Having seen Olympia, we moved along the coast once more to the south. No big surprises there since that was basically what the general idea was. So let’s start with our van-life continuing south of Marathopoli.
The beach bar south of Marathopoli
After a stop in a local cafe, we headed to a beach bar known as the KOA beach bar on google maps. A nice parking space right next to the sea was our next destination. As we arrived there we’ve met a nice “local” guy to have a chat with.
Don’t worry, I’ll explain the “local” in a second. The guy was a German, who owned a surfing school a few miles to the south. Well, until recently at least. Sonja and Tom had a good chat about surfing with him and it turned out he sold the small company to enjoy surfing in private. He laughed a “my liver couldn’t take the lifestyle anymore” as we asked why. But he had a girlfriend a few kilometers from the beach so he was living in Germany over the winter months and in Greece during summer.
We had a good time with a few struggles there, but generally, I’d say the stay was really nice. The struggles were mainly in our little group since everybody had some different ideas on how to do what, and what to do next. But nothing major. If you would measure it, I’d say that this was not the kind of problems, a good walk on the beach could not cure. It is quite amazing how a human mind works when you walk along a beautiful scenery all by yourself or just companied by a dog. Those times are the best to take a step back and watch the bigger picture.
The decision to move on
As we stayed there we could clearly see an old castle or fortress on a small mountain to the south. As we had a good look on the map, we saw what seemed to be beautiful beaches next to it and since the “local” surfer recommended the place the four of us wanted to go there. Sonja and Tom for surfing purposes, Melanie and myself to climb up to the fortification and have a good look around. And boy, this trip was awesome.
Navarino castle
So pack up and move on it was once again. As we first arrived at the huge bay, protected from cliffs we almost instantly split up. Melanie went with me and Filou up the small mountain or rock. I’m not quite sure how this is categorized since I’ve seen “Mountains” that would rather qualify for hills back in Austria. But on this statement, I have to mention that I basically grew up next to the Alps, so I kind of guess this is just a point of view – thing.
Anyway, getting offtopic here. At the foot of the hill was a sign, that stated the Fortress is not open for visit and it would be a 50-minute walk up to the place. Deciding that we would go anyways, and see for ourselves how everything looks we started to walk up the path. The path gave us a very nice surrounding view and was a combination of dirt road and old stone road. The hike ended twenty minutes later as we stood in front of, what used to be the main gatehouse. Partly collapsed we checked out the place and on the floor as well as on the stones you could clearly see that the place was quite frequently visited.
I’ll mention here that I’ll not encourage visiting places closed due to dangers when visiting. I don’t want to say the place is safe to visit or something of this kind. But I believe in some kind of natural selection with a little influence from luck or bad luck. So if you go up there and think you have to get to the outermost tip of a crumbled wall – your choice – your life.
So we went inside the new Navarino castle, which was built to enlarge the old castle and protect the southern part of the rocks since the narrow entrance to the bay was blocked with scuttled ships after the battle of Lepanto. The castle switched owners quite often and has been destroyed multiple times.
As we walked along the edges, the view was simply stunning, the huge bay below, it was build to protect, the seemingly endless beach down there were Sonja and Tom were surfing, and on the other sides the Ionian sea and to our amazement: The Voidokilia Beach, which we called simply “Mushroom beach” due to the shape of it.
We explored everything, that seemed safe to us and even saw some kind of concrete rooms dug into the ground. Clearly from a different time then the castle itself, I was unable to gather information about the use in more modern times.
But thinking about other Castles and Fortresses I’ve visited on my journeys, like the Fort Sharp in Croatia, it was used the last time in the second world war. Naturally, those fortifications were built on natural advantage points to protect a natural harbor or city. The advantage point will always be there, no matter if you use a muzzle-loading cannon or a modern equipment. So the rooms did not really come as a surprise, but the use of those remain a secret to me.
Ntivari – Golden Sand
We stayed up there as long as we could but were forced to move down again due to upcoming dark clouds. So down it was, meeting up with the others and looking for a nice place to set up camp.
The beach would have been beautiful but the weather turned out to be exactly what we thought: A storm hit us at night. Heavy rainfalls and strong winds proved that we made a good decision to get our camper-vans between some vegetations.
The storm was strong, and inside the camper-van, my thoughts got directed naturally into disaster and what could go south this night. My biggest fear was the fact that our vehicles stood on Sand and the rain combined with the wind shaking the van could make it tricky to get moving again.
Well, the next morning was lovely and the sun was out again. A quick look at my tires made me laugh inside my head. Sometimes, when you cannot see what is happening outside, your mind can troll you really good.
I think I have given something away in this article, about one of our next destinations, but I honestly think the mushroom beach is worth it.
EU - Adventure 