Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Limna of Pappas (The Priests’ Lake)

This delightful hidden and rarely visited bottle-necked inlet from the sea is only a short distance along the shore north of Methoni. Its tranquility is guaranteed by the several hundred metres of heavy going through pathless rock and tough thorny scrub that surround it but a little bruising of shins and blood letting of hands is but a small price to pay to be at this quite amazingly peaceful, beautiful place.
Sunlight reflects from the rippled surface of the 'lake', projecting infinitely mobile vaporous images onto its rocky sides; fresh water, invisibly rising from below the sandy bottom creates amazing patterns on the water's surface. The 'lake' fills the bottom of an inverted natural cone which protects it from winds from any direction; it is therefore a wonderfully quiet place, silent but for the gentle tinkling of water rippling onto rocks and the cotton-wool soft murmuring of the sea at the inlet's narrow entrance.
I have no idea from where the place came by its name. There must, of course, be stories attaching to it, but I have yet to hear one.

2 comments:

CalumCarr said...

Thank you!

That such a place exists to be enjoyed is wonderful; that you can visit so easily (relatively) must be magical for you

John Foster said...

Wonderful places, of one kind or another are to be discovered everywhere Calum, some are more obvious than others.
As for magic, I am sceptical of any having been been worked upon me. But for my having felt exiled for so long in the country of my birth by a feeling of personal isolation from its society, I should probably yet be enjoying all that is wonderful there.