Greece - Chalkidiki

TRAVEL DIARY - GREECE

The four of us set off for Greece in the camper. This account follows on from the Yugoslav states.

Sunday 30.07.89

We leave Nis at 7. After Skopje we fill up with water. We hit a queue at the Greek customs, 15 min. Once through Greek customs at 11.30 we have lunch. We reach Thessaloniki and at 15.30 we arrive at the Armenistis campsite.

Monday 31.07.89

Staying at the campsite: beach life. Our neighbours are a family of Austrians from Vienna and Greeks from Thessaloniki. We go several times to Sarti and to Kalamitsi, where some friends are on holiday. We go out to sea with them in a dinghy, heading for the bays that can only be reached from the sea, where there are restaurants cooking fantastic fish (you spend about 3,000 lire each for a full meal all based on the freshest fish). Thanks to our friends' dinghy I also do a bit of water-skiing. On the beach we challenge other tourists to volleyball; in the end the two teams contain almost every European country.

Wednesday 16.08.89

We leave the campsite after lunch. At Sikia we stop to buy 25 litres of top-quality olive oil from the local farmers. At 20.20 we're already at Petralona. In the caves' car park we have dinner and spend the night.

Thursday 17.08.89

We visit the Petralona caves, opening at 8.30. Caves with remains of primitive human life. On the way back we give a lift to a Polish girl. In the morning we reach Agia Triada, near Thessaloniki. Lunch at the campsite then by coach we set off to visit Thessaloniki. The shops unfortunately close at 14.30. We visited the promenade and the main churches and monuments: all on foot. At Hagia Sophia we see the priest collecting the alms from the box outside the church with a wheelbarrow! Back at the campsite at 18.00. In the evening we went to Agia Triada, a lovely walk, bought chips and a fantastic gyros to have dinner in the camper.

Friday 18.08.89

Departure at 8:00, past Thessaloniki and Edessa. In the countryside they're harvesting tomatoes and peaches. We did the Kela pass, with very steep gradients for the camper, even the last few hundred metres in first gear (fingers crossed). Once over the pass, lunch then a very long descent towards Kastoria. In the afternoon we're at Father Gabriele's campsite, at the end of an avenue of centuries-old plane trees at the edge of the lake. Met a family from Trieste with the Illy company. At the campsite there's a stork wandering among the tents. In the lake there are swans.

Saturday 19.08.89

Visit to Kastoria by taxi; the city is famous for leatherworking (mink, chinchilla etc.) and in the streets you see all the skins laid out to dry between the various tanning stages. We found an abandoned kitten that we took to the campsite. Father Gabriele, an Orthodox priest, invites us for coffee in his garden. The coffee, Turkish-style, is so thick that the spoon struggles to stir in the sugar. Will we sleep?

Sunday 20.08.89

We leave at 10 for the Prespa lakes. We had planned a less steep route, following the valley floor. The road is narrow and for 7 kilometres it's dirt. We get as far as Psarades, a small fishing village, growing beans. Lunch on the pass between the two Prespa lakes. Then we set off for Italy. Florina, Bitola, Skopje, Belgrade (see the Yugoslav states).