I have a Masters Degree in Engineering - something niggles me about Claus's roof supporting structure compared to that of the Berghof (South).
This splendid shot is taken on the plain of Xerokambos - looking out from Klaus' house.
The day before my return to England we decide to visit the village of Platanos that is on the opposite side of the mountain from our village. Platanos is at the bottom of a valley and hosted a water mill during the first ice age.
The house of garbage near Platanos - used as the film set for the popular Greek comedy series Stephanos and Son depicting the rise and fall of an aspiring PASOK MP.
The waterfall at Platanos.
Platanos High Street
How to get to Platanos - last time we visited for the spring festival it was tipping it down - now it's just the waterfall tipping.
Hypochondria is part of the Greek DNA - here in Platanos Mrs Nikos and Yiayia Mrs Nikos are recognised as doctors at the Ouzeri and we drink and eat mezedes to the accompaniment of lurid descriptions of various ailments - this is just the gambit.
A naughty boy in bed
Time to buy a new bike?
I would have chosen another brand name, especially now that Greece appears to be snuggling up to Israel.
This brand name is perfect - Three hours late and not a glass of wine in sight, but the meatballs were not from IKEA as they were halal or is that haha.
And so the summer trip but not the journey came to an end.
Bear Ithaca always in your thoughts.
Arriving there is the goal of your journey;
but take care not to travel too hastily.
Better to linger for years on your way;
better to reach the island’s shores in old age,
enriched by all you’ve obtained along the way.
Do not expect that Ithaca will reward you with wealth.
This is an extract from Ithaca, a poem by Constantine Cavafy.
According to Wikipedia, after the collapse of the Roman power in the west, Arcadia became part of the Byzantine Empire. Arcadia remained a rustic, secluded area, and its inhabitants became proverbial as primitive herdsmen leading simple pastoral unsophisticated yet happy lives. On the other hand, I choose to live a life of planning paranoia and GPS fixation greeting only the herdsmen (and herdswomen) with a fleeting wave and a departing backfire from the lean running overheated boxer engine on my BMW R1150GS motorcycle.
This is possibly the theoretical planned route recreated from the black box flight recorder and distant memories.
And so I planned a circular tour of Mount Parnon and this would be Mrs Nikos' and my first substantial ride away from the local area of Mrs Nikos Towers (aka the Berghof (sud)). The route would take us over the plain of Xerokambos before making a left turn into the Parnonas national park. We would then head south towards Sparta before driving on the road of 100 days and past the stone edificed monastery of Aghios Nikolaos near Kosmas. The return journey would take us back north through Leonidon to Astros to buy a chicken for dinner.
This is the sort of nonsense that Greeks have to put up with
You are here, we are here, but where are we?
Lost again somewhere on Mount Parnon and someone else has amended the directional arrow.
Rain clouds dammit
I have never been to Monemvasia but this is a worrying development as we do not wish to go there.
I believe this filling station to be near Geraki
This scene depicts rain and that was a pity as our rain gear was 50 miles away at the Berghof (sud)
Juke box at filling station cafe
Not a single record that was recognisable but the owner managed to demonstrate his abilities at Greek dancing to many of the tunes.
We spent several hours here at the apogee of our route hoping that the rain would stop - eventually the hospitable owner served complementary tsipouro.
We descended from Mount Parnon and looked for petrol and coffee. We stumbled into Geraki and stopped at the first filling station where we were to spend the next 2 hours sheltering from the torrential down pour. We drank coffee, deposited discretely compliementary home made tsipouro into the plant pots and Mrs Nikos danced with the Proprietor, his Mother, wife and children to Greek juke box music of the 50s. Eventually we elected to depart as the rain had abated to drizzle. The route to Leonido on the coast would take us over the mountain ridge (1100m) and down a spectacular gorge.
The scene just prior to our departure as the Proprietor starts to ruminate about his time in Australia with his Mother looking on.
A road side shrine to remember the last traveller who had perished by driving over the edge.
Monastery Agiou Nikolaou Sintzas in the clouds above us - I am still to this day reprimanded by Mrs Nikos for not stopping in.
Epilogue: The rain did not stop and the roads turned to soap - I could not believe how slippery Greek roads are in the wet. There are no more photographs of this tour as the camera will not work under water. By some miracle we arrived home in two pieces and ate chicken. The ginger pussy is pleased to see Mrs Nikos.
This is the title of a book by the late Gerald Durrell whose brother Lawrence also wrote in one way or another about Greece. Gerald spent his formative years in Corfu before WW2 where his curious and acquisitive nature lead him to collect all manner of wildlife. He recounts his adventures in books called My Family and Other Animals and the sequel Birds Beast and Relatives. For many years these had been the only two books that I had read ( apart from 97 out of 98 Biggles books ).
This is the corpse of beast no.1 found in Mrs Nikos' kitchen sink - we gave it a christian burial.
This is beast no.2 taking residence on my motorcycle and shocking me considerably. Mrs Nikos called it a grass hopper - I called it a ******* locust.
Beass no. 3: This is a fine example of οδηγημένη ψύλλος γάτα εστιατορίων
Beast no.4: Goat - Camila sex it please - I am obviously incapable.
Now that I have finished with the beasts I intend to deal with the relatives and other strange or curious things found in Greece this year:
The newest member of our family - Ginger el Greco, found abandoned 4 houses down the road.
Mrs Nikos aka αυτή που φορά το παντελόνι
Next I would like to illustrate how confusion may easily set in whilst shopping in local supermarkets.
This is not meths.
This stuff has the same effect as meths if misused.
Essex appears to be the number one brand of soap powder in Greece!
The crowing glory of this summer trip has to be the ability to produce shaky and poor quality video clips that are seemingly impossible to edit on my stone age equipment of journeys on Greek roads. I have seen some very good advice shared by fellow bloggers and chose to do my own thing.
This is a flight deck ("cockpit" Camilla) view of the standard solid state video cam mounted on the mirror stem with those ball joint thingys. The wire leads to the remote control....
....that is craftily mounted on the right hand mirror stem. You don't get this superior functionality with Hero cams!
And finally a quiz.
Question 1: What is the diameter of the drive shaft (to the nearest 0.2 mm) of this Yamaha micro Tenere?
Question 2: What in three words do these road signs found commonly on the verges of Greek roads near road side shrines signify?
The answer is "πού είναι ο κοντινότερος οξυγονοκολλητής τόξων αργού;", according to Babelfish. By preference, I would have used the 3rd person singular of the verb to exist, viz "υπάρχει", somewhere in there.
Here's a trick shot involving a pineapple and my bike at the beach.
Nothing has been planned in advance - we are in the land of spontaneity. it's a nice day so we ride south along the coast towards Leonidho to find the fresh water lake just past Aghia Anastasia latterly turned into a nature reserve with EU funding. This comprises a car park with a poor surface, some defaced boards displaying wild life information but no tea room.
A dramatic view of Paralia Astros in the background.
The KKE have been issuing spray cans by the look of it - EU funding is apparently not now welcome by these born again Trotskyists.
On the way back to Mrs Nikos Towers mountain retreat we pop into the monastery at Iera Moni Loukous for a quick coffee and chat with Mother Popi about world affairs. It's good to find a monastery with non-commercial pretensions and the seven nuns here busy themselves with horticulture and entertaining the odd visitor. The two coffees and turkish delight were paid for by the €1 purchase of a candle to place in the chapel in the best traditions.
A traveller should never be turned away from a proper monastery - but we must mostly cover bare skin - the wearing of shoes is actually encouraged.
I could fill the blog up with pictures of this tranquil beautiful monastery but we are transgressing from the argon arc welder theme too much.
The next morning over breakfast Mrs Nikos surveys the valley below and the mountains beyond and declares that she wants to explore there. I rush for the Garmin GPS and maps and waste time planning a route - It's the triumph of hope over experience in these lands and Mrs Nikos says "nah* - we just ride through the village and turn right down that track over there!" - she points to a goat track that snakes in a descending spiral around the adjacent mountain . I delay the preparations as much as possible hoping for some natural cataclysm to prevent the trip. *she actually said "nein"
Unfortunately hell did not freeze over and here we are lost down some goat track. The eagle eyed observer will note the caption on the GPS says "driving on road" but sometimes this randomly changed too "proceed to road". The term road is pejorative.
έχουμε φθάσει -We have arrived at somewhere
So I had a crash course in riding off road a fully laden (sorry dear) 400kg motorcycle down dirt tracks and up dirt tracks and through winding narrow concrete paved village streets with goats and shepherds (we met Manoli near home on a 1 in 3 track and Mrs N had a good chat whilst I burnt the clutch out). When we finally "hit asphalt" I whooped with joy and I drove back to Mrs Nikos Towers with that feeling one gets in a tennis match when winning 40 - love last game final set. Except it never works out does it?
The result of practical application of incompetence or was it incontinence - spelling has never been my strength
On the two previous occasions when I have ridden directly up to Mrs Nikos Towers, I rode solo - the entrance is formidable and requires a deft 180degree turn on gravel covered broken concrete with a 1 in 3 rise upto the parking place - most cars going up there do so on only 3 wheels due to the topography. Now I was 40 love up so giving it gas I swung round without dropping off Mrs Nikos (aka as "auto steer") from pillion, put my left foot down to stabilise the turn and discovered that due to the inviolate laws of Euclid my left leg would have needed to be 4 feet longer than normal to provide any stabilsing effect. I think therefore I dropped the bike. I dropped Mrs Nikos after all (the rear pannier box provided protection) but the rear left footpeg cast aluminum mounting plate was broken - I started to sip tsiporro on the rocks and concluded that a skilled argon arc welder could join this back on before the ice melted.
On the way to Tripolis to find a BMW dealer or at least a welder with the correct equipment, we find this old chap - at least 20 years old (just count the concentric rings and multiply by 2π).
We find a motorcycle dealer in Tripolis who confirms that the nearest BMW agent is some unspecified distance away and responds when I ask whether he could order the part with the Greek shrug and the tutting vertical motion of the jaw "ees deeeefeeeecult" ( "θέλω να έχω το μεσημεριανό γεύμα και να κάνω την αγάπη στην"). We discuss welding. Kindly, he leads us through town at break neck speeds on the BMW F650GS to a welding shop. The man at the welding shop responds with the Greek shrug and the tutting vertical motion of the jaw "ees deeeefeeeecult -eeemmpossseeble- ees magneeeeesium" ("έχει τα μεγάλα στήθη - πρέπει να αρμέξω την αίγα μου").
This is the main square of Tripoli - there is probably a considerable amount of EU tax payer's money being spent here,
Mrs Nikos says that she does not need a foot rest anyway - I say yes you do. I hatch up a cunning plan and use my ingenuity and considerable training, skill and experience as a self taught son of a self taught Ottoman Greek botch it merchant (aka another chip off the old Turkish delight).
We visit Mr Marcardes at Meligou - the sort of hardware store that stocks trunnion adapters for Nero's offside chariot wheel - if only they could find it.
This kit of parts....
...assembles thus: A rear foot rest is born from 8mm stud, garden hose, washers and self locking nuts. Mark Evans please may I have your job?
