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Friday, May 04, 2001

We would highly recommend Sorrento as a place to visit. Beautiful surroundings combined with easy access to Naples, the Vesuvius ruins, and the Amalfi Coast, Capri and Mediterranean beaches make for a very pleasant stop. Even after almost a week we were reluctant to leave, but on Friday morning we packed up Queenie and headed for Paestum.

Paestum is another archeological site about 25K south of Salerno. The difference with this one is, it is a Greek ruin rather than Roman. The Greeks settled in parts of southern Italy, long before it became Italy, starting in around 700BC. Paestum, along with Naples and parts of Sicily were all part of Greek (or Hellenic as they called themselves, the Romans dubbed them Greeks!) territory way back when. Since we are on our way to Greece, we thought we would catch a preview of what it has to offer.

Three temples still stand in Paestum, built between 500BC and 400BC, the same time period that the Parthenon was being built in Athens. We assumed the temples were all that remained here, but we soon saw the remnants of a flourishing, wealthy city that finally ceased to exist around 1,5000 years ago. That bane of so many preserved cities we have seen -rivers silting up - was the cause of Paestum's decline. Concerns of malaria and other diseases caused by marshlands created with the silting led to the desertion of the city, and eventually it was hidden as nature reclaimed the land. Paestum was only rediscovered in 1752 when the highway we have been traveling on, the S18 was being built right through the remains!

Having never heard of Paestum in our American insularity, we hoped we had found a spot away from the madding crowd, but we were wrong again. Arriving around lunchtime, we were dismayed to once again find loads of tourist buses and even a few Americans wandering among the remains. I guess if we found the sites in tour books, others will too. Still, it was pretty impressive.

And then we drove across Italy to the arch in her boot; the only outstanding feature along that main artery was the profusion of wild flowers blooming at this time. A riot of blue, purple, red and yellow flowers led us to Metaponto (another originally Greek settlement) where we stopped at the first campground we found, coincidentally on the beach. The campground was fairly empty with only six other campers, all German, as our neighbors. We were pooped from being cooped up in Queenie and driving that long stretch. We unpacked and immediately clambered aboard our bikes for a refreshing ride around the beach, stretching our cramped limbs and revitalizing ourselves in the process.

Saturday, May 5, 2001

Having discussed and discussed how to get to Greece; whether to take the Bari or Brindisi ferry to Igoumenitsa; we finally opted for simple economics. The Brendisi ferry was cheaper. Bari seems to be the preferred port of foreigners, but both ports have a shady reputation and visitors are advised not to leave their vehicles unattended. Since we didn't plan to leave Queenie alone for an instant and as you may recall, we are sick to death of rip-off ferry rates, we decided to take advantage of the lower rates in Brindisi.

Back in Rome when we were discussing this, we had picked up a brochure for the Bari-Igoumenitsa run. A photo in the brochure showed deck camping on the ship. It showed an open deck with campers lined up and looked very inviting. We knew the ferries would allow us to stay in our camper and provide electrical power for us, a bonus since we need not get a cabin for the 12-hour night crossing.

Having decided on Brindisi, we drove up towards the heel of Italy, where the port lay. We finished our approach to the city on the S7 - the Via Appia, in Roman times as today, the end of the line. Brindisi bristles with shops whose sole reason for being is selling ferry tickets. Driving down the Via Appia as it entered town we were accosted with signs basically saying "Buy your ticket here!!" and choosing one shop, we did. We got a round trip, open return, good for one-year, ticket for $151 American. We were tickled! Our longest ferry ride yet, twelve hours, and only $75 each way. Beat hell out of our $235, one-way to visit England!

Our ferry, the Penelope, departed Brindisi at 8:00 pm Sat, arriving in Igoumenitsa at 6:00 am the following morning. We got to the port at 2:00pm and spent the remaining time waiting, first for the ferry line's ticket office to open so we could validate our tickets, then for Penelope to arrive.

We filled that time watching other ferries arrive and disgorge their cargos, an endless stream of semi-trucks, then refilled by another endless stream of trucks. Finally, at 4:00, the ticket office reopened after lunch and Bruce jumped on his bike to cross the huge parking lot and have our tickets validated. There, he watched in wonder as a crush of truck drivers scrambled to get THEIR tickets. He left and returned two more times, each time expecting to see the crowd in more manageable proportions but finally just waded in and eventually succeeded in getting the job done.

Meanwhile I, back at Queenie, was fending off the flattering attentions of an Italian about 6-7 years older than me who suddenly took a shine to me. He was the father of the shopkeeper who sold us our tickets and recognized us when he drove to the port and saw Queenie.

After being reunited, Bruce and I waited some more, until finally at 6 pm Penelope arrived. As the afternoon was progressing we found we were being surrounded by several rows of trucks, at least fifty in number, many with double trailers. Penelope disgorged her load and we waited to drive on board.

The trucks got to go first. It was amazing to watch these drivers wheeling the huge rigs around in 180o turns and backing them up into the ferry three rows across. Another ramp took more trucks up to a second level. One unlucky driver, having trouble getting his double trailer rig into the ferry, was almost physically pulled out of his cab to be replaced by a more competent driver who finished the job. That displaced driver nearly went apoplectic in his humiliation! He cursed, gestured, scowled and glared at anyone and everyone who dared to catch his eye. Throughout Europe, student drivers are indicated by a large letter "L" attached to their vehicle, Bruce and I wanted to award him that sticker, which we have dubbed, "'L' is for Loser."

Finally, after watching the comedy of errors entailed with any such major production, and the area almost depleted of trucks, we were allowed to load up. In all this time we had been trying to see where on Penelope, was that open deck that our four fellow campers and we would get to park.

Instead of the romantic deck where we envisioned a moonlit cruise and dinner under the stars, we were unceremoniously wedged into the tight, remaining space between trucks on the second level. Above us, instead of sky was a third level of the ship, to our right and left were trucks so close, we barely had enough room to get out of our car!! We were able to lift Queenie's top and get electricity but that was about as far as the creature comforts went. What a hoot! I guess atmosphere was traded for economics and frankly, I was ok with that exchange.

Our night was spent in very uneasy sleep, we got used to the sound of the engine, and the sea was pretty smooth, but there was rocking and it was not rhythmic. Rather, we has smooth sailing for a couple of minutes followed by sway-sway (as though crossing a wake or something) for an eight count, then smooth again. A couple of times I almost dropped off to sleep only to be startled awake by the swinging motion. Other sounds and smells invaded Queenie, and it was hot! I wrapped my pillow around my ears and finally got some sleep, but Bruce only dozed the night away.

Ship docks at 6 am so we planned to get up at 5 to repack and be ready for debarkation. At 4:30 I awoke for the last time and got up to shower in the combo toilet/shower stalls, in the fashion of sailors: get wet, turn off water, soap down, rinse off. (I decided not to try washing my hair!)

Ship docked at 6 am right on schedule, but we had a problem (oh, surprise!!). The last truck to be loaded on our level was parked on the angled drive ramp. The angle was steep enough that during the crossing all the necessary fluids needed to start the truck had drained out. Not a single vehicle on the second level could move until the truck could get off, and that wasn't happening. You should have seen the ship's staff going ballistic! They had a schedule to maintain and this was screwing up the works! The poor truck driver was doing his best to refill gas, oils and whatever. He had an audience of every truck driver who was held up telling him how he should do it! We five campers, stuck along with the trucks, just laughed, thinking how this topped off the whole adventure! Over an hour later we finally managed to make our way down the ramp and onto Greek soil.

Sunday, May 6, 2001

The literary heritage of Greece has captured my interest since I was a very young girl. I first read and remembered the Greek myths when I was probably under the age of ten. Later the tales of Troy were as great a story to me as the myths. It was a secondary appeal when the historical Greece became interesting to me.

We were not in Greece for 45 minutes before we went to Hades. Really!

Driving south along the western edge of Greece we paid a visit to the Oracle of the Dead. In ancient times - like 2,450 years ago - this was supposed to be the entrance to the mythical underworld, and home to Hades and Persephone. A temple was built here and pilgrims came to talk to the dead. Priests prepared the pilgrims for the serious risk of talking with the "other side" and were rewarded with gifts that made the site wealthy. To talk to the dead you needed to descend into an underground cave that was the entrance to the underworld. The site was near the Acheron River, the legendary access river to the underworld. We walked around the site and saw the best large rock walls to date. They were boulders fitted together so truly no mortar was needed, and they had lasted for thousands of years. We descended into the underground entrance and were pretty impressed; dark and forbidding looking, it could well be considered the entrance to Hades. How exciting! Not even an hour into Greece and we were already coming across mythical stuff! We were both excited to have found this, neither of us knew of it's existence until we looked on our map saw the symbol for ruin and wondered what was the "Necromanteion of Efyras"?

While anticipating our time in Greece, we have both had the intimidating feeling that for the second time since leaving the States, we were really heading to foreign parts. Greece is physically separated by sea from the other European countries, so you really feel you are going to a different world as you cross the Med. Not only is the Greek language unfamiliar to any of the languages we have already dealt with, but their alphabet is different as well, we cannot even sound out words by reading them. The Greek word for yes is pronounced "neh," no is "oh chee" and for us, it went downhill from there. We are trying to learn simple polite phrases, "good day; please; thank you; good-bye" etc. but it is slow since we have nothing to relate them to, to help our memories. Months ago we were advised to try and learn the Greek alphabet in anticipation of this visit but we had way too much else happening to concentrate on that. Now we understand the need; street and highway signs are in Greek; if you are lucky a second sign will be in English. Very fortunately, so far we have met enough English speaking Greeks to lessen our sense of intimidation and give us time to learn our phrases. We'll just have to punt with regards to the alphabet.

No matter how exotic and foreign Greece initially appeared, it had one very important thing in common with the rest of Europe - Lidl stores!!! We now know that no matter what we won't starve, we can always shop at Lidl!! We passed two on our first day's journey but since it was Sunday, they were closed. I can't wait to what Greek delicacies they sell!

The country is beautiful. Whereas Italy is like a lush, voluptuous woman, Greece seems like a wise, craggy old man. It is very mountainous and rocky and of poor farming quality, but with dazzling vistas. Traveling through the mountains we saw olive trees everywhere, and goat herders working their flocks along the hillsides. The few valleys between mountains are reserved for farming. The Mediterranean, no further than 100 km away from any point in Greece, is filled with 1400 islands off the shoreline and is, as usual, stunning. We followed the coast from Igoumenitsa heading southeast in the general direction of Athens with the Med rarely out of sight.

One of the memories I have from 30 years ago is small shrines (I guess to saints) all along the roadside. They are still here, as many as four in a kilometer's distance. They almost look like mailboxes, or metal birdhouses, but they have a picture of the Madonna and Child (an icon) a candle, perhaps flowers, possibly a picture of someone else looking like a saint, and often a bottle of soda or water. Now what the heck has the bottle to do with that? My theory is these Christian shrines have taken the place of pagan shrines originally there to honor or appease the gods of nature once worshipped here. The shrines are so near to each other they can't possibly be necessary to honor the one god recognized now. In ancient times families had their personal gods to protect them and I think these are holdovers from those long ago times. The soda bottle is a leftover of leaving offerings to the gods long before Christianity arrived (or maybe a spot for joggers to relieve their thirst?). Who knows how accurate that it, but it sounds good anyways, huh?

We began driving at 7:30 in the morning and by noon we had had enough of that. We started hunting for campgrounds but each one we reached was not open for the season yet. Continuing ever onward we covered half the distance to Athens on our first day's drive, just trying to find an open campsite! Finally, around 3:00 we scored at Itea, a mere 18 kilometers from Delphi, which we had expected to reach by the 10th. Itea is at the head of a good-sized bay with the Peloponnesian Peninsula, rearing its soaring head, right across from us.

Finally we saw the Mediterranean with a less benign face. Blustery winds kicked up whitecaps and drove surf onto the shore. Cowabunga - where were the windsurfers??? Tarifa, have we found competition for you! The campground where we stayed could make a fortune renting the boards and marketing itself as THE place to windsurf in Greece. Of course the manager said these winds were unusual (Yea? Then why were all the trees trying to grow sideways?). The winds continued through the night and into the next day, but they were warm and the sun shown brightly, keeping us in swimsuits even though we looked like a 100 MPH dogs with our hair and clothes blowing in all directions.

We slept better than babies after our exhausting day and spent Monday riding our bikes around Itea and just mostly resting up from the ferry experience.

Tuesday, May 08, 2001

I think I have figured out what Greece reminds me of - England. Both are small countries with such a long history that everywhere you go there are associations with the past, only here the past stretches even further back.

High on my list of things to see in Greece was Ancient Delphi, home of the Delphic Oracle - the most important oracle in ancient Greece. This is the place where Apollo's seer sat on a tripod over fumes seeping up from a crevice, got high and spoke in gibberish, which priests interpreted and relayed to the questioner. (How's that for a cynical interpretation?) The Oracle, a woman at least 50 years old, was believed to be the mouthpiece of the god Apollo and while in this trance-state, according to legends, was pretty good at predicting the future. Because of this, Delphi became very wealthy from gifts given by supplicants. A temple complex grew here over the centuries, and if the reconstructions are accurate it was really elaborate.

The first oracle was a follower of Gaea, an earth goddess predating the Greek gods we know. We are talking around 1500BC at that time, but gradually new gods replaced old and probably by 1100 BC, Apollo owned the Oracle. This is another of those time scale things that are hard to grasp. The first of three Sacred Wars, squabbles over rights to Delphi, was in 597BC and 1000 years later, in the late 300's AD the Christian Emperor Theodius destroyed the site along with other "pagan" places.

The ancient Greeks also considered Delphi the exact center of the world, so it was a place of some importance for more than one reason. It lies on Mt. Parnassus and has some great views.

Today the site itself, while in ruins, still has a layout that can be understood. The road, the Sacred Way, takes you past what once were treasury houses and statues given by city-states in thanks to Apollo, then winds up to the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle spoke. Above the temple was an amphitheater and above that was a stadium where the Pythian games were played every 4 years in the tradition of the Olympics. The Pythian games were the second most important games in ancient Greece.

The whole site is on a mountainside so there is some steep walking to reach everything.

A museum is adjacent to the site and holds all sorts of statues, pediments, facades and the like, found in the ruins. While we are delighted with Roman art, it is amazing to remember the Greeks had mastered many of the arts long before Rome became a star.

Something that really struck us while walking around the site was the quietness. There were a lot of tourists visiting and it almost seemed as though everyone was in awe of being there. They were quieter here than in some of the churches we have visited.

We had originally planned to camp at Delphi, but we finished with the site and museum by 11am, and since there wasn't that much else to see in the area we pressed on. We continued towards Athens but since we will spend a couple of weeks there, we didn't really want to get there yet. We headed for Marathon, the start of the original run. Here in 490BC an important battle was won over the Persians. A messenger ran the distance to Athens, in full armor, to announce the victory and upon completion of his mission, collapsed and never got up (can anyone we know out there relate to that?) We also drove past the town of Dionysus, which was probably named for a Sanctuary of Dionysus that was very nearby.

See what I mean about myths and places merging? Very awesome!

The weather took a turn for the worse. I guess all that wind really was blowing something in because we raced ahead of a weather system for most the day. Around 3pm we finally hit the eastern coast of Greece, about 28 km NE of Athens. Once there we decided to camp by the beach for a couple of days, near the port town of Rafina and naturally it started to rain! We finished our day inside Queenie looking out and hoping the rain departs soon. Three games of cards later, Peggy leads Bruce by eleven games!

Wednesday, May 9, 2001

The campground we stayed at proved to be unacceptable to us. On a cliff overlooking the sea, all approaches to it were steep, the beach inaccessible, the pitches small sloped and filled with trees making the small pitches even smaller. At least it had stopped raining.

We had consulted a map and decided a different campground nearer to Marathon would do nicely. Reputed to have good, flat beaches we were confident that meant good, flat bike-riding roads, which appealed to us greatly. But it was only 9:00 am, far too early to check into a new campground.

We decided to go to Marathon and do some sightseeing.

The Battle of Marathon was a decisive battle in which the Greeks unexpectedly stomped the Persians, loosing only 192 soldiers to the Persian's 6000. Those 192 Greek soldiers were cremated and buried in a tomb at Marathon. The tomb is a massive dirt mound marked by a stele (a marble gravestone) with a fallen warrior engraved on it. The tomb and stele have been lying on the Marathon plain for 2,492 years, constructed by man and still existing after all that time.

Next we made our way to the Marathon museum, along a stretch of road full of chuckholes that we found surprisingly coarse for a national museum approach. All sorts of neat art objects were here, collected from the Marathon area, ranging from a beautiful bronze statue of a young man to fragments of statues, bronze shields, Greek pottery and the like. A nice thing about visiting the museums and archeological sites is they only cost 500 drachmas, about $1.50 US, to visit so we won't be spending a fortune to see all these places Greece has to offer.

Then it was off to Marathon Lake, a man-made lake built in 1926 and for 30+ years the sole water supply for Athens. The dam is made of marble and is probably the only one in the world using such fancy materials. It is in the mountains about 7 km inland and is beautiful, a perfect setting for a picnic so we had our lunch there. To cross the lake you drive over the dam on a narrow one-lane causeway controlled by a traffic light to determine which direction gets to go. The lake, full to the brim, has no beaches, and trees and other greenery grow right down to the water - it is really pretty. We were surprised to see no boats or fishermen or any human activity at all. We thought perhaps freshwater lakes don't have the same attraction to Greeks as they do in the States since the Med is so close and it has been used it for so many centuries for everything from food to transportation.

Attempting to return to Marathon, we got lost, which isn't surprising since off the beaten track, all signs are in Greek only. You should try to decipher Greek writing while driving - by the time I realized I might need to make a decision and checked the map, trying to find and then compare the two unfamiliar names, we had passed the sign (and what Bruce hates more than anything with regards to driving is turning around and backtracking. He also hates to drive more than once around a roundabout. Ah, the arguments we have had over the past year regarding those subjects would burn your ears!!! I am accused of incompetent navigating (guilty!) and he is accused of stubbornness)

We meandered all over the countryside, once stopping for a herd of goats as it ambled down the road, the herder at the rear with his stick directing them to move over enough for us to pass. We saw so many olive trees I was beginning to wonder it they just grew wild in Greece. You know, like scrub oak and pine - scrub olive! We had no idea where within a 7km radius we were, and were amazed at how many roads there were that were not on the map! We haven't gotten our book-map of Greece yet so are dependent on our Europe map book, which is good for main roads but that's about it. After an hour of touring the countryside I saw another of those brown and yellow signs indicating a point of interest and begged Bruce to take the road. (we had to turn around, tee-hee) Once again we drove down a road in dire need of repair. What we had found was the only temple in all of Greece dedicated to the goddess of retribution, Nemesis. (We also now knew where we were!).

After the Marathon battle - as you can, see it was a fairly important event in this neck of the woods - a temple was built overlooking a bay - perhaps where the Persian fleet landed? - to honor Nemesis. The Persians, so assured of a victory, brought a huge block of marble with them to commemorate their victory. Good ole Nemesis bollixed up their plans however, and in thanks the Greeks built a temple for her using the aforementioned marble to sculpt a statue of the goddess.

It is a shame how civilizations and religions, supplanting previous civilizations and religions, seem to feel the necessity to destroy all signs of the previous ones. Here once again, we saw the remains only of the temple, the Christian emperor having decreed all pagan sites to be destroyed. And they smashed this one! We were walking over shattered bits of marble that obviously had once been parts of the temple complex long before we reached it. What a pity! I am sure that, over and over, we will see this in Greece (and that we saw it in Rome but didn't quite get it then). Able to walk onto the temple floor we saw that past visitors had left graffiti carved into the marble floor blocks. The earliest date we could make out was 1904, but there were a lot of 1933's and 1936's. It's weird, inscriptions in Greek which of course we can't begin to read, then a date that we can. Evidently they use the same number system as we?

Ok, it was after 2 pm when we wrapped up Nemesis. Time to find the campground. We had seen the sign for it near the Tomb of Marathon, so we returned and followed the signs. The campground looked awful - rundown and unsavory - we rejected that one. Our map showed more campgrounds in the area and we began driving along the coast again, getting more and more frustrated as we found nothing. Just when we were about to explode at each other, a sign showed up directing us to camping. We followed it to Camping Ramnous, on the beach, with flat roads to ride our bikes on. Just what the doctor ordered!! Camping Ramnous is the most attractive of the three we have stayed in even though the facilities are in serious need of a good cleaning. Beachfront location, grass approach to the sandy beach, a taverna, a pool (although presently empty), it looked pretty inviting. We were the only campers there and they seemed surprised to see us.

I am beginning to think the Greek campgrounds are going to be less well run than their counterparts in the rest of Europe. The three we have been in so far are ok , but... They are older facilities and not much care is taken in keeping them clean, perhaps because it is off-season and they don't need to yet? I am not sure about that one, but we are getting to stay at the beaches on the Med and that may have to satisfy us. By the way, it looks like the rumored TP issue is true: wastebaskets are full of toilet paper and we assume that means they don't want us to flush it down the toilets. How interesting!

After setting up, we tried to do a load of wash, our sheets needed cleaning, but the washer needed some work - as we found out after we started our load - and it took about three hours to get one load washed only. Rather than wait and be disgusted, we opted to go for bike rides. There seem to be several sports beach clubs in our neighborhood and we checked them all out. The Quicksilver Club was the classiest and busiest with hard bodies playing sand volleyball and soccer. On the sea a handful of windsurfers were trying their luck on the crystal clear Med. (Do we seem fascinated by the Med? You're right, we are.)

It is strange to see what in the States would be million dollar beachfront property, used often as not as a landfill here. And the roads are paved but in dire need of chuckhole repair. In the States the roads would be the highest quality, the land would have gorgeous homes and the beach would be inaccessible because wealthy owners would cut off all access. Here you have to take the good with the bad; great beaches with dumps in the same vicinity!

Bruce's bike "Scooter" got a flat rear tire and we had to walk the bikes back to the campground ending our ride sooner than we had expected. Once we returned, we cooked a BBQ dinner of lamb kabobs with a scatter of marinated vegetables. Yummy! We finally got our sheets out of the washer and up on our line to dry. We will sleep in our sleeping bags only, since it was too late for the sheets to dry before bedtime.

Friday, May 11, 2001

We are in Athens. We are less and less satisfied with Greek camping facilities: if it's not dirty toilet blocks, it is stupid rules.

Thursday at the beach, the weather was overcast and cool all day so Friday morning we decided to leave and continue on to Athens. Naturally, the weather returned to hot and sunny. When it is clear it is surprising how warm it is and when it is cloudy, how cool. I wanted to check out the Sanctuary of Dionysus we had passed on our way to the sea, so we drove inland following the same route we had used three days ago. Still without a local map we evidently missed it, because we soon drove right through the town of Dionysus, well past the site. So much for that excursion!

We got on the road towards Athens looking for the highway that would lead us around the north end of Athens and to our designated campground. That didn't happen either and pretty soon we were in the thick of Athens traffic. Once more, against MY better judgment, we found ourselves driving right through a major metropolitan center. Stop and go crazy traffic with all road signs in Greek: I didn't have a clue where we were, except in the city. Bruce was fine with the situation but I was fit-to-be-tied!

We found a Carrefour supermarket (the chain we have been using since Spain) and Bruce appeased me by stopping for some food shopping. It is surprising what Greece has to offer in foodstuffs. We found Best Foods mayonnaise, something we haven't seen since Spain (and a favorite of B's), Secret deodorant - our brand, and several items we have found at other Carrefour stores that are not indigenous to Greece. Like our cassoulet-de-duck meals, fresh pastas and pizzas, in fact, I am not sure what was there that is true Greek cuisine. We bought some chicken breasts, salmon filets and pork chops as well as various veggies and salad fixings. Out of Italy, we planned to return to BBQing some meals and getting away from the fattening food we had consumed with such delight while there.

Darling Bruce, my butcher of words, asked a young woman at the store for directions to our camping location. Only instead of asking for Dafni, he asked about Delphi and she proceeded to give the instructions. I was told to listen in, and caught the error. She was apologetic (as if it was her fault!) and said she was about to send us in the opposite direction, but that we should just continue as we had been going. Great - that meant continuing into the thick of it, which we did. Finally we found a street that was on our City of Athens map, coincidentally the same street my folk's hotel is on, and were able to direct ourselves to the campground. Mom and Dad, your hotel looks good (but ask about the TP problem before you flush!!).

Camping Athens is about 7km west of city center. It is just off a horrendously busy and noisy boulevard, but looks to be convenient to the city with a bus stop right across the (horrendously busy) street. Since we are going to be here for about two weeks, Bruce reasonably asked if there was a break for long stay. No, fixed rates only. Could we have a certain site we saw and liked? No, it was reserved. Could we have it once it cleared out? Yes. She then directed us to a temporary pitch to camp in.

One of the reasons we arrived early was to set Queenie up, canopy and all and give her a badly needed cleaning so she would be presentable for my folks. That plan was foiled because we would be moving on Monday to our permanent spot. No point in setting up, then tearing down to move. Then we saw a sign saying no BBQing. Stupid us, we asked about it and were told not on the camp property, but we could BBQ outside the gates. This is the first time in a year of camping we have been forbidden to BBQ and didn't understand why, but we respected the decision. Then, when we were getting ready to cook, another manager said, NO you will not BBQ at all, it was against the law to BBQ in Greece. Now, come on! That sounded like the most blatant lie we had heard in a while; the grocery store was selling fancy BBQ's right here in Athens, were they breaking the law? Half the Greek cuisine is based on charcoal-grilled meats, were they breaking the law? We BBQed the previous evening and been told no such thing. We were prepared to go along with camp rules, but for crying out loud, don't bullshit us!

We had cauliflower soup for dinner instead of broiled salmon filets.

Now it was Bruce's turn to be fit-to-be-tied. He growled and snarled the rest of the evening until I had to ask, was he just letting off steam or did we want to make for another, more distant, campground? I think he was letting off steam. We do intend to find out about the "law" against BBQing though - we'll ask a cop!

At least the toilet block is very clean and even provides toilet paper, an uncommon thing in Mediterranean Europe.

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