Peleponnese Pilgrimage

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Sunday 2 October: a long day
Awake early, ring Alitalia to check the bag has arrived. It has! After breakfast we drive back to the airport in glorious sunshine with lots of views south across to the mountains of the Peloponnese. So we pick up the bag and begin again. Rearrange today’s itinerary a bit to take account of the lost morning, decide to miss out on Acocorinth and put some kilometres on the car. The multilane motorway runs out at Corinth and we begin to experience “real Greek” driving. The A road has about a lane and half on each side and it is soon apparent that the idea is to pretend it is a dual carriageway. There is clearly a very different highway code in operation - solid white lines do not appear to mean anything, speed limits are taken as minimums not maxima. Quite scary, particularly when you are in a 4-wheel drive with a top speed somewhat slower than that of most of the insects flying by!

We took a break from the road to go in search of the old monastery at Taxiarhon. This has a new (17th century) accessible monastery and an earlier building set in the side of the cliff. Gave the jeep its first taste of off roading, coped admirably! Walked the last section with good views over the surrounding hills. Very peaceful. Back on the road we refuelled, picked up some water and snacks and headed towards Patras. We bypassed the city and continued on to Chlemoutsi, the first castle of the trip!!!

The huge ruin is partially restored and occupies a promontory. By Syrian Crusader castle standards the quality of the build is not great - lots of small unshaped blocks - but still a good site and sight. Drove on again to Kalako and found the Hotel Vriniotis. Beautiful location nestled under Beauvoir Castle on the sea with a view to Zakythos (we think) from our balcony. It had been a long day and we relaxed for a couple of hours, watched the sun go down before heading into Kalako for dinner. Strolled along the harbour and then had a drink and then an enjoyable dinner.

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