Changing Gears

 Our technical problem is finally sorted out. The “holidays” are over — it’s time to change into high gear! Especially since the sun is back 😎.

We hit the road as soon as we left the garage (or almost), even taking the highway (which is pretty rare for us because it’s expensive) to cross the entire Peloponnese and stop at the Isthmus of Corinth, where a narrow strip of land only 6 km long connects the peninsula to mainland Greece. Naturally, a canal was dug there to link the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf and the Aegean Sea, also known as “Jéjé’s Sea,” but only according to Jérôme 😂.

Built in the 19th century, the canal is impressive with its 63-meter-high walls carved into golden rock:

Unfortunately, there were no boats passing through when we were there. Nowadays, commercial ships are too large to use it, so it’s mostly used by pleasure boats. But it still would have been cool to see one go through. What’s even more impressive is that before the canal was built, for about 1,000 years, boats were still transported from one side to the other. They would “simply” hoist the boat out of the water, place it on a platform, and move it along a paved track with grooves carved in to guide the wheels. At the other end, the boat was put back into the water… incredible! We took the easier option — we crossed on the bridge 😆.

So here we are back on the mainland, and a major question arises that will determine the rest of our route: how are we going to reach Turkey? By road or by sea?
The road option would have taken us to Athens first, then north and east towards Istanbul. The sea option would have had us finish our journey in mainland Greece in Athens, from where many ferries depart — but none going directly to Turkey. It has to be done in two stages: first stopping at a Greek island, then taking another ferry to Turkey. Since we were heading toward Delphi, we decided to consult the oracle for some guidance:

And there you go — decision made: it will be by boat. First from Athens to Rhodes, then from Rhodes to Marmaris in Turkey. It's a done deal! Or so we thought at the time…

On the road to Delphi, we stopped at the monastery of Hosios Loukas, nestled in a lovely valley, to admire its magnificent mosaics.

According to our estimate, the mosaic tiles are about 5 mm by 5 mm. What painstaking work! Absolutely beautiful — a truly wonderful stop.

We continued toward Delphi and stopped a few kilometers away, in Arachova. Located at the foot of Mount Parnassus, it’s a destination known for… skiing!

But no time to hit the slopes — we had an appointment with the oracle…
Delphi was a very important site in ancient Greece; it’s where people could consult the oracle of Apollo. Since Apollo was a god, you obviously couldn’t speak to him directly. You had to go through his prophetess, the Pythia, who transmitted the oracle’s responses to priests, who then translated them for ordinary people… not exactly a simple process! All of this took place at the center of the Temple of Apollo.

Delphi was also considered nothing less than the navel of the world. According to mythology, Zeus released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth. Where they met would be the center of the world — you guessed it, Delphi. This is represented by a conical stone called the “omphalos,” which in ancient Greek means “navel.”

An unmissable site, 2,500 years old, set in a truly magnificent landscape. And to top it off, the sun was with us. We absolutely loved our visit.

Consulting the oracle took a lot of energy, so to recharge before heading down to Athens, we turned east to relax in one of the country’s many thermal hot springs, Thermopylae. The site is less scenic than the one we visited in Albania, but it’s also free. The water smells much less like sulfur — more like iron — and is slightly salty and warmer (34–35°C), so you can stay in for hours!

The hardest part is finally deciding to get out 😅. Luckily, you can park right next to it and even sleep there. So it attracts nomadic travelers like us 😊. We met some very nice people: a young French woman who’s been traveling for six years in her van, and a couple from Greece (he’s Greek, she’s German born in Vancouver) who organize paragliding trips and, of course, knew the Grenoble area well. Another great stop.

Now we were ready to head to the big city — and not just any city — Athens, a major metropolis of over 6 million inhabitants. In Greece, on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month in winter, archaeological sites are free. We took advantage of this to visit Olympia in December, and we managed to time it right for Athens as well. So we visited the Acropolis for free 😀. At €30 per ticket, it’s definitely worth it 👍. But even paying full price, it’s worth every cent because it's another truly extraordinary site. The location, the scale, the state of preservation… no wonder it attracts millions of visitors from around the world every year. Even in mid-January, there weren’t huge crowds, but it was still fairly busy.

But don’t be fooled by the photos. Even though we had sunshine, it wasn’t very warm in Athens. A strong cold wind was blowing and really brought the temperature down. We were very glad to have our hats and gloves!

Athens is more than just the Acropolis, though. We really enjoyed wandering through the different central neighborhoods, and we also loved the archaeological museum and its incredibly rich collection of artifacts thousands of years old.
Next stop: the port of Piraeus, another place steeped in history, where we boarded our ferry to Rhodes. The crossing isn’t cheap, so to lower the ticket price we chose the “milk run” option that makes several stops along the way  and takes more than 18 hours… so we also treated ourselves to a cabin 😊. The crossing went smoothly, didn’t feel too long, and we even got to see the sunrise over Jéjé’s Sea.

We arrived in Rhodes under a radiant sun. And since it was Jérôme’s birthday, we decided to treat ourselves to a short hotel stay to celebrate. Being low season, we got a great rate, and even a room with a view 😍.

But a less pleasant surprise awaited us upon arrival. It turns out that in winter, there are no ferries to Turkey,  only catamarans, and our van doesn’t fit on those boats because it’s too high… Bravo to the tourists for poor planning!! Clearly, we didn’t do our homework properly. We looked at the map, told ourselves “it’s not far,” and didn’t think at all about checking the very last leg of the journey 😞.
So we’ll need to take another ferry to the island of Kos, and from there, one final boat to Turkey — but not right away…

The sun wasn’t going to stick around, and the weather was about to seriously deteriorate. We knew this, which is also why we had opted for the hotel stay. The wind started blowing hard, very hard, with gusts up to 100 km/h. Jérôme was almost blown away!

And the sea is raging! It’s quite a spectacle to watch the waves crashing onto the beach or smashing against the harbor docks.

So we’re waiting for things to calm down and then we also want to visit the island! No way we’re leaving without exploring it after coming all this way…
We booked our crossing to Kos in a few days, and the day after, the ferry from Kos to Bodrum, Turkey. But we’ve already received a message saying that this crossing will most likely be canceled due to the weather, and that we’ll have to take the next one, departing two days later. Because yes, at this time of year, ferries don’t run every day 😔.

So after speeding things up quite a bit, we’re now forced, by our little mistake and by Mother Nature, to slow down again. Either Greece doesn’t want us to leave, or Turkey isn’t ready to welcome us yet! But we’ll get there eventually 💪. And according to our fellow travelers who are already there, it’s raining a lot and there are even floods. In the end, we might get the better end of the deal…

To see our route and all the photos: it's here
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Jérôme and Sophie