Mount Olympus to Thesssaloniki - Day 11 Wednesday 18th September I'd set the alarm for 6.30am as we had a mountain to climb, but bed was so comfy that I didn't get up quite that early. After breakfast and telling our hotelier, Alex, that we'd left the key in the door as he shouted goodbye to us from his room, we were on our way. I drove us just under 10 miles to Prionia, the place you can drive closest to the top of the mountain and parked up. It was just after 9am and eerily silent with just a handful of cars, one grotty squat loo, a closed cafe and a couple of guys organising bits of lumber. The only sounds were barking dogs and the ringing of bells on the collars of a pack ... read more

Perama to Meteora - Day 9 Monday 16th September The alarm woke me up at 7.30 but I refused to believe it was this time as it was dark and foggy, yes I said foggy, outside. So foggy, I couldn't see the huge looking mountains that I knew were directly behind our hotel. So I went back to bed and then heard an all too familiar sound that I also refused to believe - rain! And a lot of it. We set off to the Perama caves, and unlike most major tourist sites we have visited, they had a massive sign pointing to where they are. In fact the sign stretches over the street, with the words "Stop Cave". You can't miss it. There were three staff outside the cave who looked thoroughly miserable at our ... read more

Lousios Gorge and Olympia - Day 7 Saturday 14th September I wrongly thought my alarm clock was switched on, so we both slept until until just gone 10am. We must have needed it. We had a quick dip in the pool, mainly because it was there and we saw a wide variety of interesting dead insects floating in it. The plan was to go to Lousios Gorge and stay there. I thought the drive would be simple to start with, but we followed the satnav instead of the map. So thus I ended up driving on such narrow mountain roads that were so unnecessary! In some villages it was hard to tell which bits were road and which were going into houses. Some of the properties were really nice and it was hard to wonder why ... read more

The Peloponnese - Day 5 Thursday 12th September It was so nice to wake up somewhere quiet and nice, although a barking dog did break the silence during the night. We were the only guests at Marino Rooms and so sat alone outside for breakfast. It was pretty simple: bread, greek yoghurt, grapes, cake, marmalade and freshly squeezed orange juice. Coffee was nescafe though. So now was time for my first go at driving, only going less than a mile down the hill to the Ancient Corinth archaeological site. This was a fair size and €6 each to get in. It had your standard doric pillars, stray dogs and knee high walls with accompanying diagrams showing what it was like back in the day. It was pretty empty to start with as we were there at ... read more

Athens - Day 3 Tuesday 10th September We started off the day with a visit to the Temple of Zeus. This huge building has 15 of it's original 104 columns and took 750 years to complete. Good old Hadrian finished it off. I know all of this because Glyn read it to me from his guide book, because as per usual, there was no information on hand about it. Next we walked the short distance to the modern Acropolis Museum which has open bits in the floor that looks down into excavations of ancient stuff. There was also a cute tabby kitten opposite it. We had lunch in the museum cafe which was nice enough and not expensive. There was an outdoor area with a good view to the Acropolis. The cafe had free wifi so ... read more