Raining Cats and Dogs in Greece

After crossing the border into Greece (our seventh country of this trip) we headed a short distance to Lake Kerkini National Park. The lake was created in a marshland area and is known as one of the best bird-watching areas in Greece. The light was fading as we pulled up in our Park4Night spot - a car parking area just set back form the lake. There were a couple of other campervans parked up. In summer you are able to do bird-watching and fishing boat trips from here. The evening air felt the warmest we'd felt in a long time and we enjoyed a peaceful night, other then the eerie sound of jackals howling in the distance.

It rained overnight and more rain was forecast for this day, so before we set off we had another stroll down to the lake where we could see storks, herons, egrets and pelicans. We also saw flamingos further round the lake. There was a very sorry looking stray dog living in the car park. Apparently he had been abandoned there the previous year and now just exists here with handouts from visitors and the park rangers were putting food out for it - just heart breaking to see the state of him.

Our route to Thessaloniki took us around the lake where we saw dogs in a similar state in many of the car parks. Having spoken to other people on this, it would appear the Greeks are known for taking dogs on their holidays that maybe have outgrown their apartment and then abandon them in a lay-by and drive off. There seemed to be stray dogs living in most of the lay-bys and parking areas everywhere we passed. We added dog biscuits onto our shopping list.

Thessaloniki is Greece's second city and the traffic and parking situation there is crazy. Luckily we found the large car park next the concert hall in the Kalamaria suburb where other overlanders were parked up and it was about an hours walk along the waterfront to central Thessaloniki. The rain didn't let up, so in the end we had to get our waterproof gear on and faced a wet and breezy walk along the waterfront just to get some fresh air. We booked onto a walking tour of the old town the following morning, and had dinner in a local Greek restaurant where we discovered the nice Greek custom of providing you with a free dessert whether you order it or not - well it would be rude not to accept.

We'd set our alarm to be up in good time to get into central Thessaloniki for the start of the tour. It was teeming down with rain, so we weren't entirely disappointed when we noticed we'd had a message from the tour company saying the 9.30 tour was not running. We still headed into the city on e-scooters - the waterfront promenade is a lovely wide open space with a lane in the centre for cyclists and e-scooters. We could barely feel our hands from the cold wind though. After a much needed hot coffee we had a stroll around the main monuments and attractions in the city. There are some interesting market areas, churches, and Roman archaeological structures to be seen. Unfortunately we were here on the day most of the museums are closed.

We ended up at the most iconic building in Thessalonki - the White Tower. It was built in the 15th century, and as well as being a fortress it has served as a prison and place of execution. Although the tower doesn't look very white today, it got it's name when a convict whitewashed it in 1890 in return for his freedom. We visited the museum inside and took in the panoramic views from the roof.

We treated ourselves at a seafood restaurant on the waterfront for a late lunch

Then we e-scootered it back to Lolly and enjoyed the sunset from the car park.

It was a bright sunny morning the following day and the wind had dropped, so we jumped on our Bromptons to cycle along the waterfront around to the Port area where we enjoyed an al fresco breakfast.

Thessaloniki had been a grower on us - it would be a great place to come in warmer months.

We hit the road again in the direction of three peninsulas sitting south east of Thessaloniki.

We had a brief coffee stop in an attractive town on the coast towards the first peninsular called Nea Moudania. We made our way down the Kassandra peninsular which had many small beach resort towns that were all closed down for winter. Some of them looked like they'd need an awful lot of work to get them into shape for the next summer season.

We found a nice park up spot on a beach. There was a German van parked up and we chatted with them for a while. They reminded us that Greece banned all wild camping last year which makes it very tricky to find spots which are technically OK to stay overnight. Last year the police were handing out €300 fines on the spot. We can understand in high season motorhomes can be a nuisance taking up too much space in already crowded car parks and beaches, but there are no campsites open out of season (October - April) and Greece appears to have no aires like we found in France and Spain. The Germans said they had relaxed the definition of camping to mean you are OK to spend the night in your vehicle but you must not have any camping gear set up outside (e.g. chairs, tables,awnings and cooking equipment). They also told us to try to park up in designated parking areas rather than tucked away in out of the way spots.

After having a walk into the local village in the morning we drove across the peninsular to visit a picturesque traditional Greek town called Afytos perched on a ledge over the sea. It would be a wonderful place to visit in season, with traditional buildings, windy streets and countless seafood restaurants looking out to sea. On a cold January day we were lucky to find a bar serving coffee open. It was filled with the usual groups of retired men having a good chinwag. We got talking to a local who told us he was an economist and went on to tell us his displeasure of a certain President of the USA, then went on to conspiracy theories about Lady Diana and the Onassis family - very entertaining.

We continued our drive around the peninsular and ended up at a fishing harbour in a small town called Nea Skioni. We spotted a small seafood restaurant was open, so decided to have a late lunch - tasty but as always we over-ordered. We debated whether to park up on the harbour for the night, which was allowed as far as we could see, but instead opted for a more out of the way location on the other side of the peninsular where we planned to cycle from the next morning.

We had to bounce down a very rough wet muddy track to reach the spot by the sea, but it was beautiful (if you ignored the litter) and our only company was lots of cats - looking at them one Tom cat had been very busy in this area. While we see lots of stray dogs looking sad, the cats seem to thrive in Greece.

The forecast did as promised the following day and we finally got warm sunshine (up to 15 degrees) and light wind at last. We decided we shouldn't try to cycle from where we were parked as we didn't want to be covered in mud before we set off, so drove back to the main road. A dog came over to say hello, so we promised him dog biscuits if he did a good job at guarding Lolly. It felt wonderful to be back on the bikes - we'd not been on them since mid-December. The first half of the ride took us on a steady climb across the peninsular, and we had nice views over the deep blue sea. We passed through Nea Skioni again, and the only coffee place open was a rough and ready eatery with its quota of grumpy looking retired men gossiping and smoking.

We needed a coffee for the next leg - having driven over this road the day before we knew we were in for a tough climb. I ploughed ahead with my e-assist, but soon ran out of steam and had a long push until I could find a flat enough spot to get back on. Colin dug in and slogged his way up (of course). The reward was about 3 miles free wheeling down the hill on the other side. The final few miles took us along some beach resort roads which was very pleasant.

We're pleased to say our security dog did his job and got his promised payment of dog biscuits.

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We drove back to the beach we'd parked up two nights previously to make the most of the early evening sunshine. Colin even managed a spot of yoga for the first time since leaving Serbia.

The next morning we made tracks for the second peninsular. After a quick supplies shop at Lidl (with feline trolley attendants) we took a diversion out into the countryside to visit a monastery we'd read about - the Iero Koinovio Evangelismos Theotokou. It is the largest women's monastery in Greece and was recommended as a place to visit to see the traditional architecture and how the nuns live. The monastery is in a beautiful setting, but we were a bit unsure what we could see as visitors. There was a shop selling olive oil and religious art that the nuns produced. We tried slipping in with a group who were visiting the inner buildings of the complex but were turned away and directed to a room where we were offered a drink and Turkish delight by a very smiley nun. Then a large coach load of Greeks arrived and sat down with us and they were handing over what looked like cakes to the nuns. I think if we'd been on our own we'd have been able to engage with the nuns in English, but with the large Greek group present we decided to slip back outside.

We made our way down the second peninsular and had a brief stop and walk around a resort town, Neos Marmaris, set in a nice bay.

We continued on to a Park4Night spot on a remote beach in a stunning setting which we had to ourselves. The road down to it was pretty rough, but worth it.

It rained heavily through the night and was still raining hard when we woke. We decided to continue east towards the Turkish border in search of better weather. It was a horrible day to drive - the roads were under water, it was windy and cool and we couldn't see much of the views along the coast.

We spotted there was a Park4Night spot not far off the main road which read as a nice place to overnight. It was a bar run by a lovely couple and walking in here late afternoon was like a little piece of heaven - warm, cosy and we were offered food and drink. We had a coffee and some tasty mezze plates. The place had very quirky decoration with old phones, sewing machines, gadgets and even an old bike which Colin appreciated. The female owner is an economics teacher during the day and her other hobby is knitting and she gave me a knitted butterfly for Lolly. We went back into the bar for a drink in the evening. When we left in the morning we stopped to see what a large lion monument was at the side of the road. It turned out to be a 4th Century funerary monument set up to honour an admiral from Lesbos who was a devoted companion of Alexander the Great.

We called in at the next sizeable town of Kavala. It's in a stunning setting with the buildings sitting on steep slopes around the horseshoe shaped bay. There is an attractive old town with a fortress and aqueduct, and lots of busy shopping streets. It had a nice feel to it, but our main focus was sadly getting some washing done in a launderette. We also managed to have a zoom call with our Financial Advisor in the car park there. There was nowhere we could park for the night here so we moved a bit further along the coast towards Turkey.

Our original plan from here was to catch a ferry across to the nearby island of Thasos to cycle around it over two days, leaving lolly parked up on the mainland, but the forecast looked wet and cold and we could see snow on the hill tops so it now didn't seem like such a good idea.

We ended up at a place called Fanari where we could park next to the harbour. It was a bit of a strange place, but must be popular in the summer judging by the number of restaurants and accommodation places there. We made a bad decision to eat in the only open seafood restaurant there - it wasn't a great meal and we had to wake the waiter up to settle the bill.

Our final stop the following day before reaching Turkey was the town of Alexandroupoli. There were a lot of Turkish tourists here buying products that they can get cheaper in Greece. Colin joined them having to buy a new razor and hair clippers after leaving his charging cables in the UK.

Next stop Turkey with our fingers crossed for better weather......