Wednesday18th June 2025
Greece is so Soporific.
It’s tough getting your mindset in place to do long walks here. The heat is draining.
Our day started straight up and straight down a winding back road over a hillside heading to the bus station in Argostoli. It took roughly an hour.
We bought our ticket to Traviata on the bus which terminates in Poros. It cost €2.
We boarded the bus and although we had seat 24-25 on our ticket we just sat at the front because we were getting off in around 15 minutes. The bus was leaving at 11.30. I think we were the only Brits onboard. At around 11.25 a guy at the back shouted something to the driver and everyone laughed loudly. We only recognised the word Yannis so we put 2 and 2 together and thought he’s telling the driver not to go without his mate. This one bus only goes every other day. At 11.28 the driver started his engine and again another shout from the back and another barrage of laughter. At 11.29.30 Yannis, an old man, made an appearance and wondered why he was getting a round of applause and short shift from his mate. I bet this happens every week. So funny.
So at 11.30 on the dot the bus gets on its way. It’s full of chat and we are just a little worried we might end up in Poros. We come to Traviata sign post and we just carry on down the road. He didn’t stop. Sheila was in aisle position and gets to the driver and says Traviata! We eventually stop in the next village called Mazarakata. Nobody got on and we were the only ones to get off. I bet we were the talk of the wash house.
As it turned out, luckily, it actually did us a favour. We were heading up to the castle of St. George which sits atop of a prominent limestone hill at 320 metres. and I hadn’t realised that there was a better route up to the top from this village.
A pleasant back road gained height quickly and relatively traffic free. The views opened up across to the west coast highlighting why the castle was strategically built by the Venetians all those years ago.
Just passed the signpost for the derelict church of Ayioi Theodorio, we found another short cut, or what we hoped was a short cut and not a path into someone’s garden. So we tentatively made our way up the path. It turned out good and brought us out directly on the Main Street to the castle.
For as long as I can remember and I’m going back into the 1980’s, there was no entry fee charged to go into the castle. The castle is basically just a perimeter wall with a kind of dungeon in the middle and that’s it.
However, this time we were asked to pay, which we declined to do. As I’ve been in a dozen or so times I know it’s not worth paying for.
Now the real reason why we came all the way up here was that we had been told of a new cafe right next door to the castle pay office. So we went in. It’s called Lily’s. They do some unusual soft drinks which are very nice but very little in the way of food. We had a Cretan Salad which I found bland. Certainly not as good as a Greek salad and a small variety of cake. I think they need to get this first tourist season done and dusted and then over the winter find a way to offer more choice. Oh yes, husband and wife team are very friendly and helpful.
After lunch and in the hottest part of the day we again found another short cut through the surrounding old houses, the path being about 1 metre wide and walls delightfully covered in Bougainville and other climbers like Jasmine, it led down towards the main road and our way back towards Argostoli.
The houses surrounding the castle are very old and many suffered at least partial destruction during the 1953 earthquake which destroyed most of the island. Over the last few years we have seen an influx of money and numerous old properties have been renovated delightfully. The restaurant across the road from Lily’s is called Kastro, we have eaten there many times and it’s wonderful.
The short cut brought us out beside a very old house which I think is a holiday rental property. It would certainly be a quiet place to spend some time. After a ten minute walk down the road we come to what the locals call the M25. It’s just one of the main arterial roads in Kefalonia not that busy but it probably feels that way to local folk.
We had to follow it back into town as I don’t know of an alternative route off road which goes in our direction. A separate road adjacent to the M25 has been built recently but no traffic ever uses it. It is a road and not a cycle track but it was ok for us and provided safe walking for a mile or two. I asked a local what it was and why it was built and the answer was “nobody has the foggiest idea”.
At the end of the ghost road a land rover track takes us all the way into the outskirts of town. We were feeling the heat, dripping in sweat and we needed more liquid. A petrol station provided 2 bottles of freezing cold water. We drank one straight away and kept the other for the next 2 hills.
It seemed to take us an age to do these hills and I admit I was feeling shattered at the watershed of the 2nd hill. I needed a seat, a biscuit and more water. We had a ten minute break then descended the couple of kilometers to our apartment where we just crashed out for an hour.
In total we did 17.52km. Locals who asked us what we had done today said we were crazy and that they wouldn’t do that in the winter never mind the summer. I did this blog post using Apple notes. Composition was easier than blogger. But the shortfalls I found was that once the text was copied and pasted into blogger it wasn’t straightforward if you wanted to add a new paragraph. It’s probably just a learning curve.
Another thing I found out was that on the go you can use Notes as a dictaphone which converts the audio into text for you so you can “write” your blog as you walk.
Then once the text is in blogger add the photos where ever you want them.
It’s not perfect but it works.
