I fell in love with Greece on holiday in a small fishing village diverted into tourism destination in the late 80’s. I visited Tolo in 2007 and was dying to get back to see if any of my local friends were still living there. I got my travel buddy Marie to agree for one day visit to Tolo and then we would continue to Rhodes.

Me and Marie were wondering around in Athens before our departure to Tolo and asked a girl to take a photo of us. Her name was Christina and she was half Greek and half Australian. As we did sightseeing in Athens we got to know that she and Marie knew the same friends in Sydney! She joined us for the 3h bus drive to the end of Peloponnesus peninsula of Attica to spend a day and a night in Tolo.

When we arrived to Tolo we could not find a man who promised us a cheap room for one night. The girls were devastated and thought we are homeless in Tolo, but I was delighted to be back! I went off to wonder on the main street by the beach with my camera while waiting for further contact from the man. The same shops and the same people- nothing had changed!

Then suddenly on the street I bumped into Michalis who I got to know on my holiday in 2007! Three years ago he got a contract to play football in Athens so I was not expecting to meet him and we had not had any contact in the three years so the surprise was pure coincidence.

After he recognized who I was, he offered us his apartment for our stay. Then what happened was that I realized that he lived in the same flat where I had spend my first holiday in Greece! The coincidences did not stop here. We were so happy to meet him and to have his gorgeous flat that we offered to buy him a dinner after he finished working in his family’s ice cream shop.

In the evening we headed to Michalis’ family restaurant on the beach. It was a night of Greek music and his uncles were playing guitar and bouzouki. We joined their table as Michalis was a great singer and Christina could play bouzouki as well. In the next table sat a very Danish looking couple and it did not take me long to find yet another surprise in Tolo: an old colleague of mine, Danish Thomas, who I used to work with in Azores in Portugal, sat in the next table with his girlfriend!  After a great night out in bars of Tolo with all our local coincidence friends, we all slept in one big bed in Mike’s apartment in the cool of air conditioning.

In the morning we got some bad news – all Greek transportation is in strike for the whole day and our flight to Rhodos was cancelled and we could not get back to Athens from Tolo. We had to stay for another night and that is when we met Mike’s neighbour half Spanish half Greek Alejandro who wanted to take us sailing on his boat. We missed our bus to Athens again, but this time it did not matter. We actually decided to stay in Tolo rather than fly to Rhodes! And so we did, for one whole week!

As our luggage was still in Athens at our Athens host Eleni’s place, we washed our two pairs of clothing every day in Mike’s sink.

In the mornings we got breakfast from bakery downstairs and when Mike went to open his ice cream shop around mid day, we headed for the beach or to close by islands. In the afternoon we went to hang around at the ice cream shop during siesta and evenings we spend eating fresh octopus and calamari and other fantastic Greek food on the beach listening to boys and Michalis’ family playing guitar and singing. Late night we took off with scooters to remote bars outside of Tolo where locals enjoyed their ouzo followed by moonlight swimming. What else could a Finnish girl want when there is sun, sea, sand, great Greek food, good friends and loads of fun and free ice cream every day!

PS. Marie is the sweetest ever travel companion, a very clever French girl, but sometimes she lacks in concentration. In the beach restaurant one night there were a family of Greeks who loved the live music and got up to dance a Greek dance Syrtaki. Marie shout in excitement: -Oh look! They are dancing SOUVLAKI! Which is the Greek meat food.