Beach time ….. Greek Style

Sunday 4^th June

Rodney’s birthday morning involved 3½ hours of the wiggliest driving so far. I was only the passenger/navigator, and I was exhausted!!  It was 1:00 pm by the time we arrived at Camping Kalogria near Stoupa. We picked a pitch under the shade of eucalyptus trees, a bit close to the road, but fingers are crossed that it’s not a busy road. We liked it because we have views across the valley to the hills behind and we feel at home among the gum trees. The beach is somewhere down below us. We can’t see it, but we can hear the weekenders playing down there.

Toward the end of the afternoon, we staggered over the hill and down into Stoupa to find a tiny seaside resort with restaurants lining the waterfront, as always in Greece.  We ducked into a shop so that I could buy Rodney something for his birthday and came out with a nice blue and white stripey shirt.  I also came out with a nice long shirt, a belt and a new pair of swimming bottoms for myself; the last item being a necessary purchase as the elastic is about to fail me on my old ones!

Dinner was not a grand affair, neither of us felt we could do justice to a big meal, so it was crepes and a slow walk back over the hill to Reggie.

Monday 5^th June.

Knowledge gained today.

 No. 1.  An early morning wood pigeon is worse than a buzzing alarm clock. It starts pleasantly enough and then becomes a sort of earworm. You really wish it would bugger off and find an early worm elsewhere.

No. 2.  Do not put anything on top of the sofa backs. I’ve already lost a fly swat down the back of one. And today I stupidly managed to flick our tiny, but terribly important internet modem down there. Twenty minutes wasted moving all the cushions, fiddling around with the bread knife, the torch, spatula, etc., and finally resorting to unscrewing the wooden wall panels behind the sofa.   I gratefully thanked Zeus and Rodney when we did manage to retrieve it. Phew!

No. 3. Beach time is just so ‘unaustralian’ in Greece.  We have finally found a proper sandy beach, but in awful European style, it is covered in sunbeds and fixed umbrellas owned by the restaurants behind. €14 for two, that’s $25!!!! And we only wanted a couple of hours with a swim. We had hoped that you just needed to buy a drink or a snack, but no, that “costs extra”, although the man will bring it to us “for free”. We declined. And at 10:30am we managed to find a tiny patch of dry sand at the end of the beach to spread out our towels and cushions. The sea definitely feels colder than on the opposite side of the gulf, but it was lovely to have sand under our feet again. After cold drinks, a shared snack and a free ouzo, we waddled back to blob under our awning and gaze at the mountains instead of the sea.

At 7:30pm we sat down in the Riviera Grill Restaurant on the seafront in Stoupa because the chappy at the front told us he had the best fresh king prawns and would serve them with a Greek salad …….. that was exactly what I fancied. Then the sun plopped into the sea and the night popped out as we strolled along the beach to our bed.

Tuesday 6th June

We decided to stay a third night to try and relax a bit more before the next and last leg heading south. After a morning chat with the campsite owner, who insists on being the only one to use the washing machine and learning that he has cousins living in Melbourne (of course), we decided to find the energy to cycle along the coast. The route took us up over the hill to Stoupa Beach and then we clung to the coast until we found a wonderfully smooth concrete cycle/foot path.

There were some small, steep, ups and downs, but most of the ride was fairly flat and the views along the coast and out to sea were lovely. We got as far as tiny Pantazi Beach before turning around and heading back. At Agios Nikolaos we stopped to drink cold fruity smoothies in a cafe set on the rocks and at Stoupa we purchased a doughnut. Have to say the Greeks do make darn good doughnuts.

That was all the energy expended today, tomorrow will be a bit more driving south and then east; we’ve got something planned. Then we’ll be about as far south as we can go this year. We have to keep moving. We have to get back north like migrating birds.