Methoni and Finikounda

Tuesday 26th April.

We are parked up this evening at Camping Finikes (36.80185 21.78188) a few kilometres along the road from Finikounda. We stopped at this campsite two years ago but it was a little later in the year and it was fairly busy, now there are just three other vans here and a young Greek couple in a tent. A disadvantage is that the restaurant is not officially open but the owner told us when we arrived "Let me know what you want, cutlets, chicken? and I shop for it and my wife cooks it for you. Maybe some stuffed tomatoes and peppers? Maybe some mousaka? Let me know. Greek people don't eat much this week, it's Holy Week before Easter but if you want something cooked you let me know ok?" Well, we've got food for a few days but I said if his wife was cooking mousaka he could put our names down. An advantage of the place being virtually empty is that we get a pitch overlooking the sandy beach,our own private toilet and shower, electricity and all the WiFi we can eat. And this really is a lovely beach:

 

With some nice flowers:

And a nice view:

Before we arrived we went to the village of Finikounda for a few supplies and afterwards stopped for a coffee at one of the beachside tavernas, "Sorry, no Fredo Cappucino, we have no electricity." No problem, we'll go to one a little further along by the harbour. But, no electricity there either "Power cut all around" the elderly lady behind the bar explained, so we settled for a Greek coffee and a Coke. I waited for the coffee to be made and the young guy there said to wait outside on the terrace and he would bring it to us. "But you're on crutches" I said; looking down as if it was the first time he'd seen them he replied "Ah, yes. No problem, my mother will bring them out" indicating the elderly lady shuffling about making my coffee. " No, really, I'll carry them out, you put another euro in the electric meter".

Last night we stopped at Methoni, which we visited before and which has a beautiful semi-restored castle on the headland accessed by a stone bridge of 14 arches and a simple but beautiful church surrounded by fields of wild flowers. A stone paved bridge leads to the fortified islet of Bourtzi dating back to the C16th with a tiny harbour. Unfortunately Phil has a badly bruised (broken?) toe after tripping on the ferry so we didn't revisit the castle this time. You can read more about Methoni here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methoni,_Messenia

We stopped at a campsite recommended to us by some folk we met last year (36.81815 21.71488) just 500m from the town. It's a large site but it's been neglected and there were a couple of guys there painting, strimming and generally trying to get the place ready for the summer season. But it had everything we needed although the electricity went down in the middle of the night. It's about five miles from where we are now so this electric outage must have been a big one. When we arrived at the campsite today we asked the guy if he had electricity. "Yes, because I have a big generator" he replied with a smile.

Today's free gift:

Pat

 

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