Day 113: Wednesday 9 July – Delphi to Ioannina, by Ken

Oh dear! I checked the score in last night’s world cup match - Brazil 1, Germany 7. The Brazilian we spoke to yesterday was right, but I’m sure even he wouldn’t have anticipated Brazil faring so badly.

For only the second time in our travels we decided to eat out for breakfast and took a table in the shade of the camping ground’s bar area. The croissants, bread, jams and honey made a good start to the day. We tried our first cups of Greek coffee and were not convinced there would be a second. The small cups had a fine, scum like, film on the surface and in the bottom of the cups. The dark liquid didn’t taste a lot like coffee.

We bought bread in the camp shop and I went to reception to pay for our night’s stay. The man wouldn’t take a card saying there was a problem with the banks. I had heard this explanation before, but this time there was elaboration in that banks were not passing on credit and debit card receipts to businesses.

A couple from a UK registered camper van came over to talk to us. They were from Nottingham and gave us the benefit of their experiences in parts of Greece we had yet to visit.

Smarty, Jane and Mabel At Delphi Camping Ground

We needed to empty our grey waste and fill with fresh water before leaving. The man at reception directed us to the service point down a road past reception. It was poorly deigned. To get Mabel’s waste pipe over a grid meant driving up a steep ramp. I tried that, but Mabel’s tow bar dragged on the road long before her rear wheels reached the ramp. There was an alternate point adjacent to the ramp, but after reversing Mabel to a lot of graunching of tow bar on road and then turning her around, her front bumper reached the ramp long before her waste outlet reached the grid. We resorted to draining the tank into a bucket and emptying that down the grid.

Returning to Smarty to hitch up a Frenchman from a nearby caravan came over and started speaking rapidly in French. I asked him to slow down and then we had a conversation in French and English about how Smarty’s towing system worked. As ever, the first question was how she steered.

We set off following a last look at the amazing view from our pitch. Our route took us down into the enormous olive grove. A car with a roof box followed. While there were plenty of overtaking opportunities, it didn’t bother. I was pretty sure it was the Frenchman.

At Itea we joined a road that hugged the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth. Leaving Itea we passed an iron ore quarry, everything in it and the surrounding area was covered in a thick coat of red dust. The road tracked about 100 metres above the sea passing lots of bays mostly empty but some had people bobbing about in the water. Every now and then the road descended into a small town with eating places spread along the back of the beach with umbrellas and loungers set up on the beach.

House On An Island Near Itea

Coast Road Along North Shore Of Gulf Of Corinth

Not A Bad Spot To Park A Camper Van

One Of The Many Seaside Towns We Passed

We had covered about two thirds of the way along the gulf to the Ionian Sea when Harry ‘phoned. He had just obtained his results for the first semester of his second year at Victoria University – two A+, an A and an A-.  He was rightly elated, particularly as one of the A+ was for an exam he though he hadn’t done justice to and the other A+ was a course he had been asked to be a tutor in for next year.

The hazy outline of the cable stayed bridge crossing the neck of the Gulf of Corinth linking Rion and Andrerion (Rio and Antirrio) slowly came into view. The four span 2,880 metre long bridge looked magnificent, but only a bridge engineer would think that. Designed and built by a French- Greek consortium, construction was supervised by Maunsell for whom I worked in the UK. According to Wikipedia, the bridge is widely considered to be an engineering masterpiece (but that was probably written by a bridge engineer). The design had to allow for movement of the tectonic plates beneath the gulf and seismic activity as well as cope with difficult foundation conditions in deep water. The bridge was opened in August 2004, shortly before the summer Olympics.

Rion and Andrerion Bridge

Shortly after passing the bridge, the road turned inland. The remainder of the drive was on two lane roads with just a few short lengths of motorway. Work was going on to convert it all to a motorway but it seemed they were only building the bridges with the earthworks to follow later.

We stopped for lunch of Greek Salad and bread in a lay-by. The roadside was piled full of litter and from the smell, it was also used as a toilet.

The road took us through orange groves. There were stalls piled high with the fruit and we pulled over at one of them. Jane asked the man for six oranges, he thought she meant six kiolos and started shovelling oranges into a bag. Jane managed to stop him at two kilos. He wanted 50 cents for them, Jane gave him one Euro.

Oranges-  25 Cents A Kilo

It was late afternoon by the time we reached our destination at Camping Limnopoula on the shore of a large lake on the outskirts of Ioannina. We selected a pitch close to the waters edge and settled down for the evening.

Ioannina

A large number of young people arrived and started warming up. They launched a number of boats – eights, fours, twos and singles and got into their rowing training accompanied by coaches in two motor boats.

Our dinner was pasta (Orecchiette) with a tomato and pepper sauce prepared by me.

Today's Trip (320km)