The road to Vathy

In a previous post I mentioned that we trekked to a remote part of the island called Vathy.  We did not venture out there just to have lunch at the local taverna, although it was worth the trip.  We travelled out there to visit an archaeological site currently being excavated by Andreas Vlachopoulos and his team from University of Ioannina.  We are familiar with his team, as they often share space with us at our workplace up in the old school in Chora.  Andrea and I have wanted to drive out to the site in Vathy for several years, but the road has been quite bad in recent years.  Happily, this year the road was improved enough for us to make the journey.

Eight of us, in two vehicles, set out on the journey to Vathy.  Driving in Greece can be a bit of a challenge, as all vehicles are manual transmission and the terrain is quite vertical.  Also, some of the 25 or so kilometers were paved road, but a lot of it was a single lane dirt track over the mountains. I took three brave passengers with me.

As you can see from the first photo, the road is still being improved.  We came to a stop and waited for a few minutes as this large backhoe cleared the road for us so that we could pass.  I have to admit, it was a bit intimidating.  This photo also shows that the terrain was pretty steep in places.  I don't think I ever shifted out of second gear.

The second photo shows that we were in a perpetual cloud of red dust from the lead vehicle most of the time.  This was unnerving as the road was narrow with steep drop offs.  Our white car accumulated a considerable amount of red dust by the end of the day.

In the third photo you can really see that the road is a narrow dirt track framed with small rocks and gravel.

Thankfully I was driving, or the fourth photo would have scared the wits out of me.  Andrea took this shot out of the window of our moving vehicle.  You can see the edge of the road with the blue water of the lagoon below.  No guard rails here!  I was very close to the edge of that road.  I'm glad she didn't show me that picture until after we were back safe and sound.

Anyway we made it to and fro Vathy safe and sound.  I will have another post about the site that we visited another time. 

More soon.