In the morning we drove the short distance to Proussou Monastery, set in a cliff at the head of a gorge with an almost alpine backdrop. Apart from its beautiful setting, the monastery is visited by Greeks for two reasons – the icon of Panayia Proussiotissa housed in the 9th century church and the connection with revolutionary fighter Yeorgios Karaiskakis. The church is very pretty with smoke-blackened frescoes probably caused by candle smoke and candles also caused a number of fires in the monastery, which means that its buildings are relatively modern. Karaiskakis used the monastery as his stronghold and his two defensive towers, built on rocky outcrops, still flank it.
We then drove down the stunning gorge, at times high above the river and at other times down beside the rushing water. The road builders had carved into the rock leaving a huge overhang and just beyond this we came to an intriguing shrine. The shrine itself was a small building crammed with icons and many burning candles, whilst outside there was a short ladder on the cliff face and many offerings attached to the cliff itself. There were model cars, coins, keys, crosses, worry beads, notes and even a model aeroplane. A car stopped and three young men came over to look at the shrine. They asked me to take their photograph and I asked one of them about the shrine. He explained that the red arrows on the cliff face at the top of the ladder pointed to the 'footsteps of the Virgin Mary'. People climbed the ladder and stared at the footprints and after about half an hour, they could detect the Virgin Mary's presence and were able to ask for a gift from her. This may be money, a car, a job as a pilot etc. and the items attached to the rock would either be part of the request or thanks for a fulfilled request. The man was not making a request this time although he had done so in the past. I didn't have the courage to ask what he had requested and whether it had been successful. I climbed the ladder and followed the arrow. There in the stone was a shape (probably a fossil) that, with a fertile imagination, could be said to resemble a footstep. We had seen a piece of stone in the monastery with a similar fossil that looked much more like a footprint but the attached explanation was all in Greek, so we hadn't understood its significance. I decided not to request anything from the Virgin Mary, I am sure that she has much more important things to sort out.
I really wanted to visit a pretty Greek village with the lovely name of Paleo Mikro Horio (Old Small Village) but we both missed the (probably unsigned) turning. We skirted the large town of Karpenisi and joined a more major road West in the direction of Agrinio. This road is not shown as a green (picturesque) road on our map but I don't know why. It winds its way through dramatic scenery providing excellent arm-strengthening exercise. The last remnants of the Winter snow huddled into the shaded crevices of the highest peaks whilst pine clad, steep-sided mountainsides came down past the road into deep gorges. There was virtually no cultivatable land and subsequently very few hamlets. Just occasionally we spotted a goat shed on the mountainside and it reminded us just how lonely it must be to be shepherd or goatherd.
We had plotted a route across country from this road to a campsite on the coast. However, Jane had casually checked the route on our more modern, but much less detailed, Europe road atlas and discovered that the road that we were going to take now seemed to have been replaced by a reservoir. It did however show a new route further North that was not on our detailed map. We knew that we couldn't afford to take a chance on either of these routes as we could have ended up on dirt tracks or facing the prospect of having to come back to the main road after a very long diversion. We agreed that we would only take the roads if they positively signed towns that showed that there was a route through the mountains. We passed the first turning when the signs only showed towns going North and not the Westerly direction that we required. We came to the second turn and could see the original road literally running straight into the new reservoir. They had obviously diverted the road but the signs only listed villages on the eastern side of the original river. This meant that we had to take a much longer route via Agrinio but at least we knew that we would get there before nightfall!
After a while the land flattened out and, although the road was surprisingly narrow at times, there were many less bends and we were able to drive faster. Having passed Agrinio, we turned North and some time later spotted a sign to the right for Proussou. So there was a road through, but we still don't know what route it takes. We arrived at the area where the campsite was supposed to be only to find that it was closed, so we decided to find a wild camping site further up the coast. We drove into Menidi and found a large deserted car park that seemed to be suitable. However, we spotted some temporary signs that had been put at either end of the car park and, not understanding the Greek, we decided to move to some wasteland by the beach at the end of the town. A French motorhome behind us did exactly the same thing and soon pulled in a little way from us. We looked out on to the Amvrakikos Gulf and the very long and thin sand bars created by the rivers that flow into it.
Photos: The Proussou Monastery; The interior of the monastery church; A view south showing the monastery in the gorge – our wild camping spot was on the hill behind the large tower; The reservoir with our road disappearing into it.
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