Tuesday, 04 August
On our drive through Greece so far we've clocked up $135 of road tolls. I don't mind helping out the economy and I appreciate the good roads, I just didn't anticipate the cost which is coming out of the daily budget. We're not really wanting for anything but it's worth the whinge.
:)
As I've mentioned, the heat has been punishing over the last week. This afternoon the storm has finally come and has cooled things wonderfully.
Yesterday afternoon, Dee noticed that Springy's exhaust was hanging a bit low and when I took look underneath, she had only 1 rubber hanger holding the exhaust pipe. I knew she had lost one recently but now 3 were gone. This morning I went on the search for replacements. I even Googled the question I had and translated it into Greek.
First up, I realised after taking to an actual Greek that the translated Greek work for 'muffler' is 'silencer' and if I used the word 'exhaust pipe' things would have been a bit easier for me.It felt like I was on some sort of 'Davinci Code' search with mechanics and spare parts businesses. After being bounced from one place to another, I was finally sent to a exhaust mechanic and had the job done in minutes. That whole experience took 4 hours of my morning away.
The flow effect of this was we didn't leave Athens until almost lunch and into Sparta until late afternoon. We were in no mood to visit anything by then and just relaxed at the camping ground which was blessedly easy to find.
Driving into the Peloponnese was great. Massive mountain ranges with roads negotiating between them. I don't believe the basic path we took today (and the last few days) has changed much over the last 3,000 years. It's things like that I enjoy.
On our drive south to Athens we passed the town of Thermoplylae, famous for 300 Spartans (plus another 6,500 troops but we won't worry about them). I don't know what problem the Persians had, we got through fine.
:P
Due to my geographic ignorance, I didn't realise I was coming close to the site until I saw the turn off and then it was too late. We had the same with Delphi. After a quick Google Maps search, I realised that the distance from Sparta to Thermoplylae was 400km, at least 2 weeks (probably 3) of marching to get there. Just the planning required to enact this on the potentially aged information is amazing.
Tomorrow, we'll visit the ancient city of Mystras, just down the road from Sparta and start our trip north along the west coast to Patra. The weather for the rest of the week is still low 30's but more rain and clouds forecast, something we're looking forward to.
On our drive through Greece so far we've clocked up $135 of road tolls. I don't mind helping out the economy and I appreciate the good roads, I just didn't anticipate the cost which is coming out of the daily budget. We're not really wanting for anything but it's worth the whinge.
:)
As I've mentioned, the heat has been punishing over the last week. This afternoon the storm has finally come and has cooled things wonderfully.
Yesterday afternoon, Dee noticed that Springy's exhaust was hanging a bit low and when I took look underneath, she had only 1 rubber hanger holding the exhaust pipe. I knew she had lost one recently but now 3 were gone. This morning I went on the search for replacements. I even Googled the question I had and translated it into Greek.
First up, I realised after taking to an actual Greek that the translated Greek work for 'muffler' is 'silencer' and if I used the word 'exhaust pipe' things would have been a bit easier for me.It felt like I was on some sort of 'Davinci Code' search with mechanics and spare parts businesses. After being bounced from one place to another, I was finally sent to a exhaust mechanic and had the job done in minutes. That whole experience took 4 hours of my morning away.
The flow effect of this was we didn't leave Athens until almost lunch and into Sparta until late afternoon. We were in no mood to visit anything by then and just relaxed at the camping ground which was blessedly easy to find.
Driving into the Peloponnese was great. Massive mountain ranges with roads negotiating between them. I don't believe the basic path we took today (and the last few days) has changed much over the last 3,000 years. It's things like that I enjoy.
On our drive south to Athens we passed the town of Thermoplylae, famous for 300 Spartans (plus another 6,500 troops but we won't worry about them). I don't know what problem the Persians had, we got through fine.
:P
Due to my geographic ignorance, I didn't realise I was coming close to the site until I saw the turn off and then it was too late. We had the same with Delphi. After a quick Google Maps search, I realised that the distance from Sparta to Thermoplylae was 400km, at least 2 weeks (probably 3) of marching to get there. Just the planning required to enact this on the potentially aged information is amazing.
Tomorrow, we'll visit the ancient city of Mystras, just down the road from Sparta and start our trip north along the west coast to Patra. The weather for the rest of the week is still low 30's but more rain and clouds forecast, something we're looking forward to.
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