We are heading north again towards Vergina but want to see
the new archaeological museum at Larissa. There are no campsites in the area so
we planned to wild camp again and consulted the park4night app to find a
suitable stopping place.
The first part of the journey took us along the coast of the Gulf of Corinth
past the result of serious forest fires and landslips that had taken away parts
of the road. It didn’t cause us any trouble but we did think of those families
desperately trying to stop the fires from reaching their houses. Fortunately,
we didn’t see any houses that had been burnt but some had burnt trees in their
gardens – a close shave!
Again this was a very pretty route and that continued as we turned inland to
reach the E90 (or 3) road to Thivai (Thebes). Thebes also has a new museum but
we will have to visit that another day. At Lavadia we turned north, still on
the 3, through more interesting scenery, including the snow-covered peaks of
the Parnassus mountain range. There were lots of signs on this road to
archaeological sites but we had no time to investigate – a good reason to
return to the area.
Continuing on the 3 we went through Lamia heading to Neo Monastiri where the 3
turns right heading for Larissa. It was a wild camping site in Neo Monastiri
that I had chosen from Park4Night, partly due to the photo shown but also due
to the mention of an archaeological site. The site was not marked on our very
old Greek map that shows huge numbers of sites, so we were not expecting
anything significant. When we reach the parking area up a narrow road, we were
amazed. There were huge, ancient walls on the hill above. Having selected our
pitch with a view down to the plain on one side and ancient site on the other,
we walked up to investigate those walls. The path took us along by the walls to
the far, village end of the site. Here there were seats and an information
board that explained that the walls belonged to the Hellenistic period (4th
– 3rd century BC). The
ancient town of Proerna started in the Bronze Age (3rd millennium
BC) and was based on a mound below the Hellenistic acropolis that is now surrounded
by the modern town of Neo Monastiri. This mound grew due to many centuries of
occupation into what is referred to as a ‘tepsi’ or ‘tell’. A wall was built
around the mound in the 5th century BC but when the new Hellenistic
walls were built on the nearby hill south east of the town, most of the town’s
activities were transferred into the new walled enclosure. The site is strewn
with ancient pottery - pot handles and sherds of simply-decorated pots were
everywhere.
When we got back to the van, the farmer was there looking after his herd of
cows that were grazing the lush grass just below. I had an interesting chat
with him, somewhat limited by my lack of anything more than a few random words
of Greek and his total lack of English. We put the world to rights with words
like Ukraine and Putin (with looks of horror and sorrow) and questions of where
we were going next. Then his friend arrived and I decided that I should break
out the wine. The friend couldn’t partake as he had heart problems but we
wished each other health. I retired to the van to cook dinner and my new
friends sat on the seat outside, watching over the cows and goats (with goatherd)
and, no doubt, having more political discussions. I must say that that I was
impressed when they mentioned ‘Johnson’ and indicated that he was a strong man.
I am ashamed to say that I have no idea of the name of the Greek prime minister
– time for a Google! We have seen Boris of the Greek TV a number of times and
he is obviously considered a strong leader as far as Ukraine is concerned.
Photos: The snow-capped Parnassus Mountains; Our pitch at Proerna; Looking down to the fertile plain over the cows and bee hives – truly a land flowing with milk and honey; My two new Greek friends; We have been to many minor Greek archaeological sites where they had installed floodlights that had obviously fallen into disuse. There were floodlights at Proerna but we didn’t expect them to be used, especially this early in the season. When they came on, it was spectacular and there was a very appreciative audience of at least two people!
No comments:
Post a Comment