Olympia, 4 June 1987 Greek roads in mountains are curvy

by Bob Van Leer

(Olympia, Greece, June 4, 1987)   Today we looked at scenery as our bus drove us from Nafplio on the Aegean Sea across the Peloponnese peninsula to the Ionian Sea.

      After leaving the Aegean coastal plain, the pattern was up over a range of mountains and then down to a valley, then up over another range.  The Mountains were up to 3000 feet high and most of the valleys were rather narrow.

     The uplands are mostly solid rock with scrubby brush but some of the valley floors are quite fertile.  Up, on the slopes, sheep and goats graze.  Small bands of a few dozen animals are tended by a herder, usually an old man.

      The roads were relatively new and quite good, but being in the mountains, also vary curvy.  A custom in Greece is to erect roadside shrines, very small ones, often no more than a foot square, on top of a pole.  Most are nicely tended and our guide said they are erected in memory of a loved one lost there, or in appreciation by someone who had been saved in an accident.  We rated the severity of a curve by how many shrines were there and a six-shrine curve is one to be especially careful on.

      We passed through the major towns of Argos, Tripoli, Megalopoli and Kaiafas on our way to Olympia, the side of the original Olympic Games.  The Ionian Sea is between Greece and Italy.  There is ferry service from here to Italy.  The water is a deep blue almost up to shore.  The Mediterranean, which includes these smaller seas, seems to have no tides.  Also we have not yet seen any breakers, even little ones.

      Again we get comments on the lack of American tourists.  Our guide says this is her first American group in two years.  A bus driver with an Italian group said he is driving around a lot of Italians and Japanese, but very few Americans.  Communicating is more of a problem here.  In Athens most people we dealt with spoke English, but not out here in the small towns.  Some of our transactions are done in sign language.

      Tomorrow we go to see the original Olympic stadium and then on to Delphi on the Mainland.  We now have a routine, up a 7 a.m., bags in the hall at 8 and leave at 8:30. Bags are delivered to our room door and taken away from the door.  It is not necessary to carry our bags out.  The weather remains good; shirtsleeve temperatures even in the evenings.