We didn't have far to go to get to the campsite identified by Glenn at Ziritsi Beach but we wanted to stop at an interesting site on the way. We stopped at the Champion supermarket as I wanted to buy some bread and meat. Jane stayed in the van (“supermarketed out”) and she thought that she had lost me! I joined a queue at the butcher but I was third, so I knew that it wouldn't take too long. The couple of ladies at the front of the queue had a brief discussion with the lady butcher and she got some pork from the cold room. She deftly cut this up into chops – lots of them, then she got some more out and did the same, then she took the chops from the display, then she got more from the cold room and then more again. Each time we thought that she had finished, but it was just to give us false hope! To amuse myself, I started counting how much they were buying – 45 kg of pork chops – and tried to avoid the eyes of the prettily displayed sheep heads. With that over, it was the turn of the couple in front of me and the butcher got a whole lamb from the cold room . For a moment I thought that she was going to cut it into portions but, fortunately, she just put it in a giant plastic bag and handed it to the couple with the back legs sticking out of the end. They were going to have a lovely spit-roasted lamb on Easter Sunday. And then it was my turn – two chicken breasts. After half an hour, I emerged from the supermarket – I would not have waited if I had realised how long it was going to take.
On then through Nafplio to the House of Tiles at Mili (one of the few fairly obvious Greek town names - Mills). As our guidebook says, this sounds like a shop but it actually a site that was occupied from the Neolithic (6,000 BC) up to Roman times and was even occupied during the Second World War when the Germans built pillboxes there, damaging much of the Roman remains. However, the most interesting aspect of the site concerns the time around 2,200 BC when the pre-Greek speaking people built a very large building (82ft by 40ft) close to a large number of other dwellings. This building is unique for this period, not only because of its size but also its sophistication. It was a two storey house with a stone-built first storey and a mud brick second storey with a roof covered with square tiles, many of which were found during the excavation (hence the name of the site). Walls were plastered and prepared for frescoes but these were never completed as the house was burned down. At this time other sites were also burned and it has been deduced that they were attacked, possibly by a people from Troy who may have been have also been the first Greek speaking settlers. The next people who occupied the site did something rather strange, they covered the collapsed house with a large mound of earth. This was a lot of effort to go to and meant that they could not use the land for building nor could they reuse the stone from the building, the common practice when building over an existing site. Why did they do this? Did it have some sacred significance or was it in respect of the previous settlers? Nobody knows!
We drove on down the coast and were treated to spectacular views over the sea (it was even clearer today) to the Akte Peninsular on which sits the mountains of Didimo and Aderes. We stopped at the small settlement of Paralio Astros (Astros Beach) and parked the motorhome, flanked by palm trees, and had lunch looking at that lovely view.
Arriving at the campsite, down a long road that turned into a dirt track, there were plenty of people in their caravans but nobody in reception. This is often the case in the middle of the afternoon so we parked up and waited until 17:00. Reception was still unmanned, as it was also at 18:00 – we gave up and decided to find them in the morning. Glenn had kindly offered to pick us up at 14:00 tomorrow, so that gave us plenty of time to find the owners and explain that we were going to be away for the next few days.
Photos: The House of tiles – the main door into the building (on the left) could only be reached down the long corridor (on the right) and round the bend (subsequently cut by a Mycenaean tomb. It is thought that this was a precursor to the labyrinthine entrances to Mycenaean palaces; A wild flower at the House of Tiles; View over to the Akte Peninsular; Chapels are everywhere in Greece. I decided that this one, at Astros Beach, must be dedicated to the patron saint of quarrymen. Given the safety standards of Greek quarries that I have seen, they need some protection!
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