Greece, first impressions

A new country is always exciting, would it be as dramatic as our transition to Italy?

We have been to Greece twice before together, but to the islands; Skopelos and Crete. I have been to the mainland with my parents when I was a teenager and saw Athens, but it is a long and distant memory, so we are both interested to explore the interior.

We had not anticipated on coming to Greece, instead exploring the former soviet bloc countries of eastern Europe. Our motorhome insurance policy means it would be quite risky taking Dora to some of the countries we wanted to visit. Flexibility is always key in these situations. We are going to navigate around these countries, popping in by public transport to the ones that most interest us and take the opportunity to get to know Greece better.

So our plans are now; Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, all of these are covered by our insurance. From Greece we will spend a week without Dora visiting Albania and we may spend a day or two in Macedonia.

The ferry pulls into port on time at 13.30. We adjust our watches, another time zone crossed. Unloading is smooth and we are soon back on terra firma. All is quiet it is Sunday.

Patra may be Greece’s third largest city but we are just passing through on our way to Corinth and Athens.

Straight away we notice an improvement in the roads, and the driving quality.

There is actually courtesy on the roads to the extend that slower drivers pull over onto the hard shoulder to let you pass.

But we are a bit confused. Our map is an old one, this new bridge is not shown, but clearly indicated is a motorway along the north coast of the Peloponnese, all we find is a series of roadwork’s. At least they are not collecting tolls on the bits we visit.

The construction looks a bit disorganised and haphazard. Bits have been started along the whole stretch of the motorway, nearly 200km long, but very little is actually finished. Road tunnels entrances seem to end in rock, but no actual tunnel, then the road doesn’t seem to go this way anyway, maybe they though better of it, tunnelling is expensive after all.

We stop for a late lunch on the coast and then head on to Corinth.

A car park next to the canal looks an ideal place to stop for the night, and one full of surprises as a large cruise ship looms along its narrow length.

The passengers line the decks, excited by this intricate manoeuvre. They are waving enthusiastically.

She passes back into open water.

A road bridge has been submerged at the bottom of the canal. It rises slowly, I have never seen one of these before.

Before clicking back into position.

It will be a beautiful night, but we are unsure whether it will be a peaceful one,

as the area is home to a pack of dogs, but they seem friendly enough.

It was a peaceful night but an overcast morning. We head off to ancient Corinth to compare Greek ruins to Italian ones.

Similar stuff really, more mosaics. This I believe is actually Roman as the two civilisations overlapped.

They didn’t really. Greek civilisation came first. The Roman empire copied, improved and expanded, came back to Greece and conquered it. Poor Greek. It seemed that they’ve been the losers since. They had their glory period, though. SM

This might be very confusing.

Ah, goats, we like goats.

And really striking colours that have weather very well.

The sculptures all look similar though. Well they would as the Romans copied the style of the Greeks.

Outside, the approach is very similar to Italy. Stacking of found stones, sometimes to give a vague idea of what they may have been like, sometimes just ordered on the ground.

This is the bit that everyone comes to see. Very simple Doric columns, no bases. Not very elegant, highly over structured.

What is different, what is much better, the description.

Firstly there is some and they are complimented by drawings of what they would have looked like before they fell into ruin.

Now how useful is that. Italian curators take note, put away your pride and copy this, every tourist would be grateful.

The poppies are in full bloom.

They also have an interesting approach to restoration. They are not afraid to use new materials supplementing the old, to get them in the right position.

I really like this. It is obvious what is new what is old and helps you visualise. They have even done a similar trick with the mosaic, giving you a hint of what it was like.

Another excellent architectural drawing. From this you know exactly where you are, what you are looking at and what it would have been like. Perfect.

The main street, what a fabulous setting. On top of the hill, you can just make it out, is a castle. An ideal  place for lunch.

But first, the last few ruins and more poppies.

After lunch we explore the castle, but it is a hurried one. The warden is about to close up for the day so we only have fifteen minutes. We could have planned that better.

Not much restoration has taken place here.

But there are amazing view back towards the coast.

Quite an impressive collection of walls though.

It has been a little rainy so far, although we have missed the showers when we were outside,

We now head south to the town of Nafplio, where we will spend the night have a look around before heading off to Athens.

We park Dora in an area they say tolerated overnight parking. We then climb up to the castle to get a good view over the town.

There she is below us, just to the left, not a bad place to spend the night.

The town is over to the right. That is our next objective.

It is a steep climb and many are having problems, continuingly stopping to catch their breath.

Near the top and we find a route that looks precarious.

When we eventually find a way off of this precipice, sure enough a sign warning you not to venture on to it. We could have done with one of those further down!

The views of the town get better and better.

We have had our feel of adventure so decide not to explore the castle any further and head back down.

We continue to bump into those we have already passed on the way up, they are taking their time.

The town looks vaguely quaint, but the guide describes it as ‘Elegant Venetian houses and neoclassical mansions dripping with crimson bougainvillea cascade down Nafplio’s hillside to the azure sea.’ These guide books can be so verbose and a load of bollocks. But we wait to see.

We It is quite charming, but there description is overkill.

We find our first Greek orthodox church.

Not much top look at from the outside.

And inside, dark and foreboding, like some inner cave, very little light and quite oppressive. Maybe this is the feel they wanted.

Still opulent colours and dripping with gold.

And a chandelier straight out of ‘Phantom of the Opera’

Back into daylight and we find that the Greeks do tourist tat shops to. There must be a lot of tasteless tourists buying this rubbish.

The main square is pretty much deserted, except for some tumble weed. Is the the crisis in Greece?

We walk away from town around the peninsular back to Dora. It is a nice walk to end the day.

We have not been that impressed with Nafplio, too much hype from our guidebook. This is meant to be one of the top 10 things to do in Greece!

GDR