Wednesday 22nd May 2024 – Kastoria, Greece

 

We wanted to see a couple more places around the lakes before we left. Crossing the strip of land between the lakes we were treated to a fly-past by a group of pelicans and then we drove up into the village of Agios Germanos. Here we visited the 11^th century church of Agios Germanos with its interior covered in 18^th century murals. The congregation outgrew the church so that tacked a new church onto the old one leaving the old church intact. A very helpful policeman from the police station opposite the church, told us about a watermill 500 metres away that happened to be open on Wednesdays so we wandered along the track to find it. Men were reconstructing the original guesthouse of the 1920’s mill. The journey to bring grain to the mill by donkey, followed by the time to mill the grain, meant that the customers had to stay overnight, hence the guesthouse. One of the workers came over and greeted us. He explained that the guardian had to travel to Thessaloniki today so he was deputising. He was actually a tour guide, spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable. He told us all about how the mill worked producing flour, washing clothes, carpets etc. and fulling cloth – three different processes in one building with the water able to power all three at the same time. He explained that the local geology of limestone combined with granite meant that the springs flowed all year, providing power to 13 mills on the river. He also told us that millers had been often thought of as sorcerers as they were independent, lived away from the villages and transformed things using water power in a way that people could not understand. Also, because they had more contact with the outside world, they adopted new thinking and came up with new ideas. He also told us that he owned a restaurant in Mikrolimni on Mikro Prespa Lake, which was originally owned by his wife’s grandfather but was derelict and they had restored it. He and his wife had decided to take a rest from the restaurant and do other things for six months, hence he was restoring the mill. Mikrolimni was our next stop and we saw his fish restaurant, which is in a great position on the edge of the lake.
We drove on to Kastoria where we wanted to visit the archaeological site of the Dispilio Lake Village. I was particularly interested in the site because of the lake villages close to us on the Somerset Levels. The lake village at Dispilio was occupied for a long period between 5,500 BC and 3,000 BC and is thought to have had some 3,000 inhabitants. The village was partly on land and partly built on stilts over the lake. The archaeologists have reconstructed some of the buildings in this manner and it made for a very interesting visit. Inside the buildings were examples of everyday life in prehistoric times – pottery, tools, fishing equipment, hearths etc. I volunteer at the Avalon Archaeology site in Somerset where we have built a number of reconstructions, including a roundhouse from the Glastonbury Lake Village. At Dispilio they found a wooden tablet covered in symbols which may be the earliest script ever found – worth a Google.
There are no campsites in the area but on park4night we found a farm site ‘CountryHouse 2 Rivers’ listed. We followed the satnav coordinates but we couldn’t find it. After searching the area for some time, we finally gave up and found another listing from park4night on a piece of waste land by a river. Not what we wanted but it was quiet.
Photos: The churches of Agios Germanos; One of the wall paintings of the older church; The Agios Germanos mill; The mill leat feeds three pipes leading down into the mill providing the power; Our guide demonstrates how the flour mill works; Mikrolimni and our guide’s restaurant; Dispilio Lake Village looking from the land towards the lake; These houses are built on stilts over the lake.

Tuesday 21st May 2024 – Psarades, Prespa Lakes, Greece

 

There was a fair amount of road noise overnight but we weren’t complaining!
We were heading to the Prespa Lakes in the north east corner of Greece. Mikro Prespa is almost entirely in Greece with just a corner in Albania but the larger of Prespa lakes is shared between Greece, Albania and Northern Macedonia (previously known as FYROM – the Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia). The route took us back past Pella and Edessa but then we were in new territory. One thing that we hadn’t noticed when we travelled the route before was the number of Macedonian tombs beside the road – we saw at least seven. The reason that we were more observant was that I had discovered a tomb that was open to the public. It was at Agios Athanasios, not far from Thessaloniki but the website said that it was closed on Mondays. We decided to go past it anyway and, much to our surprise, we found it open. There was one tomb that was padlocked but we could see the outside and the other was open and obviously recently updated in terms of visitor access. It was really interesting and well worth the visit – see photos below.
Edessa is famous for its cherries and north of the city we passed miles and miles of cherry orchards followed by a large area of vines.
At Florina there was a major closure of the main road so we had to take a diversion north into the mountains to re-join the main road. This section was very pretty and the roads were almost deserted – we never had a vehicle behind us and only a handful of vehicles passed us going the other way.
We arrived at Prespa Lakes on the only road into the area and drove passed Mikro Prespa, crossing the narrow strip of land between the two lakes. At this point we had to stop briefly to allow a tortoise to cross the road. It is an area renowned for its wildlife and this was our first encounter. All the way on today’s journey, we had passed signs that told us to be aware of the bears but, unfortunately, we didn’t see any. There are no campsites in Prespa but park4night showed a number of options. We decided to head for Psarades on the shores of the larger lake and very close to the Albanian border. The park4night spot is an earth car park just on the edge of the village but there were piles of stone and aggregate and a JCB digger parked, so we were a little dubious about using it in case we got in the way in the morning. Just a few metres on was the promenade and a road behind. A sign told us that we couldn’t take vehicles passed the sign at weekends and holidays but this was early season, not a weekend and other cars were parked. We parked discreetly away from buildings and set off to investigate. Immediately we saw a group of pelicans, for which the Prespa lakes are famous. They were in a tight huddle and obviously feeding and they stayed like that for well over two hours. We read later that they herd the fish into the shallows and then feed on them – interesting group behaviour. They can also cooperate with cormorants and we saw lots of them nearby and flying over the lake. Down at the lakeside and in amongst the reeds were lots of frogs and their croaks were load and very musical.
We decided that we wanted to eat in the village and there were lots of restaurants and cafés along the promenade. Most were closed but we chose one where all of the tables were laid with tablecloths only to be told that they were closed! We eventually found one restaurant that was open as it was also a hotel and had to provide food for the guests. I had a fish from the lake and it was delicious.
We fell asleep to the distant croaks of the frogs.
Photos: The Agios Athanasios tomb; Detail of the painted doorway; The pelicans feeding on Prespa Lake; A traditional fishing boat used on the lake.

Monday 20th May 2024 – Thessalonika, Greece

 

We usually try to avoid the motorways but we wanted to get round Kavala and the motorways here are very quiet. We stayed on the motorway until we approached Lake Volvi where we took the old National Road south of the lake. This part of the journey was memorable not just for the views but also for the snakes – we saw at least seven dead snakes on the road, some very recently squashed. We then came off the National Road, heading SW , through Panorama to the southern outskirts of Thessaloniki. The Zambetas motorhome dealership was on the main road, close to the airport. I took the converter lead in and explained the problem. They did not have any 2-pin converter leads but did have the necessary plug and socket, so I knew that I could make one up if needed. They said that they could make one up for me and took the faulty lead with them. They came back and showed me the inside of the CEE socket – one pin had completely burned away but, intriguingly, there had been no smell of burning when I checked the lead earlier. They had made a new cable for me using the original 2-pin plug and cable, simply fitting a new CEE socket and only charged me for the new socket – very impressive! Jane found some toilet fluid and I couldn’t resist a USB rechargeable plasma gas lighter, so we felt slightly less guilty about how little they had charged us.
We checked with them about staying the night and they gave us a printed sheet showing us where to find the toilet, shower (!!) and black water (toilet cassette) disposal. He also explained about the pedestrian entrance that we could use after the site had been locked up for the night and gave us the details of the free WiFi. And all of that for no charge!
We went back to the van, plugged into the 2-pin electric point with our new cable and set about cooking a meal using the new plasma gas lighter that was very efficient. We were entertained by a small flying boat that was doing ‘circuits and bumps’ (practicing take-offs and landings) from the airport and there were a couple of prop planes but no jet activity.
Photos: The church of Agia Marina external and internal. The church is built on the site of a temple to Artemis in Ancient Arethousa and is on the National Road just south of the eastern end of Lake Volvi. We stopped here for lunch with a distant view of the lake.