, mun, innit but. Piece of piss.  Bit of melting snow and a few boulders, nothing we couldn't negotiate in our 1.0L Honda. 

The Turkish coast lies parallel to the north coast of the island, divided by about 5 miles of sea which, as we wound our way down the foothills towards Molyvos, looked smooth and calm and almost inviting as the setting sun twinkled across it. So I was shocked to learn that at least twelve people drowned today when a boat sank shortly after leaving Turkish shores.

The north coast has many bays and beaches, and this, combined with it's relative proximity to Turkey has meant that this is where most refugee boats have been landing over the past year, although I understand that the situation has changed over the past six weeks or so and many boats are also arriving in the south now, which means a much longer sea crossing. I'm not entirely sure of the reason for that, but I suspect it might have something to do with the EU shoving a load of dosh at Turkey and telling them to stop the refugees leaving Turkey. I've been listening in on the Slack channels since November and I've heard some terrible tales about the means by which the Turkish Coastguard are trying to stop the refugee boats but I won't repeat them unless someone who actually witnessed it tells me, because they surely, SURELY can't be true.  No-one could be that wicked. 

Once the refugees reach Lesbos (provided they're still alive) they have to go immediately to a huge refugee camp near Mytilene in the south called Moria. Even if they have money, they're not allowed to spend it (e.g. on a hotel) until they have been registered and have their papers. There are buses which take them there, fortunately, because if you were to offer any of them a lift in your car you may well get arrested for people-trafficking. There are one or two other camps too and I think the refugees are divided into the different camps according to nationality and also whether they are families or not, but I'm not sure about that yet. I've heard bad things about Moria though - it's huge and wet and dirty and cold. Once the refugees have their 'papers' - and this can take a variable amount of time - they can leave Moria, and indeed Lesvos, and I think most get the ferry to Athens (and hence, probably, make their way towards northern Europe). 

During the summer there were around 7000 refugees arriving on Lesbos EVERY DAY.  Over the last couple of months, because of the riskier conditions, there have been around 1000-2000 per day. Many still risk it though because the riskier it is, the less it costs.  I think they're paying something like €1500 each for the privilege of risking their lives.  Someone made about €18,000 out of those twelve people who drowned today. There's a big ferry that shuttles backwards and forwards several times a day from Lesbos to Turkey. The fare is €5. But you're only allowed to use it if your home hasn't been bombed and you're not fleeing a war and you're not running for your life. Them's the rules.

Molyvos is very beautiful,but quite unlike any Greek island town I've visited before (and I spent a lot of time island hopping in Greece when I was young).  Instead of white houses, the village is built of un-rendered stone, and the handsome cottages skirt an imposing castle which sits high on a promontory at the north west point. We stopped at a grocery store and bought a few essentials and easily found our hotel, which is on the road east out of Molyvos and overlooks a large bay with Turkey just across the water. I asked the Greek shopkeeper if the town was busy. 'Quite busy', she said, in her heavily accented English. 'Mostly volunteers.  More volunteers than refugees, I think.'

Hmmm. 

Hotels out of season are always a bit sad, and this one can be best described as Crossroads Motel meets The Shining.  Unlike the soulless airport hotel we stayed in last night, this hotel definitely has a soul but it's old and tired and has seen better days (a bit like me, really). It would normally be closed but it's open only for volunteers and at a special rate.  There's a central reception/lounge/restaurant building and chalet like rooms on the slopes around it.  There are no staff at all except a (very lovely) jeans-clad and hoodied young man, who is around between 5 and 9pm, which is the only time the reception building is open. 

Our room has a sort of kitchenette in it - a fridge and sink and a two-ring hob.  Unfortunately there were no plates, cutlery or pans of any sort, but the Hooded Young Man made a phone call and managed to find us one saucepan, a couple of plates and cups and some cutlery, so we can make a cup of tea and boil some eggs.  It has an air conditioning unit, but it isn't very efficient and it's very very cold. As I type this both Grace and I are in bed, fully clothed including hats and scarves and thanking the Powers of the Universe for the fact that we were born where we were and aren't now huddled in a damp tent in Moria with a buried past and an uncertain future. I'm also cursing Holly who told me not to pack a hot water bottle. 

WIFI is available in the reception area between 5 and 9pm, so we went and did a bit of interwebbing amongst a few of the other volunteers of various nationalities who were scattered about, wrapped in blankets, clickety-clicking on their iPhones. 
'Are you eating in the hotel restaurant tonight?' asked Richard via FB messenger, which made me do a LOL. We ate chicken noodles in our room - those packets that you pour hot water on that I packed just in case of a dire emergency but never intended to eat because, well, they're not actually food, are they.

I think it's going to be a very interesting month.

Lake Como - Days 6 and 7

The weather is a bit hit and miss - within the space of a few days we seem to have gone from summer to winter and from high season to low season with a couple of days of autumn and confusion in between. I keep finding myself inappropriately dressed.

I looked out if the window on Wednesday morning to see blue skies and sunshine twinkling on the lake, so I dressed appropriately, I thought, for my planned stroll to Fumiolatte, the shortest river in Europe and a centuries old enigma. The river bursts out of the mountain just south of Varenna in May, and then just as abruptly stops completely in October, which is odd when you think about it. And a lot of people have thought about it. Including Leonardo Da Vinci and numerous more recent scientists.
Anyway, I understood it was a short stroll away, so I felt a bit foolish an hour later scrambling through a densely wooded and slippery path on the precipitous mountain side wearing flip flops. It occurred me that if I slipped and mortally injured myself no-one would know, and no-one would even know I was missing for at least two days. I was very careful where I put my feet. (Note to FB chums: if I don't post anything for more than 24 hours, call the police. ;-))
The river maybe short (250metres long) but it's impressively fierce.

Afterwards I made my way back to Varenna where I got on a boat to Managgio, a lovely, well-kept and rather grand town on the other side of the lake. I wandered all around the cobbled lanes, following the old castle walls, finishing at the Hotel du Lac where I had an Aperol Spritz, before getting the car ferry back to Varenna. Every village and town here has a 'Hotel du Lac' and for the sake if completeness I've been re-reading Anita Brookner's 'Hotel Du Lac', because I thought it would be apt and atmospheric, which it was. (Although her Hotel du Lac was on Lake Geneva, and based in 1984, which seems even more odd now than it did in 1984.)

Pasta and ice cream for supper (can feel my arse expanding by the minute) and an early night.

Yesterday morning I packed up and left my apartment, and got on the slow boat to Como. I spent most of the journey in the lovely wood-clad bar drinking coffee and getting cross with people for repeatedly leaving the door to the deck open (inappropriately dressed again).
Checked into hotel in Como then spent the afternoon wandering about sussing out likely restaurants to have dinner. Had a look inside the Duomo, which was magnificent and where people were queuing up to kneel in front of a man in a wooden booth and confess their sins, which made me snort, then went to have a look at the Casa de ?, inside of which a European Cardiology Society 'Thrombosis Conference' was in progress and outside of which was a gaggle of conference delegates smoking their heads off, which made me snort a second time. Chickened out of going up the funicular because it was too high and steep and I thought I might freak out, which would be particularly awkward with no-one there to call me an idiot.

Last night I had a delicious meal, served by the rudest waiter in Italy, or possibly the world. It was very entertaining. He was quite young and I wondered whether he was trying to get the sack. He was certainly going the right way about it. Having reluctantly permitted me to sit down and look at the menu, he took my order then decided to pick on another lone female who had dared to sit, uninvited, on a table for four (the restaurant was outdoors and empty). He marched up to her and barked 'This table's for four people!'

She, a swivel-eyed large-boned I-don't-take-shit-off-waiters American, barked back 'Well where do you want me to sit?!' at which he threw his arm towards some smaller tables and stomped off. She clearly wasn't going anywhere unless he asked her nicely and he clearly was going to steadfastly ignore her until she moved, no matter how much eye-swivelling she did and in the end she got up and left, metaphorically slamming the door behind her.

An effusively polite group of five Chinese people arrived and were also bewildered by his bad-temper, caused by him having to add a place setting to a table of four to accommodate them.

Half way through my meal I realised he hadn't brought me my side salad, and when I asked him for it he snapped 'It's THERE!' pointing to a table over by the till, as though I'd left it there or something. He fetched it for me and slammed it down on my table like a petulant teenager. Then, when I was three quarters through my meal, knife and fork poised as I peered over my shoulder at the Australians behind me (I'm very nosey) he picked up my plate and tried to take it away and I had to shout 'WOAH!' to stop him and rather than apologise he rolled his eyes and tutted at me.

As I left, and perhaps because I didn't leave a tip, he accused me of being a lesbian, which I've written of elsewhere and which I wouldn't mind at all other than the fact that if I were it would be none of his business.

It was the best evening of the holiday and I chuckled all the way back to my hotel.

As I write this I'm on the plane back to Lisbon. I'm not a nervous flier but we've just been through forty minutes of the worst turbulence I've ever experienced. It was terrifying. And went on for forty minutes. Drinks were spilled. People were crying. Cabin crew definitely looked a bit worried.

I've had a lovely week and I'm very much looking forward to landing safely and seeing my family again, please dear God, who I love so much. I'm so very sorry I snorted in the Duomo.

Lake Como - Days 4 & 5

Things I love about Italy:

1. The Food. Sorry, rest of Europe, but when it comes to immediately accessible, in-yer-face, don't-have-to-know-a-local-to-get-it, consistently good food, Italy wins HANDS DOWN.
2. The accent.  Hilarious.
3. Foot-operated flushes in public toilets.  Hoorah.

Things I don't love about Italy:

1. The bloody prices. Jeeeez...  probably not an awful lot worse than London prices and probably more obvious because I'm coming from a fellow Euro-using country so can't baffle myself with mental exchange rates, but even so.  €5 for a teeny glass of wine, when I'm used to paying €2 for a whole bottle is crazymad.
2. The vast numbers of American tourists.  I'm sorry, I don't mean to have a go at a whole nation but seriously U S of A residents, can't you pipe down a bit? I mean, seriously, just....ssshhhhhh.
3. The way cars don't stop when you're waiting to cross the road at a zebra crossing.  Rude.

Had a lovely couple of days. Yesterday I got on a boat to Bellagio. Lake Como is shaped like a headless, armless man standing with his legs apart, and Bellagio is situated where his willy would be.  It's widely considered to be the most beautiful town on Lake Como, but having been spewed off the boat with all the other (largely American) tourists straight into a plethora of leather handbag shops, Como silk scarf shops and ice cream shops, I beg to differ.  Varenna is better.

Bellagio is definitely lovely, but it's just a bit much. Too many people for my liking, even at this time of year, so I beat a hasty retreat and walked to the very tip of the promontory; the anus of the headless, armless man, aptly named Punta Spartivento (point where the wind splits). It was lovely and peaceful there, with wonderful views towards the northern part of the lake and the mountains and I considered having lunch in the little restaurant but it turned out that every table was reserved, or maybe they just didn't like the look of me, so I wandered back to town, and meandered up and down alleys until I found a likely looking old pizzeria and had a most delicious lunch of penne al salmone. Grace Gable eat your heart out.

Afterwards I got a chestnut and vanilla ice cream (not sure about chestnut ice-cream tbh) and wandered south to visit the villa and gardens of Villa Melzi, which was very pleasant, but certainly nothing to write home about.

*Pointedly stops writing home about it*

I got the boat back to Varenna and had a nice aperitif in a quayside bar, before coming back to the apartment and catching up on a load of shite on iPlayer on my laptop. (Christ, Downton's a bit thin on plot, isn't it? Lovely frocks though.)

Today I got the boat over to Tremezzo on the opposite side of the lake and spent a couple of hours wandering the house and gardens of Villa Carlotta.  NOW you're talking.  It was magnificent. But if you're ever going to come here to see the gardens, come in April (would be my advice) - the azaleas must be fantastic at that time of year.

Then I decided to walk south for some lunch, and on the way I managed to get myself onto the 'Greenway del Lago' which is a nice pathway up above and behind the towns, which avoids traffic.  I was hoping to visit the spot where Mussolini actually copped it, whilst trying to escape into Switzerland at the end of the war (a bit macabre, I know, but I'm not fond of fascists), and felt sure the Greenway del Lago would deliver me to it, but it didn't, sadly. Walked MILES and ended up at Lenno, where I had a late lunch of lasagne and then jumped on the boat back to Varenna.

Since I've been here I've noticed an awful lot of people drinking a vile orange drink that looks like toxic Lucozade, and thanks to an incidental chat with my friend (Nick Harris) I discovered that it's an aperitif widely drunk in these here parts, called Spritz.  It's prosecco and the local spirit, Aperol, on ice.  It looks ghastly but I had one this evening and it's DELICIOUS. I'm going to buy a bottle of Aperol to take home.

I heard on the indirect internet grapevine that my dear husband, currently enjoying a jolly in the Algarve but without a wifi device so not in direct contact, fell over whilst pissed last night and has hurt his shoulder. In truth, I think he drew the very very short straw.  I'm looking forward to a cup of tea, a booze-free early night and ten hours solid sleep.

Although that's not all that easy with your passport shoved down your knickers.

Lake Como, Day 3 - Karma bites me in the arse

You know that thing where you're being a bit smug; when you're a tad too pleased with yourself; when you tempt fate by gloating and fate turns around and laughs right in your face?

Yeah.  THAT.

This morning I got myself all ready and appropriately kitted out for a hike up the mountain behind Varenna to visit a castle and have a lovely lunch, and just before I left the apartment I thrust my hand in my backpack, as is my wont, to check for the presence of keys, wallet and (as I'm abroad) passport and guess what? No palpable passport in the bottom of my back pack.

I felt about, checking pockets, checking jeans, checking coat, emptying backpack onto bed...no passport.

I checked the backpack again.  And again. I told myself to keep calm, whilst feeling the panic rising in my chest. I checked the backpack again. This is not possible.

Anyone who knows me well knows that this is not possible.  I'm not the sort of person to lose important things.  I always know EXACTLY where my wallet and keys are and when travelling I have a fanatical obsession with keeping passports and travel documents safe. This was like a bad dream. A nightmare actually. I checked my backpack for the eleventh time.

I started talking out loud to my self. 'Keep calm.  It's here somewhere' I said, as I checked my suitcase, under the bed, in drawers I'd never opened, in the bathroom, under the bloody rug ffs. My passport lives right at the bottom of my backpack, with my wallet. My wallet is actually tied to the inside of my backpack on a long string, as is my phone. I have never lost a phone, wallet, key or passport in my life (apart from my phone that time on the beach, but I found it again and learnt a 'tie it to your person with string' lesson). Even when I've been out on the lash and can hardly remember how I got home, I've always woken up with my handbag and its full contents right next to me.

I started hyperventilating.  I wondered whether I'd slept walked (I've never slept walked) and put it somewhere weird, so I checked inside the fridge and the oven and the microwave and behind the toilet.  I checked my backpack again. Eight times.

My passport wasn't in my apartment.

The last time I saw it was yesterday when I was checking in and Diego, the manager guy, had photocopied it.  But I distinctly remembered taking it back off him and stuffing it into the bottom of my backpack, where it lives.  After that I'd gone down into town and had been into my backpack four times. Once in each of the grocery stores, and once in two separate cafe bars.

It's Sunday today and Diego had told me that although there was someone around from 9am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, Sunday was their day off, and he would be at home on the other side of the lake.  I tried to text him but I couldn't get my Portuguese phone to work. I wasn't expecting to have to use it, frankly.

Having searched every nook and cranny in the apartment, I decided that it was either still in the hall where I checked in (which was now locked and I was quite certain it wasn't in any case) OR it had fallen out of my backpack when I had pulled my wallet out in one of the grocery stores or cafe bars.

I started to cry.  Then I slapped myself across the face, found Diego's email and emailed him, then set off to see if someone had found it or handed it in. No-one had.  In one of the grocery stores I met Mr and Mrs Snotty Englishers and their Snivelling Baby. They listened as I asked the young girl behind the counter if anyone had found a passport and they COMPLETELY BLANKED ME. Not a smile or a nod or a sympathetic murmur. After all, nothing can be as important as them and their bloody baby. I mean let's face it NO-ONE ELSE HAS EVER HAD A CHILD AND TAKEN IT ON HOLIDAY HAVE THEY?!
OK, I'm getting angry now.  It's a good sign.

The lovely shop girl could see I was upset and took me by the arm up to the Tourist Office.  The lovely lady there regrettably informed me that no-one had handed a passport in but that if one had been found it may have been handed into the Municipality Office (kinda doubles as a police station) but that it was Sunday so everything would be closed until tomorrow.

So that was that. As far as I was concerned my passport was gone, with someone probably stealing my ID as we speak, but I wouldn't find out for sure until tomorrow when (a) Diego turned up and checked reception, and (b) the Municipality Office was open.

I would have to wait for 24 hours to find out for sure that my passport was gone, and then, once it was confirmed, I would have to spend the rest of the week trying to sort out a replacement.  I'd probably have to go to Rome, or at least Milan, at great expense, and everything was ruined, basically. I went back to my apartment and wept.

Diego phoned. He seemed pretty laid back about the whole thing and said he'd be here first thing tomorrow and we'd definitely find it.  His tone was reassuring, but I was unconvinced. I'd just have to deal with it.  My holiday was ruined but no-one was going to die. Worse things have happened to people, me included, so I'd just have to fucking deal with it. But, God, what a DRRRRAAAAGGGGG.  I so wish I hadn't gloated about how wonderful everything was yesterday.  What an arse I am.

After a couple of hours I pulled myself together and decided to hike the mountain anyway. Better than staying in fretting all day when there was absolutely nothing to be done. I set off with a heavy heart and a face like a wet weekend.  Actually, a face like a ruined holiday.

As I let myself out and set off up the lane I was aware of an old gentleman coming out of a ground floor apartment.  He was very old but far too dapper to be British - he was wearing chequered trousers and a cravat and had a tan. He turned and walked up the lane behind me, away from town, which I thought a bit odd.  Perhaps he was going to hike up to the castle too, I thought. Looks a bit old for that.  He'll probably collapse in front of me and I'll have to bloody deal with that too, I thought, meanly.

I glanced behind me just in time to see him produce a set of keys for the huge oak doors that led into the reception hall of the villa where I'd checked in yesterday, and let himself in.  I trotted back down the lane - and arrived at the open doors just in time to see him lift the lid of the photocopier and pick up a passport.

He examined it briefly, then looked up at my face.

"I theenk thees ees yoours", he smiled, as he handed it to me.

I could have kissed him. I ADORE that man. He chuckled as he hobbled off down the lane, and at that point my phone rang.  Diego explained that he had asked his elderly father who lived in the downstairs apartment to go and check if my passport was in the photocopier. And there it bloody was. THERE IT BLOODY WAS. I can hardly believe it. I must have had some sort of mental aberration.

Villa Monti (where my apartment is)

I blame Mr and Mrs Snotty Englishers.  If they hadn't been so self-important and humourless and STRESSY, with all their bloody bags and paraphernalia then neither Diego NOR I would have allowed this to happen.

I'm going find out where they live.

After that the day went swimmingly.  The hike was beautiful, if a little nerve-wracking for someone who's not keen on heights (but hey, what's a little fall off a mountain when you thought you'd lost your passport?) and the castle at the top was delightful.  And when I got there I met someone who looked like I'd felt an hour previously:

Me

I had a plate of carpaccio and parmesan and a celebratory glass of wine in a little restaurant in the mountaintop village, before descending back down the mountain via the easy route, and treating myself to a big fat rum and raisin ice cream whilst dangling my feet over the edge of the pier. Later I went for a stroll around Villa Monastero and its beautiful lakeside gardens, and concluded that, all things considered, I preferred my own garden. Which is a good thing. But I'm not being smug, honest.  Just grateful.

I shall sleep well tonight.

View from castle

View of Varenna from castle

Villa Monastero

Villa Monastero

Lake Como - Days 1 and 2

You know your life has turned out OK when, on the morning of the day you're due to fly away on a week-long holiday you kind of feel like you don't really want to go.
This is how I felt yesterday as I pottered about my garden, barefoot and in my jimjams, harvesting the odd aubergine here and squishing the odd bug there, whilst reeling off instructions to Grace about plant watering regimes and animal feeding routines.  My enthusiasm was further dampened by the weather app on my phone which forecast that my destination was going to be a good few degrees cooler than my home. WTF? Why would I want to drag myself away from three quarters of the bosom of my fambly and do that whole hideous airport thing, just to mope about on my own by a cold and soggy Italian lake? I bet you feel really sorry for me.

Back in the spring Rich had declared that in September he was going to the Algarve to meet up with a load of old cronies from Wales, and spend a week trying to hit a ball into a small hole, so I saw an opportunity for a little jolly of my own (I love travelling alone) and booked a cheap flight from Lisbon to Milan.  This was really a case of SleazyJet dictating where I take my holiday, but it's fortuitous that a trip to the Italian Lakes has always been on my 'to do' list.

But my heart still wasn't really in it until half way over the Pyrenees when, plastic cup of rosé in hand and a gob full of Pringles, I started to get that holiday feeling. I arrived in Milan at about 6pm, from where I needed to get a train to Saronno and then another train on to Como. Turns out that Italians don't really understand a Welsh person speaking very poor Portuguese at them (force of habit), and I had a job trying to ascertain if I was on the right train. It also turns out that you have to pronounce Italian place names with an Italian accent, otherwise they won't understand you. Saronno is pronounced SarOOHHnno and Varenna (my ultimate destination) is pronounced VarAAYYnna.  I find the Italian accent hilarious. It sounds to me like they're taking the piss out of themselves. But I probably need to stop laughing when they speak or I'm going to get in trouble.

Anyway, it turned out I was on the right train and eventually I arrived in Como after dark. I found the hotel I'd booked into in the very attractive old town, dumped my stuff and headed out for a pizza  under the the imposing and floodlit gothic/renaissance (bit of both) Duomo, which I washed down (the pizza, that is, not the Duomo) with a nice glass of Chianti.
*makes Hannibal Lecter 'sccchhhllll sccchhhlll' noises*

Como from the lake

I love arriving at places after dark, because you have no idea where you are when you wake up the next morning. Como old town is beautiful at night time but spectacular in the daytime.  It has a lovely waterfront  and is flanked by steep mountains. I bought a ticket for the 'slow boat' to take me north up the western limb of Lake Como to a little village called Varenna on the eastern edge of the central part of the lake.

I can't describe how beautiful Lake Como is, and neither do my pictures do it justice. It's breathtakingly spectacular. I sat, literally awe-struck, for the entire 2 hour journey. Its deepest bit is 420 metres deep you know. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY METRES. Ugh.  That creeps me out. I hate deep water.

Beautiful Lake Como

There are some fantastic houses - we passed the place where Volta lived (invented electricity), the place where Winston Churchill stayed after the war, the place Mussolini got murdered, Richard Bransom's new gaff, Versace's gaff before he was murdered, George Cloony's gaff and the place where they filmed James Bond. Like everywhere else in the world, most of the best houses - originally the summerhouses of Italian noblemen - are now owned by Russian multi-millionaires.

Where Casino Royale was filmed

Eventually, after stopping at about fifteen villages en route, I arrived at Varenna. What a gorgeous place - all steep cobbled alleys and lapping water edges. I found my way from the boat jetty around the cliff-hugging walkway to the main part of the village and clambered up cobbled steps to the main square, where I killed the hour and a half before my accommodation was ready by enjoying a long and delicious lunch of prawn salad followed by strawberries and ice-cream. Absolutely fabulous, darling.

Varenna

I'm staying in a studio apartment in the tower of a renovated villa and everything is lovely lovely lovely. Except for Mr and Mrs Snotty Englishers and their snivelling baby, that is, who are also staying somewhere in this villa. I met them in the hall when I checked in.  I say 'met' - what actually happened is that I smiled at them and said hello and helped them with their ridiculous number of bags which included helium balloons for some reason, and they both completely blanked me.  English, obviously. Very. He's a bit dim and ruddy and looks harassed.  She's got her nose in the air and a face like a smacked arse. I 'met' them again half an hour later in one of the only two grocery stores and smiled and they blanked me again.  Then I met them again an hour later in the other grocery store and did a sort of laugh/smile/we-must-stop-meeting-like-this thing and they bloody blanked me again. Now I'm bearing a grudge.

Tomorrow I'm going to ask them who won the rugby. Heh heh.

Varenna

Varenna

View from my apartment

 

Iceland Days 7&8

Day 7

Reykyavik is a very small capital city; not much larger than a town, but terribly pretty. The houses are made of timber and painted in bright colours. It seems strange to me that an island so rich in stone and rock, but so lacking in trees (there are virtually none - we encountered no forests at all) should make its houses out of wood. Especially when you consider the weather.

We visited the Viking settlement museum, then, somewhat rashly, booked a whale watching trip for the afternoon. I'm scared of rocky boats and I was crapping myself. Fortunately I got distracted by the dolphins and forgot to be scared even though it was bloody rough (and bitterly cold). We didn't see any whales, unfortunately, but it was a great trip.

Had huge Thai meal and bottle of red to warm us up when we got back. Exhausted.

Day Eight

Spent the morning lolling about in the Blue Lagoon before heading to the airport. It was as hot as a HOT bath and totally relaxing. So relaxing that Rich actually fell asleep. In the lagoon. Loved it. Loved everything. Love love love.

The End.

(P.S. Other interesting things we learned about Iceland:

The people are very tall and sane. Surprised by this because my only previous experience of Icelanders has been Björk, who's little and bonkers.

They have a weird naming system. If we were Icelandic we'd be called Lucy Dereksdaughter and Richard Charlesson. Our children would be Holly Richardsdaughter and Grace Richardsdaughter.

No trees. I already said that.

They have surreptitiously started whaling again. Minke whales mostly. The meat is targeted at tourists as an Icelandic tradition (which it's not - they only started it in the 1920s). Icelanders rarely eat whale meat. The whale watching companies are putting massive pressure on the government to ban whaling. The whaling companies and the whale-watching companies hate each other. So if you visit Iceland DO go whale-watching, but DON'T eat whale meat.

Puffins are only around from May to mid-August. Devastated by this. I love puffins.

Iceland is almost as big as the UK. We drove over 2000km during the past week. Well, when I say 'we', I mean Rich. BUT I NAVIGATED. Am brilliant at navigating. Brilliant.)

PPS Met at Heathrow by Holly. 'Your car's in the Shortstay Carpark, level 2, row K,' she says, handing us the keys and jumping on the tube into London.
There *is* no row K.