Wednesday, April 24, 2002 18:24
Weather: Partly cloudy
Location: "Pizzeria" in Finikoundas

A very relaxing day, partly marred by a slight hangover from last night. Very pleasant nonetheless!

Turns out I was wrong about being the only foreigner in town, of course. At a waterfront bar I sat next to a group of about 10 young English men & women, working for the season (that is, April to October!) at a large hotel at the other end of town. They are in the process of setting up boats and gear for the tourists, who will come in groups on a weekly package tour from London, and spend most of their time sailing, windsurfing, etc. Not too bad...

They suggested a couple of restaurants for me to try, and I went to one, the large "Elena" that sits on the end of the road above the fishing boats. There, I found all the other tourists: several groups of older German and Dutch men & women. I ate well, but made the error of drinking a half litre of red wine on top of the large beer I'd had at the bar. This was then compounded by the complementary glass of cognac provided by the owner. I reeled home, still hoping to go out later to meet the Brits... and then regained consciousness and got into bed.

I slept in this morning, then got up and took advantage of the sunshine to wash and hang two days' laundry. After a lunch of moussaka and fried fish at a restaurant in the village, I picked up the paper (yes, I was wrong about that, too--the IHT is on sale in the village, to my pleasant surprise) and had a lazy afternoon reading it on the balcony of my room, having a wim, reading my book on the beach, and napping. In a burst of Roman enthusiasm back in Italy I'd picked up Gibbons' History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and I'm working my way through it, though I had to skip about 60 pages of deadly boring discussion about the appeal of the early Christian church.

Around me, Finikoundas was preparing for the tourists. A couple of buildings are under construction, and many more are getting a fresh coat of pain or renovated interior. I'm very glad I got here before the hordes.

Tomorrow I'm going to head back to Kalamata and on down the Mani coastline. There's a gorge walk to an abandoned monastery that sounds like my next hike.

One last note: looks like I'll get two Easters this year: the Greek shops are full of chocolate Easter eggs, as the orthodox church celebrates Easter on May 5th.
posted by Tom at 7:04 PM | link |