Monday 28th April 2008

At 10:00 we met Wendy at the bottom of the lane and she drove us round the mountain on the coast road to Melana. The road goes past a promontory and a tourist sign indicates prehistoric walls and settlement. I had mentioned to Chris that Jane and I might go and look at them on our way through when we were leaving. Chris said that, if we found them, he would like to know where they were as he and Wendy had walked all over the promontory and had not found them. When we got to the Melana turn there was another sign to a temple of Apollo and Wendy told us that the walk would take us near to the site. That was however the only sign and the temple site was actually a very long way up the hill along a series of tracks and no tourist would have been able to find it unless they had local help or a very good map (unheard of in Greece). The Greeks have understandable concerns over a Turkish invasion due to the long occupation that only ended in 1821 and the very difficult relations that there have been over subsequent years. Although I can't believe that Turkey would be allowed to invade any part of Greece in current times, I am sure that this is the reason why good Greek maps do not exist. The mapping is controlled by the army (Hellenic Army Geographical Service) and even the better maps published with their assistance (e.g. Road Editions) are inaccurate and incomplete. Detailed walking maps are very difficult to obtain and most that I have seen are so lacking in detail that they are worse than useless. End of rant about Greek maps! However even with a good map, Wendy assured us that we wouldn't have been able to find the ruins as there aren't any. She has identified the site but has been unable to find any evidence of the temple. Given that Wendy spends much of her free time walking over this area, I will take her word for it.
We had a wonderful walk with wonderful company. Wendy's knowledge of wild flowers is excellent and she pointed out many to us on the way. I have to apologise to Wendy as the only one that I can remember the name of is the wild gladioli. Wendy was particularly please about seeing these as they are very rare. We must have been there just at the right time and the conditions must have been perfect as we saw many specimens. On the first half of the walk we had super mountain views and we were able to see some of the houses around Sapounakeika before we turned away towards the coast. We were then rewarded by spectacular sea and coastal views finishing with views down over Melana. By slowing Wendy down to typical SAS walking pace we were able to confirm Wendy's initial estimate of 3 hours for the walk. It was easy walking, mostly on deserted unpaved roads with the occasional donkey track. We all felt that we deserved a bottle of beer at the small kafeneion in Melana before we returned to Sapounakeika and, I must say, it went down very well.
Photos: View north over Sapounakeika and Tyros; Butterfly amongst the wild flowers; Wendy and Jane enjoying the views on the walk; A donkey carrying a hedge walks along the road in Melana below our kafenion.