on Leros island

I'm now on the island of Leros, which was just a short 1 hour ferry ride from Patmos. I stayed another couple of days on Patmos with Dianna, and then we looked around for where to go next. We wanted to go to the island Ikaria, which required first going to Samos, a touristy but apparently quite beautiful island. So we figured we'd go there for a couple of days, and then take another ferry to Ikaria, which by all accounts is quite an amazing and little-discovered island, of a fairly good size with lots of exploring to do.

But our ferry to Samos was cancelled because of high winds. We could have waited another day, but were anxious to get moving and see something new. So instead we got a refund on our ferry tickets and then took a ferry that same afternoon over to the island of Leros, arriving the day before yesterday. Dianna had heard some nice things about it, although my guidebook was a bit vague, so we weren't quite sure what to expect.

As it turns out, Leros is pretty much an average and fairly unexceptional island. If someone were to come here as their first visit to the Greek islands, they would probably think it was a great place. But having seen more interesting and beautiful places, and knowing there are nicer islands out there, there isn't too much reason to stick around for long.

Yesterday we rented a car and managed to see pretty much all corners of the island in a day. Afterwards, we pondered the possibility of catching a ferry the next day, today, to another island. But we'd already paid for the rental car for two days, and figured we could use up today taking care of assorted business, i.e. handwash some laundry, get some cash, do a little shopping, do some more research about the other islands and then buy our next ferry tickets. It's about 2 in the afternoon here now, a partly cloudy and fairly warm day, so we'll probably go to one of the nearby beaches in a little while and relax for a bit. The place where we're staying has a kitchen, so we cooked dinner there the past couple of nights (pasta and cheese the first night, omelettes and potatoes last night) and will probably cook again tonight, while we have a real kitchen.

As for where we're headed next, we'll most likely leave tomorrow and are strongly considering the island of Nissyros, further south with better weather. Dianna has been there before and really liked it a lot. Also there's a good beach where you can camp on, so that would give my budget a break to not be paying for accomodation for a little while.