Naphlion

I rarely get to go on road trips. I hardly know anyone in the uk with a driving license, and when I am abroad I rarely have time for a leisurely road excursion, unless it is to go see clients in provincial scotland, but that is never fun and therefore hardly counts.

So I am delighted when H suggests a road trip to Naphlion, which used to be the capital city of greece for a brief period after independence. the town is about 2 hours drive from Athens, and the road trip is loads of fun, although i am continually baffled by the endless toll blocks, but maybe that is just because i am not used to driving? we stop briefly at the Corinth Canal, the marker telling us we are crossing into the Peloponnese. I never suffer from vertigo, but standing on the bridge looking down 52 metres, i have to say i fely a bit dizzy. i think it is partly because the canal is so narrow that it seems even deeper and more mind boggling than it would otherwise…or because the railings are totally flimsy and it would be all to easy to jump over the side? so easy in fact that there are signs everywhere advertising bungee jumping, which we don’t go for. the road trip then continues after a pit stop to refuel. thanks to the events being orchestrated by Colonel Ghadafi on the other side of the Mediterranean, the prices are shockingly high, even compared to Britain (€1.70!!!) but the money as worth it as the roads take us along paths I would otherwise never have trodden and allows me to see sights I otherwise would never have seen. as we approach Naphlion, I am struck by how much the scenery resembles that of parts of the former Yugoslavia, reminding me that I am actually back in the Balkans, despite Greece normally successful bid to remove itself from that unfortunately tainted geographic term.

Naphlion is adorable and I love it. H assures me all the people in the Peloponnese are short and ugly, and i have to admit he is not wrong, compared to Athens there is indeed a genetic difference that is quite striking given the relatively small distance between the two. but Naphlion couldn’t be lovelier, and the locals certainly know how to enjoy themselves. Despite the constant talk of apocalyptic economic meltdown, everyone is out in the streets. it is a religious holiday- Lent is about to begin, and there is music in the town square. Yet people are not just standing and listening to the music- all the cafés are packed, so that H and I can barely find a seat by the water, and the restaurants on the main culinary drag are so stuffed that we end up going back to the main square as there is literally no where else we could get a seat. Despite the crisis, people are clearly still going out. Furthermore, this restaurant filling can hardly be credited to tourism- it is the dead season, foreigners don’t go to Naphlion that often anyway, and I am quite certain i am the only foreigner in town, which is made obvious by the frequent stares i get from curious locals wondering what strange rock i must have crawled out from under. the wait to eat is long, but it proves to be every bit worth it as the food is divine. One of the things i like about Greece (and, lord strike me down, Turkey) is that although the national food consists mainly of meat, there is always so much food that even as a strange vegetarian i never go hungry, unlike in Spain. H and I order several plates, including another excellent greek salad, fava, tzeziki, and fried potatoes. By the time we have finished eating i feel i can barely move. "on mange bien en greece" H assures me. How very true that is!