Into the Mountains

 Sept 29

I woke up excited to shower in the spiffy bathroom, but the best that rain shower head would give me was off-cool. Harumph. Breakfast was a tomato omelet in the same port-side restaurant where we sat for hours last night. Then I had to figure out how to get us out of town, when the one route west was blocked. It meant backtracking some 5 km, but it worked.

Woman fishing, Nafpaktos

To get from mainland Greece to the Peloponnese at the western end, there are two routes. One is the Rio-Antirrio Bridge, a 2-km suspension bridge that costs a toll of €15 to cross, or one of two ferries that depart directly below the bridge and shuttle back and forth all day, a 20-minute crossing that costs €8. We took the ferry, naturally. After using Google to arrive at a port that appears to be defunct, we quickly found the right port, and drove right on. 

Sister ferry to the one we rode, beside the Rio-Antirrio Bridge

Because there’s no real tide in the Mediterranean, docking ferries is quite a different matter than back home. Here, these ferries pull up to the paved shore, drop a ramp, and away we go. So fast! 

Our route took us first on a major toll highway, and then up into the mountains on a lot of hairpin turns. The road in the hills was wider than I’d expected for these parts, and though the going was slow, it wasn't too nerve-jangling.

Mega Spileo Monastery, named for the cliffs above it

Early in the planning stages for this trip, I’d found a cog train that winds through the spectacular Vouraikos Gorge, and I thought we’d take this little train through the gorge to a village called Kato Zachlorou, have lunch, then catch the train back down. A couple of months ago, I realized the train had been shut down due to safety concerns (falling rock, again), so I looked into hiking into the canyon instead, from Zachlorou. Well, it seems the season is over in these parts, because none of the several tavernas in Zachlorou were open, and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The trail head wasn’t obvious, and there was no one to ask. We ended up just walking the track for a bit, then turning back when it appeared that there wouldn’t be much in the way of scenery. 

Currently unused train station in the village of Kato Kachlorou

Creek beside the station

We drove on to Kalavryta to our hotel for the night, had lunch and a walk around this little ski resort. Here we find a lot less English spoken, but we get by with gestures and pointing. These interactions are a highlight for me of any trip. Kalavryta a pleasant town, with a lot of pharmacies and grocery stores and hardly any trinket shops. 

Great name for a pizza joint, an in-joke for anti conspiracy theorists

Kalavryta kitty