Patmos, Round Two

Καλω Πασχα! Happy Easter! Mary was feeling much better this morning as the patch seemed to have taken hold. And it was a beautiful sunshiny day with blue skies and bluer water. This day was supposed to have been spent on a different island, Amorgos, but because of the swells at sea, we remained in port at Patmos and the tour directors improvised a day to keep us entertained.

Touring Patmos, on a pebble beach

We set off for a bus tour of the island, some of which was redundant to the previous day, but with better sun for photo ops. They then took us to a local restaurant for a traditional Easter meal. The salad with feta cheese was great, the lemon soup with goat entrails was not to our liking, but the main course goat meat itself was very tasty if somewhat fatty. We were instructed on the contest of cracking hard boiled, colored eggs against one another (we lost), and finished with Easter cake, a circular, somewhat bready cake with colored, hard boiled eggs baked in.

The soup was not our favorite

After lunch, Mary and I decided that we needed to walk off some of the food we’d been eating, so we set off for a brisk walk down the road along the sea. We had just turned around toward town to walk back when Mary – perhaps distracted by something on a far hill I was pointing out to her, or perhaps still a little dizzy from motion sickness and/or medication for it – stepped off the edge of the road and fell, scraping her knee, hands, and face. I gave her my handkerchief to stem the flow of blood from the gash on her forehead and helped her walk back to the ship.

Easter egg contest

With our tour director, Maria, we took a taxi to the local clinic which was, of course, closed for Easter. But Maria called the phone number on the door and the doctor arrived within less than five minutes. She pulled off the bandages the crew had put on, immediately announced, “We will put three stitches in this,” kicked me out of the room, and set to work. She actually put in six stitches, three in each of two cuts.


This was government health care, so there was no paper work. In fact, they didn’t even ask her name! She was Novocained, stitched, given a prescription for an antibiotic, and out the door again in 20 minutes. There was absolutely no charge other than the total of 9 Euros taxi fare, there and back. "Because Greece is such a rich and prosperous country," said the nurse, with her tongue in cheek. If bankrupt Greece can afford a national health care system, why can't the U.S.?

Patmos island tour, Greek windmills

We were back in time to go with others from the group back up to the monastery for "Agape Vespers," an Easter afternoon service celebrating Jesus’ appearance to the disciples on Easter evening. This was a big deal, as the bishop was in attendance, and more people were there than fit in the little chapel. After much chanting in Greek and lots of incense, the Gospel was read in multiple languages, including English. Orthodox services are always long, it seems, so we left before it was all over. But few seem to stay for the whole thing. People were coming and going throughout – even some of the monks left for awhile!

A different view of the monastery

We were still stuffed from lunch when it was time for dinner, so it was hard to get more down, but we managed. We are fed well. After dinner, an Easter folk dance festival was cranking up in the village market square, so we joined the crowd there. The music was too loud, but the young, costumed dancers were quite good. Music continued into the night, and we could hear it well in our room on the ship. But we were tired enough that it didn’t keep us awake.

Folk dancers on Easter evening.

However, the ship sailed at midnight for Santorini, and when I awoke around 3:30 a.m. was well under-way in not-so-calm seas. While it was not as rough as the first night, it was enough to keep me awake the rest of the night. Thanks to the patch, Mary did not get sick, but she, too, did not sleep well.