Ancient Epidavrous, Greece, Tuesday March 25th

What a strange sound! In my half doze I thought that Christos, our couchsurfing host, was having the longest shower in history; but it was raining. Just like in Camelot, it stopped by 7 or 8 am. The church bells were going crazy because it was Greek Independence Day and also the religious festival that celebrates Virgin Mary announcing to everyone that she was pregnant. I have often wondered how she handled that moment and what the initial reactions were.

We chatted with Christos over breakfast and studied the booklet he has about the area around his village of Ancient Epidavros.

Christos left for work and we set off to catch the bus to the large ancient theatre of Epidavrous, 16 kilometres away. We passed an excited group of primary age students in national costume with one, the one who got the highest marks last year Christos told us, carrying the flag proudly.

The crowd was dispersing, so it was a pity we hadn’t been out earlier to catch the celebrations. Shops were shut but the bus was running so we jumped on.

At the site of the ancient theatre there is a curved walk up to the gate. Quite a few visitors were walking our way and quite a few, the early birds (we thought), were returning to their cars. Unfortunately for us, the site was closed because of the public holiday. We had no idea when or if a bus would appear. We decided to enjoy the walk back and see what we came upon.

The roadsides were blooming profusely, so we added to our photographic record of wild flowers. After about one kilometre we came to a road leading to Ligourio, a village that looked to be only about 2 km away. We thought that it could possibly be an interesting diversion so we turned that way.

Ligourio had two beautiful ancient churches and supposedly another, but we didn’t find it. The first one, the church of Ayios Ionnis Eleimon, was made out of materials from ancient monuments, along with rougher stones. While we were there we met some French travellers (more language practice for us), who told us very enthusiastically about the places that they had visited. An elderly lady, who spoke very good English, after trying very good French on us experimentally, told us where to find an ancient church where the frescoes were in very good condition and covered nearly every surface. It is called the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin. We didn’t know the word, so checked with Christos later. He explained that when someone dies, Greek people refer to them as having gone to sleep. It was the church commemorating the death of Mary.Outside there was a large paved courtyard with a World War II memorial in the corner. A wreath of oleander leaves leant at its base and some lemons had been left on one of its ledges.

We had meandered to this point, but now we knew we had to put in some serious walking. Back at the main road, we paced up the only incline on the whole walk. There is something very peaceful about walking along in the country, taking the time to look around and just chatting to each other when thoughts occur.

There was a gorge beside the road, which Keith thought may lead us back, but we couldn’t be sure and there was no way down the very steep precipices. It was a pity that some people had taken the opportunity to dump rubbish over the side, spoiling a spectacular area. We were powering along, achieving 12 minute kilometres and only giving the tail wind and the downhill incline a little of the credit.We left the road to explore a complex of ruins – were there signs of antiquity? – signs of a religious nature? It was a long building running down a slope, comprising many rooms in poor repair. At the top of the hill we took photos of the two signs which surely told us more about it. Unfortunately, and strangely, given that the Greeks mostly have bilingual signs, it was only written in Greek.

We made it in good form to the turn off to Ancient Epidavrous, where the sign said we only had two kilometres to go. Somehow the psychological impact of reading after some time that we had three kms to go, and, after more time, still three kms to go, enabled me to feel my legs and their complaints. After a very slow three kms we arrived home to find Christos already there.

We had an interesting and enjoyable evening. We cooked, we all chatted and learnt more about each other, we all searched for solutions to our island hopping ferry schedule problems, and Christos searched for possible couch surfing hosts for us. He also answered our day’s worth of questions and was most amused with our signs for the ruins. They both said that ‘people should take care of the environment’. He looked at the photos of ‘our’ ruins and said probably farm buildings from the 19^th century. Talk about disappointing!

Joel, our son, contacted us by Skype, the computer program where you can talk to each other and look as well if you have webcam. He was in New York for a conference and was staying on for a week with friends to look around.

Christos suggested an excursion to Nafplio on the bus leaving at 7.10 a.m. next day, so we prepared for an early get away.

Christos was a charming and extremely caring host whose company we thoroughly enjoyed. He has many interests and we enjoyed learning about his job overseeing the processing of fish for the nearby aquaculture industry. We will keep in touch and hope he makes it to Australia, or we make it back to Ancient Epidavrous. When we left, we were saying goodbye to a friend.

These orange trees in Ancient Epidavros had their trunks painted blue.

This is typical of roadside shrines to commemorate someone who died in an accident at this site. When a bus passes these shrines it is common to see people cross themselves.