After spending Sunday in the van all day because of the wind storm, we decided that we would head off to Ancient Messini on Monday. Ancient Messini wasn’t too far off, so we only took a couple of hours out of the day. Not only was the trip short, but the site just didn’t offer us too much. Messini was spread out over quite a large area, but the largest portion standing was a couple of sections of the defensive wall. Other than that, it was a large “dig”, and what was showing was the outline of buildings and other area’s of wall. The town that Messini now has right in it’s center is quite quaint, with very narrow streets that climb and twist up the side of the hill. I was never able to get “Bumble Bee” out of 1st gear going up or the return trip down. If you were to meet another car (trucks just couldn’t get through), one of you would have to back up for a ways. People lived all over the hill and on the main street, but we only saw 1 woman and at another location a man…pretty quite… Today we got up, washed some clothes, put them out in the sun (yep, the sun is out !!! and the wind is gone !!!), and headed out to take the road from Kalamata to Sparti. This is a ride of 59km (about 36 miles) and is suppose to be one of the most stunning routes in Greece, crossing the Taygetos Mountains by way of the Lagada Pass. The climb starts just as soon as you leave the city and enter the first hairpin curve. That curve is the first of many dozens of them. We went high and we went low into the valleys. The pass topped out at 1524m or about 5000 feet or just about a mile high… The ride over towards Sparti took us about an hour and a half and then we made a “U-Turn” and made the trip back in an hour not counting our stop at the summit for lunch. On the Sparti side of the pass is the Langada Gorge. This is the site where the ancient Spartans threw babies too weak or deformed to become good soldiers. The gorge and the mountains were beautiful, and we did have a very nice drive, but as far as being “the most stunning” routes in Greece…I’ve seen better here…I know, but it’s just my opinion… Tomorrow we will be heading south once more. This will be the last time in Greece, everything else will be in a northerly direction as we head out over the next couple of weeks. We will be making a drive south to Koroni, west to Methoni, and north to Pylos…
18 January ’05, Tuesday. Langada Pass
After spending Sunday in the van all day because of the wind storm, we decided that we would head off to Ancient Messini on Monday. Ancient Messini wasn’t too far off, so we only took a couple of hours out of the day. Not only was the trip short, but the site just didn’t offer us too much. Messini was spread out over quite a large area, but the largest portion standing was a couple of sections of the defensive wall. Other than that, it was a large “dig”, and what was showing was the outline of buildings and other area’s of wall. The town that Messini now has right in it’s center is quite quaint, with very narrow streets that climb and twist up the side of the hill. I was never able to get “Bumble Bee” out of 1st gear going up or the return trip down. If you were to meet another car (trucks just couldn’t get through), one of you would have to back up for a ways. People lived all over the hill and on the main street, but we only saw 1 woman and at another location a man…pretty quite… Today we got up, washed some clothes, put them out in the sun (yep, the sun is out !!! and the wind is gone !!!), and headed out to take the road from Kalamata to Sparti. This is a ride of 59km (about 36 miles) and is suppose to be one of the most stunning routes in Greece, crossing the Taygetos Mountains by way of the Lagada Pass. The climb starts just as soon as you leave the city and enter the first hairpin curve. That curve is the first of many dozens of them. We went high and we went low into the valleys. The pass topped out at 1524m or about 5000 feet or just about a mile high… The ride over towards Sparti took us about an hour and a half and then we made a “U-Turn” and made the trip back in an hour not counting our stop at the summit for lunch. On the Sparti side of the pass is the Langada Gorge. This is the site where the ancient Spartans threw babies too weak or deformed to become good soldiers. The gorge and the mountains were beautiful, and we did have a very nice drive, but as far as being “the most stunning” routes in Greece…I’ve seen better here…I know, but it’s just my opinion… Tomorrow we will be heading south once more. This will be the last time in Greece, everything else will be in a northerly direction as we head out over the next couple of weeks. We will be making a drive south to Koroni, west to Methoni, and north to Pylos…
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