Safe Return Doubtful

I’m in the northern Peloponnese in the Arcadia region, the place the poet Virgil described as having “springs cool as can be, and groves, and softest grass” where shepherds try their hands at poetry, live lives of ease and sing to their flocks, “Together in Arcadia we would live, And time alone could bring it to an end.” Ever since, it’s been a much sought after place to live.

There are plenty of people here who have binned high-flying jobs in Athens to live on a remote hillside. As part of the drive to bring a different sort of tourist to the area, other than the day and weekend visitors from the nearby towns, the Mainalon hiking Trail was founded, in 2019. Its 75 kilometres are designed to take 8 days, each night stopping in one of the villages. https://menalontrail.eu/en/ It is the first long-distance walking trail in the country certified by its tourist board, aimed at the walker who wants to take things at a more leisurely pace, and appreciate all else the villages have to offer. Taking into account the three years of the pandemic, it has yet really to take off.

It’s what will occupy my time for the next week or so. It’s possible, I have researched, to do circuits from the villages with at least half on the Mainalon. Today, two thirds of the 12 kilometres were on the trail, and the return section on the E4, the 10,000 kilometre long European Long Distance Path (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4_European_long_distance_path).

It had been a clear and fresh night, with a low of 2C, but then today was fine throughout, getting up to 18C.

Roja and I were out for almost four hours, and other than in the taverna of the village of Nymfasia, our extremity, we saw no one other than a guy on a gravel bike. He stopped to chat, and had until last year, worked as a teacher in Bristol for six years, but now returned to his home, and was working in the Primary School here in the village. It was about 1 pm, and he was able to get out as the schools are only in session for four hours on Fridays.

I followed a leisurely afternoon with a beer in the village in the early evening. There were quite a few people around, who had driven up for lunch. Nobody looked like they had done any outdoor activity, though the weather had been almost perfect.