Interesting sights – Judy and Valerie On the Road

Watten/Eperlecques

For our last couple of nights we stayed at a very good French camper stop in the village of Watten (N50.83139, E2.20879). We chose it because it’s only a 40 minute drive to Calais.

We discovered that the neighbouring village, Eperlecques, played a significant role in World War II because the Nazis chose it as the site for the “Blockhaus” (bunker) which was originally intended to be a launching facility for the V2 ballistic missile and a factory for the production of liquid oxygen. It was constructed using thousands of prisoners of war and forcibly conscripted workers.

It was never used because the Allies found out about it and subjected it to heavy bombing including ‘Tall Boy’ bombs which drilled down 30 metres into the ground and created a mini-earthquake. It has been turned into an open air ‘history park’ which provides a lot of information not only about what was going on there, but about World War II.

We walked there not knowing quite what to expect and were astonished to find in the middle of a beautiful forest this enormous, 33 metre high block of concrete and a replica of the 14 metre long V2 rocket. The plan was for 36 of these to be launched each day for three days and the target was England.

what the V2 bomb would have looked like coming to the launch pad

The photographs don’t give a realistic sense of the size of the place and how chilling it is. I found it quite terrifying. Half of it was destroyed, but in the other half the Germans went on to manufacture liquid oxygen which they then used to launch the V2s on mobile launch pads. Over 1,400 V2s were launched on Britain and over 1,600 on Belgium – mainly London and Antwerp. After the war many of the scientists and engineers working on these rockets were invited to the United States to become part of the US space program.

Delphi

We felt we couldn’t go to Greece and not visit Delphi again as it’s such a magical place. It’s hugely impressive, because of the beautiful location, the height of it, and the sheer number of monuments, even though many are just the pedestals of statues, and you have to imagine what they would’ve looked like with their enormous statues on top.

In ancient times Delphi was considered the ‘navel of the earth’ and was home to the Oracle of Delphi and the Temple of Apollo.The location is extraordinary and you can understand what drew the ancient Greeks to this site.

Archaeological investigation in Delphi started in the second half of the 19th century, but it was not until 1892 that a systematic excavation began under the direction of Théophile Homolle and the French Archaeological School of Athens. The site was buried beneath layers and layers of stone and there was a village on top. The village had to be totally uprooted and relocated so that the archaeologists could uncover the ruins.

Archaeological Museum

The museum is definitely worth visiting. It has some amazing statues. We especially liked the one of the dancing women and the one of the charioteer which in its original form would have had also the chariot and horses but only the charioteer had survived.

Delphi Camping

We stayed again at Delphi Camping – a wonderful site with stunning views over the Gulf of Corinth. The campsite is owned by the Kanatas family and they also produce olive oil. This olive oil called ‘Mer des Oliviers de Delphes’ is produced from olives of the olive groves of Amfissa – Delphi. These groves have existed for over 3,000 years being the oldest in Greece . Here the ancient Greeks cultivated olives and produced oil before any other part of Greece did and the Kanatas family have cultivated olives and produced olive oil for hundreds of years. The olive oil is called by a French name in order to honour the French team who discovered the Delphi site and worked on the excavations.

Metsovo

Metsovo is a beautiful town in the Pindos mountains and is often called ‘The Jewel of Epirus’. It is a Vlach town, a people who are historically nomadic shepherds who’ve lived in the region for generations and whose origins are from neighbouring Balkan countries.

It is a village that has managed to maintain its traditional stone architecture, which used to be typical for the mountainous regions of Epirus, a place once famous for its stone masons: many buildings here have the traditional schist stone roofs, rather than the tile ones.

There is a trail going through and around the town called the Ursa trail. Ursa is Vlach for bear. As speakers of french and portuguese will recognise Vlach is a romance language.

Folk Art Museum

The Metsovo Folk Art Museum is also well worth a visit. It’s is a beautiful stone house which belonged to Evangelos Averof-Tositsas, who was also foreign minister. He bequeathed it to the town. Each room is furnished as it was in the past, with wooden floors,ceilings and furniture, including beautifully carved chests and rocking cradles, and gorgeous, richly coloured woven tapestries on the walls.

Art Gallery

The Averoff Art Gallery was really interesting. It’s on three floors – ground floor and two lower floors. There is a permanent exhibition which displays a selection of 250 paintings, drawings, sculptures and engravings by the foremost Greek artists of the 19th and 20th century with a great variety of landscapes, still life and portraits, including portraits of the town’s main benefactor and his family. There was also a fascinating photography exhibition by Kostas Balafas called “Travels in Metsovo”. The black and white photographs gave a picture of life in Metsovo in the 1960’s and 70’s. Particularly striking was a wall of portraits of older men who had clearly led their lives outdoors. They were all so different from one another, mostly with very wrinkled faces, full of character

Wild Camping

We stayed a couple of nights above Metsovo in the car park at the Ski Centre which has a wonderful spring (N39.78487, E21.15880). Lots of stray/wild dogs which were not aggressive and which looked so sad we ended up giving them some tinned sardines! The first day we went into the town but the second day we went for a walk on the Ursa Trail which we could access directly from the car park. We of course managed to get lost and were ‘rescued’ by an Israeli couple who introduced us to an App called ‘AllTrails’ which I definitely recommend.

Thessaloniki

After staying at the Sakiá campsite for about 10 days we went off to Thessaloniki, staying at the same park4nite parking lot by the sea where we had stayed in 2019 (N40°35’23” E22°56’41”).

We were able to get into town easily on the number 5 bus for 1€, although always very crowded! We love Thessaloniki – it has such a history and mixture of cultures. It had been conquered by the Ottomans in 1430, and only became part of Greece after the first Balkan War in 1912.

As well as spending quite a lot of time in cafes and the bazaar/market, we went to various museums, churches, Roman remains and to the area right at the top of the city to see the city walls and fortress. The city also has an extraordinary number of sculptures, both old and contemporary, which you just come across when wandering around.

Museums

We went again to the Archaeological Museum and to see the stunning collection of beautiful Macedonia gold items recovered from cemeteries dating from 4th- 2nd century BC. Here are some photos.

Jewish Museum

Before the Second World War 50% of the city’s population were Sephardic Jews, because when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, many settled in Thessaloniki. Between 1941 and 1943 the Nazis deported all the Jews in Greece to Auschwitz and Treblinka where of course they were murdered.

The museum provides a grim chronicle of the destruction of Greece’s Jewish population by the Nazis, but also a fascinating insight into Jewish life in the city over nearly 500 years.

Churches

The city’s best loved church is Agios Demetrios, dedicated to the city’s patron saint. The church was almost entirely reconstructed after the huge fire in 1917, but the first church was constructed on the site in the 4th century AD. It has several beautiful mosaic panels dating back to the 8th century.

Arch of Galerius

The arch was built to commemorate the victory of Emperor Galerius over the Persians in 297AD. Its piers contain weathered reliefs of the battle scenes and it is quite an extraordinary sight on Egnatia Street.

The City Walls

The city was initially fortified right after its foundation in the late 4th century BC but the present walls are dated back to the early Byzantine period around 390 AD. Their defensive abilities are quite impressive! They were 7 kilometres long while at some points they were up to 10 meters high and almost 5 meters thick. A number of fortresses and defensive towers were added during different periods of history like the Tower Of Trigoniou.

The walls originally went right down from the top of the city to the sea and you can still see fragments of the wall now and then throughout the city.

Statues and Sculptures

The sculptures throughout the city are really impressive particularly the national resistance memorial which commemorates the courage and sacrifice of the Greek resistance during World War II and the Holocaust memorial. This made in 1997 and depicts the seven branched menorah and flames in a complex of human bodies. The memorial is situated in Eleftherias Square where the Nazis rounded up the Jews in 1942 to torture and humiliate them.

In the second sculpture below the ‘branches’ have lights hanging from them powered by solar panels and light up at night. The piece aims to raise awareness about renewable energy.

For more information on the sculptures see this link https://thessaloniki.travel/exploring-the-city/art-culture/sculptures-monuments/

HS Velos

Walking along the seafront we saw a strange site – a war ship – HS Velos. This ship belonged to the US Navy during the second world war but later became part of the Greek navy and played a vital role in bringing down the military dictatorship which had controlled the country since 1967. Below is the information in front of the ship.

Rotunda

The Rotonda is a huge, circular building which was constructed by the Romans, then consecrated as a church in the 4th century AD, became a mosque in 1590 and was once again consecrated as a church in 1912, when the Greeks captured the city during the Balkan war. Inside there are no seats and no altar. It is a big, bare, very peaceful circular space with lovely mosaics on the walls and ceiling.

Sakiá market

We visited the Saturday market at Sakiá, the local town. It had been pouring with torrential rain but we finally set off on our bikes. We made a number of purchases – fruit, vegetables, olives, honey but then adjourned to the local cafe, initially just for a coffee but sitting there was so enjoyable that we progressed to lunch.

Dubrovnik

From Kučiste we drove to Mlini, just south of Dubrovnik and stayed at a lovely little campsite, Camping Kate. We were glad we got there early as it was full by the evening. From there we took the water taxi to Dubrovnik, a beautiful half hour journey which took us right to the entrance to the old town. Through a website called Freetour.com we had booked a tour guide called Marco who took a group of about 15 of us on a just under two hour tour of the city. Marco was great. He spoke good English and he spoke loudly and clearly. He was very engaging and very interesting. We learned all sorts of things, including that Dubrovnik was founded by Greeks in the 7th century, managed to avoid being taken over by Venice and was an independent state for 500 years until Napoleon turned up in 1806.

Dubrovnik is very beautiful with its pale yellow stone buildings. Its pavements too are made of yellow stone and are very shiny, making the whole city seem very light. It’s also very clean. It has lots of narrow cobbled streets, enticing gift shops and wonderful gelati. What it doesn’t have much of is ordinary shops because, as Marco explained to us, ordinary people don’t live there any more. Instead they rent their properties to tourists. It also has no advertising in the streets. Shops are only allowed to advertise on street lamps!

Dubrovnik was the main filming location in Croatia for King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones and the city is full of shops selling merchandise. Some tours take you around all the filming locations.

The view of Dubrovnik from above was stunning with its red roofs. Our guide Marco told us that originally the roofs had been the yellow / grey colour of the local stone, but as a result of the attack on Bosnia during the homeland war in 1991 many buildings lost their roofs. When the war ended, France donated new roofs to help with the restoration of the city and those were terracotta.

Campsite

Just across the road from the campsite was a restaurant where we were able to have a delicious meal on our last night in Croatia.

Korčula

Whilst staying at Kučiste we cycled to nearby Orebić and then took the ferry to the island of Korčula, 15 minutes away. The medieval old town is gorgeous, a city wall, pale cream stone buildings, narrow alleys branching off the main. There were lots of restaurants, but we were on the hunt for a Croatian speciality we’d read about called “brodet” and we finally found it in a little restaurant along an alleyway where everyone else eating was Croatian. It’s a delicious fish stew served with slices of polenta.

Trogir

We stayed at Amadria Park Camping. It’s a very large site but extremely well run and with an ACSI card costs 23€.

From the campsite it was a lovely half hour boat trip to the medieval town of Trogir, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. With its narrow cobbled streets and beautiful buildings of pale yellow stone it’s delightful. Unfortunately that makes it a popular destination for cruise ships, so we kept becoming overwhelmed by large groups of people wearing identical red boxes round their necks (so they could listen to their tour guide).

The first pharmacy in Europe was established in one of the houses on Trogir’s main square.

The coffee is very good in Croatia so naturally when Valerie spotted a shop selling the Trogir speciality Rafioli , we had to buy one and head for a cafe. The recipe for Rafioli is of course a closely guarded secret but apparently its main ingredients are almonds, butter, rum and citrus peel. So, not surprisingly, it was delicious.

Paklenica

Here’s a picture of the view from our campsite in Paklenica. (Campsite NacionalNI Park). The campsite was very near the entrance to the Paklenica National Park. We didn’t stay long there because thunderstorms were forecast but we managed a short walk in the morning while the weather was still good.

As it was a public holiday for Croatia National Day (lots of red, white and blue flags 🇭🇷 everywhere), a lot of people were out and about. Many of them – some of them quite small children – were rock climbing or learning how to.

Porto

We went to Porto for the day with my cousin Isabel and had coffee, lunch and tea, interspersed with a bit of business with a lawyer.

Cafe Majestic is a very famous cafe in Porto with a wonderful interior – definitely to be visited if you go to the city.

We also tried to visit Libraria Lello (a famous bookshop) which was the inspiration behind part of the interior scenes of Hogwarts in Harry Potter, but the queues went down the road and you actually have to book on line. Here’s a link to some photos

Lunch in a delightful restaurant down a little side street

Wandering around the streets we came across a few more sights. A shop named Coutinho so of course we had to have a photo of Isabel and myself outside, an amazingly old cash register which still worked, and a church covered in beautiful tiles.