A strange day in Spetses town

When you arrive at a new island, it’s hard not to feel a little excited. What is the island like? Will we like it? Does it match what we’ve read about it? Many questions arise. When we first arrived on Spetses, we experienced many things that were different, or rather, strange, things we had never encountered before, at least not all in the same day.

Waiting for the boat that would take us to Spetses.

The day started with a long breakfast on Hydra, where we had spent five wonderful days. After breakfast, we slowly strolled down to the harbour and enjoyed the silence that always prevails on Hydra. As is well known, there are no cars on Hydra, and no mopeds either, for that matter. A few questions arose as we sat waiting for the boat that would take us to Spetses: If you live on Hydra, how do you get a driver’s license? How many Hydriots HAVE a driver’s license? And why would you even need a driver’s license if you live on Hydra?

We took a catamaran to Spetses. It rocked quite a bit, the wind had picked up during the night. When we were about halfway to Spetses, a large can of paint spilled. How it happened, we don’t know. White paint ran across the floor in the middle of the boat, right where you board, and exactly where all the bags were placed. We were lucky we had put our backpacks on a shelf.

Sorry for the blur, the boat didn't rock in time with the camera.

You might be wondering how to clean up paint that’s spilled on the floor of a rocking catamaran. We wondered the same thing, until a man came running with a vacuum cleaner. He vacuumed up the paint as if it were the most natural thing in the world. After that, the floor was covered with newspaper from a publication called Pelagos. The newspaper was tucked into all the seat backs and contained advertisements about Greece.

On Spetses, we were met by two things that weren’t present on Hydra: engine noises and (1) room renters. Spetses is said to be a car-free island, but that’s a truth with modifications. Private cars are prohibited, while utility vehicles are allowed. Instead of cars, everyone – and it seems to apply to everyone – has a moped or motorcycle. The streets are filled with the sound of engine buzzing. There are also water taxis, as well as a large number of horse-drawn carriages.

At the port we were met by one (1) room renter and many horse-drawn carriages.

The only room renter at the harbour asked the classic question: Rooms? Searching for rooms? We responded with a cheerful YES! He looked perplexed. It was unclear why. At least he became quiet. We felt we had to take the initiative and asked the equally classic backpacker question: Where is it and what is the price? Neither of the questions received an answer. He mumbled something. Turned to his friend, spoke in Greek, mumbled again, and looked out over the sea. So, we moved on.

We walked towards the beach and stopped at the bus stop where we sat down to think. We weren’t quite sure where we wanted to stay. The town was more spread out than we had expected. We had barely sat down when a small, limping woman came over and asked if we were looking for rooms. Sure, we said, where is it? The woman pointed to a house across the street.

View from our balcony-less room.

It looked perfectly fine, so I followed her and looked at the two rooms that were available. They were a bit too small, quite expensive, and lacked both a balcony and a view, but they were well-furnished and fresh. I went back to Camilla and reported. We hesitated. We already knew that accommodation was expensive on Spetses and that the availability of rooms was limited, but still. In the end, we said yes, we simply didn’t have the energy to keep searching for a room since it was our first visit to Spetses.

This is how our first day in Spetses turned out.

Once we had settled into the room, we took a curious stroll around Spetses town. The first thing that happened was that I got a sticky piece of chewing gum stuck to one of my sandals. It took an eternity to get it off.

The first thing that happened was that I got a sticky piece of chewing gum under one sandal.

We had already noticed that Spetses was not an island free from motor vehicles, unlike Hydra, where all transportation is done with donkeys or wooden carts. (There are two garbage trucks on Hydra, which once collided with each other!) Even though the traffic in Spetses town was relatively sparse compared to, for example, Naxos town, we were still surprised by how much traffic there was.

Queue at the gas station in the car-free town of Spetses.

The alleys in Spetses town are narrow, but that doesn't stop the trucks.

Instead of cars, everyone – and it seems to apply to everyone – has a scooter or motorcycle.

When it was time for lunch, we sat down at one of the tavernas in the harbour. We chose a taverna where octopuses with eight arms were hanging. We saw it as a sign that it was a genuine and good taverna. We ordered our lunch and looked forward to our first meal on Spetses.

Once all the food and drinks were placed on our table, Charles Bronson appeared on a scooter and parked next to our table. He sat on the scooter, smoking and chatting on the phone throughout the lunch. But why didn’t you move to another table, you might be wondering? We thought about that too, but we assumed it would be a short conversation, so we stayed put. The food was good, though, and after a while, we found Charles Bronson to be an entertaining addition to the scene.

Charles Bronson entertained us during lunch.

When we then strolled on, we saw a lot of potatoes lying in one of the alleys. Unclear why.

And we saw a sign outside a shop that we wondered why it was there.

When we returned to the room and were about to wash off the travel dust, we were surprised to see that there was a shower curtain, which doesn’t happen very often. We thought it was really great because it meant the bathroom wouldn’t get wet. That is, if it weren’t for the small detail that the drainage hole wasn’t in the shower, but rather under the sink in the bathroom. So how do they solve this in Greece? Well, they make a hole where the water from the shower drains out into the bathroom. Clever, right?

There was a shower curtain but no drainage hole in the shower.

Afterward, we each had a drink on the viewless pergola outside our balcony-less room before gearing up to face the evening life in Spetses town. There were an enormous amount of people out. The last boat arrived from Piraeus at around ten o’clock, a catamaran full of new visitors. How many people fit on Spetses, we wondered? And where is everyone going to stay? We sent a grateful thought to the room God that we had a room.

There were extremely many people out this evening.

We had a very good dinner at Restaurant Bouboulina.

Before we went back to the room, we decided to take a few pictures that would symbolize the nightlife in Spetses. When I was about to take a photo of the small harbour below, I felt something crawling on my leg. At first, I thought it was a cat brushing against me, but it felt like something else.

When I took this picture, I felt something crawling on one of my legs.

I continued taking pictures, just as the crawling continued. Camilla asked if something was bothering me. I replied yes, and gave a donkey kick with my right leg. Maybe it’s that, said Camilla, with a bit of a laugh in her voice, pointing at a monstrous cockroach. And yes, it was!

There was this big cockroach crawling all over me.

When we got back after this eventful day, we were tired. Still, we wanted to read a book before falling asleep. Camilla had trouble with her reading lamp, which kept flickering. She wiggled it a bit, and then there was a loud bang, and the room went pitch black. I screamed, How did it go? It’s fine, she said, I just got a little scared. No power. No AC. I turned on a flash light. The cord to the lamp was completely detached. What to do?

I woke up our hosts and told them that there had been a boom-boom in our room. The man of the house sleepily came in with a screwdriver and a roll of tape. He started taping the wires so we wouldn’t get Don King hairdos during the night.

A nanosecond later, he didn't look as focused.

I thought he looked funny sitting there taping the wires, so I took a picture. I shouldn’t have done that. He thought the camera flash was another boom-boom and screamed! After I apologized, and he had finished taping, we decided to play it safe and turned off the lamp, saying goodnight.

Read about Spetses at Kalispera »