First experiences of the Peloponnese

It was a great relief to be striking camp at Delphi on a dry morning, with only earwigs and ants to worry about and not dripping nylon. We are not early risers on "leaving day" but nonetheless, Mich and his wife were not seen again, staying in their motorhome until after we left at about 9:30. I don't think we should read anything into this!

We were heading for the northern side of the "thumb" of the Peloponnese, which is directly opposite Athens. The route took us over the Corinth Canal and onto the "island" itself. Our ultimate target is Stoupa which is on the Mani peninsular, the middle of three small fingers in the south. First it was to Epidavros, the site of further ancient remains and an excellent beachside campsite.

There were great views alongside the coast on the northern side of the Gulf of Corinth, but eventually we were inland and heading towards Athens. We thought again about visiting the city but yet again decided that it's probably better to do this on a short break direct from the UK.

All eyes were peeled for the slash of the canal and as we had turned right onto the motorway, we were expecting to see signs for a canal viewpoint, but it was not to be. We did try to find one and got lost in a motorway rest area so all we saw of the canal was the scar of the rockface.

On arrival at Camping Bekas we were directed to a vacant slot between two motorhomes, at the very front of the site, as close to the water as you can be without getting wet. The tent door is 3m from the low wall and the shingle beach is another 3m wide. Of course with no tide to speak of, the water is always there, small waves lapping the beach and making for a soothing night's sleep.

The campsite is in an old orange grove; it's a mature site so the pitches are perfectly placed under very suitably shady trees.

We are now in mini-Germany. There are about a dozen German retirees around us and one couple who are here for three weeks and then returning in the summer. Most camper vans have been driven through Italy to Ancona and from there they take the ferry to Patras. When they hear that we drove through Serbia and Macedonia there are a few "oohs and aghs" - well the German equivalents anyway.

How do I describe what it's like to camp right at the beach now that the weather is perfect? As I look out from the chair I can see along the bay to the small town of Ancient Epidavros less than a mile away, with a short peninsular.  In the other direction, a huge lump of land circles round to almost enclose the bay. It's too far away to see detail, but there are lights on there at night, and a large mountain of course - everything is mountains.

Instead of an unbroken horizon joining these two features, there are various islands, some near and some further away. Again, these are mountainous. In fact as I look in a particular direction, I can see four distant landmasses, one behind the other. The one at the back is many many miles away yet the mountains are still higher than those in front. There is only one very short piece of sea to sky horizon.

At night the lights of Athens somewhere over there, create a glow in the sky. It can't be too far away as it's about 80 miles by road I believe.

Just inland from here is the sanctuary of Asklepios (the god of medicine and healing), "the most brilliant centre of healing in the ancient world". It's a huge site and includes an amphitheatre, this one built in the 4th century B.C. yet it is almost perfectly preserved.

Seating 14,000, it was constructed with extraordinary mathematical precision and has near perfect natural acoustics and it's true that you can hear people talking quite plainly, as they stand in the centre of the circle and you are up in the top tier. However (rant warning), just as the Dutch group demonstrated at the campsite in Delphi, the noise of coach parties all talking at once, destroys the ethereal atmosphere and prevents a test of the acoustics.

Whilst I'm at it , what's so special about these Coach Travellers that they must return to a beautifully air conditioned coach. The drivers sit there with the engines running for hours.

Anyway, we waited long enough for a coach of noisy Chinese to disappear and were left watching an American tourist using a camera on a selfie stick, not only for shots of himself but of the view too. I'm sure his head would be in the way of them all.

Meet Mike the Greek:

Mike is our fruit supplier and he works with his wife, from an old VW van on the road to the AB supermarket. What a great location and I don't suppose he paid any branding company for the idea. I was a little disappointed to learn that Mike is Mike and not Stavros or Dimitri, however he's all Greek. He speaks a little English because he worked for NATO for several years. I didn't dare ask if this was with a peacekeeping force on the front line or if it was supplying fruit and veg to the kitchens. It just didn't seem appropriate. In any case, someone famous once said that an army marches on their stomach, didn't they?

But hey, this guy knows how to up-sell. We only called for a couple of oranges, but we came away loaded with a couple of kilos, plus mandarines to die for and tomatoes and courgettes and aubergines and cucumbers. All for less than €8. He was happy and so were we, a win-win transaction as they say.

My new best friend is John. He has a proper Greek name, but I can't spell it. I think it's Yanniss or something like that. I had noticed that the Landy was beginning to rattle, a result of fewer motorway and more local road kilometres. There appear to be two problems. One with the security of the spare wheel that is mounted on a very cool thing called a Mantec swing away carrier. The second is a rattle from the front brakes which occurs all the time when they are not being used (no foot on the pedal).

I decided to do something about it so asked Costa at the camp office if he would write-down a few word translations in Greek for me to take to the garage in the village. However, he told me that the guy in the village wasn't reliable and that it would be better to go to the bigger town about 20mins away. Not only that, he rang the garage and although he told me that he didn't understand a word of what I had said, he did explain something to the garage and then put the phone down, saying that he'd spoken to their number 2 and we should go straight there.

So we did and on arrival, the number 1 took one look at the Landy from a distance, picked up the phone, said a load of stuff that was all Greek to me, handed the phone me and there was the nice man Costa on the other end who said that this specialist wasn't interested in helping me. According to Costa it would be the last referral he would be getting from Camping Bekas.

Fortunately on driving through the little town I had noticed a builders' merchants cum hardware store - not B&Q but very promising. So I stopped, woke-up the old guy in the office, drew a big washer on a piece of paper, pointed to a smaller washer that was in a rack and he promptly gave me one that was perfect. I removed the spare wheel and then fitted three of these big washers which have secured it against all the potholes that can be thrown at it.

Now I'm going into detail because the best bit is that as I was doing this, the old man's son, John, was driving past the shop and saw me lifting my spare wheel back onto the carrier and stopped to see what was happening.

When I said that I needed to make some shims out of thin aluminium, he told me to follow him and he jumped onto his Honda 90, leading us down the road to his metal working facility, lying silent on account of "the crisis". There I was given a pair of tin snips, some off-cuts of aluminium that were next to a big guillotine and left to do what ever I wanted to do.

So I stripped the front brakes and made some shims to fit between the caliper pistons and the pads. I don't know how else to fix the problem (pads rattling due to pistons being retracted too far). A www search has thrown up so many erroneous reasons and solutions that I have fixed the problem without solving it.

As a footnote to the tale, the old guy sold me a pair of tin snips, John wouldn't take any payment at all and we got to see his pride and joy, a couple of very smart Scania trucks. What a guy!