Waking up in a shared family room with two friends is a great way to start a vacation. We had a long and lazy breakfast, sampling everything the little buffet had to offer. After that it was off to the pool. There Christoph met his friend from the day before and this time they got to know each other better.
Our ferry to Ios was leaving at 12:50 and on the online ticket we were instructed to be at the port one hour earlier for check-in. We arranged for the hotel to give us a lift again, and were told to be at the reception at 11:30.
I have a feeling the hotel people are still laughing about the whole situation. We tourists, and especially we Austrians in this particular case, we stress too much. We arrived at the appointed time to settle the bill and wait for the driver. The receptionist was now an older guy, not the young guy with whom we arranged the transfer. When asked where the driver is, he let us know in a bored tone that the ferry is always late and the driver will be here shortly.
We went outside to wait patiently in the sun and relax. We are on vacation after all. Of course the driver was not here in short time and ten minutes later we started to get nervous. In went Patricia to ask about the driver and came back out a couple of minutes later with the message that the driver was on its way.
10 minutes later we were on the brink of canceling the transfer and ordering a cab. Now it was my turn to go inside and ask again about the driver. The message I received now might be good for everything in life, it was “Don’t panic!”.
Which of course turned out to be completely true. Once the driver arrived, we drove down to the port and on retrieving the tickets I got informed that the ferry was 20 minutes late, a slight understatement to appease the waiting crowd in the end. The ferry arrived an hour later, an hour that could have been spent at the pool but which we spent sitting in between luggage with hundred of other people.
Upon arriving in Ios we made our way to Petros Place which is like 250m from the port. Poppi was already waiting for us and making us feel welcome right away.
We moved into our rooms but not 30 minutes later we were back outside to go to the beach right next to the port. Look at us all exhausted.
Dinner was a relatively quiet affair after the night before and all the traveling. We went to a place recommended from Petros called The Octopus Tree. Dinner was delicious and an affair of lots of little mezes. Sorry no food pics as usual, you know the rule.
We had a great first evening on Ios, it is exceeding by far our expectations (thank you guys for keeping my expectations low! You know who I mean).
Yours, Pollybert
