June 6, 2023 Portland OR

The flights home were completely uneventful this time which is always great. This trip we visited two new countries for us in Romania and Bulgaria. Crete was a high light for both of us. Both Romania and Bulgaria were very interesting as they are not as far advanced in developing as other countries. On the whole we have enjoyed traveling in the Balkans as there is a lot to see, but the crowds are not as big.

We are still undecided about our fall trip. We need to end it in Amsterdam, but we are still deciding whether to start out by going east into Turkey, or head towards Corsica and Sardinia by ferry. Stay tuned to see what we decide.

June 5, 2023 Athens GR

Today was our last day in Greece for this trip. We had pretty much prepared everything the day before so the only chores in the morning were disposing of the waste water and shutting down all of the systems on François.

The campground cats enjoying a meal of Lidl cat food. The white cat was a cute kitten last year.

Since we had emptied the fridge I went to Lidl first thing in the morning to buy some pastries for breakfast. We now have a tradition of providing a final meal to the cats in the neighborhood, so I also bought a few tins of cat food as we didn’t have the leftover meat that we usually give them.

The drive to the airport storage was uneventful. We spent the last day in the airport Holiday Inn which is not particularly close to the airport, and not accessible by local roads. It is effectively a rest area off of the tollway without restaurants or access to a town, a very weird location.

June 4, 2023 Nea Makri GR

This is the last night in François this trip. Today was spent preparing to leave. As usual Ton does most of the work packing the suitcases, organizing the cupboards, and taking inventory. I spent some time cleaning up the outside of François and the storage area.

Ton liked this dying tree on the beach at Nea Makri.

We were done with everything about 1 pm so we decided to take one last pass thru Lidl just in case. We ended up buying a couple of cold drinks and some cat food to feed the cats in the campground. We have spent more time here than at any other campground and have gotten to know the cats so we decided to give them a little treat.

Interesting wild flowers near the beach.

The feeding of the cats went about how we expected. There was some snarling, but eventually all of the cats left with a full stomach including a new kitten who arrived since we were last here.

Beach soccer in a great setting.

We ended the day by walking down to Nea Makri for dinner in our favorite restaurant there. When we were last here we could stroll on up at anytime and have our pick of tables as the season hadn’t started. Today the entire beach area was packed and all of the restaurants were full. We did get a table at our favorite place and enjoyed a last good Greek meal until we return in September.

Our last meal on the trip. Note the plate of lemons in the center. Surprisingly we made a pretty good dent in it before we were done.

June 3, 2023 Nea Makri GR

Another short post today. We drove 420 km’s to our unofficial Greek hometown of Nea Makri. The drive was uneventful but extremely expensive. Today we paid the most we have ever paid in tolls. We were reeling with the cost when we realized that the drive we did in 5 hours would have probably taken 9 hours on the regular road that runs parallel to the toll way. So the question comes down to how much is 4 hours worth. After talking it over we decided it was worth it, barely.

Another shot of Mt. Olympus from the gas station where we filled up before departure.

We have settled down in the campground. Ton could not help herself and fed the cats here. We have been attached to a couple of them who were kittens when we first visited. Now they are full grown cats, and it looks like one of them is a mother herself.

The road down into Nea Makri.

June 2, 2023 Litochoro GR

It’s a short one today. When we checked in we noticed that they had a big Maytag commercial washer, so we washed all of our bedding. Then rigged our clotheslines all around François and dried them. Ton spent a chunk of the day giving François a good cleaning, and I mostly just tried to stay out of the way. In the evening we walked down to the very calm Aegean sea and sat there a few minutes before heading back up to relax for the evening. The cover shot today is Mt. Olympus which is about 15 km’s from here.

Heading down to the beach for an evening sit down.

June 1, 2023 Litochoro GR

Today we are camped between the Aegean Sea and Mt. Olympus in Greece. It was another day of long driving, but today was not that stressful, and we ended up at a beautiful seaside campground.

The mountain stream near our campground this morning.

Last night we were parked about 50 yards from a beautiful alpine river that was rushing by. With all of the rain the region has been getting the river was really running hard and I had visions of flash floods during the night and I actually got up once to check that the river was still in the banks. The sound of the water was really loud as it passed thru the rapids right next to where we were sleeping.

The beach at the campground reminds me of the commercial for Corona Beer with Snoop Dog.

Our goal today was to cover some more ground towards Athens. We had gotten rid of all of our Bulgarian Lev at the monastery and asked the campground owner if we could pay in Euros. He asked for €23 and we could not come up with €3 in coins so we gave him 30. He gave us 15 Lev in change, after all we are in Bulgaria. Our plan was to stop at the last exit in Bulgaria to spend our 15 Lev and buy gas at is much cheaper in Bulgaria than Greece. Unfortunately, we missed the last exit and the border was on us before we realized it. So we still have our 15 Bulgarian Lev (about $7), and we ended up buying expensive Greek gas.

The stairs from the bar to the beach.

The rest of the drive was uneventful and we are happily parked up. Ton told me she is very happy to be back in Greece the land of sun, sand and sea!