The story so far…….
We have made our way bravely from the cheap and cheerful island of Zakynthos, down the Peloponnese, to the southerly town of Methoni, using a boat and, for our sins, very many buses. It’s a green, hair shirt kind of Greek Odyssey using the drastically cut, idiosyncratic, post-financial crisis public transport system that has been imposed on the Greeks as one of the punishments for pissing everyone’s money away.
Still, the Stoics would have seen all our suffering as good for the soul.
But we, however, have come to understand through our shared, lived experience that we belong more to the Epicurean school. So the Stoics can stick it, while we currently languish towards the southern end of the pelopponese in Methoni, in a big, fuck-off luxury hotel, at out of season rates. But they must be spiking the buffet breakfast with Lotus juice because we seem, strangely, to be having problems leaving!
So, to summarise the Peloponnese trip so far; we ogled statuary in Olympia, we Kipped soundly in Kyparissia, and we then piled into Pylos, where we experienced our first “medicane”.
Now, you may think, as I did, that this sounds like an effective analgesic drug to relieve the pain of an unpleasant but necessary surgical procedure that you don’t discuss socially, but no, it isn’t.
What it is: right; is an exceptionally nasty and extremely violent mediterranean storm of hurricane strength.
It forced us squealing, unceremoniously, into a kafenion off the busy main square, full of shrieking and frenziedly smoking Greek women, while outside chairs, tables, signs, stuff off roofs and colossal amounts of rain and sea water flew about in every direction. Then the power failed.
After about an hour of passive smoking and immersive Greek lessons we decided to risk getting sliced to pieces by glass or metal or our skulls crushed like Greek Easter eggs by falling masonry and dashed back to our room where, soaked to the skin, we had no food, no power, no hot water and no chance of going out again unless we wanted to saturate the rest of our clothing and possibly die. That’s where Stoicism came in useful. We just went to sleep.
Accompanying us on our journey south are large flocks of huge very expensive looking motorhomes driven by French, German, Italians and Austrians in bright, freshly ironed, designer shirts and beachwear. Upon arriving in any town they circle their big flashy wagons in a defensive position on any bit of waste land and then look around with an expression of smug self-sufficiency mingled with vague apprehension that someone might want to nick their stuff. These retired solicitors, accountants and middle-managers are heading south in search of freedom, sun and authenticity.
It seems a dark irony that a few hundred kilometres away in eastern Greece and above Athens there are people trudging doggedly north, carrying everything they own in two carrier bags, trying to escape places that are very sunny and authentic, albeit of a different kind, and hoping for the freedom to reach the source of such staggering affluence.
What can we tell you about Methoni, having been here a week?
Well, we noticed last night that the nineteen year old lad who sells us our one and a half euro ‘Cafe Eleniko’s’ during the day prowls around town at night in a very big, very shiny, black Mercedes?? Two theories. One, his dad owns the cafe-bar, and the car. Two, This kid puts the crystal into Methoni, which would explain both the car and the odd, stunned, dreamlike, end of the road vibe of the place.
As for the rest of our plans, it seems it will be a case of “Only Methoni”(sing it like Roy Orbison) as we are forgoing the previously anticipated pleasures of nearby Koroni and putting our sorry old arses back on public transport to head north again to Cephalonia, from where we fly home.
Jane has had the novel idea that we should treat our time on Cephalonia as a sort of “holiday from our holiday”. This could be be interpreted as a somewhat negative judgement on her experience of the Peloponnese road trip so far, but I say, as Epicurus himself might have said, “Yeah, whatever”.