Wednesday 4th May 2011 – Aghia Anna, Evia, Greece

Sit Nav (Jane) had a difficult day today. She didn't recognise the place names that we wanted at a turning on the outskirts of Chalkis resulting in a tour of the congested streets of the city trying to find a way out. After a long drive through urban sprawl on the northern side of Chalkis we got out into the countryside, missed another turning and spent some time attempting to negotiate the narrow streets of a town and taking a diversion into the mountains before rejoining the main road. In Jane's defence, I must say that most of the signs were in Greek script and it takes time to transliterate into Latin script before deciding whether the towns are where we want to go. After that we had no problems and we enjoyed the drive through pretty forested countryside. We stopped at Prokopi where we visited a Russian pilgrimage church of St. John the Russian. We had followed a Russian coach on part of the journey and by the time that we got to the church, the pilgrims were filing passed the mummified remains of St. John and filling special small bottles with blessed olive oil. We know little about this saint or why he is so important to the Russians – we must look it up on the Internet.
We had passed thousands of beehives on our way and it was no surprise to find many honey shops in amongst the many tavernas, coffee shops and souvenir shops. We stopped at one and were given a friendly greeting by the lady owner without getting any hard sell. On the way back we stopped there and were able to try some of her honeys, specifically the pine and fir honeys. The pine was definitely the best and it brought back memories of the lovely Peloponnesian pine honey that we have had on previous trips. So that was the honey sorted and we bought 10 litres of olive oil this morning so we are building up our stock of practical souvenirs.
We drove on to Aghia Anna and down to its beach where the Aghia Anna Club campsite is located. It took us a while to find any of the staff but we were soon on our pitch and hooked up to the electricity. We were the only people on the site that copes with in excess of 1,000 people at the height of the season.
Photos: The St. John the Russian church in Prokopi; The honey shop in Prokopi; The Aghia Anna Club campsite also has air conditioned yurts for hire – they look rather comfortable.