Peelies travels

"How better to complete our tour of Greece than by a couple of nights at a city that we've never heard of? We journeyed west from Meteora to Ioannina, which is a university city in the west of the mainland. We approached it through high mountains, managing to avoid the new motorway with its many tunnels and instead we followed the old road, twisting and turning. The reward was marvellous views of 2,000m+ mountains, with the only issue being the debris on the road consisting of anything from small stones to large rocks. So you need to be constantly on the look out for obstacles. Ioannina is on the western side of a large lake and we arrived from the northern side, looking for the one and only campsite that the map showed to be on the southern side. It meant driving through the middle of a bustling old town, only to discover that there was no campsite there. It was only then that I remembered a feature of my satnav that I had discovered just before leavin...

What can I say? I have never seen anything like it. In the mountainous middle of Greece, close to Kalambaka, there are the biggest rock outcrops you can imagine. They are a collection of individual stone pillars; narrow and tall. Perched on top of several, are beautiful monasteries. This is the view from the campsite, Camping Kastraki: The monasteries are perched on several of these pillars, just a few minutes drive from Kastraki. They are insanely situated, with walls that are pushed right out to the limit of the width available. So most walls continue sheer down the rockface. Amanda asked in a comment about the climbing here. All I can say is that it was a little hard to imagine any climbing (and there was no sign of climbers during our visit). This is because of the lack of obvious belays at the top. The pillars appear to be smooth and rounded. Maybe this is climbing with bolts, because as I followed possible routes up some of...

We decided to try a couple of days on the Ionian coast and all reports suggested the island of Lefkas, an island connected to the mainland with an isthmus. It was the end of a long drive from our wild camp in the Peloponnese and it was quite late by the time that we crossed the small bridge and drove along to the main town. This is clearly a yachting mecca. We made a run for the western coast, only to get there and find that the campsite we had chosen isn't on the beach and that just won't do. A quick decision was made to head for the south-eastern town of Nidri and a site near there. We made a dash across the centre of the mountainous interior. "It can't be too difficult". Well most of it is around 1,000m and the roads are very steep. By the time we got down the other side, I'd had enough driving. The campsite is directly onto the beach at one end of a small bay. It was worth the hard end to the drive. There w...

It had to be done. There's something about being up high in the mountains and after a hot tour around Ancient Olympus, what better place is there to be than 'up there' in the cool? We drove up through a series of lovely villages; this is one of them near the Althios Gorge: As we drove high above the village we happened across a stony track and drove down about a half mile, past a small 'hymac' with a rock breaker attached that was half hidden in the bushes, only to be stopped by the sight of a distant gate. Clearly someone lived down there. Reversing half way back, we noticed a narrow gap in the bushes and a quick recce showed that it was just possible to get the Landy a short distance off the track. There we found our perfect pitch for the night, hidden from all directions. So it was all hands to the pumps to get a meal ready. This one is chicken with red peppers, courgette and aubergine. The small clearing had a metal lid ...

From the west coast of the Peloponnese, we travelled inland just for an hour or so, to the site of Ancient Olympus. We couldn't have picked a hotter day to visit. Having slept in the Landy under pine trees at a coastal camp site, we arrived at Olympus mid morning and luckily found a shady tree. This is really important as the food in the Landy would fry if exposed to sunlight. The silver foil bubble sheet that we put on the topside of the headlining is really working well. We also fit the window foils if there is any chance of sun striking the glass and these precautions have meant that the temperature isn't too high when we are stationary. Of course we have to keep the windows closed and the doors locked. As for travelling, we don't have air-con of course (tee hee!) and we are now driving most of the time with both front windows fully open and the vents under the windscreen, wide-open too. These vents, the cause of so much angst amongst Land Rover drivers, are abso...