A littly Byzantine church just outside the Ancient City of Olympus
Sunset at Kyllini Beach which is on the west coast of the Pelopenesse and very beautiful although while we were there it was very windy. You can almost see Cefallonia in the Ionian group of Islands from here.
The Museum of Olympus...
and another one...
From the top of Olympus looking down over the VillageWe left Sicily in the scorching heat with the idea of spending some time on the Coast north or south of Bari.. and as I said all the camps were Heidi Hi's. I guess coming from a Country as small as NZ we never get to see things on the scale you do over here. Leaving Sicily there was a traffic jam.. miles of traffic .. hey I know Auckland is just the same but at least in Auckland you can get off and stop.. this was autostrada and 42 degree heat!
Driving North we soon realised the terrain was of no interest and there was little to see .. and the countryside was aboslutely filthy and littered with rubbish from people throwing it out of their car windows! We drove towards Bari with the intention of staying at one of the Camping grounds on the Coast south of Bari which the Internet displayed in glowing terms.!! I think not!! Honestly on one bech we counted no less than 1,000 sun unbrellas and sunbeds.. and the same again at the nest one and so on. The crowds of Italians on the beach was just unbelievable so we gave them a miss and decided to head to Greece.. where we are now.
We did have a couple of things go our way as we stopped at a Supermarket which we have come to know and love.. which is a cross between a KMart and a Foodtown with a huge range from Fridge/freezers through to Yoghurt and it was here we found a transformer for our fridge. We can now not only have the fridge on while we are driving through the Cigarette Lighter but can also plug it in at night in the campgrounds. Believe me its worth its weight in gold now that I can have a cold G & T at the end end of ta searing hot day! And the good thing was it only cost about NZ$30!! We also managed to buy a power adaptor from European to English which means we can also use the light a kind man in Sicily gave us. We decided it was our lucky day.
And to top it off we managed to get on an earlier Ferry from Bari to Patras, hence we are now in Greece. Pelopennesse to be exact. The boat trip was relatively uneventful although a Greek man did give me the eye a few times but it soon became obvious he spoke little or no English. As we were getting off the following afternoon he did ask me (in pigeon English) if we were going to Athens and I said No, the Islands and that was the end of that. We drove from Patras down to Kyllini on the west coast of Pelopennesse and spent two nights camping.
Kyllini is a beautiful beach and very sunny but the warm wind put a damper on things.. but we still enjoyed a peaceful couple of days. It's famous for its sunsets.. and as you can see in the pics below they are pretty awesome and our campside was almost on the beach as you can also see in the pics. Unfortunately in this part of the world very few people speak English and once again, Coraleen and I only had each other for Company. We did see one person with a NZ t-shirt on and started gabbling away to him and his wife only to discover they were Danish and had trouble interpreting our 'English dialect' which we found amusing but after slowing down our speech had a conversation with them. The first evening we ventured over to the Bar in the campground only to find drinks like G & T and Vodka etc were bloody expensive so I opted for an Ouzo! I remember drinking that stuff years ago and I didn't like it then.. but when in Greece! It was NZ$3 for a huge glass of the stuff.. after sitting there for an hour with no-one who spoke English arriving I decided to leave the rest of my vile drink and head for bed!!
And this morning we left the beach and camping for Ancient Olympia and a cheep and cheery air-con hotel!
Ancient Olympia, as you can guess, is the sight of the original Olympic Games from 4BC. The site is a bit like Pompeii in that its all in ruins and excavating is still going on but the Greeks have taken the excavated stone carvings etc to a museum on site alongside a Museum dedicated to the origin of the Olympic Games. This is also the place, where, every four years, the torch for the games is lit before it heads off around the world before arriving in the lucky host country. We walked through the original entrance to the track where the first pentathalon events were held. All very nostalgic if hot and dusty.
Coraleen at the campside almost on the beach and the sunset.. it was much better in real life.
The entrance to the track and field events arena at the Ancient site.
'Me' with the God of Nike in the background.. I was trying to do something stupid but got told off as you arent allowed to take pics with people in them.. hello.. what do you make of that ridiculous rule!!
We did have a couple of things go our way as we stopped at a Supermarket which we have come to know and love.. which is a cross between a KMart and a Foodtown with a huge range from Fridge/freezers through to Yoghurt and it was here we found a transformer for our fridge. We can now not only have the fridge on while we are driving through the Cigarette Lighter but can also plug it in at night in the campgrounds. Believe me its worth its weight in gold now that I can have a cold G & T at the end end of ta searing hot day! And the good thing was it only cost about NZ$30!! We also managed to buy a power adaptor from European to English which means we can also use the light a kind man in Sicily gave us. We decided it was our lucky day.
And to top it off we managed to get on an earlier Ferry from Bari to Patras, hence we are now in Greece. Pelopennesse to be exact. The boat trip was relatively uneventful although a Greek man did give me the eye a few times but it soon became obvious he spoke little or no English. As we were getting off the following afternoon he did ask me (in pigeon English) if we were going to Athens and I said No, the Islands and that was the end of that. We drove from Patras down to Kyllini on the west coast of Pelopennesse and spent two nights camping.
Kyllini is a beautiful beach and very sunny but the warm wind put a damper on things.. but we still enjoyed a peaceful couple of days. It's famous for its sunsets.. and as you can see in the pics below they are pretty awesome and our campside was almost on the beach as you can also see in the pics. Unfortunately in this part of the world very few people speak English and once again, Coraleen and I only had each other for Company. We did see one person with a NZ t-shirt on and started gabbling away to him and his wife only to discover they were Danish and had trouble interpreting our 'English dialect' which we found amusing but after slowing down our speech had a conversation with them. The first evening we ventured over to the Bar in the campground only to find drinks like G & T and Vodka etc were bloody expensive so I opted for an Ouzo! I remember drinking that stuff years ago and I didn't like it then.. but when in Greece! It was NZ$3 for a huge glass of the stuff.. after sitting there for an hour with no-one who spoke English arriving I decided to leave the rest of my vile drink and head for bed!!
And this morning we left the beach and camping for Ancient Olympia and a cheep and cheery air-con hotel!
Ancient Olympia, as you can guess, is the sight of the original Olympic Games from 4BC. The site is a bit like Pompeii in that its all in ruins and excavating is still going on but the Greeks have taken the excavated stone carvings etc to a museum on site alongside a Museum dedicated to the origin of the Olympic Games. This is also the place, where, every four years, the torch for the games is lit before it heads off around the world before arriving in the lucky host country. We walked through the original entrance to the track where the first pentathalon events were held. All very nostalgic if hot and dusty.
Coraleen at the campside almost on the beach and the sunset.. it was much better in real life.
The entrance to the track and field events arena at the Ancient site.
'Me' with the God of Nike in the background.. I was trying to do something stupid but got told off as you arent allowed to take pics with people in them.. hello.. what do you make of that ridiculous rule!!
