or Githeio… or Githio… or Gythia… Lots of different translations! We’ll be wild camping for the next couple of weeks, parking up for free off the beaten track. First stop after leaving Kalamata was by the beach about a mile or so south of the village of Agios Nikolaos (aka St Nicholas!). The weather was … Read more
We’ve had a pretty quiet second week in Kalamata. Apart from our daytrips to Mistras and Ancient Messene, we’ve not done anything exciting, mainly because the weather has been pretty awful, with loads of thunderstorms. We’ve been out for lunch a few times now, enjoying the Greek cuisine, and on Friday we went upmarket to … Read more
The second of our daytrips from Kalamata was a visit to Ancient Messene, situated about 25 km to the north west. It’s one of those place names which doesn’t have an agreed translation from the Greek to the Latin alphabet, so it is often also spelt Messini. Stopping on the way to fill up with … Read more
Mystras is an archaeological site close to Sparta dating back to the 13th century, and towards the end of the Byzantine period it was the second most important town after Constantinople. Today it’s a huge open air museum, famous for its Byzantine churches complete with frescoes, all overlooked by a castle at the top of the … Read more
Our week here has flown by. Carol’s been to see the dentist and has another couple of appointments booked, so we’ll be staying here for another week to ten days. The way we’re going we’ll be able to write a guide to European dentists, given that I’ve also seen dentists in Spain, Portugal and Slovenia. … Read more
Before leaving Pylos this morning we drove over to the other side of the Marina, where there was an abandoned platform around two metres high with some steps, and I gave the solar panel on our van roof its first clean since the start of our trip, so it should now be working at maximum … Read more
After driving for 70-odd kilometres down the Messinia coastline yesterday, we arrived at Pylos and pulled up on the marina. There were 15 or so motorhomes already there, all of them Italian, so we parked up in one of the spaces amongst them. Two hours later the Italian vans had all disappeared, so we were … Read more
Leaving Camping Ionian Beach late yesterday morning, we said our goodbyes to Julia and Simon, and Katherine, James and Oscar. We’ve had some good fun, so with a bit of luck our paths will cross again at some point. We drove the short distance to Katakolo, only stopping at Lidl to replenish the fridge. Katakolo … Read more
After a 18 hour crossing, our ferry docked at Patras mid-afternoon on Saturday. We whiled away our time reading and playing cribbage, and we had our own cabin to sleep in. The ferry wasn’t very busy at all – mainly lorry drivers from Greece and Bulgaria. Overnight the crossing became a bit bumpy and the … Read more
