hi mom!
it’s smatt again since my last one was so short. we did a lot of water stuff yesterday so we decided not to do turtles today and instead do basically everything else lol
we started off the day v chill but happily. gramps got some charger ports from the villa host so we could actually charge everything, and then dad found out the mavs destroyed the suns and advanced! i’ve never seen him as happy with you as he was when he checked the score… haha jkjk joudan
we finally left for the city of zakynthos around 11 and immediately got some food on the waterfront. the name of the restaurant is in greek on google maps so we don’t know what to call it, but we liked it a lot and got some great pics! my favorite was the saganaki, which is basically just a breaded block of cheese curd and therefore delicious
after that, we visited this church and walked along the waterfront. the water was super blue again! one thing that we noticed about greece was that the sun is rly hot everywhere but the air is not so bad and the wind is always blowing, so being in the shade feels amazing!
originally we were hoping to take a ferry to the island of kefalonia (we just call it california lolol) but the timing just wasn’t right. instead, we went to gerakas beach, which is one of the many turtle nesting areas protected by the nearby national marine park. there we found an exhibit with these tanks to hold the young turtles so that the local population can recover. smark rly liked them so he got a bunch of pics lol
the main activity for today was actually a hike! my favorite this hike passed by these white sandstone formations and ended at a great view of the ocean, but it was a bit hot since there wasn’t much shade. on the way back we took a detour and passed through this awesome pine forest that dad loved. we ended up walking along the road to get back to our car, which led to some nice hawaii reminiscing hehe
and my favorite part of today: gramps being a fool (somewhat uncharacteristically actually)
at this point it was about 6, so we wanted to time our next couple hours so that we would arrive at cameo island around sunset. our first destination was a local monastery that was also featured in descendants of the sun, but the road there was wayyy too bumpy and steep so we opted not to… sorry oppa :(
idr if you’ve watched DOTS but it's this one:
our next stop was the national marine park itself, but dad forgot it closed at 5 so we had to skip that too and headed straight to cameo island. we passed through laganas (we call it lasagna heh) which is the super touristy part of town that the bri’ish and the other eu’opeans stay in to drink and get wasted. we saw a mcdonald’s, subway, red castle(?), and even your favorite spot, BJs! we knew that this was one of the more popular places to visit for tourists on zakynthos, but i don't think we would have enjoyed the vibe as much as keri, so i'm glad grandma chose our current villa
we then arrived at cameo island. to get there, we had to cross this cool looking boardwalk that was honestly the main reason we came to the island in the first place
...and of course smike just wanted a pic with this unknown object that we found lying around
note: hey smark was doing dumb stuff too
- smike
since we arrived so early, we decided to wait for the sunset at dinner, so we went to this taverna that our villa host recommended called el greco (like the artist!) the food was rly good, especially the grilled octopus. we also got a couple traditional dishes in stuffed grape leaves and stuffed tomatoes that dad liked more than anyone else (edit: dad here. the napoliten, not pictured, might’ve actually been my favorite lol)
…and here’s a pic of dad making fun of me and looking stupid af
after dinner, we went back to the boardwalk for some pics. tbh the sunset wasn’t great but we still got this sweet looking pic
overall today was not a super memorable day but everything we did was rly fun and relaxing. the villa even looked amazing and very welcoming when we got home. wish you were here, mom!
love,
smatt (and others)