Arcadian ambulations III

In my light sleeping bag, insulated from the cold stone of the café floor by no more than a thin foam mat, I slept surprisingly well. In order to offer us hot drinks and breakfast before we left Epidauros the café manager arrived especially early to open up.
That two days in close company was easing our initial reserve became apparent when, over our hot drinks and fresh pastries, Karin began to tell us something of her early life. She had been born in Liepzig, East Germany, in 1949. She had lived happily there until, when she was eight years old, her parents, unhappy with the system under which they had been obliged to live since the end of the war, left the tyrannies of Soviet Socialism for a free life in the West. Listening to her narrating her story I could not imagine how painful this must have been for her and her family. At that time the metro on which Karin and her family escaped was still running through both the eastern and western parts of Berlin. The Wall, and the murderous full partitioning that came with it, was not built until 1961. Compared to the risks taken by post-1961 escapees, Karin's family may have made a relatively easy crossing but the wrench must have been unimaginably grim, particularly for the children who, in an instant, had to abandon all they knew, home, toys, friends, everything, without even the chance of a farewell. Arrival in the West had also been difficult for Karin; Easterners, then as now, were not particularly welcome in the West. It was then that Salina remarked on how many similarities there were between Karin's story and her own. Salina had been born in China from where, when she was yet a child, her family fled with her to Hong Kong. I have never experienced the tyranny of totalitarianism. I have enjoyed a free life and taken for granted a right when dissatisfied to either speak up fearlessly for my beliefs or to 'vote with my feet', to hear the stories of less fortunate folk emphasised my good fortune, something about which I shall never be complacent.

Before leaving Epidauros we spent a couple of hours or so looking around the ruins of the ancient Cult Centre, visiting the museum and climbing the tiers of the magnificent theatre. Built in the 3rd century BC and further extended in the 2nd, the theatre can accommodate 12,000 people and is still in sufficiently good order to be used to stage several plays each summer. The theatre is famous for its acoustics; the ring of a small coin dropped onto the stone floor of the stage can be clearly heard from the highest tiers of the auditorium. It was early when I arrived at the theatre, only a very few tourists had yet arrived but one visiting couple were already on the stage singing a duet which rang beautifully and harmoniously throughout the theatre. I climbed the stone tiers. When I reached the top a young woman had replaced the singers. Dramatically and emotionally she was reciting a pleading speech of Isabella's from “Measure for Measure”; it was a moving performance!
We left the ancient site by the main road but soon picked up tracks that led us in the general direction of Argos, our next objective. The stroll was less dramatic than that of the previous day; more undulating than steep. We stopped for a while to eat a picnic lunch in an olive grove, allowing the heat of the middle of the day to ease a little before moving on. Later in the afternoon the sky clouded over and we argued the merits of staying for the night under the shelter of the terrace roof of a locked church at which we had stopped for a further rest. The well beside the church, its murky water further contaminated with an accumulation of detritus, was immediately dismissed as a source of drinking water. The church offered scant shelter and no fresh water. Thick clouds had gathered. Rain threatened. Afternoon would soon be passing into evening. A vote was taken concerning whether we should stay and make the most of what little the locked church had to offer or to move on to the next village, Arcadiko, and the possibility of finding greater comfort there. The four of us who voted to move on won the day.

On the outskirts of Arcadiko we came upon a large gated house that might have been a small hotel. Bruno, unburdened by the conventions that so inhibit Northern Europeans from making contact with strangers, rang the bell on the gate and was invited in to talk to a man who regretted, as he and his wife were but temporary custodians of the house while the owner and his family were away, being able to offer us hospitality there. The village had no hotel or taverna but it did have a café. The café, which at first seemed unlikely to be able to provide much more than 'Greek Coffee' or cold drinks was soon transformed into something at least of a taverna. In what appeared to be the owner's private kitchen his wife was rustling up souvlaki, chips, omelettes and salads, not quite perhaps to Michelin guide standards but a vast improvement on the 'hot-dog' dinner I had less than enjoyed at Epidauros the previous evening. As relays of plates of food were still being delivered to our café forecourt table the genial fellow who Bruno had spoken to earlier drew up beside us in a large and rather smart car. He climbed out, presented us with a large bag of groceries and fruit and began to get things organised on our behalf; apparently our chum had considerable influence in Arcadiko. Later in the evening a tractor towing a large trailer pulled into the café. This, we were told, was our transport to our sleeping shelter for the night! Loaded into the trailer we set off through the village to be dropped outside a fine, decorated, heated and carpeted church.  After being shown where to switch off the lights when we were ready our benefactors left us to rest for the remainder of the night. In a dark corner between rows of chairs I found a pitch for my mat and sleeping bag and made short work of climbing into it, installing ear plugs and, almost at once, falling asleep.
By so doing I missed a lot of fun. Not all of the villagers were happy with our using their church as a dormitory and, as I innocently slept, a deputation of dissenters had arrived at the church intent on removing us. Quite a row then ensued between some of my fellow walkers, dissenting villagers and a group of our original benefactors the outcome of which was that, rather than risking further trouble, we accepted expulsion from the church packed up and wandered bleary-eyed into the night. Earlier we had been offered use of the village schoolroom for the night so, having nowhere else to go, we first went there only to find a most unaccommodating janitor who had very obviously been briefed that we were on our way and who had no intention of letting a bunch of itinerant, non-orthodox, foreigners into the building of which he had charge. We wandered back into and through the village to an olive grove beyond, which had to serve us as a dormitory for what was left of a fortunately clear dry night.

Arcadian ambulations II

The following morning we left the comfort of Hotel Aristotelis on the coast near Ancient Epidauros and headed west hoping, before the end of the day, to reach the remains of the sanctuary of Asclepios and the theatre at the well known tourist site of Epidauros, twenty or so kilometres away.

The start of our stroll, between exhaust belching traffic and the litter that decorates all greek roads - wantonly discarded plastic bottles and cups, cigarette packets, drinks cans, food wrappers and anything else that can be thrown from the window of a moving vehicle, was far from Arcadian. That the rubbish infested verge was generously shaded by walnut trees fairly dripping with nuts ready for eating was something of a saving grace; a harbinger, perhaps, of better things to come. Eventually we turned off the busy road onto a traffic free track that led us up to the impressive nunnery of Kimissis Theotokos Kalami, around four-hundred metres above sea level. Here I recovered from what had for me been a long and taxing climb while resident nuns welcomed us with jugs of chilled spring water and plates of Turkish Delight. (Insert pic) Originally founded in the seventeenth century by monks from Kalamata, the Monastery was disbanded in 1834 and reopened as convent in 1974. Preserved within the large and impressive convent are some of the original seventeenth century buildings.

Nuns at the convent are skilled stone masons and decorators. I watched fascinated as a nun worked,  patiently and painstakingly painting images in traditional Byzantine style onto a plastered wall. The convent church walls and ceiling are presently only about a third fully painted, the remainder being either 'work-in-progress' or bare cement; devotional employment for years to come. The floor of the church has been decorated with fine mosaic images of saintly deeds and Christian symbols.

After a long and necessary rest we moved on from the convent, continuing along the track to climb gently but steadily higher. As light rain began to fall, we came across an odd looking structure on a summit just a little off our track; a fire watcher's lookout complete with fire-watcher. (Insert pic) Even on this overcast afternoon the views from the lookout of the countryside around was long and spectacular; east to the sea, five-hundred metres below us, west over Argos to the mountains of Arcadia, south to the sea beyond Naúplio. With his permission, and to his great amusement, in the shelter of the fireman's lookout we boiled water on a gas burner we carted with us, and made tea.

Shortly after tea the rain eased. We bade farewell to the fireman to begin the decent down a rocky track that led, after an hour or more of steep downhill walking quite as taxing as had been the assent, to a tarmacked road, traffic and litter. We followed the road into the well developed tourist site at Epidauros. We had almost arrived at our objective for the day; the ruins of the healing centre of Asclepios and the adjacent theatre where we arrived, early in the evening, tired and hungry to a site that was closing down. Few tourist coaches or cars remained in the huge car park. The only refreshments to be had were the very limited and rather unappetizing remains on offer at a snack bar in the car park. Rather than a delicious multi-course taverna meal and accompanying flask of wine, daydreams of which had sustained me through the last aching kilometres of the afternoon, I was obliged to dine on a ghastly 'hot-dog' washed down with a can of beer which, after my mountain stroll were, nonetheless, manna and nectar to me.

That we caught the snack bar open, was fortuitous. Its manager was also manager of a café/restaurant with a large covered terrace near to the theatre where, he told us, we would be welcome to make ourselves comfortable for the night.

Millennia after being established as a centre for healing, Asclepios' ancient sanctuary is still flourishing as such; providing food (of sorts), shelter and clean, well appointed public toilets that close late and open early!

Arcadian ambulations I

On the twenty-seventh of September Robin boarded the eight o'clock Athens bound bus at Koroni. Selina and Colin boarded the bus at the next stop, Linda, Bruno and I at the stop after that and, finally, at Argios Andreas, Karin joined us. We were an odd bunch; four men, three women, four Brits, a German, a Hong Kong Chinese and an Italian; our ages ranged from forty-nine to sixty-six and all we had in common was being currently resident not too far from each other in Messinia, the South West corner of mainland Greece, and that we all enjoyed a good walk. On Saturdays from October until May, we have occasionally strolled, with others, for between four and six hours around the scenic tracks and paths that abound in this area. On that Monday morning though, we were embarking on something far more ambitious; a stroll west from Ancient Epidauros, on the east coast of the Peloponnese, through mythical Argos and Arcadia and on through Elis and Messinia to the west coast.

We had neither a set route, trusting that one would evolve as we walked, nor any plans concerning how far we would walk each day or for how many days we might be walking. We had reckoned, guessed and estimated however that the total distance could be around three-hundred kilometres and that if we strolled west at an average speed of fifteen kilometres a day, we would need to be walking for about three weeks.

Starting point: the beach in front of the hotel at Ancient Epidauros

We left the Athens bound bus at Corinth and took another to Naplion, once and briefly the capital of Greece, now a rather pleasant, up-market tourist town from where we took a third bus for the short journey to Ancient Epidauros.

The two kilometre or so stroll, on level ground, from the bus stop to our hotel at Ancient Epidauros was my first experience of walking with a heavy pack on my back. By the time we had reached the hotel I was wondering why on earth I had become involved with this madcap venture and if any of my fellow walkers, most of whom I only casually knew, were having similar second thoughts.

What did he want of me?

As I strolled home after lunch yesterday I had an uncomfortable feeling that I was being followed.  I turned to check and there he was; tall and dark and close enough to be touching me.  I asked him what he wanted of me but got no reply so continued on.  With silent step the fellow remained with me all afternoon, sometimes venturing from behind to stroll beside me , oddly, only to my right, never to my left.  Occasionally, after rounding a sharp bend in the road, he would suddenly appear directly in front of me, menacing, as if trying to block my path.  When that happened I did my best to stamp on him but he always seemed to manage to be one step ahead of me.  Eventually, as the sun sank below the mountain, I managed to shake him off.  It was an altogether most unsettling experience.

A Morning Stroll

This morning I took a walk up into the hills behind the house. It was a fine sunny morning but the air was decidedly cool; a gusty moderate to strong breeze did not help to make it feel any warmer. Consistent uphill strolling however, even at the leisurely pace I prefer to take, is good for keeping the body comfortably warm. I walked largely on good Forestry Commission tracks through conifer plantations the interiors of which are dark and apparently barren of any plant life. The tracks are bordered on both sides by wide verges on which a good variety of wild flowers and grasses prosper and there is plenty of evidence that these cuttings through the monoculture of softwood trees provide suitable environments for many mammals, birds and invertebrates. In an area that had been cleared and replanted recently I met a forester who was inspecting young trees for beetle damage. He told me how, increasingly over recent years, young trees are being attacked by a species of beetle that kills saplings by ring-barking them.
I came across a stone, about a metre long, that had markings on it that looked as though they may have been deliberately inscribed at some time.