Big Hair and Flat Batteries

Our aim for the end of this week was to be in Alexandroupoli which meant a fairly hefty 500 miles of driving coming. We decided against a sight-seeing route and went for the motorway, it must have been our two days for being lucky – instead of being charged Class 4 due to our height each of the four manual toll booths gave us the Class 1 car rate – result as our total tolls for the completed journey were €8.20. We don’t know why, we just smiled and handed over our cash.

As we headed North from Kastraki the countryside changed so much that it began to resemble North Wales more than what we have become used to as being Greece. Plenty of rolling hills with conifers and farmland in place of olives and citrus groves, the only exception was the almond tree orchards. A very quiet and pleasant drive with the exception of a motorway closure near Kavala, no diversions, no signs just a big blockade across the road. We went  straight to Plan B, follow the traffic into town and hope they are all looking for the diversion. All seemed good until we arrived on Kavala docks and vehicles started parking up on the quay! Luckily we spotted a lorry heading up a hill from the docks and decided to follow him, good plan as he took us back to the next open junction on the motorway – more luck than judgement as usual.

For me the best bit about the motorway trip (of course except the cheap as chips tolls) was the road signs, not sure why but seeing a sign for Bulgaria and Turkey was a bit of a special moment for us, made us realise how far we have travelled. And let’s be honest, a sign with a mummy and baby bear would be just amazing no matter where in the world it was. I never knew we had wild bears in Europe, a bit stunned to find they reckon upwards of 150 pairs are roaming free. For about 40 miles there were massive fences along the motorway, not sure if that is to keep the said bears off the motorway but couldn’t see any other reason.

We broke the journey with a stopover at Zampetas Camperstop at Thessaloniki, its a caravan and motorhome repair shop that has a free camperstop area. It was over 35 km off the motorway, albeit down another motorway, and smack bang at the end of the of the airport runway. They had a quick look at our ‘dint’ that was once a back bumper panel and said they couldn’t do anything in just 24 hours so we will continue with the gaffer tape look. We asked if ok to stay, they could not have been more welcoming, parked us up and settled us in for the night.

Closer to home than we thought at Zampetas Camperstop

After a second long day on the road to Alexandroupoli when we arrived we went mad, ignored the budget and ate out in the campsite restaurant. The menu was full of different choices but the owner kept pointing us towards pork dishes. I tried for a moussaka and then Iain told him twice that he really wanted beef, owner just kept repeating ‘you want pork!, its winter so you chose pork’ It was just as easy to agree that we did want pork, of course we did how had we not realised. You cannot beat a bit of gyro and chips and for the two of us with drinks and bread €14 (£10) we were happy enough

We are now as far East as we can go in Greece, it’s very out on a limb with not much of the rest of Greece close by. Turkey is 40 km away and this may be why the town has a massive army and police presence, very much a Garrison town. Looking at the history of the town its been owned or occupied by pretty much everyone in the region at some time, the Russians, Turks, Bulgarians and Germans have all staked claims at different times. There is a very calm and unhurried feeling here, the pavement cafes are heaving, standing room only in most of them, especially the ones that seem to be for those who want to look and be looked at. Going our for coffee in Greece seems to be the corner-stone of Greek life and they certainly do it with style.

If you cant park in the space you want then pop it half on the pavement!

Surprisingly for us we have made two forays into town and we actually quite like it. Big wide streets, good shops and prices that seem lower than the rest of Greece, a very laid-back vibe that we maybe didn’t expect in one of the bigger towns in the country. The promenade is one that will be lovely when its finished, looks as if it has been a work in progress for some years. The landmark lighthouse is based squarely in the middle of the promenade but other than that there doesn’t appear to be too much in the way of tourist attractions other than the beach, suits us fine. In the park the main pastime was playing cards at an upturned cardboard box, at least ten card schools taking place and whilst we couldn’t see money changing hands it looked fairly intense if it was for match sticks.

Alexandroupoli’s iconic lighthouse

The time came Friday for the well overdue (5 months) haircut. We went into a rather snazzy hairdressers, I mimed ‘haircut’ and  stylist nodded. Iain was only intending waiting for me but in the blink of an eye the male stylist had him in a chair where we was styled and blow dried despite his protestations, he is just about recovering from the whole episode :). If you look around in Greece the women do big hair, seriously big hair, think Mari Wilson and then double that thought. They were coming into the shop looking pretty normal and leaving with hair do’s that they struggled to get back out through the door, warning signals? When it was time for my cut the stylist roped in a customer who could speak a few words of English, between the three of us I thought we agreed on a trim. Not a hope in hell, my hair is now four inches shorter and was back-combed, with half a can of hairspray laminated in, to a height and width that would prevent me accessing many a low bridge restriction.

Tomorrow we should cross the border into Bulgaria. We are fairly well prepared in that we have some campsite details and a reasonably vague idea of where we want to go, even emailed the first campsite we planned to use to check they are open. We received a response that no they are closed 😦 but they live 15 minutes from the campsite so come and camp on their driveway for a few days, or even use the spare room in their house :). Bulgaria is already sounding like the kind of country we are going to like. We have loved Greece more than we ever imagined but Bulgaria and Romania are beckoning and we are both very much looking forward to countries we have never visited before.

Our route up, down, around and across Greece

The ‘should’ above comes about because we have a niggly little problem which may delay our departure – the van wont start! We tried to pop out this morning to visit the Turkish border and the Elvros Delta park, the van battery is dead as the proverbial Dodo.  Left it on the in-van dual charger all day and still not a hope of starting. It’s not worth calling out the breakdown on a Sunday so we will give them a call tomorrow as see what they suggest (we know its likely to be a new battery!). So we may be in Bulgaria tomorrow but then again – who knows! On the positive side thank the Lord we didn’t pop into Turkey as I wanted to – we don’t have breakdown cover there, phew!

Meteora – rocks

No matter how much we enjoyed the week at Kato Gatzea, it was lovely driving off and being back on the road. Even better we found the new Volos ring road this time, so what took 3 hours last time took 25 minutes this time – its all so easy when you know how 🙂  The ring road is so new its not on Sat Nav yet and possibly not on the radar of many locals as hardly a car on it, therefore I do not feel as bad that we didn’t find it on the way in. We couldn’t find a reason to visit the city of Volos but driving round the edge you get a fabulous view right across and down to the sea, miles of white buildings with hardly a high-rise in sight it looks more like a large town than the second city of a country.

We were straight out to the motorway where we treated ourselves to a toll (€10) from Volos up Larisa. Tolls are odd here, we paid based on our height not our length, if we have been 6 cm lower then it would have cost us €4. Then again if we had come off at the exit half a mile before the toll booths it wouldn’t have cost us a penny – they don’t have that many toll booths so it would be easy to just come on and off and skirt around them if you so desired. From there is was straight up the dual carriageway to Kastraki, and the nearest campsite to Meteora. You can see it from 10 km away, amazing outcrops of sandstone rock towers that loom over Kalambaka and Kastraki. We pulled up at Camping Kastraki and as usual not a soul about, its right in the middle of the village of Kastraki beneath  the sandstone pinnacles which look close enough to touch.

The name Meteora means “middle of the sky” and very aptly describes the monasteries here which are perched atop the most incredible sandstone pinnacles. From some angles it looks as if they are built on top of mountains, which would be impressive, but they are each on a pinnacle. The tradition of Greek Orthodoxy has continued uninterrupted here for over 600 years, the complex is second in importance only to Mount Athos. We can’t visit Mt Athos though as they do not allow women or children into their ‘state’ at all, even people working there must be over 18 and be men. I have no qualms on the equality piece, just a bit rubbish I can’t visit and see such an amazing place.

Anyway, Meteora welcomes everyone, its actually a tourist centre nearly as much as a monastic centre to be honest. There were 24 monasteries but now only six monasteries are left, four are inhabited by monks and two by nuns. There are less than ten monks or nuns in each monastery, they have been all but turned over to tourism now and the whole area declared a UNESCO site. So they don’t really mind who comes and visits as long as you show a bit of respect, don’t wear shorts, women wear a skirt and you spend a few Euro.

There is now a road that takes you around the mountain to each site, we took a taxi to the top and walked to each monastery and then back down. More than a bit of a hike, we only went inside one monastery and it still took us over 4 hours. The best way to describe the landscape is like something out of a science fiction film, a bit like the Hobbit with better castles. Slightly surreal where everything looks like a Hollywood film-set as surely no-one would really build massive buildings on top of 1200 ft sandstone rocks.

The road up around the monasteries

The steps cut into the mountains that lead to each monastery are fairly new additions, most of which were completed in the 20th century, Before that everything and everyone was either hoisted up or down on ropes, climbed ladders lashed together or hoisted up 1200 vertical feet in a net (pilgrims included). The story goes that the priests used to decide it was time to get new ropes when the old ones broke! Not sure there isn’t some poetic licence there but new ropes or old there is no way on earth you would have gone up or down the sides of those cliffs held in a net unless you were one very brave monk.

Outside Megalo Monastery – a drop of 1200 ft between me and it

To get to all but one of the monasteries you need to climb the steps, first down the side of the mountain to a bridge and then back up the pinnacle the side, its hard going at this time of year so in summer it must be unbearable. The monks have their own transport system, they installed cable cars at three monasteries – if you can call it that!  We saw them in operation at two different places, to be honest you would not get me on one of them for all the tea in china.

Cable car at Megalo Monastery

The highest and largest is Megalo Meteoro Monastery, supposedly the best monastery with the most to see inside, so we started there – just our luck then they close on a Tuesday. The next largest is on the next pinnacle, Varlaam Monastery, which was built in 1541 and thankfully open. We arrived at the same time as four tour buses, but managed to keep out of their way fairly well. I was allowed inside the monasteries here, but the strict dress code means women must wear a skirt – not something I bought with me. The monks thoughtfully provide skirts for those of us that need one, mostly very fetching checked little numbers which were fine.

Happily appropriately dressed and admitted

Whether they are still used as fully functional monasteries wasn’t clear, there were a few monks about but many more builders doing repairs. We were allowed into the church, a small exhibition and to see where the nets for hoisting goods and people were (are) dropped from a balcony. Everywhere else was off limits, a shame as the interesting thing we hoped to see was where and how they lived. In all honesty, the inside was lovely but really doesn’t compare with looking at the structure from afar. Being Greece the old H&S doesn’t apply, people were literally climbing to the edge of pinnacle for the best photos. We didn’t do that! hence our photos are a bit rubbish – if you want to see how awesome it really is Google it 🙂

Monastery Varlaam from below

All around the area are hundred of caves, before the monasteries were built the monks lived in them. Many look as if people still make use of them today, would guess its just locals and climbs. One cave has literally hundreds of flags hanging all around it. The taxi driver told us one man regularly climbs up to the cave and each time hangs a new flag. Amongst the caves are ruins of old churches, some perched on the edge of the caves, other just outside. Again, how they were built defies understanding.

We walked across the couple of kilometres to probably the monastery that most people would recognise, that of The Holy Trinity as it was featured in the 1981 James Bond film ‘ For Your Eyes Only’.  We sat down by the ‘cable car’ to have our picnic and as we did so the thing started moving. We saw the priest let someone in on the other side and send him over the gorge with a flick of a switch. It was mesmerising and terrifying all at once. The fella who came over didn’t even shut the door!

Monastery of the Holy Trinity – aka St. Cyrils of James Bond fame

There are a few tacky tourist tatt stalls outside the monasteries but not too many. There isn’t a cafe, restaurant or even a drinks wagon at any of them, which we did think was missing out on some major euro profit.  They do provide loos, just not of the porcelain variety, obviously the one thing they never bothered hauling up the side of the rocks then!

On our way back into the village the last monastery was St. Nicholas, the tour buses don’t stop there so its very quiet. Outside was a local lady selling the gaudiest hand knitted goods, whereas all the other tatt sellers had been to the wholesalers. Iain reckoned she just buys rubbish looking knitwear from the wholesalers but I believed she makes it herself.  I decided to buy something off her as she looked freezing and probably hadn’t sold anything all day. She tried to rip me off €15 for a woolly hat! We did a bit of bargaining between us and I got her down to €10 – get me 🙂

 My super Meteora hat

It is difficult to write about Meteora without listing out superlatives, for us it has been magical and we think one of the most memorable places we have yet to visit. The pinnacles themselves really would be worth seeing, add the caves and then the monasteries and its going to have to be a big contender for one of our Seven Wonders of the Baxterbus Tour.

That’s us done with monasteries now, heading off today for Thessaloniki.

Holiday over – let’s get travelling

That was the week that was our mini break holiday, We had nearly a full week of glorious weather where we really did very little. The beach was a full six steps from the van door so our exercise was reasonably limited to popping in and out for drinks or food. Its been warm enough to sunbathe but not yet warm enough to feel the need to jump in the sea. For those at home shivering please do not envy us, for the last two days we have seen the tail end of a massive storm and some fairly torrential rain. The awning is out and we have made do with sitting on the step and looking at the sea through the rain :(.

Our total exclusive use of the campsite only lasted three days, then we were joined by a Dutch couple with a super de-mountable who we meet all over the place, this is the fourth time we have met them at various campsites. They are on their way home from Turkey, taking their time and stopping for a week here and there. We may meet up again as they will be in Bulgaria before heading North West into Serbia when we go North East into Romania.

the ace de-mountable

The village next to the campsite is Kato Gatzea,  a tidly holiday village just about 40 minutes out of the city of Volos. As with most places in Greece its suffered horrendously with the financial crisis, there are literally hundreds of part built houses around the edge of the village and up into the hills. Work stopped when the money ran out 10 years ago, building materials are still where they were left, mountains of bricks, tiles etc never been touched since. To add to the woes here, this is a holiday area for Greeks and as they do not have the money to go on holiday then Kato Gatzea has seen numbers of visitors fall ten fold.

Despite all that it has a lovely atmosphere, there are several tavernas lining the beach and whilst none are busy they are open and doing some trade with day trippers from the city. The village also has a fabulous bakery and a great mini market, both of which brace themselves for the daily visit where I attempt to speak a bit Greek and they have pretty much no concept of most of what I mean. The mini-market owner is very tolerant of my attempts and resists speaking English depending on the length of queue waiting to be served; in the bakery we have established a small dialogue as I buy the same loaf and two cakes each day. Iain asked why we always buy six slices of cheese or meat – it’s because the only numbers I know the words for are  ‘two’ and ‘six’ so we only buy in those multiples – simples really 🙂

Just 10 minutes walk in the other direction is another village, Kato Nera, similar to Gatzea just scaled up with many more tavernas.  At the end of the promenade in Nera is what appears to be a very well-kept 1950’s Butlins. On approach the “no photograph” signs and the armed solder give it away as actually being a holiday camp for Greek soldiers. Everything is painted blue and white, the chalets, the fences, the ice-cream kiosk, even the stones around the trees. All very patriotic but seemingly very outdated, its never going to a place they send them to let their hair down, more Clacton than Corfu.

Hellas International Campsite really has gone to the top of our list as one of our favourites, a combination of the site itself, the owners and the village. Add on the beach and the glorious weather (for the first 6 days) and it’s really been a whats not to like. In 2016 they are doing an Olive Harvest month from October to November – not sure they are offering you anything for the work but sounds fun and if we were able would be here for it. We have both said Greece will be a one-off visit for us as its so far to travel to get here, then again we said that the first time we went to Portugal(!) Greece has really taken a hold of us both and I am not so sure we wont be back at some stage and if we are then Kato Gatzea would be very high on the list of choices for a long-term winter stay.

We haven’t been totally idle all week, most of it yes but we did get out and explore a bit too. The Pelion peninsula is a very lush area where there are literally millions of olive trees.  It forms the shape of a hook between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea, so from where we are it looks like a ginormous lake. We took a walk into the hills high above the village, using what we thought was a footpath. In places it was dug out, in others just a worn path and then surprisingly every so often a ton or so of concrete had been dumped.  As we climbed the path passed houses and shacks, a good number of which had cars outside. For the life of us have no idea how they drive up this type of track, it would be akin to driving cars up the steepest bridle paths you have seen, some of the paths were barely wide enough for us to walk up.

As planned, we have avoided any forms of cultural tourism this week. I did give Iain a choice on Friday of visiting an attraction of some sort or food shopping – he chose the latter! Me thinks he is over the whole ancient Greece thing in a big way if Lidl is winning out. As our nod to tourism we walked up to the station in the hills for the Pelion Narrow Gauge railway, both of us are quite partial to a narrow gauge so we were fancying a day out, alas the train doesn’t start running until mid April, another fail in the planning department by us 🙂 but a plus in we didn’t spend a cent on touristy stuff for the first week in ages.

We have passed another milestone, exactly one-third of our trip completed as of today. When we first planned this trip we were very aware we didn’t want to get to half way and then it was all about turning round and heading back. So, to avoid this our destination is Belgium and we are taking the long route to get there. We will need to head for home only once we hit Brussels, until then its all about the outward leg not the return trip. It may all be in the mind but it works for us :).

We are away from here tomorrow,  next stop is the amazing monastery at Meteroa, it’s a place that has been recommended by several people and looks brilliant. From there its a pit-stop at Thessaloniki and then onto our last stop in Greece – Alexandroupolis.

Kato Nera promenade

yes indeed that is a bit of a suntan there 🙂

For the next week – life is a beach

Our stay at Camperstop Afrodites ended perfectly, the owners lovely 12 year old grandson appeared at our door mid evening with a plate of freshly fried doughnuts and some dipping syrup. Ok so the site needs a little work but we care not, it you are being given free fresh doughnuts then motorhomers should be visiting in their droves. There was a note hung up in reception to say the family were having a lamb roast on March 12th and anyone staying was invited to join them – where else does that happen? A lovely family, doing a sterling job at trying to set up a good stopover – more power to them and more visitors we hope too.

The National Road to Athens – not too shabby at all considering the views

Our next destination was Delphi, according to Sat Nav just over 7 hours away and 203 km, obviously thinks we are both over 85 years old and drive a Lada! We took the National Road which runs parallel to the motorway to Athens, both roads were quiet so we decided against paying out the €4.60 to sit in a lane a few yards to our left. Our choice was a bit twisty and had more than it’s share of potholes, but hugging the coast and giving views out to the islands it did its job well enough for us. About 30 or so miles before Athens we headed North over the mountains, a good wide road where we saw only a handful of other vehicles in over an hour. We actually saw more goat herders than pretty much anything, at least five different ones in the space of a few miles on one mountain. The landscape changed to being a bit more scrub-land, no olives or citrus just mile after mile of views over to the next sets of mountains.

 Views heading North of the Peloponnese

At Distomo there is a powerful WWII memorial next to the main road. It commemorates the 1944 massacre by the SS of 214 Greek men, women and children all of whom were civilians living in the village. The first time we have seen anything relating  to the war here, despite the fact Greece suffered some terrible atrocities.

Distomo memorial

We pulled in at a one donkey village to stock up with provisions and the shop owner and local Greek Orthodox Priest both started speaking to me. We established I was British, at which the Priest took a bit of a jolly fit, he spoke no English but according to shopkeeper said Priest visited UK many years ago. This all resulted in Priest needing to do a little jig sort of dance, with me needing me to take part! Luckily only the shopkeeper and one member of staff were around to witness this, I brought what we needed and made a quick exit back to Iain in the van. I have to say I have never before danced a jig with an Orthodox Priest and I pretty much bet I will never do so again, it wasn’t on my Bucket List but probably should have been 🙂

The ski resort of Arachova was an unexpected pleasure, worth the winding route up the mountain to just over 3000 ft, where it is perched on the edge looking as if it belongs somewhere in the Alps (that says us who have never been to the Alps). Whilst there are a lot of ski shops, ski wear and people wandering around with ski looking equipment we didn’t see anywhere near enough of the white stuff for anyone to be seriously sliding anywhere.  At a glance it seems a place where its good to be seen, a bit Nafplio on snow; plenty of trendy looking shops, lovely eateries and lots of beautiful people with crazy woollen headgear.

Arachova – Nafplio on snow (if you can find snow)

Just a few miles down the other side of the valley and we were at Delphi and our campsite, Apollon Camping.  As campsites go it has a captive market in the winter, the others in the area are all closed. At €20 a night its a bit steep, especially as the ladies loos had a flood of 2 inches of water on the floor, the ceiling had started to collapse along with the light fittings and there wasn’t any hot water – all very not 5 Star. But as we  looked out the front window at our view – right down to the Gulf of Corinth and over to the Peloponnese, the facilities didn’t matter so much. 

The view from our windscreen

Whilst at Camping Apollon we suffered what we will from now be calling  ‘dint day’. We decided at 7am to move the van from the lower level to the upper, slightly better view level before breakfast. Iain reversed off our pitch with my guidance – perfect, I climbed back in the van. We then had to reverse up behind the other pitches and oooops – we took out an electric post! How? cutting a long story short my shouting “oh watch it” without giving a bit more information meant Iain has no idea what to watch, therefore he watched something else close on his side! We now have a poorly rear bumper panel 😦  not to worry, gaffer tape cures all, should last until we are home when Paint & Trim will wave its wand and perform a no doubt faultless repair. On the upside, we now blend in much more with the locals – they all have smashed and dented panels on their cars and vans, it seems no one ever gets anything repaired. A dent here is a badge of honour and we are wearing ours proudly. Of course it could have been worse, I could have been driving!

We agreed Ancient Delphi was going to be the absolutely last archaeological site for us and we are seriously thinking of a theme park next week to go to the opposite end of the holiday experience. At first glance it is just another very well excavated city, climbing up the side of Mount Parnassus. What apparently makes this site so special is that it is the site of the ancient Oracle.  For us, and we are not real archaeological buffs, it was impressive but not as much so as Olympia or the Theatre of Epidauvrus. May have been the coach loads of tourists, of which there were several even at 9 o’clock in the morning; may have been the theatre wasn’t quite so impressive or it may have been we have seen way too many partially rebuilt temples. For us the views down to the coast over mile over mile after mile of olive groves, or the view up into the snow capped mountains were just as good a reason to visit Delphi as the more famous attractions.

We left Delphi Friday morning heading for Camping Hellas on the coast near Volos. Heading back the way we came to the National Road, from where it should have been a good 20-30 minutes to the motorway. Time dragged a bit and I saw a sign for a town I was sure was South of us, a quick check of the atlas and yup indeedy, Sat Nav is taking us back down the National Road to join the motorway 40 odd miles South of where we could have joined. Bloody brilliant then that is an extra 80 miles (we were way to far along when I spotted it to change route and we still don’t have a proper map, just the large scale atlas). To add insult it cost us €12.50 in tolls to get back to where we had started an hour before.

Once we arrived at Volos we negotiated the city reasonably easily  (second biggest in Greece and yet the roads weren’t too chaotic) At the junction for the coast road, massive bollards – the road was shut! Words resembling ‘massive bollards’ were bandied around the van.  Our options were take the Sat Nav  88km diversion or if we wanted to stay at another campsite, the nearest one 230 km in Athens. We went with the diversion, a quick check on screen showed another mountain pass coming up but Iain is taking these in his stride now.  This mountain was a seriously high one at 5000 ft, Mt Pelion, amazing switch backs for miles upon miles, Greek ‘alpine’ villages and good 2 ft of snow around as we climbed over the top (although the road had been snow ploughed so was clear). It took us 3 hours to do 88 km, amazing road, shame we couldn’t see anything much for fog 😦 Did everyone seriously know Greece was this mountainous and not bother to tell us? People continually warn us not to go to Bulgaria too early due to bad weather in the mountains, how can it be any worse than here – we dread to think.

We pulled in at a bakery just before the campsite (cheese pies and cakes required). Iain mentioned our long diversion, baker says “No, road isn’t closed”.  Apparently the actual diversion is less than a mile back onto the coast road. If we read Greek we could have read the sign, epic fail from us, more epic from flipping Sat Nav who is in danger of being dropped off the top of the next mountain pass. Oh well, we did it, another mountain ticked off and Iain is fast becoming a candidate for Greek Mountain Motorhome Guide of the year. Yes, we know, we need a decent map and we will be buying one soon and then we will start to plan the odd journey and we know that will mean smoother trips, but possibly not as much fun.

the red line alongside  our actual  ‘switch-back’ route

Seven hours after leaving Delphi we finally arrived at Camping Hellas, looked brilliant but not a single motor-home or caravan on site! For one awful moment we thought it was closed. Then the wonderful Antonios appears, he says they are doing work on the site for the season so not fully open, no facilities,  loos, showers etc, but we can stay. We have a cheaper rate than the normal discount rate so what’s not to like. It is beautiful here, we are on the beach, literally our front wheels are less then 10 ft from the sea. We love it, it was more than worth the journey, just us, a whole campsite to ourselves and our own private beach. We are both feeling like we have just left the UK on a airplane and arrived at our holiday beach, we have been just a bit giddy and over excited 🙂 The weather forecast was for torrential rain today – wrong! its been glorious. For the rest of the week we have a scorchio forecast, 22 / 76 degrees by the middle of the week.

Our very own beach

Due to good weather, our own beach and because we can, the plan has slightly changed – we are staying for a while, at least a week. We are rebelling against cultural attractions and we are going to sit on our beach, get suntans read books, cycle and walk into the village for very tasty spinach pies from the local bakery.

Its a tough life but he is up to the job!

If you don’t hear from us don’t worry, we are on holiday. The Grand Depart will be back on in a week or so when we can tear ourselves away.

Dora’s spot just off the beach

We found the canal and a whole lot more at Korinth

It seems we were not in Korinth (Corinth) as we thought, we were in Ancient Korinth which was 5 km away from the newer version. It did mean we were very close to another set of ruins and we just had to brave the rain and make the 400 metres walk into the centre of the village to the archaeological site. We agreed we would only pay the entrance fee if it looked more spectacular than anywhere else we had been, as we both felt a bit all ruined out.

The ancient bit refers to a town from 400 BC with an estimated 90,000 inhabitants, which is reasonably new as they believe the area has been occupied by man since 6500 BC. During the war of independence the Turks pretty much destroyed the ancient town and then in 1858 an earthquake finished the job off and lead to the new town being built. The excavations site is pretty much in the centre of the current village, probably the size of several football pitches it sits within the modern day village with just a wire fence around it. You can pay to enter or, as we did, you can walk right around the perimeter on the public roads. We chose the free option purely due to being a bit tight, it probably was more than worth the €6 each but when the option of a freebie presents itself we couldn’t resist. As with all the ruin sites one temple was partially rebuilt (perfect  for photo opportunities), in this case it was the Temple of Apollo.

Temple of Apollo

Even from the fence the whole thing was quite impressive, the buildings have some depth to them, in some case even the arches of window frames and its much easier to see the city outline than at other sites were its been piles of rocks that you have to picture as buildings.  Even better its seems they are discovering more of Ancient Korinth by the day, on the outskirts of the village there are ruins a plenty, not sure how big this place was but its going to be a few hundred more years before they find and uncover it all. As one of the greatest cities of Ancient Greece we were more than impressed, it seems that even when you think you have had a total fill of ruins the Greeks have something a bit more special to entice you in to another one.

Ancient Korinth

Alongside the ruins there is a good little cottage industry of shops and cafes, even on a wet and grey day the coach loads were arriving and everywhere was open for business. The tourist area of the village was pedestrianised with tavernas and souvenir shops each side and the Temple of Apollo at the end. The weather wasn’t at its best and we didn’t do the visit justice in terms of going in, yet would still give this place a big thumbs up and say its well worth visiting, especially if you are staying at Afrodites Waters.

We stopped off for a coffee and ordered a couple of slices of toast for Iain – we received a toasted ham and cheese sandwich each! Not totally sure they don’t understand what we want, I think there may be a ruse going on as you get what they want you to have and you happily pay for it. At €8  (£5.80) for two lattes, two toasties and a few crisps it was quite a bargain and it kept us out of the rain for half an hour. From there it was time to embrace the souvenir shops and hunt out a couple of magnets for the collection. In general Greece isn’t cheap for some stuff but on the tourist tatt its not bad at all – €1.50 for a magnet here vs €6 at Pont De Gard, bargain.

Precinct cafes with the Temple of Apollo at the end – good planning

We have both very much loved Campsterop Afrodites Waters, very different to anywhere we have stayed in Greece. The toilets are air conditioned, well I think that is why there was a hole in the roof anyway :). The mini market is just the best ever, 3 bottles of home-made olive oil, 4 jars of home-brew olives and some jam – what more could you need. The reception area has a BBQ grill, hot plates for cooking and a table and chairs if you want to eat there. If the Greeks need to make some money out of the tourists they could do a whole lot worse than have a string of these cheap and cheerful motor-home stop off points, no fuss, no hassle, just ace for a couple of days stop.

The perfect reception

The Camperstop advertises being just 100 metres from the ‘hidden and forgotton spring of Afrodites’ godess of beauty. At first we thought it was very well hidden as we couldn’t find it. Possibly well forgotten too as even the guide at the ruins didn’t have any idea where it was. Then I noticed a sign on site, followed a rough path up the side of the hill and hey presto it appeared I had found the spring. A craggy rock face with water dripping, the first part did look like it might be part of the mains system (the pipes visible in the mud gave it away) but the second, larger set of rocks were for my money the original springs of Afrodites, as advertised. I have therefore anointed myself quite liberally with the said spring  water and should I not resemble a Super-Model by Thursday I will be returning for a full refund!

The Waters of Afrodites

Our main reason for stopping off here was more for the canal that the ruins. The Corinth canal connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean sea, being the bit along the top of the Peloponnese. Our first challenge was finding it, we found the top end fairly easily but there was a 3 tonnes weigh restriction on the bridge, we could see down the canal but the bit we wanted was a mile or so along – looking down where it was carved through the rock. We went down to the other end and hey presto there was another 3 tonne weight restriction. By now we were both getting slightly fed up with the idea of the canal – yes we have a map but the bit where the road crosses the canal has writing over it – we agreed to take the main road over and if we couldn’t find it give up. Turn right, 1/4 of a mile up the road one canal, at last. Once you find it you wonder how you could of missed it in the first place, well I think that was what Iain was trying to say when he queried why it had taken me several attempts to get us there.

Gulf of Corinth entrance to the canal

Was it worth it? for us a massive yes. Slightly disappointed there wasn’t a cycle path along side :), we were looking forward to adding it to our lists of canals cycled, but other than that its an incredible sight. It is a 70 ft wide cut through the land at the Isthmus of Corinth,  and makes the Peloponnese effectively an island. The canal is 4 miles long and it’s very, very deep, built at sea level so it doesn’t require any locks. It was never really a great success, when it opened it suffered rock slides which were a major deterrent to users, nowadays  the width of  only 70 ft makes it impassable for most modern ships. As a tourist attraction it does it’s job and would probably do even better with some decent flipping road signs to it.

The Corinth Canal

Since we had arrived here we kept looking up to Akrokorinthos way up on the hill, 1800 ft above sea level. Being 4 km up hill we weren’t going to walk it, but the sun came out on the way back from the canal so we thought we would pop up for a look. Basically a monolithic rock with a whacking great castle perched on the top. It’s the home of the God of the Sun, probably as its one of the closest building in Greece to the sun. I suffer from a fear of heights, it was high and I suffered. The pain eased when it was free to enter, but the even though the rain has stopped the stone paths were very slippy and this didn’t help me calm my irrational fears. We walked / skidded up through the first two gates, the path went right to the top but I decided that was a destination we didn’t need to achieve.

Akrokorinthos – another one that cannot be missed

According to the tourist blurb it is “the most impressive acropolis in mainland Greece”, whilst we haven’t seen enough acropolis to be experts we did think it would be difficult to better this one. From the road looking up it seems to cover a fair sized area, it’s only as you start to climb the pathways and go through each gate you see the area is much larger than it at first appears.  Not sure we did it justice, well we didn’t as they say it takes 3-4 hours to walk around everything and we were less than an hour. For the views alone its worth the drive up there, I cannot help keep promoting Greek tourist must sees – they really are so impressive you must see them if you can.

On the way up

The views just before the Sun God got home and started work

Seen from the village                                 Up close

The weather here continues to run through the full spectrum. Monday afternoon we had three hours of torrential rain accompanied by thunder and lightening right overhead. Today we had a bit of rain and then the sun came out and reminded us why we are in Greece – a glorious afternoon of sunshine looking down over the Korinthian Gulf whilst listening to the sound of the local dogs barking and the motorway just below us 🙂

Caterpillars 1 v Baxter 0

We were very happy with the site at Iria Beach. Whilst the area was a little run down and lacking in love with everything closed for the winter, the site itself was busy with 20 or so units and it was reasonably warm – once the snow melted both mornings. Our decision to move on was pretty much hastened by those creepy little caterpillar critters. Iain went and asked the owner what we should do with the first one, ‘not much really as they don’t bother anyone but you can kill it if you want’ was the response! Next day there was another one but on the next but one pitch. Our Austrian neighbour obviously feels a relationship with Arnie, he was out with a gas canister, a flame thrower and then torched the whole thing until it was just dust, that’s one that wont be bothering anyone again.

The cotton wool ball like nests are pretty much everywhere right now so I guess its hard for the sites to deal with. After a third one was torched we decided we didn’t feel comfortable and we were a bit concerned at the advice that they ‘aren’t a problem’ when we know from reading up on them in Spain just how dangerous they can be. We packed up and within an hour were back to Triton II campsite, on arrival we did a double-check and the only nests were outside the site so we booked on for a couple of nights.

Friday morning view from the beach

On both Thursday and Friday mornings we woke to a white world, it may have only been a dusting but all the same it had snowed at sea level (the campsite owner told us it was the first snow since he had been there in 16 years). By mid morning the sun was warm enough to melt any signs of winter but the wind had an arctic feel to it. In the sun it was glorious, enough for a couple of days of sunbathing and we both have a good red glow now. Everywhere we go the main topic of conversation between motorhomers is the snow, our Norwegian neighbours were out doing mountain passes yesterday, they say it’s just like being at home for them – long drive though from Norway to Greece to feel like you are still at home! The campsite went from nearly empty to pretty much full in a few hours, it’s a Greek bank holiday called ‘Clean Monday’.  We were a little worried when our next door neighbour strung up an outside light in the trees, luckily for us they do not party as hard, long or loud as the Italians and Spanish.

Palamidi castle

Saturday we decided it was time to go into Nafplio, we had resisted so far purely out of a mixture of laziness or being on our way somewhere else as we passed through. The sun was shinning so we dusted down the bikes and took a gentle cycle into town. The roads were quiet and easy to cycle on, plenty wide enough for a car and a bike and just 10 miles later we arrived in town. Wow, where did all these people appear from? It was so busy we had to push our bikes along the road into the centre as there wasn’t room to cycle. We later discovered everyone was there for the annual kite festival, we saw quite a few kites that looked a bit home made on the roadsides for sale but not a one in the air, maybe it was the wrong type of breeze?

Nafplio harbour

Nafplio is a lovely town, very trendy and cool, the sort of place you need the right handbag and sunglasses and then you can just see and be seen. People were busy doing nothing much except wandering along the promenades or sitting in the pavement cafes. The town itself is fairly posh and very lovely but the harbour area outdid it for us, it was incredibly beautiful.  From there you can see the three castles that Nafplio can boast to owning. There is one on top of the hill on the edge of the old town, another mid way down just above town but the true star has to be the one plonked out in the harbour. Similar to the one we saw at Methoni that was some sort of jail it is quite simply a breath taking scene.

Bourtzi Castle

Nafplio was once the capital of Greece, it was pronounced as such by the first Greek Head of State following independence in 1829, for his trouble he was assassinated on the church steps in Nafplio just 18 months later by some very ungrateful independent Greeks. By 1834 the new king had decided Athens was going to be the capitals so Nafplio settled down to becoming a rather swish and stylish holiday resort that took off in the late 1960’s, predominantly for the Athenians who kept that coveted capital title.

From the harbour towards Palamidi castle

We cycled to the end of the harbour where there was a footpath around the cliff, the sign saying “no pedestrians” had been moved and anyway we were cyclists so we carried on. As we rounded the corner the path stretched out to the next bay, another postcard view. As we are in Greece there were fairly steep drops straight into the sea off the path, the Greeks are tough and don’t do handrails or really any type of safety. After a brief and confusing conversation with a Greek lady we understood we had to turn back as we couldn’t follow the path as far as we need to go.

A beautiful path to cycle – but the drops were scary

We crossed over to the other side of town and followed the road out of town looking for a good picnic spot, not the best route as the road doesn’t touch the coast and was fairly busy. As we dodged the cars we saw the Wanderlings chugging towards us, we waved – they didn’t.  We gave up on the picnic spot and turned back to town which if anything it was busier, so it was time to head back towards Drepano. As we cycled along we saw the Wanderlings again, we waved – they drove off! Not wanting to labour a point but a couple of miles later we spotted a certain Dethleffs coming out of Carrefour – as we said ‘oh look who it is’ they were gone, again.

The monastery of Metamorfosis Sotiros has intrigued since we were here last week, its so high on the hill you can only just see it. Out of our league in terms of climbing up there but I did try and research something about it on the internet, a little disappointed that the first thing I found was a web site where I could make an online donation! Looks like the Greek monasteries have well and truly embraced the powers of money making on the internet.

The monastery is the tiny blip at the top of the rock next to a tree

Back at campsite after 21 miles we sunk down for a rest and noticed a calling card on our door. Yay! Roland and Claire were on the same site, an afternoon in the sun discussing the merits of  various tourist attractions, campsites, feral dogs and snow. They assured us they hadn’t seen us on any of the occasions when they had passed us during the day. Well Claire said she saw a bloke in a yellow jacket on a bike waving at her but she couldn’t think why he kept waving so she ignored him, fair enough :). We left them this morning heading for the carnival in Tolo but we are fairly confident we will run into them again over the next few weeks, hope so as it’s always lovely to see them.

At long last we have made the move and off, well nearly off, the Peloponnese. We took the main road directly North, a very quiet run up with some glorious views over to the mountains. We are stopped at  the Camperstop Aphrodite just a few miles before the Corinth Canal. As we approached we passed the entrance to Ancient Corinth, we had said no more ruins for a few weeks but it looks fairly interesting so will head back there in the morning before having a look at the famous canal.

This is our kind of Camperstop, it does what it says on the tin, there is everything you could need for €10 (well we hope it is because we forgot to confirm the price). The owner is a wonderful gentleman who explained everything in a mixture of Greek, French and English with the biggest smile you could wish for. By the time we had parked up and plugged in he was back with a tray containing complimentary bowls of currants soaked in honey and a couple of glasses of water. The site is a work in progress but then so is a lot of Greece!

Our plan now is to get a real plan and stick to it a bit more, so we will be here a couple of days then head onto mainland Greece. The new / real plan is now bypassing Athens (too busy), probably seeing Delphi (it’s been highly recommended) then out to Volos (another break on the beach). A quick stop at Meteor (top of our must see list) and then we will then be driving East and stopping just before Turkey (Iain has vetoed Turkey) and crossing the border into Bulgaria, from where its North all the way to Finland. This is all subject to no better plans coming up in the meantime but we are pretty confident its the way to go.

If Heineken made caves…

We have spent days checking out on the internet what there is to see on the South East side of the Peloponnse, the guides books seem to miss out an awful lot that you may or may not come across just by chance. The passes around Mt Didimo were worth the trip in themselves,  full of sunshine and spring flowers and offering up wonderful views over the valleys down to the coast. The roads were wide enough to enjoy the twisting and turning hairpins but the lack of armaco on many of the higher roads does cause more than a few heart stopping moments, more so when you are the one on the side hanging close to the edge.

 

View over Argolikos Gulf from Mt Didimo

Looking on the map we saw Big Cave and Small Cave both marked at the town of Didima, not too far off our route South so we diverted off for a look. Once in the village there is a sign pointing up a fairly unmade road, we followed it to the bitter end, and  there is nowhere at all to turn around even a 6 metre motorhome. Well there is but Mr Olive Farmer had his tractor and trailer parked there. After watching us struggle he finally offered to move but only after all the olive branches he had been pruning had been picked up and put in his trailer. The speed he was going it was going to take the rest of the day so I took his slowness to mean he could do with a hand and helped clear the branches whilst he went in search of his keys. Eventually he moved his tractor (that was built when Adam was a lad) and we moved the van back down the lane. After all that effort Big Cave was probably the least impressive, its more like a massive cavern and it can be seen from the main road. To go and explore further would have meant wandering across Mr Olive Farmers land again so we skipped that one.

Big cave – with nowhere to turn around a motorhome!

Small Cave on the other hand is amazing, there are two small metal gates which you enter, it looks like walking into a grave. Then we followed the steps carved into the rock which took us through a  tunnel / passage which leads through to the inside of Small Cave. It isn’t what I would expect of a cave, its more like a massive sink hole or cavern, once you have gotten through the rock then above you is clear sky. Climbing down the steps there is a balcony and from which you overlook both the cave and the two small Byzantine Chapels. A small path runs around the cave linking the two churches which are one on each side, Aghios Georgios (St George) which has wall murals dating back to the 13th century and the church Metamorfosis of Sortiros which is built into the rock. Both churches were unlocked and contained plenty of religious icons and lit candles and yet there wasn’t a soul around. It is truly a magical place, just the entrance through the side of the rocks makes it special and yet it is not mentioned on an tourist literature we have found anywhere, if you are ever near Kranidi then it is a must to see, trust us, its truly unlike anywhere else we have ever seen or heard of.

Entrance gates looks like a grave

Passageways painted white and carved from the rock

One of the churches carved into the rock

We spent the night at Kilada, a very busy fishing port with hundreds of small fishing boats, pleasure cruisers and even a few that Mr. Cowell might be seen using. We parked up out of the way on the promenade, not as out of the way as we should have as the small kiosk selling cigarettes and newspapers must be the busiest in Greece, a roaring trade of cars coming and going until the early hours. Over in the cafe at the other side of the road the sound of accordions drifted over, it was going to be a very quiet and peaceful night. Then the wind got up a little and we must have had some olive branches on the roof which flicked around all night scratching and rattling. Just after 2 am I awoke to Iain climbing out through the small sunroof, just a pair of legs dangling through a 2ft square gap whilst he tried to reach the said branches. It scared the life out of me for a few minutes as I thought it was someone coming in, well it was but I didn’t think it would be Iain. After all that he couldn’t move whatever it was so resorted to ear-plugs and went to sleep.

Kilada promenade

We drove down to the tip at Kosta to have a look over at Spetses, we made do with a look as we didn’t want to shell out for a ferry over. Instead we parked up and walked to the Cap D’Or hotel. Closed for the winter it may be but we wanted a look at what was the scene of many a past exploit of our niece Emma when she worked there a good few years ago. We had a look in the bar and your tab had gone Em so we didn’t need to settle up for you:)

Moving back up the other side of the coast we passed through what are known as the island towns, some are linked by causeways and some are true islands. Most of the towns appear quite similar with whitewashed houses and red roofs squashed in together at the bottom on a hill, next to a harbour. For us the most attractive was Poros, seen from the mainland village of Galatas. To be fair though as Iain pointed out if we had been to Poros and looked the other way then Galatas would probably have looked just as good.

Poros – prettier than any postcard could be

From Portoxeli around to Ermioni we saw more signs of 1960-1970’s tourism than anywhere else on the Peloponnese in terms of bigger hotels built with no thought other than pack ’em in high in a square box with a balcony. By no means is it as overdone as some areas in the Med but seemed so out of place as we haven’t seen many at all in the whole of the region. A good number of them now stand empty and look as if they have for a few years and some are slowly falling down of their own accord, not a bad thing.

We took the causeway over to Methana, almost an island with the weirdest causeway that climbs high over a mountain then dips straight down the other side. Right at the top was a very photogenic white and blue church, freshly white washed for the summer trade we did stop for yet another church photo, it was too lovely not to. A few miles along is the biggest town on the nearly-island being Methana. Iain loved it, I was a bit undecided. Some of the hotels were very 1970 and yet some were clearly much older and built with a thought as to how they looked from the outside. The main street was quiet but immaculately clean, a chap wandering along on his moped with a bin-bag picking up any rubbish as he went. The two cafes were busy with the usual worry bead conventions but other than that it was eerily quiet. We parked up just off the harbour, hidden away from the mains street behind a small park. We were joined by a dozen feral cats and a couple of hungry stray dogs and spent a very quiet night.

Beautiful church on the causeway

As we head back along the coast in the morning we came across a nature reserve of some sort, pink flamingos by the road side and several bird hides. We pulled in and got our binoculars out ready for a bit of spotting, as we climbed out of the van it started snowing. We were at sea level, Roland and Claire were miles away so where was the snow coming from? We gave up with birding as it was way too cold and decided to head for campsite back over at Iria. Firstly we needed to continue up the coast and a real stunner of a road carved into the side of the cliff. Then we started up the mountain, thought better of it, turned at the first junction and went across country. As we headed round the mountains we decided time to stop at one of the many, many bakers. They seems as frequent as the garages and most actually bake themselves rather than have stuff delivered in. We treated ourselves to traditional Greek cheese pies and some very stodgy cream cakes. The lovely lady baker insisted on a tour around her bakery, including the back room containing the massive bread ovens and the tower of ovens containing cakes just baking.

We are now set up at Camping Iria for a night or two whilst we plan our next few days. We are a little out in the sticks but its very flat where we are, that seems a good enough reason to stay and take the bikes down for an airing.  By lunchtime today the sun was back and any signs of snow were well and truly gone. Its been a a very pleasant afternoon, becoming warmer by the hour. The campsite is fairly busy, mainly Austrians but a Dutch de-mountable pulled on just after us. We have a lovely big pitch in the middle of the site away from the trees. Despite that I spotted this these little critters at tea-time, our first Processionary Caterpillars, Iain was dispatched to remove them as that job comes under Logistics for sure.

Valentines trip to the theatre

Thursday morning we were up and away handy from our snug stop at Elia, decision time, either try the pass over the mountains at Kosmas for a second time, or take a long route around. Just looking up at the mountains we knew it wasn’t going to happen, the snow was still there and it was forecast for a little more to fall. We checked out as much as we could on the internet, as we saw that the road rises to just over 1100 metres or 3600 ft – so as that’s higher than Mt. Snowdon – we decided to give it a miss.

Plan B then is up past Sparti and then due North to Tripoli, our first confusion of the day as we felt sure that was in Libya (our geography is appalling but we live and learn). As we neared Tripoli we were climbing in the mountains, again, this time the snow-plough had cleared two lanes and despite an inch or so of snow on the verges the main road was plenty clear, enough to drive over with no problems. As we approached Tripoli we were doing the smug ‘made it’ and really not bothered about route. We were aiming for Nafplio, so we turned right and set our destination to Argos (again, what is that all about, calling towns after shops). Lesson about to be learned in the Peloponnese – there are lots of mountains! and guess what we are on our way over another one. This time its Mount Parthenios, another 3900 ft of solid rock nicely iced in fresh snow, one lane just about open all the way over – the middle lane. Lucky for us we took said lane and didn’t meet another vehicle for nearly 4 miles and when we did there was room enough to slide gracefully around each other as the snow was down to a light dusting at that point.

We come from Wales, we can do a bit of snow. We seriously under-estimated the snow in Greece and to be honest on one occasion we were slightly out of our depth (yup in more ways than one). We have snow tyres – result – we knew spending all that money would come in handy. If we hadn’t then we would not have made it as far up the mountain towards Kosmas on Wednesday (could have been a good thing) but also coming back down could have been a whole lot worse. Likewise Thursday we probably wouldn’t have continued over Mt Parthenios without snow tyres, we now have a greater love for our Cleibers than we ever thought probable.

Moving away from snow, we rounded the top of Mt Partheneios and could see the Argolikos Gulf straight ahead, sun shinning over the sea and all was back well with our world. We pulled over for lunch just outside Nafplio and for the first time in a few days there was warmth back in the sunshine. As we drove through Nafplio we couldn’t make up our minds, bustling, very trendy looking shops, lots of posh cars and the first time we have experienced a feeling of a bit of wealth and style in Greece. Even the town itself has three castles so it doesn’t skimp on attractions, the one set in the bay just off the harbour is without doubt the icing on the cake in terms of the postcard scene stakes.

We set ourselves up at Triton II campsite, a few miles down the coast and next to a pretty good looking beach. A very well kept campsite where the only complaint so far is the amount of feral cats and dogs – they are sat outside the van all day expecting tit-bits. There isn’t any real booking in system here, you just stay as long as you want ans when you are ready to go search out someone to pay. The facilities are lovely and as we had been off site for a few days I headed straight for a good shower as soon as we were set up. All very modern, new  and clean but I have to confess my first thought was the shower head is very small and doesn’t hang up and that is without doubt the biggest plughole I have yet to see. Okay it took less than 20 seconds for me too, I left and went to the showers! (if you need help with that last sentence the first cubicle was for ladies who ‘stand-up’).

Outside the campsite entrance

The weather itself was a bit under the weather for a couple of days, warm enough but cloudy and overcast for a few days. We took a walk to Tolo just a mile or two up the beach, lots of small hotels and a couple of open tourist shops. It seems a fairly newish 1960’s type resort, nowhere near as smart as Nafplio and really doesn’t seem to try and compete. It must cater for a hefty summer tourist trade but guess that’s more for those just wanting the sunshine, sea and tavernas rather than the glitz and style of Nafplio.  Nothing there we could say was amazing and nothing we could say was awful, maybe it was the weather being grey made the town seem a bit too.

Tolo – a bit grey

Not our sunniest of days

In the opposite direction we found a small lane that ran adjacent to a large inland body of water, we know not what it was maybe a nature reserve? at the end it joined the sea inlet and according to Google there would be a  crossing of sorts to Vivari, so we could walk back around the other side of the lake. Of course there wasn’t a crossing, whatever may have been there once was now just a skeleton and looking like its days were very numbered. So we walked back whence we came, stopped in Drepano village for a wander and a loaf from the bakers, we noticed again that people here tend to use tractors as much as cars. As we walked through the village square there were nearly as many tractors parked up as cars, it seems they are the usual form of transport for many. Then it was back to camp where Iain spent the afternoon washing off so much dirt and grime that the van must be weighing a good few kilos lighter.

the sun coming back on the beach at the campsite

The best campsite bungalows – you live upstairs and have underneath for your table and chairs

The world of motorhomers in Greece is so small its incredible. We have been joined on site yesterday by Tony, who was until a couple of days ago camped with Michael, who is now over in Finikounda parked up with Roland and Claire, with whom we were on a campsite last week in Gytheio, who met with Norman and Marion in Lidl, who we parked up with on a pier two weeks ago. We come across many of the same vans and people where ever we go, its a little like being part of a roving community where you slightly know most of the people, if not to speak to them to nod to at least. We were discussing the other night that to the locals it must be just like a winter influx of gypsies and I guess in a way that is what the winter stayers who travel around the Peloponnese for 2-3 months really are. Iain needs to watch out as that tan and the long hair are beginning to give him a Roma look, next thing he will be buying clothes pegs and lucky heather and starting his own little business.

We have now passed into the unknown territory of the three digit number – today being Day 105 of our travels. Our previous longish term trips have been around the 90 days mark, it may just be a number but for us it marks an achievement – over 100 days and neither of us has murdered the other:) In all honestly the only real differences of opinion are to do with navigation, maybe more honestly expressed as me getting us lost. As we have covered just over 4000 miles in the last 3 months though we haven’t done too badly in terms of wrong slots.  Other than that we aren’t finding living in a 6 metre x 2.5 metres box at all stressful, its exactly the opposite as we are both very chilled and very much loving our life as wandering travelers. We have a good clear divide of responsibilities, Iain does Logistics and I do Catering, nearly all jobs fall into one or the other category. Budget comes under Catering, no idea why but it does, so I am currently patting my own back as we have now covered the cost of that ‘unexpected ferry’ from Italy to Greece and remained under budget.  

This morning, Sunday, the sun came back and then some. Time to head out for some Greek ruin viewing. I am trying to limit the number of these as they are not totally Iain’s cup of tea but every now and again we find one that even he is more impressed with than he thought possible. Today was one of those days, the Great Theatre of Epidaurus, built in 340  BC and rediscovered less than 150 years ago, yet again Greece pulls out yet another ancient monument that is even better than anything we have seen before.

Other than being spectacular to look at it is famed for having exceptional acoustics, supposedly the sound of a match struck on the centre stage can be heard perfectly clearly at any seat within the theatre. Whilst we were there a British school party arrived and the youngsters took it in turns to enact small dramas from the centre stage, whilst others climbed to the top rows to listen. In a word, yes, you can hear a word spoken at a normal level on stage perfectly clearly in the top rows. The position of the theatre is such that the mountains behind create a perfect backdrop to the stage, the overall effect is just beautiful. Really speaking only the first 14 rows are Greek, the Romans loved the place so much they increased the size of the theatre by adding another 21 rows.

Tomorrow we are heading down towards Spetses for a few days, check out the ferry and maybe pop over so we can say we ‘did a Greek island’. Then its round to Ermioni and look for somewhere to enjoy the sunshine we have forecast for a few days.

No idea why they paint the olive trees blue – but loving it 🙂

Snowbound in Greece! it could only happen to us

Monday morning dawned with a little sunshine breaking through the clouds, and a smattering of snow covering the hills behind the campsite. To be fair though it wasn’t as cold as we had been warned but none the less it had snowed in Greece against all our expectations, surely not enough to bother us though? We said our cheerios and were away reasonably handy for the latest dental adventure / appointment. Iain arrived for his appointment at 11am, to be told she would be at least 40 minutes late. He finally finished at 1.45pm, paid the bill and lovely dentist lady told him he needs to have a crown down when we are home as this repair will last 9 months. We know not what she is on about or what she has done, suffice to say we were released from Githio and back on the road at last.

Pretty spectacular snowy scene in Greece

First stop Skala, the usual reason for stopping at a five donkey town, there is a Lidl. We probably do need to start shopping elsewhere, we buy the same things every two weeks, we are not living on the edge of a Greek culinary experience out here at all. More so its meatballs, ham and as much rice and vegetables as we can carry, we did try Kangaroo steaks last week, no not very Greek but the best we could do on variation (by the way, do not try it unless you are an Aussie who knows what to do with them, instructions were in Greek and I may have overdone them by several hours, it was akin to eating my shoes). We do both want to try goat as yet we haven’t found it for sale anywhere, including local butchers. We thought everything was goat in Greece but even in cafes it seems its more pork and yet we haven’t seen a single pig here. Even the lonely goat herders, who we see daily tend to be more of the sheep variety.

From Skala it was time for the last peninsula, or the third Peloponnese finger. We had been warned at the campsite its very quiet, not many shops, no campsites. We filled and emptied all the bits of the van you need to do that to, packed away the shopping and stuck a pen on the map to see where we should go first. We took the route down the smaller roads and other than fruit lorries there wasn’t too much traffic about. We managed to get stuck behind this chap for a while, my concern was we were going to end up with quite a lot of his possessions stuck on our windscreen if he hit a pothole. Iain is now becoming very Greek in his driving – a toot of his horn and Mr Overloaded pulled in slightly and we were around him and clear.

First stop was the village of Elia, typical of most small harbour villages with a mix of very old and very modern houses and villas built around a bay with a small harbour at one end. We aimed for the harbour thinking we would stay overnight, as we rounded the corner we saw a very suitable parking space – just it was already full with three largish motorhomes. Luckily for us Mr Belgium motorhomer came out and told us he would move over so we could squeeze in, he proceeded to explain how he has only been seeing and speaking to Germans for days so it was good to see English people  and speak  to English people. Everyone always say English and its way to complex to explain Iain is not English and then explain Wales as by then people are glazing over. We have done the whole Welsh St David’s cross flag thing, even a Norwegian asked if it was his national flag.  Anyway, we squeezed in and settle down, Iain recovered from the pain and expense and in the morning we awoke to this view from our windscreen. Not bad is it? I do not think we will ever get used to the villages, harbours and views here. A chap in a car stopped and asked, in the very best of Oxford type accents, were we ok. He said he noted our British registration and as he lives here but is a Brit he wanted to check we were ok – people are kind where ever we are and its something we don’t want to forget.

Elia harbour

We followed the coast down to Nouvra, where the ferry departs from to the island of Elafonissos. The pier is at the end of a lovely sandy beach just a few hundred metres from the village. A tiny passenger only ferry was bobbing around in the gales and the car ferry plied its way backwards and forwards with a few cars each time. We took the cheap way out and had a look at the island through binoculars – it was close enough to see that nothing much was open so we decided against the trip over (the very choppy seas also played a part in influencing decisions).

Nouvra – the best sandy beach so far

Next stop was Neapoli Vion, we were expecting more of the same in terms of quaint and quiet villages. Culture shock time, a fairly large town, very busy, plenty of shops and people and a harbour with over fifteen ocean going vessels, from cruise to container ships, moored up. Not sure why the ships moor there, could be safe harbours in high winds or could be waiting for tides to Piraeaus. There is a road running right along the bay lined with restaurants and shops on one side and a promenade on the other. It felt like we had arrived in another country, it was busy, people were out walking, there were more cars than a Sunday boot fair back home, all in all it felt like somewhere people live and work rather than a holiday destination. Being as contrary as we are it actually felt like to many people, we were suddenly having to make choices on where to park, would we be in anyone’ way, was the van safe, all the questions we haven’t really had to consider since we arrived in Greece.

On the map we saw that on the opposite side of the peninsula there was a wildlife refuge, it sounded somewhere quiet and more us so we took the road out of town and it climbed steadily. We appeared to be heading over the mountain, rather than around it, but obviously the road was going to go around soon. The winds were still very strong, the road was becoming narrower and we were just managing the hairpins bends in one turn. It has to be said that the views were absolutely worth the sheer terror or driving a high sided box over a mountain pass in force 8. Not worth it enough to go down the other side and repeat the whole experience, we turned around at the top (777 metres / 2000 ft) and made our way gingerly back down to Neapoli and then ambled up the coast, around a few wrong slots, reversed out of the odd village (all as you do if you don’t have a decent map!!).

We eventually arrived at Monemvasia, known as the Gibraltar of Greece, we thinks that more to do with being built on a rock that the Spanish and British fighting over it. We arrived with those gales still in full force, as we crossed the causeway the waves were flooding across in front of us. As we arrived at what appeared to be a very large rock with a few houses on the side facing the mainland, a small petrol station (for an island without roads??) and some fortification on the top we were not excited enough to brave the cold, so deciding to hold off our visit until the next morning where sunshine was forecast we found a spot to park up on the harbour back in New Monemvasia. We aimed to have a little protection from the buffeting winds overnight. Little was the right word, a fairly sleepless night where no matter how much you know a 3.5 tonne motorhome isn’t going to blow over, every gust that just seems to tip you then release you back makes you hold your breathe for what seems like an age.

Our first site of the Rock

looking back to new town

Next morning and the sun was out in force, still hand in hand with the gales. Whilst we may have been ever so slightly underwhelmed when we arrived the previous day, after going through the gates we suddenly realised what all the fuss was about. Why isn’t this place at the top of every must see village list in the world? Looking up from the sea there are row upon row of stone built houses climbing up the side of the rock. Monemvasia has been owned / fought over by pretty much everyone in the region at sometime or other, The Byzantines founded it, the Franks seized it then lost it, The Catholic Church held it for a few years before the Venetians took over, followed by the Turks who finally lost it in the war of independence when the Greeks finally took it back.

Kastro lower town

The Kastro Monemvasia is divided into a lower and an upper town. The lower town originally contained 800 houses, many of the ruins are there as are four of the original forty churches. A large majority of the properties have been restored with several now hotels, guest houses or restaurants. We walked to the hotel at the top of lower town, not sure I would want to carry my suitcases or indeed find my way back after an evening out, however I cannot think of anywhere with a more stunning view. The terrace looked out over the lower town and down to the sea, as there are no roads there was no traffic noise at all, just the sounds of the waves crashing (and us moaning about the amount of steps!). We were unable to visit upper town as it was closed off for restoration work. From the bottom we could see the castle walls that protect the town on the summit but alas we couldn’t visit.

more lower town

even more stunning with the sun out

best shower we have found so far

If the old town wasn’t enough for us the the new town certainly isn’t too shabby in relation to its older neighbour. Plenty of bars and cafes, a few tourist shops and of course some good old fashioned bakers for Iain to buy his daily sugar fix. There is an outer and inner harbour, where despite the crashing waves several colourful little boats were moored up and bobbing furiously around.

New Monemvasia habour

Our next destination was planned to be Leonidio, as the crow flies just a short hop but a few choices of which mountain pass to take. At some point in the afternoon driver, navigator and Sat Nav got themselves in a tissy and we ended up in the usual small village, not wide enough for a twin buggy let along a motorhome. After what might be termed a ‘bit of a todo’ on who was in charge of directions we resumed our journey using the main road, I had voted as the best route, so we could stop and see the Elonis Monastery and follow the switch back roads that we had read about when the Wanderlings came over that route the previous week. As we climbed gently up past Geraki we were surprised to find we were in the snow line, we continued and when we reached 3000 ft we were so in the snow line that the road disappeared as we turned a corner. It was there, then turn the steering wheel and just white stretching ahead.

The plan became a bit unclear! Carrying on seemed foolish as we could see there was still one hell of a climb to the top of the mountain, turning around was out of the question as the snow was built up good and hard each side and left the width of a car between. Nothing else for it then, we reversed back down the mountain, it could sound worse than it was – oh no it couldn’t it was horrendous, a bit of armaco would have helped, not a thing. After a mile or so in reverse we felt confident enough to try a three point turn, with me outside in charge of keeping the van out of the drifts at the rear. Back down out of the snow and we are now considering how to get to Leonidio without using the snow roads, it could be a long trip but hopefully it will one hell of a lot less stressful.

Take two blogs, add two moho and wait for snow

On the dental front the news is both good and ongoing, three appointments down and another one to go on Monday morning. The dentist is the lady of many hats, she doesn’t have a receptionist or a hygienist or even someone to just sweep around. She does the lot all on her own, which we assume is why its taking four appointments as doing the whole thing in one go would be difficult with popping out to answer the door or phone when she is mid filling. Iain says its like stepping back in time and visiting a dentist 40 years ago – all a bit 1970’s and not too modern but still well able for a bit of teeth pulling.  We do think that she is fairly free and easy with the anesthetic, it’s at least four or five hours before it wears off after each visit, by the time he can eat again it’s nearly time to go back.

The big question of cost has been resolved, €200 all in, we think that is an absolute bargain as the last time I had a root canal done at home it was over £400. Our insurance will pay for €50 (after the excess) so it could have all been a whole lot worse. Before we came away we actually did hum and hah as to what the contingency fund should be and whether we would need one at all. After new windscreen wiper motor, a Kindle and a fairly heft dental bill it was a good call to have one and seems madness we considered not keeping the money separate and including it in the weekly spends. It seems relatively fair now that as I spent a good chunk of it on an electronic book and Iain has now spent a similar amount on keeping his teeth, that’s us even.

As our movements had been curtailed for the latter part of the week due to above it was lucky for us then the weather had been pretty well tip top on Thursday and Friday. The only way to describe it was it was like being in Greece! No, like you expect Greece to be all blue skies, slightly foaming seas and a bit of a mountain haze. Up to now we have seen a fair bit of rain but with good blue skies in between. For the latter part of this week it was actually warm too and we have been sitting outside for a few hours in the afternoons. There were still some cloudy patches but overall things have been on the up. Then we read a certain blog that said there is a forecast of snow this coming week in the Peloponnese! We did not sign up for snow in Greece, we came for sunshine so someone in charge of the weather needs to be taking a look at themselves and sorting it out as soon as.

Surely this isn’t a prelude to snow?

Gythio has become very familiar to us over the last couple of weeks, we have our regular shops and even our own parking spots on the edge of the promenade which is very handy for town. Our favourite bakers is a charming little shop where said baker employs his mother at front of house. I am sure she is just as charming as her son but she evidently hides it so much better. A request for bread is met with a look that says – can you not see I am busy talking, when I have the cheek to ask for a cake too she slides into meltdown. Yesterday I offered a €5 and you would have thought it was a €500 – she waved it around shouting what I assume was to the effect who the hell has any change. Two customers emptied their pockets and began counting out coins, slight mayhem but worth it for the entertainment value.

There isn’t what you would call a great selection of shops in town, hardware shops are plentiful, as we have found everywhere in Greece. Clothing shops are at either end of the spectrum, there is a large ‘fashion house’ that sells clothes no one under the age of 120 would be seen dead in. Then there is a very modern and expensive chic little boutique a couple of doors away alongside a very nice shoe shop, that’s the end of any retail clothing therapy. And no matter what the shop and how expensive or cheap, and pretty much every cafe or bar there is someone in every one smoking a cigarette. They say its stereotyping to say all Greek men smoke, its not – they do and pretty much everywhere you go.

Saturday afternoon was a bit overcast so we headed back over to Dirou to see the caves we had missed earlier in the week. It was a choice of the long route around the Mani, a couple of hours, or the shorter new road over the mountains – less than 30 minutes. We took the mountain route, despite it being the newer and main road we hardly saw any traffic. The views over the Taygetos mountains are spectacular and make the journey worth it for those alone. Over the last week or so we are beginning to see the wild spring flowers carpeting the countryside. Whilst it is only February the wet weather means it is growing season for wild plants and flowers, the red anemones that are spreading over the mountains are truly a gorgeous sight.

Back ar Dirou and there are over 14 km of caves that have been charted over the last 50 years, usually a Venetian canal boat takes you on a 30 minute trip through the cave system and then you walk the final 10-15 minutes. It is even open all winter and the trips run throughout, well they usually do. For some reason the day we visited the boat wasn’t running but the lovely lady at the kiosk told us we could still go in and pay just €5 instead of €15. As this sounded a bargain we agreed, paid and were waved off around the cliff to enter at the normal exit. From there it was every one for themselves, no guides, no real idea of how far to go and no one giving out the hard hats and life jackets all neatly stored on the wall.

For me they were caves with stalagmites and stalactites  and some fairly low level lighting, pretty much what you see at most caves type places. We walked about a kilometre and then it started to become very wet underfoot, there was nothing to say turnaround other than if you didn’t you were going to walk through six or seven inches depth of water, so we gave up and walked back. For us, worth €5 yes, not sure what you would see on the boat that would make it threes times better?

We cannot speak for the whole of Greece but the Peloponnese really is an amazing destination for motorhomes. For those that want to wild camp there are plenty of places tucked away and it seems at this time of year no one really minds, although it is illegal to wild camp we find that popping into a nearby cafe, buying a couple of coffees and asking if its okay is always met with a smile and a nod. Likewise people are happy to give access to their internet for the price of a cuppa. We have found a few places where local business have put signs up pointing motorhomes towards car-parks, to be fair that seems to be because some have parked outside hotels and restaurants and you can see that would annoy you if you had paid for a beautiful sea view to have it blocked by a great big white tin can. I guess that Greece is far enough way from Northern Europe that it is never going to be as accessible as Spain or Portugal so will never experience the mass migration of the winter grey nomads seeking out some sunshine, to that end the Greeks can afford to let people stop overnight here and there and know its not going to have a snowball effect.

This afternoon we were joined on site by the wonderful Roland and Claire (aka The Wanderlings), who are currently taking a longer break than us and travelling Europe without an end date. We follow their blog and usually try and avoid their routes as they tend to attract atrocious weather (totally honest – they parked opposite us and within an hour there was hail!!).

A really  lovely afternoon / evening spent discussing campsites, top spots to visit, motorhomes and all the other stuff that would probably be totally boring for non motorhomers.  It’s a very strange sensation to meet people who you have never met before but you know so much about them, and they so much about you. Thank you both, it was really good to finally meet up, and its been an absolute joy to get to know you both a little. We look forward to catching up again somewhere later in the year, obviously if you are still dragging poor weather around we may have to re-think but hopefully the sun will be with you by then :).

 the very lovely Roland and Claire – they really do run in the rain all over Europe!

The full Mani followed by a root canal

Iain is going to be able to claim to be part Greek from this week, thanks to new fillings and root canals courtesy of a very lovely lady dentist in Gythio. The previous filling was left somewhere in Italy and Iain was planning on taking the risk as to whether he could survive the next 10 months with a gappy tooth. We decided it wasn’t a great risk to take so on Tuesday morning he had an appointment to replace the lost filling, two hours later he re-appeared with a temporary filling and three more appointments for a root canal! Dentist said a filling would not last until we got home so she wanted to do the full works. I believe she had big windows and saw us coming but we can’t take the chance so himself is toughening up as if a temporary filling takes two hours, lord alone knows how long a root canal over three visits is going to be.

Due to the forthcoming suite of dental appointments our plans for the Mani were curtailed down to two days. To be honest if we had had two months we could still have stayed longer, whilst I have said I will not continue to say everywhere is amazing, incredible etc. etc in the case of the Mani it would be wrong not to say just how gorgeous it is. Whilst it is the most rural part of the Peloponnese that doesn’t mean there is less to see, far from it.  The area and the people are known as the Mani, which translates in English to the either ‘mania’ or ‘full of rage’, luckily for us everyone was the usual super Greek friendly, rage is not a word you can see being used that often here. It wasn’t that long ago that many of the villages could not be reached unless by sea. Nowadays there is a winding road up and down each side of the peninsular and its a bit of a tourist attraction in the summer months.

High on a hill Mani villages

From the main road there are numerous small lanes at every turn which lead  down to small harbours or to tiny fortified villages. Many of the houses are refurbished original fortified dwellings and there are still plenty of ruins just waiting to be snapped up. Just as many are new builds though, I guess its easy to be a tourist and not like the new stuff but this is partly what is bringing people back to live in the area so sometimes the new has it value even if it doesn’t look anywhere near as good.

The peninsula is split in two by the mountains running down the spine. We crossed over at the top to Aeropoli and took the anti-clockwise route. The caves at Dirou were high on our list to visit but as the sun was out and the sky was blue we both felt that dark and dank caves were not essential to the day. Aeropolis itself seems very like most of the modest towns in the area, plenty of min-markets and not much else. The road running down the East side is fairly straight forward, through some lovely villages but nothing to write home about.

We stopped off at the village of Koita where there was a good mix of ruins, beautifully restored Mani type dwellings and a fair few sympathetic new builds. There was one newish small road around the edge of the village but the old footpaths and cobbled alley ways are the main routes to most of the houses. Of course wandering around out of tourist season we stuck out like a sore thumb but everyone without exception had a smile or a wave for us.

As we wandered around we came across a lovely Greek lady sat on her steps who called us over for a chat,  we had a conversation of sorts with her pointing out that her house had been rebuilt 10 years ago. We went through our outstanding Greek repertoire of wishing her well and telling her where we are from, to which she replied in Greek, we guess something of the effect of,  “ah British, is that why your husband is one skinny sod, let me get you something to eat”, she then disappeared into her house. A few minutes later she emerged with a massive smile and an equally large paper bag full of almond crisp biscuits. Again and again its the kindness and friendliness of the Greeks that just tips the Peloponnese into the special category for us.

the friendly biscuit lady

Up to now I have been a bit of a fan of the Byzantine churches and have struggled to resist a photo of them. This obsession has been cured as we must have seen upwards of 50 churches whilst we were driving the peninsula, at times it has seemed there are more churches than people. Add to these the ‘churches on a stick’ type shrines which were every couple of hundred metres and the time has come to admit we are all churched out.

We stopped overnight in the village of Gerolimenas where we saw a handful of people, most of whom were stopped at the hotel for coffee. One of those places that is a picture postcard village around a harbour with nothing there except for maybe eight or nine tavernas, a very small pebble beach and a small mini-market. It is a relatively newish village, only built in the late 1870’s as a port where ships could offload and store cargo. Several of the old warehouses are derelict now but most of the houses are well restored and used as holiday accommodation. Having hardly seen a soul all day we parked up in a small car-park next to the harbour for the night, lo and behold there was another GB registered motorhome parked up in front of us. No one seemed to mind either of us being there but late evening the hotel did stick their generator on for the night, so much for a quiet nights sleep next to the beach for us then, it was like sleeping on a runway.

Gerolimenas

The village of Vathia is one of the most famous villages of the Mani, you can see why on the approach, it  is spectacular as its perched on the side of the hill with the towers looming over the landscape. The old village is deserted but within a few feet there are some newer houses, a few mangy cats were around and a young couple camping (tent the lot) in the courtyard of one of the new builds but no one else to be seen. We had thought we would need to search out the fortified villages but they are everywhere. The most impressive thing to us is how they blend into the landscape, as the houses are built from stone quarried within a mile or so and the houses just disappear back into the scenery.

the village of Vathia

Several people had told us that driving the Mani in a motorhome would be difficult as the roads were too narrow. We found the main road around was fine, the local bus passed us twice so its a good road despite what people would have us believe. We did find some of the roads down to villages and the harbours a little tight, but still we have not seen either a width or length restriction, it really is a case of if you can make it go for it, if you can’t then you will get stuck. Iain has better nerves than me and will take the van pretty much where he wants, whilst we are only 6 metres long I do worry about the height more sometimes as much as the length, we have had a couple of near misses with low overhanging balconies. But without the need to struggle down any of the small lanes and tracks the views are incredible. The ‘main’ road zigzags along up and down mountains, through villages and all along we found plenty of places to pull over and just admire the scenery.

We reached our furthest point South today at Porto Kaigo, where there was a helpful sign for “camper parking”. Obviously the best thing to do then is blindly follow the sign, we did, straight down the beach! There was a workman building a wall at the back of the car-park who looks a little stunned to see us arrive, maybe they meant tent campers but hey ho we were in and parked. From the edge of the village there was a pathway over the hills to a teeny church, a bit Mama Mia without the steps, and then the  footpath lead to the end of the Europe, well for us our very furthest point South – its pretty well North all the way for us now.

Yeah – just drive along the beach

Port Kaigo chapel above the village

We rounded our trip off with another stop at Kotronas, for us one of the most perfect little stopping points for no reason than it has a cafe, a harbour, a jetty and the clearest and most turquoise sea we have yet to see. Back at camp and the top news is the new Kindle has arrived 🙂 there have been a few nerves as it was fours days late, reading the envelope its been in Germany for three of them for some reason. Who cares, its here now and all is well again in my world.

Once the whole dentist shebang is out of the way it will be time for us to move on and head for the third finger of the Peloponnese, hopefully Monday or Tuesday. We would of thought we would have seen pretty much everything we want to in the last month but there is still a list as long as your arm of things we we want to see or places we would like to visit so with the good weather forecast to be hanging around it seems a good time to move and find somewhere new to base ourselves for a few weeks.

Lets see if the smile is there after a few hours of root canal work?

Greek tragedy averted on causeway

We finally got around to visiting Gythio this week. Our plan was to catch the bus into town for the market and for our first proper explore of the town. Having done a little research it wasn’t looking too promising as the Gythio tourist office themselves state “there are not really mentionable ancient objects to be seen, only a small Roman theatre, so just enjoy Greek life’. We need a few bits, such as a new mobile phone as our emergency phone no longer charges, perfect opportunity for our first retail experiences in Greece then. We were up with the lark and stood waiting for said bus at 8.45 – it came along bang on time, just unfortunate we were stood in totally the wrong place so it sailed straight past! The reason we were stood in wrong place is currently not clear, some believe it was the campsite receptionist giving duff information, or though it could also be that one of us didn’t actually listen to what she told him – jury is out. As the next bus wasn’t due for five hours it was shanks’ pony to town for us, no complaints from someone else so possibly that was tilting the evidence against said person?

Just before we arrived in town we came to what is apparently a small island, called Kranai, although an island it is now connected to the shore by a causeway and is more of an island-let – it’s just a little patch of land a few hundred metres from the shore. It’s major and possibly only claim to fame is that it’s where Paris and Helen stayed before heading off to Troy, after Paris had abducted Helen from nearby Sparta. I am never sure whether this is Greek history or Greek mythology and will admit I had to look it up it, for anyone else as unclued up as me it is the latter  The island also has a museum of the Mani (third one so far) and a lighthouse but the major draw seems to be the taverna. When we passed it was heaving, Nico (bet that was his name) was singing loudly and many a Greek mama could be seen twirling around the restaurant after having had an ouzo or two too many. On a dreary day the ouzo and dancing looked more fun than the tourist stuff. We kind of disagree with the Greek Tourist Board that there isn’t anything that good to see here though, Kranai on its own is worth the stop.

Approach to town with Kranai lighthouse on the island

sunshine or not –  the colours make up for it

Back in town there are two waterfront areas, the first runs along from Kranai to the port, then a second area around the harbour front. Waterside restaurants line the streets on both stretches, where the waiters risk their lives daily running across the roads to serve people sat on the harbour edge tables. At the far end of town there is a shopping area, not sure about shopping its more about cake. Every third shop was a bakery or a cake shop, either very old fashioned where you could see the bread being baked in the wall oven or at the other end of the scale with the most exquisite cakes imaginable. We found a phone shop and bought a cheapy for €18 but other than that there wasn’t much we wanted to spend our money on so we made do with a latte in one of the harbour-side cafes. The street market was in full flourish, not a massive market with the majority of stalls selling fruit and vegetables.

Gythio waterfront

Good old fashioned bakeries

On the harbour front we happened upon a shop selling fridge magnets (I know, but I am loving them) so we popped in for a browse. The shop sold all manner of tourist tat, some good some not so good but it also houses the studio of the owner, a Mr Yiorgos Hassanakos. Checking it out later we found he is a respected artist in Greece and uses one side of the shop as his workshop, from where he creates the figures used by the Greek puppet theatre.  As we stood he was working on new puppets and the walls were full of his creations and he kindly allowed me to take some photographs, amazing what you find in a fridge magnet shop me thinks 🙂

A couple of miles around the coast at Valtaki beach is the weirdly fascinating hulk of metal that is the “Dimitrios” is freight ship built in the 1950’s that was shipwrecked in 1981.  Considering the length of time its been there at first it looks remarkably intact, you can walk right up to it, nothing stopping you except you will get wet ankles. Closer inspection does show its disintegrating, gaping holes through the sides and the structure doesn’t look like it has that many more years before it collapses. As with pretty much everything in Greece there is nothing that tells exactly why it is there and what happened to it.  According to the internet rumours range from a ship smuggling cigarettes from Turkey to Italy and being set on fire to evade capture by the Greek authorities, to it being a ghost vessel of unknown origins. What the true story of how and why its there, who knows. Whatever it is, its very eerie being left there to rot but it is very photogenic and must be a bit of a tourist draw as there is a very good looking restaurant on the beach named after the ship.

We needed to refill one of our LPG tanks this week and I was  just a bit nervous after the problems we faced in Tuscany with filling. Greece continued to prove that everything is easy as we pulled in and the chap filled us up without any questions or concerns. We thought we had used a full tank in the last 7 weeks but as it was only €5 to fill it there must have been at least a third of a tank of gas left. As we don’t use gas for heating a tank usually lasts us a good couple of months, as I intend to cook less and make more use of salad as the weather improves we should be using even less.

On the cash / budget front we are doing brilliantly so far. Campsites are all reasonably priced here in Greece so we are benefiting there with good deals even when we do not do long stay. Fuel is coming in way under budget as we are now moving only fairly short distances between campsites. We admitted at the start we really just stuck a finger in the air to set our budget, it would be easy to think that therefore it isn’t difficult to be under the plan but it could just as easily been the other way round.  We are by no means feeling restricted on our budget, for us the being away and experiencing these places is outweighing any need to go out for meals or buy crazy souvenirs (with the exception of fridge magnets of course!).

As always there has been an upside of a downside, this week the poor weather has had a positive impact on route planning.  I now have some squiggly lines on the maps all the way up to Hungary. These lines have varying coloured stickers on them that denote whether there is an aire or campsite or other place we might be able to stopover. Experience has shown that we cannot trust campsites that advertise as open to actually be open. Emailing ahead is proving the best bet and so far less than half have emailed back to say they are open. Then there is the other extreme with a lovely Dutch site in Romania telling us they are closed but if we are stuck then just turn up and they will put us up in the garden somewhere for a few days, we love Dutch campsites and the Dutch – they never seem to see anything as a problem. Our experience in Portugal, when we used seven Dutch sites as we could never find a good small Portuguese one, was the Dutch run some of the best small campsites anywhere.

With both Romania and Bulgaria looking like they were ‘planned’ I was extremely happy until I took a closer look and realised my campsites either side of the border where absolutely nowhere near a point we could cross the Danube. Again ignorance plays a major part as I thought there would be hundreds of crossing points not just a handful. Back at the drawing board it looks like we will take one of the extortionate ferry routes, we don’t have a budget at all for any ferry crossings (how rubbish is that?) so it will be whatever it is and we will make a saving somewhere to cover it.

As our week finishes we were out earlier today and popped out to Kranai island on the way back, it was something we should have thought more about first. The causeway is about wide enough for a car and a motorhome can just barely squeeze down – which we realised after we were on the causeway – nothing else to do but carry on turn around and slink back down it. This photo was on the way back – it was worse on the way out as my side of the van was teetering over the sea but I was too nervous to pick up the camera!  Fair-play to the boss man, he might be rubbish listening to where the buses run from but he is pretty damn good on squeezing the van up the tight spots!

Our plans for the next week are not as exact as they are for the next two months, if we see the sun we head for the Mani for a few days, if we don’t then there isn’t currently an alternative. Luckily the weather has done a real about turn since Saturday lunchtime and we have been back with sunshine and its been very warm. There is still a blustery wind, which occasionally blows up to a gale for half an hour and brings an accompanying sandstorm, generally though its warm and hazy. Our forecast for the week is storms tomorrow followed by a fried egg forecast – fingers crossed.

Rain has slowed play, but not stopped it

The forecast for this week was heavy rain, we were ready for it to start on Monday. Instead we had clear skies and not a hint of rain. We sat out in our chairs feeling smug that no rain was coming our way, discussing how rubbish the weather forecasts were.  Obviously this is the Greek way of lulling you into a false security because for the last 3 days it hasn’t been what you would call heavy rain, more akin to standing under a very fast flowing waterfall. The Greeks are telling us they need the rain so its welcome which I guess is understandable, we aren’t too devastated by it as despite rain, thunder and lightning its still warm. Now if it carries on past this week my sympathies may change but its fair to say that the inside of the van has never been so clean or tidy so we have made good use of the time in between venturing out between storm clouds. The lightening has been fairly spectacular, close enough to take the wifi box off the wall in reception a couple of nights ago, hence no internet here until today. Forget that we pitched up by the pool, we now have our own pool on one side of the van, a good couple of inches of water which doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Our Swiss neighbours left yesterday to catch the ferry to Crete, a lightbulb moment as we too could pop up the road 10 minutes for the weekly ferry. The idea was mulled around for an hour or so and all the pros and cons considered. The main pro is that the weather is better in Crete, but then its already better in Greece than some places. The main con is cost and time, €350 and its 6 hours each way on a ferry. Add the two together and we probably don’t need to go as there is plenty to keep us here but its so annoying that people keep giving us great ideas :). At this stage we are not going but never say never, if this rain hasn’t stopped by the time the ferry goes next week we may well be on it and hang the expense.

Our home for the next couple of weeks, if we stay put, is Gythio (Githio), another town with the trademark steep and narrow lanes with the houses hugging the side of Mount Koumaros right down to the sea. We did walk along the beach to town on Sunday, it was a little further than we thought so by the time we arrived we only had an hour or so of daylight left so we had to turn straight around and head back. The further South we go in the Peloponnese the postcard prettier places become and this certainly lives up to that image. It is as much a working town as a holiday destination with the habour having ferries leaving for several islands, as well as cruise ships docking, mainly in summer. We drove through on our way out yesterday and there is plenty there to see and do so tomorrow we will investigate further with a full day in town combined with a visit to the local markets.

Our campsite backs onto Mavrovouni beach, its just over 5km long and at this time of year very peaceful. The sea is crystal clear and very clean, due to this the caretta sea turtles come here to lay their eggs early each summer. Despite the number of campsites and bars along the beach the turtles are looked after by groups of volunteers who monitor the nests and many of the bar owners dig trails for the turtles to make sure they can come up and down the beach without being disturbed by holidaymakers. We are loving the ‘modesty huts’ on the beaches, it would seem the Greeks like a bit of propriety when changing for a swim – then next door there are beach showers hidden amongst the banana plants so not sure how much modesty goes on in those!

In between rain the olive harvest is taking place all around the area, including on the campsite, its usually done in October / November but for whatever reason its done much later here . For the last few days a couple of guys have been climbing in the trees ‘combing’ the olives out of the top branches. Then they start up the chainsaw and hack out half the branches before throwing said branches into a mechanical comber to get the olives out of them. Its all very labour intensive, despite the machinery six trees took a full day. There must be 100 trees on the grove so the sound of chainsaws is going to be with us for sometime to come. The better quality olive oil comes from harvests where no machinery is used, the cheapest comes from harvests where full tree shaking machinery is used. As our site is midway between the two we will be buying a bottle of two to bring home and see if we can taste any difference from mass produced supermarket oils.

As Wednesday was Iain’s birthday we braved the weather and cleared off for a day out in the van. There is nothing he likes more than clambering up hills in the rain (not!) so I had chosen the medieval fortress-state of Mystras, which is perched on the the side of a mountain, as a suitable destination.  Approaching from Sparti we went through Mystras new village and the old city seemed to appear in stages, the castle is at the top of the hill, then there is the palace probably half way up, a monastery to the left and then a dozen or so churches scattered across the hill. Between all this are the remains of the houses, shops and various other buildings that formed the city, together with parts of the two walls that enclosed it all. The castle was built in 1249 but the city took off when the Byzantines became rulers a few years later and the whole hill was covered with the densely populated city when it fell to the Turks in 1460. Whilst the imperial family of Constantinople held power the city became an important cultural centre where the growth of humanistic studies impacted throughout 15^th century Europe.

The ancient city of Mystras

There are two entrances, one near the top of the hill and another midway down. We took the top entrance first, €5 each entry and that covered the lower gate entrance too. The lady who took our money told us the palace was closed for renovation but we should climb to the castle at the top of the hill. Mainly cobbled or with large flat stones as a path we went up, and up, and up. It is one hell of a walk to the top, made so much more interesting by the stone and cobble path being good and slippy. When we finally arrived at the top I have to be honest, we both said “is that it?” Lots of castle walls, yes very old walls but walls all the same, looks better from a distance as some castles do. The views though made the whole trek worthwhile, snowed capped Taygetos mountains on one side and a view across the valley over Sparti (or is it Sparta, it depends on which map you have with you how you spell any town here) to the other. Coming back down was even more entertaining, the two of us slipping and sliding over the stones, discussing just how far the drops over the side were and wondering why we were the only tourists there (what is with people who never go out in the rain, because when it rains we never see anyone out other than in the coffee bars?).

Worth the climb for the views

The long and slippy path

We drove down to second entrance, from where the paths were nowhere near as slippy, and access to the numerous churches, cathedral and the monastery itself. The churches are beautifully restored on the outside, inside they have preserved amazing high quality frescos that date back through the 18 century in some, to the 13^th and 14^th centuries in others. The monastery is still occupied, although we didn’t see anyone we could hear the chatter of the nuns behind the tiny cell doors and the multitude of cats they keep were clear to see, although their donkey was nowhere to be seen. Without a doubt it would be easy to spend a whole day there just wandering around the site. We must be way too touristy because we were both shocked and a little disappointed not to be find a cafe there, all that history and our major concern is where is the cake! After all that traipsing around we were well looking forward to coffee and a good pastry, instead it was back to the van for birthday toast – no, not quite the same.

We drove back through Sparti (Sparta) and we were intending to stop off for a look, but as we came to the edge of town it was one of those ‘do we need to’ minutes, too many cars, too many people and not enough interest to park up and walk around. I always have the feeling we might be missing something amazing when we bypass out these places but bigger towns are not holding a lot of interest for us when there seems so much to see and do in the villages where its so much easier to park up and get out and about.  Neither of us feel that comfortable parking the van in busy towns, we only stopped at Lidl for a couple of bits on the outskirts of Sparti and within minutes there were Roma children begging at the van. Young children probably only 6 or 7 years old but their parents were sat in a van on the otherside of the car-park watching, makes us uneasy so we would rather just avoid the whole thing and keep away from the areas they frequent.

Now the internet is back up we can resume normal service, post a blog, read emails and as importantly track Royal Mail as my new Kindle is on route (hurray and mega thanks to Al), I cannot survive another week let alone the next 10 months without books.  We do not have a satellite dish so we can’t pick up any English tv, this doesn’t usually bother us as we usually spend evenings planning what to do next, researching on the internet or in my case reading. The last couple of weeks have been so weird with not being able to read of an evening, I have tried reading with the Kindle pc app but on a thousand year old mini lap-top its rubbish. There is a book swap here on the campsite and I was hopeful of absolutely anything to read, out of over 100 books I managed to find a Caravan Club Europe sites book – that does not count as reading.  Iain’s ears will be taking a well deserved rest as soon as the postman delivers 🙂

A Mani’s home really is his castle

Up and away from Koroni was slightly easier said than done, our route took us out through what seemed some very tiny village streets. We squeezed the van through, with me congratulating Iain on negotiating widths that appeared not much more than an inch or two either side of us, at which point a massive draw-bar arctic appeared coming in the opposite direction. We reversed back to allow him through, no idea how he was going where we had come from but really glad we didn’t meet him a mile or two further back to find out. To be fair a lot of roads look way too small for much more than a car and then you see a coach or bus trundling along so they must be wider than they look. We have yet to see a width restriction on any road, that may be  because they don’t have any signs or it maybe because they believe anything can go through if they just aim and put their foot down, the latter seems to be more likely.

From Koroni we followed the coast road up to the outskirts of Kalamata, for a visit to the mecca of motorhome shoppers – Lidl. Normally we limit ourselves to a basket at a supermarket, at Lidl its a trolley and we stock up on all the essentials for a good few weeks and then some. As at home Lidl stocks some weird and varied stuff but its all edible and its all reasonably cheap so  it will do for us. Giant Greek Beans are going to be a theme on meals for a while now, way too cheap to leave on the shelves. We are limited for storage space, especially for chilled and frozen so we tend to shop carefully for those and go mad with the ambient. Letting Iain loose near the frozen was not a good plan, hope he likes lolly with salad as its on the menu this weekend 🙂

Around Kalamata it seems someone has been listening to my complaints that good fruit and vegetables are not widely available. Road side stalls selling fruit, veg, honey and olive oil (not olives) became very frequent. The quality looked good and it made us feel a bit nostalgic for Spain seeing the massive netted bags of oranges. The only problem with these stalls is if we stop we have to buy something, even if they don’t have what we want, or I feel guilty that they are sitting there all day without a sale. We stopped for lunch outside Kalamata and these rather natty standard lamps made from old tree branches were for sale on the road next to us! I just went for a look and the bloke appeared, I had to make a dash for it before his sad face convinced me we needed one of these to stand outside the van at night – in hindsight it may have looked rather good though.

We missed out Kalamata town, we couldn’t think of a reason to trudge around the shops and we don’t know of anything special to see so it seemed easier to pass it by and head down finger number two of the Peloponnese. We climbed for miles and were lucky that breaks in the clouds did give us some incredible views down towards the Mani and out to sea. The roads were good until you reach a village, then its a bit of a squeeze through for a few hundred metres and all ok again out the other side. Once we reached Kampos it was a series of hairpin bends winding steeply all the way back down to the coast

As we started to drop the landscape changed as did the houses. The land is more barren and the houses resemble small castles, the original Mani houses were towers and fortified dwellings from the times of the Ottoman occupation. It seems that even now this is very popular as every village had new developments taking place in the Mani style. As we came through Otitylo we spotted the castle on the hill in front of us, built in 1670 it was pretty much just walls, so we made a joint decision that you can see too many castles and skipped this one. We carried on down to the sea and stopped at Neo Oitylo for a look around the bay, despite being miles from civilization there is plenty of new building and renovations taking place some quite sympathetic with the surroundings but as many appeared to be designed to demonstrate wealth over taste. As it was another hour or so to the next campsite we decided to overnight on the promenade, well more on the wasteland next to the promenade as one of the tavernas had put up a sign saying free parking for motorhomes on the carpark so we thought it best to park where we were most welcome.

Neo Oitylo

Tucked away on the right in our home for the night

from the village across the bay

From Neo Oitylo our plan was a little camperstop by a lake for the following night, found by me on the internet and looking quite good in the photo. I plotted coordinates on the Sat Nav and sat back rather pleased with myself. As we went along the route was a bit daunting to say the least, the road went from the quality of small lane to that of the an old goat herders track. It was so bad that 15 km took 40 minutes and those 40 minutes felt like 2 hours. The width of the road meant that if we met said goat herder he wasn’t passing us unless he was climbing down the sheer drops. Eventually we reached our destination – at the sea on the opposite side of the peninsular!! The photo looked like a lake but was actually the sea, the Sat Nav had taken us the shortest route, however it would have been 8 km more and 25 minutes less to take the main road route. Hence my credentials as a route planner and camperstop finder were shot to pieces – ooops!

So this lake that has turned into a sea is at Skoutari, a small quayside away from any houses or restaurants and looking pretty sheltered. Thinking it would do nicely for us now after the drama of getting there we pulled on and parked up, as the handbrake was lifting we just noticed the wave washing over the pier and flooding up around our wheels. Maybe not such a good spot for the night then, we moved up to the end by the road for a lunch stop and then headed out to find something a bit more suitable.

There was a chance we were going to get very wet

Just 8 km down the coast we came across a quiet village, Kotronas, where we found a lovely pier jutting out into the sea and a small harbour tucked in behind it. It didn’t look like any of the fishing boats were going out soon so we felt confident we would be ok for an overnight stop.  We parked up, and went off for a walk around the village, stopping for a coffee in the local ‘brew of death shop’ where I indulged in a cup of the local sludge to further silt up my kidneys. I am of the firm opinion that the Greeks don’t even drink Greek coffee, the last two occasions I have ordered Greek coffee the waiters have said ‘are you sure?’ as if I am asking to be force fed liquid tar, they are not keen to sell it so I don’t think they really drink it.

We were just back at the van when we heard a Scottish voice shout “that’s €5 for the night”.  We were shocked a) at a British voice b) that there was anyone around c) that we were going to have to pay for Wild Camping, luckily it was a and b, not c. Norman and Marion had ‘sneaked’ their monster 8.5 metre Carthago onto the pier behind us, no mean feat in the area concerned. They had been  a few miles down the coast and looking through their binoculars saw a motorhome on the pier in the next village, then spotted it was a British registration and decided to come and check it out and say hello. Like us they hadn’t seen a motorhome for a couple of weeks, so we spent an hour comparing notes on our experiences, our notes were much shorter – we have been away 13 weeks, their notes are considerably longer as they have been away 15 years! After our visitors left to go back to their own motorhome we settled down to start tea, as we did the storm started. A few claps of thunder, a strong gust of wind that rocked the van and some decent waves breaking just a few feet from us were all we needed to help us decide to move off the pier and onto the harbour for some shelter overnight.

The best camping spot ever (as long as the wind doesn’t get up!)

That’s brings us on to the weather. Yes its been raining, and its been a bit cloudy too. Ok that isn’t the full story – its been torrential rain since Saturday lunchtime and there is buckets of it still coming down, last night we had thunder and lightening for over 3 hours. The sun has poked its head out a few times today for an hour or so but the rain is winning hands down. Of course ‘fried eggs’ on the weather map would be preferable but we can cope with a week or so of this, which is good as the forecast shows rain for at least 10 days but with the odd sunny afternoon here and there.

The rest of the Mani peninsular is on now on hold, again we would prefer good weather to see the views so see no point in trudging around it in the rain when we don’t need to. We left Kotronas handy on Saturday morning heading up the road to another little camperstop we had found, called Poseidon, 200 metres from the arrival point there was a ford to cross, which due to the last 48 hours of rain was looking fairly deep. We waited to see someone else go through to check on the depth, as we did conversation went to the Poseidon Adventure! We waited a few minutes and watched a 4×4 go through up to his wheel arches. The thought of our being stuck in a flooded ford could not have appealed less and now the visions of a Gene Hackman helping us climb out the windows was firmly lodged in my mind. I managed to convince adventure man not to take the risk and we headed for Camping Gythion Bay instead.

Commeth the rain, commeth the rainbow at our 2nd parking spot at Kotronas

We are now installed in said campsite, and find this is where most of the motorhomes in the Peloponnese who are not at Camping Finikes are hanging out. There are several nationalities here from all the usual motorhome spots including Norway, Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, plus a couple of Brits in exceptionally large RV’s. The campsite is spacious and the pitches are big, set in an old olive grove which backs onto the beach. We have secured a pitch next to the swimming pool – obviously we wont be using it in this weather in but its lovely to look out the window and see a pool through the rain. In the middle of the site is what the campsite calls the winter room, a large wooden building with chairs, books and a log fire for people to use when they want to get out of their vans and its not too warm or dry, a good touch that’s being well used today.

It is election day here today, we have no idea what impact that may have but feel reasonably confident nothing will change for a while (if we are wrong the next Blog will be from Turkey or Bulgaria!)

Take a trip in a mebea – oh go on then

Life at Camp Koroni remains very quiet, we still have the whole place to ourselves. Not sure what would keep the motorhomers at Finikes as opposed to here other than the beach being closer. In exchange for the beach the town is two minutes walk and its a much more lively, lived in affair than the Finikounda. The facilities in camp are very good, it’s all clean and the showers have hot water, for us that is good facilities. The showers are almost al fresco, a stable door with gaps at top and bottom and they open out directly onto the site (ensures plenty of fresh air whilst you shower), there is plenty of plant life vying for space at the top of the cubicle due to the lack of a ceiling which adds to the breeze :). The family who run the site are very accommodating, we did a full wash in the machine here and whilst it was a big machine I was a bit horrified when Pappous Campsite owner told me the cost was €45 for a wash!!! Even worse when he said it I just smiled and nodded, I kind of hope he meant €4.50, fingers crossed.

Koroni town has continued to hold our interest, there has been something new to find each day. Added to which we are enjoying being more in a village and therefore having some daily contact with Greek people.  Whilst we enjoyed the contact with the other moho owners at Finikounda, we also felt a bit removed from village life due to the location of the site there.  Here we see people all day on the roads, in town and the owners family wandering around the site. Pretty much every person we pass waves, smiles and says some form of greeting, we respond as best we can and hope we use the right words in the right instances.

Town square where it all happens

We must be doing something right, we waved and said our ‘kalimera’ to a lovely old chap we saw driving a cross between a moped and a trailer with a sewing machine engine attached (we think it’s maybe a Candia or a Mebea). He not only stopped, he motioned us to get in. I took the front seat and Iain climbed into the back, it was only as I sat down I realised this contraption was held together with spit and goodwill. Our driver didn’t ask where we were going, he just set off and we were on a mini tour around the streets.  Not a word passed between us whilst he drove us around, he just seemed pleased to be able to do something for us. It was without doubt one of the best experiences and money didn’t buy it. Afterwards the thought came that we would never consider jumping in a car with someone we didn’t know if it were an everyday car or van, but get something a bit wacky and yup we can overlook a bit of common sense 🙂

Our new friend with the amazing cross bred vehicle

Front seat for me…

Iain had to climb in the back

Sunday morning there was a small market, very small by the time we got there as it was just closing. The local handmade pottery lady saw me coming, I was totally talked into a very cute little coffee cup for €1, I could have bought everything she owned except we don’t have enough space and I don’t have enough money to waste of souveneirs. We bought some fruit and vegetables from one stall, whilst everything was various € per kilo the guy just put it all in one bag and weighed it and came up with €1.50, no idea if we did well out of it but we paid up anyway. Pricing seems hit and miss, some things so cheap its unbelievable, and at the opposite end of the scale some stuff is really expensive – in both cases of course comparing to home. The general standard of living here seems good, house prices are very cheap (I read today on average 30% cheaper than at home). There must be a good size expat community out here, lots of German registrations on cars and the local supermarket sells German newspapers and also had several copies of the Daily Mail and Heinz baked beans – a sure signs of Brits in the area!

As the weather has become sunnier then the locals have been more out in force promenading up and down the main street and stopping for a few glasses of ouzo or wine and a plate of meze in the winter sun.  What is with the worry beads? nearly every man we see has a set being twisted or swung around in one hand whilst the other hand grasps a cigarette or a coffee. There must be something in it or surely there wouldn’t be so many of them about. My theory is they have nothing to worry about anyway other than where there next coffee and cigarette are coming from. A less stressed group of people it must be harder to find: traffic delay – no worries, they all just chat; sheep in the road – oh well lets all just chat, a customer waiting – will just pop over for a chat with someone else first. If it is the worry beads than bring about this calmness we should be issuing them on the National Health at home.

On the olive front, we have taken matters into our own hands, literally. We went olive scrumping and picked a couple of kilos and are now doing a ‘brew your own’ experiment. We found some trees just off the site where the olives hadn’t been picked, they have now. We have started the soaking stage which will take 3-4 weeks, followed by a brining stage of 6-8 weeks, then a flavouring stage of 1-2 weeks. So it looks like we will have our own Baxter Koroni olives ready around the time we hit Estonia. Something to look forward to if it’s as bleak there are people are telling us.

We hadn’t so far visited the main beach area for the town which is on the other side of the headland, so we set out with rucksacks for a hike to walk the coast and see what the fuss was about. Called Zaga beach, it is a pretty ok beach, I wouldn’t say you would rave over it but that might be because we walked along it in a storm force wind and had our faces sand blasted? A few beach bars and plenty of sun loungers stored for the summer season so it must be a popular place in high summer. The whole beach bar left in winter undisturbed thing is something else we have noticed. They are all closed for the winter, by closed there is some thick polythene wrapped around the ‘window’ gaps and the doors are locked. Looking in windows we see all the bottles of alcohol on the shelves, the decorations, furniture, fittings etc. yet these bars are left as they are, no damage, no graffiti, nothing stolen – fairly remarkable in today’s society anywhere in the world,

Zaga beach – Koroni Monastery and the Taygetos mountains in the background

Back out on our walk to Zaga Beach we noticed a tree lined lane, which took us down to the stone built temple of Panagia Eleistria, which was built to celebrate the discovery of three statuettes, the Christ Crucified, the Virgin Mary holding the Holy Infant and another one that it is attributed to the Luke, the Evangelist, back in 1897. The temple was open to walk around, the priest was sat outside having a smoke and a flick of his beads.  To the side of the church is a tomb and a small chapel built into the rock, we were unsure exactly who the tomb belongs to, but it may be the place the icons were found. From what we gathered a woman called Maria Statjaki saw visions for 15 years telling her there were icons in the rocks, she told the villagers but they didn’t believe her, Then a child, Magdalini, led the villagers to icons, after no one had believed poor old Maria for all those years. However she is buried right outside the door of the chapel so we guess they felt bad about it afterwards. As we have found in most places in Greece, there is very little in the way of information as to what you are seeing. Even when we Google it afterwards there is a lot of conflicting information. It really is amazing that there is so little tourist information of any kind here. There are so many things to see and so little information about any of it even existing let along telling you what it is. Even good old Wikipedia is letting me down and I am having to cobble together information from many conflicting Greek websites.

Panagia Eleistria

inside the temple

The crypt where the icons were found in the rock face

Our last major discovery here has been that they have Processionary Caterpillars, we spotted a couple of the hairy nests in the trees near to the temple. We first came across these in Spain where we were warned they are very harmful to humans but even more so to dogs as it can lead to their tongues swelling. The nests look very like a harmless candyfloss in the trees, we haven’t yet seen any of the dangerous little blighter’s on the ground but will be keeping our eyes peeled as they start their processions.

We have decided to move on tomorrow, there is that little bit of usual worry that this place is so good the next one cannot live up to it.  We were aiming to go up into the mountains and visit Sparta and Mystras monastery but due to the weather forecast not being great we have decided to postpone that trip and do it in a few weeks. Instead we are heading for Kalamata, a big stock up of shopping in Lidl and maybe a stop outside the military airbase for some plane spotting, yes we know how to live it up. The next peninsular is where the sea turtle protection takes place on many of the beaches, think we may be too early for actual turtles but we are hoping something interesting about it all may be open. On the weather front, its been scorchio today, we have the same forecast for tomorrow, then rain for several days, this will be our first spell of bad weather since we left at the beginning of November, let’s get it over with – we have our waterproofs ready 🙂                                                               My Dream car!!

Who ate all the olives?

Being used to plenty of good quality vegetables when we have visited Spain and Portugal we were expecting the same here. Alas its not the case, aubergines, tomatoes and courgettes are plentiful, other than those its all looking a bit sorry for itself. We never knew there was so much you could do with an aubergine, they are pretty much now our staple diet. Fruit is ok for apples and bananas but not much else. I thought we were going to be on this healthy Greek diet with loads of fresh stuff but its a bit hit and miss in the villages here, with the exception of oranges and lemons which are treated almost as weeds and it seems no one much bothers picking them.

Similarly fish is very expensive considering we are by the sea, the Greeks have supposedly over fished the waters, so much of the fish for sale here is imported. I thought we might have a chance at locally caught fish when Iain dug out the fishing paraphernalia,  the talk was cheap but his story was good, lets just say fish stocks have in no way been impacted!

Our neighbours lunch – courtesy of the local fish monger

The other thing we have been surprised it’s a struggle to find has been olives – where are they? The whole country is one big olive grove and we expected to see stalls at the side of the road and signs for local olives everywhere. Not happening anywhere we have been, we are buying tinned ones from the supermarkets, no wonder they have a financial crisis – they need to get selling the mountain of olives that must be stockpiled somewhere here.

Yesterday we decided it was time to mosey over the hills to the Gulf of Messenia On the way we passed a very elderly couple going in the same direction, he walking, she on a donkey. We pulled over and I asked them if I could take a photo, they were more than happy to pose. We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, ok they had no idea of what I was saying I guess but they smiled a lot and nodded at whatever I said.  Not sure if you can see from the photo but she was a dead ringer for Stephanie Cole, I was thinking a BBC film crew were going to pop out at any second.

When we arrived outside Koroni and there was a sign for the campsite which came about over 2 km sooner than Sat Nav was telling us it would do on the motorhome route. As you do, we ignored Sat Nav and followed the sign up the hill, the road became narrower, then we squeezed down between some white-washed cottages, then we breathed in as we went further and we both realised this could end horribly as the road was looking more akin to a footpath 100 yards ahead. At this stage a lovely Greek lady in her car started gesturing to us to spin around, we smiled and nodded, not sure how she thought we could spin a 6 metre motorhome on a road 2.5 metres wide. Iain took the decision to reverse back up the hill, take the first turn and keep his fingers crossed – that didn’t work either as it was a dead end on the beach! By now we were fed up and Plan G was just get the hell out of town and back on the main road, by use any road we deemed suitable i.e. ignoring the odd one way sign. From there we followed Sat Nav, amazingly we were taken smoothly around the outside of the village and in the other side, lovely wide road perfect for motorhomes bringing us straight to the door of the campsite 🙂

Camping Koroni is our new home for the next few nights, just five minutes walk from town it’s on the ‘first finger’ of the Peloponnese.  We are the only people on site, hard to understand why as it is lovely, much bigger pitches than our last site and less trees so plenty of sunshine too. When we arrived the owner offered a reduction for ACSI card, when we said we didn’t have one she said we could have the discount anyway. We have yet to find a campsite that doesn’t give the discount with or without the card but that might change as we go into spring and places are busier.

Koroni is another town that was once a Venetian naval fortress and has a Venetian castle, the sister castle of the one we visited in Methoni a few day ago. They were jointly known as the “The Eyes of the Serene Republic” and guarded the Venetian seas from pirates in days of old. The castle is nowhere near as complete as Methoni, its the standard H&S nightmare, but this one does have signs warning of danger, you walk right up to the edge to read them but they are there! There is a great deal of restoration work being undertaken and some areas are magnificent, to be fair as with nearly everywhere we have been in Greece it is free to enter so what’s to complain about.

View through castle gates down over the Gulf of Messenia

This is much more in the ‘Greek style’ I had set in my mind that Greece should look like. Lots of narrow, cobbled streets and stairways are clustered against the hill, which all lead up to that inevitable Venetian castle. There are houses plugged into every available gap, tiny old cottages and more modern houses all jumbled along the streets with steep steps running up between them. We do like they whitewash lines on the paths and steps  to help you see where you are going – oddly they also whitewash the trees – not sure how you wouldn’t see a tree but we have seen this in most towns.  Even at this time of year there is plenty of colour in the flower pots that line the streets, and if not the pots themselves are brightly painted in many cases.

Less steps – more a whitewashed ski run to get up and down

Who needs flowers with this lot

How I thought Greece would look – and does

We followed the streets up around the castle and by chance came upon the monastery, occupied by the Timios Prodromos Convent. I really do hate to keep saying everywhere and everything is amazing, stunning, incredible etc. – but again this was. There was nothing stating we could or couldn’t go in or even signs that tell you it is a monastery. It looked like a big church and the door was open, so we walked in and  found ourselves in the courtyard. There were several monks and nuns wandering around and they seemed fine with us being there, so we had a meander and then spotted the gift shop, from which we reasoned they accept visitors. At this stage a weeny old nun came over and offered us both some of her small star shaped biscuits. Being us of course we never refuse a biscuit (honey and tasty), she seemed happy we had accepted them, said a few words and waved her arms in a go  look around type gesture.

St. John the Baptist Monastery entrance

View over the monastery grounds from nearly the top of the old castle in the grounds

The tiny chapel was open (I was asked to put on a skirt, the nuns have a pile of them handy for female tourists in trousers) ornately decorated (chapel not skirt) and full of iconic paintings, we both felt very honoured to have been allowed to go inside.  We were allowed to wander freely all over the monastery grounds, at one point a nun came over to send us onto the roof of one of the churches. Behind the chapel in the parapets there were tiny cells in which we guess the original monks lived, one was set out with all the possessions a monk would have had which you could view through a gate, it was taller than it was wide or long, the bed no more than a couple of feet long.

As there wasn’t an entrance fee or anywhere to donate money we popped into the gift shop to do some spending. It sold small religious Orthodox paintings, jewellery etc. I picked up several bits and pieces and the shopkeeper nun charged us just €7 for the lot, worth every penny as an entrance fee.  A very beautiful place to visit where we were made to feel really welcome, and to be fair they do bake some pretty good biscuits 🙂

One of the many friendly nuns in the courtyard, selling her postcards

Inside the tiny ornate chapel

Back down at town we had a wander around the harbour and the shops, stopping for an afternoon coffee. Well I was brave and had Greek coffee, Iain was wise had had tea. Its not the strength of the coffee that bothers us, its why they put half a ton of coffee grounds in the cup with it.  As usual the cafes were full of older Greek men passing their days drinking strong coffee and smoking, and also as usual not a female coffee drinker to be seen.

Many of the old town houses here seem to have fallen into ruin, but there is still plenty of Venetian architecture with wrought iron balcony railings and arched windows and doors. Down at the harbour are the biggest buildings, mainly empty now, there are old public buildings and what would have been large houses. Towards the castle are the pretty smaller cottages, called Laika or folk houses that have small courtyards but no real gardens, here the washing is hung proudly on the main street, string vests, undies the lot!

There are plenty of shops, including several hardware shops, they must be popular for some reason. Even though it was siesta time and most shops were shut they still leave everything outside, despite the poverty problems here is seems people are able to resist shoplifting from outside closed shops.

 A town of many hardware shops, colourful and trusting

As we were on our way back to the campsite we spotted a small shop that sold olives! It said closed but there was an elderly Greek lady inside, we asked if we could come in and she opened up – hurray at last we have found good local olives, expensive good local olives but they taste superb so are worth the money. As we left the shop we spotted the bakery, and very cute very old Greek lady merrily waving to us out of the window of her shop with a very fetching gap toothed smile. We just had to go in to her shop and buy a small loaf, nope she wanted us to buy the biggest loaf she had, suckers that we are we did. 

bread, olives and small bottle of Metaxa – that’s Stick sorted for food for the week

“By all means..”Socrates, Greece 5thc BC

We are ending the week exactly where we started it, still at Camping Finikes. We have talked a few times about moving on but so far that hasn’t happened.  The days have passed very quickly considering we have done very little. It is amazing that a few days sunshine has turned our heads away from all the traveling and culture plans and straight towards sitting in the sun and baking to a shade of salmon pink. We make the effort to stroll onto the beach each morning and check out the water temperature (still a tad chilly) and just spend half an hour looking at the amazing views of sand, sea and snow covered Taygetos mountains – then we really do thank our lucky stars that we here.

It is very easy to understand how people spend the whole winter somewhere like this and just amble their days away, we could do it. Entertainment each day consists of watching fellow campers, most of whom are here from November through to April, going about their days. The danger doing this being that most campers here have some great ‘boy toys’ and Iain is thinking we need to invest in some of the gadgets ourselves. The large kayak owned by our German neighbours has been launched a few times (we need one?), Pierre has what we both consider to be one of the best tow-cars we have seen, every time he starts it up Iain has the wistful ‘could I have one of those faces’ (and he has priced one on the internet). To be fair its very hilly here and there are a few electric bikes on site (on our list). We will probably need to be thinking about moving on from this site soon before we consider a 5th Wheel to tow around too as that is catching Iain’s eye daily!

 The ultimate tow-car?

Whilst it is out of season her right now there are still plenty of campsites open, just along this stretch of road there are four open within 2 km, but as we have said before there is a distinct lack of motorhomes. Campsite prices vary across the Peloponnese from €11 per night up to €22 but the facilities offered are pretty similar. We have emailed some sites to check if they are open and some come back with great offers, whilst others quote a top dollar rate which is double the price of another site five minutes down the road. Not sure why this site has more people on than any of the others, we have had a wander around them all and there isn’t a difference we can find other than people on a site seem to attract more people.

We haven’t strayed too far this week, we did walk into nearby village of Finikounda, only 2km along the beach, although we did have to cross a river by means on a fallen cork tree at the end of the beach to get there, not the best route but we made it. The village was quiet with a few bars open but as we are finding everywhere the Greek people were very welcoming. We were looking for an ATM to draw out some cash, but someone told us that’s only possible between April and October! Most of the ATM’s are closed down for the winter so we need to go to the next town where there is a bank which will have a working ATM.  The Greek people seem to us quite akin to the Italians (bet that is a very un-PC thing to say), they are loud, happy and slightly manic, everything involves big arm waving and gestures; but most of all we have found Greek people to be incredibly friendly and accommodating, nothing is too much trouble.

By this morning we were feeling like a couple of tourist slugs, just sitting around, So the bikes were dusted off and we stretched ourselves with a ride in the opposite direction of the village to Methoni, no cycle path so we took the main road but hardly any traffic so it was fine. The only concern we had was the falling rocks on the road, all the way along the road was strewn with rocks. The council here do not clear them up, so unless a motorist or farmer clears falls away the roads can be a very hazardous. What was worse than rocks for us was the hills! we do fairly flat cycling, this isn’t flat at all and I was coming round to the electric bike idea by the time we got there.

If the hills don’t finish you off the falling rocks will 

Methoni was worth every single second of effort, the view as we came around the corner to the village was breath taking. The village is set around the bay and the castle, one of the largest in the Mediterranean, spreads out along a rocky promontory. It’s not just one castle, its more like two – the main one set along the sea edge and connected to village by a bridge which crosses a vast moat. Then at the far end there is a causeway onto another fortified building – the Bourtzi, which was a prison and place of executions during the Turkish Occupation. Built in 1500 the causeway is actually paved and is like a small roadway which connects the Bourtzi to the massive sea gate of the castle. Being Greece we were allowed to wander around everywhere, climb the castle steps and walls and generally take our lives into our own hands, there is nothing stopping you falling to a certain death from the tops of the walls except your own common sense and it seems the Greeks use this rather than fences and ropes – we like their style.

Methoni Castle – first views from the National Road

the sea gate

Looking back over the causeway from the fortified prison to the sea gate

the Bourtzi – prison

One of the reasons for cycling in into Methoni was my concern that it might be difficult to park the van. I couldn’t have been more wrong with that worry, we could have parked anywhere we wanted as there were two or three tourist cars and a few cyclists and pretty much enough parking left over for a fleet of motorhomes. We treated ourselves to lunch in Methoni village square, making the basic error of not really looking at where we had chosen to eat – it was an Austrian restaurant! ok not the most authentic Greek lunch but never mind, it was all good and Iain treated himself to his first Metaxa to fortify himself for the cycle (mountain) ride home. As we left the village we spotted a small electrical shop, we have been looking for one for weeks as our kettle is on its last legs. I was prepared in advance with a translation which I gave to Iain, whilst I waited outside with the bikes. I heard Iain dutifully ask for a ‘katsarola’, then a big discussion and much opening of boxes. Turns out that I sent him him in for a ‘fish kettle’, ah well he sorted it our eventually and we are now the proud owners of something that looks like the bridge of the SS Enterprise.

A well earned Metaxa

The other piece of equipment that has now met its demise is my Kindle 😦 This is sad as I have 40’ish new books loaded to read, it becomes even sadder when our kind neighbour passed over 100 new books to add on via a plug in. We have tried all the resets, removal of battery etc – its kaput. I have downloaded a reading app onto my mini lap top so will be testing that out until we find a supplier of Kindles somewhere on our travels. On the upside I was after a Kindle Voyage so that is now on the shopping list, back to downside they are not yet for sale in Greece.

After our first two weeks in Greece our overall impression is – loving it. The concerns of coming this far with a motorhome were always in the back of our minds, our rubbish research meant we were unsure on standard or prices of campsites, what to expect in terms of roads, shops, food, people etc; yes we know it was never going to be Outer Mongolia but it was well outside our usual comfort zone.  Without a doubt the whole experience has been made really easy and enjoyable by the Greek people and their kindness to a couple of Brits with no real plans, an incredibly limited Greek vocabulary and no map! We would have to give the roads a half tick but for everything else Greece in a motorhome is so far a fabulous idea, one of those we wish we had thought of earlier :).

The sunshine has found the Pelopennese – yay

Moving on time, South via Olympia so back onto the National road network. Whoever was in charge of the road naming here on the Peloponnese is never going to win an award for the most imaginative identification system. The main road is called ‘The New National Road’, in places its predecessor is still the route to take and is called ‘The Old National Road’ and at the point heading South when neither of these roads exist you are on the ‘The National Road’. We took the the ‘New’ one in the direction of Olympia. It’s a single carriageway, its wide, its fairly quiet but it is as rough as the proverbial bears in places. The Greeks are now talking of building another main road as these three are outdated – hopefully someone will have the light bulb moment and not name it the Newer New National Road.

Not sure what we really expected of Olympia – but  to be quite frank it blew us away. Neither of us are really fans of archaeological type stuff, a few holes in the ground and something telling us that Peter the Shoemaker had his shop and living room there does not do it for us, Olympia is way beyond that. It cost us €6 each to get in, then we were are allowed to walk around it pretty much everywhere, not from 10 ft away behind a fence mind you, actually walk in and around pretty much all of it. There are are some ropes around to stop you walking on a few of the fragile bits but they do not stop you walking through temples or going into a 2200 year old buildings. Someone from Stonehenge needs to visit Olympia and see how its done, get rid of the fences, let people near to what they are paying to see, let people touch history and stop charging an arm and a leg to visit and it could be as an amazing experience as Olympia.

The Greeks have so got it right, you walk right across the Temple of Hera, you can touch columns that once held up the roofs of the great monuments of the ancient world. We walked through the arch where the athletes entered the stadium, well I did a little run and waved my arms Mo Farrah style, the guide just looked as if he had seen it all before, whilst Iain just walked the other way! Those that want to can even run the 600 metres around the stadium (no neither of us felt the need to go that over the top). We stood at  the spot where the first torch flames of each modern Olympic Games begins its life – although the Vestal Virgins were notable by their absence. For sure visiting out of the main tourist season had a major impact of how much we saw and how much we enjoyed it, just us and maybe twenty other people on a very warm blue skies day made it one of the best days out we have had on the trip so far.

Now it has to be said that the site is obviously a major tourist draw, so much so that just a few hundred metres outside a whole town has grown up. Its a very modern town and its very dedicated to tourists. Every shop is geared to sell you a souvenir, these range from €2 tacky fridge magnets (oh yes of course I bought one), to €500 copies of jewellery excavated at the site, to €2000 copies of sculptures.  A myriad of eateries and hotels, lots of open air spaces and a couple of museums such as the fairly new Archimedes museum (free and worth a look) mean you could spend a day just wandering around the town.

The Crypt – entrance to the stadium built in 3rd c, BC

The Temple of Zeus approx 470 BC

Ancient Olympia – The Atlis 10th-9th C BC devoted to Zeus

The Prytaneion – home of the fire that was never extinguised 5th c BC

the Palaestra 3rd c BC – training facility for jumping, boxing and wrestling

the Stadium

I did some homework on where to stay and my research showed two campsites were open. We went to the first, Camping Olympia, where the owner was on his way out and cheerfully told us he was closed! Next was Camping Diana, clearly built around the time of the original Olympics to house athletes motorhomes (its a wee bit old). We were squeezed in just outside the owners house as she was worried we wouldn’t get out of the lower pitches. To be fair we would have, but anything much bigger than us might struggle a bit. She pointed out the water might be cold, and ran a tap in the loos to demonstrate, at which point no water came out – so she said it must be really cold then as we have no water! It was sunny but a bit chilly, heaven knows why she had no water but not sure the weather had anything to do with it but the again our Greek is not up to querying that sort of thing. Both the owners were gorgeous, a lovely old couple who really wanted to help and do all they could to make it a pleasant stay – that included relieving us of a whacking €22 for a night. Even if there isn’t any water there isn’t going to be a reduction in price, there isn’t another campsite anywhere within a couple of hours  so we paid up and spent an ok night on the drive.

All the way down the coast the ‘National’ road group is single carriageway and flanked either side by olive groves. It is said the twelve olive trees keep a family in olive oil for a year, this area must keep the whole of Greece in oil then as for mile after mile all we saw were olive groves. There is very little other industry until the far South when some tourist areas start to appear, we were driving through a small village and suddenly there were coaches everywhere. It was hard to work out why as it just looked like your average town with some gift shops, it may have been one of the towns where the cruise ships dock for Olympia but there was a lack of signs and to be honest we are severely lacking in the maps department. Our atlas is shocking for Greece, one square covers pretty much most of The Peloponnese, which makes it pretty difficult to follow where we might be. We have splashed out on a map from the Shell garage, they had big windows and saw the daft Brits coming. It looked like a great map from the outside cover with even the odd English word on it, when we opened it up its all bloody hieroglyphics! We are now using a mix of the two and relying heavily on the Sat Nav which generally freaks out and refuses to believe half the places we want to input exist, it all adds to the general unplanned feeling we have most days so we are now becoming used to it.

The further South we went the less traffic and people we saw, we pulled off for lunch at  Navarinou Bay, a deep notch in the coast closed in by the long thin island of Sfaktiria, which in turn has small gaps that allow boats to pass through.  We walked along the spit of sand that passes along one side of the bay and on the other side is a nature reserve and lagoon. One solitary swimmer, two fishermen and not another soul to be seen in over an hour. The distance between Sfaktiria and the mainland at the North End is 220 ft, I had read the water is only 18 inches deep all the way across but we didn’t risk it just in case, we made do with paddle  up to our knees instead :).

Just up from Navarinou Bay is the resort town of Pilos (Pylos), our first full on Greek holiday resort town where many peoples and cars were suddenly around. No high rise holiday hotels, more villas and apartments with a beautiful harbour, numerous tavernas dotted around the harbour and the town square and plenty of tourist shops. Considering how quiet the whole trip down the coast was it was surprising to see so many people in Pilos, mostly just sat around in cafes enjoying the sunshine, not heaving by any means but busy enough to warrant the shops and cafes all being open. Still not quite Mama Mia territory but coming closer. Or it could just be that all the sunshine was making everything feel a little bit more we expected a Greek holiday resort to be. And for the last few days it hasn’t just been seeing the  sun – there has been warmth, the sun is finally doing its job and at times it’s actually been hot enough to think we might be in Greece!

Pilos (Pylos)

For the first time since we left home we are now facing choices in which campsite we use. There are plenty of sites open and on the stretch of beach we on at Finikoudas there are three open sites within 1 km. We chose  Camping Finikes for no reason other than it was the first one, it is a good site where we have our own little private shower and toilet, we are just a few metres from the sea, there is a sun canopy over our pitch and pretty much everything we need for the next few days is within reasonable walking distance.

Nearly as importantly there are other people in motorhomes here 🙂 we were beginning to think we were the only ones on the Peloponnese. In two weeks since we saw the first couple of vans at Ionion Beach, we have not seen any others, never passed one on the roads, or even seen one at Lidl. Here there is a mixed bunch of nationalities and vehicles, a couple caravans from Hungary and Germany, motorhomes from Holland, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Italy and GB and a massive Fifth Wheel from Germany.  Gosh its been good to speak to someone other than each other! It’s day 70 and there have been very few days that, other than each other, we have spoken to anyone other than shop assistants or campsite receptionists. These are real people here and we have had real conversations, our French neighbours have been giving us tips for the Scandinavian part of our journey as they were up there last summer, our British neighbours are doing a great job at selling Turkey and giving us routes and places to stay, off our intended route but worth considering. The German couple with the Fifth Wheel bought it from North Wales last year and were staying a couple of miles from our house when they were there. As always, every nationality happily converses in English which makes us feel lazy – I have stunned some of the neighbours with my limited German, so much so they respond and continued the conversation in English.

Its been what can only be described at fairly hot for the last three days, we kid you not we have been on the beach, sunbathed outside the van and shorts and t shirts are now the most suitable attire. Today it was 18/ 65 degrees, people on the site were in the sea swimming, we weren’t before anyone asks. Iain is taking this dip in the sea thing a bit too literally and just dipping a leg in now, as it becomes warmer he is venturing in further each time so at this rate he should be swimming by Easter. We have a bit of rain forecast for one day next week but other than that its steady sunshine for the foreseeable future so our plan is to plan nothing and as long as the sun shines we may well stay where we are.

Not much housework going on here today then

Iain’s view of the Greek Highway Code below  🙂

the one were we finally meet a Stavros

Monday morning the weather man was predicting rain again, but as nothing had come from his predictions on Sunday we ignored it and went to plan B for the Roman bath search. This time we took the bikes and headed off down the same lanes, once we got to Arkoudi this time we carried on and low and behold just a mile or so down the road we were there. Was it worth two days to hunt it out? well maybe not, a very run down looking building, the actual baths fenced off and the smell of sulphur was as it always is – worse than rotten eggs. We persevered and had a wander round but there isn’t too much too see, it would seem that once upon a time it was a tourist attraction but its not been loved for some time. It’s hard to say whether the austerity measures have affected the maintenance or its just not somewhere people want to go, a shame as with a spruce up and a clean it could be an interesting and pleasant place to visit. Iain was fascinated by watching the sulphur bubble up to the surface but for me it was too much of a smell to stay around.

Killini Roman Baths

Next stop was to try the thermal mud baths as we thought we might treat ourselves, they were locked up and not a soul around. It looked like a big complex, several buildings which were mainly concrete looking eyesores but one lovely church just on the edge. There is a big hotel complex just outside the baths so we assumed its a seasonal thing and we missed out on a mud bath by a few months. Trying to find anything out about either the baths or the spa seems pretty impossible, tourist literature is not something that abounds here and even the internet seems vague, one report says it has never been used and another says 5000 people come a year to use the mud baths. 

the only building not poured from concrete at Killini spa baths

Back to Akoudi for our picnic on the beach, our very own beach as we were the only people there for the hour we sat and ate. It is a little tourist hamlet, several small family run hotels, a shop or two, tavernas onto beach but not a one open. The locals who must run the businesses are milling around but it seemed like maintenance time as much cleaning, painting and repairing was going on. Its the only real tourist place we have seen so far, not sure it would be classed a resort but sure it would be a fantastic place for a quiet holiday in the summer months. A local was telling us that its very much an area for Greeks on holiday even in summer very few other nationalities come here.

Picnic time

Our own private beach for lunch

Stopping short of pedaling to Zakynthos over the water

On Tuesday it was Epiphany, as with most of Europe celebrated with a holiday, shops were closed but the tavernas in the village were open. Each time we have been in the village in the morning the sound of the Orthodox Priest singing has resounded around the village from the small church. It’s a very beautiful accompaniment to the village which looks as if nothing much as changed for many, many years.

As we walked through we were approached by three young boys, all under 11, who were playing basketball. In near perfect English they asked if we knew how to play the game and then asked if we were on our way to visit the church. Considering very few English apparently come this way the children here still obviously learn to speak English from a young age and do so incredibly well and use it confidently. It was time to sample our first Greek coffee so we headed for the busiest looking taverna. As we approached we were stopped outside by a table of three who insisted we join them for a holiday drink (achieved by much arm waving, gesturing and dragging of chairs). Whilst they were mixing wine with coke, water and some form of firewater we stuck to our choice of coffee. We then spent the next 40 minutes in bizarre ‘conversation’ with Stavros (no really he was) who only spoke Greek to Irinia, who spoke Greek and then German to Eddie, who spoke German and then English to us. They had obviously been at the drink for a good few hours before we arrived so conversation was somewhat diverse but probably the most entertaining interaction we have yet to have with any nationality.  Stavros was as someone with that name should be for a Brit with a stereotypical view of meeting a Greek villager – a more charming, friendly and loud chap we would find it harder to meet.

Today we finally got around to visiting Chlemoutsi castle, which is visible from miles around and we have been saying we would visit since the day we arrived. It was built in the early 1220’s and is said to be the finest castle of the period, largely preserved in its original 13th-century state. Captured in 1460 by the Ottoman Empire it lost importance over the next couple of hundred years and was deserted for many years. As we drove into Kastro village the road up to the castle looked doubtful, even for our little 6 metre van. We erred on the side of caution and parked up in the village to walk up the steep hill to the castle. First thing we were shocked with was there was a lady sat in the ticket hut, if she saw anyone other than us today would be amazed. For €3 though it was worth the spend, there is an inner castle within the main outer walls, a small museum and everything there was also written in English so we could understand a bit about it.

From there we walked back into the village as Iain had spotted a bakery, once we he was fully armed with a supply of bread and cakes we headed down to the port to investigate the ferry crossings over to the nearby islands. I thought they were going to be cute little ferries with space for a few vans, not at all – only slightly smaller than the average cross channel ferry. The ferry for Zakynthos was in so we priced up a day trip, €100 return, which was a cheaper option than Kefalonia where they wanted €166 return – so that was the cheap ferry day trip idea blown.

Weather update, its getting colder again. The skies are blue with the odd cloud and the sun is warm but someone up in Northern Europe is sending an icy wind down and the last two days have become a bit chilly, to the extent that kite flying has ceased until warm winds prevail. We intend to move a bit further South tomorrow, not for the weather just for a change of scenery so we are heading to a campsite a couple of hours down the coast, The site we are on, Ionion Beach, is one of the best we have stayed on anywhere, being told by our British neighbours that this is the best one in Greece does make us wonder whether we should move on just yet. Then again what one person likes isn’t always the same as the next so fingers crossed we find somewhere as good if not better.

We will go a long way to beat this pitch right on the sea

 

Kite flying before winds got too chilly

καλημέρα = kali̱méra = Good day (it’s a start)

Greece so far has been a revelation. Simple things such as Corfu being pretty much next-door to Albania and opposite to Italy, when we thought all the islands were down by Crete, who would have thought it? Just confirms our total ignorance of the geography of the country. I expected all the housing to be whitewashed villas with blue roofs, a bit Mama Mia really but we haven’t seen sight nor sound of Meryl Streep and now find that we would need to visit Rhodes or the other Cycklades Islands for that type of architecture. Most shocking of all – not sniff of any houmous, we have tried several shops and a couple of supermarkets and not a hint of it anywhere – the search will continue.

The weather too has been a bit surprising – for the first few days it has to be said it was cold, not only that it was overcast too, but low and behold the sunshine moved in on New Years Day, we were out with the awning and sun chairs and sat in the sun by mid morning. Since then the sun has made a longer appearance each day and temperatures have climbed slowly. We are liking here that the Greeks do not go for that pretend winter look – all bundled up in boots and big leather coats when its warm enough to sit on the beach, there were people without coats on in town yesterday and they were not tourists!

 New Years Eve – somewhat chilly, refuse to wear a coat but the hat was needed

Normal sunshine service resumed on New Years Day

It is certainly significantly quieter here than we have experienced in Spain or Portugal at the same time of year. Our campsite here, Ionion Beach, has pitches for upwards of 200 motorhomes, this week there have been between seven and ten most days, several Bulgarians, a couple of French and a few British coming and going. Everything is very, very laid back at the campsite, you just come in park up and pay when you want to leave. They don’t check you in as such, no passports or details are needed they just smile and wave a lot and leave you to enjoy it. Most motorhomes are taking advantage of the pitches right on the edge of the beach, premium pitches in high season but now just €15 per night (which is cheaper than with an ACSI discount?)

New Years Day walk – first outing for the milk bottles

The village we are staying at is called Glyfa (or Glifa depending on which sign you read on the roads), its beyond small, its minute. There is a very old fashioned shop that is as big as the average living room, four tavernas, a church and many goats dotted around in large gardens and olive groves. We are an hour and a bit South West of Patras and we are looking out over to the island of Zakynthos which is 10 miles across the sea from our pitch. It is a small tourist industry here which appears to rely on the many campsites and a few villas, we have only seen one small hotel on the edge of the village. Walking along the beach from the campsite here there are houses, huts, villas, in fact pretty much every type of dwelling imaginable right on the shoreline for at least a mile or two. Each has its own small piece of beach, the homes vary from beautifully restored large whitewashed villas to smaller fishing cottages, then right down to what can only be described as shanty shacks. Amongst them there are tavernas that look like they are just a 10 ft square in someone’s garden and a few restaurants perched out over the sea.  Not sure this is ever a hub for the mass tourism industry even in high summer, more its a little bit of 1950’s Greece stuck in a bit of a time warp, and it really is all the better for it in our opinion. A few miles up the road is the town of Vartholomio, again not really geared towards tourism but very much open and lively, plenty of shops, bars and cafes.

On New Years Day I walked into the village for some bread, one taverna was open as was the village shop but there were very few people around. The shop sells pretty much most essentials, the elderly gentleman running the shop did not speak any English so it was my three words of Greek greetings and then lots of arm waving to describe bread – its nearly impossible to describe bread with your hands believe me! In the end I tried a bit of French and he smiled and pointed me to an old wooden box which contained what was definitely fresh bread once, but probably a good 24 hours before I was in the shop. I didn’t have the heart not to buy it just because it was a bit stale, I paid my money and the fresh bread we planned to have for lunch was replaced by toast.

Everywhere we go there is a shrine, we are not talking massive here just small box like structure at the side of the road, outside houses etc. some have doors, but are never locked, others are open to the elements. They all contain holy pictures, fresh flowers, small tokens etc but what is amazing is they are not damaged, robbed or daubed with graffiti. At home I cannot believe the beautiful plaques and pictures could be left yet here there seems to be a respect that people use these shrines not only to honour the dead from road accidents but also to give thanks if someone survived an accident. For the first days it was exciting everytime we spotted one, now we realise they are every couple of hundred yards its a bit worrying just how many road accidents there must be.

First impressions of Greece, we are loving it. People are very kind and patient with us and the weather is glorious now (and fingers crossed stays that way for a while). Diesel is very cheap here at €1.11 per litre (87p) which is nearly 30p a litre cheaper than home. Food is cheap too, we did a massive Lidl shop and only stopped buying due to the size of our fridge. We stocked up on essentials and also went mad with treats and  and still only spent a few euro over our normal meager budget. We have used a couple of the local small mini-markets, just as cheap there to be fair, rice and grains are sold by the sack load so we will be sticking to Lidl pre-packed for space reasons.

We hear that Greece is facing political turmoil over the coming months, with massive 30% unemployment you cannot blame them. Whilst we read before we came about the lack of shops, food etc – its simply not something we are seeing. In the larger villages the grocers are packed full with good fruit and vegetables, there are of course empty shop units, no more than we have at home. There are beggars in the towns and villages, mainly women and young teenage children, some sell vegetables or wash windscreens, others just sit on kerb-sides and call for money. I had a few concerns that the Greeks were reported to be anti tourists from Germany and the UK, that has certainly not been the case with anyone we have met. People are very kind, polite and friendly. A young lad in the garage yesterday told us its rare to see British here as its usually German or French that visit, he was pleased to be able to practice his English. The chap that sells tomatoes on the roadside a mile past the campsite waves to us as we pass each way, the Greeks so far have been more welcoming than we could have hoped for.

We had a fright on Friday when we tried four different atm’s to get some cash out – not a one would give me any money. Our thought was there had been a run on the banks as they had a few years ago, at the fifth bank Iain went and tried and got cash no problem, so it looks like it was just my card not being liked – phew!

We have enjoyed our ‘mini break’ holiday here at Glyfa for the last 5 days, so much so we may stay for the next week too. There are some thermal springs, a castle and some Roman baths (in Greece??) we need to explore before we leave and Iain is becoming quite addicted to a couple of hours sunshine each afternoon so its going to prove difficult to drag him off to do some cultural touring. As today was a little overcast we took the opportunity to get out for a bit of a walk, with the intention of heading over to the said Roman baths, we got as far as the next village Arkoudi before we realised we didn’t actually have a map or any firm idea where we were heading. Having walked to the village along the rural road for nearly 5 miles we had seen only three cars, there really is hardly a soul on the roads. The nearest we saw to traffic was the lonely sheep herder moving his flock at break neck speed outside at Arkoudi. We stopped for a picnic on the beach, were stunned to see someone swimming in the sea (its no way warm enough for that malarkey) and found a  new friend in a stray dog who adopted us in the hope of some spare titbits (he was disappointed!). Several miles later we are back at the campsite, the sun it making its way out so that is us finished for for the weekend.

That old cliche of ‘rush hour’ but its fairly true around here

Arkoudi – the teeniest of holiay resorts

Whilst our Greek is progressing painfully slowly we are still trying. Obviously Google Translate is the ‘go to’ for any words we want to learn. I did however come across a website that showed there is room for lots of confusion using literal translations:

Greek Saying “Η ζωή είναι σαν ένα αγγούρι, ο έναs το τρώει και δροσιστείτε, και ο άλλος το τρώει και ζορίζετε.”
Literal English Translation: “Life is like a cucumber, one person eats it and is refreshed, and another person eats it and struggles.”
What the Greeks really mean: “Life is simply what you make of it.”

Week 9 – Greece, Elis Peloponnese

It all started reasonably well. The ferry was 2 hours late in leaving Ancona but as we were heading for Greece where time matters even less than Italy we weren’t too worried. The crew kindly offered us an electric hook up on the ferry, as we had very little in the fridge we declined. In our experience car decks are always freezing and our fridge stays cold enough for 24 hours, the crossing is only 22 hours so we will be fine. Once on-board we found our free cabin, on a par with Brittany Ferries, and then we went to see the purser for our meal discounts – 30% of all meals for the trip. Anek Lines and Mimoan are all one company, as they cannot offer Camping On-board to motorhomes in winter, and on a few of their ferries where there isn’t an open deck, they give a free cabin and the meal offer. Pretty amazing deal as would say that 50% of the passengers were sleeping in chairs as the cabins were coming in at nearly €200 for the night.

We were due to dock at the first port of call, Igoumenitsa, around 7am the next morning, then after unloading and re-loading a further 5 hours onto Patras so arrival eta was 3pm Sunday. We woke up around 7am to tannoy announcements for all passengers to stay seated, and a garbled message about the North Atlantic. To be honest we thought they were talking about the storm so had a lie in and wandered down for breakfast late morning. When we did we found it was  the Norman Atlantic, an Anek Ferry and it was on fire, our ship has turned back as it neared port to assist and we were the closest vessel, with ships joining the circling of the stricken ferry continuously.

Its very hard to describe watching a burning ship with smoke billowing, flames leaping out from the decks, explosions every few minutes and seeing at least 60-70 people stood on the deck waiting for rescue. The passengers and crew on the ship needed winching to safety by helicopters, incredibly the whole operation to airlift them all lasted 28 hours. Most people will have seen or read news reports of the events, so its not something I feel it’s appropriate to write too much about in a blog, suffice to say its something we will always remember and will count our blessings we happened to be on the right ferry at the right time and not the other way around.

In the middle of this Iain needed to be taken down to the car decks to get some insulin and medications from the van, as we were going to be on-board for three days rather than one. At which point he finds that this ship is not freezing on the car decks, its roasting as there is a massive generator running down there. Our fridge is turning intoa cooker and a  12 months supply of insulin is about to go off. We managed to save it by bringing it upstairs where the bar staff kept it in the fridge for us. The rest of the contents of our fridge have been disposed of, however the odour will be staying with us for some days we think. The heat was enough to actually start heating the water in our tanks to a temperature that would be fine for a shower.

We finally left the fire scene late afternoon Monday when all passengers and crew had been rescued. This meant that we would be arriving in Patras around 3am, so our plan was to stay on the dock until day-light as we had no idea on roads, routes etc. When we arrived I asked the Customs officer if we could park up until morning, he said that wouldn’t be possible. I asked where we could stay and he pointed to a carpark outside the fences. I inquired if he thought we would be safe there and he told me “no not at all, beware the Afghans”(I assumed he meant people, not dogs). Patras looks a bit like Calais, fencing everywhere as immigrants try to sneak on boats bound for Italy. The carpark didn’t seem appealing so next question was what he would suggest, I had to laugh at his response “I would drive until out of the city and away from Afghans then rest somewhere safe until daylight”. Thanks for that, we felt so much better, not! We decided to aim for a campsite at Glifa just over an hour and a half away. Out of the docks and just as we should have turned onto the motorway, we realised we had wrong slotted – right into the back streets of Patras. It is probably as safe as houses, but if you have never been there before, its 4am, you haven’t slept since the previous morning you have a general apprehension about your first visit to an unknown country then trust me it was a bit scary. All we could do was hold our faith in Sat Nav and 10 minutes later we were back on the main road out of town, both praying for an easy drive with no further drama, which luckily was what we got. We saw nothing of Greece other than very dark roads, no traffic, not even some stray dogs, it all passed by in a blur as were both concentrating on the right turns to make sure we didn’t end up off route again. We finally arrived at the campsite at 5am, parked up outside the gates, switched off the engine and were out like lights within minutes

This morning all is good in our world again, the campsite we are at is the Ionion Beach. Its’s fabulous, our pitch is within 3 ft of the beach, there are only a few motorhomes here but we did meet some Brits this morning who were heading for San Marino and they gave us loads of tips for the best shops and most importantly the nearest Lidl 🙂 We have been to the village shops and caused some chaos with shopping due to our lack of language and my weighing all the fruit and vegetables wrongly. Hieroglyphics are already seeming like the the main focus of our world. We are slightly mollified by there being translations into German on many signs – my German is even worse than my French but it looks like we could be relying on it quite a bit on directions. In terms of shopping its even worse several times when we were out today one of us picked something up and said “has this got sugar in?” or “what type of bread is this?” – we don’t know, you cannot work it out unless you learn the whole new alphabet, so yes we are going to try. As always when in Rome…. pizza is out, chick peas and goat are in, as will be ouzo! On the way back from the village I made Iain stop for our first look at a Greek Orthodox Church, sadly locked up but we made do with peering in the windows, there is going to be visited quite a few churches and castles coming up in the very near future.

As of yet the sun isn’t shinning, it will be soon we have no doubt. Its been an eventful few days, a trip of 22 hours took 58 hours but it really isn’t something we can complain about, as our ferry journey ended at our intended destination. And now we are in Greece we intend to stay for several weeks and hopefully see a lot of the country before we move on in early Spring.