Zeus and Boreas are angry!

Here I go again on my own... Well, not quite on my own! 
With me, as always, are my human, Carmelo and, of course, you guys! 
This will be our 5th summer season on the road together! Can you believe it? Initially this whole adventure was thought to take around five years. Now, here we are in the „final year“ and there is really no end in sight! We still have plenty of countries to explore, lots of places to visit and many adventures to experience. 
We are happy to take you with us again, constant reader (this is what Stephen King calls his, well, constant readers). 

This year we will travel through Greece and Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania (time permitting). 

Getting to Greece was a long drive through Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania. 
Since we have visited all these countries before, we didn`t really stop anywhere for sightseeing. Instead, we sailed through as efficiently as possible. Which meant taking a few toll roads, paying the price for almost empty highways. 

First border crossing into Austria

Driving through Slovenia

Moving on to Croatia

500km easy driving on this almost empty highway

We spent the first night on the road in Croatia


Similar picture in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Chumming up to the big boys for our second night, Albania

We were lucky on all the border crossings. The longest we spent getting through was from Albania to Greece. The Albanian border officer took his job very seriously, checking out my every cupboard, going as far as peeking into the toilet. On the Greek side, they just took their sweet time. Still, all was done in about 30 minutes and finally, we were in Helliniki Dimokratia. 

After two-and-a-morning-days of driving, a lot of that in the rain, close to 1700km, 7 border crossings, almost 300€ spent on motor way vignettes, toll and fuel (half a tank left), we arrived to rather autumn-ly weather and temperatures at our first stop, Klidonia. 

Receipts from our 1700km journey

By the time we arrived, it had finally stopped raining, and my human, was ecstatic to be able to go for a nice 10km walk along the river Viodomatis. 

18th Century








We spent the night on private land, which the owner has opened for campers. It´s all there, toilet, shower, even free of charge washing machines. No payment required, you just leave a tip in a letter box. 


It poured throughout the next day and, besides a quick run during a light rain-phase, my human and I spent the day chilling, reading, napping, writing. No point checking out the highlight of this area, and the reason to come here, in this kind of weather. We saved that for the next day.

The Vikos Gorge in the Vikos & Aoös National Park is 32km long, between 120m and 1350m deep and from 2500m to only a few meters wide. Vikos is listed as the world´s deepest relative to its width gorge. And you have probably never heard of it.

Starting from Vikos, it`s a 12,5km walk to Mododendri (and 12,5km back, of course)



Rather variable weather

The weather this morning wasn`t great, but somewhat better than the day before, with temperatures around 10 degrees.
Still, this would have been a lot more fun if there would have been a bit of sunshine, rather than the near constant drizzle.
But, always the optimist, at least it kept most other people indoors and my human met exactly four other hikers on the whole trail.
Is this the most impressive gorge we have ever seen, as the World Record would suggest? Well, how about you go and judge for yourself?

Mododendri

A brief glimpse of blue sky


Judging by the amount of moss, it rains a lot here




We spent a very rainy night in Mikro Papingo, which means Little Papingo, right next to (big) Papingo and my human went off for another hike in the morning.
Unsurprisingly, she was accompanied by a ceaseless rain, which turned first into sleet and then into proper snow as she passed the 1600m mark.

Papingo

The mountain in the background appeared like a ghost out of the clouds


Her goal was a small hut just below 2000 meters. 
The snow on the ground grew deeper and deeper, the snow coming down heavier and heavier. Already in sight of the hut, my human decided to turn around, succumbing to the strong wind coming down the valley and slightly worried about the near constant sound of avalanches going down in the mid-distance. 

Knee-deep snow

Finding beauty everywhere

Before heading off to Ioannina, the capital of the Epirus region, the next day, we spent another night at our previous place in the private garden, enjoying a hot shower and taking the opportunity to wash some rather muddy clothes.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tirana, Kruja and a big surprise

Image
When you leave Saranda, you are immediately in the outskirts of Tirana, the capital of Albania. About a third of the countryˋs population lives in the wider city area, roughly one million people. And they all seem to be on the road, beeping their horns. Itˋs pretty fascinating how all the Balkan people are really friendly in personal contact, yet are some of the most reckless drivers you will ever encounter. Anticipatory driving doesnˋt seem to be taught in driving school. Both of us were very glad indeed when I was settled and my human could go on by foot to explore the city, which has been inhabited since prehistoric times. During the obligatory walking tour, she learned a lot about the history of the country and also about some of the more interesting architecture in the city. Art, I guess He just woulndˋt go away From this house the citizens were spied on during communism An original piece of the Berlin Wall, gifted to Tirana after the fall of communism in the country One of many b...
Read more

From Sarajevo to Mostar

Image
Welcome to the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Sarajevo, the only metropolis in the country and with close to 300.000 inhabitants, home to almost 10% of the population. The name of the city means "Fort for Caravans", since, in the Ottoman times, it was a very important meeting point for trading caravans from all sorts of places. We found a great camp a fair bit uphill from the city, on one of the four Olympic hills surrounding Sarajevo. This one is called Trebevic and had a bob sleigh track built on its top for the Olymipc Winter Games in 1984. More on that later. The owner of the camp, Samra, together with her father gave us a very warm welcome, as did the sun. The weather has come back around, and we enjoyed the view over the city with a beer in hand, sitting in the sun for the rest of the afternoon. In the morning, my human was picked up for a 4-hour Sarajevo Siege Tour.  The tour guide Adnan has fought in the war and the siege and was wounded three times. Who better ...
Read more

Cloudy mood, moody clouds

Image
After a quiet, and still rather frosty, night, we moved on to the Bijambare Protected Landscape. The area is known for its sinkholes and caves, of which the latter there are eight. The main is Srednja bijambarska pecina, with a length of 400 meters. This is the only cave open to tourist, and you get a little 25min tour with a guide. Of the roughly 1400 species of bats worldwide, almost 2%, that is to say 24 species live in the caves of Bijambare. Now, these caves are nothing like Postojna Cave in Slovenia, which you have visited with me last year, but for this area they are very significant nonetheless. Since it was still early afternoon, we decided to do a little more driving towards Srebrenica. It seems like Google Maps is rather confused in BIH in general and in this Eastern area of the country in particular. We were sent over some very despicable "roads", a couple of doubtful bridges and generally through terrain not suitable for me or any other car, really, but a quad or...
Read more