Hey everybody, since I last talked to you Vickie and I spent a second day on the Pelion Peninsula, and returned to Athens for her flight home. On Monday, we crossed over the mountains that run down the middle of the Pelion Peninsula to check out a restaurant and a beach over on the east side that was recommended to us by several people that we met. Here are some scenes from up high on the peninsula, traveling from west to east:

After lunch, we made the big descent down to the beach at Agii Saranta and then treked down the beach on foot to Monk’s Paradise Beach Bar. This was one of the coolest places on one of the nicer beaches I’ve ever been to. We hung out there for several hours and I jumped in the water a few times. We only left there when the sun started to go down since we had to make our way back across the peninsula to our destination for the evening of Volos.

After leaving the beach, we headed back across the peninsula and saw some nice scenery with the sun going down. We arrived in Volos and got checked in to our room, and then just strolled around a little, but mostly took it easy and got rested up for the drive to Athens the next morning.

Tuesday morning we made our way back the 3 1/2 hours to Athens. Upon arrival, we went straight to Monastiraki Square to do a little shopping. Vickie wanted to get some souvenirs for the family back home and I needed to get a new backpack since mine got stolen in the break in. As much as I hate shopping in general, it actually wasn’t too bad here and we both got some pretty good deals.

After the shopping was taken care of, we went back to the same hotel we stayed in the night Vickie arrived. It’s a nice hotel, but obviously a bit of a sketchy area. I was able to find parking directly in front of the hotel this time, so I felt pretty good about the car, but I still went down and checked on it a few times throughout the evening.

Vickie got her stuff packed up for the next day’s flight, and was nice enough to treat me to dinner at the hotel as a thanks for showing her around all week. It was unnecessary but much appreciated!

After dinner, Vickie wasn’t ready to shut down on her last night in Greece, so we went over to the bar on the corner from the hotel and had a couple of her favorite Greek beers, Alpha. The bartender heard it was her last night, so he poured us all (himself included) a shot of Raki, which is the Greek version of the rakia that is so popular in the former Yugoslavia. It’s basically a fruit liquor, and it packs a pretty good punch. One was enough for Vickie and I. 😂 He also heard that I was a traveling musician and wound up cranking one of my tunes over the bar’s Spotify, which I thought was pretty cool!

This morning it was time to head to the airport for the big swap – Vickie outbound and Anna inbound. All went off without a hitch!

After seeing Vickie through security, I only had to wait about 20 minutes for Anna. We set out straight to her family’s house in Lavrio from the airport, only about a 30 minute drive. When we got into town, we stopped by the store to get some provisions, went to the house to change into swimming attire, and then made a beeline down to the Temple of Poseidon and the beach next to it – only about 10 minutes away. It was cool to see the temple and chilling at the beach and catching up with Anna was nice – we figured out that we had last seen each other in 2013, so there was plenty to talk about!

After the beach, we got cleaned up and went out for some dinner and a stroll around Lavrio. I really liked the town as it has the feel of minimal tourists and mostly locals. Dinner was good, I finally got to try the bifteki (meatballs) that I had read about and they were very good!

After checking out the town, we headed back to the house and played a few tunes on her dad’s guitar and called it a night pretty early. We are both pretty wiped out from getting up early for our respective trips to the airport!

Tomorrow my plan is to head back to Athens in the afternoon and have a look in the pawn shops that are in the neighborhood of where my car was broken into last week on the off chance that I can find my equipment. If I don’t come across it, I’m going to bite the bullet and purchase all new stuff. Either way, I intend to be back up and running for music by tomorrow evening. Tomorrow night I’m headed to the city of Cornith, which will be my gateway city to exploring Peloponnesia, which I’m very much looking forward to!

Talk to you guys soon!