Author: Ron Corbin

Ton had specifically requested we stop at Delphi as she had visited it many years ago on a trip when she was in school. She remembered it has the highlight of her trip to Greece then.

We were up bright and early as we had to take François to the site as the local bus service is on hiatus until spring. Our early arrival was rewarded with a primo parking space close to the entrance.

Delphi was the major religious site for the ancient Greeks. It was maintained as a religious site by the Romans after they conquered Greece, so it was used for religious purposes for around 800 years.

Originally it was the site of the Oracle of Delphi which features heavily in Greek mythology. Some of the stories of the founding of the site at Delphi attribute the selection of the location to Greek gods. Because of natural disasters and war it underwent at least three major rebuilds so it includes examples of buildings from multiple eras of Greek and Roman architecture and art.

There are three major building complexes on the site, the Temple of Apollo, the theater and the stadium. In addition to the major buildings there are many smaller buildings built by different cities in Greece to celebrate great victories over rivals. These are called treasuries and would be stocked with statues commemorating heroes as well as art work to celebrate the victory. Greek communities as far away as Marseille in modern day France built treasuries on site here. Right as you enter the site there are 5 small buildings which acted as the gift shops for travelers. Some things never change.

The site is very large and it is easy to get around now as modern walkways have been added. Ton said that was the biggest change since her visit in college.

The theater is quite large and relatively intact. Greek theater design heavily influenced how the Romans designed their theaters so it looked familiar to us.

The highest point of the site is the stadium. It is the first Greek stadium I have visited and the stadium at Delphi was the second most important in Greece after the Olympic stadium. The grounds were used primarily for racing and the decathlon. The stadium is in really good shape and you get a good feel for how the events must have looked.

We next visited the museum on site which houses the statues and other artifacts that have been found on site. It is a modern looking building but has been around since 1903.

There are 12 halls and all are filled with different statues and small bronze works. Many of the statues in the treasuries were bronzes but almost all were lost to scavengers who melted them down for the metal.

We were lucky because while the day was beautiful and warm the crowds were relatively small and we often had the whole gallery to ourselves in the museum which allowed us to take our time going thru.

After a short break for a snack in François, we visited two secondary sites. The Gymnasium (a kind of school) was closed today, but we were able to see the Tholos of Athena which was a secondary site for the original Delphi. It had an unusual round domed temple that was famous.

Delphi did not disappoint Ton on her second trip. We returned to the campground where Ton began cooking up all of the food in François as our time in him is winding down. We have acquired a pride of about 5 cats because we have both been feeding them bits and pieces of things from the fridge. Now whenever either one of us leave François we have a parade of cats following us around like we are the Pied Piper.

I am giving serious consideration to firing Greta our Garmin after today. The details on why will be below.

After 9 days in Missolonghi with our dear friends Cori and Ovi it was time to move on as we are near the end of our time for this trip. In the 12 years we have been traveling in a RV we have never spent 9 days in one place. But our time in Misolonghi went by quickly. Good company does that. Last night we were sharing our plans for the spring and since we both are including Turkey in those plans we are hoping we can arrange to cross paths again.

Our trip today was a relatively short 140 kilometers. Some was on a toll way and some on a good national road. It should have been a piece of cake. As a little background we have a US based Garmin with a European sim card produced by Garmin inserted in it. We bought the card about 10 months ago from Garmin so it should be up to date. Since we have entered the Balkans the quality of the maps has been so/so to poor. The speed limits on the Garmin differ so frequently and substantially from the posted speed limits that at this point I ignore what is on the Garmin. I suspect that they have not been checked at all and are instead going off some kind of formula based on the type of road and the location. Whatever they are using it is extremely inaccurate often varying from the actual speed limit by 30kph. A few times it has tried to send us down roads that appear to have been abandoned for years. In the past when traveling in France and Spain we have had minor issues with the Garmin, but since entering Croatia thru to Greece we have enough issues where I sometimes doubt the accuracy of the route I am being told to take.

Today was infuriating as we were on a major toll way heading towards Patras. To get to Patras you have to cross a large bridge that connects the Peloponesus region with the mainland of Greece. I knew we would have to exit before crossing the bridge as Dephi is on the mainland. With the bridge in sight Greta told us to exit in 1 km, the road signs indicated an exit in .5km which was visible on Greta as well, but did not indicate Greta’s exit. Something didn’t feel right but I decided to follow Greta. When we got to her exit it was blocked and appeared to have been closed for a substantial period of time.

The problem was there was no other exit before the Patras Bridge, and while it is a beautiful bridge and an impressive feat of engineering it costs €21 each way to use. Because of the inaccurate information on Greta Garmin we had to do a €42 turn around on the bridge. This is a major route and there is no excuse for the Garmin to not reflect the current routing of the roads on the toll way. €42 will buy a very nice dinner for two here in Greece and we had to throw it away because of Garmin.

The rest of the trip down the coast to our campground near Delphi was beautiful and uneventful (though the speed limits on the Garmin were completely inaccurate) and I would have really enjoyed the drive if I was not stewing the whole time over our expensive U turn. As we were approaching the campground Greta told us to turn down a road that was fenced and overgrown with bushes to enter the campground. The road had clearly been abandoned for years.

By the way the campground is stunning, one of the most beautiful we have stayed in.

We woke up to heavy rain on the roof of François so we both settled in for a lazy morning. Finally about 11 am the rain quit and we began moving about slowly.

Around noon Cory and Ovi showed up at the door and asked if we wanted to go for a walk. Ton was still in her pajamas but got dressed quickly and we headed into town for a Sunday stroll. Sunday is family day, and the restaurants in town were full of multi-generation gatherings. After walking around for a while we headed back to the marina for a break before heading over to Silver Cloud for dinner and a bottle of wine.

All in all a quiet day spent with friends.

We have extended our stay at Missolonghi because the weather forecast has taken a temporary turn for the worst. The first week we were here was pretty bad, but since then the weather has been nearly perfect. Overall the weather on this trip has been some of the best we have ever had. Today a front came thru in the late afternoon and treated us to a pretty spectacular thunderstorm and high winds. The severe weather only lasted an hour or so, but then it just drizzled steadily after that.

We were able to take advantage of good weather in the morning to head over to the farmers market in town. Ton shares a love of farmers markets with Cory and Ovi so we walked out of the market with a bunch of delicious olives, and fruit. A lot of the fruit trees seem to be at their peak so the selection was exceptional.

We used the rest of the day to take care of laundry, and to do a little prep for our departure. I even went out once the storm calmed down a bit and gave François a little bath using mother natures natural car wash. All in all a pretty quiet day.

The Greeks are really starting to win us over. We had very little planned for the day except for a walk to town. We spent some time in the morning working with Delta airlines fixing our flights as the leg from Athens to Amsterdam was canceled by KLM airlines. This is the second time KLM has done this on the trip, when we were coming they canceled the flight from Amsterdam to Paris, so we will be avoiding KLM in the future.

Cory and Ton had set up a brunch date for 11am so we were off to Cory and Ovi’s boat for omelets. After brunch was done we headed into town for an afternoon stroll. Ovi has an incredible sweet tooth so he took us on a tour of the bakeries of Missolonghi. At the second bakery Cory took Ton in to show her something. I was hanging around in the street when 4 Greek gentlemen sitting in front of the bakery asked me where I was from. Before we knew what hit us we were sitting down with them exchanging shots of Ouzo and telling our life stories. None of them were at all fluent in English, but that was not going to stop them from getting to know us. It took all of our willpower to break away from them before the shots of Ouzo got out of control.

Around the corner from the bakery was a Greek Orthodox church that Cory says has always been closed. Today it was open so we were tentatively peeking in when a very young Priest waved us in. Ton and I have noticed that many Orthodox churches don’t allow photos. When we went inside there was an older lady who greeted us with a big smile and a warm welcome in Greek. We pantomimed as best we could about whether we could take pictures, she ran out for a minute or two and then came back and told us it was ok.

The church was quite striking inside which we did not expect as Missolonghi is not a large town. We were really enjoying exploring the inside when we noticed that a crowd of people were coming in for a memorial service so we decided to take off. As we were leaving the priest came up and gave us icons from the church and thanked us for visiting.

After sitting down and eating a couple of pastries from our tour of the bakeries of Missolonghi we headed over to the grocery store to get a bottle of red wine that we had really enjoyed a couple of nights ago. As we were walking in the manager who had set up the delivery of our groceries greeted us like we were regulars, Stavros the delivery guy came up and gave Ovi a fist bump and continued to tutor him on Greek cuss words. George the cheese guy greeted us by name, and gave us a run down on what cheeses were good today. We made a new friend at the cashier, for some reason this store is the first one we have seen in Europe with Sriricha hot sauce from Thailand. It is the good stuff too. When we went to pay for it the cashier was checking it out and Ton and Ovi launched into a sales pitch on the merits of Sriricha, by the end everyone was laughing and she said she would buy some.

Most people are reticent about trying to communicate with foreigners if they are not fluent, the Greeks seem to thrive on it. It is incredibly charming and impressive.

Today was a quiet day in Missolonghi. The highlight of the day was Ovi helping me repair a broken shelf in François, and by helping I mean Ovi did 98% of the work while I stood by offering encouragement. The result is a much improved shelf with more carrying capacity than the old one.

After that we spent the afternoon in Cory and Ovi’s boat chatting away. In the evening we moved the conversation to the marina bar. The owner of the bar came over and joined in the conversation. We are learning that the Greek’s are great conversationalists and are quick to embrace strangers into their circle. We are really enjoying meeting complete strangers who are quick to strike up a conversation even when the language barrier is high, everyone seems to work thru it, and before long everyone is laughing and acting like old friends. It is incredibly charming.

Today we planned to visit the salt museum near town. Missolonghi has been a center of salt production for centuries, and the salt museum is very highly recommended. The four of us planned to meet up and walk out to the museum which is located on a spit of land connected by a two mile long causeway to the mainland. It was going to be about a 5 mile roundtrip, but there is a wide sidewalk and bike path along the causeway so we decided it would be worth it.

The walk was long but Ovi and I were engrossed in our conversation so it did not seem that bad. At about the half way point we looked back and Cory and Ton had lagged about a quarter mile behind but we could here them laughing as they talked so we carried on without waiting.

At the end of the causeway there is a small fishing village with a church and two pretty modern restaurants. We were quite a ways ahead of Cory and Ton so we popped into one of the restaurants to plan our lunch. Inside one of the staff told us the museum was closed on Tuesday. We both looked at each other and debated who was going to tell the wives that we had just walked 2.5 miles to a museum that was closed. When they arrived we dropped the news and they just laughed and said let’s have lunch. Three hours later we had finished our lunch and enjoyed a nice 2.5 mile stroll back to our homes in the marina.

We are going to head out to the salt museum again tomorrow. Hopefully the walk will be just as enjoyable as today.

We spent the day taking care of chores, including washing a huge load of laundry. After that was taken care of Cory and Ovi came over and we gave them a tour of François. As he is only 19 feet long that never takes much time.

Cory had us over for pumpkin soup for lunch. It was absolutely delicious and a favorite of Tons. We then chatted for an hour or so before heading into town with the thought of getting a beer.

We settled in at the busiest restaurant on the waterfront. Right after we sat down an absolutely spectacular sunset happened which we had the perfect seats to enjoy. It was one of the prettiest I have seen in a while, with a series of different red skies like I have only seen in the tropics.

We had a couple of pizzas and a really good artesinal beer. The walk back to the marina was good spirited with Cory and Ton lagging behind to chat while Ovi and I led the way also enjoying our conversation.

We have been in communication with our good friends and fellow Tiger owners Ovi and Cory for the entire trip to coordinate a meet up. In addition to being Tiger owners they also own a 40 foot sailboat that they have had in the Mediterranean for the last few years. Today we headed down the road to a small port city called Missolonghi where they are planning to keep their boat over the winter.

It is always great to meet friends when you are traveling as it is a chance to unwind, slow down and catch up on things. We arrived about 2 pm and except for a short break in the early evening to park François we ate and chatted until nearly 11pm.

We are not sure how long we are going to be here with them but the posts may be delayed as our priority is going to be good company, food and wine.

Meteora was on my list of places of visit to Greece, but while we were in Albania Mugi from the campground in Durres insisted we visit here. We are really glad we did as it is one of the most striking places we have ever been.

The columns of rocks in the valley would be incredible by themselves. I did some research on how they were formed. The answer was complicated, but what is special is that individual rocks like this are not that uncommon, but what is unusual about Meteora is that there are only a couple of other places where they are clustered together like this.

The rocks are awe inspiring and early on attracted spiritual people. There are caves in the limestone cliffs that attracted Chrisitian hermits early in the development of Christianity.

As time went on the hermits began to form into groups and found monasteries on top of the rocks. At the peak in the mid to late 1400’s there were over 26 monasteries perched on top of rock faces in the area.

Part of the reason was religious as the area does have a spiritual pull. The other reason was during the 1400’s this area was under a lot of pressure from the Ottoman Empire so the rock peaks gave security to the monks.

Many were only accessible by rope and pulley so the monks were quite isolated from the surrounding towns and valleys. The monasteries required incredible ingenuity and labor to complete.

Today we visited four of the six remaining monasteries. Now two of the monasteries have been converted to nunneries, so it is actually two nunneries and four monasteries. In modern times a good road runs thru the mountains and all of the monasteries have carved staircases to them so while it is still quite a climb to most of the monasteries they are very accessible. As a result they have become the second most visited tourist destination on mainland Greece.

They are not very large but all include a chapel and living quarters. Our favorite one the Monastery of Varlaam had a couple of small but really well done museums on site. We were lucky to get into Varlaam as it is usually closed on Fridays but was open today because it is a Greek national holiday. Because everyone assumed it was closed when Ton and I got there we had the place nearly to ourselves. Ton had to buy a skirt to cover her pants. As you walk up there is a sign saying men cannot wear shorts and women cannot wear halter tops, shorts or pantaloons.

The views from the monasteries were incredible, but the chapels were also quite interesting. Ton was really fascinated by the icons in the chapels and found them quite beautiful.

Later in the day we visited the Holy Trinity Monastery which was used in the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only.” It is the smallest of the monasteries but the hardest climb.

Meteora is a special place and we both really enjoyed it. One of the highlights was our bus driver, we were using a shuttle service provided by the town and had the same bus driver all day. On one of the legs we were the only ones on the bus and he waved us to the front seat so he could talk as he was squeezing thru incredibly narrow spaces. Today is Liberation Day in Greece so I asked who they were liberated from and he said the Turks, but after a few seconds he said no it was the Germans and Italians, he then laughed and said we’ve been liberated a lot so it can get confusing.

We enjoyed our short stay on Corfu, but it was time to move on. We woke up early as we wanted to get the 10:30 ferry to the mainland, and Ton wanted to hit the Lidl on the way to the ferry terminal. Everything went as planned and we were the second vehicle on the ferry, which meant that at Igoumenitsa we were the last one off.

On the way out of town Greta decided we were a cargo truck delivering something to the port and guided us to the port entrance for commercial deliveries. It was a high security area and we were clearly not going to get entrance. Fortunately there was a place to pull over while we sorted out our options. I was hoping someone would come out of the fortress like gates and give us some advice but no one did. I had decided our best option was to shoot down the one way road we had come up as there was not much traffic. While I was planning this maneuver, Ton noticed the barriers keeping us from getting to the outbound lanes were light plastic (they looked heavy from a distance), she cleared them out of the way (she is adapting nicely to the customs in the Balkans) so I could cut thru to the proper exit. After I crossed thru she put them back in place and we were on our way.

The rest of the drive was uneventful and we rolled into our campsite at the base of Meteora around 4pm. Our neighbor is an immense expeditionary vehicle probably worth a million dollars. It makes François look cute.

We revisited Corfu today to take in a couple of spots we missed yesterday and to try a couple of food places that looked interesting. As we were riding the bus in we were wondering how many cruise ships would be in port this morning. We were happy to see only one tied up, and the town was quieter than yesterday.

The first stop we had planned for the day was a bakery we had seen walking around town yesterday. The problem was neither one of us could remember exactly where it was, or what its name was. We decided to take it as a challenge, and began the quest for the bakery. It was fun as we went up and down the main street looking for the alley we thought it was on. We weren’t having much luck and had covered quite a bit of the old town in the quest without success. We decided that if we were not trying so hard to find it we probably would have walked right up on it. After about 45 minutes we were contemplating giving up when there it was in front of us not 30 feet off the main street in town.

We ordered a sample of pastries and some Turkish coffee to wash it down. The pastries were interesting as all three of them used honey in place of sugar so were a little sticky and quite sweet. One of them reminded Ton of a desert they have in Thailand that she says they got from the Portuguese. The Turkish coffee was a nice complement to the sweetness of the pastries and I am glad I ordered it without sugar.

Our next planned stop was the Museum of Asian art. Ton had read that it was the best museum in Corfu. We spent about an hour and a half going thru the museum, and they had a very extensive collection of Chinese Pottery that took up a whole floor of the museum. They did a good job of showing the evolution of Chinese Pottery. My only complaint was that we both had a hard time reading the font on the display as it was both small and often located at floor level which meant bending over to see it. The museum itself was located in the old British Governor Generals Palace, and while the exterior was nothing spectacular as palaces go, the interior was well preserved and impressive.

The Governor Generals Palace makes up one side of the main square of town with a wall of impressive buildings making up one other side, unlike most towns in Europe where the main square is usually surrounded on all four side by buildings, this one is open on two sides which makes it look quite expansive, instead of being paved it is grassed and in the evening serves as the towns cricket pitch.

Yesterday as we were walking by the waterfront we saw a restaurant offering a three course lunch that looked both a bargain and good to us. We decided to return today for lunch. Since we were looking at the sea we decided to go for fish and the meal was everything we had hoped for. The bar has now been set at a high level for both quality and value for our future stops in Greece.

As we were walking to the restaurant a giant cruise ship was just pulling into the town so we new the quiet streets we were enjoying were going to be ending soon. We were debating our next stops for the day when we both fell in love with the dressing served with our salad. It was made from Pomegranate, olive oil and vinegar and was delicious. Ton decided we needed some for François. Our waiter provided us directions to a grocery store where we could get some and our next quest for the day was on.

The quest was a short one as the waiters directions were spot on, and the grocery store had the dressing in stock. As we were walking the crowds were building. We had thought earlier to try some more Corfu Beer Company beer as we were impressed with the beer yesterday. When we arrived at the pub we had planned on we were both full from our late lunch so instead headed back to François and called it a day.

Corfu is one of the hot spots for tourism in Greece, but we were hoping it would be on the quiet side today as a lot of places are shutting down for the winter. Our campground is closing on Sunday until May 1. We looked at treating ourselves to a hotel here, but the one we were looking at is closing tomorrow so it was not available. What we didn’t count on was cruise ships.

When we arrived in town the place was rocking with tourists! It turns out that after we arrived on our ferry yesterday afternoon three cruise ships came into the port. The number of people were just short of overwhelming, so we decided to head into the non-tourist part of town to visit a soap factory Ton had read about.

Patounis Soap Company has been making olive oil based soap using the same process since 1850. They have a small factory off of the main street in Corfu and are open for visitors. While we were there a German family was also visiting and asked for a tour so we tagged along. We got an explanation of the process and got to see the soap in the molds before they are cut into individual cakes. The process had not changed much since 1850 and the bars are still hand stamped and cut, and packaged in brown paper with twine. We enjoyed seeing how they made the soap and purchased a few bars for ourselves and for gifts.

On our way back into the old town we stopped by a coffee shop for a short break and a pastry. After our short break we headed back into town, and it was empty as we had imagined it would be when we arrived. It turns out all three of the cruise ships were sailing about 4pm and everyone had gone back to their ships.

Ton was very happy as she could move around taking photos and window shopping without fear of being trampled. We spent the next couple of hours just poking up and down streets and alleys looking at interesting shops and nice churches.

We have visited a lot of Catholic and Protestant Churches during our rounds in Europe, but this trip we have moved into lands belonging to the Orthodox church which we are not that familiar with. The difference in the style of the church, and the artwork is striking. The Orthodox churches seem to be smaller, and more austere than the western churches. I’m not completely sure about smaller because we have not visited a large city yet so the size may be a function of the size of the cities we have visited. The contrast is interesting between the western and eastern churches. The art work seems to be focused around images of saints in a fairly stylized manner.

There are also painted metal icons which are often on display. I have noticed that in addition to lighting a candle in front of the icon people will actually kiss the image.

We ended our day by walking down to the edge of the water and having the local Corfu beer. Ton had a Red Ale and I had a Pilsner, they were both excellent. As we were sitting there the cruise liners all began to pass by on their way to their next destination.

When we arrived at the campground we had a message from Delta Airlines. Our flight home is a KLM flight from Athens to Amsterdam, and a Delta flight from Amsterdam to Portland. KLM has decided to rebook us on a flight from Athens to Amsterdam that leaves 30 hours after our flight from Amsterdam to Portland. We called Delta and the lady explained that KLM will probably fix it, but until 10 days before our departure Delta can’t do anything to rebook us. She said just to watch for updates and hopefully KLM will come up with a better alternative that does not involve time travel. If they haven’t before November 3 we can then give Delta a call and they will fix it. Ton and I laughed and decided to enjoy ourselves and see what happens.

Once again we are feeling like we are running out of time and having to pass on places that we want to visit. Corfu was one of the places in Greece that Ton really wanted to visit. When she lived in England a long time ago she remembered a TV show she really liked that was set in Corfu so here we are.

Getting here was a bit of an adventure. Corfu is an off shore island and requires a ferry to get here. We were looking at options for the ferry and the best place looked like Igoumenitsa in Greece. It was about 200 miles, but google had it at over 5 hours driving time for cars. Talking to Albanians they mentioned an alternative which was a ferry from Sarande in Albania to Corfu. Some on line research showed one ferry a day leaving at 4 pm but since there is a time zone change it would also arrive at 4pm. The problem the website was unclear about the price for François. It showed a price for campers (in Europe that usually means trailers) and passenger vans, but not motorhomes. Ton and I had a lot of discussion about what to do and finally we decided to head to the ferry terminal in Sarande.

The initial drive to Sarande was unexpectedly easy. The road had been recently upgraded, and we covered the first 150 km’s much faster than we anticipated. We were both congratulating ourselves on our good decision when Greta Garmin told us to exit our good road. First we saw a sign indicating Sarande, then right behind a sign with a big ! and 10% grade. I could see it switchbacking up the mountain in front of us and thought the last 35km’s were going to be a little more challenge.

While the road was a little rough and very steep, we really had no big adventures in the hour it took us to cover the 35km’s. The real adventure began in Sarande. I had programmed the ferry terminal into Greta, but I told Ton to watch for signs for the ferry terminal as the roads into the ferry terminals are usually pretty wide to accommodate truck traffic. But as we got nearer and nearer to the terminal there were no signs for the ferry, just busier urban roads. Finally we got to a road marked one way, but also with a do not enter sign for trucks and busses. We are neither but my alarm bells were going off.

The road itself was one lane wide and plenty wide enough for François if the good people of Sarande had any self discipline. The problem was that about every 50 yards would be some uncaring person double parked and reducing the lane to about 7.5 feet, we were just squeezing thru with inches to spare on both sides, between the trees and light poles on my side and the inconsiderate person on Tons side. I think it was the most stressful kilometer I have driven here. There are no pictures because we were both too busy trying to not scrape François.

When we finally reached the ferry company they told us we were too tall for their boat, they could have listed the height restriction on their website it would have saved us a lot of effort. So we were off to Igoumanista. After back tracking and squeezing down the same road again we were off to Greece, and the drive was easy. At the border we seemed to bother the Greek Immigration guy as he was engrossed in a Soccer game, so he stamped our passports and moved us on quite quickly.

We made it to Igouminista where we had our choice of ferries, and were loaded and underway 15 minutes after we arrived. We have settled into a big campground that is due to close at the end of the week for the winter, there is one other couple on site. Tomorrow we will be off to see Corfu.