9 April
2025 – Kassandhra
Miles
driven today = 79
Total Miles
to date = 3,198
We took
ourselves off on a little driving tour today.
Oelia Camping is situated very close to the northern end of the
Kassandhra Peninsula, which is actually separated from the remainder of
Halkidiki by a 1,250 metre channel dug by the Macedonians between the 4th
and 1st Centuries BC in order to connect the Thermaic Gulf to the
West with the Toronean Gulf to the East.
Unfortunately you don’t get to see much of it as you drive across it on
the dual carriageway and onwards past the town of Nea Poteidaia, which the Rough
Guide calls an “eyesore” despite it being close to the location where the
earliest human remains to have been discovered in Greece were unearthed. A young girl who lived 700,000 years ago.
We decided
to follow the coastal road in a clockwise loop.
Our first stop was Nea Fokea with its Byzantine watchtower on a grassy
headland overlooking the harbour.
The town otherwise
consists predominantly of low rise apartments aimed at Greek holidaymakers.
We didn’t linger.
Our next
intended stop was the larger and more interesting sounding village of Afytos. I had read of large motorhomes getting stuck
in its narrow streets and so found a car park near the main road. But Google Maps sent me down the wrong turn to
exactly where we didn’t want to be and we could soon see why people in a
vehicle of our size could come to grief.
We waved at a large gaggle of schoolchildren congregated in the main
square while I tried hard not to run any of them over before finally managing
to extricate ourselves. And that’s all
we saw of Afytos.
We
continued along the Eastern coast through and around a succession of rather
uninteresting looking resorts.
Being so
close to Thessaloniki, this is obviously where its inhabitants head for in
their droves during the holiday season.
But
there was nothing of any character to entice us to stop so we continued down towards
the toe of the peninsula where we found a large stretch of golden sand at
Paliouri Beach.
Across the gulf you can
see Sithonia, the middle of Halkidiki’s 3 prongs, and hopefully our destination
tomorrow.
After a
stroll on the dunes we headed over the ridge to the Western shoreline via the
villages of Paliouri and Nea Agia Paraskevi.
We made a quick stop at the thermal spa town of Loutra, which had a
predictable faint eggy whiff in the air.
The spa itself looked fairly abandoned so again we moved on.
With
lunchtime rapidly approaching we made our next stop at Nea Skioni.
Its harbour almost exclusively contained
fishing vessels, a couple of which were of a reasonably decent size.
This
sculpture commemorates a local man called Skillias who lived in the 5
th
Century BC and was a renowned swimmer and diver.
He was captured by the Persians and
discovered their plans to destroy the Greek fleet.
He then escaped by diving into the sea and
swam 9km without surfacing by using a reed to breath.
He was able to warn the Greeks of the
Persians’ plans and the tables were turned.
He and his daughter Idna, who assisted him, were rewarded by having
statues dedicated to them at Delphi.
There are
several tavernas and restaurants along the seafront, all of which get decent
reviews but only a couple of which appeared to be open.
So we went
back to the one which was closest to where we parked the van.
The weather was still a tad bracing to be
eating al-fresco so we made ourselves comfortable inside where we could still
enjoy a view of the beach.
We are
nearing the end of our time in Greece and once we leave Halkidiki in a couple
of days we almost certainly won’t be seeing the Sea again until we are almost
home, so it only seemed right and proper that we indulged ourselves with another
Seafood Platter for 2.
We drove
back up the remainder of the West Coast without stopping. The beaches are generally less impressive but
the resorts did seem aimed rather more at well heeled Thessalonians than those
to the East.
There has
been a definite improvement in the weather today although a biting wind off the
Sea has kept temperatures grubbing around in the mid teens and feeling a good
deal cooler with wind chill factored in.
And we’ve
been treated to a wonderful sunset this evening with the shape of Mount Olympus
looming large in the distance.
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