Southern Algarve, Portugal

We entered Portugal using the main A22 motorway bridge on the 10th of January. As we do, a sign signals foreign cars to enter the first layby to register a credit card against the photographed number plate to pay for future motorway tolls – apparently they’re expensive and for the most part we plan to avoid them. We pull off almost immediately anyway, heading for Castro Marim. There’s official motorhome parking here and services and it’s free. Well, we were shocked, and 6 weeks later we continue to be so, by the huge number of us in this part of the world. Castro Marim had an official capacity of 25 vans and there were more than 60 of us! It wasn’t even a particularly attractive place. The castle shows the history of the place; once the haunt of ‘the order of Christ’; a follow up to ‘the Knights Templar’, it was handy to spy on what was then Moor territory across the river in Spain. Now, it’s just a fairly insignificant small town.

Castro Marim from the Spanish side of the river.

Busy Busy! – The overflow carpark beneath the castle at Castro Marim

Now we’re down here, we plan to slow down and not move much. Hopefully we can save some money for future adventures? Food is certainly cheap, though perhaps not so cheap as Spain, and if we can park for free, we haven’t many expenses.

We find a much more attractive spot at Praia Cabeco, a beach carpark just west of Monte Gordo, where we stay for a couple of weeks. It’s quiet and dark at night. There’s still loads of us here though; 20 – 30 on average. It’s a LOT different to last year in Greece when we hardly saw that many all winter. Locals come by regularly selling oranges – which are delicious and huge strawberries – watery and less appealing.  We buy large bags of oranges for a couple of euros each and make juice. Praia Cabeco is in the middle of miles and miles of sandy beach. When the tide’s out it makes a good walking surface and we try to get into a routine of long walks. Neither of us are feeling very fit these days. The coast is pretty flat around here too, so we can easily cycle into town for shopping or just for a bit of exercise. Places seem less built up here than further west, which we like, and the area seems to be particularly favoured by the Dutch. We enjoy the novelty of Dutch cafes serving ‘apel gebak’ / Dutch apple cake (Peter grew up, and we met, in Holland). It’s ‘tourist land’ really and it often seems that we must outnumber the locals. I suppose before the mass tourism down here there really wasn’t much of a local population, just small fishing and farming communities. Monte Gordo bay is famous for shellfish, particularly clams. We try them on our regular Saturday lunch out. Not impressed really – and they’re expensive. It is interesting watching them being fished / collected though. The traditional method involves using a sort of rake with a long handle and a wire basket, followed by a net attached. The long handle is vigorously shaken from side to side as the fisherman walks backwards in knee deep water, dragging the apparatus just under the surface of the sand. They stop every so often to sort out the catch. An hour or two of what looks like bloody hard work will produce a bucket full. Still judging by the measly portion we were served, it’s probably lucrative enough if sold to a local restaurant.

Having got used to the Spanish and the Greek custom of shared plates of food (ordering one main course and one salad is usually plenty for 2 and whatever you order is usually put in the centre of the table and each person is then given a separate, small, empty plate), we quickly find this doesn’t seem to happen here. Like in most of northern Europe, each person chooses a separate meal. Whilst food out is certainly not expensive, this certainly doesn’t make it quite such a bargain as Spain. Eating times are what us northern Europeans call more normal here too. Lunch, and lunchtime closing at most shops is from 1 till 3. A bit longer perhaps than further North, but a far cry from the Spanish who often don’t start lunch till 2 or 3 and then sometimes go on till 5 or 6 (with correspondingly late evening meal times). Then again, perhaps we’ll find it different outside of ‘tourist land’ if we ever make it?

Free parking at Praia de Cabeco

..and a few yards away 🙂

fishing for clams and cockles

fishing boats on the beach at Monte Gordo

Sandling – run run run

oh what fun to be a Sandling playing chicken with the surf all the day long. hehe

We venture along the coast a bit, stopping at Fabrica and then Tavira. Tavira was once a hub for the area, having the dubious honour of establishing itself as a major slave trading centre. Tavira appeals because of ‘actual locals’ to compliment the tourists, but lacks anywhere attractive for us to park. We move on to Santa Luzia and walk across the floating bridge out to the Isla Tavira (One of the many sandy islands just off the coast here). The beach on the outer side is white sand backed by dunes for as far as you can see in both directions; a lovely spot if the weather was a tad warmer. This spot was once the home of a large tuna fishing fleet. The lines of houses and store rooms have been restored, but the most striking feature is the ‘Anchor Graveyard’ left by the fisherman as a memorial to their life here. There’s a museum too but it’s unfortunately closed out of season.

Tavira

impressive bit of tiling – common on a lot of the older buildings.

looking out across the lagoons from Cacela Velha.

floating bridge out to Isla de Tavira

restored fisherman’s houses

a Hoopoe; one of the few island residents left. “Hoopoo poo, Hoopoo poo”

We explore inland, heading towards Cachapo. It’s amazingly quiet on the roads as soon as we leave the coast. Turning off to Casas Baixas, we’re in another world; traditional buildings, subsistence living, a few crops, the odd chicken or goat. We stop for lunch, the door open letting in the sunshine, and are wished a cheery ‘Bom Dia’ with a wave from a toothless old woman in wellies carrying a bucket with today’s harvest. They’re trying to promote the area; the ‘Serra do Caldeirao’, as a walking area following the many winding tracks that , until recently, were the only way to get about in these parts. We try out one of the surprisingly well signed routes, before spending the night in a nearby layby. It’s silent and starry at night. The only sound is a trickling stream. We like.

heading for the hills..

a network of old roads – ideal walking country

one of many small villages – unfortunately largely uninhabited these days

Cork Oaks stripped of their bark. They do it once every 7-9 years with no harm to the tree. Unfortunately it’s a dying industry what with plastic ‘corks’ and scew tops.

The almond blossom is just beginning

Unfortunately we wake up in a damp cloud with next to no visibility. We’re quite high in the hills. The forecast isn’t great either, so it’s back down to the coast and back to our favoured spot at Playa Cabeco for a bit. We have a few sunny and quite warm (22-23c) days towards the end of January and we even manage our first swim in the sea on the 1^st of Feb. It was cold! but we quickly warmed up in the sun afterwards. Soon we head west again towards Praia da Rocha ready to meet up with Peter’s Dad when he comes out for a holiday in one of the hotels there.

We stop at Tavira again and whilst having a brief wander round the town, we’re hijacked by an enthusiastic promotor who wants us to come and listen to some Fado; the traditional Portugese female singer backed by a pair of male guitarists. Well why not? We’re ushered into a tiny, dark theatre. There is only one other couple there and no more come, not exactly giving the right ambiance. It’s only a short performance of a few songs which we decide is a bit of an acquired taste. The guitarists are excellent, one on a traditional Portuguese instrument a bit like a very large lute with 12 strings and the first piece is just the guitarists. We decide later we could have done without the singer. The songs are all deep and passionate. Fado, we are told, “is sung with the heart first and the voice second”. One of the guitarists does his best to explain, in English, the meaning and the stories behind each piece, but the effect is somewhat lost when you can’t understand the words. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to hear some more in a better atmosphere. It’s more normal to hear it in a busy bar or restaurant.

Traditional ‘Fado’

about sums it up!

To continue our cultural experience, we go looking for some Carnival activities. There’s plenty of posters around advertising various events, but they never seem to be where we are. We pass through Loule, the biggest town in the Algarve, where they’re obviously setting up for something major in a few days time and assume, wrongly, that there’ll be plenty of goings on in other places too. We visit Silves for a couple of days with its impressive Moorish castle walls above the town. We hear music and horns and rush off to see a mini procession. A good effort by the local school, but we were hoping for something a little more. On the Feb 8^th we’re at Sao Bartolomeu de Messines. There’s definitely something happening here tonight, so we stay at yet another huge ‘aire’ packed with hundreds of vans. It seems this is normal around here. It’s hard to get used to. By 9pm the music is blaring out and we heard into town to see what all the fuss is about. Actually they’re cheating a bit; they’re obviously playing ‘excited large crowd’ sounds over the speakers along with the music, helping to big up what is only a relatively small place. Eventually there’s a chain of floats processing by. There’s various food stalls and people are trying hard to party. For a small place they’ve done well but by the 6^th pass of the same float we reckon we’ve seen it! It did seem that more of the town were taking part in the procession than lining the street watching. There seemed a particularly poor showing from us ‘vanners.

Exploring the old town of Silves

Inside a traditionaal cafe – serving cakes made surprisingly, from sweet potato – and very good they were too.

Carnival..

how cute are they?!

hehe

random alien waiting for the bus!

The huge, free ‘aire’ at Sao Bartolomeu de Messinnnes. There’s a lot of us about!

Some of the simplest ideas are often the best

impressive! – I wonder if this comes out every year?

Sampling the street food

Super ‘Chouros’ with chocolate filling

We spend a couple of weeks at the huge Praia da Rocha aire. Unusually for us we decide it’s worth the €3 per night for the convenience of being walking distance to Dad’s hotel. There are literally hundreds of vans here, many staying for the whole winter. We choose the back field for a bit more space around us, with grass and some wild flowers. Surprisingly the most popular choice is packed in tightly in the tarmac carpark. It’s nice to have some fixed neighbours and a bit more of a community feel. There’s certainly some interesting rigs here including coach sized American RVs with slide-outs, ridiculously long (8m+) European style vans with twin rear axles often pulling trailers with cars on, and the odd off-road truck. Heidi is definitely one of the smallest.

many 100s of us at the Praia de Rocha aire

some impressive rigs here – but there can’t be that many places to park them!

sometimes the average small tow car just won’t do. Yes, the Porche goes in the trailer!

We have a good week with my Dad, venturing out on trips most days trying not to let the, still very variable, weather bother us too much. We do several walks. We follow a route round some of the old irrigation channels (levadas?) at the confluence of the two rivers leading down to Portamao. The channels are dry and not in the best of shape. We suspect the watering is done by pump from plastic pipe these days – or perhaps they’re simply not needed today in the rain! We also explore some of the dramatic coastline that this region is famous for – both from the beaches, and the cliff tops. And we drive up to Monchique, and Foia; the highest peak in the region. We had hoped to have a second helping of Fado at the hotel one night too, but a suspect ‘thud thud thud’ from Heidi’s nether regions had Dad going home in a taxi (all part of the exciting experience you know) and us having an unplanned altercation with the Portuguese equivalent of the AA. As it turned out, it was only a damaged tyre (can’t believe I didn’t spot it myself!) and easily sorted for a whole lot cheaper than in the UK. They even had them in stock: the advantage of being in an area packed out with similar motorhomes! Hope you enjoyed your holiday Dad?

Walking the ‘levadas’ with Dad

beach front at Praia da Rocha

At the end of the beach there’s a tunnel…

…and through the tunnel is….

This…

and this!

and this!

Caves, and blowholes too

It was useful to be able to leave our chairs out and the bikes behind, marking our spot, when we went out, but after 2 weeks we’re still struggling to see what the long-term attraction is. There’s a beautiful beach and coastline, but then it extends all along here. The main town of Portamao has everything but is nothing special and the beach resort of Praia da Rocha is still predominantly empty and closed at this time of year.

We keep asking ourselves just what it is that makes the Algarve so popular and so busy. We decide that people must be attracted here because it’s easy. There are motorhome service places everywhere, even if the adjacent parking areas are often full. We decide, we still prefer ‘wild camping’ to the official places. Parking bumper to bumper or with no more than a van’s width between you and the next one, especially on what is just an unattractive carpark, really doesn’t do it for us even if the services are convenient and the shops close. We find we can live off-grid’ perfectly well for a week or more and we’d so much rather have a bit of space and more of the natural world around us. That said, even the out of the way places provide us with plenty of ‘neighbours’ in this part of the world.

Portamao used to be the centre of the sardine fishing industry here and there’s a good museum based in the original factory documenting it all; from the boats coming in, the catch being unloaded into baskets on an overhead rail system and going straight into the factory, the cleaning, steam cooking and packing in tins of olive oil. They also made the tins with labelling stamped directly onto the sheet metal before being cut out, assembled, and eventually sealed and packed by a series of ingenious machines. They were then exported the world over. People’s whole, long days were organised around the factory which provided crèche facilities for babies ensuring the mothers never strayed far from the production line. It was not to last. The sardines were vastly over-fished and have never really recovered. Unfortunately the labelling in the museum is in Portuguese only, but there’s a good film explaining everything with English subtitles. Well worth the visit.

As ever, we enjoy seeking out the local markets. Even small places seem to have their ‘Mercado Municipal’ often in quite a grand covered building. There’s usually lots of fish and vegetables at good prices. Local honeys and various fig and almond creations. In Tavira we find an excellent spice stall with its mounds of bright colours. We buy smoked sweet paprika and turmeric; both good in a Paella (one of Peters favourite dishes). It is so much more intense than the stuff we’re used to in a tiny jars. We can only buy a minimum of 100g in a very thin plastic bag with the wonderful smells coming through. Now we need to find some suitable containers to store it in. We meet ‘the spice lady’ at the Loule market too. She turns out to be English, living locally. She grows chillies in her garden and sells them and other local products as well as imported spices that she’s sourced from her own travels. She’d spent time in India and tells us that it was the Portuguese that originally imported the chili to India, having brought it back with them from their exploits in South America. The Goa area was a Portuguese colony. We’d wondered at the large amount of Indian restaurants here, assuming initially that it was just a response to the wants of tourists. We discover that when the Portuguese handed Goa back to India, the locals were given the option of Portuguese citizenship, and many then emigrated here.

Busy Mercado Municipal

Always plenty of fish – wish I knew a bit more about what’s what and how to cook it!

the colours and smells from the spices are always a draw

…and in case you think we spend all our time lazing about and living the good life? I’ve been trying hard this winter to give Heidi a little TLC. She’s beginning to show her age and the fact that we are living in her full time. The plastic round the windows, doors and skylights had recently gone very yellow and much of that has now been painted. I’ve even had a go at some of the exterior plastic bits that are deteriorating in the sun. I’ve also made a start at varnishing the cupboards to give them more ‘life’ protection – it’s a long job but it’s getting there. Then, of course, there’s the boiler drip to look into …but for now, sitting out in the sun with a book is calling. One must get one’s priorities right!…

Voyage to Venice (and beyond!)

(hover over the pictures to see captions, or click on the first one of each set to scan through them in full size)

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On the morning of the 9th of May, at 0530! We’re waiting in the dark on an empty Igoumenutsa dockyard for the ferry to Venice..

Soon a couple more hopefuls turn up and by 0630 the ferry is here. It starts it’s journey at Patra (North West Peloponnese), where it seems, the majority of people get on. With a bit of manoeuvering, we’re in our spot on the ‘open deck’, and plugged in to free onboard electrics. Glad I’m not driving the artic’s that will have to reverse back down the ramp, with mm to spare, when we disembark! The weather’s fine and it’s a smooth crossing. We find we can sit in a patch of sun on the car deck and stay out of the wind and away from the smell of diesel and fried food on the upper decks. It’s certainly a very effortless way to cover around 500 miles (and the overland distance is a whole lot more). Every now and then we check our position via a mapping app. on my phone – the captain seems to know where he’s going J

are you sure this is the right spot?

Goodbye Greece

An easy 500 mile ‘drive’

It’s a beautiful calm and sunny morning as we arrive in Venice. They’ve recently changed the route in and unfortunately we no longer go anywhere near the old city. It’s just visible in the distance beyond the miles of fish traps and lagoons.

the pilot arrives

Venice lagoons at sunrise

NOT such an attractive route into the New docks

As we leave the ferry terminal, we immediately notice how busy everything seems …and organised – there’s road markings: bus lanes, bike lanes, and signs and parking meters. We’re definitely not in Greece anymore! We head out onto one of the thin strips of land that form the final barrier to the sea here and manage to find some free parking (there’s very little of it!) at Punto Sabioni. It’s all madly busy compared to what we’ve got used to. There are loads of huge campsites and bungalow parks here, and importantly a ‘vaporetto’ stop (the water busses that take you to the various islands of Venice). Having shelled out a fortune on tickets for the next 3 days (2 x 40eu + 3eu for a map), we find a spot by the river/canal and read and watch the many! boats go by for the afternoon.

We spend the next few days exploring Venice and the surrounding islands. It’s an amazing place and unfortunately, SO busy. luckily you can see a lot from the vaporetto, and we make good use of our ‘go anywhere’ tickets. It’s also VERY expensive – we payed 24eu each for a multi museum pass. They last for 6 months, so would be reasonable value if you could make use of them for that time – but then you’d need to keep shelling out for the water busses. We visited the famous Doge’s Palace, the Correr Museum and Mocenigo’s Palace – All housing hugely impressive paintings, sculptures and other works of art; the importance and significance of which, being mostly lost on us. The majority of the paintings are allegorical and unless you understand ‘what’s going on’, they all become a bit ‘samey’. You really need to be a bit of an expert. We’d been warned not to buy anything to eat or drink in, or near, St, Mark’s square, but were still charged 9 euro! for 2 coffees in an apparently insignificant spot – argh!

Approaching St.Marks square on the water bus.

Everything! comes and goes by water here. An unusual UPS delivery truck!

Inner courtyard of the Doges (Duke’s) Palace.

St. Marks bell tower

Queues to get into the Cathedral – argh!

Very elaborate ceilings and endless impressive paintings in the many rooms of the Doge’s Palace

They’re all alogorical. This is ‘Venice’ on the right, taming and plundering the seas, represented by Neptune on the left. (And that’s an easy one!)

Travelling up the Grand Canal on the ‘vaporetto’

Godolla traffic jam

Never seen a ‘4’ rowed like this before!

the famous Rialto Bridge joining the 2 halves of central Venice

More ‘Grand Canal’

Surprisingly modern looking 18thC glass chandeliers in Moncenigo’s Palace

A huge variety of stunningly painted ceilings – don’t fancy the decorator’s job here!

The ‘Bridge of Sighs’ – but is that from the prisoners as they glimpse their last bit of light as they pass over it from the Doge’s Palace to the jail on the other side …or is that from the lovers passing under it in a Gondala? We will never know.

We enjoyed wandering the tiny back streets. We discovered the market (the fish section was particularly impressive) and we even managed pizza and wine in a quiet square without completely breaking the bank.

We popped into several of the old churches and joined the other queuing hordes for St. Mark’s Cathedral. The ceilings in St. Marks are all done in tiny mosaics with a propensity of gold, but although they are probably more unique, after the highly painted Orthodox churches of Greece and Eastern Europe, we found it rather disappointing after all the hype.

Venetian traffic jam

Pizza for lunch in one of the quieter squares

It’s single file for a lot of the Venice backstreets

all seems a bit grey and drab after the Greek churches

colourful market

excellent fish selection!

don’t fancy catching him!

deliveries in Venice are not easy!

above the doorway into St. Marks Cathedral

Gold mosaics inside the Cathedral

I was more impressed with the fancy flooring in a variety of 3D effects..

A day on the island of Burano, with it’s brightly painted houses was a nice change from the hubbub of the main city. We had lunch out here too – being surrounded by lagoons full of fish; fish and shell-fish are specialities. Here we also discovered a restored walled garden, planted with flowers and vegetables and vines, as it would have been when these islanders were self-sufficent. I’m surprised they didn’t struggle for fresh water in the middle of a salt-water lagoon.

Colourful Burano

We spent a few, rather more relaxing, days based near Punto Sabioni, finding some free, allocated motorhome parking (surprisingly along the road outside a campsite) and later a beach carpark with no parking restrictions. The area is completely flat with many marked cycling routes and we explored more on the bikes in the warm wind. It reminds us a lot of Holland, with fields divided by canals and quite a bit of ‘reclaimed’ land; below sea level. It was quiet and peaceful as we headed out along dykes into ‘lagoon land’; home to lots of wading birds.

Free, allocated parking – a rarity in these parts.

out into ‘lagoon land’

ideal for cycling with several marked routes..

Holland? surely!

On Saturday 16th of May, we head off towards Lago di Garda (Lake Garda). It’s very busy on the roads and we pass seemingly endless industry and huge shops, interspersed with some agriculture. Roundabout follows roundabout on badly surfaced roads (we’re avoiding the motorway tolls). Traffic flow seems fast; it’s a rough ride for Heidi. We comment on the neatly clipped verges, trees cut back from the road and relatively fresh road markings. Again; it’s not Greece! We stop for water and a loo empty at Soave, home of the wine, at an official ‘sosta’ (like the French ‘aires’), before continuing to another one right on Lake Garda. There are free motorhome services here too, but they’re charging 15euro! to park for 24hrs and it’s packed. So is everywhere here. The many campsites seem full too. We stay at Garda for a couple of days, discovering a small free carpark 10 mins walk from the lake front on our second night. It’s a lovely spot, and we enjoy swimming in the lake and wandering along the lakeside path between Garda and Bardolino, bringing back memories of 15 years ago when we spent holidays here in a tent, two summers in a row. We decide it’s got overly popular and too busy for our liking now though, and escape to the other (West) side, which is less busy at the moment, before continuing to Lake Iseo to the West.

Peaceful Lake Garda if you’re up early..

…

The Carpark tells a different story!

Cafe / Restaurant lined streets at Bardolino

and busy tourist shops at Garda town

Classic car rally at Garda

Lunch overlooking the lake – well, if you insist 🙂

We continue to be shocked at how built up and busy everywhere is in these parts, and there seem few attractive places for us to stop. There are a lot of tunnels through the mountains, and the sat-nav struggles to determine whether we are above or below ground, more than once asking us to turn off at a roundabout somewhere far above us. The smaller roads really are tiny too, and although they have ‘no lorries’ signs, there are, unhelpfully, no size or weight restrictions. This normally means it’s fine for us, but not around here! With little information, we choose a small car park by a bridge over a river, at Sarezzo, which turns out to be in an industrial estate, for lunch, followed by a lakeside carpark on a point sticking out into the lake at a place called ‘Castro’ at the North end of Lake Iseo; you’d guess an attractive spot with surely a castle, wouldn’t you? No, it’s dominated by heavy industry with no sign of a castle. At 9pm they were still crashing and banging (steel on rock or vice versa, it sounded like). Surely they don’t do it all night, there are a lot of (ugly) flats very close too. We moved to the other side of town and had a relatively quiet night in the harbour / marina carpark, before heading North, up the valley, towards the high Alps.

looking down Lake Iseo from the unattractive industrial town that has no right being called ‘Kastro’

the road round the NE of the lake – too low and narrow for a Heidi – I bet the Greeks wouldn’t have bothered with height and width restrictions!

that’s snow up there …and our intended road goes a lot higher!

The weather deteriorates now – that’s the trouble with mountains – and we have heavy rain and there’s a fresh sprinkling of snow at any height. It all comes as a bit of a shock, having got used to the heat. We dig out trousers and socks! and fleeces, and even resort to heating! This was not the plan! We consider the pass above Tirano as our route into Switzerland, but change our mind as the grey clouds descend. Instead, we head West again, towards the top of Lake Como, half way down it’s west side to Menaggio, and West again, on the SS340 to Porlezza at the top of Largo di Lugano. Como looked attractive, but was madly busy on the only road around it’s edge and we saw nowhere for us to pull off and stop, other than directly into a campsite. Porlezza was thankfully quieter, with several car parks and even one without time restrictions – a rarity in these parts! It’s an attractive place with some parkland alongside the lake. We could have easily lingered.

Porlezza – looking down the lake towards the Swiss border

In the morning, we drive a short distance along the lake shore and out of Europe. Switzerland is independent and there is even a manned border post, but they show little interest in us and wave us through. We come to Lugano and stop at a cash point for Swiss Francs. No Euros here. We get 100 of them for about £70. Lugano is packed and busy with lots of blocks of flats, mostly 6 or 7 stories high, but some much higher. It seems here, as with Northern Italy, any remotely flat bit of land is built on. We quickly join the A2 motorway, heading North and over the high mountains. We’re supposed to have a motorway ‘vignette’ (we think?), but have seen no signs to confirm this or any obvious means of obtaining one. We were thinking of driving the San Gottardo Pass, but signs say it’s closed, so the motorway tunnel is the only way to go anyway. The pass is presumably closed due to recent snow – I thought we’d be all right at this time of year. When we emerge on the North side, it’s in to grey, misty cloud and it’s raining – glad we didn’t go over the top, even if it had been open!

We stay on the motorway until Lucerne, where we turn off, hoping to find somewhere to stop. We don’t. Everywhere is far too busy for our liking. It’s grey and damp and the forecast is much the same for the week ahead. We make the decision to keep going, and head for France, where we know there are hundreds of places that welcome campers to stop for free. (Not much use for the Swiss Francs!) Hopefully the weather will be better too, away from the high mountains? Having decided we’ve probably tempted fait too long with our motorway stint, we take a non-motorway route West, towards Basel. It continues to be a nightmarishly busy. We’re shocked, at how built up, highly populated and full of industry and big business Switzerland seems to be. The beautiful old buildings and bright green grass are still there, but it seems, these days, more often than not, they’re surrounded by square grey and white modern boxes. Obviously much of Switzerland is taken up with the high, fairly impenetrable, mountains, and from what we could see, the side roads were very small and steep – not for us (and we’ll give most things a go!). We’ll need to do some more research before we venture back. There must surely be some motorhome friendly places?
Just south of Basel, we turn off, and are quickly into France – instant quietness and ruralness. The Alsace region, covered in rolling fields, attractive farms and villages with colourfully painted, ancient timber frame buildings is very welcome after a couple of weeks of busyness in Northern Italy and Switzerland. We stop at a dedicated ‘aire’, behind the church in the quiet village of Oltingue. There’s a big car park here, complete with 3 large dedicated camper places, surrounded by neatly clipped flower beds. Full services are provided for us. You need to put 2eu in the meter for water, but parking is free. Happy chickens pecking about in the garden next door complete this rural idle. What a difference a border makes! Shame about the 24hr clock chimes, but compared to the, electrically amplified, Greek variety they’re much more bearable.

We stay in Oltingue for 3 nights. Everybody seems friendly, wishing us “Bonjour” and “Bon weekend”. We have a couple of bike rides, enjoying the green fields and woodlands and relative quietness. It all looks very neat and organised. It’s become a popular area for Storks, and we find a refuge for them close by, with ready made platforms for them to build their nests on. We watch the young being fed and ‘Daddy Stork’ flying off for more food.

For Sunday lunch in Oltingue, we venture to a local restaurant and choose ‘Tarte Flambe’. They’re like a pizza, but with crème fraiche, or similar, in place of the tomato sauce. In German they’re called ‘Flamkoeken’. We had one back in August, last year, when we were in Ulm, Germany (https://heidihymer.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/sourcing-the-s…-of-the-danube/) – another reminder that cultures and traditions are not necessarily divided by national borders. There are a lot of impressive old half-timbered properties around these parts – again very similar to their German counterparts that we saw in the Swartzwald (Black Forrest) area. It seems a wealthy area and we assume these places must be worth a fortune, but are surprised to find you can buy a huge place with acres of land and huge barns (ideal for parking a Heidi in?) for 150-200k. Interesting!

heading into France (Alsase)

Oltingue..

..complete with an almost perfect, free, parking spot for us.

Quiet roads and green fields surround us..

It’s a popular nesting spot for storks – a welcome sign of spring in these parts.

Tarte Flambe or Flamkoeken depending on where you think the French / German border should be – complete with local ‘stinky’ Munster cheese 🙂

We move on; stopping at Hirtzbach with it’s wealth of restored and brightly painted houses, before continuing to Mulhouse, where we park up out of town and head into the centre on the bikes. Mulhouse has an attractive centre square, lined with ancient buildings including the St. Etienne Cathedral and the beautifully restored and painted town hall. The town hall houses the extensive ‘Musee Historique’. Much of the info. is only in French or German, the majority of which is beyond us, so we’re pleased to find an English speaking ‘guardien’ who was keen to talk about the main hall (Salles du Fetes). This room has seen a lot of history! All the previous ‘Burgermeister’s’ shields (coats of arms) are here, going back to the 1300s! Mulhouse (for a time Mulhauzen) has variously been Swiss, German, French or an independent state. We realise we have no knowledge of where Switzerland fits in to the whole historical border thing? Something else to add to the research list! We enjoy a drink in the sunny square, before heading back to the van and continuing to the ‘Ecomusee’ (open air museum) at nearby Ungersheim.

colourful Hirtzbach, with it’s beautifully restored half timbered houses

Mulhouse central square

St. Etienne

well it needed a bit of brightening up – those ‘yarn bombers’ get everywhere!

Mulhouse chocolate shop?

NO, there CHEESES!

Impressively painted town hall – again very similar to other examples on the German side of the border

Painted ceilings inside..

Burgermeister’s Sheilds going back to the 1300’s

The Ecomusee (www.ecomusee-alsace.fr), costing us 14eu each, is one of the largest open air museums in Europe. It houses all kinds of Alsatian heritage stuff; loads of reconstructed and restored half-timbered houses, farms and businesses from the surrounding area. These buildings would have been originally designed and pieced together off site anyway, so lend themselves to being moved. There’s demonstrations of traditional skills; A forge, a pottery, a cartwright, various cooking using the traditional ovens, tours of the kitchen gardens and the surrounding sustainably managed farmland, a nature reserve etc. etc. …and storks nesting and wandering around everywhere! Unfortunately lot’s of the demonstrations were not actually happening and about half of the fancy recorded information points weren’t working (and these had the best English info.). It kept us busy and entertained for most of the day, but was overall a bit disappointing.

restored ancient buildings at the Ecomusee (dismantled and re-constructed)

The framework designs are the ‘signature’ of the architect / craftsman.

a common sight ‘for real’ as we entered Hungary

typical tiled wood burner / heater

traditional cooking demo

looks like he could pull ANYTHING

Elaine says he’s called George…

On the 29th of May, we drive on towards ‘Le Ballon D’Alsace’. ‘Le Grand Ballon’ is the highpoint around here at 1424m. Most of the area is densely forested with occasional open spaces and views for miles – as far as the Alps on clear days. It’s not that clear for us, but we can see the Rhine valley laid out before us, and to the beginnings of the hills of the Black Forrest in the distance. It seems a popular, busy area, criss-crossed with hundreds of marked walking routes. There’s numerous lakes and waterfalls too, and with careful choosing, we found quiet, dark overnight spots; enjoying the stars and the owls by night and loads of twittering birds by day. The weather is still very changeable. We have a good sunny day, out walking, but also lots of rain, encouraging us to keep moving.

views across the Rhine valley from ‘Le Ballon d’Allsace’

wild pansies, up high

observatory / communications a’top le Grand Ballon – surely it was called that before someone stuck a big ball on top??

Tarte aux Myrtilles! And cream 🙂

It’s all very green..

On the 1st of June, we wake up in a cloud! It’s damp and drizzly and we head out of the mountains and towards more rolling green hills in the Loraine region. The weather improves towards the end of the day as we drive along long straight roads lined with trees – very French! We end up at Lac Madine, the largest lake in the region, where we stay at an official ‘aire’ near Heudicourt-sous-les-Cotes. They’re charging 5eu a night, but that includes services. There’s even loos and showers available. There’s a campsite here too, and holiday chalets, and a conference centre etc. etc. You can walk/cycle round the lake (20km) or on a bigger circuit, which we did, around the surrounding villages (35km). On our ride, we visited the American war memorial, on the hill at Montsec – an exhausting climb, but with spectacular views of the surrounding country. This, of course, is what made it such a strategic and, fiercely fought over, location. It was controlled by the Germans for much of WW1, before being taken by an American organised offensive with huge loss of life. There are a lot of war memorials and various battlefield sites in this whole area (which has changed hands many times during both the world wars). We came across leaflets on ‘Battlefield Tourism’ – a somewhat strange concept.

long straight roads, lined with trees – how French!

better than your average ‘car park’ at Lac Madine

There’s lots of this in France

American war memorial at Montsec

relief map inside the memorial

commanding views of the surrounding countryside.

We spend another couple of days in this very green place – it’s dominated by fields of wheat and other crops, and acres of mixed deciduous forests – and it’s all covered in bright green new growth. It seems, thankfully now, a very quiet and peaceful region. We find an isolated small carpark on a quiet back road and spend a day walking the woodland paths, discovering the art of the ‘Vent des Forets’ project, which each year invites international artists to place works over the area – they’re connected via a 45km network of paths. We recover from what was rather a long walk by spending another day, mainly sitting, reading, and just enjoying the quiet ‘greenness’ and the birdsong. It’s hot (35C) and the sky is a clear, cloudless blue. No more than 4 or five cars pass in 24hrs. Another! good spot. At 8pm, we’re still sitting outside wearing very little. At 9 the sun descends below the horizon, and at 11 it’s still feeling warm with a pinky glow along the horizon. We watch the bats and listen to the foxes calling..

 

complete with HUGE picnic table

and paintings hanging on the ‘walls’

miles of forest paths

That’s art, that is

and this: “the flying carpet”

there’s several of these huge picnic tables dotted around

games on a BIG scale

it’s all very green!

a somewhat overgrown pathway

a perfect spot for evening drinks in our ‘garden’

Friday 5th of June. It’s going to be another hot hot day. Time to head north; if for no other reason than to create a bit of breeze! We wend our way through quiet green countryside; fields and fields of wheat and other crops; sleepy villages – huge barns with small houses attached. We visit an unusual modern church in the woods, and then the, disturbingly huge, American war cemetery at Romagne-sous-Montifaucon. In the afternoon, we try and find some respite from the heat at a shaded picnic area; but after a couple of hours of 36 degree heat with a wind that feels like a hair dryer, we decide to continue and drive on to Montherme, on a tight bend of the River Meuse. It’s an officially allocated motorhome spot and very popular; there must be 20 vans here. We join everybody else sitting on the grassy river bank and enjoy a drink as the heat finally relents and gives way to thunder and rain by the evening. We’re now in the Ardenne region. Steeply wooded slopes, lead down to the winding river. There’s signposted walking and bike routes in both directions – another place we’ll put on the ‘must come back to’ list.

endless fields of wheat

quiet villages

The unusual modern church at the Hermitage de St. Rouin near Beauileu-en-Argonne

Matise inspired, stain glass windows

American war cemetary at ‘Romagne-sous-Montifaucon. One of a great many in this area – well illustrating the huge loss of life.

A very popular spot at Montherme, on the banks of the River Meuse

In the morning, we’re quickly through the Ardennes cross-country skiing areas and into the much flatter lands further north. We blink, and the signs have changed from French to Dutch (or Flemish?). We skirt the southern edge of Bruxelles before heading West across completely flat land, dotted with Friesian cows and farmhouses with red tiled roofs. We’re travelling fast on the now free, and very busy, motorways. In no time, we reach the coast and head South again to find the place we’d visited before at Zuydcote, near Dunkirk. It’s just over 11 months since we were here last (https://heidihymer.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/destintation-dunkerque/)   and there’s been a few miles (aprox.  8510m / 13700km) under our wheels since then. How many of you, reading this, have done more than that driving backwards and forwards to work, I wonder?

Time to relax for a few days. We do some washing, buy a ticket back to the UK, and consider our next move….

endless sandy beach, backed by dunes at Zuydcoote

Beach Bums

On the 20th of April we headed back West, along the North coast of the Peloponnese towards Patra and took the ferry from Rio to the mainland (it cost us 11eu, about half the price of the bridge?). Our journey takes on a new feeling, as we realise we have less than a month left of our time in Greece: schedules – we hate schedules!

We spend a pleasant few weeks, slowly heading up the West coast towards Igoumenitsa (where we’ll catch a ferry to Venice, Italy). The weather has suddenly improved, and we ‘lap up the rays’. We feel we’ve been rather deprived for too long now!

We head for Mesologi and out across the causeway to what isn’t much more than a sandbank beyond the lagoon. It’s a strange sort of place. We’re effectively a couple of miles out to sea here – it can get a bit windy! It’s difficult to know how much of it is natural and how much manmade. The whole area is part of the Evinos River delta and has been variously partitioned off for fish farming, salt production and more recently wild life reserves. It’s flat of course, enticing us to get out on the bikes. Cycling out into ‘the middle of nowhere’ on the thin strips of land dividing one bit of water from another reminds us of the Dutch dykes. It’s very quiet and peaceful. We spot Flamingos, Pelicans, Stilts, White herons and other wading birds. Unfortunately much of the track we follow around the main (‘Kilsova’) lagoon is bone-shakingly rough loose stone. We veer of onto the dry mud-flats for a bit – a weird desert-like landscape, but much easier cycling. We discover the remains of fishing shacks out nearest the ‘actual’ sea. Most are now holiday places and still deserted at this time of year. Some, unfortunately, have ‘guard’ dogs and, not for the first time in Greece!, we’re chased by ferocious specimens, scaring Elaine to death. Just what is it in the Greek mentality that makes people think it’s reasonable to have ferocious dogs running free?!!

Nb. You can see these photos full size by clicking on the first one, then scanning through. (close using the small white x at top left)

We liked the town too. It’s a bustling place with several pedestrianised shopping streets and a main square surrounded by cafes. There’s plenty of parking all around the perimeter if you wanted to be a bit closer, or the wind out on the point got a bit much. There’s a big marina there too. There’s a market, which we unfortunately just missed, on a Tuesday morning, and you can buy fresh fish daily on the quay. We could have easily spent more time there.

As we head North, we stop briefly at Astokos, then spend a couple of nights on the beach just beyond Paleros, before continuing to the island of Lefkada or Lefkas, as it is usually known in English. You can drive to Lefkas via a bridge (which is actually a boat) which moves to let the numerous yachts through the canal into the marina. The Marina is huge and is the main base for several yacht charter companies in this area.

Endless beach at Paleros. Still very quiet and peaceful at this time of year.

Oh good! we can have ‘greasy foods’ here. One of many amusing translations – we always wonder why they don’t check with someone English before painting a sign. It’s not as if we’re hard to find!

Ok, if you insist 🙂 maybe it is lunchtime.

We spend a week exploring Lefkas and it’s stunning West coast beaches. The water is an almost unreal turquoise and sooo clear. Swim, swim swim! Unfortunately a lot of the roads down to the coast are far from Heidi friendly. We twice randomly follow signs to ‘beach/taverna’ only to find ourselves on very steep, very narrow roads with very tight hairpins. There were the potholes, overhanging trees and a complete lack of passing places – they’re single track of course! One turned into a rough dirt track, and we chickened out on another as it proceeded to get steeper and steeper down what was almost a cliff face. We could see miles of sandy beach and turquoise water a long way below – shame. We drove a circuit of the island. We visited Nikiana, Poros Beach and then Syvota, on the South East, where we had joined a Sailing Holiday’s yacht flotilla in 2008 for our first foray into yachting – seems a long time ago now. It’s an attractive and sheltered sailing area and we’re surprised to find the place only just beginning to open for the season, with no sign of Sailing Holidays yet.

Clear Clear water! You can see the bottom many metres below whilst swimming 🙂

Kalamitsi Beach, Lefkada

the afternoon’s ‘entertainment’ (shame about the noisy engines!)

‘Home’ 😀

Pink blossom everywhere as you head inland.

High above Lefkada town.

Perfectly placed for a swim at Poros Beach

The salad will definitely be fresh here!

Syvota

One of many enticing roads that turned into an impossibly steep dirt track – but with views like this, you’ve got to try!

Whilst on Lefkas, we witness the start of the season and the change is dramatic. Initially the beaches are all but deserted, but on the 1st of May, that all began to change; the sun-loungers and umbrellas suddenly appeared, wooden walkways down on to the beach were installed, signs were put up and beach clubs began to open, not to mention the increased hire car traffic on the roads. The heat suddenly moved up a notch too, with daytime temperatures of 25 – 30 degrees C. On the 3rd of May we woke up in the carpark above the famed Porto Katsiki beach to discover they were weeding and clearing loose stone away and had put up a sign saying ‘Municipal Parking 3euro’ – and the guy wasted no time in coming to ask for his fee! We then returned to Kalamitsi Beach, where we had previously spent several quiet days and nights, only to find it positively busy. It was quite a shock, and we can only assume that this is the weekend that the local airport at Prevesa opens and starts bringing in the first of the package holiday people. Luckily it was still quiet at night, but I can’t see that being the case as the season progresses.

Porto Katsiki beach

look, there’s Heidi on top of the cliff.

quick quick, the tourists are coming..

ta da!

After Lekfas, we head inland to Vonitsa. It’s hardly inland, and still has a beach overlooking what is actually still the sea, though it’s more like a lake, reached by the narrow entrance at Prevesa. We wander into town, realising we’re just too late for the market (Monday morning). We seem to be good at missing markets – must spend more time in one place in the future. We liked Vonitsa; another ‘real’ place where locals live year round, with all the shops and services you’d expect. It’s also got an attractive front, lined with cafes and tavernas and the sizable remains of a Venetian castle, which we didn’t get round to visiting. We parked just outside town, right on the beach, overlooking Koukoumitsa island. You can walk to, and around, Koukoumitsa via a causeway; a nice stroll under the shade of the pine trees. It’s very popular with the locals for a ‘volta’ (the equivalent of the Spanish ‘paseo’), early morning or late afternoon / evening. The water’s warmer here than on the real coast too as it’s very shallow, but the hundreds of tiny sea urchins lining the shore are less than welcome – ouch! There are welcome, warm thermal breezes in the afternoon and at night the town, the castle and the causeway / bridge is all lit up. We sit out till late enjoying the ‘twinkly’ lights and see fire-flies in the darkness behind us. Vonitsa is also the home of a naughty dog with a taste for collecting shoes. Don’t leave your shoes outside unguarded! – one of Elaine’s had to be retrieved from the other end of the beach, and I caught him trying to make off with mine! I later discovered a line of 3 mismatched shoes by a nearby tree, with the grass all flattened down around it – the ‘shoe thief’s lair’ hehe.

On the beach at Vonitsa, overlooking Koukoumitsa Island

 

We move on; stopping at the many miles of sandy beach to the North West of Prevesa, and then at Ammoudia for our last couple of days in Greece. Ammoudia is a popular spot, and there are several other campers here. Apparently it gets very busy later in the season. It was once a real place, but now only a few families live here over the winter. There are lots of hotels and apartments, but they’re still mainly closed up. We enjoy our last Greek taverna lunch overlooking the river and the fishing-boats in one of the few places that is open, and later a last Greek swim, before heading for Igoumenitsa and the ferry.

Miles and miles of beach near Prevesa

‘Ammoudia’. Our Dutch neighbour Elsa has been coming here for 19! years.

fishing boats line the quay. They’re struggling though, what with business taxes and expensive licences for even the smallest of boats..

shady woodlands just behind the beach

quiet backstreets

It’s getting Hot! now (that we’re leaving). It’s not often we’ve needed the sun shade!

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As we prepare to leave Greece, we try to collect our thoughts and impressions of the country. The good and the bad. We realise that in the just over 7 months that we’ve been here, we’ve barely scratched the surface. Winter is probably not the best time to spend time in Greece. Many of the coastal places are closed up and feel dead and much inland is high, mountainous and covered in snow and ice. We’ve had snow and sub-zero temperatures at sea level! We’ve seen surprisingly (or perhaps it’s not?) few campers, and when we have, it was often those we’d seen previously. We stayed on campsites a couple of times and walked through, or past, others. They were all very quiet, with only a handful of winter residents. We decided they didn’t suit us, making us feel more isolated from the world outside the gates. Other than a washing machine and perhaps free wifi, we have little need of campsite facilities anyway. We should have spent more time in some of the bigger towns, where everybody is in winter, but finding somewhere suitable to park for a long time can be difficult. We’re not really ‘town people’ either, generally finding them noisy and busy – maybe we’ll have to learn?…

Some final thoughts and memories –

We’ve enjoyed:

• Dramatic scenery – especially the clear, turquoise waters (and the swimming – even if it was COLD!)
• Numerous ancient sites (and the histories that go with them)
• Food (Spinakopita, Gyros pita, Backlava, Squid, the Honey)
• Spring flowers and the blossom.
• Festivals (Epithany, Carnival, Easter..)
• Trying to get to know ‘normal’ life here. We liked the markets, when we found them; something that seems all too lacking in the UK.

We’ve been surprised by:

• Goats on beaches 🙂 – and in the road.
• Crazy parking – the Greeks just stop anywhere to shop or chat; corners, zebra crossings, on roundabouts, across junctions – and of course double parking is common. They even have a special sign to tell you not to – it has no effect of course. And stopping on the single track road to go into a shop is normal too – you weren’t in a hurry to get by were you?
• Fishing with hand throwing lines (a sort of tapered ring) that we’ve not seen before. Surprisingly effective. I bought one and just about mastered the throwing technique – but still didn’t catch anything. Fishing is done by all ages and sexes too – the elder women were just as likely to be doing it – Octopus a common target.
• Monasteries in CRAZY places – it is simply unbelievable where they’ve managed to build them. And there are a lot!
• ‘Development’. We found a lot of abandoned hotels and apartment complexes. Some we discovered were built illegally, some have suffered from shoddy construction and have been condemned, but some, we suspect, are just the ‘wrong sort of thing’ these days. In a world that is increasingly made up of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, individual villas seem to be the holiday accommodation of choice and the studios and apartments are loosing out. The rich want, and can afford, a large private villa and the poor can’t afford anything anymore. It’s shocking to realise that most of the development has happenned over only 40ish years. Greece was a very different place until comparitively recently!
• Building rubble, and other rubbish, tips EVERYWHERE. Every single reasonably accessible place where you can pull off the road, or down a side lane, has become the local dump. I know it’s traditional with disposal services lacking – to tip it down the side of the mountain – but surely people can agree on fewer, bigger sites?
• How quiet and empty many of the coastal and rural places are – and it’s not just the purpose made holiday places; a lot of these places once had thriving communities that are now city based, only returning to run a family taverna or hotel for the summer tourists. This is probably increasingly common everywhere, but it seems more true in Greece. It looks as if it won’t be long until the last elderly generation is gone and there will be no one outside of the main towns.
• Mad roads. I don’t think we ever saw a width or weight restriction sign anywhere – but they are certainly needed! Perhaps one saying “this apparently wide, well surfaced, road may at any moment turn into a narrow dirt track with low, overhanging trees – oh and there will be nowhere to turn around or pass anyone coming the other way”. But where would the adventure be if they told you?!

We’ve not enjoyed:

• The dogs! This has got to be our biggest grievance. The truly wild ones are usually fine, if unnerving; often following us on walks and sitting by the van hoping to be fed. The ‘guard’ dogs are something else. Left on there own for much of the time and only fed occasionally from what we could see; they go mad when they see someone, especially strangers. We’ve lost count of the times we’ve been chased by ferocious dogs, barking furiously, when we’re out walking, but especially on the bikes. The owners, if they’re around, are usually completely unable to call them off. We will be investing in ‘dog dazers’ and mace spray for a future trip! The Greeks seem to like to ‘walk’ their dogs by taking them somewhere in the car, chucking them out and then driving off, encouraging them to run after them – ah, so that’s where they learn to chase cars! Then there’s the all night barking!
• The weather. It’s been cold, wet and grey for a lot longer than we’d hoped! This winter has been significantly worse than some we’ve been told.

are you sure this is where the boat leaves from?!!

Dhimitsana to Dhiakopto…

 

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as usual, click on the sets of photos to see them full size with the captions ( close each time with the small ‘ x ‘ top left )

you can see where we’ve been on a Google map here:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zXuk6hsK3x58.kgLHbd5kDnQc

Zoom and pan around. Click on the pushpins for more info, photos, and a link to the relevant blog. (note there’s no link on the most recent points – the blog isn’t written yet!)

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We stay at Analipsi Beach, West of Kalamata, for couple of days. Its quiet and warm. We like! Then we head up into the mountains. We pass through Megalopoli (“Very Big” – the Greeks are full of imaginative town names!) It’s busy and the cafes are full. We stop briefly at Karitena, a hilltop village with a ruined castle and a Byzantine church, before continuing on to Stemnitsa where we stop for drinks and a ‘medium meze’ at the only place that’s open – good home cooked ham, feta, olives, tomatoes, a beer and a rose wine from the barrel in the cellar. This place is obviously on the tourist trail, but it’s hardly ‘woken up’ yet. We’re at around 1000m here. We contemplate the signposted walking routes, as we sit out in the sun wearing shorts, knowing how easily the weather here can still change at this time of year.

We stop for the night, just short of Dhimitsana, where we turn off down towards the ‘Water Power Museum’, and continue to the tiny village of Paliochori. This is the end of the road for a ‘Heidi’. It’s very small through the village and doesn’t go any further anyway. It’s a nice little place, surrounded by terraced fields and gardens – various plots for sale: tempting… . As we wander around, I’m accosted by an old lady, one of only 6 or 7? permanent residents here, but we can’t make each other understood. She smile’s anyway, and later stumbles across to some neighbours with the aid of a stick – It must be a very isolated existence here.

We take an evening stroll and investigate a path down into the gorge. There’s a raging torrent flowing where the path should be …which whisks me off my feet, leaving me with a wet bum and an unhappy camera. It doesn’t appear to have liked being thrown into a river …a rock may have been involved too! If the quality of the pictures deteriorate from now; you know why!.

The offending ‘path’!

In the morning we opt for the road (much easier and very quiet) down into the gorge and head towards the Filosophou (Philosophy) Monastery. The path on the other side of the gorge is unstable and clinging to the side of a near vertical cliff – definitely scary! We take the road on the way back; better views and very, very little traffic. A good day.

it’s easier on the road!

a less scary bit of path 🙂 but there wasn’t much of this

Philosophou Monastry in the distance as we head down into the gorge.

crossing the raging river in the valley – there’s been a lot of snow melt recently

An almost impossible location? ..but look carefully on the other side of the gorge!

Look! there! (sorry, weird light) there’s obviously been a lot of crazy monks in Greece – this sort of thing is quite common

The 4th of April brings low grey cloud. We definitely chose the right day for our walk. We drive up into Dhimitsana around lunchtime and wander around the tiny stepped paths between tightly packed houses.

Dhimitsana, clinging to the side of the hill

There’s only one drivable road through here. The tavernas are offering; wild boar, rooster with tomatoes, mousaka – appealing on this cold day, but unfortunately Elaine is feeling unwell, so we give it a miss and decide to drive on, through the mountains. It’s a dramatic winding road, high above another deep gorge, passing through Lagadia and Lefkochori. A very tiring drive. Slowly we descend towards the coast again and stop at Ancient Olympia for the night. It was here that the Olympic Games began over 2,700 years ago. Loads more info. here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia,_Greece

The next day brings more grey and it rains most of the day, but we’re here now and feel we should fit this last important bit of ‘old stuff’ into our schedule. We start with the museum, thinking it’ll surely dry up later – it didn’t. It’s busy. There are several coach loads of people here. I hate to think what it’d be like later in the season! There’s loads of artefacts that have been found during all the excavations here – pots, figurines, ‘votive offerings’, – many identical to the ones we saw at Mycanae, near Nafplio. There’s an impressive collection of the traditional tripod cauldrons / cooking pots, ranging from huge down to tiny models. The model ones were believed to be used for votive offerings, symbolising the heart of the home; showing the importance of food and thanking the gods for it.

miniature cauldrons / cooking pots as offerings

the feet of much larger cauldrons

and the elaborately decorated handles / lift points..

side view – showing the eye for lifting

loads of tiny statuettes

really LOADS!

All kinds of things, in large quantities – we’d seen the things hanging on strings in Mycenea and wondered what they were – They’re called ‘canuli’ – used (mainly) to weigh the hems of dresses down

There’s also lot’s of impressive statues. How do they know who they all are we wonder; they’re mostly headless!

many headless statues

‘Hadrian’ – him of the wall

The huge, and detailed piece for over the front of the temple to Zeus

life size, or even greater – all carefully reconstructed

After lunch, we head out again, umbrellas in hand, in the heavier! rain to look at the outside ‘old stuff’. It’s a huge site, and they’re still excavating. By now, we feel we’ve seen it all before though. It’s within, what is now, a beautiful bit of parkland and the trees are just getting their new, bright green leaves. There’s pink blossom and wild flowers everywhere, almost making up for the terrible weather. Eventually the rain stops and we watch an English school group having an impromptu race on the original Olympic track.

(the evening before during a brief respite from the rain)

‘photographer’s model’ bringing some colour to a rainy day. hehe

an impromptu race on the original Olympic track – glad to see they haven’t fenced it off or prevented access!

From Olympia, it’s down to Pyrgos, just inland from the coast. We skirt around the edge of this busy, unattractive town, noting a serious rubbish problem. There’s what must be weeks and weeks of it piled up everywhere; the original bin often barely visible beneath it (we never did discover what the issue was; thankfully it was isolated to a fairly limited area.)

Along the coast road through miles and miles of what must be the traditional fishing shacks / holiday places of the locals. They’re all tightly packed together, preventing any access to the beach for us; and there’s nowhere to park. Many places have been destroyed by the wind and the waves, and then a replacement built just inland. The whole place has a weird empty feeling – there’s virtually no one around. We move on to Katakalo on the point. There’s a yacht marina and a ferry and cruise ship terminal, and loads of parking, but it’s all pretty unappealing. We finish up nearby, in ‘our own private campsite’ – open grassy areas, surrounded by trees. It appears to be open, public land? Not sure we’ll tell everyone about this spot. hehe.

secret location 🙂

a neighbour

Next it’s north up the coast, stopping at Patronikoleika, next to a huge holiday resort showing no sign of opening for Easter – surprising. We visit Amaliadha for some shopping. It’s madly busy with narrow streets, and we gingerly squeeze between the usual double parked, or should I say ‘abandoned’, cars that Greece exemplifies. The whole coastal plain here is flat, agricultural land, with not much signs of life in the villages. It always comes as a shock to enter the odd big town and realise: oh, this is where everyone is. Cafes and bars are full, with people spilling out into the streets. There’s shops selling everything and people wear trendy, designer clothes. A big contrast to the rural areas. We find an AB supermarket and, surprisingly, a parking spot, before escaping the bedlam and heading off looking for somewhere more suitable for us over Easter weekend. It’s a shame that there’s rarely somewhere suitable for us to stay in these bigger places. It would be nice to be part of real life for a bit and get a feel of things – especially over Easter.

Heading back towards the coast, we discover miles and miles of sandy beaches, backed by dunes and pine forests. There’s little development and what there is, is still all closed up. The beaches and the rapidly improving weather temps us to stay for several days. We swim and lounge in the sun while we can; we haven’t exactly had lots of opportunity this trip.

‘Patronikoleika’

‘Analipsi’ – (one of many – still don’t know what it means?)

‘Mellsa’

‘Loutra Killinis’

‘Loutra Killinis’

‘Thines’ (south of Vartholomio)

somebody’s spent longer on this beach than we have! – all made from driftwood

..and inside!

just back from Loutra Killinis beach – pine forests and miles of ‘was going to be a development’ roads going nowhere = endless parking

Amoungst the trees – Loutra Kilinis Roman Baths (in a rather sorry state)

a recent, less attractive, pump pumping the thermal waters up

you can stand under this warm (and very smelly) deluge if you like?

A more modern attempt..

..and inside – these days you have to pay a fortune to stay in the very swanky spa hotel to ‘take the waters’. A sign of the times.

The nearby town of Vartholomio is a manageable size for us and we find parking easily enough. With some determination and a bit of luck, we get our timing right to join in the Good Friday celebrations here. We visit the churches in the afternoon, checking out the elaborately decorated ‘Epitaphio’ (the symbolic bier of Christ – these days it’s designed to carry an Icon), ready for later. We return at 8.30pm, just as it is getting dark, to find the churches and the squares outside packed with people. There’s much singing and chanting going on inside and we push through the throng to see what’s going on. As seems to be the norm with Greek Orthodoxy, the ‘congregation’ doesn’t join in. There are 3 priests in different locations in the church, and as one stops his bit, it’s taken up immediately by another, all in the same singing / chanting voice. Occasionally a member of the public takes the mike for a short part too – presumably they are telling the Easter story. Like the many bell ringings, it’s all amplified as loud as possible and broadcast via speakers from the bell tower. There’s a huge queue to kiss the Icon amongst much genuflecting. We’re in it for a bit before realising and sidling off to the side. It’s not really our thing. We wonder at this massive exchange of saliva; you’d develop a strong immune system here! Everybody is here; all ages and all ‘walks of life’; the local farmers, the city visitors in the latest fashion (you can see the little old ladies in black looking disapprovingly at the young things in the shortest of short mini-skirts and ridiculously high heals). There’s some very young children and even, surprisingly, the odd immigrant worker. All are keen to kiss the Icon. Once the chanting is over and we’ve all been sprinkled with liberal amounts of holy oil, dished out into waiting hands, or over the children’s heads, from a fancy pourer thing, by the chief priest / bishop, we head outside into the square where the procession begins.

It’s all led by a brass band. There’s various crosses and symbols of various types carried on poles up front, followed by the Epitaphios from both the churches. The Priest is still being enthusiastic with the oil, as, what appears to be most of the town, follows the procession carrying candles and sprinkling flower petals. We join in with everyone for what turns out to be quite a long walk around the town. Most of the houses and businesses along the route have got candles burning and incense wafting. We stop at the cemetery for a bit whilst everybody lights candles at the family graves and the bell is constantly rung, before continuing. There are various stops for chanting and petal throwing and of course oil sprinkling ..and then there’s the bangers! A team of enthusiastic youth, walking rather to close to where we are, are intent on chucking them down every side street and onto every bit of wasteland or half-built building. They’re deafening.

Eventually, back at the appropriate churches, the Icons are restored to their places. Of course they need kissing again, but this time, people begin to pull the hundreds of flower heads from the decorated Epitaphio and take them away as they leave, heading for the surrounding bars and cafes.

It was quite an event, lasting at least a couple of hours. Apparently the follow-up is a midnight service on Saturday, culminating with the Priest appearing in complete darkness, with a single candle. The flame, having been lit from a ‘eternal flame’ in Jerusalem, and then flown to Athens and distributed to all the churches in the country! The flame is then passed around with repeated shouts of “Christos Anesti” (Christ is Risen), and then carefully carried home where the ‘head of the household’ makes a smoky cross above the front door with it.

The ‘Epitaphio’, the symbolic bier of Christ, beutifully decorated with hundreds of tiny flower heads

another one, in the 2nd church in town, stands ready behind the cross

typically elaborate decoration in these Greek Orthodox churches

much excitement as the procession begins (yes i know – the camera, or should that be the operator, can’t really cope with bright lights and movement in the dark!)

the brass band waits as the processions of the two churches combine.

….the lambs and goats numbered and waiting for famillies to collect and roast over an open fire on Easter Sunday

For more info. on Greek Orthodox Easter Celebrations see this (as usual) very thorough account by Barry and Margaret of magbaztravels: http://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/1700/380/   We seem to have missed out on much of this, either due to appalling weather or not being in the right place at the right time – another year perhaps?
After Easter we head towards Patra. As we pass the main ferry terminal to Italy, we spot plenty of hopeful, desperate looking, potential immigrants loitering near the gates and checking the place out. We’d heard stories of them trying to hide under or in your van as you board the ferry. We find a good spot on the beach at the other end of town, overlooking the impressive suspension bridge to the mainland. It’s busy with locals, fishing and swimming. We stay for a couple of days and manage to book a ferry (in a little over a months time) from Igoumenitsa, further up the coast, to Venice, from a local travel agent. It costs us 349eu, much cheaper than expected. We’d seen 460eu quoted online.

We thought about our return route for ages. The cheapest option is probably to drive up through the Balkans, but it’s a long way and we decided we’d just be rushing through places; which didn’t appeal – something for a future trip? There are also several, much shorter, ferry crossings to Italy, but they wouldn’t have been any cheaper by the time you’d factored in fuel and probable motorway tolls on the Italian side. And again, we felt we’d be rushing through places we’d like to stop at as we headed north. We’ve got what is termed a ‘camping on board’ ticket, meaning we don’t have a cabin or allocated seat, but can stay in the van. We can even plug-in to their electrics.

On the beach – north of Patra

The impressive suspension bridge to the mainland

We make one last stop in the Peloponnese; Dhiakopto, on the northern coast, before we leave what has been home for getting on for five months (we crossed the Corinth Canal on 28th Nov 2014 – see our previous blog: https://heidihymer.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/criss-crossing-the-canal/ ). We stayed in Dhiakopto for 5 nights. It’s obviously a popular spot just before or after the ferry from Patras which, it seems, is how most people get to and from here. We have a steady stream of neighbours from France, Switzerland, Germany and England. Having hardly seen any other vans for months it’s a bit of a shock.

The main reason for coming here was the cog railway trip up the spectacular Vouraikos Gorge. Unfortunately it’s now been modernised from the original steam train and is now all ultra modern. The scenery though, remains just as spectacular. So much so, that we took the train, a second time, up to the half way station and walk back down, so as to have more time to appreciate it. It’s a long walk for us; probably about 8 miles. It’s gently downhill all the way, which we thought would make it easy, but much of it is on the course chippings that make up the bed of the railway itself (there is nowhere else to go!), which didn’t make for easy or comfortable progress. You had to look out for the trains to, which couldn’t be heard above the sound of the raging river below. Luckily it’s a popular thing to do and the train drivers expect crazy walkers and are ready on the horn. In many places it’s only just possible to stand clear of the tracks. A great walk, albeit a very tiring one.

On the beach at Dhiakopto. A good and popular spot.

up the Vouraikos Gorge on a rather more modern train than the original!

Beautiful scenery..

..there’s not much space

Tunnel! Get your head in Elaine.

First obstacle of the walk – what does that sign mean?…

…ah, “walk on this side”! (this IS Greece!)

The narrowest point in the gorge; ‘Sifone’ (the doors)..

..if they close the doors, there’s no other way!

once beyond the doors – choices, choices?…

…think we’ll take this one rather than the pitch black tunnel..

..it used to be the rail track route …luckily the footbridge seems relatively strong!…

we made it to the other side – where water flows out of trees!

..and the river continues to rage below.

Mind that train! I was off the line; Elaine wasn’t – Beep beep!

Under bridges…

….over bridges..

Where will we go if a train comes now? – that archway is the only option.

More tunnels

Wow! Hope we don’t have to get off the line here!

one of many bridges (with ‘no walking’ signs AND a raging torrent below!)

Wow!

after the steam trains, but before this one

The train goes up to the town of Kalavrita, famous for a horrific massacre, during WW2, at the hands of the Nazis. Almost every male members of the population, over the age of 14, was executed by machine gun, on the 13th of December 1943, “as an act of revenge against the Greek national resistance”. All the houses were burnt to the ground and the womenfolk left to bury the dead, often with their bare hands, in the frozen ground. There is an excellent museum with videos of survivors’ accounts of events and a memorial on the hill above the town. Tears were shed! I am currently reading Hitler’s book; “Mein Kampf”. Learning about and trying to understand the histories of the war. It doesn’t get any easier!

a tear inducing statue / memorial outside the excellent museum at Kalavrita..

..and the inscription!

The memorial on the hill above.

Great views from up here.

lamps in the memorial church / shrine

To soften the blow, Kalivrita serves a good coffee and ‘baklava’

…and a good lunch too! This is what you get when you order a “portion gyros”. As usual in Greece – portions are huge, cost is little.

We headed back towards Patra on the 20th April and took the ferry to the mainland from Rio. The ferry cost us 11eu. Obviously it takes longer than driving over the bridge, but we were told the bridge costs at least double that – and we’re not in a hurry. The plan is to meander up the West coast of Greece and then take the ferry to Venice from Igoumenitsa…

last night on the Peloponnese at Dhiakopto. A German neighbour tonight.

looking north to the mainland – there’s still snow on the mountains..

Adventures in Argolida

Been playing with the formatting again – you can scroll over the sets of photos to see captions and if you click on them you’ll be able to see them full size.

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The Argolis Peninsula / ‘Prefecture of Argolida’ – the Eastern-most finger (some call it the ‘thumb’) of the Peloponnese; just to the west of Athens.

We’ve spent over a month now, slowly exploring this area: Weather

Is the sky supposed to be that colour?

If you think we’re lounging around on beaches in the sunshine, you’d be very wrong! We’re finding Greece, in winter, to be predominantly cold and wet. This last month, we’ve had temperatures down to –1 or –2 degrees C at night and plenty of grey days with temperatures struggling to get above 10 degrees. We had one day when 3 was the max. We’ve even had flurries of snow! Although it’s not settling at lower levels, there’s plenty on the mountains – pretty to look at, but making many of the mountain passes decidedly dicey in a front wheel drive van with rather too much weight on her rear end! When the sun does shine at these latitudes, we realise why we are down here. The temperature rapidly climbs to the mid teens and it feels a lot hotter in a sheltered spot. The change always comes as a bit of a shock. We definitely had the best of the weather whilst Clare was visiting; we even managed a swim once (it was flippin’ freezing!), and sat outside enjoying the sunshine on several occasions – I don’t think we’ve done that more than once in the past 3 weeks. Humph.

Stormy day at Nafplio harbour. Fences blown over. Difficult to stand!

Greece in winter!

The view today!

The Natural Beauty – beaches, volcanoes, caves

Beaches and Coastline:

There’s miles and miles of beautiful and varied coastline here. A lot of it is rather inaccessible, covered in sparse scrub and pine forest with steep slopes dropping straight into the sea, limited roads and very few paths. There are fewer beaches than you might expect and several of them, especially in the south, have been fenced off as part of private, gated, hotels and resorts – humph! Why is this ‘allowed’? – or perhaps it’s not, we’ve come across several abandoned examples in this small area. Some, perhaps all, we’ve discovered have been illegally constructed in designated ‘natural beauty’ areas. Rumours are that much of the construction is dodgy and concrete rot is also common. Perhaps they are just out-dated and not what people want these days? There doesn’t seem to be any let up with individual ‘villa’ developments.

Apollo Beach Resort. NW from Portocheli

A pool with a view

Most of the furniture is still in place. There’s even pictures on the wall

A good parking spot for us, next to a beautiful beach, but the whole area is covered by a network of abandoned roads in a holiday villa estate that never existed.

A staircase for the ‘non’ residents to get down to the beach!

The whole area once looked like this – there’s not much left!

The area around Portocheli and Kosta, opposite the island of Spetzes in the far south, is particularly rife with this. We have a map with ‘natural beauty areas’ marked on it – worth a visit you’d think? Some of these have been completely destroyed with a quite ridiculous amount of over-development. The natural beauty has been replaced with miles of high stone walls, or fences topped with razor wire! watched over by private security firms. It seems the only reason this area is popular now is because ‘it’s the place to be’, all traces of ‘natural’ beauty are fast being bulldozed and more and more ‘perfect plots’ are being marked out. The roads, as usual, are often still deeply rutted dirt tracks, at ridiculous gradients, with no thought of drainage to stop them washing away, but I suppose if you arrive by boat to your private harbour, or by helicopter, you’re not too bothered about the roads!

The only access to the coast in many places!

Friendly? Welcoming?

Razor wire! Spikes! Nice

and even if you can appreciate the workmanship in the wall – look at the monstrosity of the electrics installation!

A good road..

..and a bad road! Why don’t the Greeks see the problem here?

The boundary of an absolutely massive area of land (I guess they don’t want us in there!) Spot the private beach with imported! white sand. Private harbour for those arriving by yacht. And of course the helipad!

…But the sea is beautiful and stunningly clear, even in the harbours, and often turquoise in the changing light. With a bit of searching, we have, found some wonderful beaches. Now if the weather would just behave! loitering and swimming would seem a lot more appealing.

Salidi Beach

Trying out the hammock at Salidi Beach

The huge hotel has been abandoned (an illegal development in a ‘natural beauty area’

Look how clear! Valariou Bay.

Not a bad parking spot!

Tolo Beach

Pefkakia Beach. NW from Portoheli

Beautiful clear turquoise water 🙂

Thyni. SW from Kilada

Cape Kokinos, Kilada

Lambagiana, near the Frachthi Cave

Volcanoes and Hot Springs:

We spent a couple of days on the Methana Peninsula. Methana itself is, or should we say was? a popular spa resort. It seemed a bit run down to us. I don’t think ‘taking the waters’ is so popular these days? The main springs are beneath / behind an impressive classical building, fronted by a lake / pond where the mineral waters are released. It’s shockingly turquoise due to all the minerals reflecting the light, but it doesn’t half ‘niff’. From here the waters are released inter the adjacent marina and to a small public ‘beach’, making the water warm and the smell much more acceptable. With Peter’s aching joints, it seemed like a good idea, but the local fishermen had commandeered the only easy access point – I’m surprised the fish like it. On an unexpectedly warm, sunny day we drove the complete circuit of the Methana Peninsula, which is dotted with volcanoes, some of them still fairly active, hence the hot springs I presume. Most of the roads are narrow (single track), steep and windy. Good job it was quiet, there are very few passing places if we meet anything our size coming the other way. There’s beautiful views all around, and the trees (almonds we think) are just beginning to blossom. We passed through the few houses that make up Kalmeni Chora, narrowly avoiding the only other traffic on the road – a donkey carrying baskets of oranges, and stop by a footpath signposted ‘to the volcano’. It’s a dramatic, chaotic landscape of red crumbly rocks tumbling everywhere, and the views out to other islands, and to Athens in the distance, are spectacular. We climbed right up to the ‘mouth’ – more a deep fissure in the rocks than the ‘traditional crater’. This one hasn’t been active that recently. We’d read of one closer to Methana that made the surrounding rocks hot to the touch but unfortunately never got around to looking for it before leaving the area to escape the forecasted wintry gales. We continued on up into the mountains through a barren, uncultivated landscape, save for a few pockets of olives in sheltered valleys, and down again to the coast. We stopped at Aghias Georgios, a tiny, almost deserted, fishing harbour for the afternoon, before making our way back to Methana harbour for the night.

Our parking spot at Methana harbour

The Thermal Spa building

..but there’s plenty run down too.

Tiny winding roads lead through an amazing landscape.

Jagged red volcanic rocks

Views! from up on top of the volcano. Middle left is where the lava flowed out into the sea.

The mouth – a hole to the centre of the Earth?

The MAIN coast road on the far side of the peninsula.

Old monastery at Aghias Georgios

Caves:

On the 20th February we visited the prehistoric cave of Franchthi, opposite the small fishing village of Kilada. There have been archaeological ‘findings’ here going back to ‘Palaeolithic’ times (30 – 40,000BC –old!). We’re presented with lots of interesting information on the signs – they reckon that sea level here may have been as much as 120m lower when the cave was first inhabited, making the shoreline 7km away, instead of right next to it as it is today. Many of the finds were hence now underwater, but because the cave was so dry and protected, various animal shelters and pens have remained. We also went to the Didyma ‘caves’ which are in fact big, crater-like, holes, of which there are a number in the area. The roofs collapsed thousands of years ago. One of the caves contains two tiny churches. It’s a truly magical (or should that be spiritual?) place. One story we heard was that the craters were created by meteorites, and the churches were built to remind God to keep the stars in the sky!

???

Where does this go?

it’s rather small!

A tiny church (to remind God ‘to keep the stars in the sky’)

Squeezed under the overhanging rock

Down in the Didyma ‘cave’ / crater

What an amazing place!

Part of the roof has fallen in

Looking down into the Frachthi Cave

Ancient sites

There’s so much ‘old stuff’ around here, it’s easy to get overload. Some highlights:

Epidauros / The Sanctuary of Asklepios:

To confuse things, there are 3 Epidauros’ around here. There’s Ancient Epidaurus on the coast, which has various rather unidentifiable archeological remains and has it’s own ‘small theatre’ – impressive in it’s own right, but less so when you’ve seen the ‘Big’ one at Asklipio Epidaurus, which is up in the hills near Ligourio. There’s also Nea Epidaurus, again on the coast and north of Ancient Epidaurus. We visited the ‘Big’ one on 25th January on a dull, chilly day, which in many ways makes it even more dramatic as for most of the time we are the only people on site. Having seen the size of the carpark (big enough for thousands!) we could imagine what it would be like later in the year. It’s a huge place, and the theatre is only a part. It’s one of the best preserved Classical Greek structures existing and the acoustics, as with all these old theatres, are astounding. There are seats for up to 14,000! People. It’s still used for performances in the summer months.

On the spot to test the acoustics

And if you’re bored with the show, the view’s not bad either

A LOT of steps

And it’s not just square blocks either – look at the detail

The extensive remains of the Sanctuary of Asklepios were founded in the 6th Centuary BC and was “the most famous centre of healing in the ancient world”. Everything extends over a vast area and is rather overpowering. A few more helpful signs telling us exactly what we were looking at would have been helpful. There’s not much of the hospice / infirmary left, but it’s foundation stones disappear off as far as the eye can see! Then there’s a huge athletics stadium built-in a natural hollow with some of the carved stone seating remaining – big enough for thousands. Both the games in the stadium and the theatrical performances were dedicated to the god Asklepios, one of Apolo’s many sons, as part of his worship. The healings that took place here were considered to be down to his powers in the main. Patients, having received some ‘instruction’ on his powers, were told to sleep and dream of how they would be cured of whatever ailment they had, and then that is what was carried out. There are temples to various other deities, sacrificial and dining halls, what amounts to hotels / boarding houses for visitors, wells, bath houses… It goes on and on! Libraries and a Christian Basilica were added later. Much of it has either been destroyed by earthquakes or ransacked for the building materials for later Christian Basilicas, Islamic Mosques and Venetian fortresses built-in the surrounding areas. Excavation work continues and a program to reconstruct certain parts is underway. What little has been done so far only goes to emphasise the gigantic scale of everything. I was impressed by the extensive scaffolding and lifting gear in place to slowly achieve this – which only serves to emphasise what an incredible feat of engineering was required to build it in the first place without such modern kit! There are also plans, after some more work, to begin to use the athletics stadium again.

The remains of the infirmary

Mostly rebuilt (the bright white is modern replacement) – but it really gives a good impression of the scale of the place.

The huge Athletics stadium

‘just a little’ help needed with the modern reconstructions

Bet the original was done somewhat differently!

As usual, the best bits are in the museum (the columns, obviously severely truncated)

Admiring the craftmanship on a small selection of the statues

Argos:

We visited Argos, primarily for the market (Wednesday and Saturday mornings), but there’s ‘old stuff’ there too, so we thought we’d better have a look. The site is a bit run down and overgrown, which is a shame, but it is free. There’s very little left of the Roman Agora (market place) and the surrounding buildings. Part of the old drainage system was exposed and I dare say it worked better than current Greek drainage! – which is virtually non-existent (we’ve been many places where heavy rain floods the roads, several inches deep, within a few minutes). Opposite is the theatre, not as impressive as many others around this area, until you realise that it is carved out of the hillside in one piece! and not made from individually placed blocks of stone – perfect curves and symmetry, and acoustics as usual. There’s the remains of a Roman ‘Therma’ (thermal bath house) here too and pictures! of all the impressive statues the archaeologists found there – now in a museum somewhere else. Why can’t they put them, in a glass case say, here!? This seems to be common practice though.

The remains of the roman ‘therma’

Pictures of the statues found there – not really the same as real ones!

Overgrown and decaying, with the modern town in the background

A bit more comfort for the front rows – and it’s all carved out of one piece of hillside!

Mycenae:

Yet another major archaeological site. This one much, much older. A lot of what’s there dates from a period between the 16th and 12th Centuries BC and there’s evidence of human habitation here going as far back as the 3rd millennium BC – that’s OLD! We visited on a rare sunny day and were able to enjoy the far-reaching views from this hilltop vantage point too. Much of the site, as usual, is just a series of the remains of stone walls, but there are some astounding bits still intact. One way that the remains here differ from those of other periods is the sheer size of the stones used for the walling. They’re massive! Just how was it possible to manoeuvre them into place? One explanation is that they were placed by that infamous one-eyed giant; Cyclopes. As usual again, all the really impressive finds are in the adjacent museum, and there’s a lot of them! This is perhaps the most impressive feature of this place. There are literally hundreds of pots and vases and statuettes, along with coins, parts of tablets containing the earliest examples of ancient scripts and other artefacts. Much of the pottery is either whole or has been reconstructed to look as if it is. And there’s so much of it! And it’s over 3500 years old!

The Mycenaen acropolis

a stunning spot – far reaching views of any approaching attack

and down across the orange orchards, and on towards Nafplio in the distance

The famous Lion Gate – still intact after 3 and a half thousand years

The North Gate

Wooden door not original, but they’re still using the pivot holes – built to last!

One of several burial areas

Down into the cistern, ensuring a constant water supply to the city

Down and down slippery steps in the pitch dark – people using the dim lights from their phones to see by. None of that Health and Safety nonsense here!

Huge collections of jugs and vases in the museum

And what were described as ‘anthropomorphic figures’ – gods. These are a couple of foot high.

And loads of these much smaller ones found in what was termed ‘The Cult Centre’

Some are even articulated

The entrance to the ‘Treasury of Atreus’, one of several ‘Tholos Tombs’ – this one intact

Again, HUGE stones

The door lintel is curved, made from one piece of rock, and must weigh several tonnes – A bit of help required from Cyclops again?

A selection of towns

Ermioni:

We found Ermioni to be one of the most interesting places to spend any time in, down in the south, especially in the winter. So many places are rather depressingly deserted out of season. We visited on a couple of occasions. The first time was market day (Thursday mornings). We bought fresh fish, which is also sold daily, direct from the boats, or from shops in town. We chose bass, one of the few we recognised. They seemed very small, as did several of the other varieties. One stall was selling Red Snappers, which as far as I’m aware are usually big enough for a single fish to make a big portion? that were tiny – you’d want a handful for one portion! We’ve heard that over-fishing is becoming a problem in some places. They won’t help things by catching them that small! Still, they seem plentiful enough around here, we’ve watched the small boats go out for no more than a couple of hours and come back with a box full. There was also loads of fresh veg. There’s not much variety, and everyone is offering the same thing, but you can be sure it’s fresh and local – and we’ve discovered the market stuff lasts a lot longer than the supermarket stuff. There was honey too. Different colours and tastes depending on where the bees have been collecting from. It’s nearly always in litre jars, or bigger. The Greeks love their honey and that too has never travelled very far. We bought ‘Erika’ (heather) honey which is darker and stronger tasting than some – Yum! We went back again and spent a few days there. There’s a few good bakers. There’s more bars and restaurants open than a lot of solely holiday places. There’s an attractive short walk around the wooded point with plenty of benches overlooking the blue, blue sea. There’s ‘old stuff’ out on the point too, but it’s just the foundation stones and it’s all overgrown – see, ‘old-stuff’ overload. The attractive old town makes a fascinating stroll too, perched on top of the hill with the sea in both directions, it’s got impossibly steep ‘streets’, many of them effectively staircases. It still constantly amazes us where the Greeks can get a car – definitely not motorhome friendly! You can catch ferries out to the islands of Hydra and Spetzes, and beyond, from here too. Hydra sounds fascinating; there are no vehicles and transport is predominantly on foot or by donkey. Unfortunately that means staying in one of the expensive hotels if you want to spend any time there – maybe when the weather improves?

Ermioni harbour built on a point of land. Can you see Heidi?

The popular market

Colourful old streets..

..hiding several churches

They’re still making the traditional wooden boats. Note the hand-made curves hanging on the wall. You hardly ever see a plastic fishing boat here.

An attractive walk around the point..

..complete with regular fire hoses and water supply…

….and inside! They are all like this and the water doesn’t work either. We’ve heard that a lot of these have been put there for ‘show’ to enable the local council to get a grant / loan. Drains (covers only) placed in the road is another favourite trick 😀

Poros:

On the 22nd January, we stayed at Ghalatas, and in the morning took one of the small taxi/ferries across the narrow strip of water to the island of Poros – our first Greek island (well this trip anyway). It’s a very attractive little place, mainly due to it’s setting, and is a popular yachting destination. Even at this time of year, there were plenty of boats around and at least one flotilla company has a fleet here. The front is lined with bars and restaurants, many closed for the season, but several open and busy even mid-week in winter. It’s no doubt buzzing in season. We enjoyed a morning wandering the traditional, ridiculously steep and narrow back streets before catching another taxi-boat back.

Poros, just across the water

looking very ‘twinkly’ at night

The taxi boats lined up. There’s loads of these. It must be manic in season.

Wandering the back streets

Ancient Epidaurus:

We spent 5 nights, in total, staying at Ancient Epidaurus, a quiet (well at least at this time of year) little harbour town. There were just enough locals about to give it some life. We did several long walks from here. Unusually, there’s a marked trail leading out around the wooded rocky promontory, to the lighthouse, and into the next bay. We sat and watched a fishing boat setting his nets in a big arc around the edge of the bay, and then retrieving them – not sure he caught anything? Unfortunately where the path went from there was less than clear. We ended up scrambling up to a goatherd’s place and cutting back across a steep slope, until we found a track leading in the right direction to take us back to the village. On a subsequent day, following the old coast road (a track really only suitable for a 4×4), we discovered an isolated Byzantine church, which was once surrounded by the remains of a monastery. The church, probably down to it’s location, is still in good condition. These are the delights of walking in Greece; you never know what you might find, or, whether a path actually goes anywhere or just peters out and becomes a goat track leading nowhere. Like many places here, Ancient Epidaurus is surrounded by orange and lemon groves, and no more than a short walk is required to procure a few – there are plenty of branches, laden with fruit, hanging enticing over a nearby path J. You can by 10kilos of oranges around here for 3euros – but what are we going to do with that many! An awful lot seem to go to waste, rotting on the ground.

Epidaurus harbour

Epidaurus harbour

Looking over Epidaurus. Heidi is parked out on the point.

The ‘little’ Epidaurus theatre is nearby – all a bit minor and insignificant compared to the ‘Big’ one..

Walking through the Oranges

Tempting

Off to market

The next bay round from Epidaurus. A beautiful spot.

Wild crocus..

..and Irises

Watching the net-setting techniques

A goat’s view – they have all the best ones! Quality of roof construction – less important!

The Byzantine chapel in the Panayia Polemarcha Monastery

..and inside

Nafplio:

We’ve mentioned our visit to Nafplio in a previous post (Criss-crossing the Canal) so we’ll try not to repeat what we wrote there. It’s the region’s capital; the only major commercial port in the area; a large modern town, sitting alongside the ancient one. We’ve returned several times. Elaine’s sister Clare, arrived and departed from here for a weeks holiday with us (via a bus from the airport at Athens). It’s a very popular place for a day out at the weekends and the bars and restaurants are lively. There’s a big market here too (Wednesday and Saturday). We’ve been doing our bit to support the local economy and doing as much of our shopping as we can in the markets. There’s also endless free parking next to the harbour here. Supposedly this is where a lot of the agricultural produce of this region is exported from, but the only boats we’ve seen are bringing huge wind turbine parts in from Holland and Germany. They’re all lined up here, awaiting their journey to a nearby ridgeline – there’s quite a few already, and many more, what we can only assume are, prepared clearings and tracks to get them there.

Nafplio

Palamidi Castle lit up at night

The impressive Venetian building housing the archaeological museum in the main ‘Syntagma’ square

Steeply stepped back ‘streets’

The bay on a good day. Dredger constantly working away, and ‘Bourtzi’ castle on the island.

The harbourside on not such a good day – huge wind turbine parts lined up.

The Dutch ship that brought them in – being bashed against the harbour wall in the F7 winds!

All calm again – these are the turning bits they attach the blades too – and you know how big those cranes are!

One of many cleared strips along the ridgelines here – ready for more windmills we presume – or perhaps just a ploy to get a grant? lol

A spot for us on the harbourside

Some options are less attractive – Though the truck from Montenegro alongside protected us from the wind. He was having various technical problems with the truck and was there for several days. We also had Albanian, Serbian, Romanian and Turkish trucks as neighbours – presumably collecting the millions of oranges grown here?

Inside the richly adorned church of ‘The birth of the Virgin Mary’, just of Syntagma Square

Komboloi (worry bead) shop. Nafplio is a famous producer of these.

‘Touristy’ shops abound. Thinking of you Tracy Warner 🙂

Getting cultural

Sun 1st February – in Napflio, we watch a big procession of people carrying the icon of Saint Anastasus, patron of Napflio, apparently from one church to another (perhaps it goes back again later? We didn’t hang around long enough to discover). There were lot’s of priests and lots of bishops in their finery (struggling to keep their hats on in the gale –what MORE bad weather!), along with the local military, a marching band, and a throng of locals following behind. The Church and it’s calendar remains a big part of life here.

the ‘ordinary’ priests get to walk backwards (so they’re looking at the icon) the whole way!

local dignitaries followed by the brass band..

The Bishops in their finery – hang on to your hats!

Sun 15th February – We watch, and take part in!, the traditional dancing in Ermioni. It’s part of the Carnival celebrations leading up to Lent and then Easter. On a beautiful, sunny, day – which definitely made a change as it had been pretty grey and miserable for the previous 2 weeks – we set out without having much idea where we’re going. We’d seen a poster on trees and lamp-posts in the vicinity, but, since it was all in Greek lettering, all we’d really understood was the date and the time.. We eventually heard music and followed them round the town. Led by a drummer and a clarinet player, they performed various circular, traditional dances, some with a ‘maypole’. The maypole was much the same as the English variety – well, Spring begins much earlier here! At least we hope so! The main dancers all wore their traditional costumes, and many of the locals were in a variety of fancy dress. We saw a Harlem Globetrotter basket-ball player, a masked Mexican, a ‘Japenese’ lady in her silk kimono, a flower-power hippie etc.etc. As was explained by ‘kimono lady’ (who was actually a teacher from Athens), everybody is expected to join in, and those standing on the sidelines, including Elaine!, are grabbed to take part. The procession moved slowly through the streets, stopping wherever there was a space to dance – the streets are mostly very narrow, and cars just had to wait! ‘Kimono lady’ continued to look after us, supplying us with sweets made from coconut and chocolate and tiny glasses of ‘tsipouro’ – a variety of Greek firewater – to give us ‘the spirit of the dance’. She insisted that tsipouro was good for your health, and a little should be drunk each morning – the dancers were certainly being well supplied as they made their rounds. Enjoyable as it was, after a couple of hours we’d had our fill and wandered off in search of lunch. The diehards were still going well into the afternoon.

What’s going on?

A dubious looking character!

“Po po po Maria…”

Everybody joins in…

Who’s that dancing next to the ‘Japanese lady’?

On the 21st and 22nd February, it’s the last, and main, weekend of Carnival in these parts, before we head into Lent. We went back to Nafplio, having been told there’d be a good ‘vibe’. There were plenty of people in fancy dress wandering around and sitting in the cafes, and on Saturday evening there was some good live music in the square. There had obviously been something going on there in the afternoon too, but we had unfortunately missed it, having not been able to find any sort of program of events. Sunday was wet and cold, and although we joined the throngs wandering round the old town clutching umbrellas, nothing seemed to be happening except coffee drinking and some private parties in clubs in the early hours (not really our scene). We had expected a parade of satirical floats, but it may well have been rained off – shame! We never found it anyway.

live music in Nafplio during the Carnival

Food and drink:

We always enjoy trying the local food on our travels. Having discovered where and when the markets are, we are now doing most of our shopping there. The fruit and veg. is good and usually sold by those who have picked / harvested it. If you stick to what’s in season, it’s very good value – and if it’s not in season, it’s often not available. There’s usually wine – sold in unmarked plastic 1.5l bottles and local olive oil too. The oil is good, but the wine can be a bit of an ‘aquired taste’ and is often fairly sweet; still at often less than a euro a litre! we’re not complaining too much. The Greeks are fond of their ‘horta’ or wild greens, which come in many varieties. We’re constantly seeing the locals gathering it, but identifying it is a bit more tricky! Elaine especially, likes her foraging, so we keep trying. Choosing it at the market, and knowing what to do with it, is not much easier – we’ve had some horribly bitter experiences. We’re getting into the Greek ‘mountain tea’ too, which is sold in dried bunches – something else we’ve yet to identify correctly in the wild. The Greeks love their Feta cheese; you can tell by the huge containers it is available in , in the supermarkets. We found a local cheese shop in Nafplio where you can buy it very cheaply straight from the barrel. The breakfast of choice, at least in the towns, seems to be a ‘pita’ and a coffee for most of the locals. A ‘pita’ is pie or pastry. There are a great many unidentifiable shapes and types. They’re rarely labelled; you’re supposed to know what’s likely to be available! Our favourite is still ‘Spinakopita’ (Feta cheese and spinach or some other type of wild greens, wrapped in pastry). They’re sold in most bakers and often from special pita and coffee places. We haven’t appreciated the coffees as much; usually sweet, frothy, often cold, served in a plastic beaker with a domed top and drunk through a straw. The locals double and triple park outside these places in the morning to get their ‘fix’, whereupon the coffee remains permanently stuck to the palm of the hand – it seems they are unable to drive without either one of these coffee cups, or a phone in their hands. Then there’s Gyros Pita; a bit like a British kebab, but so much better! They’re served in a twisted cone of paper, so it doesn’t explode all over you, and are stuffed full of either chicken or pork, salad, tzatziki sauce (yoghurt and cucumber), and a few chips! For good measure – yum!

Busy markets

‘Greek Salad’

Wild Greens or ‘Horta’

Think we ordered too much!

This is a ‘margarita’ in Greece,

Still haven’t discovered the English name but these are good

lots of choice..

A ‘Gyros Pita’ – Yum

Politics and Money:

We continue to follow the unfolding events in Greek politics and the continuing financial crisis (mainly via a selection of articles at http://www.greekcrisis.net). It’s all been ‘kicking off’ recently, following the recent election of the, often called, ‘radical left’ party ‘Syriza’, led by Alexis Tsipras. After watching the date approach when many economists suggested Greece’s money would run out (we’ve heard that those at the ‘top’ have been rapidly transferring funds abroad in recent weeks), a short extension (4 months) on their Eurozone loans has just been approved to enable them to stay ‘in the system’. Promises such as writing off the country’s debt, raising the minimum wage and rehiring recently laid-off public servants that have won them the votes have either ‘gone by the wayside’ or ‘been put on hold’ depending on your point of view. They are certainly fighting hard not to adhere to the strict austerity measures that the European Central Bank et. al. are trying to impose. Hopefully 4 months will give them time to come up with some viable alternatives! From our point of view, things seem unlikely to change whilst we’re here now, but we’ll continue to make sure we have plenty of cash on us and diesel in the tank so we don’t end up stuck somewhere. If you, like us, support the Greek’s efforts to escape the ridiculous financial system that we all toil under, have a look at Greece Solidarity Campaign: http://www.greecesolidarity.org . They’ve a facebook group too.

A final thought (Very apt this last month!):

Puppies, Pelion – Pame!

‘a beachcomber’s rainbow’ 😀

(‘Pame’  or ‘πάμε‘ in the title means ‘we go’ or ‘let’s go’ in Greek – multilingual alliteration, hope you’re impressed!)

Friday 24^th October – we leave Kavala. The Forecast is dire and the wind is already increasing. We follow the coast road hoping it’ll be somewhat more sheltered ‘round the corner’. We drop anchor at Paralia Ofrinou. Oops, wrong terminology, but having looked at the likely wind direction, my sailor’s mind has found us a good spot. The rain is still heavy and continues to be all night, all day, and all the next night. We’re joined later by a huge 4×4 ‘adventure truck’ (French) – Not jealous, honest, but I hate to think how much it costs to run! We obviously did a good job of hiding from the weather, with all our blackout blinds in place; in the morning we’re visited by the French to check we’re ok, a nice touch, before they continue their journey to Turkey. Other than a brief visit to the roof box to retrieve Heidi’s winter ‘duvet’ (The insulated silver screen cover for her windscreen) we don’t venture out. It’s horrible out there and the heating stays on all day. We realise it must be winter in the evening, when the lights go out and all the power cuts out. That hasn’t happened since last winter when we were in Pembrokeshire with short grey days and no sunshine. We run the engine for an hour to charge our batteries and start monitoring our power use more carefully.

Heidi’s got quite a sophisticated power system. Other than the engine start battery, we have 3 more ‘leisure’ batteries for lights and power totalling 330 amps. We have a solar panel on the roof and when the sun shines this is normally sufficient to give us enough power for days on end without resorting to running the engine. We have a complicated battery monitoring system that should tell us exactly what state the batteries are in and how long we can continue doing whatever we’re doing without charging them. Unfortunately, it’s brain thinks it is cleverer than mine (it’s probably right there). I’ve made a few changes to the settings, which will hopefully help. We really should have plenty of power, but running the computer, and the heating fan, and the lights all day doesn’t help!

Hiding from the storm

The cold grey days continue. We take a few, brief, cold, windswept walks along the beach and make a lentil and vegetable soup to keep us warm. On the third day, the sky is slightly brighter and it’s only drizzling lightly so we move on. We stop again at Stavros – maybe that’s a cause for a little jig in tribute to Stavros Flatley? Remember this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHvATmUsSg

We stay here a couple of days at a beach carpark just out-of-town. It’s very quiet and we ‘hibernate’. A little bit of brightness encourages me to get the bikes off the back for the first time in ages (don’t think we’ve used them since Hungary?). After a much-needed clean and oil, we set off into town. Most of it turns out to be yet another dead holiday resort with very few people about; those that are; are clearing up after the storms. A lot of the roads are still flooded (there’s no proper drainage) and there’s sand and debris all over the beach road and on the terraces of the beachfront tavernas.

We drive up into the hills for a change of scene, but the clouds are still low and visibility is down to a few yards up high. It’s thickly forested and we pass piles of logs and the odd timber yard and isolated farm. We come round one bend to discover free-range pigs in the road! The lead pig has a bell round its neck like the goats and cows do. We’ve not seen that before. Down at sea level again, it’s hardly clearer. Most of the dirt roads are washed out, with deep gulleys down the middle of them and rocks and sand spewing out across the main road. Heidi’s not too good in the mud and we can’t reach our intended destination and end up sheltering behind a sports hall for the night. We finally wake to a bright sunny morning and our walk along the beach shows quite what a storm they’ve had here.

BIG tree trunks washed up on the beach after the storms

Back at Heidi we have visitors:

PUPPIES!

Puppy Puzzles

Look how TINY! Heidi’s wheels are not much bigger than the average car’s

They’re so clingy and under-foot that Elaine has to distract them out from under the wheels whilst I drive off and then run to get in whilst we escape before they can reach us. Whilst we were there, someone did come to feed them, but you wonder how they will survive when they’re no longer cute. The wild dogs here in Greece continue to be a problem and can occasionally be quite unnerving with their closeness.

All 4 together – preparing our ‘escape’

We’re approaching ‘the three fingers of Greece’ or Halkidiki

The ‘Three Fingers’ of Greece

We miss out the first ‘finger’, Athos and stop for lunch at the small fishing village of Pirghadhikia. The water’s crystal clear and almost calm.

The Eastern Finger of Halkidiki, Athos, is mostly inaccessible, comprising the isolated Mt Athos monastic community, a ‘semi autonomous monastic republic’ following the Julian (Byzantine) calendar. There are 20! working monasteries and roughly 1600 monks living on the peninsula. It is only accessible by boat (no land entry allowed – and you’d have a job; its densely forested at the northern end and very mountainous). And it’s open only to male pilgrims. Apocryphal legends say that the Virgin Mary visited Athos and blessed it; the Holy Mt. Athos (2033m) is considered the ‘Garden of the Virgin’ and is dedicated exclusively to her; there’s no room for other women though they are allowed to look from a boat at a distance. In 1060 entry was barred for women, female domestic animals, beardless persons and eunuchs. Women are still banned, but hens are tolerated for their eggs, beards are no longer mandatory and eunuchs are not readily available! Although frustrated Eurocrats in Brussels have contested this prohibition, they’ve proved no match for 1000years of tradition and the gold-sealed decrees of the Byzantine emperors. We’d originally planned to take a boat trip around the coast, but we’re too late in the season and it’s not so appealing with most of the scenery obscured by cloud. Must come back in the summer!

As we drive round the coast, there’s more sunshine and the water’s beginning to look turquoise. We stop for the night near Karidhi

It’s warm enough for shorts and paddling in the middle of the day. It really is a beautiful spot!

Wacky rock formations

Mt. Athos in the distance

Cactus – we must be down South!

The fruits taste similar to Pomegranate, but with the spines – Ouch! probably not worth the effort. Elaine was picking spines out of her fingers for weeks afterwards.

The next day it’s back to more rain and it’s cold again. We manage a brief walk into ‘town’ in the drizzle..

Wet! – The weather remains very changeable. The resort is completely closed with sand and mud washed down of the side roads.

On the 1^st November, it’s a beautiful sunny day again – warm enough, we decide, for a morning swim. And with a beach like this on our doorstep it would be ‘rude not to’. It’s a bit cold, but not too bad; it is November after all.

Not bad for 1st November – time for a swim!

We decide against the 100km drive round the coast of the Sithonian Peninsula; it’s apparently stunning, but we’ve seen the forecast and decide to cover some miles and get further south towards our winter destination in the Peloponnes. Over the next couple of days we pass through Thesoloniki and continue on down towards Volos. It’s a good road for a change, but it ends up costing us 30euro in tolls for a 200km stretch. We’re paying about double the car rate because of our height; time to change the satnav settings to ‘avoid tolls’! We drive round the base of Mt. Olympus (2917m). It’s mainly hidden by cloud, but just occasionally we catch a glimpse of the sun glinting on its snow-capped peaks. Beautiful. The road passes through the historic and dramatic Tembi Gorge Cut by the Pinios River between Mt. Olympus and Mt. Ossa. Throughout history the valley has been a pathway into Greece for merchants and invaders, from the Persian King Xerxes in 480BC to the Germans in WWII. It really is the only sensible way through the mountains here and they’re still building extensive tunnels and new stretches of road, hence the need for the tolls I suppose.

We stay on the outskirts of Volos before heading into town in search of a walking map. The Pelion Peninsula, just to the south, is renowned for it’s walking, much of it on traditional cobbled donkey tracks – sounds interesting. Volos is a busy industrial city and port. It’s the first real / normal place we’ve been in for some time. There’s plenty of fashionable clothes and shoe shops and no real sign of the poverty and economic problems we’ve heard about.

‘The Economic crisis has exacerbated Greece’s chronic youth unemployment problem, which in 2011 was close to 40% for 16-24yr olds and 22.3% for 25-34yr olds. The average net monthly salary for graduates was only 700euro in 2011, it’s probably less now.

Poverty and Joblessness certainly hasn’t been that obvious to us so far in Greece. We wonder how much this has got to do with the Greek family dynamics and their ideas on shared property. Admittedly, it’s only what we’ve read, but it seems traditional that the kids don’t leave home until they get married. For the men anyway, this is often not till mid 30’s or later. Whilst living at home they are saving up for their future married life. Greeks traditionally have huge weddings including the whole town. 500 or even up to 2000 guests is not unusual. As a guest at a Greek wedding, you are expected to give a gift of at least 50euro for every person in your family that is attending. Even if the newlyweds are paying for the food, which usually they are not (that’s likely on Mum and Dad’s bill too), it’s easy to see that you could start your married life with a large sum of money. It is also not unusual for gifts of a small house or land to be made by parents or close family (usually bought/already owned by the parents or sometimes an extra storey is built on the family house). As more kids come along and they begin to need a bigger place, it’s then time for a swap; The ‘oldies’ move into the smaller place and the young family takes over the bigger place. Childcare is, of course, generally free too, since no one moves very far, Grandma and Granddad are usually on hand. And as the Grandparents begin to need someone to care for them, they may move back into the big place with their son / daughter-in-law, thus freeing up the small place for the next generation of kids. There may be more than a couple of properties involved in this chain. If you add to this the fact that nearly everyone seems to own a patch of land in the country, perhaps with some olive and fruit trees and often a holiday house for the summer, you see that there is potential for the same few properties to stay in the family for generations with no-one needing to buy them. The land, of course, is also an important part of the equation, because this also provides much of your basic foods or at least an income, from produce sales.

It sounds a bit too good to be true, and obviously some other income is needed, but it seems clear that this sort of system could potentially save a lot of costs and could mask the effects of the true economic situation for at least a couple of generations.

Agios Nikolaos Church, Volos

We decide to stay at a campsite for a few days. Extravagant, but we’re in serious need of a washing machine and have yet to spot a launderette in Greece. ‘Camping Hellas’ is in a beautiful sheltered spot next to the village of Ano Gatzea, and we get the perfect pitch under olive and palm trees only a few paces from the beach.

Prime location at Camping Hellas

The usual ‘companions’ join us for a cuppa. Actually the dog was a pescy nuisance and wouldn’t leave us alone. Far worse than at any of our free camping spots. And that’s my seat cat! … later he barged through our flyscreen door and broke it.

The campsite remains open all year, but there is only one other van there initially (2 more arrive before we leave). As we sit by the edge of a mirror-like sea on the first night there, our ‘neighbour’ Lilli wanders over with some self-made blackcurrant wine and 3 glasses. She’s German and speaks perfect English. We chat and watch the sun set before we all retreat inside Heidi as the temperature plummets.

Lilli has spent years travelling and she’s got many stories to tell. She’s been all over Africa. She’s done Germany to Cape Town and back 4! times. She’s also been to Australia and covered lots of Europe. She’s now divorced and learning to do things on her own. She’s recently managed to bash up her van pretty badly, breaking a roof box and virtually ripping the roof rack off, and is scared to drive more than very slowly in case bits fall off! The perils of following a sat-nav on tiny Greek roads under olive trees! We take note; Heidi is bigger than her van. Peter promises to take a look in the morning and see what he can do.

Elaine, Lilli and her rather battered van

I spend most of the next day trying to repair bits of Lilli’s van (did I mention her door was hanging off, missing a hinge and the ladder up the back was also badly twisted). With my limited tools, I didn’t manage to do much, but hopefully I made it safe by tying bits of broken roof rack to solid anchor points and squirting sealant in some of the gashes to stop the rain coming in. She doesn’t seem overly concerned and jokes that she is “shaping the van to fit her lifestyle”. There followed a late lunch, cooked by Lilli, more of her stories and good company.

Lilli leaves in the morning and we do more washing, struggling to get it dry in the murky weather. It’s bright, but everything looks white and it’d difficult to see where the sea stops and the sky starts. We briefly spot dolphins, close in, in the bay, and a Kingfisher diving just up the beach from us (I didn’t know they fished in salt water), but the islands and mountains that we should be able to see remain veiled in cloud.

a very grey day – there’s a horizon out there somewhere. And so still! Although this is the sea it seems more like a lake.

The campsite owner is missing, as we get ready to leave and pay our dues. I eventually find him in a shed pouring olive oil from a huge drum into smaller containers. He’s keen to talk about the olives and his oil and the harvest. It was cold-pressed yesterday! They we’re still collecting the olives when we arrived. We buy some from him; the first purchasers of this year’s oil. It’s still opaque and very green. We are instructed NOT to waste it in cooking! It is for salads only, or preferably to have poured over hot crusty toast, not just bread, and sprinkled with oregano and a little salt – Yumm!

Greece, like much of Europe has had a bad summer with plenty of rain and the winter storms have come early (don’t we know it!). They don’t normally harvest until December or January and would normally lay out nets or tarpaulins to catch them, but in most cases it seems people are too late; after the recent winds, half the olives are already on the ground and will go to waste if not collected quickly, with the added difficulty of much more leaves and twigs on the ground as well to sort through. This early pressing, of the mostly still green olives, produces the best quality oil and is normally done on a limited scale. The rest being left to ripen further until they are black, when they produce more oil but of a lesser quality. There certainly seems to be much activity in the olive groves and there is a constant stream of pickup trucks piled high with plastic boxes or sacks of olives heading to the press.

We spend the next week continuing to explore the Pelion Peninsula. The weather is often grey and cloudy obscuring the views, but when the sun comes out – Wow!

‘In mythology The Pelion was inhabited by ‘kentavri’ (centaurs) – half man, half horse creatures, who took delight in drinking wine, deflowering virgins and generally ripping up the countryside. Not all were random reprobates however, one, named Chiron, was supposedly renowned for his skill in medicine’

The Turkish occupation never managed to extend into the central and eastern regions. It’s not hard to see why; the area was, until recently, largely inaccessible. The many villages that cling to the impossibly steep hillsides were only linked by cobbled, steep, winding, donkey paths. As a result, the Greek culture and economy continued to flourish here. Silk and wool were exported to many places in Europe and the Orthodox Church managed to maintain many ‘hidden schools’ (hidden from the disapproving Turks). Like many remote areas in Greece The Pelion became a spawning ground for the ideas that led to the War of Independence. Lonely Planet calls the area ‘a hiking Mecca’.

We drive the ridiculously steep and winding roads; they really have to be seen to be believed! It takes a long time to get anywhere. We visit Makrinista, drive up through a ski area at 1200m and then back down to sea level at Choretto.

just look at those winding roads! count the hairpins – yes, It’s steep!

Looking down to Volos from the mountain village of Makrinista

the ‘streets’ of Makrinista

An interesting touch on many of the old buildings in this area. These ones have actually got coloured glass in – to brighten up a dull day in winter when the main shutters are closed against the elements? The more modern buildings often just have a similar effect painted above the windows.

Unusual! fresco in the little church here. We’re getting used to gruesome pictures of John the Baptist’s severed head, but he himself is not normally holding it! I suppose the wings are supposed to represent him in his spirit form? so it just about ‘works’

a wintry beach at Choretto – the water’s still turquoise though 🙂

We pass through Zagora; the ‘apple capital of Greece’ with plenty of the harvest in evidence in the back of all the pickup trucks and in roadside stalls. The road narrows to ‘Heidi + a few inches’ but we manage to squeeze through. We stop at Agios Ionis down on the coast again for a couple of nights and walk to Damouchari (inaccessible to all but the smallest local cars).

Local lore has it that the name ‘Damouchari’ comes from ‘dos mou hari’ or ‘give me grace’. It was here, in 2008 that parts of Mama Mia! Was filmed. This tiny natural harbour was once the only way out for the produce of the area; brought here by mule train. (there are now a few other modern artificial harbours)

Sun out! On the front at Agios Ionis

We planned a walk along the coast from here, thinking we’d try out one of the famous mule paths or ‘kalderimia’ in this ‘hiking Mecca’. We didn’t get very far before giving up. They’re rough and steep (1 in 3! In places) and slippy in the damp weather. This one had the added ‘excitement’ of sheer drops to the sea below.

Damouchari harbour. When they filmed Mama Mia! they built a pontoon for everybody to dance on. The locals wanted them to leave it, but it was dismantled ‘for safety reasons’

STEEP!

switchbacks too. Of course we can make a path up an almost vertical cliff! Look how clear the water is – it’s a LONG way down!

The tiny harbour, far below

a little ‘clue’

From Agios Ionis we continue down the east coast of the peninsula. Up at the level of what is laughably considered the ‘main road’, we’re in the cloud; it’s cold and damp. We stop and stock up at a small shop in Tsagarada, before continuing south. Eventually the mountains reduce in height a bit. It gets flatter and more open and the roads get wider. Surprisingly, there seems less population here. Maybe it’s just too far away from anywhere? We stop at the idyllic Potistika Beach, then just outside Milina and finally right down the end at Agia Kiriaki.

Potistika Beach – morning swim Thursday 13th November! Beautiful, totally clear, turquoise water.

Tempted …but then we can park Heidi here for free anyway.

walking through the olive groves

‘home’ for a few days – just beyond Milina. It’s not all sitting about in the sunshine though – we had 24hrs of rain after I took this.

The weather continues to be pretty iffy. It’s often grey and overcast and we have some days of constant rain. There’s not enough sun to keep our batteries charged with the solar panel and we have to resort to running the engine again. We manage to get out walking though, having learnt to avoid donkey / footpaths and stick to ‘roads’. The majority of roads around here are unsurfaced and in poor condition, especially after all the recent rain, but they’re fine for walking. There’s constant activity in the olive groves and we meet pickup trucks laden with olives and the long sticks they use to bash the branches encouraging the remaining olives to fall. It continues to amaze us where a Greek can get to with a car! Admittedly, most of them are 4x4s, but some people are using ordinary cars with trailers to get to their trees. The roads are regrettably not made for Heidi – she wouldn’t stand a chance! We continue to get lost whilst trying to distinguish the main track from the endless dead-ends that either end in an olive grove or at a gated entrance to someone’s house. Our map reading isn’t bad, but when all roads look the same, most aren’t marked on our map and, of course, there are no signposts… A compass isn’t much help either when you look around you and all you can see are olive trees!

Ancient olive trees. They can live for 100s of years!

The road to Agia Kiriaki

The weather improves whilst we’re at Agia Kiriaki and we can sit out in the sun with just a T-shirt and feel hot in the middle of the day. Not bad for the 17^th November!

Not a bad parking spot!

our ever changing view – plenty of boats going by on the way to Volos

The only road into the centre of Agia Kiriaki – not really suitable for a Heidi!

Yes, still the main road!

the colourful backstreets

Boats out of the water for the winter

We drive to the very end of the peninsula through sparse scrubland. There’s nothing there except for a few goats. It’s dry and falls steeply away to the sea. The road ends abruptly at a tiny beach opposite the even more remote island of Paleo Trikeri. There’s barely room for us to turn round. Other than a closed taverna and a sign with a telephone number to call if you want to get to the island there’s nothing there, so we retrace our steps and head to what we assume is the main town of Trikeri a’top the hill. Trikeri feels very dead with everything shut up and a lot of the buildings in a poor state of repair – maybe it’s just too isolated here? It probably doesn’t help that it’s siesta time, though I doubt that there are many people living up here. Siesta-ing all afternoon seems fine and sensible in the summer heat, but rather an odd habit during the winter months when it’s getting dark and cold at 5pm and by the time you’re heading out for a coffee or to do your shopping you’ve missed what little daylight there is.

Backstreets (paths) of Trikeri

So it’s back down to our spot down at Agia Kariaki for the evening’s ‘entertainment’…

always a good finish to the day!

We think we’ve ‘done’ Pelion for now. Maybe we’ll be back when the weather’s likely to be more reliable and there’s more people about? Tomorrow it’s time to hit the road south again…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Old Stuff’ and Olives

On the 9^th October, we woke up to a cold crisp morning with a bit of mist in the air. It feels very autumny, so, having topped up Heidi’s water tank with water from a roadside spring near Burgas in Bulgaria, we headed south towards Greece looking for more summer. We travelled through rolling wooded hills, with little traffic on the excellent newly surfaced road (Wow!) other than a steady stream of ancient timber trucks. We briefly joined what must be a major truck route into Turkey, complete with scary Heidi-eating potholes, and follow an artic’ as he meanders all over both sides of the road trying to avoid said potholes, before thankfully turning off onto a better and again completely deserted section.

We crossed into Greece just beyond Svilengrad having avoided a short cut through Turkey (We needed a ‘green card’ for the insurance that we didn’t have). The Bulgarian border guards were friendly and more interested in practising their English than checking us or the van out. Then it was across a short bit of no mans land to the Greek border. There was a barrier across the road and no signs in any language. It transpired that I had to walk across the road to the office, where I was received with a grunt, a cursory look at both our passports (Elaine had remained in Heidi), and then an “OK”. I walked back to the van, the barrier was raised, and we were through. So if anybody is looking for a good spot to smuggle anything or anybody into Greece, here’s your spot!

Since we’d come down out of the Bulgarian hills, the weather had rapidly improved. The sun was shining, and it felt hot and dry. As we headed south, the temperature continued to rise and by the time we reached the coast it must have been at least 10 – 15 degrees warmer (in the low 30’s again). After heading west on a good bit of fast motorway, we turn off towards Moroneia and stopped for the night down by the small fishing harbour of Agios Charlambos. The police are by later to check us out. There’s no problem with us staying here, but “watch out for the Bulgarian and the Albanian Mafia” he says. What does that mean?!

An ideal parking spot at Agios Charlambros harbour …apart from the Mafia?

We stayed for several days. The weather was idyllic, and it was very quiet and peaceful. We did some washing, which dried quickly in the sun and explored some of the local antiquities. There’s part of a Byzantine wall; a fortification around the harbour, a Roman Propylon (a ‘Monumental Gateway’), various mosaic floors and a little further along the coast an impressive amphitheatre and then ‘Ancient Ismara’. Ancient Ismara supposedly had an acropolis, and ancient gateway and a wine-press. We spent a long time looking for them, but only managed to find the gateway. How can you lose an acropolis! There’s also the remains of an Early Christian Basilica (6thC AD) near the harbour; unfortunately fenced off and locked.

the excavated Roman Propylon

An almost complete mosaic floor just ‘hanging about in the olive groves’

The partly restored theatre

ancient gateway into Ismara

The ground is dry and rocky and predominantly covered in olive groves; they obviously like it like that. There are a mixture of varieties grown here. Some small, some quite large, and in varying stages of ripeness. I’d always thought that olives were rock hard and quite inedible until they’d been soaked many times, but some of the big black ones here seem almost ripe already and quite juicy (or should that be oily?) when you squeeze them. We’ve recently read that some varieties are left to ripen on the trees before they are harvested. We don’t know much about olives as you can see; something else for the ‘self-education’ list. It’s surprising how long this self-education list seems to be, what with history, culture, religion, architecture, languages, unknown flora and fauna, international cuisine etc. etc. No chance of getting bored then!

..and to top things off. The sun set, day after day, in a fiery ball over the harbour wall

On Monday 13^th, we go into the village; a quiet little place with a couple of small shops. We buy what veg we can find (there seems very little about and it’s not up to much) and some fresh bread. The shopkeeper and the locals seem friendly and we try out our first few words of Greek; which seems to be appreciated.

Next, it’s along the coast for a bit. We’re suddenly out of the harsh, dry, rocky terrain and now it’s flat and sandy again. It seems the only thing that grows here is the odd holiday villa; otherwise it just looks barren and empty scrubland. We stopped at Imeros beach for a couple of days and it remained warm enough for swimming in the sea or wandering this completely deserted stretch of beach accompanied by the ‘guard dogs’. There were 3 of them. They made a hell of a fuss when we first arrived and, with recent events in mind, we nearly didn’t stay, but they turned out to be harmless enough. For the whole time we were there, they remained permanently by our side and followed us on walks for several miles. When we left, they ran after Heidi until they were exhausted. We wondered if they were victims of the hard times here, and whether they were owned and looked after in the not too distant past? They seemed a lot more clingy that the ones we’d come across in Bulgaria.

The ‘Guard Dogs’

miles of deserted beach

On the 15^th, the weather turned very grey and humid and we moved on. Heading inland a bit, avoiding some of the numerous lagoons and salt marshes that make up this stretch of coast, we found we were driving across huge cotton fields as far as the eye could see. They were busy harvesting the stuff and there were cotton wool balls everywhere along the verges of the roads.

Cotton Fields stretching as far as the eye can see

We stopped for the night near Fanari on a narrow strip of land between the sea and a lagoon, the home of Flamingos and Pelicans. Having again struggled to find much fresh food in the few small shops (what do the locals do?) we did a quick trip to Lidl in Xanthi. We were going to head up into the hills, but we could hardly make them out in the low grey cloud, so we went back to the coast for a couple of days and stayed at Porto Lagos; a fishing harbour and small cargo ship port. We spotted a big black 4×4 with tinted windows and Bulgarian plates, it’s occupants, we assumed, lunching at one of the fish tavernas. Were they ‘the Mafia’ we had been warned about? There’s a fair few similar cars around. Or were we just being paranoid? For much of Bulgaria, this is their closest bit of coast.

colourful beehives in the woods at Porto Lagos. There’s a lot of beehives around. The Greeks like their honey!

Pomegranates growing in gardens near Fanari

..and Quince

Saturday 18^th, the grey murk had finally gone and it was back to sunshine and clear blue skies. Time to head for the hills. We can see them now! We stop at Xanthi; it’s market day and ludicrously busy. Easing Heidi through the throng of shoppers and not really sure where we’re going, we eventually find parking. It’s bedlam as we get moved along with the crowd past endless stalls, following an old lady pushing a pram full of pot plants. I assume she was selling them and opting for a novel ‘moving stall’. So THIS is where everyone gets their fresh fruit and veg. from! We get 4 Pomegranates for 2euros; about half the UK price.

Escaping the throng we head up the hill to the old part of town with it’s winding cobbled streets, cars and mopeds emerging from the unlikeliest looking ‘streets’. There are several impressive old neo-classical mansion houses hiding amongst the more ordinary. These mansions were once owned by tobacco merchants (around 1860 – 1890). Tobacco is still grown around here, but doesn’t appear to be that common. It’s not something we’re used to recognising though. Maybe it’s all mostly harvested by now?

tiny, busy streets in Xanthi

originally home to the local tobacco merchants

Hidden amongst it all we find this tiny church..

the entrance to a tiny church, built into the wall of a garden above

inside – a typical display of icons

We’ve been looking into and trying to understand all these icons; rather an alien concept to us. Various sources refer to them as ‘windows to God or into the spiritual realm’, ‘a form of / means to prayer’ etc. Some sources go as far as to say “they participate in the reality which they represent”. They are sometimes referred to as tools for education of the masses, bearing in mind that for the majority of history ‘the masses’ have been illiterate. Some are credited with the performance of miracles. In our minds, that is surely down to the saint that they represent, but the distinction seems a bit vague. Icons are not ‘worshiped’, but they are ‘venerated’, ‘honoured’, ‘respected’; or again, is that the saint they represent? It seems odd that you often see several icons of the same saint in one location, indeed, some are virtually identical.

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/icon provides a good overview.

There’s also the question of why there are Sooo many shrines or ‘little churches’ dotted everywhere here. They are particularly prevalent along roads and their numbers increase with the severity of the bends and the corresponding drop over the edge! The majority, it seems are erected as a memorial to victims of road accidents and some as a ‘thank you for sparing me’. The old ones never seem to be removed. They just put newer, bigger or more elaborate ones alongside. Some even have a small fenced off garden, picnic benches and often a water supply.

a fairly basic design..

..but still full of various icons ..and that’s not a small bottle of ouzo for passing travellers, its olive oil for the perpetually burning lamp

A more elaborate one. It’s not obvious from the picture, but this is on a post at the side of the road. Equally full of icons and oil lamps. There are even designs on the windows.

..a little larger complete with courtyard

Back on one of the main streets of Xanthi, it’s all too busy and noisy for our liking, with all the cafes full to bursting. We find our way out-of-town, rather suspecting the sat-nav of having a laugh at our expense, and stop for lunch at a roadside picnic spot. All is still and quiet. It’s still feeling hot in the sun (28c) and we enjoy the cooler breezes off the hills. I wonder if I could get used to living so shoulder to shoulder in a place like Xanthi with no personal space and it never quiet? Doesn’t appeal much!

Olive oil, Tomatoes and Feta cheese – the makings of a typical Greek lunch (with free view)

Moving on, we decide to go looking for ‘The Ancient Fort of Kalyva’.

At a height of 627m above sea level, the fort of Kalyva, complete with a still intact water cistern, was constructed during the Macedonian King Phillip 2^nd’s time (359-336BC) , in a commanding position, as part of a series of forts controlling the Nestos Valley. Various kingdoms used it until the reign of Emperor Justinian’s (527- 565AD)

It turns out to be 9km up a tortuously windy and mainly single-track road. That’s the trouble with randomly choosing to follow a brown tourist sign. When we eventually get there we find it closed off with a high fence all round and locked gates. It’s off in the trees somewhere and there’s nothing to see. Humph. We’re beginning to discover this is common enough practice around here. Perhaps it would be open in season? We’ll think twice before following signs for miles and miles in the future. There’s a picnic site and just about room for us to park up so we stop for the night. It’s very quiet and peaceful with only the distant sound of goat bells reaching us from the valley below.

The morning brings another clear, crisp, sunny day. It feels cold first thing, but soon warms as we head off looking for the Nestos Gorge. It’s marked on far too small a scale map to be useful. We choose a likely looking road. We have various maps, all apparently contradicting each other. Either everything is marked as a ‘minor road’ or one seems to have been picked at random and highlighted as the ‘main route’. Bearing in mind that even a medium quality ‘minor road’ around here would be considered a footpath by most UK drivers, and that Heidi isn’t exactly light on her feet, it’s important which one is picked! Today’s choice seems surprisingly well surfaced and wide. We wind through hills covered in a mix of deciduous trees, their growth stunted by the dry climate and poor soil, until we reach a series of reservoirs, beyond which we hope lies the gorge.

And then the road ends. There’s a barriered off tunnel and an imposing dam and hydro-electric scheme still being worked on. Just as we’re about to turn around and retrace our lost steps, ‘Mr. Security’ approaches us and with a smile and a bit of sign language encourages us to drive up to the very top of the last dam for a look. The scale is enormous! From the top you can more easily see what has been done and the fact that half the mountain has been sliced away. We’re not sure, but rather suspect, that this is where our gorge used to be! Not what we were expecting, but perhaps no less impressive? We lunch and spend the afternoon reading and snoozing overlooking one of the lower reservoirs as we ponder the need for all the energy that can potentially be created here. The resources, fuel, and millions of tonnes of concrete that goes into creating a scheme like this are astounding! Now if everybody had a solar panel on their roof and were as economical with energy usage as Heidi. We have a very quiet night and marvel at the starry sky – shame about the unnecessary street lights on the dam in the distance.

Through the hills, alongside reservoirs, looking for the Nestos Gorge.

The view from the uppermost dam – difficult to show the HUGE scale. There are what look like tiny toy trucks and diggers working down there somewhere.

The view from our ‘balcony’ overlooking one of the lower reservoirs. A beautiful, almost silent spot.

We spend the morning in our continuing quest to learn some Greek with the aid of a teach yourself CD. Today’s task is getting to grip with the word ‘the’. How difficult can that be? Difficult enough; there are 7!! Different words for ‘the’ in Greek. There’s masculine, feminine and neuter, plurals and other subtle changes so it ‘sounds right’ with the surrounding words. Umm, we think?

In the afternoon we travel on more very quiet roads with the steeper hills giving way to flatter plains. Most of the fields are ploughed at this time of year so, difficult to know what’s normally growing. We increasingly spot vineyards as we approach the Ancient City of Philippi, on the outskirts of modern-day Krinides. That’s Philippi as in biblical St. Paul’s ‘letter to the Philippians’. It’s a huge site with the excavated remains of this once great city. There are multiple basilicas and churches, the Roman forum and the bathhouse. After coughing up 3euro each (we thought it would be more) we spend hours there trying to ‘see’ how it once was. For the latter part of the afternoon we are the only visitors, which only served to emphasise the scale of the place.

The Huge Archeological Site of Philippi. The centre area is the Forum. On the far side is the remains of one of several Basilicas

Elaine tries out the acoustics in the theatre

There’s the remains of craftmanship on a huge scale everywhere.

it was BIG!

I wonder how many modern doorways will still be intact after 2000 years?

the remains of the font / baptistry in ‘the octagon complex’ in the shape of a cross

Umm. Fairly sure that’s a loo seat (one of several in the bath house)

Philippi took it’s name from Philip II king of Macedonia when he captured and fortified the original colony of Krenedes in 356BC. The city prospered greatly in the Helenistic period when it acquired it’s fortification walls, theatre, public buildings and private residences.

 In 42BC the Roman emperor Octavian fought for and changed the character of the city forming a Roman colony developing it as an economic administrative and artistic centre. The ‘Via Egnatia’ (the main route from Rome, across Macedonia, including some of current Albania, to Constantinople) passed through the city in the 2^nd century BC making it more important and transforming it into a major centre of the region.

The visit of St. Paul the Apostle, who founded the first Christian church here in 49/50AD, changed the personality of the city once again. The predomination of the ‘new religion’ and the transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople lent Philippi considerable lustre and reputation. In the early Christian period (4th-6th century AD), there was considerable more building with the cathedral dedicated to St. Paul and four magnificent basilicas.

In the Bible, Acts chapter 16 describes how Paul received a vision guiding him to Philippi. Accompanied by Silas, Timothy and possibly Luke (the author of Acts) he preached the Gospel. He baptised Lydia, a purple dye merchant in the nearby river and exorcised a demon from a slave girl who caused a great uproar in the city. This led to his and Silas’ public beating and imprisonment. An earthquake caused the prison walls to tumble and the gates to fly open. When the sleeping jailer awoke, he prepared to kill himself knowing he would be punished. Paul stopped him, indicating that all the prisoners were still there; the jailer becoming one of the first Christians.

Paul visited the city at least on two other occasions, in 56 and 57. The ‘Epistle to the Philippians’ dates from around 61-62AD and shows the immediate impact of Paul’s instruction.

the remains of what was probably Paul’s prison cell

Elaine tries out Lydia’s Baptistry

A pool in the river alongside – more as it would have actually been for Lydia

The inside of a relatively new church / baptistry built alongside (if you don’t fancy full immersion in a cold stream?)

artwork on the ceiling depicting Paul’s miraculous release from jail..

..and his dream telling him to go

 

We drive to the nearby village of Palia Kavalia and spend a couple of days walking. There’s a deep river valley there with some huge trees and a waterfall hidden in it’s depths.

a walkway deep in the river valley amongst the huge twisted old trees (unusual around here with the usual lack of water)

another stunning sunset at our parking spot

a few ‘obstructions’ in the path

Elaine takes up goat herding

As usual in this part of the world, there have been a lot of changes over time here:

Palia Kavalia was inhabited as long ago as 356BC and was part of the Macedonian Kingdom ruled by King Philip 2^nd. However it was abandoned during the Byzantine period in favour of the coastal town of Christoupolis. Christoupolis was renamed Kavalia by the Ottaman Turks when they invaded and occupied the area in the 1391, and the Christian inhabitants once again returned to Palia Kavalia in the hills. With the Ottamans finally ousted and with the effects of the widespread urbanisation of the 1950’s, Palia Kavalia is now only a small village.

All this to-ing and fro-ing, along with a big influx of Greek Christians to the area in the 1923 ‘exchanges’ has meant a well-worn ancient path between here and the coast: we set off to explore the route. There is now a well-signed trail and we got as far as the spring that used to provide the coastal town with its water supply via a series of channels and a very impressive aqueduct.

The view over the pass and down to Kavala (previously Christoupolis and previously again, when Paul first visited Neopolis). Shame about the deteriorating weather. That should be a blue, blue sea dotted with islands in the distance

By the 23^rd, the weather has turned. The cloud hangs low over the hills and it’s rained overnight (The first rain we’ve had in Greece so far). Heading down to the coast again, the wind increases, the rain starts in earnest and the waves crash over the coastal road, so having stocked up with food, diesel and gas we find a relatively sheltered car park and hunker down. A brief respite from the weather allows us a look at the old town on the ‘Panagia’ peninsula. We climb up the increasingly steep streets to the castle and hence up the very narrow, winding stairs to the view from the top of the tower. You can see why this spot was chosen! You can see for miles; both inland and out to sea. The most famous ‘sight’ here is the aqueduct; the one bringing water to the city from the spring in the hills we visited yesterday. It was built/rebuilt by the Ottamans during the 16thC, although there was probably a previous Roman one here before.

The bay of Kavala from the castle. Heidi is hiding in the woodlands in the distant centre.

The old town with the castle.

The famous aqueduct squeezing in amongst the more modern, and very busy, city below.

The aqueduct and the more modern town of Kavala. It’s amazing how densely packed everything is. The roads are jam-packed and it seems it’s the norm to double and triple park. Look, they’ve even squeezed houses in under the aqueduct.

 

Well this seems to have become a bit of an ‘epic’; we’ve done a lot in our first 2 weeks in Greece. Time to leave you and have our evening ‘meze’:

Almond stuffed green olives, pickled garlic, and freshly toasted bread spread with black olive tapenade (olive paste) – yumm!

 

 

Bulgaria – Beasts and Beaches

 

Bulgarian visitors!

Bulgarian friends hehe. It took 2 days to achieve this.

What a difference a border makes – as you enter Bulgaria from Romania following the Black Sea Coastal road, the topography stays the same but the roads are tree-lined and the fields are smaller. Around the edges of the fields there seems to room for wild flowers and wild-life, and as well as the standard corn and sunflowers there are also now fields of peppers and aubergines.

About 10km south of the border we reached the small fishing village of Krapec; it has a couple of year round groceries come cafes plus a couple of small resort style hotels and apartments, which are all shut up when we arrive during the last week of September.

We take a small tarmaced road left out of the village, which passes an old camping area before becoming a dirt beach road. The beach is pretty stunning; miles of empty sand and sand dunes. We parked on an area of hard sand behind the dunes, which gives us protection from the prevailing North- North-Easterly wind.

Can you see us? a tiny white spec – there’s no one else here!

just a few paces from Heidi’s front door!

With the weather finally in our favour, we spend a week there; swimming and walking. Either side of the town are saltwater lagoons, which form part of the Shabla Nature Reserve. We’re closest to the Drankulak Lake. This is one of the main migratory routes for birds on their way South to East Africa via the Bosphorus or the Eastern Mediterranean. They are the Winter homes for thousands of wildfowl that have spent the Summer on the Siberian Tundra. The rare Red Breasted Goose for example. Unfortunately for us, they’re not here yet.

It’s very quiet here with very few people about; only the sound of the wind and waves for company. Our peaceful life is only interrupted by a brief trip to the nearby town of Shabla to buy a few supplies, an off-road rally along the beach on a Sunday morning, and a posse of mice playing tag for nights on end!

difficult to catch the action as they go screaming by – part of a 4×4 tour I think. There were English, Dutch, German cars as well as the more expected Bulgarian and Romanian.

The small town of Krapec under stormy skys

Out Walking past the rich soils of these parts

We’ve been attempting to humanely trap the mice since they made an appearance in Romania, but traps Mark 1 and Mark 2 failed to produce results, so back to the drawing board. Mark 3, is an 10 litre empty paint bucket, placed on a piece of lino, with a slice of apple underneath and one edge propped up with a roll of gaffer tape to which a long piece of string is attached. The trap is a success yielding five mice; the downside is that it is man operated so involves the operator trying to keep awake, whilst sitting in a chair with a torch to provide ‘mood lighting’. Although the mice were released quite a distance from the van, we felt at least a couple were return visitors but also they were telling their friends the route into the van! After a week of this I’m afraid we got mean, we turned to WMDs (weapons for mouse destruction) basically flypaper for mice, very effective yielding 4 mice in total. As I write we’ve now been mice free for over a week.

Whilst in Vama Veche, just over the border in Romania, you’ll recall that ‘Battie’ paid us in visit. We thought he only stayed the one-day and left the same evening. However two weeks later, whilst we were on an early evening mouse watch (in the dark, blinds open, moonlight) Battie appears from the over cab bed! And this was after we’d taken everything out of the van and given Heidi a thorough Spring-clean in an attempt to make her less attractive to the mices. Can he really have been in the van that long! Anyway, he’s definitely gone now, or is writing that tempting fate?

In much of East Europe, ‘camping’ used to mean renting a small chalet, a cross between a beach-hut and a shed. During the communist era, this is where the common man went for their holidays. With many Eastern Block countries having very little or no coast, the Black Sea, was the destination of choice for many many thousands of people. We have found acres and acres of these chalets in varying stages of repair. The demand is obviously no longer there, since the fall of the Iron Curtain. People are able to travel further a field, stay in one of the new holiday resorts, or camp for free using their own caravan or tent. Having said that, many are in stunning locations and very cheap to rent and some are being to be restored and improved.

The remains of Krapec camp site

Staying in one of the chalets in the almost derelict Campsite at Krapec, we found Diana from Moldova; a young fashion designer who lived in Bucharest having completed her MA there. She had been staying there for three months to get inspiration for her work. She loved the place, as we did, saying how she preferred the simple life with space to think about what she was doing with her life rather than the busy city, where it was always a rush to work work work, to be able to afford rent on a flat that she didn’t like living in. She was an interesting person. We talked about the rights and wrongs in the world and the harm that the television does, telling people what they ‘should’ have. She was perhaps surprised to find that we, from the perceived established and rich West, agreed with her.

Diana was maintaining, and making use of, a vegetable garden established by a previous occupant and told us that here in Bulgaria, farmers are generally still able to grow what they want, well, in good soil without the use of pesticides etc. In Romania, most farmers are now told what they can and can’t grow, having to abandon the traditional peppers, tomatoes and aubergines in favour of, for example, huge fields of sunflowers encouraged along with plenty of chemicals for oil production and the soil is deteriorating as a result. It’s a mad mad world.

We had decided to leave Krapec Beach on Saturday 27^th September, however the weather had other ideas, Friday night brought torrential rain, thunder and lightning. By Saturday morning we were too late, the road was flooded and the sand waterlogged. Heidi was stuck. The rain continued until 4 o’clock in the afternoon, then came the wind and thankfully by Sunday the floods were subsiding.

Saturday’s view. Was there water there before?!

a somewhat different seascape (taken from the same spot as the one a couple of days ago – with the turquoise water!)

The beach ROAD – our means of escape! Yes, that’s us up ahead to the right of the track.

We tried to move Heidi but she just dug deeper into the sand. Peter waited by Heidi to see if he could commandeer one of the 4x4s that regularly used the road. Meanwhile I went in search of help at the Camping hoping to find Diana who had friends in the village, but instead found a ‘weather beaten knight in sandy slippers’ who kindly came to the rescue with his trustee old wreck of a Peugeot 405. Unfortunately it wasn’t powerful enough, so a second knight with a tractor was sent for, and slowly but surely he pulled Heidi free, our heroes. Back on solid ground, we bid each other a cheerful farewell, and then they rode off into the sunshine with our heartfelt thanks and a small reward (“for the tractor” – which certainly needed a bit of money spent on it!). The above was achieved with not a single word of common language. We thought he had indicated to come to the local beach café for a drink, but when we got there, we fond it like most others, shut up for the season with no one about. The kindness of strangers – amazing!

Monday we bid a fond farewell to Krapec, and head to the nearby town of Shabla to stock up with provisions again. Shabla seemed a pleasant little place. It’s got everything; shops, banks, cafes etc. The shops weren’t exactly obvious. There’s very little signage or advertising, and you never know what you’ll find when you get inside. Vegetables were a bit of an issue. It seems that since the locals all grow their own or get them from a neighbour, there is little need and so little choice. Everything, of course, is in need of upgrade and repair, especially the roads! They are working on the roads, putting in kerbstones and paving, which of course only makes it worse at the moment. Oh, but most importantly, Shabla has a hardware store with an owner who knows the word “mouse” and sells ‘mouse glue’!

The bright lights of Shabla – home of ‘mouse glue’

We head along the coast until we reach Nos Sabla and ‘Shabla Tulza’, one of three inland lakes along this stretch, and another empty beach. Again in the woods above the beach are hundreds and hundreds of derelict chalets. The sun continues to shine so we enjoy lunch in a rustic seafood restaurant overlooking the Black Sea and walk to the lighthouse at Port Kariya, another small fishing village a couple of kilometres along the coast. There’s plenty of unfinished development here and a ridiculous ‘park’ funded by the EU of course.

Miles of empty beach again – suits us! but it’s beginning to feel cold for swimming..

 

more derelict ‘chalets’ – seems such a waste

These are still just about a going concern – what a spot!

Mmm Delicious, and cheap!

Good job there’s an English translation! The letters are a bit of a struggle

The small fishing village of Kariya.

The ridiculous EU funded ‘park’ complete with far too many ‘features’, far too many benches, as many different types of paving and surface as they could fit in, smartly surfaced car parking spaces (all roads in and to the village are simply sandy tracks!) There are many examples like this, but this is one of the worst. It’s obviously all about repeating a winning formula to get money out of the EU. What’s the point!

Thursday 2^nd October we head off along the coast, and stay for one night in Royal Cove 3km south of the town of Kavarna, before reaching Zlatni Pjasaci or ‘Golden Sands’ as it is more popularly known; Bulgaria’s second largest purpose-built resort. A bit of shock after the empty beaches we’ve got used to. We escape the madness and opt for a walk to the Aladzha Monastery through the wooded hillside of the Golden Sands Nature Park. The monastery turns out to be a series of hermits caves half way up the side of a rock face. Information boards showed the monks’ cells, a church and even an area for funerals and burials dug out of the soft rock. An odd choice of ‘residency’! I suppose it was pretty safe from attack or unwanted disturbance though.

Kaliakra Nature Reserve. The coast now changes to sandy cliffs with very little access to the beach except through barriered off ‘resorts’! It’s another good spot to watch the migrating birds, but it was very windy and we gave it a miss

 

a brief stay at ‘Royal Cove’, Kavarna – the usual mix of a decaying past and a few hopeful new developments. Much of the building works have obviously been stopped for some years and presumably will stay like that indefinitely?

a useful feature of ‘Royal Cove’ – one of many natural springs in this area. The locals were collecting water here so we followed suit and topped up our tanks.

right on the beach at ‘Golden Sands’. NOOoooo!

 

Lonely Planet said if you wanted to party all night, top up your tan all day, and didn’t want to know you were in a country called Bulgaria come here. About sums it up really! Viagra, Party Poppers, Herbal High anyone?

..or what about a knock off handbag? Any designer brand name you want. I’ve got no problem with the fakes, it’s the people who feel they have to spend money they probably haven’t got to have one! Why!!

and don’t even get us started on this. We could think of a few things we’d like to do to ‘the administration’!

Aladzha Monastery / hermit caves

Shame it wasn’t working as intended.
 On the way through the Nature Park, we came across this embellished spring illistating Bulgarian History – The idea was that the red lettered dates (periods of ‘free existence’) flowed strongly and the black lettered dates(periods of foreign rule) weekly: Spout 1- 681- Establishment of the Bulgarian State and the first Bulgarian Kingdom lasting 337 years. Spout 2 – 1018 – The Byzantine Invasion and Byzantine rule lasting 169 years. Spout 3 – 1187 – Restoration of the Bulgarian State (The 2nd Bulgarian Kingdom) lasting 209 years. Spout 4 – Ottaman invasion and rule for for 482 years. Spout 5 – 1878 – Liberty of Bulgaria “Bulgaria Forever” It was constructed in 1981, the 1300th ‘Aniversary of Bulgaria’

They’re trying to keep route finding in the Natural Park very natural!

We continued to the city of Varna and visit the extensive remains of the Roman Baths, before a bit of unwanted ‘adventure’. Just as we were leaving Elaine was bitten by one of the many stray dogs. It was such a shock as there was no provocation or warning. He just walked past and bit her! So foregoing the Cathedral, we opted for the taxi ride to the local outpatients clinic. The taxi driver, having been flagged down by the attendant at the Roman site, kindly came in with us and explained the situation to the receptionist. The place was full and we waited over 2 hours to be seen. The wound was cleaned up along with a tetanus injection and luckily someone who spoke English was found to explain that we needed to go to a different department in the main hospital; the Dog Bite Unit. Being late on a Saturday, we would have to now wait till Monday morning. Elaine managed to walk back across town, and it was only after we’d got back to Heidi that the effects of the shock began to show.

plenty of Roman bits just lying about..

 

what’s left of the old heating system..

 

How it once was – pretty clever these Romans

NOT what was expected from the visit! Looks a whole lot better now it’s been cleaned up!

Sunday, and the bite wounds no longer needed a dressing. The sun was shining and Peter was 46 years young. We strolled through the park, supposedly the largest in Europe stretching 8km along the coast with steps down to the beach, and stopped at one of many trendy cafes, before returning back along the beach. We discovered, to our surprise, that at least one of the streams flowing through the park came from a thermal spring. By the time the water reached the beach the water was still quite hot and was piped off to create constantly flowing hot showers and a small thermal pool right on the beach. It had obviously been there a long time and was very rough and ready, made of concrete and various cobbled together bits of pipework. It was popular with the locals though. I’m surprised they haven’t made more of a feature of it. Later, tempted by one of the beachfront restaurants, we decide on a birthday lunch, lingering for much of the afternoon and consuming perhaps a little too much local rose wine. A good day.

The extensive park at Varna

Natural hot springs on the beach

 

Varna beach

Birthday lunch 😀

Monday 6^th, and we were up early to walk across town to the Main Hospital where we were relieved of 50lev ‘surgery fee’, before being directed to the doctor surprisingly quickly. A quick look and a bit of discussion later and we were on our way with nothing further needed. It seems that an anti-rabies injection carried a greater risk than was present from the dog bite. They do in fact make every effort to vaccinate all the wild dogs here with a tag on their ears showing they’ve been done. Of course we didn’t actually notice whether the dog in question had one, but looking around, we have yet to spot one without a tag, even out in the sticks. We were also encouraged by the fact that the dog’s teath hadn’t actually torn Elaine’s trousers, meaning there hadn’t actually been direct contact; amazing considering the size of the hole in her leg! Asking whether we could have our ‘surgery fee’ back then, the doctor smiled, saying “no, it had already been utilised”. Hmm! He pointed out that, had Elaine had the injection it would have been free, along with any follow-up treatment if it was needed. This may well be how the local system works, and our ‘Europe deal’ of course means we only get treated the same as the locals.

We decided against the museums in Varna as nothing sounded particularly gripping. We visited a small local church as we walk back across town. Like the cathedral, which we did manage after our ‘incident’ on Saturday, its covered in murals inside with very dark, almost black, painted screen dividing the ‘high alter’ / sanctuary from the rest of the church. There are very few chairs and a great many candles housed in oven like contraptions with extractor fans to protect the paintings. As usual in the orthodox churches, there are a couple of significant icons on display with people coming, often very briefly, to ‘visit’ or say a prayer before them. We must try to learn a bit more about these, to our eyes strange, customs.

Varna Orthodox Cathedral. The main hospital is in the street behind – should you need to know..

leafy and surprisingly quiet..

 

A major port too..

…but we still found a relatively quiet ‘Heidi spot’

Even considering our unwanted escapes, we decided we quite liked Varna. It had a good unhurried and surprisingly un-busy feeling to it. It’s often very difficult to tell what makes us like one place and not another. I wonder if opinions would change on a second visit?

After Varna we continued down the coast, stopping at Skorpoouci for a couple of nights. It was very dead at this time of year and the weather had turned cold. It rained hard all night, prompting us to make up our minds to head south to Greece fast. We passed the infamous ‘Sunny Beach’ with its thousands of hotels and apartments; and they are still building! and stopped briefly at Nesebar, the ancient fishing village just to the south. They have thankfully made an effort to keep Nesebar looking like it once was, and even the new construction looks like the unusual original with its timber planked upper stories. It was very quiet this late in the season, but the restaurant touts were still there trying hard. We stopped for the night by a roadside spring and topped up the water tank. Springs are fairly plentiful in these parts; very handy for us. It seems there is plenty of water about, with most of the fields irrigated by pumping systems attached to wells.

A deserted beach at Skorpolouci…

..backed by woodlands

..ruined by rubbish everywhere. It’s a popular free-camping spot. Why don’t people who like camping in amazing places feel it’s necessary to take it away! Argh!!

A tapped Hot Spring. Another feature of this coast ..connected to the nearby hotel

10th centuary St. Stephen’s Church, Nesebar.

Unusual, predominantly timber planked buildings and narrow cobbled lanes in Nesebar.

On Thursday 9th October we woke to a cold, crisp day and drive through rolling hills. The fields are freshly ploughed, and the leaves in the large areas of forest are turning. It’s feeling very autumny. That is until we head up over a pass and drive down the other side towards warm, dry and sunny Greece. The change was dramatic. It must be a least 10 degrees warmer. The Bulgarian border guards were friendly, practising their English and asking about our trip and where Manchester and St.Asaph (where we were born) were. Then it was through the usual bit of no man’s land to the Greek border. There were no signs, and the Greek border guards stayed in their booth on the other side of the road. I walked across with the passports whilst Elaine stayed in the van. They checked the watermarks were genuine etc. and then grunted ‘ok’ and raised the barrier. They may have been able to see Elaine from a camara, but I doubt it, and no check to see who or what else we might have been bringing in. A taste of Greek bureaucracy. It’s about 300km south to our destination on the Aegean Sea. Let’s get ‘truckin’.

 

 

Lingering in Linz

We crossed the border in to Austria on Saturday 9th August and were pleased that with the Sat Nav set to ‘no toll roads’ we could cross the country without the need of a Vignette. (needed for motorways and expressways) Taking the ‘slow roads’ gave us plenty of time to admire the Austrian towns and countryside.  As mentioned in our last post we reached the Mondsee by lunchtime; a beautiful place to swim and relax in the sun. Although we managed to find a small space to park for the night, places were very few and far between.  Over 90% of the lakeside is privately owned. There are ‘private lakeside gardens’ everywhere, plenty not even near a house.  Most parking places along the lake did not allow parking between 8pm and 8am and many said no motorhomes at all!  No camping or fires were allowed either!  However we were encouraged to see the Austrians happily ignoring the signs!

On Sunday after a morning swim, 2 paces from our front door! :), we followed the Sat Nav mystery tour through Austria, via the Altersee (with many more wonderful places to stop) and along the very quiet roads through an empty Wels (Sunday is very definitely a quiet, rest day in Austria!) to Mauthausen (just outside Linz) by the Danube for a lunch break.  The Danube has grown a lot bigger since we last saw it. We are now 2110km from the Danube Delta and 670km from its ‘source’ in Donaueschingen.

After a little siesta in the sun we drove the last 20km to Bauernhoff Ziermetzer near Tragwein to meet up with our friends Nick and Silvia, who were staying in a holiday let at the farm.  The farmer was happy for us to park for free and finally the weather behaved so we able to enjoy good food and good company outside well into the night.

The farm has a small dairy herd, chickens, and rabbits. The family makes apple juice and cider from their own apples as well as corn and pear schnapps.  The farm has been in the family for 250 years. The farmer gets up at 5.30am to milk the cows before going to work at a local timber yard where he works until 2pm and then it’s back to the farm!  The farmer and his wife were both friendly and hospitable. The farmer’s wife even took a picture of Heidi and asked for a tour – ‘kleine aber feine’ was her opinion of Heidi.

View across the field

Cows waiting to be milked – with a little Austrian moozic as they wait!

Boys will be boys!

Silvia, Nick, Me, Mrs Farmer, Lucas, Oliver

On Tuesday after a rainy Monday cycling along the Danube we headed to Linz with our local tour guides Nick and Silvia..

There’s a huge area of free parking overlooking the river at Linz – ideal for us!

view across the Danube to Linz from our parking spot

..and by night. Many of the art galleries are lit up with alternating colour lights ..and on warm summer evenings you can sit by the river and enjoy free music concerts (That’s when it’s not RAINING)

We wandered around Linz in the drizzly rain. This summer? really hasn’t been kind to us! Lots of impressive old buildings, most built around a ‘hof’ or courtyard in their centre. I wonder if this stems from the Ottoman’s traditional building style? although there doesn’t seem much need for shade here!

inside one of the more accessible ‘hofs’. Many are closed off / private and have been converted into flats

Linz is very ‘arty’. There are loads of galleries and craft shops. There’s also a major art college. After lunch in one of Silvia’s favourite student haunts, we opted for the ‘hoehenrausch’ http://www.hoehenrausch.at , a combination of various walkways, a tower high above the rooftops and various art installations. It was originally supposed to be a temporary thing, but has now been in place for several years. Unfortunately much of the walkway was closed off for repair – reopening 2015 – typical! We did get in cheaply though; courtesy of a friend of Silvia’s working on the desk – ‘student’ (of life) rate. Hehe! Great views over the rooftops (which would’ve looked much nicer in the sunshine!)

Elaine ‘experiencing the art’

this is ‘art’ too. “Giant Billiards”

The “no worries tower” towering above the rooftops. It’s supposed to be a replica of a lookout tower on the nearby Czech border ..sounds like an excuse to build a tower to me!

More ‘art’. The girl on the swing is only wearing a raincoat because it is actually raining! In the sunshine you can swing through this curtain of water and stay dry. It stops very briefly when the swing’s ropes are upright. Viewed from the left it looks like you’re swinging in the rain – clever!

and you can take part in the art too. When Elaine jumped up and headed the ball, she got her picture automatically taken and added to a revolving video along with all the other participants.

high above the rooftops of Linz

and look where the walkway used to go – through the church tower! This was the bit being repaired – shame

We said farewell to Nick, Silvia and the boys and lingered hoping for some sunshine and tried to plan a boat trip back up the Danube and a bike ride back …this never happened. Because of unuseful boat trip timetables, meaning we’d have to spend 2 nights away and the continuing rain and greyness not exactly inspiring us! We spent another day wandering around Linz in the drizzle, eating ice-creams and drinking coffee, trying to soak up the COLD summer vibe, before heading south and east in a desperate attempt to find some sunshine!

We travel through the flat, mainly agricultural, landscape, following the Danube, past Grein and through an attractive section where the valley narrows and becomes more wooded, as far as Ybbs a. d. Donau, where we cross the river above  huge locks. As soon as we are away from the busy east west corridor across the country (Innsbruck – Salzburg – Linz – Wien), it is  much quieter on the roads as we cross ‘lower Austria’ towards the Neusiedler See on the border with Hungary. We came down out of the hills and it was much drier and warmer with fields of sunflowers and grapevines. That’s better!

The Danube, just beyond Grein

 

quiet roads across ‘Lower Austria’

We spent several days just outside Morbisch am See enjoying the (mainly) sun, sun sun 🙂 . Unfortunately the lake is surrounded by reeds, miles deep in places, and the only access to the water is via artificial ‘beaches’ that are fenced off and demanding a fee to enter!  We took a boat trip  and then cycled all around the Austrian bit, which was most of it, ..and a whole lot further than anticipated at 80+ km! Tired legs and bums! Luckily it’s mainly flat and on dedicated tracks through the vines, the sunflowers and the corn fields. Almost back, we stopped for a drink in Rust. Rust is the centre of the wine industry around here and a real tourist draw. Every other place is a wine cellar / ‘hof’ offering a taste of their wares.

bikes loaded on the boat. It’s popular with bikers – there were often many more

cycling through the vines

The attractive old centre of Rust, busy with wine tasters

Silly birds! what a mess

Surprise surprise, the next day was a rest day. We spent much of the day ‘chillin” in the sunshine, reading and even doing some washing. There have not been many opportunities to hang washing out in the sun on this trip! We finished the day with a short bike into Morbisch, a nice little place, with plenty of cafe’s and more wine places, for an ice-cream. Well it was our Anniversary – 17 years! We even went and stuck our wheels (bike wheels) into Hungary – an adventure for tomorrow perhaps?…

looking out across the Neusiedler See and the reedbeds

 

The bike route to Hungary (the only way across the border at this point. It’s a long way round by car)