Monday 5th April
Zacharo
We had a pretty lazy day as in the night I have lost my voice (great relief all around) and we both still have colds. Alec went off to find some Greek honey to go with our yoghurt and came back with French as that was all for sale in the only place open on a bank holiday. The only other places open were cafes dispensing coffee and ouzo, don’t know whether the occupants had been there all night or had only just arrived; they certainly weren’t having toast with it.
We have been a bit worried about how to keep going as in the next 50 miles or so the roads and mountains become a bit trickier. We more or less decided last night that we would hire a car and explore with the bikes in the car, stopping where we want. Theodore came along this morning armed with loads of grapefruit from his orchard and proceeded to tell us what we should be doing next. Curiously it was pretty much along the same lines as we had thought as we are coming towards a bit of a dead end bike-wise. Some of the most spectacular places are well inland and at the top of mountains, which I know I can’t do. Before we had time to think for ourselves he had rung a friend who runs a car hire firm and was busy fixing us up for the next few days. It all happened a bit quicker than we would have liked, but it probably makes sense. So with that sorted we had nothing much to worry about. It is glorious sunshine yet again - we can’t imagine it being anything else in this part of the world now. So we pedaled off to explore further down the coast as we are going to be leaving the bikes here for a few days.
We leaned our bikes against a gate of what we thought was an unoccupied house for a while, but on our return the owner was leaning up against the other side of the gate. Fortunately he hadn’t wanted to leave. He was Albanian and a very friendly fellow and we had a bit of a chat mostly in sign language. He was very good at saying ‘thank you very much’ and we were pretty good at f -Harry-stow = thanks, too. He said it so many times we did begin to wonder which vital part of the bikes he might have helped himself to. Does that sound sceptical? However all was well and he was delightful.
Zacharo
We had a pretty lazy day as in the night I have lost my voice (great relief all around) and we both still have colds. Alec went off to find some Greek honey to go with our yoghurt and came back with French as that was all for sale in the only place open on a bank holiday. The only other places open were cafes dispensing coffee and ouzo, don’t know whether the occupants had been there all night or had only just arrived; they certainly weren’t having toast with it.
We have been a bit worried about how to keep going as in the next 50 miles or so the roads and mountains become a bit trickier. We more or less decided last night that we would hire a car and explore with the bikes in the car, stopping where we want. Theodore came along this morning armed with loads of grapefruit from his orchard and proceeded to tell us what we should be doing next. Curiously it was pretty much along the same lines as we had thought as we are coming towards a bit of a dead end bike-wise. Some of the most spectacular places are well inland and at the top of mountains, which I know I can’t do. Before we had time to think for ourselves he had rung a friend who runs a car hire firm and was busy fixing us up for the next few days. It all happened a bit quicker than we would have liked, but it probably makes sense. So with that sorted we had nothing much to worry about. It is glorious sunshine yet again - we can’t imagine it being anything else in this part of the world now. So we pedaled off to explore further down the coast as we are going to be leaving the bikes here for a few days.
We leaned our bikes against a gate of what we thought was an unoccupied house for a while, but on our return the owner was leaning up against the other side of the gate. Fortunately he hadn’t wanted to leave. He was Albanian and a very friendly fellow and we had a bit of a chat mostly in sign language. He was very good at saying ‘thank you very much’ and we were pretty good at f -Harry-stow = thanks, too. He said it so many times we did begin to wonder which vital part of the bikes he might have helped himself to. Does that sound sceptical? However all was well and he was delightful.
Don't know what the last butterfly was but this one surely must be a swallowtail!
The Greeks love eating out and every taverna and bar was packed yet again. The extraordinary thing is, they have no menus and no price list. The waiter just gives you the options and you choose. We found the lovely village of Kakovatos on a long beach and had a delicious lunch there before snoring on the beach for the afternoon. No swimming though because of our colds. On our return Angelica had left us 6 free range eggs so a Greek omelette was made with all the remains in the fridge. The hens here are the luckiest animals, our orchard is full of happy hens wandering around at large.
We have only seen 1 fox and he was squashed on the road. At the other end of the scale the dogs have a dreadful time, tied to chains about 6 foot in length and in the 3 days we have been here none have been let off at all. I never realised quite what a good life ours had.
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