Wednesday 31st May.
Wandering around Methoni Castle for at least two hours was our next ‘looking-around-corners’ stop. It was a fabulous castle and it needed that long to cover the whole area; although I do believe we did miss some corners. Then the prawn salad lunch at Modon Restaurant in Methoni was delicious; best meal in ages, we agreed.
After lunch. We moved on to Finikounda, or is that Foinikounta, or Finikous, Finikounta, or Φοινικούντα. It seems to be the same with every town and village; no wonder we keep getting lost in Greece. Camping Thines is quirky. Not very big, but the bathrooms are clean and interesting. There’s cool jazz playing over a music system and a strip of red lights above the door inside each shower cubicle. Bit different from your average campsite bathroom!
Thursday, 1st of June.
It’s a new month and the day felt different, although I’m not quite sure why. Our breakfast was different. The pharmacy, in Finikounda, had been closed yesterday….. closed because it was a Wednesday! So we had made a purchase at a bakery instead. One large spinach and feta pastry and one sugary doughnut, “for breakfast tomorrow”, we had agreed. Definitely a rather different breakfast. In the bathrooms, cool jazz was no longer playing, it’s now ambient elevator music! But with no barking dogs (despite plenty of cats wandering around), and no screaming children ….. it is pleasantly peaceful. It’s a curious little campsite next to the beach. Our tiny pitch has flowering pink and white oleander hedging on three sides, and if I angle my chair close to the driveway, I can glimpse the sea. The shop, the café and the restaurant are still not open for the season; which does seem a bit silly considering the campsite is just about full (mostly Germans) and to my mind that’s a fair amount of missed business. So we’ll have to cycle to a supermarket because we have run out of drinking water. Plus we could do with stocking up on a bit more food; there’s a long weekend coming up in Greece.
Driving back in Reggie from a supermarket is so much easier than cycling back. One full bag of food was hung over my handlebars, one on Rodney’s handlebars and the six pack of 1.5 litre bottles of water was strapped on top of my battery rack. By avoiding most of the bumps on the road, we somehow got back with it still strapped on !
We could hear the waves while sitting outside Reggie, so despite it being a bit breezy, we trotted down to the beach with our books and towels in hand. After an hour with no shade, we had to brave the sea …… for the first time on this trip. Jeez, it was cold! But as we always seem to say, “it’s alright once you’re in”…… sort of.
