On our second day in Kefalonia we went to Melissani Lake, a subterranean lake in a cave which according to local legend, a nymph called Melissanthe committed suicide in the lake when the god Pan rejected her love for him.
The seawater comes up through the bedrock, creating the lake with crystal clear blue water. You enter the cave via a long staircase carved into the rock from above.
They have boats that row you about in the crystal clear blue water while the guide whistles and sings to you in Greek to demonstrate the echo of the cave.
We shared a boat with a very nice Italian couple. The husband spoke just enough English for us to communicate. Of course, I used the standard British tactic of talking when talking to people from other countries: speak very slowly and loudly because why shouldn't Jonnie Foreigner understand that? His wife only spoke Italian, yet Gail and I seemed able to communicate reasonably well.
After the Lake, we went to the Drogarati Cave. As we made our way in, two voices piped up: "Heelllooo" It's the Italian couple!
It's funny that they went to the same place the wife and I did. We had yet another quick chat before going our separate ways.
It was in the cave that I thought it would be a good idea to kill myself! Yet again, you had to descend a hundred-odd steps cut out of the solid rock down into the bowels of the earth. They'd clearly had 'accidents' before as there were thin, soaked carpets everywhere. I was wearing a pair of reasonably new trainers, so I had a fair amount of tread on them. As I stepped from one carpet to another, my foot touched bare rock rather than carpet, and before you could say "Open Sesame", my leg flew up, and I hurtled towards the floor. The scary part was it all happened in slow motion; as the rock bed started to get closer, I had a vision of my skull striking the edge of the carved step. Managing a half turn, my right arm felt the full force of a million-year-old rock attempting to put me in hospital. As I lay on the floor in agony, a couple of guys came over and helped me up because, for the life of me, I seemed unable to move myself.
The picture above was taken a couple of hours after the event. The following day, the bruise was huge and traversed almost the circumference of my upper arm. But I wasn't alone! Earlier that morning, the wife slipped down the hotel's fire escape. As she started to go down the steps, I'd just started to say: "Be careful of the st......" her foot slipped on the wet metal step and stumbled down. I honestly thought she was going to cry.
The next day, we went to Sami, as we were walking along the harbour front we heard: "Heelllooo" It's the Italians! Pretty much everywhere we went apart from Tuesday, we bumped into them: "Heelllooo".
On our last day yesterday, we went to Costa Costa beach, which is the best beach we've been to on any holiday so far. We'd gone there the day before and, on that occasion, when we left, we used the steep ramp up the cliff side, which, in fact, made the missus physically sick when we reached the top. The wife said: "Can we walk a bit further down the beach and go up the steps instead this time?" As we walked along, taking in the last moments of our holiday by the sea, from the waves came "Heelllooo" YOU'RE TAKING THE P... Yep, it was the Italian couple.
Now they were staying on the other side of the island! So what on earth were they doing over here and also what were the chances of them being close to the beach we were on! If it hadn't been for the missus wanting to walk further down the beach........... This has to be some sort of fait!
We'd bumped into them far more times than I've mentioned here, and in all that time, we hadn't exchanged names. Apparently, his name is Maximus "Ooh! Gladiator!" We all had a good laugh, but I suspect he's heard it a million times before and was probably sick to the back teeth of it. I forgot his wife's name because he said it so quickly to me. They were flying back to Milan, but I'm not sure where they actually live.
I regretted not giving them our contact details; then again, with the number of times we bumped into each other, it wouldn't surprise me if I got a Facebook message: "Heelllooo". 🤣
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