Advertisement
Published: June 28th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Hi everybody, we have now reached the sunny shores of Greece.
Our overnight ferry from Bari in Italy went off without a hitch and we got a cheaper price by getting "camping on board" tickets. This meant that we were sleeping in the van (again) up on deck with Bert sandwiched in amongst fifty large trucks. We still had the run of the boat upstairs, and 'private' showers and toilets which we only had to share with the two neighbouring campervans. After a surprisingly good nights sleep we disembarked in Patras to find the heat we had experienced in Southern Italy had just got a whole lot hotter! We also found out at our very first lunch stop that Greek portion size is pretty big - especially the meat helpings. We have really enjoyed the introduction of Greek salads with tons of roughly chopped fresh veges and a big slab of oiled feta slapped on top.
We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Greek driving we have experienced as we have heard some horror stories from others on the way here. Aside from a complete lack of respect for lane markings the drivers here are pretty safe
and let you know they are driving over the top of you with a quick toot of the horn before they do so.
Over the last week we have been exploring Southern Greece, known as the Peloponnese. Our first stop was at ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic games. We were beginning to discover that the effects of time and geological activity has been pretty hard on the classical Greek remains, which you sometimes have to use a bit of imagination with to see what went where. The best thing in Olympia was the stadium, where we (and a whole bunch of other tourists) got to do a lap of the ancient competition surface. This was done pretty slowly as the day temperature averages about 40 degrees C in the sun.
The next thing we discovered about Greece was to try and get a detailed road map first before attempting to drive through the interior. We had a very interesting 60 km trek across from Kalamata to Sparta which reminded us strongly of being in Nepal! However emerging from the other side of the range of hills we found ourselves just underneath Mystras, an important Byzantine city draped
over the top of a steep hill. We did a bit of exploring the following day first thing in the morning, climbing the hill before it got too hot (photos attached).
It had been a day since we had been at the beach, so our next step was to head for the coast as fast as possible, this time taking Bert to the Southern most point of his trip - to Monemvasia. This is another Byzantine site, which had it's top half knocked out by a large earthquake hundreds of years ago, which also separated the town and surrounding hill from the mainland. The lower town is really interesting as it is still inhabited, but these days mostly by tourists, restaurants and souvenir sellers. We climbed to the top of the hill for a look around making a record two large hills climbed in one day.
From Monemvasia we started heading north towards Athens, breaking our journey at a bay near Nafplio. When we drove through Nafplio it was 41 degrees C and the place had just received the contents of a cruise liner so we headed for the other side of the bay as fast as possible.
We were looking for a campground listed on our tourist map (which we learnt hasn't been updated for at least five years) as the camp in question had been shut for ages. We did come across a very help full service station attendant who directed us to a very nice local beach where Bert was able to snuggle up to some clapped out old fishing boats for the night.
Heading further north, we stopped to check out Mycenae, a major citadel of the associated civilization and home to King Agamemnon of Homer's epic poems (or the movie Troy for the less classically educated). Outside the city walls was Agamemnon's Tomb which unfortunately had been robbed and cleaned out years ago. However, this was still worth a look as the whole structure was crowned in a rather strange beehive shaped cone. The best preserved feature of the citadel was the Lion Gate, while the rest of the citadel was fairly run down due to usual culprits of earthquakes, fire and neglect.
Just before Athens we also dropped in on Ancient Corinth. Some well preserved bits of a Temple to Apollo still stand on the site, surrounded by a bit
of a 'rock garden' of roman structures (photos attached).
Hitting Athens we immediately went for the Acropolis in the centre of town, arriving at opening time in a vain hope to beat the tour buses in. We were a little disappointed with the management of the site as the Parthenon was pretty much surrounded (at least on a couple of sides) by scaffolding and penned in by a couple of cranes as you can see in the photos. However, it's such a big building that you can still get nice views of it from other points and if you take your time you might even be able to see it through a gap in the crowds of tour groups :-) Across the road from the Acropolis we also checked out a Temple to Olympian Zeus which was also absolutely massive in it's day, this thing took 700 years to build due to it's 104 columns, of which only a few are still standing today.
The last week has taken in the Southern most end of our van tour, but we have now parked Bert up at the camping ground for the next week as we are heading to
the Islands tonight. We are looking forward to the luxury of 'proper' beds, walls and most of all air conditioning over this time :-)
S & S
Advertisement
Tot: 0.275s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0924s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
S and S
Simon and Sandra
re Brrrr
Wow how uncomfortable - it's currently 37 degrees C here. We feel your pain.........