Aug 19, 2007 - Hania - Kissamos - Githio - Esparta

Este dia fue larguisimo. Me levante a las 5am para caminar 2 km a la estacion de bus en Hania. Alli tome el bus a Kissamos, a 1 hora, y de alli un taxi al puerto. Espere 1.5 horas para que saliera el ferry al Peloponeso. El ferry duro como 7 horas, y llego a Githio, donde tuve que caminar otro km hasta la estacion de bus. Alli espere un par de horas para finalmente tomar el bus a Esparta, y de alli otro bus al campamento!

Jun 7, 2006 - Suicidal Butterflies: driving the Peloponnese

Beautiful tiger-patterned butterflies fly at our windscreen. While there's not much we can do about their suicidal tendencies, we're continually swerving or teasing the car's airbags as we slam on the brakes to avoid gorgeous lime-green lizards that dart out, and the silvery snakes that slither across the road. Along the highway a vintage car heading in the other direction has come to a halt. The driver is frantically flashing its headlights. He's stopped for a turtle taking its time crossing the road in the heat haze. We're sure someone's...

Nov 18, 2005 - Angels in Pellana

From her perch on a neighboring hilltop, the Panagia at the village church, saw what Artemis was doing to us. She sofened the collision with the wall, minimized the damage to the car (hood buckled just a little, and a fair amount of paint skuffing). But, best of all, She opened a mandorla and tucked us safely inside so as not to attract the wrath of the villagers. No one was in sight. But we needed help. I stepped out of the car and into the mud, noticing then how well large amounts of donky dung had been whipped into it. I scanned the...

Nov 18, 2005 - Hell on the half-shell

Artemis must have lost sight of us as we continued north into Arkadia. We had exhausted the northern reaches of Taygetos and the road calmed down to a rolling, hill rounding, meadow traversing pleasure. Just a little north of Leondari we even found a new 4 lane expressway headed south toward Kalamata. For all of 5 kilometers it was heaven to wiz down the road at 140 kph. All good things must end, some sooner than others, but the old Kalamata highway wasn't so bad either. We've lowered our expectations a bit and have decided that the very...

Nov 17, 2005 - Rainy day in Lakonia with Olga and Andreas

Yesterday and today, the sister of the owner of our Xenonas (i.e., Olga) and her husband (i.e., Andreas) have come to make a short stay here. They are upstairs just above us and we can hear footsteps when they are in. Olga and Andreas are here from Athens where they work in television journalism. They explained that Olga writes reviews and that Andreas is managing editor of a news room. In conversations about what they do, it seemed to me that we would describe Olga as more of a writer of editorials and commentary since much of her subject...

Nov 16, 2005 - Apollo to Monemvasia to Neapoli

We rose early full of piss and vinegar. Ate a full breakfast of eggs and salami, fruta, meli, yaourti, mountain herbs and potions, then took off like a band of hoplites after runaway helots. We tried a shortcut to skirt Sparti so we could connect to the highway to the south without the traffic of Sparti Kentro. But, sacre, we wound up back in Sparti anyway, however, on the southside, so we saved some time. We sped south with a snack pouch of freshly made orange cake. A few miles south of Sparti is the modern town of Amyklai and just a few...

Nov 5, 2005 - Mystras, upper gate

Just couldn't wait. We drove out to Mystras, 6 kilometers west of Sparti, and wound our way up to the Fortress gate near the crest of the adjacent ridge. We stumpled over lumps of rock and uneven ground to the ticket gate. It was painfully obvious that there was no disability capabilities at the site, so we returned clutching onto each other back to the car. Sadly, Mama will not be entering the land of milk and honey with me.

Sep 8, 2004 - Sparta

Extract from my e-mail Journal From Dimitsana to Kalamata, briefly. There seems to be a severe room shortage, for a seaside town, so I carried on to Sparta. On my way to Sparta I encountered a very lovely French hitchhiker called Carol (Hi Carol). We visited Mystras together and had dinner in Sparta. Good to have some company! Carol has hitchhiked off to Crete so God Speed! CRAZY PERSON! It's really, really hard once I get going to stop writing. If you have got this far thank you. I'll try to keep it brief: Sparta, old ruins, museum, Mani,...