I apologise to anyone who is trying to follow our travels as I have been working on Greek time and have been remiss in my duties. I last posted on Friday and truth to tell we have done little since then.
On Saturday we drove into Corinth to try and find the market that we had been told about. After a few navigational issues we stopped and found a travel agent who gave us vague directions. Taking the 9th turn on the right we sasw a stall and turned down the next (narrow) road to find that we were in a one way street going the other way. Since there was no other traffic we did the Greek thing and continued until we found a side street, also one way going in the right direction.. We got some of the way down and attempted to park on the kerb, but a girl indicated she was leaving and we could have her park. That was good, but her car was a lot smaller than ours and we squeezed ourt way in. This was not a market as we have seen in France or Greece before. It was squeezed along a narrow residential street with the stalls taking most of the soace and no room to move between them. We did not look at the vegetable stalls and the areas we saw were mainly clothing and knick-knacks such as kichen fittings, watches and cheap jewelry. After half an hour of pushing our way through the crush we ahd enough and went back to the car. Where to go? We had seen one end of the Corinth Canal so decided to see the other and headed in that direction. We stopped at the side of the canal near an ancient road that the Romans used to haul their ships over the isthmus on carriages. The Romans started to dig the canal, but it had to wait for the invention of the stem shovel to become reality. Now it is too small for modern freighters, but is used for small craft and small cruise ships. I was intrgued to see how the bridges at each end worked as they did not seem to be the usual lift or swing type that I have seen, so I walked over the nearby bridge to find that the central span is actully dropped into the canal allowing boats to pass over it - I would never have thought of it.
As we have been driving around this area we have noticed the narrow gauge railways that were active when we were last here are now unused with dere,ict rolling stock sitting in the stations. Iassume this is part of the Greek austerity measures, but it is sad to see a complete network sitting idle.
We decided to continue north and drove out onto the peninsular we had been looking out to from our accommodation. After a drive along a surprisingly wide and modern road we found a beach on a salt water lake. After lunch at a beach taverna that is so unmemorable that I can't remember what we had, we swam and lazed on the beach for a while before heading back to Lecaio Beach.
Sunday and Monday we hung around the accommodation and swam in the sea and pool.
Tuesday we had to move on reluctantly. So reluctantly that we booked another 3 days when we returned from the south and cancelled our booking in Athens. The fact that we also saved some costs has nothing to do with it :-)
We found that the new motorway now extends nearly to the south coast and it feels strange to be travelling though Greece an a superb modern road at 130kph - so different to struggling down the usal national roads ready to jamb on the brakes at every corner if faced with a bus or truck taking up most of our side of the road. However once off the motor way we were back in familiar territory and found the drivers in the south a bit more "assertive" than we had met further north, particulaly if they are dring Mercs or Beemers which a lot of them seem to do.
We found our accommodation here near Pylos after Gillian had several nervous attacks over avoiding oncoming traffic on the narrow country road by pushing into the olive trees or balancing the near side tyres half on the asphalt with the rest hanging out over a drop. The cottage is clean, tidy and well equipped and stuck in the middle of nowhere.. We were met by Helen who has more German than English, but I think we understaood some of what she tod us. We are surrounded by olive trees and set back from a remote country road looking out over the Mediterranean. After settling in headed back to Gialova, a small town we had stayed at in 2005 - what a surprise - it has now gone upmarket and is a tourist trap. Anyway we found somewhere to buy basic supplies and had dinner at Hotel Zoe where we had stayed previously. The restaurant is set at the top of the beach under a canopy of trees and to Gillian's delight was able to offer moussaka which she has not found on the menu anywhere before now. An what moussaka - Gillian is still drooling and demanding to go back before we leave.
Today we drove into Pylos tp find a supermarket (more of a mini-mart)to gather supplies and managed to completely lose ourselves in the impossible maze that is so typical of Greekl villages. Once back we headed for the local "good" beach which is a lovely arc of sand with fairly shallow water. The beach is popular and looks great, but there is a banm of seweed on one side with fragments floating ove an area of the bay which is sticky and even after a quick shower we found fragments still attached.
It's 10:00pm and time for bed after watching coverage of the Istanbul bombing - sobering to think we were in that terminal a week ago, but the probability of being anywhere at prcisely the wrong time is incredibly low.
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