Tuesday, October 6th, 2015
After being parked at a campsite in Athens for 4 nights (one of which we were in Mykonos) it was good to move on. This next particular campsite was very noisy, and to use the needle-like spray on the public shower was positively torture! I have been hit with a pressure-washer and the feeling was similar. I did love the rest of the facilities and the proximity to our campsite, but the bad outweighed the good this time. To date, this is the only campground I disliked but I am confident that European Motorhome Tours chose the best in the area.
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| The views as we drove through the mountains were incredible! At one rest stop area we basked in the sun and looked down at what looked like a fish farm. |
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| Epidaurus, Greece |
Leaving at 9am,we all headed toward Drepano, stopping along the way to tour the Ancient Theater in Epidaurus, another beautiful city in the Peloponnese region in Southern Greece.
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| Internet photo of recent concert at the Ancient Theater in Epidaurus. As you can see, this theater is still used today! |
Wikipedia states: “The theater was designed by Polykleios the Younger in the 4th century BC. The original 34 rows were extended in Roman times by another 21 rows. As is usual for Greek theatres (and as opposed to Roman ones), the view on a lush landscape behind the skene is an integral part of the theatre itself and is not to be obscured. It seats up to 14,000 people.
The theatre is admired for its exceptional acoustics which permit almost perfect intelligibility of unamplified spoken words from the proscenium, or skene (background building that stage is connected, and stores costumes ) to all 14,000 spectators, regardless of their seating. Famously, tour guides have their groups scattered in the stands and show them how they can easily hear the sound of a match struck at center-stage. A 2007 study by Nico F Declecq and Cindy Ekeyser of the Georgia Institute of Technology indicates that the astonishing acoustic properties may be due to the rows of limestone seats filter out low-frequency sounds, such as the murmur of the crowd, and amplify high-frequency sounds from the stage.
We were much luckier – there was a young woman visitor with a lovely voice who stood in the middle of “center stage” and sang excerpts from various operas! What made it even more special was the fact that people are normally no longer allowed to do that. Obviously the guards were feeling very gracious that day (and perhaps seeing all the visitors enraptured by her voice and how we were encouraging her to sing more, helped).
After we learned more about the construction, history and fables connected with this ancient marvel from the guide, some of us climbed all the stairs to take pictures and enjoy the incredible day.
We then headed back down the road to our campground to place us close to tomorrow’s venue –Nauplia – for a total of 98 miles driven today.
As we drove closer to the campground we noticed that olive groves suddenly changed to citrus, wild cats became packs of dogs.
We carefully drove down the small streets that finally wound its way to our seaside camping resort. Wow! A large, sandy beach with waves crashing on shore beckoned us as we all quickly parked. Norm and my laundry pile had gotten pretty large so I took advantage of the machine ( 1 ) here, and not wanting to chance the dryer shrinking our clothes ( let’s face it, we are not getting any smaller with all this wonderful food )hung them on the clothes line Norm fashioned between the trees.
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| The surf was rougher than this looks. |
This campground was an animal paradise! Both cats AND dogs here, along with their extraordinary amount of poop! The dogs were really cute, and I was wishing I could take one home.
The sun was getting low and the wind was whipping the surf, so I did not have a burning desire to jump in the ocean, but Norm joined the brave few to feel the Mediterranean Sea. He said it was quite nice once you got in. Yeah, but you have to get out!
After Happy Hour the group was surprised with a barbeque that the tour directors cooked that was incredibly delicious. After we stuffed ourselves we sat and talked well after dark.
