3 March
2025 – Into the Peloponnese
Miles
driven today = 68
Total Miles
to date = 1,628
We got a
bit of a fright this morning when we were woken by the sound of lapping waves
behind the van.
The wind had got up in
the night and there was quite a chop to the water and given our close proximity
to the shoreline we feared a repeat of our experience on the seafront at
Margate where we literally had sea spray thrashing on the back of the van when
the tide came in.
But as you can see we
really didn’t have anything quite so dramatic to worry about.
We made
another Lidl stop.
Anybody fancy a 2kg
slab of Feta with their Greek Salad?
Lisa
expressed her surprise at how much more expensive the wine is here than it is
in Italy.
Even the locally produced
stuff.
But let’s have a little reality
check here.
€2.49 is still only a fraction
over £2 a bottle in real money.
If that
was available in Aldi back home we’d be buying it by the truckload.
So, back on
the road we very quickly found ourselves approaching the toll booths for the
Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge across the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf.
It cost us a whopping €23.70!
We were told yesterday by our locally living
Brit neighbours that we could get a ferry across for half the price but we bit
the bullet and very shortly we were driving into the Peloponnese.
Quick
geography lesson; The Peloponnese is the 4 fingered hand shaped chunk of land
which forms the Southern portion of the Greek mainland. It was once joined to the rest of mainland Greece,
and indeed Europe, by a 4 mile wide isthmus of land until the Corinthian Canal
was completed in 1893, thereby separating the Peloponnese and, to all intents and purposes, making it an island. By arriving on its
soil we have effectively achieved our primary goal of this trip. But now to explore its delights.
With a population
of some 175,000 people, Patras is the third biggest city in Greece and also the
largest in the Peloponnese by some considerable margin. We had no great desire to spend any time
there and so we remained on the motorway and observed its sprawling urbanization
from afar.
The road
continued as the E55 but shortly afterwards we encountered a long stretch of extensive
roadworks and even a section where the road was closed altogether and we were
diverted via residential and shoreline hugging roads for several miles. Once past that there were long straight sections
of 3 lane highway where the overtaking lane alternated from one side to the
other at intervals of between 1 and 2 kilometres.
The landscape
was generally flat and the soils round this part of the World appear to be
extremely fertile judging by the amount of market gardening taking place under
acres of plastic sheeting.
Early
strawberries appeared to be the predominant crop.
We’ve
initially headed for the small knuckle of land which protrudes into the Ionian
Sea like a stunted fifth finger and for the first time in nearly a week we are
actually paying for our accommodation and have hook up.
We are at Camping Ionian Beach.
It’s one of those places which is
predominantly populated by aging Germans who have probably not moved since they
arrived here last October.
The onsite
restaurant and mini market are closed, the swimming pool is looking very green and
the plunge pool is full of trapped frogs.
The ACSI card price is €27 a night but I’ve already been told it’s actually
€25 provided we don’t park in one of the beach fronting premium pitches.
But the
main reason we are here is to sort out our laundry before we push on any
further.
We got the bedding and towels
sorted this afternoon and we will do likewise with a couple of loads of clothes
in the morning before we decide what to do with the rest of our day.
From the
beach we can clearly see Zakynthos aka Zante.
My ex-wife Yvonne and I had our first ever foreign package holiday over
there in 1985.
It was also the first
time I had ever stepped on an aeroplane at the tender age of 21.
Fond memories indeed but I’m fairly certain
it’s changed a lot in the intervening years.
So back to
that cheap Greek plonk.
We purchased a
1.5 litre bottle of the stuff for just a few Euros when we were in Ioannina
last week and it’s been rattling around in the garage since.
It’s actually alright you know.
I’ll try not to drink it all tonight!
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