Greece and Italy Recollections

 The trip home had a treat.  We got some unexpected refunds from our trip that was cancelled due to COVID.  I used some of the refund to upgrade to first class on the way home.  Besides the benefit of travel lounges, getting of the plane first puts us ahead of 200 other people going through customs, which allowed us to catch an earlier bus home.

In Greece, we rented a car to drive through Peloponnesus (unless you take a bus tour, there is really no other way to travel).  It’s beautiful.  We avoided the National Roads (like freeways, except there are tolls) and stuck with the backroads.  They can be a little intimidating, especially driving through towns.  Parking is a problem, everywhere.  Double parking is a way of life!  Having GPS was essential because roads were not well marked, and many of the road signs were so heavily “tagged” that they were illegible.  Greek food (especially lamb) was delicious and inexpensive, but there are unwritten rules about what to eat, when, that we never really got.  We learned that noon was time for coffee, and dinner was about 7:30 or 8:00, breakfast was pretty early.  Everything else, we just winged and suffered the huffs of the wait staff.

We did not rent a car in Italy, and probably never would.  Most towns and cities are restricted to residents only.  The trains go everywhere, but you need to figure out what train system you need to take.  Travel is on the honor system, except when it isn’t.  You can either buy tickets ahead of time and have them on your phone or get a paper ticket from a machine.  The paper tickets need to be punched by another machine before you board, but obviously you can’t have your phone punched.  It took us four nights to get from Peloponnesus to Cinque Terre:  a night in Patra, GR, a night on the ferry, a night in Bari, IT, and a night in La Spezia, IT.  Not sure what we could have done differently, but it was the only part of the trip that seemed to drag.

Pisa was not on our planned trip, but was fantastic.  We were really glad we went.  We took a wine tasting trip into the villages of Tuscany.  We went through little towns, they had a few hotels and a few eateries, it might have been fun to spend a night at one of them.   Especially since Cinque Terre and Florence (the two places that we stayed for about a week, each) were very crowded. 

Next trip is the Rideau Canal in Canada.

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 8 of 8)

 

Our final day in Italy.  We have a few rules here.  There must be at least one garden tour, one lemoncello spritz, and a Negroni. There has to be at least one meal of Tuscany beef, at least one gelato.  There must be a visit to the Mercato Centrale.  Besides that the day is pretty much free.  

Deb is concerned that we might have to throw food away, so we need to finish off the cheese, the wine, the Tuscan salami and the the potato chips.  It’s gonna be a full day!

Today there was a 24 hour train workers strike, but no worry it should all be over by tomorrow.  To add to the day, it is the first completely sunny day that we have had since we arrived with temperatures in the 80’s.  

Tomorrow we head home, let the adventures begin!

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 7 of 8)

With only two more days left in Italy, we decided to go on a little adventure to see the tower of Pisa.  It’s about an hour train ride from Florence to Pisa, but we are pretty comfortable taking the train to get around. The Florence train station is very busy with cars and busses everywhere, the sidewalks are narrow and crowded.  Yesterday, we found a network of tunnels (unmarked so the tourists don’t know about it) which goes right under all the commotion.

From the train station to the tower of Pisa is about a mile, but it’s flat.  We were awestruck by the tower, itself.  It sits next to a huge basilica and baptistery on a large green.  Everything is in marble and incredibly ornate.  We climbed the tower which was a weird experience.  From inside you can feel the lean of the tower because the steps and the walls slant even though it’s only 5 degrees, although you have no frame of reference.  But it’s standing away from the tower and viewing juxtaposed with the basilica that makes the trip worthwhile.  

From the tower we saw the walls of Pisa with people walking on the top.  Unbeknownst to us when we started up the stairs, the walk is actually nearly two miles long, with stairs at the beginning and at the end fairly near the train station. We were somewhat concerned that the ending stairs were closed, since we never met anyone coming the other way and there was no one else on the wall for the last mile or so.  But  yes, the stairs were open, we got off the wall, crossed the river, got to the train, and arrived safely back in Florence.

 So here’s a little known fact.  Tripadvisor tops out at 2,000 restaurants “near you!” The place just below our apartment, Trattoria de Guido is #557 out of 2,000+.

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 6 of 8)

 

Today we “live like Italians” (well sorta).  First agenda item in the morning is to buy pasta and pasta sauce for dinner, bread, salami and cheese for lunch.  A trip to the market with a little haggling and we have everything we need.  Next agenda item is to get rid of our accumulated trash.  The guy who checked us into the apartment, showed us where to dispose of the trash with a broad sweep of his hand, pointing somewhere to the southwest.  Needing to be more specific, we scouted the area and found the trash receptacles in the Piazza della Unita Italia (where else could it be).  Next on the “live like an Italian” agenda is to find a caffeteria for an Italian cup of coffee (latte, cappuccino, etc).  Then a light lunch, siesta, another walk, and then to find an osteria (tavern) for an aperitif before dinner.

All we needed to do for dinner was heat the sauce and cook the pasta.  The apartment was well stocked with pots and pans, but we couldn’t get the stove to work.  After much head scratching, we realized that we had an induction stove and a kitchen full of aluminum pots and pans.  Back in the corner, we found two unused hot pink pots (apparently made of steel, because they worked!). The “revenge tourist” in me stuck the pots all the way in the back again…snicker, snicker!  The dinner, once cooked, was molto buono!

For tomorrow, our second to last day, we plan to see the tower of Pisa.

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 5 of 8)

 

We have tickets to the Boboli Garden behind the Pitti Palace. The garden was started in 1549 and was the inspiration for future European gardens.  

Yesterday, we went to our favorite place for lunch, the Mercato Centrale.  This was probably our fourth or fifth time there, but this time the first floor was open.  The second floor has food vendor, while first floor is more like a farmers market with produce, meat, raw pasta, and cheese  So, this morning we headed over to buy some fruit and cheese.  The fruit was easy to buy, but how do you say a quarter pound in metric?  Google calculator to the rescue, it’s about .15 kg.

Although we had been to the garden’s before, we had more time to see other parts of the garden this time.  Our favorite was the “Fountain of Little Snouts.”  A series of 16 little waterfalls on the top of a low wall with each little waterfall coming out of the mouth of a different character.  

Allium and dusty Miller

3 boys playing tag

Tomorrow our plan is to return to the Mercato, buy real Italian ingredients and cook dinner.

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 4 of 8)

 

Just another day in Florence.  All the street vendors store their carts in a warehouse just down the alley from us.  Every morning they roll their carts along the alley.  Not quite like hearing the birds singing, but close enough.

Today is our wine tour.  Although we are not “tour people,” a tour was probably the best way to see a little of the Tuscan hills and taste some Tuscan wines.  To minimize the risk of being seen as a tourist, we selected the “small group” tour, and selected the half day tour.

As it turned out, the tour was great, we learned about IGT  and “Docg” wines.  As a vineyard, you need to make IGT wines for five years, following all the rules, and then you can make “Doc” wines for ten years before you make “Docg” which is Chianti.  In other words, it’s very complicated, and you should be honored to be allowed to drink it.  We bought a few bottles along the way, with the promise that we would sip it slowly with a fine meal!  Just for the record, the vineyards we visited were Tenuta San Vito and Villa Ilangi.

The wine tour also offered a charcuterie which was either a meal or a snack depending on who you ask.  For dinner, we split 1/2 a chicken.

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 3 of 8)

Firenze Duomo

Sometimes it’s just the simple pleasures.  We packed 10 days of clothes, and carefully planned laundry stops.  Today we washed enough clothes to finish the trip, simple pleasures!

The last time we were here, we could not get into the Uffizi Gallery because the lines were too long.  COVID brought timed admission, so getting in is much easier.  The gallery was built in 1581, and was officially opened to the public in 1769.  It’s immense, with well over 100 rooms.  I sometimes wonder what aliens would think when they landed their spacecraft in places that we have been.  If they visited the Uffizi Gallery, they would have thought that we didn’t invent clothes until the 19th century!

Tomorrow, it’s a Chianti tour through Tuscany.  Originally, I was going to rent a car to see rural Tuscany, but seeing that things like driving on the right side of the road is merely a suggestion, I have decided against it.

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 2 of 8)

 

A light sprinkle in the morning keeps us in.  Deb had picked up a spinach and cheese pastry, yesterday which we decided would go well, heated up, with a cup of coffee.  Whoops, you can’t run a little convection oven and the coffee maker at the same time, but now we understand why the guy who met us at the apartment spent so much time explaining where all the circuit breakers were.  

With eight days, we are in no rush to see everything.  Today we walked around, saw some piazzas, ducked into the Galileo Museum, had some Chianti and ate.  According to the Washington Post, this is the year of the “revenge tourist.”  All that pent-up demand from the COVID years is exploding.  The streets of Florence are packed with tourists, which means that every available millimeter (see that metric reference) is taken up with some sort of eatery or winery or leather goods shop.  The front stoop of our apartment is a Gelatateria and next door is a

minimart.  Across the alley is an Al fresco bar that is open from 8:00 am till midnight, we’ve never seen an empty table.  Some people never really get the concept of “revenge tourist.”  For example, the previous tenant of our apartment put salt in the sugar container, and he’s probably still snickering…come to think of it, I left the salt in the sugar container…snicker, snicker!

We have reservations at the Uffizi Gallery (pronounced U-feet-see) tomorrow and then a Chianti tour the next day.

San Lorenzo Market - Florence, IT (Day 1 of 8)

Our apartment is on the left

 I could hear the little pitter-patter of rain drops this morning.  A perfect day for traveling.  I snuck in some little lemon pastries last night when I got the take-out ravioli, they complimented the tomatoes and cukes, that Deb had planned for breakfast, perfectly!  Check out, no problem, train to La Spezia, no problem. Which left only 3 hours to kill before boarding the train to Florence.  A second breakfast of cappuccinos and croissants, sipped the cappuccinos slowly, Italian style, so only 2 hours to kill.  With an hour left, they announce the train to Florence is on track 1. Trains in Italy arrive 1 to 2 minutes ahead of time, not a hour before departure, but the sign over the track says it’s the train to Florence, the doors on the train are open.  People are leary, they climb into the train cars but immediately jump back out.  Italians are so apprehensive that they are asking us if this is the right train…we’re not sure.  After staring at it and poking it for 30 minutes, we all decide that it’s probably safe.

Mercato Centrale 

We arrive at the apartment by 4:30, but it’s not ready.  No clean sheets, no towels, etc.  They promise that the cleaning crew is on the way, but what else are they going to say.  We have less confidence that the apartment will be ready before tomorrow, than we had that the train was really going to Florence.

We run a quick trip to the market to get coffee and milk for the morning.  By the time we return, we could hear the cleaners, somewhere in the apartment, complaining about something, we quietly dropped off the coffee and left for dinner before anyone noticed us.  See, that wasn’t so bad!

Seven years ago, we came to Florence, to meet our kids at the airport.  We spent three days in Florence before returning to our villa on the Amalfi Coast.  Megan Hinkley, was studying in Florence at the time, so we all went out for a dining experience at the Marcato Centrale, lots of food vendor hawking various epicurean delights.  Deb has been wanting to relive the experience, ever since.  And pure ecstasy…no seafood…just chicken, and beef, and pork, and lamb, and potatoes and rice.

Casa Duomo - Manarola, Cinque Terre, IT (Day 6 of 6)

 Yesterday’s scramble over the mountain between Riomaggiore and Manarola did nothing good for Deb’s trick knee, so we are taking it a little easy today.  Our destination is Corniglia, our favorite town, for a big lunch.  From the train station in Corniglia to the town is 370 steps up and, of course, 370 steps down to come back.  With a Cinque Terre Card, we can take the bus instead.

Caffe normale 

Although I had “signed up” for a big lunch, I realized that I haven’t seen a green vegetable since we got to Italy, almost two weeks ago.  I ordered pasta and green beans.  Deb, who has seen too much fruita de mare (seafood) opts for hamburgo de Angus con petatine fritte (hamburger and french fries!).  Italians usually have coffee after the meal. After clearing our plates, the waitress asks, “Caffé?” I answer “si.” She says “normale?” I say “si.”  And then she brings out an espresso cup that is a quarter full, an interesting definition of “normal.”  The tour books say that a good Italian can sip his coffee for two hours or so. Wow!

Alternative transportation between towns

After our siesta, we do our final tour of Manarola, checking out a few little alleys that we had missed before, had an aperitif, stopped at the pasta take-out for some ravioli to eat at the apartment, and started preparing for the final leg of our journey, Florence.

Casa Duomo - Manarola, Cinque Terre, IT (Day 5 of 6)

 

Raining again, but we still have one more town to explore, Riomaggiore.  We are staying in an apartment across from a Wine Tasting bar.  Every morning, the trash collector comes to take away a truck load of empties.  

The train schedule has been disrupted by maintenance work, so there are 30 minute delays on most trains which makes for even larger crowds at the stations.  Our trip to Riomaggiore takes only two minutes, once we finally get started.  Our biggest decision of the day is, again, whether to eat a big lunch and a small dinner or vice-versa.  Today, we opt for panini (sandwiches) for lunch, which I inherently think of as small, but Deb apparently thinks of as big.  Hmmm!

The afternoon has cleared and the walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola is only about a mile.  Of course, the path is straight up and then straight down.  Views are lovely, and the smells are great. Coming down into Manarola, we come across a younger man who has apparently slipped and hit his head and is spitting blood.  His party has called Mountain Rescue, who were arriving just as we got to him, with medics and a stretcher.  We could see down in the town where ambulances, rescue vehicles and police cars were assembling.  After awhile, a helicopter arrived on the scene as well, but left without providing any aid.  After about an hour or so, everybody just left. (Sorry, no closure on this!)

We finally got to the Wine Bar across the street, sampled some wine with a charcuterie board, delighting in the knowledge that we were going to hear our wine bottles crash into the trash truck tomorrow.  Deb felt that the charcuterie would be a sufficient dinner, I was not of the same opinion.

In Portsmouth, we have the 110 Grill, across the street, as our easy, we’re not cooking tonight, go to.  Here we have La Regina de Manarola as our, across the street, go to place.  Deb had a Caprese Salad and I had a ham and artichoke pizza.  So we survived another day!

Tomorrow is our last day, and we have been to all the towns, so we are going back to our favorite, once we figure out which one that is!

Casa Duomo - Manarola, Cinque Terre, IT (Day 4 of 6)

 

Morning rain, so a few loads of laundry, to start the day.  By noon, we are ready to roll. Today, we visit town #4, Vernazza.  It was heavily flooded in 2011, up to the second floor with a huge flash flood.  Today it is a bustling tourist town with more restaurants than inhabitants.  The trains are crowded, as usual, but we are able to get a seat.  Our mission is to get pranzo (lunch) at some outdoor cafe.  We find a place in the square by the marina.  The wind is a little gusty which occasionally blows wine glasses right off the tables, but the sun is out.  Most of the food served here is local, so it’s vegetables and seafood, with ubiquitous pasta.  Deb, not a seafood lover, has been searching for Bolognese (tomato and meat sauce) but is not

Pranzo 

finding it on most menus; however, today she is in luck.  Spaghetti and Bolognese.  I go for the pasta and mussels (it turns out the mussels make pretty good little sails when the wind is up).  After lunch, we amble around town, climb the tower on the edge of town (built in 1276), as required of every tourist, and then return to the train station, smug in the knowledge that the train actually stops inside the tunnel, not at the train terminal where all the tour-groups have congregated.  We will get seats, they won’t!

Back to Manarola for a short siesta before heading out for dinner.  Deb snags some lasagna bolognese, and I have sea bream, the whole thing…head, tail, fins and all!

Tomorrow we plan to walk to town #1, Riomaggiore.

Casa Duomo - Manarola, Cinque Terre, IT (Day 3 of 6)

 Today is a sunny day, yesterday was rain, and the next three days are forecast to have rainy periods.  So this is our chance for a dry day to hike to Corniglia (the “g” is silent).  The hike is about 3 1/2 miles, with 1,200 stair steps on the Manarola side with a total elevation of 1,400 ft.  The big question is which way to go: up the stairs or down the stairs? Our knees are better prepared for up the stairs, so we decide to go from Manarola to Corniglia rather than the other way.  The climb out of town is very steep, so we got incredible views almost instantly.  Of course, there was a small town about half way with bars and restaurants, but we are serious hikers (and, besides, it was only 11:00) so we pushed on without stopping.  

We’re not in awful shape, but we were both very happy to see the edge of town in Corniglia.  At the end of the trail, a restaurant beckoned us, along with all our other trail mates.  After lunch, we explored the town of Corniglia, with narrow passageways filled with restaurants and shops everywhere.  Corniglia is the smallest of the five towns and the only one that is on a cliff, high above the water.  The train that runs between the towns is fairly close to the water, so we probably should have seen what was ahead…370 stair steps from the town down to the train station.

Back in Manarola, it’s all uphill to our apartment.  We planned on going out for a cocktail…cancelled!  We planned to go out for dinner…cancelled!  It’s boxed wine and take-out pasta night!

Tomorrow, we will have more energy, hopefully!

Casa Duomo - Manarola, Cinque Terre, IT (Day 2 of 6)

 It’s Mother’s Day. It’s also rainy, so Deb did a little laundry.  No dryer, but a well used European clothes drying rack and a jar of clothes pins.  We’ve set it up in the kitchen because it’s pouring outside, the sun is scheduled to come out at noon, maybe.

Even if it stops raining, the trails will be muddy, so hiking is out for the day.  Instead, we head for Monterosso, the most northern of the five towns.  It is divided into the new town and the old town with a long tunnel (or a steep hill, you choose) between them.  As we get off the train, the rain starts again.  When faced with a town teaming with restaurants, we often get decision paralysis…rain is a great cure for that.  At the first restaurant, Deb takes a look at the menu…octopus, mussels, anchovies…she’s all in (really?).  We get a lovely table, with a gracious waiter, who helps us with our feeble Italian.  Good food is molto buono not molto bene.  Deb settles for the beetroot gnocchi, the only item on the menu without seafood, and I have the anchovy pasta.  By the time we are done, the sun is finally out.  We walk around the new and the old part of town before settling for our afternoon aperitif.

After talking to our kids, a Mother’s Day treat, we head for a quaint restaurant across the alley from our apartment.  Deb saw the place last night and wanted to make reservations, menu unseen.  As it turns out, the menu had three selections of raw fish and a cheese pizza.  After some discussion with the waitress, Deb was able to get her tuna “slightly more cooked.”  Well, the view from the table was fabulous, anyway.

Tomorrow, hopefully, the trails will be dry and we can hike to Corniglia for lunch.

Casa Duomo - Manarola, Cinque Terre, IT (Day 1 of 6)

 

Manarola

We are so close!  We have been wanting to go to Cinque Terre for cinque anni, and now we are only cinque chilometri away.  We get a quick cappuccino and a croissant.  There are almost no bugs, but a pesky mosquito lands on my forehead, which Deb nimbly swats and brushes off into my coffee…thanks! 

The train station is packed.  The line for the Cinque Terre Card is long, the platform is crowded and once the train arrives, it’s a stampede to get on.  We had decided to spend some of the morning just riding the train between towns, but now with standing room only that seems less than pleasant.  So we get off at the town we are staying in, Manarola. Surprise, surprise…virtually the entire train gets off at our stop.  The train leaves, empty and we are on the platform with throngs of tour people.  We flow with the tours through a long tunnel into the center of town. 

Gelatos 

After a cappuccino and a croissant, our check-in spot is a trekking shop 5 doors down.  Once checked in, we are guided to the apartment by a young lady.  She has no problem climbing the hundred or so steps up the hill, but then again, she’s not carrying two suitcases.  The apartment is a three story walk-up, of course.  It’s a lovely apartment, bedrooms on the third floor, kitchen on the fourth, all with balconies and gorgeous views, right next to the bell tower.

Hedgehog Cactus

We have finally gotten into the Greek eating timetable, with a big meal at about 2PM and a light meal at 7 or 8PM.  But we’re not in Greece anymore.  Here the big meal is in the evening, apparently.  Well, we have two weeks to figure it out!

Cinque Terre Gateway - La Spezia, IT

We took the train from Bari to Rome, and then from Rome to La Spezia.  It’s European trains and…gasp!…we were 5 minutes late getting to Rome.  That was pretty much the excitement for the day.

We arrived in La Spezia at precisely 17:54 (exactly on schedule).  Deb does not appreciate my lezze faire approach to finding our hotel.  In Bari, she asked if we were getting close to the hotel and I answered “probably.”  I should have known better.  As we got off the train in La Spezia, she got out her phone, Google the hotel, did a 360 to get her direction correct and was off.

Well that got us to the front door of a huge well maintained building facing a piazza.  I had received a text with the secret code.  Deb found the keypad, we entered the code and click…we were in!  Inside was a dilapidated courtyard, paint peeling and sort of

dingy.  The text said to go to the back of the courtyard, turn right and go up the stairs to the third floor.  Of course, we are Americans and start our floor numbers at 1, we are in Europe where floor numbers start at 0, so we tried to break into the second floor, unsuccessfully, until we realized we had to go up one more flight of stairs.  Once we got there we entered the second secret code and click…we entered a brightly lit, 21st century hallway.  Now the text said to go to door #2 and enter a third code to open a little box with our room card key.  Using the card key, the light turned green and we were in.  We hadn’t eaten all day, but the thought of re-entering the building seemed somewhat daunting.

With a little courage and a 37% charge on my phone (the only place that had all the codes) we left for a cocktail and eventually a couple of pizzas.  And we made it back to the room, codes and all!

Tomorrow we venture to our Italian getaway, Cinque Terre.

Vin e Va - Bari, IT

 

The ferry arrived on schedule and we headed off for the old part of Bari, narrow alleys, no cars. According to Tripadvisor, 837 restaurants, but they are probably missing a few.  We dropped the bags off at the B&B.  The room won’t be ready for a few hours, so that gives us time to explore.  We are leaving fairly early in the morning, so I wanted to scope out the trip to the train station.  It’s going to be a pretty long walk dragging a roller bag.  Once back in Bari Vecchio (old Bari), we search out a cafe for a cup of coffee and a WC, the choices were somewhat limited (actually we only found one place open before noon).  

You can put anything in front of “-eteria”. If you serve coffee, you have “cafeteria”. If you serve pizza, you have a”pizzateria”.  If you serve spaghetti, you have a “spagheteria”.  But our favorite was if you serve mojitos, you have a “mojitoteria”.  The most famous part of old Bari is the Bastillio de St Nicholas, said to be

where he was buried in 300 AD.  The church was very impressive with gold guilding surround the paintings on the ceiling,  it has the appearance of a castle, and was apparently used as one several times in its thousand year old history.  Of course it was restored in 1300 to add some more modern touches.

By the time we left it was pouring rain which lasted until the evening.  The sky’s finally cleared long enough for us to dine al frescho.  Zuppa ai fungi and spaghetti carbonara with 1/2 liter of white wine.

Tomorrow up early, the owner of the B&B is going to drive us to the train station as we head for Cinque Terra.

Patra, GR -> Bari, IT Ferry

This is our transition day.  Going from a driving, night here, night there to trains, week here, week there.  We also decided we needed to only bring carry on bags, so we have ten days of clothes, and yes, today is day ten.  Up fairly early, we checkout.  The hotel appears to be a restored Greek mansion, with marble everywhere,  a reflecting pool in the courtyard,  but with every electronic convenience.  Patra, itself, is suppose to an artsy, technology city, but all we ever saw was high rises, narrow streets and farmers markets.  The laundromat is right downtown on a very busy street.  With a week of Greek driving and encouragement from the concierge at the hotel, I just double parked in front of the laundromat.  I have never double parked in my life so it was a little scary thinking about some 300 lb Greek guy telling me that I blocked him in, but within half an hour the entire block was double parked by people smaller than me. With the laundry done, we dropped off the car in about 2 minutes, leaving us only 7 hours to catch the ferry.   

So far the ferry has been enjoyable, drinks in the bar, dinner in the restaurant, nightcap in the bar, back to the cabin for the night.

Bold Type Hotel - Patra, GR

 

This morning we went to Archemedies Museum.  Wow, we didn’t realize how intelligent he was. They had examples of his inventions and his mathematical solutions.  From there we went to the Olympia Site museum.  As in Athens, they have taken the statues from the site and displayed them with context in the museum.  After having been at the site, yesterday, we could see how it all fit together.  

An authentic Greek gyro 

After coffee (and a gyro for Deb), we left for Patras. Nothing special on the route.  Patras is the third largest city in Greece and as with all of Greece has a huge parking problem.  The streets are narrow and with cars parked on both sides, there is just enough room to drive a small car.  Fortunately, the Bold Type Hotel has marked off several parking spots right in front of the building.

We took a walk around town (past an empty parking garage!…not doin’ €5 to park).  Saw some Roman ruins, and a partially restored amphitheater.  Had a cocktail in the garden of the hotel and went next door for small plates: French, Indian, and Thai.  There was no traditional Greek food on the menu!

Tomorrow we wash clothes, turn in the car, and get on a ferry.  All of these have some level of angst but we are going to get through it…calmly!

Hotel Pelops - Ancient Olympia, GR

 Our Mercedes has a built in navigation system, which is fortuitous since it is the only reliable system we have (we often drop cell coverage).  Today it, however, decided to take us on a short detour before putting us back on the same road we had been traveling.  We drove along the base of a huge cliff with all sorts of overhanging rocks until we got to a herd of goats being driven down the road by a pack of dogs.  Deb was fumbling with her phone, so you will just have to trust us that it happened.

Lunch, today, was the remains of the ham and cheese from yesterday, on the shores of the Ionian Sea.

Pastistio 

Ancient Olympia is the home of the Olympic Games back in ancient times.  The archeological site is massive. There are ruins from 2000 BC to 500 AD. Different civilizations just kept adding or destroying.  Eventually a few earthquakes and a flood or two completed the destruction and buried the area under 25 feet of mud.

There was a temple to Pelops (same as the name of the hotel we are staying at).  Pelops is the god of Peloponnese.  It was said that he was dismembered and made into stew.  One of the gods ate his shoulder before they realized what had happened and reassembled him again.  Apparently, the ancients didn’t know about mastodons, etc so whenever they found a large bone, the assumed it came from a god and ceremoniously buried it.

The front desk at the hotel recommended a place for diner.  Deb has been looking for authentic pastitsio, so this was a great find.  We are still feeling our way around the metric system.  Last night we got a sense for what a liter of white wine looks like…it looks like a lot!

Tomorrow, we take in a museum before heading for our final stop in Greece, Patras.

Katikies Mani (Day 2) - Stoupa, GR

 The plan for today is to drive around the small peninsula close to Stoupa, eat lunch along the route, have dinner in St Nicholas, return to the room and watch the sunset.  

Actually what we did was, lie around on the patio till noon, drop down to Katherine’s Market, pick up some ham and cheese, some bread and mayo for lunch.  Hang around the patio till dinner, decide to make up a charcuterie with the ham and cheese, some Kalamata olives (Kalamata is the next town up the coast) and bread, and eat it on the patio while watching the sunset.

I guess some days just don’t go as planned!  Tomorrow is Ancient Olympia. 

Katikies Mani - Stoupa, GR

 

After breakfast, we strolled around Monemvasia Castle for awhile.  There is apparently a path that leads to the top of the mountain, but unfortunately, we didn’t have time to climb it (this is the story that we are sticking with).  We retraced our route, going through two fairly small towns.  Lesson 7 - there is no such thing as a single lane road in Greece, only roads with creative opportunities.  A derelict ship on the beach gave us an opportunity to stretch our legs.  Apparently, the owner ran out of money, the crew abandoned it and drifted onto the beach in a pretty little cove (on December 23, 1981, according to Wikipedia).  

We stopped in Gytheio for lunch, over another mountain to the western coast of Peloponnese.  Most of the towns were high above the water, but we occasionally dipped down to the shore, only to climb back up to the mountains again.  

Our villa is on a small hillside with an infinity pool and a spectacular view of the Mediterranean.  The plan was to use this as our base for exploring, but we have decided to spend the time recovering from our prior explorations (this is our story that we are sticking with).

On our way to dinner we stopped at the local market to get some wine, cheese and fruit.  There were not a lot of people eating dinner in Stoupa, even though we waited till after 7:00 to eat.  Since we were the only people eating at the Mango Garden Restaurant, the waiter (owner?) gave us special attention, and lots of it!  Lamb Kleftiko and Beef Giouvetsi both slow cooked.  We tried to convince him to open a Greek Restaurant in Portsmouth.

We sort of saw a wonderful sunset, driving back to the villa.  Tomorrow, we will try for a better view.