Down Another Rabbit Hole – All in the name of Greece!
I’ve thrown myself into a frenzy of projects since reaching retirement age. The latest? Building an Android app for independent travellers to Greece. Plan Your Greece is now on Google Play.
Car Hire in Greece – Not the Only Solution. Not Always the Best One Either.
Ask anyone how to get from A to B in Greece and the answer is almost always the same: hire a car. But after thirty years of travelling Greece by bus, ferry, and Shanks’s Pony, I’d argue it’s not always the only option — or even the best one. And I say this as someone who once wheel-spun a Suzuki Celerio into a rut on Lipsi while a man on a digger watched and smoked his cigarette.
The Mysteries: What Happens in Eleusis, Stays in Eleusis
Eleusis sits about 21 kilometres west of Athens, close enough for a day trip and easy enough to overlook. Most people do. But for nearly two thousand years, this was the most sacred site in the ancient Greek world — home to a set of secret religious rites that promised initiates something no other cult dared offer: a better outcome after death. Nobody who took part ever revealed what happened inside. This post is an attempt to piece together what we think we know, and what it felt like to stand there.
From Nafplio to Athens: Familiar Ground and a Few New Corners
Athens needs no persuasion. After six nights in Nafplio, I was ready for it — the noise, the layers, the familiar streets and a few places I had been meaning to get back to for years. This post covers the final stretch of a two-month trip, from leaving Nafplio to a few days in Athens that reminded me exactly why I keep coming back.
Laskarideio Folklore Museum, Nea Kios: A Story Stitched Across the Aegean
Nea Kios is an eight-kilometre taxi ride from Nafplio sitting at the tip of the Argolic Gulf. But with any place beginning with Nea, there is always a back story. This one leads to a small museum that few people know exists, a square full of quiet symbolism, and a story about what happens when an entire community is forced to start again somewhere new.
Nafplio by Bus, on Foot and on a Railway That No Longer Runs
There is something reassuring about a KTEL Argolida timetable. Clear, very specific, and somehow always full of confidence. The bus from Kranidi would connect at Epidaurus, deliver me to Nafplio by 13.26, and say nothing whatsoever about the forty-two gold steps waiting at the other end. This is Nafplio approached slowly, by bus, on foot, and along a railway line that no longer runs.
Preveza to Tzoumerka: Mountain Villages, Wax Figures, Cliff Monasteries and the Largest Stone Bridge in the Balkans
Some days of travel arrange themselves neatly around a guidebook itinerary. Others are shaped entirely by someone who knows the place better than any guidebook could. Our friend Ioannis from Epirus Traveller took us from Preveza into the mountains of Tzoumerka for a day that covered a Roman aqueduct, a wax museum unlike anything I have seen before, a monastery built into a cliff face, a village of silversmiths, and a stone bridge over a turquoise river. I am not good with bridges. I crossed it anyway.
Beyond Preveza Town: A Walk That Spans Three Thousand Years
Most people walking Preveza’s waterfront turn back before the town runs out. The walk around the tip of the headland takes a couple of hours, allowing for refreshment stops and general mooching. It passes an abandoned military camp, two fortresses built by Ali Pasha in the same year, and a stretch of coastline where the Battle of Actium was fought in 31 BC. The Pantokratoras Fortress at the far end had its doors open. We went in.
Ioannis Was Right: Why Preveza Deserves More Than Four Nights
Preveza, Preveza Greece, Preveza old town, things to do in Preveza, Preveza waterfront, Preveza marina, Venetian clock tower Preveza, Saitan Bazaar Preveza, Church of Agios Charalambos, Church of Agios Athanasios Preveza, Castle of Agios Andreas Preveza, Actia Gorgona Preveza, Androutsos statue Preveza, Battle of Actium, Nicopolis Preveza, Ambracian Gulf, Lefkada to Preveza bus, Avra Hotel Preveza, Epirus Greece, mainland Greece travel, independent travel Greece, shoulder season Greece, A Greek Oddity, travel blog Greece
The MS Christina and the Forgotten Islands: Why Nidri Was Worth it After All
Nidri promised boat trips. Most of them went to beaches. The MS Christina went somewhere more interesting: Kastos and Kalamos, two small islands between Lefkada and Ithaca that most visitors to the Ionians never reach. A wartime submarine cave, a surprisingly ornate church on an island of forty people, a poet’s island you can only look at from the water, and a close pass of Skorpios. Not bad for a day that almost did not happen.
Lefkada Town: A Floating Bridge, a Medieval Fort and Church Bell Towers that Move
Nidri in bad weather is not somewhere to linger. So we caught the bus into Lefkada Town, crossed a bridge that swings open for passing yachts, spent the best part of two hours inside a medieval fort that most people drive straight past, and then got happily lost in a town built to survive earthquakes. Not a bad day for a rainy Tuesday.
From Meganisi to Nidri: Waterfalls, Goats and Hunting for Boat Trips
Nidri was never an intentional destination. It was the means to one. Four nights on Lefkada’s busiest harbour front, in a town that knows exactly what it is for — and a walk inland to a waterfall that most people arriving off the ferry never find.
