The Route to Athens

The island we spent the night on was wonderful to explore. We drove around in the morning through the back roads which were through the agricultural areas. Grape vines were little more than stumps in the ground with green shoots just starting to head upwards. Market gardens were full of broccoli that had already gone to seed, cabbages round and ready for harvesting and cauliflower. Obviously these were winter crops. Areas were being planted with summer greens and other tender plants. A young shepherd with a big grin and a whole herd of goats with a number of small white ones blocked the road as we went by. These goats have escaped the Easter fate of many.
From here we travelled inland towards a holiday house in the mountainous area north of Athens were Sozon and Rosmarie's friends, Stamatis and Litsa, spend their holidays and weekends. On the way we passed the monument to a battle the Greeks had with the Persians hundreds..make that thousands..of years ago. Seems about 300 Greeks held off a million Persians according to the sign. The statues were the usual gorgeous marble of naked men. Even in the cold they strut their stuff.
The road went through pastoral land and across rocky forested areas before we arrived in Prisano. The town was so tiny it didn't even have a store..just a church and a square. Soon after we and they arrived, Litsa produced a wonderful meal...vegetables stuffed with rice, peppers, tomatoes and eggplants and small panfried fish, head and all. She had lots of sweets for us and homemade wine. We went on a drive after this late lunch to Porto Germano a seaside resort to the west about 45 minutes away. It had the remains of a mediaval castle crumbling on the hill and lots of restaurants with few patrons at 6 pm. Still off season-not beach weather yet.
We drove home and once again Litsa produced this huge meal...using the wood stove. Roasted goat with potatoes, sliced tomatoes and cucumber and broccoli. We will not starve here.
Next afternoon we headed off for Athens. With the new autobahn it is a quick drive..about 45 minutes to Pireas where Litsa and Stomatis live. For us we go to the other east side of Athens to Heliopolis. This suburb is high in the hills overlooking the city. There was hardly any traffic and we made it in about and an hour and 15 minutes. The drive was magnificent at the beginning...winding up the treed mountains to a low pass. We again passed a huge herd of goats and sheep..looked like hundreds..following a shepherd home. They blocked the whole road for a while.
We are greeted enthusiastically by Katarina who prepares food for us. We will eat before we go to the Good Friday event at the local church. She will eat after this event with husband Agapitos who is still at work.