Summer in Europe: Down to the coast

[Persian Helmet at the Olympia Museum. Only known spoils from the Persian War.]

Well, the last three days have been really nice. We drove from Olympia to the Temple of Apollo Vassae, deep in the mountains and far from civilization. It is one of the best preserved in Greece, but is starting to fall over and was being destroyed by the elements, so they (at least temporarily) have put a big tent over it.

From there we drove down to Kardamyli, on the coast, in a truly beautiful setting -- a classic Mediterranean look: mountains and water. We were ready for a break and really enjoyed spending a day there, with no driving, just relaxing and hanging out. There was something about the place where our muscles just relaxed when we got there. Sitting out on our balcony, in a café, or in front of the hotel (directly on the water), was just great. Alison took the full day off. I took a three-hour hike to a ravine, which was wonderful – but for the rest of the day just hung out.

Yesterday we drove down into the deep Mani – the very tip of the central Peloponnesian peninsula. There first thing we did was take a boat trip through part of one of the largest caves in Europe, the Diros caves.

It is a fairly desolate area, with very little water – except, strangely, we happened to be there with lots of clouds and a little rain. It is often compared to the Scottish highlands. In the 18^th and 19^th century major families had their own towers and would have deadly feuds with other families – sometimes within the same village, leading to competing towers. Sons were called “guns,” since that was their major use. Since there is not much vegetation, you can see lots of town from the road: it looks like every few kilometers was a new town with a few towers.

The area is also littered in rocks. There are stone fences everywhere, but not to divide land into parcels. They just needed a place to put all of the rocks if they wanted to use the land.

It is also an area full of beautiful little churches. It seems that every few kilometers was a new town with a few towers and a number of pretty little churches. We stopped and looked into a few.

With all of this driving, it is perhaps worth saying something about driving in Greece, which works by its own rules. Some people drive half of the speed limit and others twice. And in certain areas you are expected to drive on the shoulder so that people can pass by driving over the (double yellow) divider. The system works remarkably well, given that you turning the roads into 60 mph three-lane highways.

In other areas there has been sheep, goats, and cattle on the road.