Godspeed to Olympos, Thu, 14 Sep 2023 | written by Simon
Simon at a Ruins/Excavation, Sea, UNESCO site in Europe, Greece

Today was a slow day. I got up before sunrise and spent a lot of time in the van catching up on stuff and writing.

After 11, Anti and MichaΕ‚ joined me for a road trip. First, we visited the Byzantine Castle of Platamon. Its a weird one, built mainly to protect the roads from raiders and pirates, it has rather thin walls and is more of a walled town with a keep, including not one, not two, but three churches. I don’t know why they needed so many, but there you go. Currently, much of the original structures has collapsed and the whole site has a number of piles of stones just lying about. Sadly, the surviving keep was not open to visitors.

Next to one of the churches, we were witness to a true drama. Two tortoises emerged from being a wall, a bigger one leading and a smaller one (child) following step by step. The young was interchangeably cuddling it’s head to the older ones shell or buying it’s foot. They walked around the area and then suddenly, a pile of leaves moved and another large tortoise, completely hidden until now, emerged and moved towards them. I had no idea how fast tortoises can move if they want to! The two started escaping and a frantic chase unfolded in front of our eyes. Running back behind the wall, they seemed to get cornered, but the chasing tortoise didn’t try to attack them – instead it his behind a log, as if preparing an ambush, and then got burrowed there. What a drama! But then nothing happened for a while, so we just moved on.

It’s funny how you can do the hardcore hike and everything is fine, but then you twist an ankle when just walking down the castle steps. Happened to Anti, so we changed our plans a little, got a pack of frozen peas and went to the beach to let her rest. It was a good chill time.

As Anti was feeling better, we decided to drive up to Dion to see the excavation site of the ancient Macedonian city, a big centre of worship of the Olympian gods. It is here that Alexander the Great made great sacrifices to Zeus before seeing off to Asia. The site is massive – a large walled city with several temple complexes, three theatres, agora, baths, and a later Christian Basilika. And here, more creatures, as an otter (?) Emerged from the flooded Temple of Isis and casually walked up the steps to groom itself in the sun.

Still, Anti could only walk that much and soon we decided to go for some traditional food in a nearby tavern.

Back in Litochoro, I just collapsed in the van.