Last days in Greece

Good literature is a powerful thing. It can inspire, it can change your mood, it can change your life, even if only in the short term. This morning I was reading the book I mentioned yesterday, Summer Fishing In Lapland. It’s a novel, and suffice to say for now, that the plot is built around Finnish folklore, specific to the area where it is set, the remote northwest of the country. I’ve half of it to finish, so changed my plans for the next couple of days so that I will have plenty of time to finish in two sittings. That meant that, as I’m on my way to Igoumenitsa for tomorrow, that I drove far more than I had originally planned to do today.

With a good book I can’t resist collecting occasional quotes from it also. Things like

Mosquitoes flew around the knacky, but never touched him. They had some sort of arrangement.

There was a spider in the left-hand oarlock, frozen in a star position, like a scar. It lived in the boat and had no say in deciding which destinations it traveled to. This arrangement suited the spider fine, because the boat was its home, not the worlds it traveled to.

I’m due back in the UK at the end of this month, so it’s the time when my mind wanders to the next destinations. No surprise therefore that the Finnish Arctic looms large. I have a hankering to over-winter in the Arctic. I was there not that long ago, only until November though, and that only served to increase my eagerness to experience more of their culture. And this book has just strengthened that. Besides, local folklore has always fascinated me.

So, after a couple of hours out around Lampeia this morning, we drove north. The name of the village was taken from the mountain Lampeia, which stands over the village. I was on the opposite side of it earlier in the week in Neda. The mountain is part of the Erymanthos massif, which has really appealed to me with its network of ancient tracks and historical ruins set in remote locations. According to Pausanius, a second century Greek philosopher known for his travel writing, the river Erymanthos has its source on the mountain Lampeia, which is sacred to Pan. Due to its inaccessibility, nestled in a mountain cwm up at 850 metres, Lampeia has seen few invaders over the centuries.

These days Lampeia is one of those villages that for some reason is relatively untouched by tourism. It is on the Apollo Hiking Trail, and does have a couple of bars and restaurants, but stands out from the likes of Neda and Stemnitsa as there are very few hotels or apartments, and it seems, second-homes. I had put together a track that enabled a better view of the whole situation. Though overcast, with occasional rain, the cloud was still high enough to enable our objective. There was real feel that it hadn’t changed much over the last fifty years or so. I wandered through a few farms, received a few nods and kalimeras from the few folk around, an initial bark then the wag of a tail and a sniff of the butt (Roja’s not mine) from their dogs. It was all very pleasant.

Then I drove for four hours or so, down from the Peloponnese to Patras, across the strait on the ferry this time, at 11 euros, half the price of the bridge.