I think of Puglia as the heel of the boot of Italy, but it extends much further north than the heel. It is the southern most part of Italy on the Adriatic Sea and has a couple of hundred miles of coast line. It has some really beautiful cities that are attracting a lot of attention from tourists. Puglia continues to reinforce my slight preference for southern Italy over northern Italy. The people are fantastic and the food is incredible, who can ask for anything more.
Today we shifted about 60 kilometers to a city in the mountains called Alberobello. It is famous for a style of home called Trulli. It is very much on the tourist list. We were a little apprehensive because some of the blogs Ton uses to prepare for visits warned that this was one of the densest places for tourists in Italy, rivaling Rome for crowds.
We got a preview of the Trulli architecture on the drive over from the coast on a narrow mountain road.
The Trulli homes got their start in the 16th century because the Duke who ran the area wanted to avoid taxes so he decreed that the homes of peasants be built of stone without mortar so that when the Kings tax assessor came around the buildings could be taken apart, reducing his taxes. This went on for a couple of hundred years until the peasants finally appealed to the church to end the practice. This method of construction was also used for storage buildings and field shelters.
The symbols on these homes are “magic symbols” meant to ward off demons or bring good luck to the inhabitants.
The biggest collection of these homes are in Alberobello, and since it had a nice Sosta (Italian Aire) right in the middle of town we headed there for the day. I had a feeling that getting into the Sosta might be a little tricky, and since we have not had a simple day on this trip, I figured that we were in for a little adventure. The drive up the mountain was on narrow and rough roads, but we really had no issues. When we got to Alberobello Greta the Garmin routed us right thru the city center. It was tight but again we didn’t run into any trouble, until I came to a Y in the road and had to make a quick decision whether to take the left Y or the right Y. I picked the right one and I was wrong. Greta reprogrammed us and told us basically to go around the block. When we were only a couple of hundred yards from the Sosta we ran into a bridge marked 3 meters. I stopped up short and took a look at it, François is 2.9 meters tall. I had Ton get out and take a look and she wasn’t sure, so she had me get out and take a look. Fortunately the road was not very busy, and the people who came along seemed to understand our predicament and maneuvered around us without any comment. We finally decided it wasn’t worth the risk, and I backed into a road behind us while Ton held up traffic like a good Italian wife, we then found another way into the Sosta.
The bridge that stymied our progress. We were able to turn around by backing into a road by the stairs. Looking at the center it looks like it has been hit more than a few times.
After our minor adventure, we settled into the Sosta and had a quick lunch. It was then time to brave the crowds in town to take in the Trulli homes. There are two major clusters of the homes on adjacent hills. One is the main tourist attraction and has over 4o0 of the buildings. Many of them have now been converted into tourist shops and restaurants.
A Trulli converted into an Air BnB.
We were pleasantly surprised that the crowds were manageable. Ton really enjoyed herself taking photos and a lot of the Trulli are really nicely decorated on the outside.
While it was busy, the crowds were not overwhelming.
We strolled up the hill to a church that was built in the Trulli style. It was interesting though once inside it felt like any other church.
The Trulli style church.
The other cluster of Trulli buildings is on a hill adjacent to the main group. It has about 200 structures, the difference is that these Trulli cannot be converted to commercial uses but must be maintained as homes. While they are “homes”, it looks like the majority are being used as vacation rentals.
A Trulli still being used as a residence.
It was much quieter on this side of town and we enjoyed walking among the buildings. They really are interesting to look at and quite unlike anything we have seen anywhere else.
That’s Amore.
Our final stop of the day was the conventional cathedral in the new part of town. It is a small but nice cathedral. Ton really admired the modern version of the stations of the cross which reminded her of religious art we had seen in a church in Romania. We also enjoyed it because it had good air conditioning and it was about 90 degrees outside. We lingered inside for awhile admiring the art and enjoying the AC before deciding to head back to François to honor the Italian siesta.
We think this is the Trulli called the Siamese twin. It is two buildings that are mirror images of each other with a common wall.
After a nice siesta we headed back into town to take a look at the Trulli at night. When we were at the cathedral we noticed they were setting up decorations for a festival. When we went by some of the decorations were lit up.
The Cathedral lit up for an upcoming festival.
It had cooled off substantially and the crowds were thinned out, because all of the bus tours had cleared off. We found a new road of Trulli to explore and Ton again enjoyed taking lots of pictures.
This restaurant was really well decorated, but surprisingly almost completely empty despite the Michelin rating from 2018.
We spent a couple of hours again looking around and in addition to taking in the interesting architecture, we enjoyed watching the people. It was a nice evening stroll.
This shop was really well decorated and Ton liked the cactus above the door. She is a cactus person.
So far the two towns we have visited in Puglia have not disappointed, in fact they have outperformed our expectations. We are looking forward to seeing the rest of the region and finding some Primitivo wine to try.
Nine days into the trip we had our first day as tourists. Ostuni is a beautiful hilltop town about 8km’s from our campground. The campground we are staying in is across the street from the bus stop to town and the cost is €1 and it only takes 15 minutes so we joined about 5 other couples from the campground on the 10 am bus. Unfortunately our ride back to the campground was not as smooth.
Our first stop for the day was the central square with the required statue of a Pope or Bishop in the middle of it. The square was pretty and surprisingly bustling for late September.
It was a short walk to the main square for the town. The square was as typical full of restaurants serving meals, coffees and various alcoholic drinks. It was going to be a warm day so they were already doing a booming business. The town was surprisingly busy already with a mixture of Italian, and foreign tourists. At the beginning of the day the tourists were mostly Italian, by the middle of the day they were mostly American, and by the end of the day they were mostly Italian again, as the Americans we presumed had returned to their ships.
The early mostly Italian crowd in the main square.
Ostuni is a typical hilltop walled town built far enough from the sea to be able to see the pirates and barbarians coming, but close enough to benefit from access to the sea. It is well preserved, and they have painted most of the town white which really adds to the beauty. We took a stroll thru a bunch of the back alleys scouting a restaurant for lunch and taking in the views. It is a very photogenic town and Ton was very happy, stopping every minute or two for a picture.
A beautiful apartment with a great view.
We spent about an hour and a half walking up and down staircases/roads, and Ostuni was a great town to get us back into enjoying being tourists. It was big enough to have a lot to see, but you could walk thru it in a couple of hours. We really enjoyed ourselves.
One of the many “roads” in Ostuni that consisted of stairs. The layout was very pedestrian friendly.
About noon we were looking for a beverage break and a snack as it was still too early for an Italian lunch. We found a little cafe that had been in business since 1950, and settled in for a couple of waters and a small local cake called Pasticcotti. We bought one as an experiment and as soon as we bit into it we wished we had bought more. It was like a really nice donut with a wonderful creme interior.
Our Pasticcoti traditional. The traditional one is creme, but you can also get it with chocolate, or cherry creme inside. We highly recommend it if you are in town.
After our little snack we walked around the walls of the town. The views to sea were obscured by a smog of some sort, probably wild fire smoke as they have been having a lot of large fires in Greece and the Balkans.
More street scenes from Ostuni.
By now the restaurants were starting to open for lunch and we decided to get a big lunch as we had not really been out since we arrived. Our first restaurant had a Michelin sign on the front of it and they turned us away as we do not look like we belong in a Michelin restaurant (actually they were fully booked.) Just down the street we had passed a pizza place that looked interesting. The restaurant occupied a little square on one of the walking roads, and took over all of the buildings on the square. Some were for dining, some were for food preparation and some were storage. It was a bustling place. We got a table outside of the building with the pizza oven. I ordered a pizza, and Ton ordered a pasta dish called Drunken Fettuccine. They were both delicious and immense. Adapting to Italian ways we lingered over our meal for a couple of hours and even managed to share a Tiramisu at the end. Given the quality and size of the portions it was a good value even with the “cover charge” factored in. This is a charge that nice restaurants add for the privilege of sitting at the table. I will have to remember to ask next time we eat whether there is a cover involved.
Our moderately priced lunch for the day. We splurged a bit.
We decided to head back to the campground and there was supposed to be a bus at 2:55 back to Villanova. At about 3 pm a bus with Villanova on the marquee on the front of the bus pulled up, so we jumped on. The bus was full and we were in the back row with two young Italian women. The bus headed down the hill in the right direction and turned in to the train station, but we had stopped at the train station coming in so I was not worried. Most of the passengers got off except for Ton, myself and the two young Italians next to us, but instead of turning left to go the 3 km’s to Villanova it turned right and heading back into Ostuni. About 20 minutes later we were back at the stop we had gotten on at in Ostuni, and everyone got off. I looked at one of the young Italians and asked aren’t we supposed to go to Villanova and she said yes, so we followed her to the front of the bus where she and the bus driver got into a vigorous discussion about why the bus that said Villanova did not go to Villanova, but in the end we all lost and had to get off the bus. She then confirmed that the next bus wasn’t until 6:20. She said that they were going to try to call her boyfriend but he didn’t get off work for a while, though she offered us a ride if we wanted to wait.
Ostuni is a beautiful town, we just wish the bus system was a little less opaque.
We decided we would get a taxi back to the campground, we weren’t happy about it, but we didn’t want to wait two and half hours for the next bus. So our next chore was to find a taxi. I assumed there would be a taxi stand somewhere nearby. I was wrong. We saw a tour guide waiting at one of the tour buses so I asked her where we could get a taxi, she said it it difficult, but she would call one of the taxis and see if they were available. She then spent the next 20 minutes calling various taxis without success until she found one that could pick us up at 5:30 and take us to the campground for €30. We thanked her for her effort, but passed on the taxi due to the cost. After spending 20 minutes trying to find us a taxi she then apologized because the one she found us cost too much. She said she would give us a ride, but she had to give a tour soon.
By now it was about 4:30 so we went to a local cafe next to the bus station and ordered a beer and a water and sat down to wait for our 6:20 bus.
It was almost like this guy didn’t want us to leave Ostuni.
It turned out to be very interesting to watch the interactions of the cafe for the next two hours. There were three generations of family involved in running the cafe including a grandfather whose job was to sit at one of the tables and provide calm when conflict came up, as well as just seeming to enjoy talking to the customers. His son ran the bar and was busy most of the time behind the bar. The bar tenders son seemed to be the black sheep who tended to get too aggressive in deciding who can move chairs from one table to another to accommodate customers, with the grandfather having to mediate his bad decisions. It would have been more fun to watch if we were there voluntarily!
Another street scene from Ostuni.
Finally about 6:15 we crossed the street to the bus stop, to catch our 6:20 bus. We had to get this one right as it was the last scheduled bus for the day. We met another couple from the campground so that was a good start as we now had numbers on our side. A couple of busses came and went with us now running to every bus that showed up to ask if they were the bus to Villanova, none of them were. At about 6:40 we were all getting nervous. At this point another young Italian women showed up who was going to the train station. We asked her about Villanova, she looked at the schedule and said not to worry, because Italians have a weird way of scheduling busses, and even though it said 6:20 on the schedule, that didn’t mean it would arrive at 6:20, but within 20 to 30 minutes of 6:20! There really is a method, but her English wasn’t quite up to making us understand. Finally a bus showed up, the Italian women went on to the bus for us to confirm it was our bus, and it was! So we arrived back about 5 hours later than we planned.
We would have been home a lot earlier if we had a functioning bike.
The one positive out of this, was every Italian we met today during our bus adventure absolutely went out of their way to help us with our dilemma. The two young ladies who confirmed we were on the right bus even though it didn’t go to our stop to start with, the women who spent 20 minutes trying to find us a taxi, and the young lady who tried to explain the mysteries of Italian bus schedules to us were all patient and cheerful in providing us help. Even the grandfather at the cafe kept looking over and giving us encouraging and wise smiles even though he didn’t know why were waiting. So while the experience of getting us home was frustrating, the Italians we dealt with during the adventure almost made it worthwhile!
Our ferry loading experiences in Greece have always been interesting, and today was another example of that, as I was almost arrested for human trafficking. When I left you yesterday we had just returned to François after having our last Greek dinner and were waiting for the ferry to arrive.
We had struck up a conversation with our British neighbors, and the wives decided they would go thru the pedestrian entrance together and I would follow the neighbor thru the security check to get into the port. They were adamant that the vehicles could only have the driver in them. So our plan was to drive thru security and then go find the wives on the inside of the port. So about 1030 Ton and our neighbor headed into the terminal, and we took the motorhomes over to the security gate for the port.
The checks were the normal passport, ticket, and random opening of doors by the Greek Coastguard, and police. Initially my inspector asked for my passport but did not look at it, did a cursory shine of the back of François and walked away. In front my British partner was opening the door to his storage for the inspector. I think because we were waiting the inspector came back to me and asked me to do the same.
I got out of François to open the storage hatch for the inspector, when I got to the back I noticed that the bike rack was down, but I didn’t think anything of it, thinking it might have slipped down. I then opened the hatch and there was a person in there! He was a young guy of about 20 curled up on top of our electrical cords and chairs. The inspector yelled for help and in a few seconds there were five police and coastguardsmen at the back of François. They left the guy in there for a few minutes while they had a rather calm discussion in Greek about the situation. They also questioned me about what I knew about him. I was stunned. I told them we had been with the RV all day except about 40 minutes when we went to dinner, and when we left it was locked. But he must have accessed it while we were gone.
At that point I made the connection to the bike rack being down, it was quite hot, so we decided to leave the roof vents open on François so it wouldn’t heat up too much when we went to dinner. I explained that to the police, and that he must have used the bike rack to climb up on François and enter thru the air vent on the roof. He was skinny enough to do it. The storage where he was hiding can also be accessed from inside the RV by lifting the bed, so once he was inside he climbed down in there and lay quietly while we were waiting to board the ferry.
The vent he entered thru.
After some more discussion in Greek, they told the guy to get out of François, and he headed off around a corner unescorted. They had some more discussion in Greek, and now gave François a very thorough inspection. When they didn’t find anything else, they gave me a good natured warning about security saying that they could make me stay and appear in court to confirm that I did not know the person they found in the vehicle but they were not going to do that. All in all I was detained about 15 minutes.
When I told Ton about the incident she was startled of course, particularly as the guy had been in François with us for about 3 hours while we waited for the ferry. Before we boarded we did a thorough check of our stuff, and I looked at all of the locks and sky lights, he didn’t take anything or touch anything for that matter, and he didn’t do any damage to François.
Our cute Sosta in Italy.
The rest of the trip went as planned and the boarding and unloading process was slow but under control. We are now parked up at a nice Sosta in Italy with a wild travel story to tell in the future.
You may be wondering why the top photo is of a toll both, and the answer is that as a gift on our final day in Greece we were passed thru all of the toll booths on our route for free. For reasons we were never able to figure out, every time we pulled up to a toll booth today, the gate went up and the toll attendant waved and said free! The cars in front of us were being charged, but we were free. Even the Patras bridge over the Straight of Corinth which usually costs €21 was free today. All together we saved about €80 in tolls. We finally came to the conclusion that the Greeks just really wanted us to come back!
The Patras bridge usually costs €21, it was free today.
We left the campground as late as we could because we had a lot of time to cover the four hours to Igoumenitsa. The ferry we are taking to Italy leaves at midnight and boarding is not until 10:30.
Our last meal in Greece, Gyros of course.
We killed some time at a Lidl stocking up on some of our favorite Greek groceries. We then filled up with diesel as fuel is about 10 cents per liter cheaper here than Italy. We finally showed up at the ferry terminal about 5pm and got our ticket. The agent told us that we would board about 10:30, so we had plenty of time to walk around town and get a meal. We took her advice but the nice part of town was about 2km’s away, and the only restaurant near the ferry terminal was pretty nondescript, so our final meal in Greece was not our most memorable.
I will cover the ferry ride tomorrow, we are really looking forward to the boarding process after our experience with the ferries to Crete. Also, this time for “security” reasons Ton has to go thru the pedestrian boarding while I drive on board.
We are finally on the move after nearly a week resting and recovering in Nea Makri. Ton is still under the weather but she says she is starting to feel better.
Our day started by revisiting the RV repair center in Athens to get another water pump, it turns out that one of our faucets was not closing completely, causing the pump to run continuously even though the faucet was not dispensing water. This caused the pump motor to eventually burn out as they are not designed to run continuously. We had them install another pump and we were on our way by noon, short an additional €50, though no labor charge this time.
Ton loves the color and clarity of the ocean in Greece.
We escaped from Athens quickly and were shortly on the Peloponnesus peninsula, and the rest of the drive was a relaxing but expensive autoroute that paralleled the straight of Corinth.
The mountains of the Greek mainland across the Straight of Corinth from our campground.
We arrived at the campground about 3 pm and headed down to the beach to get some photos. For the first time on the trip Ton was in her element. We then returned to François for some relaxation and dinner before calling it a night.
Today was spent resting and letting Ton continue to fight the bug that has her feeling under the weather. We are heading out for our ferry to Italy, but our departure will be a little more complicated than we would like.
Last night the new water pump that we had put in on Friday stopped working, so we will begin the day by heading to the repair shop to get that sorted out. Fortunately, it is more or less on the way we would be taking to leave the city so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Once we get our water pump going again, we will be heading in the direction of Patras for the day. It is about half way to our departure point for the ferry.
Today is short and sweet. Ton is fighting a pretty nasty bug so she spent the day in bed. I took a couple of short walks to the grocery. We are probably going to take another day to make sure she is fully recovered before we head out of Nea Makri. The cover picture is the interior road of the campground, because that is about all we did today.
Today was busier than planned. Last night when I went to brush my teeth there was no water. We had a problem with the water pump, the first thing I needed to do was check the fuze as hopefully that was the problem. The first issue was I didn’t know where the fuze was. So I dug out the owners manual, which was only in German. I had looked at the owners manual for the truck from Fiat in the past and it was in English so I had assumed the owners manual for the camper was also in English. After looking thru the manual I realized I was not going to understand anything. I checked to see if there was an owners manual in English on line, but I couldn’t find one. So I went to one of our neighbors who was German and asked if he could translate it for me, but it turned out he didn’t speak English. But, luckily he owned an RV business in Germany so the next thing I knew he was troubleshooting the water pump for me with a running commentary in very technical German. After spending about 30 minutes looking things over (and showing me the location of the fuzes and the waterpump) he looked at me and said ze wasser pump est kaput!
I spent the rest of the evening looking at my options to get a new water pump, we already new that there was only one dealer for our RV in Greece and it was located over 500 kilometers away. There was a dealer near where we would land in Italy, but that meant going without water for 5 days in 90 degree temperatures which was not ideal. I remembered in the spring we had talked to a repair place near Athens on the phone, so we put our hopes in them.
After tossing and turning all night worrying about the water pump and fighting with the mosquitos that had invaded the interior of François during the water pump diagnosis, I was up bright and early. At 8:30 I went to a nearby garage to get a fuze to double check that it was not a fuze problem, as I didn’t want to drive 40 kilometers to a dealer only to have them slap a 50 cent fuze in and send me on my way. After inserting a new fuze we still had no water.
Promptly at 10 am I called the repair shop and they did not answer their phone. I tried several more times and no answer. On a whim I sent them a text and less than a minute later I got a request for a picture of the water pump. After looking at our water pump they said they had one that would work. I asked if we could come over this morning and did not get an answer. So after a couple of more texts about coming that went unanswered I told Ton that we would just go.
After a drive into the heart of Athens, that went very smoothly we showed up and they were able to get us right in. An hour later we were on our way back with a new and bigger water pump.
Ton is a bit under the weather so that was enough adventure for her today. The rest of the day was spent napping in François. So today no photos.
We had a restless night. The daytime temperatures have been in the mid to high 80’s so even with all of the windows and the door open it is taking François a while to cool down, we are still jet lagged, and on top of that a few mosquitos managed to penetrate our perimeter so we spent part of the night hunting mosquitos with mixed success.
We finally got going mid-morning and headed over to the weekly market in town. It was quite a big market, and we enjoyed looking at the local foods on display. Ton stocked up on some fresh local vegetables, I would try to google the appropriate Greek questions, and would be greeted with a bemused “what do you want” in English every time, but they usually got a kick out of my poor attempt. When we were done it was quite hot so we headed back to a toasty François for an afternoon nap.
One of the cats that have adopted us. He loves anchovies, and was a little disappointed with the sausage piece I gave him at dinner, after waiting a minute or so for an anchovy he decided he would go ahead and eat the sausage, but not without a look that told me he was disappointed.
We headed into town to look for dinner, but it was so hot we decided that a salad would be good. So it was back to François for a nice cold salad, before turning in early.
Today we slept in fighting jet lag. When we finally got going around 11am we had to do all of the exciting stuff it takes to get going on this trip. Part of the reason we have adopted Nea Makri as our Greek hometown is that it has 4 grocery stores withing walking distance which makes Ton very happy, it has other stores and some nice waterfront restaurants we can use for entertainment while we get over jet lag.
Today we visited 2 of the grocery stores to get our initial food stocks, and one of the banks to get some Euros. Besides that Ton spent some more time organizing and I tried to stay out of the way, and get the refrigerator to cool down. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it, it is just hot outside and it is struggling to get ahead of the heat and cool down. I tried a couple of tricks I learned on line, so hopefully it will cool down more overnight.
We have been in this campground long enough that one of the kittens we fed on our first visit, brought her kittens by today for us to meet, and I’m sure she hopes we will feed them. I’m sure we will not be able to resist.
Our plan is to spend the next few days getting over jet lag, and completing stocking up for the trip. Once we get our legs under us, we will be heading North as we have a ferry ride to Italy coming up on September 20.
We took a bit of a gamble today and it worked out. We usually book a hotel for the first night in case there are problems with the flight. We do not have to worry about having a place to stay on arrival if we arrive in the middle of the night. This time hotels near the airport in Athens were really expensive. Our flight was scheduled to arrive in Athens at 4:30 pm and the storage where we kept François over the summer said they could pick us up at the airport up to 6 pm. From the airport to our adopted Greek hometown of Nea Makri is about 30 minutes, so if all went well with flights we would be at the campground at around 6:30 pm. If things went badly we would be paying an exorbitant hotel bill for something last minute near the airport.
In this case everything went to plan, our flight from Portland departed 20 minutes late, but arrived in Amsterdam on time. Our flight from Amsterdam departed 25 minutes late, but arrived at Athens only 10 minutes late. Our bags appeared promptly at baggage claim, and the great folks from Clio Parking scooped us up 10 minutes after we had our bags. When we arrived at the parking François was sitting there ready to go and freshly washed.
We have left François with Clio for long term stays twice and they have been the epitome of customer service. They are really not looking for more motorhome storage business, but if you need long term storage in Athens, try to convince them to take your motorhome, you will not regret it.
The final step was driving the 20km’s to Nea Makri Camping and the traffic was smooth and relatively light so that we arrived at 6:30, exactly as planned. Our old friend Stavros guided us to our spot, and then Ton spent the next two hours arranging François for our next adventure. Finally at 9pm we settled in for the night to see how jet lag was going to effect us for the night. Hopefully it will not be too bad.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
After two days of heavy driving we slowed down today. Rila Monastery was one of our must see destinations when we planned our trip. On the way into Bulgaria we skipped it to get to Sofia, and planned to make it our last stop in Bulgaria. So we carried out that plan today.
Across the street from the Aire was a car wash. The neon pink soap is unique to Bulgaria.
On our way out of town we stopped across the street to give François a bath. For some reason Greece does not have the automatic car washes that you see in most countries, so we took advantage of it to give François a good bath.
While I was dealing with Officer Petrov on my side of François, Ton took these pictures of these beautiful wild flowers out the other window.
Driving down the A3 we were as usual one of the slowest vehicles on the autoway, but as we were leaving a tunnel a police officer gave us the signal to pull over to the side. Officer Petrov introduced himself and told me we were speeding in the tunnel because the speed limits in tunnels are 90. He then told me we were going 107, which didn’t seem right as I had the cruise control set at 97 (which I recognize is more than 90, but three cars had passed us in the tunnel). After checking our documentation he told me he was going to let us go with a warning. I had read that the Bulgarian police like to pull foreign vehicles over to check the documentation and this seems more likely as the reason we were flagged. Once he found our documents in order he sent us on our way. By the way, Officer Petrov was extremely professional throughout the encounter.
The entrance portico to the church at Rila Monastery.
The rest of the drive was uneventful. After we parked we decided we needed to hustle as it looked like rain.
The entry door with biblical scenes around it.
The monastery is in a beautiful mountain setting. It was founded in the late 900’s by a monk who is the patron saint of Bulgaria. When Bulgaria was in the Ottoman Empire Rila Monastery was the center of the Christian faith in Bulgaria. It is one of the most visited places in Bulgaria, and is very important cultural heritage site to modern Bulgarians.
The church and the bell tower/watch tower in Rila.
Today the majority of the visitors were elementary school students. Like most kids of that age, the beautiful buildings were secondary to the cool snacks available on site. The cool snack today was a sweet bread called Monks Bread. For 1 Lei it was a good bargain and I bought one and it was delicious. I shared a bite with Ton and to my surprise she really liked it and asked me to get another for her. But when I got back a couple of classes of students had beat me there so we could not get another.
The monks bread (think donut) was very popular with the elementary school kids.
The exterior walls are massive and were originally developed for fortification. These days they have been converted into rooms for the monks. Some of the rooms have now been converted into a hotel which would be an interesting place to spend a night.
The exterior walls are massive.
The monastery is one of the most beautiful buildings we have visited in the Balkans. I think we were lucky because it was not too busy so we got to take our time going thru and really enjoying the art.
This monk looks like he is deep in prayer, but he was actually deep asleep.
The rain was coming so we headed down to our campground which was located a couple of kilometers away. As we were negotiating the last couple of hundred meters to the campground we came across a log truck loading. We got to see them use the lift on the back of the truck to load the last couple of logs before the log truck driver and I did some fancy driving so we could squeeze by each other.
We enjoyed watching the loader position the logs on the truck.
When we arrived we were the only customers on site. Right after we settled the skies opened up and we ended up spending most of the rest of the day hunkered down in François listening to the rain.
The river next to the campground is really running hard due to the heavy rain they have been getting here.
We had another encounter with a snake today. We were standing next to François looking at the river when Ton looked down and jumped. At her feet there was a small snake. After all of our years camping we had never encountered snakes, but we have had two snake encounters in Bulgaria!
We are in full on road warrior mode now. We spent last night debating how many kilometers we could do in one day. After our experience with Bucharest we needed to get a chunk of miles (I know I am mixing measurements) in, but we didn’t want to kill ourselves. After a lot of back and forth and testing distances on Google Maps we settled on Sofia.
The main reason Sofia won out in the choice of todays destination.
We settled on Sofia for two reasons, it wouldn’t be a killer drive, only about 320 km’s (230ish miles), and Ton wanted to revisit a restaurant there. Ton rarely wants to revisit a restaurant when there are so many new restaurants to be discovered, but she very fondly remembered Restaurant Hadjidraganovite in Sofia. So Sofia became the destination for the day.
Our main motivation for Sofia, The Mixed Grill for two.
The drive to Sofia was on roads a little rougher and busier than we would have liked. That is what happens when distance is your goal, things like traffic start to bother you in a way they don’t when your goal is a place. The last two days have driven that home to us as I have been more frustrated than ever with the road conditions, and the antics of the drivers, things I usually take in stride.
Mission Accomplished.
We arrived in Sofia around 2:00 after about 5 hours on the road, so on the whole the drive wasn’t terrible. We headed right into town to have a very late lunch/very early dinner. After our lunch/dinner we weren’t in the mood to explore much, a function of todays goal being distance not Sofia. So we jumped on the subway and headed straight back to François to rest.
The subway platform in Sofia. Fortunately the signs have the place names in Roman letters also.
