Day 111: Monday 7 July – Jane's Camera Not Fixed and The Temple of Poseidon, by Ken

My shower in the camping ground was disappointing, I’ would have been better off standing under a dripping tap. Jane’s was better, but gave a jet of water, rather than a spray.

As predicted by Ken at The Photo Warehouse, his ‘home remedy’ failed to fix the problem with Jane’s camera. While we could make do and wait until we got back to New Zealand to get it fixed Jane was really missing her camera and not very happy with sharing my heavy DSLR. Ken had provided the address of the Nikon authorised dealer in Athens which was on the coast near Pireas and on the diametrically opposite side of the city to our camping ground.

Jane decided she would like to drive. She had two false starts – at a junction she forked left and not right taking us into the underpass we used yesterday to get to Kiisia station and then I misdirected her at traffic lights taking us onto a route that would have taken us to the Olympic Village. We decided the camera was more important. Recovering from those two hiccups added 10 minutes and 5 kilometres to our journey, but we eventually got onto the motorway that virtually bisects the city. It was very busy with cars driven by men dressed for the office and lots of motorcycles ridden by the same.

Nearing Pireas we left the motorway passing some of the buildings used in the 2004 Olympics. Satnav did a very good job in directing us through busy streets to our destination in the suburb of Glyfada. Unfortunately, when it announced we had reached our destination we were on a dual carriageway from which we caught a glimpse of a Nikon sign on a building on a parallel service road. At that point Jane pulled over having decided it was my turn to drive!

A devious route through Glyfada’s residential streets got us to the service road. The woman at Nikon’s reception directed us in good English to their service centre a couple of blocks away. There a man with not so good English advised he could let us know in 7 days what the problem with the camera was. He disappeared with the camera into a back room when I said that didn’t really work for us as we were travelling. He emerged a few minutes later saying the problem appeared to be with the screen, but it would still be a week before they could get onto it. He couldn’t tell us what it might cost. We decided it would have to wait until we were back in Wellington.

Our options for the rest of the day were to either revisit the centre of Athens, or drive down the west coast of the Attica peninsula to see the Temple of Poseidon. We have a limited appetite for ruins and museum so the latter won easily.

The coast road took us through Voulagimeni where Stella and I had stayed in a hotel on the beach 43 years ago. I remembered it well as the beach was on the final approach to Athens airport. A new airport has been built since then situated not far from our camping ground. We passed numerous rocky coves where Greeks were swimming but mainly floating, in the crystal clear water. There were also beaches, some with loungers and umbrellas, some without. Jane noted that Italians at the beach stand in the sea, talking, with water at knee level whereas Greeks bob about, often a long way out, wearing hats with only their heads visible.

Light Rail Following Coast Road

Bobbing About-  In Hats

Lots Of Coves Like This

There's Money In Greece

We were about 70km from the centre of Athens and it was nearing midday when the Temple of Poseidon finally came into view standing on the headland of Cape Sounion, the southernmost point in Attica.

Rounding Cape Sounion

Fish Farm Near The Cape

Temple Of Poseidon Perched On The Cape

The Sounion peninsula has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The construction of the Temple of Poseidon (god of the sea) began in the early 5^th century BC but was destroyed by the Persians before it could be completed. Another with 6 by 13 Doric columns was subsequently erected. Two temples to Athena were built on a lower hill. While a lot of the columns and capping beams of the Temple of Poseidon remain, only the foundations of the other temples are visible.

It was a short walk from the ticket kiosk up a very rough track to the Temple of Poseidon. The temple was very impressive and the best preserved of the many we have seen in Greece. Unfortunately ropes around the perimeter meant we had to keep our distance and a barrier stopped us walking round the west side altogether. According to our guide book the rope was the result of Lord Byron who visited in 1810 and carved his name on one of the columns. That precedent was copied by many subsequent visitors meaning nowadays the temple is out of bounds.

Temple of Poseidon

Lord Byron Was Here

It was getting late and Jane was hangry. She also became angry when I said we were low on fuel and I thought the best course of action was to head back the way we had come as we had passed filling stations on the way. Jane was annoyed that I had broken our rule by not refueling when Smarty’s gauge was down to 2 of its 8 blips and we had passed lots of filling stations. It now showed just the 1, but how was I to know there wouldn’t be a filling station on my side of the road when the average distance between filling stations in Greece is about 500 metres? In any case, I reassured her that we had plenty of fuel – when fuel is low there is a digital read-out of what’s left in the tank. It read 4.5 litres, enough to get us back to Athens. Jane was not convinced and I should have refilled on 2 blobs. We eventually reached a filling station and still had 4.5 litres remaining.

It was time for lunch. We backtracked a little to where we had seen a number of tavernas side by side on the edge of the sea. As we approached the owner of one was standing in the road and flagged us down. We decided it was as good a place as any to eat. It turned out to be a good choice with a lot of seafood on the menu. We were served by the man who had flagged us down who sent a young lad out to intercept more customers. We had baked feta with tomato and green pepper to start, Jane had fried cuttlefish and I went for seafood risotto. The food was excellent.  The house wine was sold by the half kilogramme, not litre, but it's the same thing really. The taverna was practically empty when we arrived, but slowly filled with Greeks and was positively bustling by the time we left. Always a good sign.

Taverna Lunchtime (No flashgun with me!)

Baked Feta and Cuttlefish

 A short distance from the taverna we stopped at a beach where we planned to spend the rest of the afternoon. The base of our beach umbrella has a nifty augur on the end that screws into sand and provides a firm support for the umbrella. The augur went down about 50mm and stopped. A geotechnical investigation showed the sand had been spread over rock. We tried the umbrella but the first breath of wind blew it over. We opted for the shade of a tree instead. Jane had a swim and a snooze, I read my Kindle. By 15:30 we were sore, the rock we were lying on was very uncomfortable. We decided to call it a day and head for home.

Based on admittedly little experience, there doesn't appear to be police cars in Athens. Instead cops ride around on motorbikes in pairs, we saw them yesterday and again today. It makes for a strange sight - two burly men squeezed close together weaving their way through the traffic.

Police Motorbike

Back at the camping ground it was scorching hot inside Mabel and out. We both went to the very good swimming pool for a dunk to cool off. Jane stayed there reading while I returned to Mabel to make use of the wi-fi that had returned after being absent this morning. I needed to shift some cash onto our debit cards which are our main means of payment and withdrawing cash from ATMs.

Neither of us was hungry after our largish lunch. We ate a packet of peanuts with a bottle of red wine.

Today's Trip In Smarty (177km)