Category: Greece

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the great weather we have been having and ended it by hoping I didn’t jinx us. When we got to the lobby of the hotel we were both startled when we saw it was raining outside. We had planned a day of exploring the sites of Thessaloniki so rain was not something we wanted to see. I made a quick check of the weather and it showed showers most of the day, so we borrowed an umbrella from the hotel and headed out.

The old town district called Anopoli was our first stop of the day. It was a fortified district and a large section of the walls are still intact, the area around the walls is an UNESCO world heritage site. Our second surprise of the day was that it was quite a climb to Anopoli. Just as we arrived in the district Ton spotted a monastery so we went in.

Thessaloniki was founded around 350 BC and was named after the sister of Alexander the Great who was the wife of the founder. Like much of Greece the region has been under multiple rulers in its history. The history during the 20th century was especially turbulent. In 1900 the city was a multi-cultural city and was known as the only city in Europe where Jews made up the highest percentage of the population. The city was 39% Jewish, 29% Turkish, 25% Greek, and 7% was made up of Bulgars, Roma, and other nationalities.

During the period just before WWI the Ottomans and the Greeks fought a series of wars primarily over control of the region centered on Thessaloniki. Eventually the Greeks won control of the region, unfortunately one of the first ethnic purges of modern times took place after the wars. Even though the Turkish population outnumbered the Greeks in the city they were forced to leave and relocate to Turkey. The Turks also forced out the Greek minority that was located within their borders. These purges still effect the relations between the two countries.

An interesting note is that there is a museum dedicated to Kamal Ataturk who is considered to be the founding father of modern Turkey who was born here. But it is not open to the general public, but requires an appointment be made thru the Turkish consulate.

Unfortunately the history of the Jewish residents of the city is even sadder. After the takeover by the Greeks restrictions were put on the Jewish residents that started a period of high Emigration to other countries. During WWII Greece was occupied by the Germans and the Jewish population was swallowed up by the concentration camps. As a percentage the Jewish population of Greece suffered the highest casualty rate of any country in the holocaust. Today there are only about 2000 Jews left in Thessaloniki.

Our next stop was the Rotunda of Galerius built around 306 AD by the Tetrach of Thessaloniki Galerius. He intended it to be his mausoleum and it was adjacent to his palace. However, on his death he was buried elsewhere and it became a church. After the Ottoman Empire took over the church was turned into a mosque and the minaret was added. Then in 1912 after the Greeks conquered the city it was again turned into a church. It is now a museum.

Not far from the rotunda is a large Byzantine Arch of Triumph also dedicated to Galerius. Galerius led a Byzantine army that defeated the Persians in a war and he had this arch built to commemorate the victory. The relief showing scenes from the war is quite interesting. It originally had one large arch and 4 smaller arches.

Our last stop on our tour of historic sites in Thessaloniki was the White Tower. The White Tower is an Ottoman fort that was built to guard the waterfront of Thessaloniki. Today it is a museum.

After our long walk we headed down the waterfront to do our favorite thing in Greece, eat. We enjoyed our meal and then headed back to the hotel for a well deserved rest.

Despite the cold and wet weather we really enjoyed our day in Thessaloniki. We found the history fascinating and enjoyed the vibrancy of the people. The second city of Greece is certainly a fascinating place to visit and deserves to be better known outside of Greece.

Today we moved to the second biggest city in Greece. Thessaloniki has a population of about 2 million people and is located in North East Greece. We need to get an annual warranty inspection and the only Knaus dealer is located here so our plan is to drop François at the dealer to get the inspections and get a hotel in town.

The drive over was uneventful and less expensive as we changed toll companies and suddenly François was a car again. Greek toll ways are interesting. We dropped François at the dealer and were in the hotel by 1pm. About a week ago I lost a filling and the tooth was bothering me a bit, so when we checked in I asked if they had a dentist they could recommend. They booked me into a dentist at 2 pm who was literally across the street. By 2:45 I was back in the room with a new filling for the whopping cost of€50.

Our new friend Nikos is from Thessaloniki and he gave us a list of places to visit in the city. The first was the central market, which is a can’t miss with Ton. The market was originally built in 1925, but has recently been modernized and is now very chic. We walked around the market and did get some of our favorite cheese from Crete.

By now we were hungry so Ton decided we needed to find a place that was a little less chic. About a block from the modernized market was the old market and Ton was in heaven. Even though it was wrapping up there were still plenty of fish stalls and meat stalls open to inspect.

After the market we had a very late lunch/early dinner and then walked down to the waterfront. After a quick look we decided we would save the waterfront for tomorrow and headed back to the hotel.

After 6 days of enjoying the beach at Drepano we needed to get going towards Thessaloniki. On Wednesday François needs his annual warranty inspection and the only place in Greece that can do is is about 400 miles from Drepano. After trying to find the best route and a place to stay about half way we landed on Ioannina. When I told my new Greek friend Nikos we were going to Ioanina he became very excited and over the next half hour I got 3 texts from him with places he recommended to see while we are here.

We made the decision to use the toll ways today. There is a parallel free route, but it would have taken more than twice as long, and involved a lot of mountain switchbacks, and small city driving. While it was expensive, we arrived in a little over 5 hours vs 12 hours and I had a nice stress free drive. But man was it expensive, in every other country François is classified as a car, in Greece we are classified as a delivery van and the tolls are twice as much as they would be for a car.

Ioannina is a mountain town so we have gone from sea level to about 1600 feet. The town and the campground are located on a very picturesque alpine lake. It is a very pretty setting. After we got checked in and settled we headed into town to do a bit of reconnaissance for tomorrows exploration of Niko’s must do list in Ioannina.

Ioannina is also a university town, and this is a long weekend in Greece, so when we got to the lake front in town it was swarming with college students and Greek families. All of the restaurants were full and there was a very vibrant vibe to the promenade along the lake. Also, in the entire hour we walked thru town the only language we heard was Greek, except of course when we spoke to each other.

After getting a feel for things we were a little hungry, but did not feel up to spending any more money. Instead we headed back to François where Ton whipped up a Thai/Italian fusion dish she called Larb spaghetti, it was delicious.

As we get older we are finding it easier to relax in one place for a few days in a row. Our plan last night was to pack up and move down the road a couple of hours to another campground which is a little closer to our destination on Monday. But when we woke up we decided we liked it here, the campground is clean, the internet is strong, and the neighbors are nice so we decided to stay one more day.

The rest of the day was spent drinking coffee, talking to our neighbors and having a couple of nice meals. We took a couple of short walks up and down the beach in between. Maybe we will be able to master slow travel in another couple of years.

This is the last day we can take it easy here. Tomorrow we will be moving down the road a couple of hours to another campground on the beach.

We had no plans for today. Frankly we are kind of marking time until we move towards Thessaloniki in northern Greece. The problem is the camping situation in Thessaloniki is kind of limited or we would probably already be going that way. Because of the limited camping options we have booked a hotel in the city center for two nights. But that is the future. What we thought was going to be a boring day hanging around, turned into a great time thanks to our neighbors Niko and Chrisi.

Without any plans for the day I was taking care of some chores around François as I was coming and going I said Kalemara to our new neighbors who are the only Greek campers in the campground. He responded Good Morning and then apologized for his English. We began a typical conversation about the weather, and eventually his girl friend and Ton joined in and before we new it we were all sitting around sharing coffee and chatting.

Niko is a Greek Coastguardsman from Thessaloniki who is currently stationed in Piraeus. He and his girlfriend Chrisi are avid campers and this place is one of their favorites. We began chatting about camping and I asked for some good places to go in Thessaloniki. Eventually, they said that we must join them for lunch as they were going to prepare fish and eggplant, we offered to bring wine. Their food was delicious especially Nikos special bread and we really enjoyed their company. Before we new it we realized it was 7pm, the day had blown buy. We truly enjoyed their company and what we thought was going to be a boring day turned into a wonderful one.

Today was a maintenance day. We are starting to think about leaving Greece. Though we have one more major stop we have to/want to make, our thoughts are turning to Bulgaria, so some of the morning was spent making plans for Bulgaria.

About mid-morning we decided to head out and take care of some errands. A trip to Lidl to stock up on Greek foods we want to take with us to Bulgaria was number one on the agenda. After that we stopped at a gas station where we filled François up with both diesel and LP gas. Hopefully, it will be enough LP to last the rest of the trip.

After dinner we took a short walk, but the wind was blowing and the temperature had fallen a bit so it was a quick one. While I haven’t mentioned it, the weather has been really good on this trip. Most days are sunny and in the 70’s. Hopefully, it will continue and I haven’t jinxed it!

Today we visited the town of Nafplio which is located a short bus ride from the campsite we are staying at. Nafplio like so many towns in this region has had many rulers during its history. Starting with the ancient Greeks it has subsequently been in the hands of the Romans, Byzantines, Franks (French), Venetians, Ottomans, Venetians (again), Ottomans (again), and was finally captured by the modern Greeks in 1822 and served as the capital of Greece until 1834 when the government was moved to Athens.

Despite its impressive history, the town did not make a great first impression on us. After we got off the bus we walked into the old town and wandered around for about an hour and while the streets were nicely paved with marble, on the whole it seemed just another nice port town with nothing striking.

As we rode in on the bus we saw the market was going on, so we set off to find it. The street markets are always a fun way for us to spend time, Ton is always up for an extended stroll thru the market.

The market in Nafplio was a good one so we ended up buying some olives, apples, and cucumbers. We would have bought more, but that was all we felt we could carry around for the rest of the day.

While Ton was shopping I did some more research on the town. I saw a waterfront promenade that was supposed to give good views of the harbor, the fort and the old town and after we finished shopping I proposed we check it out. But, as we were heading there it started to rain so we dove into a coffee shop to wait out the shower.

We were on the verge of giving up and heading back to François for the day, when Ton said there was supposed to be a nice restaurant nearby. So we decided to delay our departure and have lunch instead.

As we were heading to the restaurant we came upon a road that really charmed us and ended up changing our impression of Nafplio from ho hum to really cool. The street was higher up on the hill and was a little narrower, but was full of interesting buildings that were well maintained and appealing.

As we were walking down this street we noticed a couple of large groups of high school students lingering at a spot in front of us. It turns out the spot is an important place in modern Greek history, where the first president of Greece was assassinated as he left church in 1832.

We enjoyed our lunch immensely and tried out a new drink. As we were walking thru the market we kept seeing a drink called Tsipouro on sale. In the market it was being sold in plastic bottles and was very inexpensive. At the restaurant we asked the waiter about it and he gave us the run down. It is an unaged, uncolored brandy. We asked if it was served before the meal or after, and he laughed and said it was for the entire meal. We tried a glass and debated its merits vs the Raki we were always given after our meals on Crete. I landed on Raki, and Ton leaned towards Tsipouro.

We ended the day by finally doing the waterfront walk that had been interrupted by the rain. In the end we were both grateful for the rain as it made us reconsider Nafplio and turned a not bad day into a very interesting and fun day.