Sunny day, at last.

Sunday, 25th October

Finally, a sunny day! Having just charged-up the ebike batteries we decided to take them for on a small jaunt to Zánga Beach that stretches in a long 2km curve to the south of the town - according to The Rough Guide. I don't know how many kilometres of coastline the Peloponnese actually has, but it's very wiggly and indented so it must be thousands of kms long. So finding a beach should not prove difficult. However, we are the couple, much to our kids' disgust, who set off from Las Vegas to visit the Grand Canyon, but never actually found it, the biggest, longest and deepest hole on Earth proved illusive. Zánga beach likewise, we could see it, but every road and track we followed came close to the shore, then mysteriously doubled back to the main road. Finally after much GPS consultation, passing the chap mending his wall at least three times, - the third time he gave up with the cheery greeting and just stared at us somewhat bemused - after much debate we concluded that the beach road must be the precipitously steep bumpy track near the castle that we had dismissed 30 minutes previously as just too hazardous to be the main road to the beach, but this is Greece, so it was...

The joys of GPS

Well there's the beach, where's the road?

got there in the end...

I was tempted to jump in, but though I had brought my cossy and towel, there was a bit of a northerly breeze and the sea would still be chilly after the last few days' storms, so I chickened out.

Afterwards we cycled around town, wondered about stopping for lunch, but went back to the van to sort out the laundry instead. Also, I think the expense of Greece had come as a bit of a surprise, certainly eating out is more expensive than in Spain, maybe too, the longer we are retired the more the challenge of being on a low fixed income weighs on our minds. Our mission - maximum freedom for minimum cost! The Greek salad we had back at the van, using the local olive oil we bought at Ionion Beach, was just as good as any that we would have paid 6 Euros for down at the harbour.

As the afternoon wore on the light became ever more golden. We cycled back to Koroni and watched the world go by watched by elderly men in cafés looking on impassively as we went by. Young couples wandered about, single guys zoomed up and down the quayside on scooters, then gathered in groups to chat. In an Italian passiagata they would be eyeing up groups of girls dressed-up to attract attention. Not so here. It's probably different in the cities, but you see very few unaccompanied women out and about, it feels like a very traditional patriarchal society. Talking of which, it being Sunday, the local Priest was leaving the village church as we passed, he gave us a very jolly wave. I felt a bit blessed!

Evening light 

Old guys just sitting..

Perhaps here, couples still go 'courting'..

Later, after we returned to the campsite, we could hear him incanting service, it must be common to broadcast mass through loudspeakers, it was a haunting, oriental sound. It's easy to forget how Greece sits between Europe and the Middle East, and it's history is one of domination by the powers of each, apart from the short period in the 3rd Century BC. when Alexander spread Greek ideas across both East and West. It is a fascinating country, at times familiar as an old friend, but sometimes deeply mysterious and foreign

Sent from my iPhone

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