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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Peloponnese: “So. . .where do you think we are?”

“So, where do you think we are?” I asked The Scout.
“I guess we are where ever we are!” he responded.

PorosPt1 080

That Winnie-the-Pooh-like conversation is how we’ve sounded since leaving George and Vasiliki’s place and setting out to explore the Peloponnese without set destinations or reservations.

We began by heading high up into the mountains following a route that took us south along the eastern coast of the eastern finger of  the Peloponnese. We wound our way across, up and down the high plains, dotted with small villages.

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It didn’t take long to realize that many of the villages don’t have signs to tell us their names and  when one of the few road signs came along it was written in Greek
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“That goes left, I think we need to go right,” The Scout, and The Driver would say. Or, “There’s the sea. That’s the way we want to go.”

On that first day we went south then crossed ‘the finger’ and went north, looping our way into the ‘middle finger’ or The Mani – the place we planned to spend most of our time.

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And ultimately we found a town large enough to buy a map written in Greek so that we could match the letters on the map to what we saw on the signs.  It worked perfectly!  We know what this sign is pointed to now.

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We’ve been heading north up the western coast of The Mani for the last two days.  Often not passing another car for significant periods of time. The art of slow travel, you might say as we’ve stopped to admire the views along the way.


We decided to stop at the small fishing village suggested to us by  Jeff Siger, our writer friend from Mykonos.  We planned to have coffee there and continue north. . .

Mani 009

Not so fast . . .instead we rented a room above the cafe – it cost us only 30 euros.  And we’ve both agreed this may well be one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever visited.  One night wasn’t enough, and we will definitely be returning to this place. I'll tell you more about it soon.

Mani 014

That’s it for this update from Greece.  And I think it is Travel Photo Thursday so head over to Budget Travelers Sandbox for more photos. And if you are thinking we should have had GPS, forget that idea.  The area is so remote there is nothing to connect to (we tried it using our Lloyd, the Droid.)  As wi-fi connection allows I will keep you posted about our whereabouts. . .

18 comments:

  1. Very beautiful place, indeed....

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  2. With my sense of direction, "we are wherever we are" is sort of my motto! ;) Looks like you are having a lovely trip - the photos are beautiful!

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    1. Thanks Lisa. Yes, you just kinda go with the flow on these roads. . .

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  3. Hi Jackie, what a beautiful road trip adventure! Deciphering signages in Greek is in itself an interesting adventure. I love the view of the water from your room. I would have love to spend few days there myself. Have a wonderful time and I look forward to your next update.

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    1. Thanks for 'coming along' with us! The views have been stunning - everywhere we've been. I love Greece!

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  4. I can see why you stayed in this fishing village, it is beautiful! Had a good chuckle at your description of matching letters on the maps. Sometimes that is very necessary!

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  5. Sounds like great fun exploring like this. When we were in Greece I found reading the signs the hardest thing to do. The only one we ever really got was Theassaloniki because it was so long. Buying a map in Greek was a brilliant thing to do.

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    1. Yes, it surprises me that we thought of the map but with the words in both Greek and English we really do pretty well.

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  6. I would so love to be in a position to rent a room above the cafe for 30 Euro. When I find a place I like I always want to linger. If I had my way I would spend all my time at the first place I liked, but B.H. sees the big picture. Sigh.

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    1. We are so torn between wanting to stay longer in a place and moving on to see the new. We've stopped now for three or four nights, more on this place later today.

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  7. That's such a brilliant idea, Jackie, matching the letters to the signs. I doubt I would have thought of that. Sounds so idyllic, not sure where you're going but going along anyway, stopping to take in the views, overnighting. Heavenly! Forget about wifi and just enjoy!!

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  8. Jackie......What an amazing trip! The scenery is out of this world gorgeous! Enjoy your fishing village. Looking forward to hearing more.

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  9. It looks amazing. I long to have that type of travel one day - not kids pulling you along!! :)

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  10. You should at least learn the alphabet before you go to Greece, particularly if you are going to wander outside the tourist bubble. There are a half-dozen capital letters that are different and maybe 12-15 lower case letters that you would need to learn. It's really not that hard and it will open up a lot more the Greek world to you and you won't feel like you got lost driving through an alphabet.

    And when you can read the signs you can tell when it is pointing you to something that isn't on your map:

    http://elsewhereandelsewhen.blogspot.com/2012_05_01_archive.html

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    1. In theory that is a great idea and I do carry a copy of the simple Greek alphabet with us. But when cities go by several names (Nafplio, Nafplia, Nafplion, Nafplian, for example) and the Greek alphabet has five symbols for the letter 'i' I will continue to carry our map, match letters and after awhile you do start 'knowing' what the signs say. Thanks for the visit today. Hope you'll come back!

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  11. At least if you're going to be lost, you're lost in a beautiful place. Sounds like you found some wonderful things along the way. The only time in Malaysia when I really feel like I need to know the local language is reading their street signs.

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