Posts for January, 2014

As we drove those 40 km to Delphi this morning the road became increasingly narrow and twisting as we climbed into the mountains and had us wondering whether we would in fact be able to enter the town and get to the archaeological site and museum for which the town is now famous. With that concern in mind we parked right at the entrance to the town's main street and went exploring on foot. As it turned out modern Delphi's main street is actually two streets, one in each direction. They are both quite narrow and made even more so by the habit of locals and visitors parking down each side of the street. But never the less it seemed likely we could get through; if tour buses can do it so can we. So after a tense 10 mintes passing by parked cars with literally inches to spare on each side we were on the other side of the town and parked in front of the Archaeological Museum. There, together with a smattering of other tourists we discovered that the museum was closed (it was after all New Years day).

This morning the sun was out making a perfect morning for our visit to the ruins of ancient Delphi. There were only a handful of other tourists around as we climbed up through the ruins admiring the various buidings and other artifacts. Despite being a tourists mecca, and a bit of a cliche, the place was really quite impressive. Many of the more delicate statues recovered from the ancient site are now housed in the nearby museum and after our visit to the ruins we spent some time there admiring the masterful statuary (both stone and bronze). One could not help but wonder how much of our civilization will be visible in 3000 years.

This morning we caught a bus and the metro into Athens (actually the Syntagma Square area). Transport proved to be very easy and incredibly cheap. 1.4 Euro allows one to travel on any combination of bus and metro for 1.5 hours. We had three chores on our list.

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This morning we visited Athens star attraction, the Acropolis. Our first sighting of this famous place was from the street just after getting off the metro and I must say that first glimpse was a surprise, I had not expected it to seem so big. Those outer walls seem enormous from below.

This morning we were awake at 4:45am in order to get to and catch our 7:30 ferry to the Greek Island of Santorini. The ferry ride took all day as the vessel made stops at a number of Islands as well as Santorini. The journey was uneventful, though a bit boring. But fortunately the sea was calm even though the weather was overcast.

Santorini Island is visually quite an interesting place. It is the rim of a volcano, the land is long and thin and curves around the crater or caldera. It stands up from the water perhaps 700 ft and thus the first view of the island from the ferry are massive volcanic, multi-colored, cliffs. Much of the habitation is right on the top of the crater rim and the buildings are almost exclusively white with blue trim. So in addition the spectacular cliffs are topped with regions of white that look from a distance like some form of white growth, or snow, covering the cliff top.

We spent part of the day with more sightseeing, and walking through the narrow streets of some of the towns. After that we packed and rested up a bit in anticipation of our all night ferry ride back to Athens.

We spent yesterday recovering from our overnight ferry ride and doing a bit of "getting underway" preparation so that this morning we could depart our friendly camp ground for the next stage of our Tour of Greece. Navigating was easy as we traveled out of Athens towards Corinth and the Island of Peloponnese.

Today was a glorious day, warm (60°F), sunny and with the bright blue Mediterranean and many picturesque villages to admire. We spent the morning simply enjoying the coastal scenery.

We lazed around Monemvasia this morning enjoying the sun and doing a little exploring of the nearby village. But eventually it was time to get going so we continued our adventures on mountain roads and narrow village streets towards the west coast of Peloponnese to Areopoli and then a little south to the Dimos Caves.

A prompter start this morning as the weather was not so inviting and we had more on our agenda today. First off we crossed back over to the west coast of Peloponnese, past Areopoli again and then north along the coast to the little village of Kardamyli. Nina had read/heard about this place from one of Rick Steve's tapes/books/shows. The people of the village apparently have worked hard to prevent over development. So after a lot more narrow roads and even narrower villages we arrived at Kardamyli.

This morning we continued east towards the town of Nafplio. Now anyone following our antics on Peloponnese will have noticed that this route takes us back almost to the start of our Peloponnese journey so the natural question is why?

You can guess the nature of the first part of todays travel - yet more narrow mountains roads and very narrow villages. I think we can safely say that Peloponnese roads are perhaps the most challenging we have driven on this trip. While the road surface is good and we therefore dont have the shakes and bumps of Tajikistan or Mongolia the narrow village streets with their balconies intruding into the road space (at least for a vehicle our height) have been very demanding.

This morning we were not in a rush as Patra was only 50 km away and we did not have to be there until around 3:00pm. This could have made for a relxing morning but it didnt, we decided to do some cleaning of the inside of our mobile house.

Before getting on to todays report I want you to look at the photo of the green truck in yesterdays photos and note the seating position of the driver. We thought our Unimog was pretty smart with its variopilot which allows the steering wheel and pedals to be moved to the other side of the cab to make the truck right hand drive. Well the tug trucks that move trailers around the port of Patra go one better; they can actually turn the driving position around so that they don't have to reverse with mirrors.

Once awake this morning we moved our vehicle back into the ferry waiting area and the catching up with Gary and Monika continued. In addition now in the light of day we could take a few photos of the twoadventure vehicles parked side by side. However eventualy it was time for the Wescotts to checkin for their ferry and for us to get on our way.

We had a rude awakening and a few sick moments this morning. Lying in bed half asleep I could hear the engine of a nearby semi-trailer and deduced from the noise that the driver was manouvering around some kind of obstacle. After a few moments I realized that the gray mass just outside the window over our bed was not fog but the side of a truck and then that is was only 2 inches from the window. Yikes; the driver was manouvering around US. I bounded out of bed with the intent of either sounding our horn of moving our truck. I got the engine started, bare foot down on the clutch pedal to engage the gear, and my left calf muscle screamed in anger with a cramp. You see I was too quick; the truck had not built enough air pressure to provide power assistance to the clutch and my still sleepy legs did not want the stress of pushing the un-assisted clutch.

Today we were off to spend a day seeing Venice. The starting point for this adventure was a stop at the ferry ticket office where for 26 Euros each we got a return ferry ticket to Venice and a pass that allowed us to unlimited use of Venice public transport (mostly ferries running up and down the grand canal).

Today we planned to simply drive as far as we could in the hope of clearing the alps during a window of relatively good weather - you see we don't have snow chains for our trucks and hence we did not want to be in the alps during a storm. So we headed out towards Verona along the A4 and then north along the A22 towards the Brenna Pass and Austria.

Today we were looking for a camping ground on the outside of Munich. We wanted a place to park for two nights so that we could visit some Gig Harbor friends who are spending a year living in and experiencing the German lifestyle in Munich.

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It is catchup time; our last entry was 9 days ago so what has happened since then?